Charles Westbrook Waldron Biiography


	This biography appears on pages 1472-1473 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

	This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit 
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	An engraving and the signature of C. W. Waldron faces page 1472.


	CHARLES WESTBROOK WALDRON is a native of Lowell, Massachusetts, 
where he was born on the 22d of January, 1853, being a son of George P. 
and Lydia E. Waldron, both members of old and honored New England 
families. He received his early educational training in the schools of 
Yankton, where he passed his boyhood days. In the fall of 1876, at the 
age of twenty-three years, he started for the Black Hills, proceeding by 
boat to Fort Pierre and thence proceeding with mule teams to his 
destination. In the following year he engaged in freighting, with ox-
teams, between Fort Pierre and the Black Hills, and continued to be 
identified with this enterprise until 1882, in the meanwhile enduring 
many hardships and encountering great perils from the attacks of the 
hostile Indians. In 1882, when the Cheyenne Indians came back to their 
former hunting grounds, Mr. Waldron was near at the time of the massacre 
of the freighters at Cheyenne river crossing. After arriving at Rapid 
City one of the Reed Brothers' freighting trains was corralled by the 
Indians, on Box Elder creek. After night had fallen one of the brothers 
succeeding in making has way to town and there asked assistance, having 
traversed a distance of nine miles. Mr. Waldron and five other 
freighters responded to his call and returned with him and succeeded in 
bringing the train into town. The subject also had several other 
encounters with the aborigines, but escaped injury. He was successful in 
his freighting business, which he finally sold to the Northwestern Stage 
and Transportation Company in 1882. He then engaged in operating a ferry 
across the Missouri river between Pierre and Fort Pierre, conducting the 
same for two years, and then turning his attention to the raising of 
cattle and horses, in which he was engaged for the ensuing five years, 
since which time he has given his attention exclusively to the raising 
of high-grade horses, breeding fine roadsters of the Hambletonian type 
and also Percheron draft horses. He has at the present time about two 
thousand head of horses on his fine stock ranch, and this indicates how 
extensive is the scale upon which he conducts his operations, giving him 
the distinctive priority over all other horse breeders in the state. His 
ranch comprises several thousand acres and is equipped with substantial 
buildings for the proper housing and care of his stock, while the 
facilities are of the best modern type in all particulars. His ranch is 
located on Mule creek, in Stanley county, four miles from the Black 
Hills road and sixty-five miles west of Fort Pierre. Mr. Waldron has a 
fine modern residence in the city of Pierre and gives a general 
supervision to his ranch and his other capitalistic enterprises. while 
he is known as one of the progressive and reliable citizens of the state 
in which he has passed practically all his life. In politics he has been 
a staunch advocate of the principles of the Republican party, except in 
1896, when he identified himself with Bryan as a Populist, though when 
the Democracy and Populists amalgamated he forsook them and returned to 
the Republican ranks. Fraternally he is identified with the Ancient 
Order of United Workmen, the Degree of Honor, the Modern Woodmen of 
America and the Modern Brotherhood of America. 

	On the 30th of June, 1885, Mr. Waldron was united in marriage 
with Miss Jane E. Van Metre, of Fort Pierre, who was born on the 21st 
of September, 1861 She is a daughter of Arthur C. and Mary (Aungie) Van 
Metre, and passed her girlhood days in Vermillion, where she received 
her early education, and at the age of seventeen years she accompanied 
her parents upon their removal to Brule county. She attended the public 
schools of Vermillion until she had attained the age of fourteen years, 
and thereafter served an apprenticeship at the printer's trade, becoming 
an expert compositor. In 1879 she rejoined her parents in Brule, where 
she remained until the fall of the following year, when she went to 
Ripon, Wisconsin, where she attended college for two years, returning in 
time to join her father and other members of the family in the buffalo 
hunt in Montana. She much prizes the heirloom which is in her 
possession, the rifle carried for many years by her honored father, who 
had killed more than three hundred buffaloes with the same. In the 
spring of 1883 Mrs. Waldron engaged in teaching in the Indian school at 
DuPree's camp, on the Cheyenne river, while she also was an instructor 
in music for some time, being a skilled musician, and she continued her 
earnest endeavors in this line until the time of her marriage. She and 
her husband, in 1886, located on Bad river, sixty-five miles from Fort 
Pierre, where they established a trading store and she also entered 
claim to three hundred and twenty acres of land adjoining Fort Pierre on 
the north, in 1889, taking it under the provisions of the treaty made 
with the Indians in 1868. Title to this property cannot be transferred 
by sale or exchange, the holding depending upon the retention by those 
of Indian blood, be it much or little. As Mrs. Waldron's father was not 
of Indian extraction she is not a citizen of the United States, but 
through her Indian lineage she feels that she will be able to hold her 
claim, as all treaties have recognized Indian blood, even if represented 
in remote scions of the stock. Governor Lee appointed Mrs. Waldron an 
honorary member of the woman's board of managers for South Dakota at the 
Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, and while she took an active part in 
promoting the work she did not attend the exposition in person. In the 
same year the Governor also appointed her a member of the woman's board 
of investigation of penal and charitable institutions of the state, and 
she proved an active and efficient worker in the position, her term 
having expired in 1903. Mr. and Mrs. Waldron have had six children, all 
of whom are living except Carl Prentiss, who died at the age of sixteen 
months. The others are Arthur Westbrook, Alice Island, Allan Bryan, 
George P. and John Charles.