Martin T. Lee Biography


	This biography appears on pages 952-953 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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				MARTIN T. LEE. 

	Martin T. Lee. one of the foremost citizens and prosperous 
agriculturists of Split Rock township, residing on section 2, is the 
owner of four hundred and forty acres of valuable land in Split Rock 
and Brandon townships. His birth occurred in Christiania, Norway, on 
the 16th of January, 1861, his parents being Thoston and Anna (Okre) 
Lee, who emigrated to the United States in 1867 and took up their abode 
at Waterville, Iowa. The father, a blacksmith by trade, there conducted 
a shop for three years. In the spring of 1870 he came to South Dakota, 
crossing the plains with three yoke of cattle Arne Lee. brother of our 
subject, had come to this state in the previous year and April 4, 1869, 
had homesteaded the quarter section on which Martin T. Lee now lives. 
He also homesteaded the northeast quarter of section 2 for his father, 
who, however, located on the quarter where his son Martin now makes his 
home, and Arne subsequently took up his abode near Harrisburg, in 
Lincoln county. Thoston Lee resided upon the old homestead until his 
death in 1896, when he had attained the age of more than eighty years. 
The wife and mother died some years later. During the first four years 
that the family resided in this state they lived in a dugout in the 
side of a bank and later they lived in a log house. It was twenty-two 
miles to their nearest neighbor on the east. The closest town at which 
they could obtain flour and other necessities was Sioux City and it 
required three weeks to make the trip there and back. Indians were 
numerous and in all respects the conditions encountered were those of 
the frontier. 

	Martin T. Lee, a little lad of six years when he accompanied his 
father and mother on their emigration to this country, was reared under 
the parental roof and acquired a limited education in the pioneer 
schools of this state, there being no institutions of learning here 
until four years after the family's arrival. When fifteen or sixteen 
years of age he took charge of the home farm, as his father never 
adapted himself to the work of the fields but conducted a blacksmith 
shop on the place for some years. Eventually he acquired title to the 
property and as the years have passed he has from time to time 
augmented his landed holdings until they now embrace four hundred and 
forty acres in Split Rock and Brandon townships. His agricultural 
interests arc capably conducted and yield him a most gratifying annual 
income. He is likewise a stockholder in the Farmers Elevator Company of 
Brandon. 

	In 1895 Mr. Lee was joined in wedlock to Miss Mary Lomen, her 
father being Peter Lomen, one of the pioneer settlers of Lincoln 
county, South Dakota, who in 1870 made the journey to this state on 
foot from Decorah, Iowa, where he had spent about two years following 
his emigration from Norway. Mr. and Mrs. Lee have six children' namely: 
Peter Telmar, Harold Clifton, Elvin Alexander, Claudina Melvina, Viola 
Harriett and Gladys Irene. 

	Mr. Lee is a republican in politics and made a creditable record 
during about ten years' service as a member of the town board. His 
religious faith is indicated by his membership in the Norwegian 
Lutheran church, of which he serves as treasurer and to which his wife 
also belongs. The period of his residence in Minnehaha county covers 
forty-five years and his memory therefore forms a connecting link 
between the primitive past and the progressive present. The circle of 
his acquaintance is a wide one and his friends are many.