Hiram Rodee 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 666-669

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

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HIRAM RODEE. It is almost twenty years since this gentleman arrived in 
Sanborn county, and he is justly numbered among its honored pioneers 
and leading citizens. He has been prominently identified with its 
interests as an agriculturist and is to-day the owner of one of the 
largest stock farms in this section of the state, it being pleasantly 
located on the James river in Union township. He has an honorable 
record of a conscientious man, who by his upright life has won the 
confidence of all with whom he has come in contact. His portrait, which 
appears with this sketch, will be welcomed by his many friends. 

Mr. Rodee was born in Plattsburg, New York, March 11, 1837, and is a 
representative of a family that settled on the Hudson river, in 
Columbia county, that state, as early as 1636. Among its members were 
soldiers of the war of 1812. Our subject's father, Hiram Rodee, was a 
miller by trade, as was also the grandfather. In 1848 the former moved 
west to Lawrence county, New York, by team, it requiring five days to 
make the trip. That section of the country was then almost an unbroken 
wilderness. There the father engaged in milling and also in the grocery 
and produce business. 

Our subject grew to manhood in St. Lawrence county, New York, and with 
his father learned the miller's trade. His early education, acquired in 
the common schools, was completed by a course in the St. Lawrence 
Academy, and later he successfully engaged in teaching school, while he 
boarded around among the scholars, as was then the custom. In 1864 he 
was united in marriage with Miss Cornelia S. Crampton, a graduate of 
Castleton Seminary, Vermont, and a school teacher of St. Lawrence 
county, New York. She belongs to an early New England family and was 
reared upon a farm. Mr. and Mrs. Rodee are the parents of four 
children: Mary Adele, Leslie E., Henry Burton and Hiram Augustus. The 
last named is a graduate of Martyn College of Oratory, Washington, D. 
C., and has received the highest honors in the oratorical contest at 
Mitchell University and represented that institution in the state 
contest, winning first honors. He is familiarly known as the "Boy 
Orator of the Jim." 

After teaching school Mr. Rodee followed milling and the grocery 
business in New York state for twenty years, and also owned and 
operated a farm of two hundred and forty acres in St. Lawrence county, 
which received the premium as the model dairy farm of the county. There 
he also started the first cheese factory, which is still in successful 
operation. In the fall of 1880 he came to Sanborn county, South Dakota, 
and located on section 23, Butler township, where he improved a farm, 
which, after cultivating for four years, he sold for three thousand 
dollars. He then settled on section 7, Union township, where he has 
erected good and substantial buildings, fenced the place, and made many 
other improvements which add to its value and attractive appearance. He 
now owns one thousand four hundred and eighty acres of land, of which, 
three hundred acres are under cultivation, one hundred acres covered 
with natural timber, while most of the remainder is pasture land. As it 
is situated on the James river, it makes a fine stock farm, and most of 
the grain raised upon the place he feeds to his stock. There is an 
abundance of wild fruit upon the farm, and a flowing well of soft 
water. In the spring of 1881 the James river overflowed the adjoining 
country and spoiled that year's crops, and again, in 1897, did the 
same. When the floods subsided, leaving ponds in low places, Mr. Rodee 
took from these a wagon load of fish with a pitchfork. In 1895 his 
crops were destroyed by hail, but notwithstanding these misfortunes he 
has constantly prospered, and is to-day one of the wealthy farmers of 
the county. 

During his residence here Mr. Rodee has been prominently identified 
with public affairs, and was one of the first commissioners of Sanborn 
county, being appointed by Governor Ordway. At that time he assisted in 
organizing the county. He held the same office at the time of the 
county-seat fight, when, during the counting of the votes, a mob 
gathered with ropes to hang the commissioners for refusing to canvass 
the vote in favor of Woonsocket, but all finally ended peaceably. As a 
Populist he has ever taken an active part in politics, has attended 
many state and county conventions of his party, has been a member of 
the county central committee and judicial committee, and in 1895 was 
again elected county commissioner on that ticket.