Danford K. Belding 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 970-971

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

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DANFORD K. BELDING. The farming interests of Aurora county have a 
distinguished representative in the person whose name heads this 
article. His home is located on section 6 of Palatine township, where 
he owns eight hundred and eighty acres of land in a body. Three hundred 
acres are under cultivation each year and the improvements and 
conveniences evidence the taste and skill of the modern agriculturist. 

Mr. Belding was born August 24, 1840, in St. Lawrence county, New York, 
and was the seventh in a family of nine children born to Asa and 
Harriett (Tasker) gelding. The father died in Iowa, in 1875, at the age 
of seventy-three years. The mother went to Dakota, where she died in 
1883, aged seventy-two years. 

At the age of sixteen Danford K. Belding accompanied his parents to 
Clayton county, lowa, and later to Delaware county of the same state. 
August 25, 1861, he enlisted in Company I, Second Iowa Cavalry. He 
participated in the engagements at Iuka, the first and second battles 
of Corinth, besides many skirmishes. His service was confined mostly to 
Mississippi and Tennessee and he was mustered out at Davenport, Iowa, 
in 1864. 

After the war he purchased a small farm in Delaware county, Iowa, where 
he remained until 1882. In that year he went to Plankinton, South 
Dakota, taking his stock and household goods, and after prospecting 
through Aurora county, which then comprised the present counties of 
Aurora and Jerauld, he filed a pre-emption claim to one tract and 
homestead claim to another. He began his present improvements in 1885, 
and few farms in Aurora county are so well equipped with the modern 
conveniences for the saving of time and labor, the husbanding of crops, 
and the handling and sheltering of stock. A deep well, operated by a 
windmill, furnishes an abundance of water for all purposes, and a 
horse-power feed mill assists in the preparation of grain for the 
economical feeding of stock. He keeps from ten to thirty milch cows and 
about a hundred head of young stock. His lands comprise the fertile: 
Fire Steel Creek bottoms and is adapted to diversified farming. 

Mr. Belding was married in 1867, to Miss Rebecca Joslin, a native of 
Pennsylvania, born June 6, 1842. They are the parents of one son, Fred 
E., born December 1, 1870. He has been given the advantages of a good 
education, having attended school at the Madison Normal and at the 
State Agricultural College, at Brookings. He is interested with his 
father in the stock farm. He was married in December, 1893, to 
Elizabeth W. Rake, and they are the parents of three children: Laura 
S., Florence E. and Emma Ilene. 

Our subject is a Republican, a prohibitionist and an advocate of equal 
suffrage. He takes an active interest in public affairs, and has been 
elected to the township board and the school board. He holds membership 
in the G. A. R. at Plankinton.