Rupert Morton Gatchell 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, 1898. Pages 474-475

	Scan, OCR and editing by Joy Fisher, jfisher@sdgenweb.com, 1999.

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RUPERT MORTON GATCHELL, who is engineer of the Lake Kampeska pumping station, in 
Lake township, is one of Codington county's well-kn6wn and popular citizens.  
Mr. Gatchell is a native of Wales, Androscoggin county, Maine, where he was born 
October 1, 1869, and is a son of Albert D. and Julia A. (Savage) Gatchell, who 
were both natives of Maine, where they were married in Litchfield, March 28, 
1868. Albert Gatchell, who was born in 1843, was the youngest in a family of 
five children. He was a farmer by occupation, and in 1879 went west, settling 
finally in Henry, South Dakota, where he secured a homestead, the precise 
location being section 7, township 116, range 55.  His family joined him there 
the following year.  Mr. Gatchell cultivated his farm near Henry until 1889, and 
then removed to Clark county, in the same state, where he and his wife still 
reside.  Mrs. Gatchell was born in Windsor, Maine, in 1846, and was the only 
child of her mother's first marriage.  Her father died when she was an infant, 
and her mother subsequently married a Mr. White, who died some years ago.  Her 
mother is still living.

Our subject, who was the eldest of two children, both boys, spent the earlier 
years of his life in Codington county, South Dakota, and attended the schools at 
Henry, in Codington county, until i886, when he went to Watertown and took a 
course in Lamson's Business college, from which he was graduated in the fall of 
1887.  He then returned to Codington county and pursued farming there for about 
a year and a half, and in the fall of 1889 he went to Maine and spent about nine 
months in visiting relatives, returning in July, 1890, to Dakota, where in the 
following fall he secured work on a traction engine.  In the month of November, 
I890, he went west and spent the time from November, 1890, until July, 1892, in 
the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho.  On his return he secured work in 
the Watertown flouring mills, where he remained until May, 1894, when he went to 
work for the Watertown pumping station at Lake Kampeska, which position he still 
holds.

Mr. Gatchell is a Republican politically, and, while not a member of any church, 
leans strongly towards Methodism. In May, 1894, he was married to Miss Pheebe A. 
Pickles, who was born December 26, 1872, in Martin county, Minnesdta, and a 
daughter of William and Ann (Murphy) Pickles. Her father was an Englishman, who 
came to this country in 1858, soon after his marriage.  His wife, a native of 
Ireland, was of Irish descent.  Pheebe was the fifth in a family of eight 
children, all of whom, except the first born who died in infancy, are still 
living.  Mr. and Mrs. Gatchell are the parents of two children, Hugh Morton, who 
was born May 16, 1895, and Inez Sarah, born May 27, 1897.