George R. Bateman Biography


	This biography is from "Memorial and biographical record; an illustrated
 	compendium of biography, containing a compendium of local biography,
	including biographical sketches of prominent old settlers and 
	representative citizens of South Dakota..." Published by G. A. Ogle & 
	Co., Chicago, 1899. Pages 426-429

	Scan, OCR and editing by Maurice Krueger,mkrueger@iw.net, 1998. 

	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


GEORGE R. BATEMAN, a leading and prominent citizen of the town of 
Wessington Springs, is one of the most intellectual and successful 
agriculturists of Jerauld county, with whose upbuilding and progress he 
has been actively identified since 1882. He is public-spirited and 
enterprising, and gives his support to any object which he believes 
calculated to advance the moral, social, educational or material 
welfare of his community. 

Mr. Bateman was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1855, a son of Robert 
S. and Jane E. (Lampard) Bateman, natives of New York and Ohio, 
respectively. His maternal grandfather was an Englishman by birth, his 
paternal grandfather a native of New York. The father, who was a farmer 
by occupation, was a soldier of the Civil war, and is now employed in 
the pension office at Washington, D. C. Our subject was reared on a 
farm adjoining Appleton, Wisconsin, and remained there until coming to 
Dakota, attending first the common schools and later the Lawrence 
University at Appleton. At the age of twenty-four years, he married 
Miss Mary J. Hinchliff, a native of Wisconsin, whose father was a 
farmer in early life and later conducted a hotel and livery stable in 
Appleton. Four sons have been born of this union, viz.: G. Walter, Earl 
Robert, Elmer Wessington, Frank Lampard. 

After his marriage, Mr. Bateman worked in a lumber yard and at other 
occupations until coming to Jerauld county, South Dakota, in 1882, when 
he located on section 18, Wessington Springs township and turned his 
attention to agricultural pursuits. The first summer he lived in the 
famous log house near the springs, then built his father's house, into 
which he moved, and in the summer of 1882 built a residence upon his 
own and land located there. The village of Wessington Springs had not 
yet been dreamed of, and only one or two houses were in sight from his 
home. Wild game was still plentiful and he once saw seven deer. Besides 
operating his farm, he served as the second postmaster of Wessington 
Springs, worked in the bank to some extent and has filled the offices 
of justice of the peace, coroner and trustee of the village. His 
brother started the first newspaper at that place. 

At present our subject is largely engaged in the stock business, and, 
though he started in life for himself in limited circumstances, he now 
owns, in partnership with his brother, seven and a half quarter-
sections of land- one of the largest farms in the central part of the 
county. He cultivates about one hundred and fifty acres, and as the 
remainder is good pasture land, on which is a fine spring, it makes an 
excellent stock farm. He keeps about sixty head of cattle, is a 
director in the Wessington creamery, and is engaged in freighting 
between Woonsocket and Wessington Springs. Mr. Bateman has experienced 
many of the hardships of frontier life, and in 1888 was out in a 
blizzard for several hours. In his political views he is a pronounced 
Republican,- and takes an active and prominent part in political 
affairs. He is now serving as a secretary of the Republican county 
central committee. He has filled the office of justice of the peace for 
several years, and is still filling that office. Socially, he is a 
Master Mason, and a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. He is now 
serving as clerk of the latter lodge, which he represented in the grand 
lodge of the state in the fall of 1898. He is an active member of the 
Wessington Springs Lecture Association, composed of all the leading and 
prominent business men of that place, who secure during the year from 
four to eight of the best lecturers the nation affords. The town, small 
as it is, contains enough people who appreciate this class of 
entertainment to make the enterprise a success. In connection with this 
biography will be found portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Bateman.