Union County, SD Biographies.....Peterson, John Alben February 28, 1835 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 February 13, 2022, 5:37 pm

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

JOHN ALBEN PETERSON, one of the representative farmers and citizens of Brule
township, Union county, was born in the southern part of Sweden, February 28, 1835.
His boyhood was spent in his native land, where also he acquired his education. In
1864 he emigrated to America and landed at New York, the voyage from the old country
being made in a sailing vessel and occupying three months. While en route twenty-two
of his fellow passengers died, the result of “bad water, bad food and bad everything
“ as Mr. Alben expresses it. From New York he came west to Chicago and thence to
DeKalb county, I11., where soon after arrival he enlisted in the Twenty-third
Illinois regiment, infantry, company K, and was attached to the Twenty-fourth army
corps under Gen. Grant. He took part in the battles fought in and around Richmond,
and during his active service was marched and counter marched, suffered much from
exposure, and endured a great many hardships in upholding the national honor and for
the preservation of his adopted country. His reward was an honorable discharge at
Chicago, in July, 1865, from where he went again to De Kalb county, Ill.

In 1866 Mr. Alben started for Des Moines, Iowa, and while living there was married
to Miss Carrie Miller. This union has been blessed by the birth of four children -
John W., Alfred, Alida E., and Oscar W. - all of whom have had the advantage of a
liberal education in the schools and colleges.

Union county first saw our subject in the fall of 1867, when he located in Brule
township, homesteading 160 acres, on which he built a small log cabin and at once
started in breaking ground and improving his future home. At that time he was
surrounded by nothing but raw prairie, his nearest neighbors being several miles
distant, but Indians were numerous and quite troublesome at times. On various
occasions Mr. Alben found it necessary to take his wife and child into the field
where he was breaking land, as the redskins had visited his cabin and mistreated his
family, and he did not feel warranted in leaving them at home alone and unprotected
while he was absent at work. Like most of the old settlers of Union county he
started poor, but his natural progressive nature combined with sound judgment have
produced their results, for he now owns 480 acres in Brule township and 160 acres in
Charles Mix county, S. Dak. His land is all improved and in an excellent state of
cultivation.

The subject of these brief paragraphs is a member of the Lutheran church and takes
an earnest interest in its welfare. His estimable wife, and likewise his children,
also belong to this denomination. Socially he is a member of the Stephen A. Hulbert
post No. 9, G. A. R., at Elk Point.


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