Maj. Joseph R. Hanson Biography


	This biography appears on pages 12-14 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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				MAJOR JOSEPH R. HANSON.  

	Major Joseph R. Hanson, of Yankton, is one of South Dakota's 
earliest pioneers and his name is indelibly inscribed upon the pages of 
its history. He aided in shaping events which figure prominently in its 
annals along both military and legislative lines, and for an extended 
period of about three decades has been a factor in the agricultural 
progress of his county and state. He was born in Lancaster, New 
Hampshire, a son of Joseph Hanson, who was likewise born in that state, 
and a grandson of Isaac Hanson, who came from England and was one of 
the first settlers of the White Mountain district. He is also a 
descendant of John Hanson, who was a delegate to congress under the 
Articles of Confederation from 1781 to 1783, and served as president of 
that congress in 1781-2. The father, Joseph Hanson, was united in 
marriage to Ann Pinkham, a daughter of Daniel Pinkham, builder of the 
Mount Washington turnpike, for which he received a grant of land, and a 
part of that grant became the homestead property upon which Major 
Hanson was born.  

	The last named attended the grammar and high schools of his 
native city and also pursued a short course of study in the academy at 
Salem, Massachusetts. In 1856, thinking to find better business 
opportunities in the middle west, he made his way to Illinois, settling 
for a time in Chicago, where he was in the employ of his brother, who 
was engaged in the furniture business. In 1857 he removed to Winona, 
Minnesota, where he continued in active connection with the furniture 
trade, but the following year he and three companions started with ox 
teams for the territory of Dakota. They arrived at the present site of 
Sioux City, Iowa, and there crossed the Missouri river into Nebraska, 
finally reaching a point in the Missouri directly opposite Yankton, 
where they prepared their camp for the winter. During that season Major 
Hanson crossed the river and located a piece of land adjoining the 
present corporate limits of the city and that tract is still in his 
possession. He located permanently in Yankton in 1858, and at that time 
there were but four white people in the settlement, all employed at the 
trading post of Frost Todd & Company. The following year, however, 
emigration having begun, Mr. Hanson embarked in the real estate 
business and has been so engaged from that date to the present. Of the 
actual settlers of Yankton, Mr. Hanson was the second, having been 
preceded only by John C. Holman, who had built his cabin about a month 
prior to Major Hanson's arrival.  

	From the time that Yankton numbered him among its citizens to the 
present, Mr. Hanson has borne an active and helpful part in the work of 
general improvement and development and his name is indelibly inscribed 
upon the pages of Yankton's history. In 1862 he became chief clerk of 
the territorial legislature and served for two years. He was then 
chosen to represent his county in the fourth session of the territorial 
council and was also appointed territorial auditor and judge advocate. 
In military circles his name became well known, for in the Home Guards, 
organized for protection against the Indian raids, he served with the 
rank of colonel. He was also made a member of the commission formed to 
adjust claims for Indian depredations and took charge of building of 
fortifications known as the Yankton stockade in 1862. The survey of the 
government road from the Minnesota state line to Old Fort Pierre was 
made under his direction in 1865 and the same year he was appointed by 
President Lincoln as Indian agent for the upper Missouri region, and as 
such had supervision over all the various branches of the Sioux nation, 
there being more than twenty thousand Indians under his charge. Before 
his appointment was confirmed by the senate President Lincoln was 
assassinated and he was re-appointed by President Johnson, continuing 
to fill that important position until 1870, with headquarters at Crow 
Creek Agency and with sub-agencies at Fort Sully and Fort Rice. His 
administration covered a period when the Indians were in constant 
revolt against the army and the white settlers and it was members of 
these same tribes who later perpetrated the historic Custer massacre.  

	Mr. Hanson was a member of the first constitutional convention 
held at Sioux Falls in 1885 and the code, with slight modifications, as 
ratified by the second convention, was adopted by the people and is the 
present organic law of South Dakota. Important and numerous as have 
been the connections of Mr. Hanson already mentioned, he has figured 
actively in other pursuits. He was secretary and member of the board of 
directors of the first railway, known as the Dakota Southern, built 
within Dakota territory. He has lived to see the state covered by a 
great net work of railway lines, bringing it into close connection with 
north, south, east and west.  

	In October, 1872, Mr. Hanson was united in marriage to Miss Annie 
M. G. Mills, a daughter of Abraham Mills, a member of the Long Island 
family of that name, and they had one son, Joseph Mills Hanson, who is 
widely known as a writer and magazine contributor. Soon after coming to 
this territory Major Hanson secured a farm of two hundred acres two 
miles from Yankton and thereon later established the homestead upon 
which he has lived for more than thirty years, being now most 
comfortably situated in life.  

	In politics Mr. Hanson has been consistently a republican from 
the birth of the party, and in 1859 organized the first republican 
caucus held in Dakota territory. Few men among Dakota's pioneers are 
more widely and favorably known and there are few chapters of Yankton 
county's early annals but contain his name as one of the active 
participants in events recorded. He is able, genial and kindly, is 
prosperous and is rightly numbered among the sterling characters who 
have shaped the destinies of the vast country embraced in Dakota 
territory. His has been an active life and his is the satisfaction of 
having done a man's work in the transformation of the wilderness as he 
found it into one of the fairest states in the Union. Hanson county is 
named in his honor. Fraternally he is connected with the Masons and in 
his life has exemplified the beneficent spirit of the craft, which is 
based upon mutual helpfulness and brotherly kindness. His memory forms 
a connecting link between the primitive past and the progressive 
present and he relates many interesting incidents concerning the early 
days when only here and there had the seeds of civilization been 
planted and the work of development begun. He has lived to see this 
become a prosperous state, enjoying all of the opportunities and 
equipped with all of the conveniences of the older east and his 
influence and his labors have been potent elements in bringing it to 
its present condition.