James P. Bullis 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 819-820

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

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JAMES P. BULLIS, an extensive general farmer, living on section 22, in 
Wilbur township, controls about three sections of Brule county land, 
and he and his sons, who farm in common with him, own one section. Our 
subject is a native of Wyandot county, Ohio, and was born April 7, 1 
840, the youngest of a family of nine children born to Pliny and 
Elizabeth (England) Bullis. The father was of Irish and the mother of 
German descent, and our subject was born a few months after the death 
of his father, the mother removing to the farm and keeping the family 
together. In 1856 they removed to Butler county, Iowa, where at the age 
of twenty-two years our subject secured a farm for himself, but 
sickness made him reduced in circumstances, and soon after his recovery 
he went to Dakota. In the spring of 1883 he arrived at Kimball, with a 
few head of sheep, horses and cattle, some household goods and seventy-
five dollars in cash. He filed a homestead claim on the southwest 
quarter of section 22, in Wilbur township, on which he now resides. To 
complete the erection of a small house without any floor, he had to 
sell one cow, and to provide a living for his family he broke land for 
others. For several years they burned alkate grass for fuel, and met 
with many other inconveniences in their pioneer home. Mr. Bullis began 
at once to develop a large grain farm and soon was cultivating two 
hundred acres. Deep plowing was unsuccessful, and our subject gives it 
as his opinion that deep plowing is right for corn cultivation, but 
unfit for the small grains. In the fall of 1890 he took a herd of two 
hundred sheep to keep on shares, since which time he has been engaged 
in sheep raising, and it has proven to be a most successful venture. 
For the last five or six years he and his sons have also engaged in the 
breeding of cattle, and make a specialty of the Black Polled cattle, 
considering them the best for the range. They winter from fifty to 
sixty head of cattle and four hundred sheep. 

Our subject was married in 1862, to Miss Mary J. Kimmel, a native of 
Ohio, born February 26, 1846. Mrs. Bullis died August 13, 1898. She was 
the mother of ten children, named as follows: Loretta T., Mrs. J. A. 
Taylor; Luthera A., Mrs. W. D. Henthorn; Lincoln W.; Samuel K., 
deceased; Alvin W.; Wilfred I.; Sanford E.; Clara I. and Blanche R. 
Lincoln W. has been farming for himself for nine years in Wilbur 
township. He married Miss Malinda E. Newman in 1890, who died in 1897, 
leaving one son, James Pliny, and two daughters, Mary I. and Malinda G. 
(deceased). 

Our subject is a Populist, prohibitionist and equal suffragist, and has 
taken much interest in the affairs of his county, and advanced the 
upbuilding and maintaining of the public school system. He is a member 
of the Methodist Episcopal church.