H. H. Heath 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. Page 465

	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


HON. H. H. HEATH, a well-known agriculturist and highly respected 
citizen of Afton township, Sanborn county, South Dakota, was born in 
McHenry county, Illinois, in 1846, and is a son of Watson R. and Mary 
Heath, natives of Virginia and New Jersey respectively. In 1840 the 
father removed to Illinois, where he worked at his trade of 
blacksmithing and also engaged in farming. 

Our subject, who is the seventh child in a family of eight, passed his 
boyhood and youth upon the home farm in Illinois and attended the 
country schools until seventeen years of age, after which he spent 
three years in the Belvidere high school, and took a three months' 
course in Eastman's Business College, Chicago. Returning to the 
parental roof he remained there until 1869, when he took a trip to 
California and again returned to Illinois. In the spring of 1871 he 
moved to southwestern Iowa, where he engaged in farming until 1877. 
Later he engaged in bookkeeping for a railroad contractor in Sac 
county, that state, one summer, and in the spring of 1878 took up his 
residence in Carroll county, Iowa, where he remained until the fall of 
1881. From that time until the fall of 1882 he made his home in O'Brien 
county, Iowa, and then came to Sanborn county, South Dakota, locating 
on the southwest quarter of section 25, Afton township, where for one 
summer he lived in a shanty 10 x 16 feet, while his stock was sheltered 
in a frame barn, 14x 16 feet. At that time the only residences in the 
township were three sod houses. 

In his little pioneer home Mr. Heath lived alone until 1884, when he 
led to the marriage altar Miss Mina Anderson, a native of McHenry 
county, Illinois, where their wedding was celebrated. She was reared in 
Lawrence, Illinois, and is a daughter of James Lee and Lydia Anderson, 
who engaged in farming to a limited extent and were interested in bee 
culture, selling their honey. Mr. and Mrs. Heath have a little son, 
Henry H., now ten years of age. 

Mr. Heath brought his bride to the home he had prepared for her in 
Sanborn county, and has since given his attention to the cultivation 
and improvement of his farm. Of his one-hundred-and-sixty-acre tract, 
all but twenty acres of pasture land are now under cultivation, and he 
also leases and operates an adjoining half-section of school land. Upon 
his place he has a good house, barn and other outbuildings, a well of 
good water thirty feet deep with a windmill attached, and all of the 
necessary machinery needed by the modern farmer. In the spring of 1885 
a prairie fire destroyed his stable, harness and hay, and though he has 
met with other misfortunes he has prospered in his adopted state and is 
now quite well-to-do. 

Mr. Heath is one of the prominent representatives of the Republican 
party in his community; has most efficiently filled township offices 
for several years; and in the fall of 1898 was elected to the state 
legislature, representing his county in that body in a most creditable 
and acceptable manner. He has been a delegate to many county 
conventions of his party and to three state conventions, where he has 
rendered it effective service. Socially he belongs to the Ancient Order 
of United Workmen and the Ancient Order of Pyramids.