W. H. Harrison Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1089-1090 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. V (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				W. H. HARRISON. 

	W. H. Harrison, who died May 25, 1915, was a resident farmer of 
Yankton precinct, Yankton county, living on section 10, and the varied 
phases of his life make his history a most interesting one. He first 
came to Dakota territory in the spring of 1885 and after spending the 
summer at Elk Point removed to Yankton county in the fall of that year 
and remained there throughout life. 

	Mr. Harrison was born in Newark, Licking county, Ohio, and 
removed west of the Mississippi about the time of the close of the 
Civil war. He enlisted in Nemaha county, Nebraska, as a volunteer for 
defense against the Indians and was on duty through the Platte valley 
as far west as Fort Laramie. He was stationed for the longest time at 
Fort Kearney and also spent considerable time at Cottonwood Springs. 
The principal duty of the troops was to act as escort for the stages of 
western immigrants. During those days Mr. Harrison saw antelopes in 
large droves of a hundred or more and in one herd he saw ten thousand 
buffaloes. In 1867 he was employed as a teamster in a train of freight 
wagons between North Platte and Salt Lake City. On one of those trips 
nine Indians stampeded one hundred and fifteen mules belonging to a 
Mormon, who had invested all he had in them in order to conduct a 
freighting business. When the mules were stolen he went to Julesburg, 
Colorado, where he mortgaged the freight for enough wild Texas steers 
to get the load to Salt Lake. He broke the steers in a short time but 
many of them died. 

	Returning from the west about 1868, Mr. Harrison took up his 
abode in Pottawattamie county, Iowa. Before removing to Dakota, he 
looked for a location in Nebraska and traveled as far west as Antelope 
county, where he remained from the fall of 1884 until the spring of 
1885 in the sand-hill country, but he was ill all of that time and 
turned back to seek the benefits of a better climate. It was upon the 
return trip that he and his family experienced the necessity of burning 
twisted hay, sunflower stalks, weeds, etc., for fuel. Mr. Harrison 
worked for a short time at Jackson, Nebraska, but at length crossed the 
river to Elk Point, Dakota, in the spring of 1885, rented laud and 
raised a crop of corn. In the fall of the same year, however, he made 
his way direct to Yankton county and purchased one hundred and sixty 
acres known as the Clough place. Six years later he sold that property 
and purchased a farm of two hundred and eight acres on section 10, 
Yankton precinct, Yankton county, where he made his home during the 
remainder of his life. Upon the place was a log house and poor 
outbuildings. He erected a pleasant residence, commodious barns, cribs 
and sheds and today it is a well equipped farm. He cleared most of the 
land himself and brought the farm under a high state of cultivation, 
annually gathering therefrom good harvests. 

	Mr. Harrison was married at Council Bluffs to Miss Elvira 
Crotzer, who was born in Boone county, Iowa, while her parents were 
from Indiana. To Mr. and Mrs. Harrison were born five children who are 
still living, namely: Lily, the wife of John Arend, of Yankton; Nellie, 
the wife of K. T. Parker, of Hancock, Michigan; Frances, the wife of F. 
H. Howard, of Sioux Falls; Ella, at home; and Olney, who is living in 
Bloomfield, Nebraska. For thirty years the family have resided in 
Yankton county and are here widely and favorably known. Throughout the 
entire period Mr. Harrison was classed with the energetic, determined 
and enterprising farmers of his part of the state.