R. W. Maxwell 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 703-704

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

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HON. R. W. MAXWELL, one of the most extensive land owners and grain and 
stock raisers in Faulk county, deserves special mention among the 
pioneer settlers of that vicinity. He has made a success of his 
vocation and has aided in bringing that region to its present high 
status. His public as well as private life has been marked with a 
determination to benefit mankind and the people among whom he has 
chosen to reside accord him the highest praise. He is one of the few 
who went to Dakota and remained through the struggles of a pioneer's 
life, and is the only one of a party of nineteen men who went with him 
to the land of promise who ventured to remain and make the best of his 
opportunities. He has been rewarded by the accumulation of an estate 
the equal of which cannot be found within his township, and he has by 
his conduct and characteristics brought himself near to the minds and 
hearts of the people of Faulk county. 

Mr. Maxwell was born in Springfield, Illinois, December 13, 1845. He 
was an acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln, who was a friend of his father, 
Archibald Maxwell, and has played on the premises of the Lincoln home, 
and has been driven off by Mrs. Lincoln when he became a nuisance. The 
father of our subject was born in Doon, Scotland, in 1808, and came to 
America in 1836. He was the son of John Maxwell, a stone mason. The 
mother of our subject, whose maiden name was Margaret Wilson, was born 
in. Scotland in 1819, and was the daughter of a landed proprietor of 
Scotland, who lost his estates and came to America, where the family 
became scattered. Our subject's parents were married in Springfield, 
Illinois, where their family of nine children, of whom our subject was 
the fourth, were born with the exception of the youngest. 

Our subject attended the city schools of Springfield, and after leaving 
that city in 1860 attended the schools at Mechanicsburg and is a 
graduate of the law department of the Ann Arbor (Michigan) University. 
His parents moved to Mechanicsburg in 1860, and both before and after 
his graduation he taught school. He began the practice of law at 
Decatur, Illinois, and after three years moved to Springfield and 
continued the practice of law in that city from the spring of 1879 
until November, 1882. With a party of nineteen he went to Dakota in the 
fall of that year on a prospecting tour, and located on the southwest 
quarter of section 13, township 120, range 66, in Faulk county. There 
were but two shanties in the township at that time, and the family 
arrived the following April and moved direct to the farm, where our 
subject had been living a bachelor life during the spring months. He 
and his two brothers-in-law, William and Charles T. McWhinney, formed a 
partnership under the firm name of McWhinney & Maxwell, which lasted 
until 1892. They started farming on a large scale and during 1883 broke 
over four hundred and fifty acres of land. They employed six or seven 
men continuously and the following year had eight hundred acres in 
crop, farming that number of acres several years, and their yield often 
averaged thirty bushels per acre of wheat. The crop of 1886 consisted 
of sixteen thousand bushels of wheat and four thousand bushels of oats 
and barley. Some of the wheat sold for a dollar and a quarter per 
bushel. In 1888 they went into the raising of cattle and horses. They 
purchased forty brood mares and one Percheron stallion and Aberdeen 
Angus cattle, and continued in the stock raising business until 1892, 
when the firm dissolved partnership. Our subject took his share of the 
proceeds and continued farming. The horse business they had previously 
sold. Our subject is now engaged in general farming and has one hundred 
head of pure and grade Aberdeen Angus cattle. He possesses a farm of 
six hundred and forty acres and operates seventeen hundred and sixty 
acres. He has five hundred acres under cultivation, five hundred in 
pasture, and the remainder in grass land. In 1886 one of his four 
granaries was unroofed by storm and two hundred bushels of wheat 
destroyed. During the winter of 1897 he was ill from December until 
April and was unable to personally supervise the work of caring for his 
stock and entailed a loss of. five hundred dollars on that account. 

Our subject was married in Chicago in 1876 to Miss Elizabeth McWhinney, 
a native of Ohio. Mrs. Maxwell's father, James McWhinney, was a 
commission merchant, and in the pork packing business in Cincinnati, 
Richmond, Indiana, and Chicago. The family came from Scotland before 
the Revolution, and her father came to Ohio from Tennessee, there being 
a large family at that time. Mrs. Maxwell is a lady of high education, 
completing her schooling at Glendale Female College, at Glendale, Ohio. 
She is a talented musician and was a teacher of music at the time of 
her marriage to our subject. Four children have been born to Mr. and 
Mrs. Maxwell, as follows: Leota W., born at Springfield in 1880; 
Margaret F. died in 1 878; Charles W., born in Dakota in 1885; and 
Gertrude, born in Dakota, now deceased. Mr. Maxwell has been closely 
identified with the development of Faulk county, and has served in 
various important offices. He was elected in the fall of 1890 to the 
state senate, and was the nominee for the same office on the Democratic 
ticket in 1898. He was county commissioner 1889-90, and has served on 
the school board in various capacities. He has staunchly advocated the 
principles of the Democratic party, and is prominent in political 
circles. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and the Ancient Order 
of United Woodmen.