Biography of C. R. Westcott

	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 with a 
	review of their life work... Also a compendium of national biography."
        Publisher: Chicago, G. A. Ogle, 1898. Pages 234-235.

	Scan and OCR by Joy Fisher, 1997. This file may be copied for non-profit 
	purposes. All other rights reserved.

HON. C. R. WESTCOTT, a wealthy and prominent farmer living near the town of Goodwin, Deuel 
county, was born in Delhi, New York, in 1843. His ancestors came to America during the last century and 
located in Otsego county, New York, after having lived a short time in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

The subject of this sketch was educated in the district and select schools, and in 1857 came west with his 
parents and. settled in Olmsted county, Minnesota, and later moved to Dodge county. In February, 1864, 
Mr. Wescott enlisted in the Second Minnesota Volunteer Infantry and served to the close of the war, being 
detailed as a musician. This regiment participated in the battle of Chickamauga, at which it lost one-third 
of its men, but it was made up of such men as John A. Logan referred to when he said, " The men of the 
northwest will hew their way to the gulf with their swords." The regiment next participated in the Atlanta 
campaign which ended in the capture of that city early in September; the "October foot race" after Hood 
and back to Rome; the historic march to the sea during November and December; the capture of 
Savannah, and the campaign northward beginning January 23, 1865. After reaching Raleigh the fighting 
ceased, and the march " on to Richmond" was consummated with expedition. Passing through Richmond 
on May 11, the band played six selections while marching five miles and without a stop. The regiment 
took part in the grand review at Washington on May 24, and on July 20 the regiment was discharged at 
St. Paul, Minnesota.

While living at Concord, Dodge county, Minnesota, Mr. Westcott was united in marriage to Miss Rosalia 
E. Felt in 1868, at Lake City, Minnesota. Mrs. Westcott's parents formerly resided in Jackson county, 
Michigan, where she attended the public school, but finished her education at the normal school in 
Ypsilanti, Michigan, after which she taught school for a few years and also taught music. She is a lady of 
more than average intellectual ability, is a model housewife, wrapped up in the affairs of her household 
and the kindest of mothers. Of the children, Mary H., Minnie I., and Gaylord F., were born in Dodge 
county, Minnesota, and George R. and Ruth M. were born in Deuel county, South Dakota. The older four 
children have taught school with good success and take a prominent part in temperance and 
Sunday-school work in the community, serving both in a musical way and otherwise, and the entire family 
are members of the Baptist church.

Mr. Westcott, while in the mercantile business at Dodge Center, Minnesota, was president of the school 
board and treasurer of the village board. Removing to South Dakota in 1878, he served as postmaster at 
Goodwin for four years. He was superintendent of schools of Deuel county for six years, and in 1889 was a 
member of the constitutional convention, which was held preliminary to the admission of the state under 
the Omnibus bill. He was also a member of the first state senate, which held two sessions, one in October, 
T889, and one in January and February, T890, and in this capacity he was a member of the committees on 
education, schools and public lands, public institutions, and was chairman of the committee on suffrage. 
He was identified with the Republican party for thirty years. " In T 896, however, being an Abraham 
Lincoln Republican, he was compelled, in order to be consistent, to vote for W. J. Bryan and the Chicago 
platform." In T890, after satisfying himself that Dakota is the place to live, he added to his original 
homestead and tree claim two hundred and forty acres of land by purchase, and stocked his farm with a 
flock of ,sheep. He has also planted fifteen acres of trees, some of which are now thirty and forty feet high, 
and has built four barns, the last of which is 48 X 80 feet. Two of these barns have been burned. During 
the year T895 his fields yielded a third of a million pounds of grain, wheat, flax, oats and millet, and in 
his exuberant pasture lambs often grow to weigh eighty pounds at the age of six months. To sum it all up 
in a word, Mr. Westcott feels that for him section 6, township 116, range 50, is the center of the earth, and 
that there is no lullaby like the rustle of the leaves of the trees his own hand has planted.