William J. Erdmann 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 960-961

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

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WILLIAM J. ERDMANN is proprietor of one of the fine estates of Garden 
Prairie township, in Brown county, and has acquired his possessions 
since locating in that region. He makes his home on section 9, and his 
surroundings are of a pleasant nature. Much of his present prosperity 
is due to the help afforded him in the management of affairs by his 
estimable wife, and both she and our subject are entitled to much 
credit for their earnest labors. 

Mr. Erdmann was born in Dodge county, Wisconsin, in May, 1859, and was 
the second in a family of thirteen children, twelve of whom are now 
living. He was raised on a farm near Theresa, Wisconsin, and attended 
the country schools. As is generally the case in a large family, the 
children were afforded little opportunity for educational advancement, 
and he was early set to work. At the age of eighteen he left home and 
worked for others throughout southern Minnesota, until he located in 
South Dakota, in 1882. He went to Brown county in the fall of that 
year, and filed a homestead claim to the northeast quarter of section 
9, township 121, range 61. He and his brother erected an 8 x 14 shanty 
on the dividing line between their farms, and after spending the winter 
in Groton went to the farm in the spring of 1883, and "bached it" one 
year. After our subject had filed on the land and had erected his 
shanty he had no resources and he hired twenty acres of land broke on 
his farm and worked for others at any work which he could obtain. He 
put in his first crop in 1884, twenty acres of wheat, which was the 
poorest crop ever raised on the place. At that time he had a mule team, 
wagon, binder, seeder, drag, and plow, in partnership with his brother. 
He and his wife lived in the shanty from 1885 until their new residence 
was completed, in 1887. This is a large and comfortable dwelling, and 
one of the best in the neighborhood. Our subject now has a farm of two 
hundred and forty acres, all of which is cultivated with the exception 
of forty acres reserved for pasture. His barn, 48 x 40 feet, and 
granary 24 x 30 feet, sheet-ironed on the outside, furnish shelter for 
his stock and products, and his set of farm buildings is complete in 
every particular. He has the best of farm machinery, and does not lack 
any of the necessaries for farm work. He has six work horses. and other 
stock. and has been remarkably successful in the pursuit of 
agriculture, although on two different occasions hail has destroyed a 
good share of his crops. He and his brother and father went into 
partnership, in 1886, in the purchase of a steam threshing machine, and 
they now run a Buffalo Pitts rig. His brother attends mostly to the 
threshing, as our subject has little time to devote to that work. 

Mr. Erdmann was married in 1885 to Miss Amelia Kimmel, who was born and 
raised in Wisconsin. Mrs. Erdmann's father was a native of Germany and 
came to America about 1852, locating on a farm in Wisconsin, where his 
death occurred. One child, who died in 1891, was born to Mr. and Mrs. 
Erdmann. Our subject and wife are members of the Lutheran church, and 
are well known throughout that vicinity. Mr. Erdmann and his brother 
were the first to take homesteads in Garden Prairie township, and have 
resided in that locality continuously since. He has attended strictly 
to the details of his farm work and does not seek public preferment, 
choosing to serve his community otherwise. Politically he is a Populist 
and favors reform.