Union County, SD Biographies.....Cleland, John M. June 19, 1837 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 February 12, 2022, 11:00 pm

Source: MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF Turner, Lincoln, Union and Clay Counties, South Dakota. (1897)
Author: Geo. Ogle & Co.

HON. JOHN M. CLELAND. The gentleman whose name introduces this biography, and whose
portrait appears on another page, was born in Scotland, June 19, 1840, and is a son
of James and Mary (Wilson) Cleland. They were both natives of Scotland, where they
were reared, and married April 21, 1837. About six years after that event happened,
the couple, with their family, emigrated to this country, settled on a farm near
Whitewater, Wis., and there they both passed to the shore from whence no traveler
ever returns, his death occurring October 16, 1888, and his good wife’s In 1893.
They both had attained the advanced age of seventy-six years when called from time
to eternity.

Of the family of five sons and five daughters born to this worthy couple, our
subject was the second in order of birth, and the eldest son. He was three years old
when his parents left the land of their nativity for the United States, and on his
father’s farm in the Badger state he was reared and grew to maturity. In Wisconsin
he followed farming and for several years was engaged in the nursery business, up to
the fall of 1868, at which time he came to Dakota territory and took up a claim in
Spirit Mound township, Clay county, it being a part of the estate on which he now
lives. The following spring he settled on his claim and started in to improve the
land, and, as he prospered, added to his original holding until his landed
possessions now aggregate some 640 acres. Farming has been his chief business in
life, and he has been eminently successful in the prosecution of his chosen
occupation.

Mr. Cleland has been twice married, his first wife being Miss Amelia Brown, a native
of Rock county, Wis. She died a few months after their wedding. Mr. Cleland married
his present wife in Clay county, January 17, 1872. She bore the maiden name of Miss
Parmelia Hixson, and was born in Jackson county, Iowa, April 1, 1855, a daughter of
Nathan and Sophia (Hunter) Hixson. Mr. and Mrs. Hixson came to Clay county from the
Hawkeye state in 1868, and settled in Spirit Mound township, where they both died,
the former passing away in 1885 and Mrs. Hixon in 1893. They had a family of four
sons and five daughters, and Mrs. Cleland was the sixth child. Mr. and Mrs. Cleland
are the parents of nine children, on whom have been bestowed the following names:
Mirtle James, Herbert Nathan, Elber Leroy, Mary May, William Robert, Walter Leslie,
Latillie Maud, Orvilla Mebel and Ethel Luella.

Mr. Cleland has been an active participant in the public affairs of the community,
has held various of the township offices, served as commissioner of Clay county, and
in 1875 and ’76 was elected a member of the territorial legislature, in the
deliberations of which body he was quite prominent. Religiously he belongs to the
Methodist Episcopal church, and has served in various official capacities therein.
His wife also holds membership in the church of that denomination.


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