Paulus Nelson Biography


	This biography appears on page 1173 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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				PAULUS NELSON. 

	Paulus Nelson, one of the influential citizens and representative 
agriculturists of Valley Springs township, living on section 18, has 
been a resident of Minnehaha county for the past three decades. His 
birth occurred in Sweden on the 18th of February, 1860, his parents 
being Nils and Christine (Swanson) Pearson, who came to the United 
States in 1883, following the emigration of their children to this 
country. They took up their abode in Wisconsin, in which state their 
children had located on arriving in America. In 1894 they came to South 
Dakota, the father here making his home with our subject until he 
passed away in 1907. He had visited New York twenty times prior to his 
removal to the United States, being a seafaring man who sailed all over 
the world for a period of thirty years. His widow still survives and 
resides with her son Paulus. 

	In the acquirement of an education Paulus Nelson attended the 
common schools of his native land. When a young man of twenty-two 
years, in 1882, he crossed the Atlantic to the United States, locating 
in Washburn county, Wisconsin, where he secured employment in a 
sawmill. At the end of two years, in 1884, he came to South Dakota, 
taking up his abode in Valley Springs, where he went to work at the 
carpenter's trade, which he had learned in Sweden. For about ten years 
he was engaged in carpentering and building and during that period also 
took up farming in partnership with his brother, S. P. Nelson, the two 
young men cultivating rented land in Valley Springs township. In 1901 
Paulus Nelson purchased his present home farm of eighty acres on 
section 18, which was then an unimproved tract of land, having only a 
thousand dollars to pay down on the property and to buy his machinery. 
He erected the necessary buildings, planted a grove of trees and an 
orchard and today has an ideal country home and is out of debt. His 
undertakings as an agriculturist have been attended with merited 
success, the well tilled fields annually yielding golden harvests in 
return for the care and labor bestowed upon them. He is a stockholder 
in the Farmers Elevator Company at Valley Springs. 

	Politically Mr. Nelson endorses republican principles, supporting 
the men and measures of that party at the polls. He is a member of the 
school board and now serves as its chairman. His religious faith is 
indicated by his membership in the Swedish Lutheran church. Since he 
crossed the Atlantic to the United States in early manhood his ambition 
has been gratified and his hopes realized, for by persistent and well 
directed effort he has won a place among the substantial and 
representative citizens of his community.