Frederick O. Child 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 782-783

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

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FREDERICK O. CHILD, one of Spink county's first pioneers and one of the 
"seventy-niners," is a prominent citizen of Three Rivers township, 
where he and his sons are engaged in diversified farming with a marked 
degree of success. He is a native of Vermont and was born December 15, 
1836, and was next to the youngest in a family of nine -children born 
to Reverend Eber and Mary (Tyler) Child, the former a. native of 
Vermont and the latter of New Hampshire. The Child family is of Welch 
extraction. 

Our subject removed from his native state with his parents when he was 
seven years of age and settled in Rock county, Wisconsin. He grew to 
manhood in the western state and is proud of the fact that he is 
thoroughly a western man. His parents were in straightened 
circumstances and the work of earning a livelihood devolved upon 
himself. He left Rock county for Dakota, April 1, 1879, with no 
definite point in view. He was about ten days en route, and during the 
journey was advised by Mr. F. I. Fisher to locate on the James river. 
Arriving at Watertown he became a member of a party of seven land 
seekers, and by the aid of a compass reached the James at a place east 
of the present site of Redfield, known as Belchers ford. Here camp was 
established on section 25, in Three Rivers township. Search was then 
made for individual locations, and a few days after while on a tramping 
tour, our subject suddenly discovered the famous "Council Rock," and 
near by a collection of human bones. It was on a slight elevation on 
section 24, and was a place sacred to religious rites of the Drifting 
Goose Indians. The rock was a cone shaped boulder brilliantly painted 
and surrounded by a circle of smaller stones, enclosing the sacred 
ground. Within this circle as our subject first saw it were many small 
rolls of cloth, about two inches in length, which upon examination 
proved to be filled with sugar and left there by the Indian mothers for 
the departed babes. 

During the spring months our subject selected a homestead and tree 
claim, after which he returned to Wisconsin, and did not permanently 
settle on his land until the fall of 1880. He immediately engaged in 
stock raising in cattle, but after two or three years discontinued this 
line and began horse raising, which did not prove a success, and he 
then went into sheep raising and is at present engaged in diversified 
farming, with sheep and hog raising in the lead. He and his sons have 
farmed three to four hundred sheep, and cultivate upward of seven 
hundred acres of land. It is an ideal Dakota farm, situated on the 
James river, with fine soil and abundant pasturage, also a fine grove 
of ash, elm and red willow, and within a mile and a half of the town of 
Ashton. It is unsurpassed by any farm in Spink county. The spring of 
1897 brought the only reverse of fortune which has visited our subject 
in his western home, when the floods destroyed much of his stock and 
did great damage to his buildings. 

Our subject has been twice married. One son, Charles, was born of the 
first union. In 1870 Mr. Child again married, Miss Mary Eastman 
becoming his wife. To this union six children have been born, and are 
named as follows: Luella, residing in Chicago; Margaret, stenographer 
and typewriter; Henry Y.; Ruth; Arthur and Annie. The family are well 
known and their genial western hospitality and pleasant home affords 
them many friends. 

Mr. Child is a citizen who keeps abreast of the times and his decided 
opinions are based upon deep thought. His views are liberal and he 
grants to others the privilege which he claims for himself, the right 
to form and express an opinion. He is a stanch temperance worker, and 
in political views is a silver Republican. Progression is his watch 
word and his opinion is sought and advice is heeded.