John T. Wood 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 962

	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


JOHN T. WOOD. The misfortunes which befall a settler in a new country 
often discourage him in his efforts to succeed, but the subject of this 
review, despite loss of buildings by fire and crops by storms, has 
worked with renewed energy and has gathered about him a fine farm and 
all the comforts of a rural home, and is considered one of the best 
agriculturists in Spink county, where his land is located in Antelope 
township. 

Our subject was born in Nodaway county, Missouri, in 1853, the son of a 
farmer. His father was a native of Tennessee and his mother of 
Kentucky, and his parents were married in Missouri. His father died in 
1877. 

Mr. Wood remained at home until his mother died in 1874 and then began 
work as a farm laborer, living in his native state for many years. He 
went to Iowa in 1882 and the following fall located in Spink county, 
South Dakota, on section 35. He returned to Iowa and husked corn during 
the fall of 1882 and went later to Missouri, and the following spring 
went again to his Dakota farm, built a 10 x 12 shanty and was his own 
housekeeper for twelve years. He did his first farming with oxen, and 
his first crop of sod corn was good but destroyed by hail, or nearly 
so, and he succeeded in saving the seed only, and the next year had a 
good yield. He put up a sod barn and otherwise improved the property, 
although lumber had to be hauled at a cost of seven dollars. Settlers 
began to arrive in the new land and accommodations in the town were not 
to be had at any price. On the second day of April, 1889, prairie fire 
burned all the buildings, machinery, hens, and seven hundred bushels of 
corn and seed grain on our subject's farm, and in 1897 hail again 
destroyed the greater share of the crops, leaving only three hundred 
and ninety-four bushels of grain. He erected new buildings on the land 
of his wife in 1895, and he and his wife now own three hundred and 
twenty acres, cultivate one hundred and seventy one acres, and rent 
thirty-seven acres. He engaged in grain raising, and, in 1899, began 
stock raising. The property is well improved, and success in the new 
venture is almost certain. 

Our subject was married November 13, 1895, to Sarah A. Fryer, a native 
of Rome, Oneida county, New York, who was born December 23, 1867. Mr. 
Wood's father was a native of England, and was a farmer by occupation. 

Mr. Wood has been road overseer, and has aided in the development of 
Spink county, taking an active interest in local affairs. In political 
views he is a Republican. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of 
America, and carries a life insurance of two thousand dollars.