Lincoln County, SD Biographies.....Patnoe, Nelson December 30, 1847 - 
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Source: MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OIF Turner, Lincoln, Union and Clay Counties, South Dakota. (1897)
Author: Geo. Ogle & Co.

NELSON PATNOE. This gentleman occupies an excellent station among the farmers of
Pleasant township, Lincoln county, to which he is fairly entitled by the success
with which he has met in the prosecution of his chosen vocation.

Mr. Patnoe is a native of Franklin county, N. Y., and of French descent. His natal
day was December 30, 1847, and he passed his early life on the home farm, attending
school during the winter terms. When the great Civil war broke out our subject was
fourteen years of age, and he decided that he would be a soldier. He enlisted in the
First New York regiment, engineer corps, but was so small that all he could handle
was a drum, and as a drummer boy he served all through the war. The regiment was
first ordered to South Carolina, and was stationed on James Island for nine months;
later they went to Virginia and joined Gen. Grant’s army. The regiment was on the
James river from that time to the close of hostilities, and after the surrender at
Richmond our subject was mustered out in June, 1865, being honorably discharged at
New York city.

After the war Mr. Patnoe returned to his home in Franklin county, N. Y., and the
next year was married to Miss Allie Jean St. Andre, a native of Montreal, Canada. He
sold a colt which he owned for $48, and with this as a nest-egg he and his young
bride began their domestic life. They first settled in Prairie-du-Chien, Wis., where
Mr. Patnoe secured employment for four years, and then in 1870, removed to
Winneshiek county, Iowa, and rented a farm which he operated for two years more.
During the winter of 1873 he moved to Sioux City, Iowa, and then in March following
came to Dakota territory and located a homestead in Norway township, Lincoln county.
The township at that time was populated wholly by Norwegians, he being the only
American born person in the locality. This farm he improved and made his home for
eight years, that is during the warm months, as every summer for five years straight
he had his crops destroyed by grasshoppers, and on this account had to move to Sioux
City every fall, and then back to the farm in the spring. He eventually sold that
property for $800, and with half the proceeds bought and removed to his present farm
in section 35, of Pleasant township, where he has been living with his family the
past fourteen years. He has 240 acres, all under improvement, enclosed and
subdivided by neat and well kept fences. He has been a hardworker, and all that he
now possesses is the result of well-applied energy and sound management in his
affairs, as when he arrived in the territory all he could call his own was his good
wife and family, a team and wagon and about five dollars in currency.

For thirty years the joys and sorrows of Mr. Patnoe have been shared by his faithful
wife, and to them have been born thirteen children, but two of these have been
removed by the hand of death. The living are: John, Mrs. Josephine Fillian, Mrs. Ida
La Barge, Mrs. Minnie Grandrau, Mrs. Matilda Montagne, Willie, Napoleon, Zoa, Eda,
Alice and Henry. Mr. Patnoe is a friend of education, having served as a member of
the school board, and gives his children good facilities for obtaining an education.
The family belongs to the Catholic church at Beresford, and in politics Mr. Patnoe
is independent, although he formerly affiliated with the Republican party. He has
served as road supervisor and in many other ways has been identified with the public
life of the community where he resides.


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