Pattison Francis McClure Biography


	This biography appears on pages 564-568 in "History of Dakota Territory" 
	by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

	This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit 
	organizations for their private use. 

	Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval 
	system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other 
	means requires the written approval of the file's author.

	This file is part of the SDGENWEB Archives. If you arrived here inside
	a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at

	http://usgwarchives.org/sd/sdfiles.htm


				PATTISON FRANCIS McCLURE. 

	Pattison Francis McClure, banker, financier and Dakota pioneer, 
occupying the presidency of the Pierre National Bank, has been an 
influential factor in the development and progress of the state not 
only along material but also along political lines and in other ways 
Progress and patriotism might well be termed the keystone of his 
character. Opportunity has ever beckoned him on and his activity and 
even-paced energy have carried him forward into important relations. 

	Born in Laurel, Franklin county, Indiana, August 8, 1853, Mr. 
McClure is a son of Captain James R. and Hester A. (Pattison) McClure. 
The father was horn in Trenton, Franklin county, Indiana, July 17, 
1828, and attended the common schools to the age of fifteen years, 
while later he spent three years as a student in Miami University. 
During his college days he ran away from home to offer his services to 
the government in the Mexican war and enlisted in the Fifth Indiana 
Regiment, participating in the campaign from Vera Cruz to the city of 
Mexico under General Winfield Scott. After being mustered out he 
resumed the study of law and was admitted to practice in 1851. He at 
once entered upon the active work of the profession and served as 
prosecuting attorney in his district in Indiana. On the 16th of 
February, 1851, he was united in marriage to Miss Hester A. Pattison 
and after three years' residence in Indiana, following their marriage, 
they went to Kansas in November, 1854, settling at Junction City, where 
Captain McClure entered upon the practice of law and played a 
conspicuous part in the public affairs of the young state. He became 
allied with those who were working so strenuously to make Kansas a free 
state. As soon as courts were established he resumed the practice of 
his profession and he became one of the original incorporators of 
Junction City. As one of the territory's pioneer lawyers he took a most 
active and helpful interest in shaping policies and on numerous 
occasions was called to positions of public trust, which he filled most 
capably and creditably. At the time of the Civil war he again tendered 
his aid to his country and was made captain of Company B, Second Kansas 
Regiment, with which he participated in the battles of Wilson Creek, 
Forsythe, Dug Springs and Shelbina. In the last battle he was severely 
wounded by a cannon shot in the foot. After recovering he again entered 
the service as quartermaster of the Eleventh Kansas Regiment, but his 
wound incapacitated him for command of his troops in the field and he 
was mustered out with his regiment in 1865. The injury sustained at the 
front seemed no handicap to his career, however, for his strong and 
well balanced intellect enabled him to become the master of various 
situations and to prove a directing force in public affairs. His name 
is prominently connected with much of the history or the early 
development of Kansas. He was registrar of the United States land 
office from 1867 until 1869, but the greater part of his life was spent 
in the practice of la`` and his conduct was ever characterized by the 
highest qualities. He was recognized as a most able advocate and 
counsel and his position at the bar v as an enviable one. Politically 
he was a democrat and he took an active interest in many concerns of 
public importance. For twenty-five years he was senior warden of the 
Episcopal church at Junction City, was also a prominent Knight Templar 
Mason, a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and a charter member 
of the Kansas Commandery of the Loyal Legion. He died July 17, 1903. In 
his family were twelve children, seven of whom grew to years of 
maturity. 

	Pattison F. McClure, whose name introduces this record, acquired 
his early education in the public schools of Junction City, followed by 
a course at the State Agricultural College at Manhattan, Kansas, and 
two years' study in Cornell University at Ithaca, New York. Upon his 
return home he began the study of law under the direction of his father 
but before completing his law course he went to Illinois and, following 
a natural instinct for mechanics, began working to perfect a 
self~binding reaper for one of the prominent implement manufacturers of 
that state. He became one of the early and successful workers in 
solving the problems which have revolutionized the manufacture of farm 
machinery and other mechanical appliances. In 1878 he went abroad in 
the interest of the American harvesting machine manufacturers, 
traveling throughout Great Britain, France, Belgium and Spain. In 1879-
80 he represented an Ohio concern in Minnesota and in the fall of the 
latter year came to Dakota territory, settling at Pierre, where he 
entered the hardware business under the firm name of Gleckler & 
McClure. That enterprise was successfully conducted by the partners 
until 1889, when Mr. McClure sold his interest and became one of the 
organizers of the Pierre National Bank. He was elected its first 
president and has continuously and ably filled that position since, 
while to his keen business ability and foresight is largely due the 
feet that the bank is today in the front rank of the state's large and 
prosperous financial institutions. 

	Aside from the prominence which Mr. McClure has gained in 
financial circles, he has also come to the front in other connections. 
Upon the organization of Hughes county in 1880 he was appointed the 
first county surveyor and in 1882 was elected a member of the board of 
county commissioners. In 1885 popular suffrage put him in the office of 
mayor of Pierre and he was reelected at the close of his first term. 
From 1885 until 1887 inclusive, he served as a member of the committee 
which was sent to Washington from Dakota territory to urge the opening 
to settlement of the Sioux Indian reservation, a measure that was 
finally adopted and had a most salutary effect in attracting large 
numbers of settlers to the fertile lands and thus planting the seeds of 
civilization in that district. He was one of the organizers and leading 
spirits of the old Pierre Board of Trade, the chief mission of which, 
ill addition to fostering the city's general growth and prosperity was 
the carrying forward of the spirited contest over the location of the 
new state capital, a contest that was ultimately won by Pierre, and to 
Mr. McClure much credit is due for this achievement. Again in 1904, 
when the removal of the capital was being agitated, he was foremost in 
the fight for its retention at Pierre, and the present magnificent 
capitol building is in no small way a token of the effectiveness of his 
work. 

	In 1887-8 Mr. McClure served as commissioner of immigration for 
Dakota territory by appointment of Governor L. K. Church and his work 
in that connection was characteristic of the enthusiasm he has ever 
displayed regarding the future possibilities of the state. His work was 
productive of excellent and immediate results, and who can measure the 
extent and influence of his labors? In 1889 he was made the democratic 
candidate for governor of South Dakota after the admission of the state 
to the Union and made a brilliant canvass, but as the state was 
normally strongly republican he was unsuccessful. In 1893 he was 
appointed South Dakota's commissioner to the World's Columbian 
Exposition at Chicago and proved not only a most dignified 
representative of the state but a valuable missionary for the cause of 
its development and settlement. During the long period that the Dakotas 
were knocking for admission to the sisterhood of states, Mr. McClure 
was one of the most ardent workers in that connection and was among the 
leaders who planned the division of the territory into two states. Into 
still another field of labor has he put forth his energies, for he has 
always taken a most active interest in agricultural development, being 
among the first to appreciate the unbounded possibilities for dairying, 
stock-raising and alfalfa growing in South Dakota. 

	On the 24th of July, 1893, Mr. McClure was united in marriage to 
Mrs. Elizabeth Saxton Bowen, nee Bentley, of Cincinnati, Ohio. During 
an exceptionally busy life he has found time to enjoy out-of-door 
recreation and his special fad is his love for dogs. He is of a genial 
nature, generous in purpose, and as a citizen and business man he has 
proven a distinct asset to the city and state. Public-spirited and 
progressive, his labors have not yet reached their full fruition in the 
state's development. There are few residents of South Dakota who have 
worked so devotedly and unselfishly for her welfare and her upbuilding. 
He is president of the State Historical Society and is much interested 
in the preservation of the early historical data, along which line he 
is doing important work. Mr. McClure is also a member of the Loyal 
Legion, being affiliated with Leavenworth (Kansas) Commandery. He is a 
member of the Kansas Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. 
Fraternally he is identified with the Masons, belonging to Pierre 
Lodge, No. 27, A. F. & A. M.; Pierre Chapter, No. 22, R. A. M.; Pierre 
Commandery, No. 21, K. T.; Oriental Consistory, No. 1, A. A. S. R.; and 
El Riad Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Mr. 
McClure also belongs to the Odd Fellows and in point of service he is 
the oldest living noble grand of the Pierre lodge of that organization. 
He is a man of generous impulses and broad views, whose signal service 
to South Dakota has been manifest in the vigor with which he aided in 
making this region habitable in the pioneer era, in bringing its 
resources to light and in stamping his intensely practical ideas upon 
its development. Such careers are too near us now for their 
significance to be appraised at its true value, but the future will be 
able to trace the tremendous effect of their labors upon the society 
and institutions of their times.