Mrs. Bridget Cogan Biography


	This biography appears on pages 52-56 in "History of Dakota Territory" 
	by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				MRS. BRIDGET COGAN. 

	It is not the men of the country alone that make its greatness 
and that perform the arduous labor of developing a wild land into a 
region of civilization and prosperity. Although women play a very 
important part in the work of the world, it is but seldom that we stop 
and consider the greatness of their contribution to civilization. Mrs. 
Bridget Cogan, of Tyndall, deserves equal honor with the hardy men who 
braved the wilderness, as she came to the territory when it was yet 
young and established a hotel known from Iowa to the Black Hills and 
even to the Rockies for its good cheer and comfort. She has known 
intimately nearly all of the territorial officials, the judges and 
military officers of the early days of South Dakota and also the chiefs 
and head men of the Indians. She likewise was well acquainted with many 
of the noted border characters of pioneer times, some of them men who 
were the terror of Nebraska and the Dakotas. 

	Mrs. Cogan is a native of Ireland, born near Castlreagh, County 
Roscommon, December 19, 1840. Her father, Bernard Cole, was an 
extensive farmer, employing four men to cultivate his one thousand acre 
leasehold and two maids to care for his dairy. Even after being 
stripped of much of his holdings through losses incurred by going 
security for a friend, he still had a large number of acres leased when 
he disposed of his property preparatory to coming to America. He was 
not permitted, however, to carry out his plan of emigrating, as his 
demise occurred before the time to start. His widow, however, came to 
the new world with her children, Mrs. Cogan, being at that time but 
three or four years old. They embarked at Liverpool on a sailing vessel 
and after a stormy voyage of thirteen weeks and three days reached New 
York. At one time the ship was in such danger that the passengers were 
confined in the hold with the hatches battened down for a period of one 
week, from Sunday to Sunday without food or drink and so weakened were 
they that but few were able to stand when the storm abated and they 
were allowed to come on deck. The ship itself was in a bad condition, 
as two masts had been broken and washed overboard, and several leaks 
made conditions worse. The length of the voyage had exhausted the food 
supply and provisions ran so low that they were obliged to ask 
assistance of another merchantman and a man of war, but the food given 
them by the latter was so badly spoiled and infected with vermin that 
only starving people could have eaten it. 

	The mother, with her four sons and one daughter, settled on a 
farm a few miles from Newark, New Jersey, which is now, however, a part 
of the city itself. The children grew to maturity upon this farm and 
there the daughter, Bridget, married Michael Cogan, and there her only 
child, Andrew James Cogan, was born. Her husband was a native of 
Saratoga, New York, where his ancestors had lived since early colonial 
days. He died when his son Andrew was but a few months old. In 1857 
Mrs. Cogan came to Portage, Wisconsin, where she resided for a year, 
after which she removed to Pike county, Missouri, making her home in 
that county for about ten years. She lived there during the trying 
period of the Civil war and was open in her advocacy of the Union 
cause, although it was far from a safe thing at that time to avow 
allegiance to the Union in Missouri, which was strongly in favor of 
slavery. Four of her brothers served in the Union army, one in 
Colorado, two in Alabama, where their regiment participated in many 
hard-fought battles, and one in the militia near his home. 

	After the war her brother Barney came west and in 1868 was plying 
his trade of blacksmith at the old town of Bon Homme, then a station on 
the stage route leading to the forts along the Missouri river. He sent 
for Mrs. Cogan to make a home for him and she reached Yankton, June 29, 
1869. It so happened that her brother was then employed in Yankton on 
the new St. Charles Hotel. He did not believe that his sister had 
arrived when told that she was at the Merchants Hotel as she had not 
advised him that she was coming. On investigating, however, he found 
her there and they immediately made their way to Bon Homme, where they 
rented an old house constructed of cedar logs Mrs. Cogan had her 
furniture sent from Sioux City by boat and soon had a comfortable home 
for her brother. She then had a large house built for hotel purposes. 
After a short time, however, a prairie fire destroyed the house within 
everything in it, Mr. Cole and Mrs. Cogan barely escaping with their 
lives. They remained in the house until the roof fell in and when they 
were then driven into the open they encountered almost equal peril from 
the burning grass and weeds, which set fire to their clothing up to 
their knees and blistered their feet. From the time that she first 
settled in Bon Homme, Mrs. Cogan was almost compelled to keep travelers 
over night, as there was then no hotel in the locality. She had been 
permitted to occupy the courthouse while her house was being 
constructed and after the destruction of her home by fire and the 
adjournment of the United States District court, she was allowed to use 
the courtroom as a hostelry until lumber could be shipped from Sioux 
City to erect a new building for that purpose. Later she again occupied 
the courthouse so as to permit her house to be used as a store by Henry 
Davis and George Meade, who started the first store in Bon Homme. For 
many years the hotel which she ran was famous for hundreds of miles and 
was the stopping place of all men of consequence in the territory and 
later in the state, as well as the more humble traveler. Ministers of 
all denominations found a ready welcome and no charge was ever made for 
their accommodations. Some idea of the difficulties which Mrs. Cogan 
had to surmount in the conduct of her business may be gained when it is 
learned that it was at first necessary for her to carry water in 
buckets from the river, which was some little distance from the hotel. 
As this was a very slow and tiresome task, a team and wagon was later 
purchased and used to haul water and wood. After some time a well was 
dug adjacent to the hotel but a sufficient supply of water was not 
reached until the well had been sunk to the depth of eighty feet. At 
times, during sessions of the United States court, there were as many 
as sixty people sleeping in their own blankets on her dining room floor 
and often two hundred and fifty meals were served three times a day. As 
there were no bakeries, Mrs. Cogan was forced to bake all of the bread 
and pastry used in her own kitchen, in addition to preparing the other 
food consumed. As most of her guests were men of the frontier whose 
arduous work made it necessary that they have substantial food and a 
great deal of it, it is easy to see that the task of keeping a hotel 
was far from being an easy one Mrs. Cogan, however, not only supplied 
an abundance of food of excellent quality, but also found time to speak 
a friendly word to each of her guests, whether he be a man of influence 
in the territory or a stranger without means. She was a staunch friend 
of the Indians and they sometimes encamped on her field a thousand 
strong, while a party of them often held one of their ceremonial dances 
at her door, which honor she usually repaid by giving them a sack of 
flour. Her Indian name was Tanka Waseche Utah Tepe, which is translated 
as "the big white woman who keeps the eating house." To show his 
appreciation of favors shown him the famous chief, Sitting Bull, sent 
her a present of an immense hornspoon and a pair of moccasins trimmed 
with porcupine quills. The gallant General Custer was a daily guest at 
her hotel in the spring of 1876, when he was detained at Bon Homme by 
high water on the way to his last battle on the Little Big Horn river 
in Wyoming. Upon the removal of the county seat to Tyndall Mrs. Cogan 
closed her hotel and took up her residence in the new town, where she 
has since lived retired. Her son, Andrew James Cogan, established his 
newspaper plant at Scotland.

	Mrs. Cogan has been a lifelong member of the Catholic church and 
contributes freely to its varied work. Her exemplary Christian 
character and her hearty cheerfulness, even when bearing burdens which 
few of the present generation are called upon to sustain, may well 
serve as an inspiration to all who learn of her life. She was reared in 
an old settled country and was accustomed to the comforts and 
refinements of civilization and her influence in the territory and 
state of South Dakota was one of the potent forces in softening and 
rendering more gracious the crude and sometimes rough life of the 
frontier. She had a sympathetic understanding of the conditions of the 
western country and realized that underneath the rude exterior there 
was a sincere and fine manhood and this understanding enabled her to 
wield her great influence for good. Her personal interest in each of 
her guests and the excellent accommodations afforded by her hotel were 
rewarded by the warm place which she held in the hearts of many 
throughout the northwestern region. There is no one in South Dakota who 
has had a more eventful or more interesting life and her name deserves 
an honored place among those pioneers who, by their toil, laid the 
foundation upon which the present prosperous state of South Dakota has 
been builded.