Richard M. Radway Biography


	This biography appears on pages 703-704 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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				RICHARD M. RADWAY. 

	Richard M. Radway, a retired farmer living in Springfield, South 
Dakota, is passing his declining years in comfort and rest from labor. 
He is one of the pioneer residents of his locality, having arrived here 
in 1877, long prior to the admission of the state to the Union. For 
many years he was actively engaged in farming and did his share in 
furthering the agricultural development of Bon Homme county. He was 
born January 30, 1837, in Cortland county, New York, a son of Daniel 
and Diaploma (Bean) Radway. In 1845 or 1846, while he was still a 
child, the family removed to Walworth county, Wisconsin, and the next 
year went to Rock county, that state, where the mother died. The father 
subsequently married again. 

	Richard M. Radway attended the district schools and received a 
serviceable education, but when eighteen years of age started out in 
life for himself, being employed as a farm hand. He later began farming 
on his own account, being so engaged for the four years preceding his 
enlistment in the Union army. On the 18th of August, 1862, he joined 
the Twenty-second Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry and w as with his 
regiment in the campaign around Atlanta and on the celebrated march to 
the sea. After Lee's surrender he accompanied his regiment north from 
Savannah to Washington and there participated in the grand review. He 
was mustered out at Washington and honorably discharged at Milwaukee. 

	Mr. Radway returned to his agricultural pursuits in Wisconsin, 
where he remained until the spring of 1877, when he came to Bon Homme 
county, South Dakota. He settled near Wanarri, now Perkins, a town 
located seven miles northwest of Springfield. He first took a timber 
claim and a homestead but subsequently bought a preemption claim on an 
adjoining section, which made him the owner of four hundred and eighty 
acres in one body. He lived upon his farm, devoting his time to its 
development and cultivation until he felt that his children needed 
better educational advantages and he then removed to Springfield, where 
he lived while they attended Normal school. In 1908 he sold his home 
place and bought four hundred and eighty acres in Stanley county and 
has since lived in Springfield. His labors as a farmer were well 
directed and effective and he is now in possession of a competence 
which enables him to enjoy the comforts of life without the cares and 
responsibilities of business. 

	Mr. Radway was married at Beloit, Wisconsin, on the 10th of 
March, 1860, to Miss Annis Hyatt, a native of Montreal, Canada, and a 
daughter of Horace and Azubah (Nichols) Hyatt, early settlers of Rock 
county, Wisconsin. Mr. and Mrs. Radway have four children, namely: 
Hettie Alvina married Frank Cadman, a resident of Beloit, who was 
accidentally killed by a train in that city, and by whom she had twelve 
children, ten of whom survive. Horace died when sixteen years of age. 
Harry, who resides upon a ranch near Top Bar, Stanley county, is 
married and has seven children. Effie Belle is the wife of Benjamin 
Bridgeman, postmaster of Platte, South Dakota, by whom she has three 
children. Both Mr. and Mrs. Bridgeman are graduates of the Springfield 
Normal School. 

	Mr. and Mrs. Radway belong to the Congregational church and 
promote its work in every way possible. Mr. Radway supports the men and 
measures of the republican party at the polls, as he believes that the 
policies of that party are best calculated to secure the welfare of the 
country. He is a member of General Steedman Post, G. A. R., at 
Springfield, and thus keeps in touch with his former comrades. 

	When Mr. Radway arrived in South Dakota in 1877, the present 
state was little more than a wilderness and he experienced many of the 
hardships of life on the open plains. He saw a few grasshoppers that 
year, but the country was not devastated by them afterward. While 
building his house in 1880 the family lived in a new corn crib and in 
an old log house, doing their cooking in the latter. During a three 
days, storm in the middle of October they had to shelter the cows and 
calves in the larger room of the log house until the storm was over. 
The family and workmen ate their meals standing around the kitchen 
stove in the other room. Twenty-four hours after the storm had abated 
the house was cleaned and whitewashed, straw and carpets were laid on 
the floors, curtains were up at the windows and no one would ever 
suspect that it had been used as an emergency stable. At the time of 
the blizzard of January 12, 1888, Mr. Radway was living in town and, 
although one of his children had remained at home at noon, one son was 
at school. He, however, was brought safely home in the evening, but 
many children remained at school all night. Although he lost an 
aggregate of twenty-five tons of hay by prairie fires, no buildings 
were destroyed in that manner. The present generation owes a debt of 
gratitude to men and women such as Mr. and Mrs. Radway, who endured 
bravely the hardships of the early days and made possible the present 
prosperity and security of the great state of South Dakota.