Samuel Prentiss Watkins Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1651-1652 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	SAMUEL PRENTISS WATKINS, who stands as one of the leading members 
of the bar of Spink county, comes of staunch old New England stock, the 
genealogy in the paternal line being of English and Scotch derivation 
and in the maternal of English, while both families were founded in New 
England in the colonial epoch. Mr. Watkins was born in Cambridge, 
Lamoille county, Vermont, on the 22d of July, 1855, and is a son of 
David H. and Harriet A. (Holmes) Watkins. The father was born in 
Walpole, New Hampshire, whither his paternal ancestors came from 
Connecticut, while on his mother's side the ancestors were from England. 
The mother of the subject was born in Grafton, Massachusetts, with the 
annals of which state the family name was identified for many 
generations, the original progenitors in the new world having come from 
England. 

	The subject received his early education in the common schools of 
the old Green Mountain state and later continued his studies in the 
public schools of Massachusetts and in Grafton Academy, at Grafton, that 
state, and the Wesleyan Academy, at Wilbraham, prosecuting his 
educational work in these two institutions in the four years intervening 
between 187I and 1876. Thereafter he was successfully engaged in 
teaching in Massachusetts and Vermont until 1877, when he came west and 
engaged in the same vocation in Minnesota, where he remained until 1879, 
when he came to the territory of Dakota and located in Bigstone City, in 
what is now Grant county, South Dakota. Two years later he removed to 
Ashton, Spink county, being one of the early settlers of the town and 
county, and here engaged in the real-estate and loan business, in which 
he met with success, since the section soon began to feel the beneficent 
effects of the strong incoming tide of immigration and advancing 
civilization. In the meanwhile he had for a number of years devoted much 
attention to the reading of law, and on the 14th of December, 1888, he 
was admitted to the bar of the territory, forthwith beginning the active 
practice of his profession in Ashton, where he has ever since maintained 
his home, and where he has gained distinctive precedence and success in 
his profession. He at the present time maintains an independent attitude 
in politics, but he was a member of the first three Republican 
conventions after the admission of South Dakota to the Union. He has 
been called to the incumbency of various offices of local trust and 
responsibility, where he gave his best efforts in the advancing of the 
general welfare and material progress, and for several years he was 
mayor of Ashton, in which connection his administration met with uniform 
approval and popular endorsement. He is affiliated with Ashton Lodge, 
No. 33, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and of Redfield Chapter, No. 
20, Royal Arch Masons, at Redfield, while from 1888 to 1891 he was grand 
chief templar of the Independent Order of Good Templars in South Dakota. 
He and his wife are zealous and valued members of the Methodist 
Episcopal church of Ashton. 

	On the 17th of October, 1882, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. 
Watkins to Miss Lilla B. Lee, who was born in Cresco, Howard county, Iowa, 
on the 2d of April, 1866, being a daughter of Timothy W. P. and Myra N. 
Lee. They have five children, Howard Lee, Myrtle May, Samuel Prentiss, 
Gardner H. and Elmer Leland. Timothy W. P. Lee was a native of 
Stanstead, Canada, and came to the territory of Dakota in 1879. He was a 
lawyer by profession, taking an active part in politics, and was a 
member of the Sioux Falls constitutional convention, and was one of the 
framers of the present constitution of the state of South Dakota.