Full text of "A History of Union County, South Dakota, to 1880"

	This history of Union County, SD was a Master's Degree thesis written 
	by Edward Elliott Collins from an unusual perspective. He came to Dakota 
	Territory in 1864 as a small boy and witnessed many of the events he wrote 
	about first-hand. Collins was 77 years young when he wrote the thesis 
	and received his Master's degree.

	File typed from a copy of the original thesis by his great-granddaughter,
	Lois Ralph, wralph@nmu.edu, and uploaded with the kind permission of Lois 
	and her family.

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              A History of Union County, South Dakota, to 1880

                                   By
                          Edward Elliott Collins
                   B.A. University of South Dakota, 1903

               A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of 
                     the Requirements for the Degree of 
                               Master of Arts

               Department of History in the Graduate School
                        University of South Dakota
                                May 1937


                                FOREWORD

	The history of Union County is a continuous story of agricultural 
development. The Indian wars of 1862-3 and the grasshopper invasions of the 
sixties and seventies were unhappy episodes but do not break the continuity of 
the story of prosperity and contentment. Some Dakota counties, during 
territorial days, secured state institutions which affected their history; 
others were able to induce the location of industrial plants that became 
factors in city growth. But Union County has depended upon the industry, 
honesty, stamina and progressiveness of its farmer citizenry for success.

	As a lad of four years the writer was brought to Union County, Dakota 
Territory, by his parents, April 1864. In that county he attended rural and 
high school; did his bit on the farm; did his first work as teacher; there he 
married a pioneer girl and there three of his children were born. For more 
than seventy years he has been interested in, and has been in close touch with 
Union County. For these reasons he prefers to write about old friends, 
conditions in a new land, and social, economic and religious changes incident 
to community growth from a new to a mature society.

	The editors of the Union County Leader-Courier and Dakota Republican have 
permitted the use of the files which have been valuable in checking data. Many 
citizens have been patient in granting interviews, and in searching for facts 
contained in ancient diaries and official records.

	The writer is especially indebted to Doctor Herbert S. Schell for the 
use of his notes gleaned from Yankton and Sioux City newspapers and for his 
guidance in the preparation of this thesis, and also to Doctor Carl Christol 
for many helpful criticisms and suggestions.


                               TABLE OF CONTENTS

	I. PRE-TERRITORIAL DAYS
		Early explorers and fur traders; buffalo and other game.    page 1

	II. LAND TITLES AND FEDERAL LAND LAWS
		Louisiana Purchase; treaty of 1858 with the Yankton Sioux;
		pre-emption, homestead and timber culture laws.             page 6

	III. EARLY PIONEERS IN UNION COUNTY
		Immigrants of 1859-1862; Indian troubles of 1862-3; 
		flow of settlement up the valleys and to the prairies 
		and hills.                                                 page 10

	IV. EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
		Earliest school houses; appearance of private schools 
		before public schools; first public schools in Dakota 
		Territory; Union County as a leader in educational 
		endeavor; James S. Foster and other educational leaders; 
		difficulties in supporting public schools.                 page 14

	V. RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES AND CHURCH GROWTH
		Methodist; Congregational; Episcopalian; Catholic; 
		Baptist; Lutheran.                                         page 18

	VI. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
		Handicaps; grasshoppers, floods and prairie fires; 
		weather and crops; communications and transportation; 
		growth and decline of sawmills and gristmills; 
		commercial enterprises.                                    page 25

	VII. OUTSTANDING PERSONALITIES                                   page 38

		BIBLIOGRAPHY                                               page 40




                               Chapter I
                          PRE-TERRITORIAL DAYS

	The student gets a thrill reading accounts of the Northmen coming to 
America centuries before Columbus made his New World discovery. The tenth 
century discoveries and settlements along the Atlantic coast by Leif Erickson 
and other Vikings are well known. According to Lars J. Hauge, who has made a 
study of the early Danish and Norwegian records, these daring voyagers even 
entered Hudson Bay and thence by way of Nelson River, Winnipeg Lake and Red 
River of the North, visited Minnesota and the Dakotas. (1)

	Possibly Coronado, Radisson, Grosiellier, LeSeuer and other Spanish and 
French explorers and fur traders may have reached the Dakotas. The Verendryes 
were certainly in Dakota in 1743 and Delusigan in 1745. (2)

	Previous to 1800 the Spanish had established a flourishing fur trade 
supported by two strongly built posts. One of these, built by Truteau in 1794, 
was on the east bank of the Missouri River opposite where Fort Randall later 
was built. The other, built by Loisel in 1797, was established upon an island 
in the Missouri River just below the mouth of Chapelle Creek, Hughes County. (3)

	Garreau in 1787 and D'Eglise and Truteau in 1794 passed by Union County 
on their way up the Missouri, but previous to the nineteenth century no 
records were made regarding that territory now known as Union County, South 
Dakota.

	The Lewis and Clark expedition arrived at the mouth of the Big Sioux on 
Tuesday, April 21, 1804. It was a warm, bright day with a gentle breeze from 
the southeast. Captain Clark climbed War Eagle Hill, the highest of Sioux 
City's bluffs, to get a good view of the surrounding country. To the west lay 
the lower valley of the Sioux and the rich, level prairies of Union County. No 
more inviting landscape ever greeted the eye of men. That day the expedition 
made but four miles and camped on the Nebraska side of the Missouri. At 
daylight of the next day, Wednesday, they broke camp and, sailing with a 
strong south wind, soon made the three miles to Ponca Landing. In those days 
the river turned sharply east from Dixon's Bluff at Ponca Landing, cut up 
through what are now Ballenger's and Mosier's farms close to the school house 
in district number twenty, clear up to the Ed Donnelly and John R. Wood 
homesteads only a few rods from the present location of the Milwaukee 
Railroad, where the river turned sharply westward and washed the southern 
limits of the city of Elk Point, returning to its present channel at the 
Chaussee farm, three miles west of the city. All day, Wednesday, August 22, 
high winds made navigation slow and difficult for the expedition. They made 
camp that night by a lone tree on a point of land on the river's north bank. 
This camp was about half a mile south and a quarter of a mile west of the 
present side of the Elk Point water plant, on the Eli Wixson farm, later owned 
by Charles Stickney. (4)

	Everywhere about this lone-tree camp Captain Clark noticed signs of elk, 
so he named the place Elk Point. This name was adopted by the pioneers who 
organized the town and township at that place in the sixties.

	On Thursday, August 23, Lewis and Clark left the lone-tree camp at 
daylight and, with the help of a southeast wind, moved rapidly upstream. 
Captain Clark and Joseph Fields went hunting. The Captain walked along the 
river bank while Fields struck out through the tall grass in a wider detour. 
The Captain returned with a fine buck, but scarcely had received 
congratulations upon his success when Fields arrived, announcing that he had 
killed a big buffalo bull. It took twelve men to drag the carcass to the river 
where they salted two barrels of its meat for future consumption. Meanwhile 
another member of the expedition who had been traveling overland with the 
horses came up with two deer to be added to the larder. The wind turned to the 
west and blew a gale, so that travel was made very difficult and was soon 
abandoned. Toward sunset, however, the wind abated and so they pushed on, 
camping that night on the Nebraska side of the Missouri River within Kate 
Sweeney Bend, almost directly south of the present village of Burbank.

	More than two years elapsed before Lewis and Clark returned. They again 
came in touch with Union County, September 3, 1803. At the old lone-tree camp 
they found a Scotch trader, James Aird, who gave them the first news of the 
East which they had received for two years. There was a heavy rain in the 
evening and the captains were glad to find shelter in Aird's tent. They had 
not enjoyed the luxury of a roof since leaving the Pacific. They bought some 
supplies of Aired, giving in payment an order on St. Louis. On the morning of 
September 4, they were on their way down the river, passing the mouth of the 
Big Sioux at eleven o'clock en route to St. Louis. (5)

	The rivers and creeks of Union County were good trapping territory and it 
seems probable that fur traders were trafficking with the Indians for peltry 
along the Missouri, Sioux and Brule early in the nineteenth century. Doubtless 
they built cabins for winter habitation and in which to store their goods till 
the spring permitted shipment down the river to St. Louis. But the first 
record of such building is for 1830 when the American Fur Company built Fort 
Vermillion on the left bank of the Missouri River about two and one half miles 
southeast of the present site of Burbank. The fort must have been on land 
which was later known as the B. A. Hill place. It cannot be located exactly 
for the land where it stood was washed away by the river some years ago. (6)

	Audubon, with a staff of scientists, visited the fort in 1843; also a 
company of Mormons, about ninety in number with thirty teams, passed the 
winter of 1845-6 near the fort. They planned to settle there permanently but 
were persuaded to join the larger group on its way to Utah. (7)  Father Ravoux, 
who had charge of the Catholic mission at St. Paul, Minnesota, was sent by his 
bishop to hold religious services for the Indians and half-breed children of 
white fur traders in the Dakota country. He visited Fort Pierre, Sand Lake on 
the James River, and Fort Vermillion, in 1845, baptizing many children and 
celebrating mass. (8)  In 1850 the fort was in charge of an experienced fur 
trader named Larpenteur whose journals have historical value. (9)

	The pioneers who came to Union County in 1859 and 1860 could still 
distinguish the remains of this first Union County building, which had been 
abandoned by the fur company in 1854. (10)

	Authorities agree that previous to the coming of the white settlers vast 
herds of buffalo roamed over all parts of what is now South Dakota. Pioneers 
found many buffalo skeletons in Union County and "buffalo wallows" were 
common.

	Ernest Thompson Seton gives the following table of statistics for the 
United States: (11)

	Estimate of buffalo in primitive days              60,000,000

	Estimate in 1800                                   40,000,000

	Estimate in 1850                                   20,000,000

	Estimate by Horniday in 1870                        5,500,000

	Estimate by Horniday of northern herd, 1871         1,500,000

These estimates are based upon tales told by fur traders, squawmen and 
Indians, therefore, may be far from the truth.

	After the first transcontinental railroad passed through the plains 
section in 1869 and gave the white hunters access to buffalo feeding grounds, 
the vast herds disappeared rapidly before the repeating rifles of the buffalo 
robe hunters.

	No herd of buffalo roamed Union County as late as 1859 though an 
occasional stray was killed. Three Union County buffalo stories may interest 
the reader. Three men were holding down claims in 1865 on the Iowa side of the 
Sioux River where Hawarden now is situated. They saw a half a dozen buffaloes 
on the Dakota side and chased them down to the Isaac Gore claim opposite where 
Akron now is located. Here A. R. Stoddard and William Frisbee were able to 
single out one and shoot it, while the others escaped to the west. (12)  Anthony 
Ronne, a lad of sixteen, the son of K. P. Ronne, a Union County pioneer of 
1860, while hunting on his pony along the Missouri River, discovered a buffalo 
heifer which he trailed for some time. Finally it ran into the barnyard on the 
E. C. Collins farm where the writer saw his father shoot it in July 1865. Some 
years later a lone buffalo bull wandered down from the northwest and was 
hunted and killed near Alcester.

	In the heavy timber along the Missouri River wild turkeys and deer were 
occasionally killed. Red and gray squirrels, quail and rabbits were plentiful, 
furnishing meat where pork and beef were scarce. During the spring and fall 
months great numbers of ducks and geese were taken as they migrated north in 
March and April and south in October and November. The writer has a lively 
memory of hunting the curlew, a shy bird colored like the meadowlark and not 
quite as large as the wild pheasant. During the sixties and seventies the 
prairie chicken was a source of plentiful food and tens of thousands were 
trapped to be shipped to eastern markets. Prairie chickens have become very 
scarce and no curlew has been seen in Union County for the last thirty years.

	By the middle of the nineteenth century the fur trade in southeastern 
South Dakota had dwindled. Buffalo and elk had almost disappeared, and deer, 
beaver and mink were not plentiful when the first white men began taking farms 
in Union County in 1859. Caleb Cummins, the Ronnes, Maynards and others made a 
few dollars taking muskrats from lakes and ponds and occasional mink from 
creek or river, and wolves, coyotes, skunks and badgers from the timber and 
the prairies. But as a source of income for support of the family, hunting and 
trapping no longer sufficed.

                           Chapter II  
                  LAND TITLES AND FEDERAL LAND LAWS

	Before following these pioneers, seeking new homes in Dakota Territory, a 
little attention should be given to a consideration of the soundness of the 
titles to the lands which they hoped soon to own.

	All of what is now South Dakota was part of the Louisiana Purchase 
acquired by the United States from France in 1803.

	Indian traditions are not reliable history. Many writers have given 
varied opinions regarding the Indian inhabitants of Dakota during the 17th and 
18th centuries. But authorities are agreed that for many years prior to the 
treaty of 1858 the Sioux or Dakotas had been masters of that part of the 
country lying between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. The prairies 
between the Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers were hunted over and claimed by the 
Yanktons, a tribe or branch of the Sioux.

	Excepting authorized agents and traders and those who had married Indian 
wives, white men were not legally permitted to live in southeastern Dakota 
until July 1859.

	In April 1858, Struck by the Ree, Smutty Bear and fourteen other head men 
of the Yankton tribe visited Washington. While there, they signed a treaty 
releasing to the United States Government the lands between the Big Sioux and 
the Missouri Rivers except 400,000 acres lying in Charles Mix, which was 
reserved as a home for the Yankton Sioux. (13)  Congress ratified the treaty on 
February 26, 1859, but the Indians did not give possession till July of that 
year.

	These two deeds, one from France and one from the Yankton Indians, 
provide a legal basis for the patents or deeds, which the United States 
Government issued to Union County pioneers who met the demands of the Federal 
land laws.

	Struck by the Ree, (14) head chief of the Yanktons, an unusually able Indian 
who had always stood for peace with the white people, favored an early move to the 
new reservation. It is said that his christening had much to do with his peaceful 
attitude. He was born at the time that Lewis and Clark were on their way west in 
August 1804, and Captain Clark, hearing that a son had been born to the Indian chief, 
made a big feast, delivered a grand oration, wrapped the baby in the Stars and 
Stripes and dedicated him to peace with all the children of the Great White Father 
in Washington. The parents ever kept these facts in the child's mind. (15)

	Not all the Indians had been satisfied with the treaty as signed in 
Washington and the discontented ones were objecting to leaving the valleys of 
the Sioux, Brule and James where there was plenty of timber and where the 
hunting, trapping and fishing were good. Smutty Bear, who aspired to the first 
position in the tribe, was leader of these malcontents and a situation 
developed which threatened trouble. Fortunately, in July 1859, a government 
steamboat, Wayfarer, with Alexander H. Redfield, the Indian agent, on board, 
tied up at the Yankton wharf. A little feast was served and Redfield explained 
that the big distribution of supplies would take place at the reservation in 
Charles Mix County. Smutty Bear's arguments and influence were forgotten and 
the tribe moved quickly to their new home.

	Ten years earlier, May 1849, Theophile Brughier, a noted leader among fur 
traders settled on the Iowa side of the Sioux River where Sioux City is now. 
At the same time several other Frenchmen with their Indian wives built cabins 
on the Dakota side of the Sioux in what is now Sioux Point Township, Union 
County. Old settlers still recall the names of some of these squatters--J. B. 
LaPlant, Abraham and Fred St. Pierre, Daniel Picotte, Anton Fleury and James 
M. Somers. (16)  LaPlant claimed to be first to arrive of this group and this 
distinction is accorded him by later arrivals. One lone squaw man, H. Simmons, 
with his wife and two half-breed sons, Peter and John, had settled at Elk 
Point. This family remained a few years after the Yanktons had moved to their 
reservation, but the wife and mother never felt at home among her white 
neighbors and persuaded the family to move to the new home in Charles Mix 
County. (17)  Nearly all the white men who had married among the Sioux 
eventually moved to the reservation and drew allotments of land and supplies on 
account of their Indian wives and half-breed children.

	Immediately upon the departure of the Yankton Sioux to their 400,000 
acres reservation, white settlers began moving in from Nebraska and Iowa. Some 
of them had been waiting impatiently across the Missouri and Sioux Rivers for 
a year or two in anticipation of Indian evacuation.

	What is known as the Pre-Emption Law was passed by Congress in 1841. 
Under this law any American citizen could file on one hundred sixty acres of 
public land, pay fourteen dollars as a filing fee, and one dollar and twenty-
five cents per acre, and get title at the end of six months. Foreign-born 
residents could file under this law but must become naturalized citizens 
before final papers would be granted.

	The Homestead Law was passed in 1862 and gave incentive to western 
migration. Residence for five years upon the land, under this statute, was 
accepted in lieu of the one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre payment 
demanded under the Pre-Emption Act. Most Union County land titles from the 
government were secured under the Homestead Law.

	It was common knowledge that timber became more scarce as one went 
westward toward the great plains. Congress hoped to overcome this obstacle to 
homemaking in the west by passing the Timber Culture Law. After the original 
act of 1873 was amended in 1874 and again in 1878, it was permitted the head 
of a family who was twenty-one years old and an American citizen to file on 
one hundred sixty acres, eighty acres, forty acres, or even a smaller tract. 
For the one hundred sixty acres he must plant ten acres of trees; for the 
eight acres he must plant five acres; and for the forty or fewer acres he must 
plant two and one-half acres of trees. These trees he must protect and keep in 
healthy condition for eight years. Then on proof by two witnesses that he 
complied with all the requirements of the law he was granted title. But no one 
could make more than one tree claim entry.

	Most desirable Union County lands had been taken under the Pre-Emption 
and Homestead Acts before the Tree Claim Law was passed. But Union County 
furnished many millions of year-old ash, maple, cottonwood and hackberry 
saplings for the counties lying further north and west. March, April and May 
was harvest time for some families living near the Missouri River. The 
children would pull the small trees, tie them in bundles of a hundred and the 
father would load one or two tons of the bundles and drive to counties 
northwest where tree-claimers paid him well for them.

	Several factors militated against the success of the Timber Culture Act. 
First, the homesteader must take his tree claim at a distance from his 
homestead and that made it difficult for him to care for his trees properly. 
Second, pioneers did not know what kinds of trees were suitable to the prairie 
lands. Third, the soil was not subdued and the saplings died when planted in 
the raw soil. Fourth, the years from 1874 to 1880 were exceptionally dry. 
Therefore, only a small part of the lands originally taken as tree claims was 
finally patented as such by the government. Even the few who did carry on and 
finally secured tree claim deeds found that the expense had been greater than 
it would have been through pre-emption or homestead.

                             Chapter III
                     EARLY PIONEERS IN UNION COUNTY

	The treaty under which the Yankton Sioux relinquished their lands in 
southeastern Dakota to the United States government was signed in Washington 
in 1858, but the Indians were allowed one year in which to give possession. In 
July 1859, they moved to their reservation and immediately white immigration 
began. Eli B. Wixson was the first of the legal settlers in Union County. He 
had come to Sioux City from his New York Home in 1858 and from the bluffs near 
that town had viewed the flooded valley of the Missouri towards the west. One 
parcel of land appeared above the waters and here he pre-empted and built a 
log house and thus was Elk Point Pioneer number one. In 1862 he had part of 
his land incorporated as Elk Point Townsite. (18)  Mr. Wixson was always fair 
and friendly with the Indians. Even during the Minnesota massacre of 1862, he 
was not disturbed. Frequently during those early uncertain years from 1859 to 
1866 hundreds of Indians were camped in the timber on or near the Wixson farm, 
hunting, trapping, gathering and preparing kinni-ki-nic, a bark which grows on 
a peculiar red willow. This bark they smoked in their pipes when tobacco could 
not be secured. For a lad of six, it was a thrilling sight to see several 
hundred of the Yankton Sioux on their way from their Charles Mix reservation 
to visit the Omaha or Ponca Indian friends in Nebraska.

	In November 1859, David Benjamin, William Mathers and one or two other 
bachelors arrived and passed the winter with Mr. Wixson. In the spring of 
1860, John R. Wood, wife and six children, and the George Stickney family, W. 
W. Adams, Myron Sheldon, Hastings Seamond and Mr. Bartlett settled in and near 
Elk Point. Mr. Wixson that spring plowed sixty acres of sod and planted corn 
which yielded forty bushels per acre. He raised four hundred bushels of 
potatoes, food much needed by the immigrants. (19)

	About halfway between Elk Point and Sioux City there early grew up what 
was known as the French Settlement. Charles LaBreche, Michael Ryan, Desire 
Chaussee, Joseph Yerter, the Callahans, LaMoges, the Beaubeans, Remillards, 
Fountains and others, were citizens of that neighborhood before 1864.

	A number of Scandinavian families came to Dakota during the five years 
beginning with 1859. A majority of them took farms in southern Clay County, 
but a few located in Union County, especially along the Brule Creek and on 
that beautiful tract of land sloping down from the northwest towards Richland. 
Others located on the heavy, black land between Elk Point and the Brule. Lars 
J. Rudd, Christopher Haagen and Kjeld Ronne arrived in 1860, (20) and soon after 
came the Petersons, Johnsons, Clementsons, Tollefsons, Thomas Aune, Peter 
Hagen, Jens Olsen, Andrew Oyen, Erick Lester, Lewis Lewison, James Olson and 
others. The last named Olson filed upon a beautiful quarter of land and then 
enlisted in the Federal army. When he was mustered out of the army, he found 
his claim occupied by a "claim-jumper." Backed by his revolver and the 
government's order of "soldiers first," Olson persuaded the man to seek 
elsewhere for a homestead. For many years James Olson was an active 
participant in the county's economic, political and social affairs. William 
Frisbee, Mahlon Gore, Edward and Judson LaMoure, William Mathews, Elmer 
Seward, L. Bihlmeyer, Steven Horton, Myron Coykendall, M. M. Rich and W. H. H. 
Fate were among the very early settlers in and near Richland. Mahlon Gore 
filed on the first homestead in Dakota.  Edward LaMoure was killed by the 
Indians near Richland in 1865. (21)  M. M. Rich believed that the main line of 
the railroad from the east would pass through Richland, making it the county 
seat of Union County and the metropolis of southeastern Dakota.

	From July 1859 till August 1862, the increase in population for Union 
County was steady, and by the latter date amounted to eighty or one hundred 
voters. (22)

	In August 1862, occurred the Minnesota Massacre, one of the worst 
experiences in the United States. The Indians had been cheated in the 
negotiations for their Minnesota lands. Moreover, the government had not made 
payments according to contract and the Indians were suffering from hunger. 
Political jealousy had also led disgruntled white men to prejudice the Indians 
against the government and those who represented the government at the 
agency. (23)

	In the ruthless which followed the outbreak the Indians were beaten and 
many were driven into Dakota. Bands of these Indians for two years did much 
damage not only in Dakota, but throughout the entire northwest. About the 
first of September 1862, it was discovered that some five hundred hostile 
Sioux were in the valley of the James River north of Yankton. Wild alarm 
spread through the settlements of southeastern Dakota. Stockades were built at 
Yankton, Vermillion, Brule and Elk Point, as strongholds against attacks by 
the savages. On September 8, 1862, the report reached Vermillion, Elk Point 
and Brule that the Indians had beaten Captain Miner's company of soldiers and 
were attacking Yankton. It was known that two persons had been killed near 
Sioux Falls and that the people near that town had fled to the Yankton 
stockade or eastward into Iowa. Fear filled every home. Many retreated to 
Yankton where federal soldiers could aid in repelling an attack. During the 
afternoon and evening of September 8, most citizens of Vermillion, Brule and 
Elk Point were in wild stampede towards Sioux City; some took refuge in 
Nebraska and a very few remained in their homes. Fortunately no real attack 
was made upon any Dakota towns and but few lives were lost in southeastern 
Dakota. (24)

	As a result of these Indian troubles, many people left the territory 
never to return. But 1863 brought a few new families and in April 1864 was 
begun the New Michigan community two miles northwest of Elk Point. First to 
arrive were the brothers Edward C. Collins and L. H. Collins, whose letters 
back home, telling of the wonderful Dakota land, brought many other Michigan 
families. They settled in a compact group. Among them were Sam and Hiram 
Stratton, R. L. Shattuck, C. A. Cook Smith, L. Taggart, F. C. Herring, Charles 
Quick, J. J. Davis, John Flannery and J. W. Steckman who took adjoining claims 
and soon formed a well-organized social center. Among other worthy pioneers 
who came at about this time the following names come to the writer's mind: 
Daniel Ballenger, H. M. Beavers, Allen and J. C. Cates, Clarence, David and 
William Bonney, H. P. Chicoine, Wm. Clifford, Pat and Johnnie Curry, Thomas 
Eidem, J. J. and J. V. Gill, Wm. Hamilton, Ed Herrity, Charles Lemoges, Lewis 
Ranum, P. A. Ronell, C. and Robert Rosenbaume, John Scheiderheinze, George and 
Dick Stebbins, J. A. and Jens Ven, David Walters, George and Clarence 
Waterbury. These are but a few of the many who laid the solid foundation upon 
which Union County has been built.

	From the Elk Point and Richland centers, settlements spread up the 
fertile valleys of the Big Sioux, Missouri and Brule, then later to the less 
promising uplands and hilly sections of the county. Andreas makes the 
statement, "The population of the Sioux Valley was less in 1858 than it had 
been ten years previously." (25) As regards Union County, this statement is 
misleading. In 1858 there were no settlers' homes in the Sioux Valley within 
Union County; but beginning with 1863 each year saw new homesteads located in 
that valley, and by 1868 most of the desirable quarter-sections had been taken 
and many homes had been established.

	Good times, beginning with 1868 and closing with the crisis of 1873 and 
the grasshopper raids of 1874, saw the last of the best free lands of the 
county taken. In 1872 a large number of men and woman from Brule and Elk Point 
filed on the free lands in the northwestern part of the county, not expecting 
to make homes there, but located for purposes of speculation, planning to make 
a good profit by selling later to genuine homemakers. Some of them were able 
to sell their rights for from $100 to $500, while others lost their right 
through failure to make proper improvements. However, the depression following 
1873 caused most of these speculators to lose what they had invested as filing 
fees and in claim shanties.

                                  Chapter IV
                           EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

	During pioneer days Union County led the other counties of Dakota 
Territory in educational activities. Private schools were taught by N. J. 
Wallace in Elk Point in 1861 and by Keeler Curtis at Brule in 1862-3. Log 
school houses were built at Elk Point in 1861 (26) and at Brule in 1865. (27) 
The Michigan colony with volunteer labor built a log school house in 1864. The 
ridgepole was a strong hackberry tree. From this to the upper log on each side 
were laid willows, and heavy slough hay was spread over them. A layer of 
prairie sod finished the roof, which usually shed water quite well, but 
occasionally a muddy trickle found its way through to decorate a book, slate 
or pupil. A long narrow window admitted light from each side; the seats were 
of rough cottonwood planks. This building served the community as an 
educational center till sometime in the seventies. Bon Homme had built a 
little, floorless log house in which a term of school was held in the spring 
of 1860; Vermillion built the famous Old Log School House in the Ravine in 
1864; Yankton built the Old Brown School House on Walnut Street in 1865. But 
for a country school house, used continuously for school purposes, the New 
Michigan building may have been the first in Dakota Territory.

	In the spring of 1865, what is known as the New York colony came to 
Dakota. Educationally and socially, these people were a real asset to the 
neighborhoods where they located. Their leader, James S. Foster, was appointed 
by the governor as superintendent of public instruction and immediately he 
began to organize a regular school system supported by taxation. Some members 
of that New York colony located in Union County. One of these, Darwin 
Phillips, was elected county superintendent in 1866. The first superintendent, 
Sidney Coucher, moved from the county, and Edward C. Colllins was appointed to 
fill the vacancy. During the year 1865 he organized Jefferson District Number 
One, Brule Number Two and Elk Point Number Three. Elk Point had two terms of 
school during 1865. Miss Charlotte Pinckney taught four months to $20 per 
month, and Mrs. Rachael Rowley four months at $30 per month. Brule hired 
Jennie Collins at $12 per month for four months. Fifty-one pupils enrolled at 
Elk Point and twenty-six at Brule. These were the first public schools held in 
Dakota Territory.

	Plenty of rain and good crops in 1865 brought immigrants to Union County 
and school population increased. James S. Foster's report made on December 10, 
1866, listed ten schools with three hundred thirty-five pupils enrolled. The 
following year there were sixteen organized districts with seven hundred 
twenty-five pupils. During those early years Union County lead the entire 
territory in number of organized school districts and in number of pupils 
enrolled. In November 1867, Foster held the first teachers' institute in 
Dakota. The new Union County Court House was utilized for this two-day 
institute. County Superintendent Darwin Phillips was President and Henry 
McNeil Secretary of the organization. Classes were conducted by T. McKendree 
Stewart, E. C. Collins, Henry McNeil and James S. Foster. Lectures were given 
by W. W. Brookings and S. L. Spink to which the general public was welcome. (28)

	The growth in Union County educational opportunities was steady and 
continuous, but under considerable difficulties. Pioneers were poor and could 
not afford to spend much money in building school houses, for teachers' wages, 
or to provide their children with books and comfortable clothing. During the 
early years and until about 1870 only a small number of the farms were 
patented. Therefore only a few paid school tax. However, school houses of sod 
or logs were built, often without much cash outlay; teachers accepted small 
wages, sometimes boarding around at the different homes to relieve the tax 
burden; children were equipped with McGuffey's readers and arithmetics, slates 
and pencils, together with clothing to keep them warm regardless of style or 
fit. Often a child's outfit was old, having been used by mother or father 
"back east." The most serious handicap for pupils was the brevity of the 
school year. At first a three months summer term was the limit. During 1865 
Union County alone in Dakota paid a school tax and that amounted to but $186. 
School tax for 1866 was $214.84 but this was supplemented by $391.32, tuition 
money subscribed by parents that their children might have school 
opportunities. In 1867 three other counties paid some school tax, one $129, 
another $50 and the third $30, while Union County increased her payments to 
$864. Nevertheless, even in the most fortunate neighborhoods school 
opportunities were few and inferior in quality. In 1874 the county 
superintendent reported sixty-seven organized districts but only forty-nine of 
these had any school and those that were able to pay a teacher usually had not 
more than three or four months during the year.

	Wages were low, even less than those paid farm hands. A salary of $25 was 
common; some received $30. The custom of boarding around had, as a rule, been 
dropped and teachers paid from one to two dollars a week for their room and 
board. Most districts were able to pay their warrants when presented but in 
some cases the teacher had to wait for her money or sell the warrants at a 
discount to some merchant or banker.

	Many teachers had less than high school preparation and all they 
attempted to teach the children was reading, writing, spelling and the simple 
operations in arithmetic.

	Before school districts could be organized legally it was necessary to 
have a county superintendent. Sidney Coucher was elected to the 
superintendency in 1864, followed by Edward C. Collins, Darwin Phillips, N. J. 
Wallace, J. W. McNeil, O. S. Bryan, Wm. M. Cain and Runyan Compton. The last 
named closed two terms as superintendent of schools for Union County, December 
31, 1876. Five of these men were farmers and carried on their agricultural 
labors during their terms of office. Two were ministers. All seven were men of 
ability and education but poverty in school funds forbade giving time to 
school visitation and supervision. The writer cannot recall a single visit of 
a county superintendent to any school where he was a pupil previous to 1877. 
Nevertheless, these men did much for Union County schools by promoting 
district organization, encouraging tax levies, certificating the best of those 
asking for teaching jobs, elevating the teaching group by organizing 
institutes and by doing the necessary office work.

	Following the election in the fall of 1877 W. H. H. Fate became county 
superintendent of schools. He took his new duties seriously and was a frequent 
visitor at each school. Teachers and pupils all felt that Mr. Fate was a true 
friend even when it was necessary that he speak plainly concerning their 
faults. No fixed salary was attached to the superintendent's office during 
those early years. The superintendent received three dollars for each day that 
he works for the schools and mileage when visiting schools. The following 
story indicates the type of man Mr. Fate was. At that time there was no fund 
provided by law out of which to pay institute instructors and lecturers. Mr. 
Fate felt that teachers needed the inspiration that would result from a good 
institute. He employed Professor Wernli, an Iowa educator and an able and 
enthusiastic school man, for a ten-day session. Thirty-nine persons enrolled 
and most of them were present the entire ten days. W. H. H. Beadle, 
territorial superintendent, was present part of the time to assist by 
lecturing and teaching. This was the first important Union County teachers' 
institute. The total expense amounted to seventy-five dollars which was met in 
part by voluntary contributions by school districts to the amount of $24.81. 
Mr. Fate paid the balance of $50.19 from his personal funds. (28)

	During those early years the territorial superintendents called meetings 
of educators at various points in Dakota. Union County profited from some of 
them.

	Three territorial superintendents of schools were citizens of Union 
County: T. McKendree Stewart, E. W. Miller and W. E. Caton. Stewart was an 
able Methodist minister and is believed to have prepared the first written 
examination for teachers in Dakota Territory. (29) He was elected in the fall 
election of 1868, but resigned September 9, 1869, and James S. Foster was 
appointed to fill the vacancy. Miller was a talented attorney who promoted a 
notable territorial teachers' institute in Vermillion. His term was from 1871 
to 1874. W. E. Caton, territorial superintendent in 1877-1878, called a 
territorial institute for teachers in Yankton which was attended by many 
teachers from the counties in southeastern Dakota. The writer remembers the 
enthusiasm aroused by General W. H. H. Beadle during this institute.

                              Chapter V
                   RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY AND CHURCH GROWTH

	Most early settlers in Dakota were from the more thickly populated 
sections in the east where churches were common, but in their new location the 
nearest church was many miles distant. The native Indians had not built 
churches. They were religious, and believed in an overruling power, the Great 
Spirit, and in immortality. Their heaven was the happy hunting grounds where 
green prairies and cool woodlands ever invited them. Silver streams flowed 
through verdant meadows and furnished plenty of fish and mollusks for food 
while the woods sheltered deer, wild turkeys and fox squirrels, and the 
meadows swarmed with bison. But Indian theology and religious observances did 
not meet the needs of white folks. The pioneers met this deficiency in 
characteristic manner. Some forgot their religion; most kept their Christian 
spirit warm and active by individual, family and neighborhood devotions.

	The earliest recorded religious exercise in Dakota by a white man was a 
prayer offered by a young man, Jedediah Smith, on the blood-stained deck of a 
river steamboat neat the mouth of Grand River, June 2, 1823. (30)

	The first sermon preached in the territory was by Rev. Stephen R. Riggs 
(Alexander Higgins led the singing) in 1840 at Fort Pierre. (31)

	The Methodist Church was a pioneer in systematic church organization in 
Union County and in Dakota Territory. At the earnest request of the Rev. 
George C. Clifford, presiding elder of the Sioux City district of the Upper 
Iowa Conference of the Methodist Church, Dakota Territory was organized as a 
mission, August 29, 1860, and Stephen W. Ingham was appointed to care for that 
vast circuit. During his two years' ministry in this field he held services at 
Elk Point, Vermillion, Yankton, Bon Homme, Fort Randall, Sioux Falls and 
Richland. He organized two Methodist congregations, one at Vermillion, and the 
other at Richland. (32) The charter members of the Richland congregation were 
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Watson, Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Bell, S. M. and Lucy Crooks, Mr. 
and Mrs. Henry Lowe, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Fate and their children, Sarah, Wm. 
H. H. and James Fate, and Mrs. A. R. Phillips. (33) The Methodist Conference 
sent a young preacher, Jason L. Payne, to take charge of the Richland 
congregation in the fall of 1862. The Rev. Payne and his wife made their home in 
one of the houses within the stockade which had been built at the time of the 
Indian threat earlier in that year. This stockade, with its enclosed parsonage, 
stood about two hundred yards east of Brule Creek and about three hundred yards 
north of the A. R. Stoddard home. (34)  By Christmas 1862, the membership of 
this Methodist church had increased to twenty-five and included two local 
preachers, Martin D. Metcalf and Keeler Curtis. The Rev. Daniel Lamont 
followed Ingham as superintendent of Dakota Mission. He granted W. H. H. Fate 
an exhorter's license which authorized him to speak in Methodist pulpits. (35)  
Morally, spiritually and intellectually Mr. Fate was a gentleman of the 
highest type. Mr. Fate, with others of the Richland group, had enlisted in the 
Federal army and was out west fighting the Indians till 1865.

	Drouth, prairie fires, Indian alarms and disastrous grasshopper raids had 
discouraged and driven out some of the men and women who had been active in 
church life. But the Richland congregation was never entirely broken up. At 
times it was necessary to join the Richland congregation with the Methodists 
of Akron, at other times with those in Elk Point or Vermilion. At this 
writing, 1937, Richland, Elk Point and Burbank are united in one circuit.

	Socially there was quite a contrast between the early settlers of Elk 
Point and Brule. The first log cabin built in Elk Point was used as a saloon, 
though a small line of groceries was handled also. Trappers, fur traders, 
migratory Indians, gold seekers on their way to the Montana mines, and the 
wild riff-raff usually found in western villages located on transportation 
lines constituted a large portion of the Elk Point population. Very few from 
such groups were found in church congregations. A few pious people who had not 
left their religious aspirations back in Michigan, Illinois, or Iowa tried to 
maintain Sunday Schools and hold church services. But, for years, regular 
pastors could not be supported. When a transient or lay preacher could be 
secured, the few who cared to do so gathered in some residence, the Hotchkiss 
sawmill, the old log school house, the Stringer dance hall, or later, the 
court house, for brief services. When the advertised transient minister failed 
to arrive, when babies were to be baptized, couples were to be married, or the 
dead to be buried, E. C. Collins, a farmer living two miles northwest of Elk 
Point, generally was called upon to officiate. Of this farmer, G. T. Notson, 
superintendent of the Methodist Hospital, Sioux City, Iowa, had this to say:

	In connection with the organization of the work at Elk Point it is proper 
	to state that the first services in that place were conducted by E. C. 
	Collins, a consecrated local preacher, residing in a settlement known as 
	New Michigan. Mr. Collins was a young man possessing a rare order of 
	ability, and notwithstanding his death in 1870, made an impression for 
	good upon that sections which remains to the present day. (36)

	During the years previous to 1870, Methodist work in Elk Point was not 
regularly carried on. Imperfect church records reveal the following names of 
men who held services there: Alvin Gore, C. W. Betchelder, Wm. M. Kane, T. M. 
Stewart, J. T. Walters and John Plemmer.

	All authorities agree that the first Methodist church in Dakota Territory 
was built in Elk Point. The following quotation from a letter written by the 
pastor who was in charge of Methodist work at Elk Point when that first church 
was built is interesting.

	When I was appointed pastor of Elk Point circuit, August 1869, there was 
	not a single Methodist church building in all the Territory of Dakota. 
	Early in the spring of 1870, the Lord put it into my heart to build a 
	Methodist church in Elk Point . . . It was a beautiful little church. I 
	painted and varnished the seats myself just a few days before Dedication 
	Day in July. Rev. Bennett Mitchell of Sioux City preached the dedicatory 
	sermon and raised the deficit balance, $300.

	We were all happy till the benediction had been pronounced and the people 
	tried to leave their seats. The heat of the July day plus the warmth of 
	human bodies had softened the not too dry paint and the people were stuck 
	to their seats. But with care all were extricated without damage and we 
	were all happy again. (37)

	From 1872 till 1879 Methodism made but little progress in Dakota. But 
with the good crops and better times following 1880 there was a steady growth, 
and today, 1937, South Dakota Methodism embraces four large districts and 
numbers 28,000 members.

	No regular services were held by the Congregationalists in Dakota 
Territory til 1870 when the Rev. Stewart Sheldon, a brother-in-law of Joseph 
War, located a claim near Yankton. Sheldon, a missionary, worked his claim 
during the week and came to Elk Point on Sundays to preach in Cooley's hall in 
the morning, then drove to Vermillion to preach in the evening. (38)  Later, Mr. 
Sheldon was made superintendent of Congregational churches for the entire 
territory. On January 17, 1872, Congregational services were held in the 
Methodist church, conducted by Pastor Bridgeman who had the Elk Point-Richland 
circuit.

	For a time in early 1874 services were held in the courthouse and later 
that year the Episcopalian church was leased for two years. Pastors Oakey and 
L. F. Sabin served the church from 1875 to 1891. The beautiful and commodious 
church which Elk Point Congregationalists now occupy was built in 1889 and 
their parsonage in 1891. (39)

	During the summer of 1860 Joseph Talbot, missionary bishop of the 
northwest, and the Rev. Melancthon Hoyt, first pastor of Sioux City parish, 
held services among the Sioux Indians along the Missouri River from Sioux City 
to Fort Randall. In 1862 Hoyt moved to Yankton and became the first resident 
Episcopal missionary in Dakota. He established missions at Yankton, Elk Point 
and Vermillion, and in 1867 built churches in Elk Point and Vermillion. This 
Elk Point church was destroyed by a tornado in 1883, but its place was taken 
by a beautiful church erected in the southern part of the town. A few years 
later it was sold to the Lutheran congregation as their place of worship. 
Father Himes, Episcopal vicar during the 1880's, was loved and highly esteemed 
by all who knew him.

	The first resident Catholic priest in Dakota was Father Pierre Boucher, 
who organized the work in the Jefferson parish in 1869. The first church 
building was thirty by sixty feet in dimension and served the St. Peter's 
congregation in Jefferson till 1891 when a more pretentious structure was 
erected at a cost of $17,800. An excellent parochial school has been supported 
through the years.

	In 1874 St. Joseph's Catholic church was built on section four, Prairie 
Township, second in time only to the Jefferson church. When Beresford was 
established in 1882, St. Joseph's parish under the leadership of Father M. 
Wagner built a new and larger church. In 1879 Father O'Hearn was instrumental 
in organizing St. Mary's church, commonly known as Garryowen. The congregation 
that had previously worshiped in Fairview, Clay County, sold their church 
building and joined the Garryowen Catholics in erecting a large comfortable 
building. (39)

	In 1880, Daniel Regan led the Elk Point Catholics in erecting their first 
church which served till 1918 when a fine large brick house of worship was 
required to accommodate the growing congregation. The five Union County 
churches at Jefferson, Beresford, Garryowen, Emmet and Elk Point include some 
500 families and make Union one of the banner Catholic counties of South 
Dakota.

	The Baptists played an important part in the early history of Dakota 
Territory. The Rev. Albert Gore settled in Brule community in 1862 and took an 
active part in union religious activities. The Rev. L. P. Judson, a Baptist 
missionary, preached in Elk Point, Vermillion, Yankton and Bon Homme in the 
spring of 1864 and organized the first Baptist church in Dakota at Yankton in 
the beginning of the next year.

	The several Baptist families in Union County usually worshiped with the 
Methodists till 1869, when a strong Swedish Baptist congregation was organized 
by Rev. F. A. Ring at Big Springs. On March 11, 1871, eleven Baptists in Elk 
Point organized a class and held services regularly. Under the Leadership of 
the Rev. George Freeman, a man of unusual abilities, they built a $1200 
structure which was replaced by a more pretentious edifice some years later. 
The charter membership of this church contains the names of John R. Wood and 
wife and daughter, Mary; Joseph, Phoebe and Jennie Collins; Warren Fisk and 
wife, Henry and Minnie Muhs; James Smith and wife. (40)

	During the fall of 1861 the Rev. Abraham Jacobson of Decorah, Iowa, 
visited Union and Yankton Counties. He baptized a few people and held 
confirmation services at the home of Peter Nelson whose home was between 
Vermillion and Brule Creek. Three years later, in October 1864, the Rev. J. 
Krohn was sent from Chicago by the general council to organize a Norwegian 
Evangelical Lutheran church in Dakota Territory. This organization he 
perfected at the home of a Mr. Ulan in Union County and it had jurisdiction 
over the territory from Brule Creek to the James River. For two or three years 
Mr. Krohn and O. Naes worked as home missionaries baptizing, preaching in the 
homes, burying the dead and directing as best they could the religious life of 
their people.

	The first Lutheran church in Dakota was built in Clay County in 1864 and 
the organization has been strong and continuous till this day, 1937, under the 
name Bergen Norwegian Lutheran Church. A few weeks after the construction of 
the Bergen church, the Norwegian Lutherans of the Brule neighborhood built St. 
Paul church three miles west of Richland. The Rev. John J. Naesse was the 
first pastor; the first trustees were Johan Heaven, Gunder Moen, Thomas Eidem 
Ole Hofstad, John Clementson and Erick Hofstad. (41)

	The increasing membership of this parish has outgrown its church building 
three times and three new structures were erected. Today, 1937, St. Paul is a 
beautiful church with a large pipe organ and is modern in every way.

	John Selbert, one of Union County's leading pioneers, took the lead in 
organizing the first Swedish Lutheran church group which held its first 
meetings in his home in 1869. The formal organization was completed January 
1874, and the church building was erected in 1877. An increased membership 
required a larger building in 1898; this church was destroyed by a tornado. 
The congregation again rebuilt and now have a large and comfortable house of 
worship.

	Ahlsborg Lutheran church was organized in the John Albin home, January 
1870, and their church building was erected in 1874. (42)

	The federal census for 1870 lists fourteen church buildings in Dakota 
Territory, five of which were located in Union County; namely, two Lutheran, 
two Methodist and one Catholic. (43)

	During the period covered by this thesis the Lutherans and Catholic 
churches have led the other churches in membership. This is party explained by 
the large number of Scandinavian, French and Irish pioneers who made homes in 
Union County.

                                    Chapter VI
                                ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

	One who is trying to get a mental picture of the financial condition of 
Union County folks during the period from 1859 to 1880 must give thought to 
the grasshopper ravages, floods and drouths, prairie fires, crops and prices, 
transportation, communication and local industries. Then, too, the commercial 
undertakings and the men who managed them must be considered and professional 
and political leaders should have a place.

	For more than 3500 years history tells of the ravages of the locusts or 
grasshoppers. The ancient believed that these plagues were sent as a 
punishment for their sins. (44)

	There are many kinds of grasshoppers, but Missouri Valley farmers include 
them under two names, raiders and natives. Raiders, sometimes called Rocky 
Mountain Locusts, are more destructive than the natives. Natives seldom do 
great damage though they are much larger than the raiders. Adult raiders are 
about one and one-quarter inches in length and are dark brown in color. Their 
favorite nesting places are in the hardest soil along fence rows, in unbroken 
meadows, and best of all in the solid ground of roads. The female bores a 
miniature well one and a half inches deep and one-fourth of an inch in 
diameter, in which she deposits from thirty to one hundred eggs and surrounds 
them with a glutinous substance which protects them from moisture. In the 
spring the eggs hatch and the young feed on tender plants for seven or eight 
weeks to attain full growth. During this period they molt four or five times, 
leaving skins that are often mistaken for dead grasshoppers. If there is 
considerable rain during April, May or June, many of the young are destroyed. 
When fully grown and a favoring wind springs up they may all emigrate in a few 
hours.

	The pioneers were not troubled by grasshoppers during the first five 
summers, 1859-1863. But 1864 was a disastrous year for Dakota farmers. A 
severe drouth and a horde of raider grasshoppers destroyed all that the farms 
had produced. The writer's parents drove into Iowa that fall where they 
worked, and in lieu of cash wages received grain and vegetables to provide 
food and seed for another year. Many other farmers did the same and some 
despondent ones did not return. The writer's father left his cattle and other 
stock to forage as best they could in lake beds and along the streams. In late 
fall they were rounded up in fine condition. By cutting grass and weeds in dry 
lake beds and sloughs enough roughage was secured to carry the stock through 
the winter.

	The grasshoppers that had come in late July of 1864 and destroyed the 
entire crop laid millions of eggs which hatched the following spring; but 
copious rains in May and June destroyed most of them and a rich yield of wild 
vegetation fed the remainder till they grew wings and flew away. Small grain 
yielded well, some fields of wheat produced thirty bushels per acre, and 
brought a good price. Spring planting of corn had been light because the 
farmers had feared the hatching grasshoppers; but when they departed in June, 
flint corn, commonly called squaw corn, was planted which produced 
considerable stock feed and corn meal for johnnycake. (45)

	Forgotten now were the drouth and grasshoppers of the previous season. 
Plenty of potatoes and wheat for human food and sufficient corn and hay for 
the stock gave the pioneers a feeling of economic security.

	The grasshopper problem is not an easy one to explain or to solve. One 
farm may suffer a total loss while the neighboring farm may not be serious 
damaged. Various factors enter into the question. Usually, however, raiders 
play no favorites; they cover a wide territory and do a clean job of 
destruction. But even this hungry horde, if the wind shifts to their 
inclination, will sometimes take to the air leaving a share of the crop for 
the farmers. The pioneers had no defense against the winged raiders, but they 
did wage war against the little hoppers as they hatched out in the spring. By 
plowing up the egg beds in the fall, many eggs were destroyed but this was not 
an easy task. If straw was available it would be scattered along the field 
where the hoppers were hatching. The little pests would take shelter from the 
cold of the frosty spring night in the straw which was then burned. Long 
shallow pans, called hopper-dozers, containing water with a film of oil, were 
drawn over the small grain fields and tons of little grasshoppers were thus 
caught and destroyed. Some farmers dug ditches a foot deep between the 
hatching ground and their grain fields into which the little ones fell and 
could not jump out. But, if the spring was dry and warm, these methods of 
destruction availed but little. If the spring was cool and wet, many eggs 
never hatched and the little hoppers that managed to see the light were 
destroyed by rains. Moreover, wet springs produced much wild vegetation as 
well as cultivated crops, and growing hoppers prefer some kinds of weeds to 
cultivated crops.

	1866 was a good year for Union County farmers though some corn was caught 
by a swarm of late arrivals. For five years there were no more raids. (46) But 
in 1873 armies of raiders dropped down and cut the wheat stalks just below the 
head. The ground in the grain fields was covered with heads of wheat, oats or 
barley which could not be recovered. They made a clean sweep of corn and 
gardens and laid their eggs in great numbers. The little ones did but little 
damage the following spring but returned in August to destroy half the small 
grain and all the corn and late gardens. They departed without laying eggs and 
the farmers looked forward to 1875 hopefully. From March through July the 
fields gave every promise, but one afternoon just as the harvesters were 
beginning to cut the big fields of ripening grain a cloud of grasshoppers from 
the northwest settled down about four o'clock on the afternoon of August 6. 
Every reaper was kept going till masses of crushed hoppers on the rollers 
stopped the canvases. Then the canvases were unbuckled, the rollers scraped 
clean and another round attempted. Five hours after the posts had settled upon 
the fields the heads of grains were lying upon the ground. In the corn fields 
they first consumed the leaves, then the silks, the ears, the tassels and 
finally the very stalks were chewed upon till only a short stub was left where 
before had been an eight-foot stalk giving promise of two ears of yellow corn. 
Gardens were a complete loss; the onion beds took on the appearance of land 
after a storm of two-inch hail stones. Millions of eggs were laid but the 
weather during the spring of 1876 was not favorable and therefore but little 
damage was done by the few grasshoppers that hatched. But in August another 
raid cut the small grain to half a crop and did damage to corn and gardens. 
These raiders took flight without laying eggs and the Union County farmer was 
free from grasshopper raids for more than fifty years.

	Grasshopper raids of the sixties came during the war times when labor was 
in demand, wages good and money plentiful. But Union County farmers had to 
meet a different set of conditions during the raids of the seventies. In 1873 
the American people experienced one of their most severe financial crises and 
the depression lasted for several years. There was small demand for labor; 
wages were very low; money was scarce. The Civil War had brought to the 
country a fluctuating currency which is always favorable to financiers and 
keener minded men but detrimental to the common people. Then, too, the amount 
of money in circulation was decreased between 1865 and 1879 which brought 
great hardship to the debtor class; and the new west has always been debtor to 
the more mature east. Per capita circulation in 1865 was $29.60 but by 1879 it 
was only $16.25. This caused falling prices for farm products. Interest rates 
were high in Dakota. Twelve was the minimum and the maximum often reached 
twenty, and even high rates of interest were not unknown. All this means that 
the seventies were good times for the creditor class who held bonds, notes and 
mortgages but extremely hard times for the debtors, especially those engaged 
in producing agricultural products. Cases of extreme want were common and 
relief committees were organized in several Dakota counties in 1874 and 1875 
to solicit aid. The Rev. George Freeman represented Union County in this work. 
The War Department sent 67,325 pounds of flour and 38,662 pounds of bacon to 
needy families in Minnesota and Dakota. Other food, considerable clothing and 
some money was contributed by eastern people to aid the two hundred twenty-six 
Union County families listed as destitute. To help such farmers the government 
extended for two years the time in which to pay the $200 due on each pre-
emption. (47)

	In spite of grasshoppers, a high priced dollar and other obstacles, the 
farmers who were thrifty, industrious and sober; who kept stock; milked cows; 
raised calves and did not run into debt for machinery came through the trying 
seventies with bank accounts to their credit. The writer believes that no 
country is superior to Union County for the farmer who wisely diversifies by 
raising cattle, horses, sheep and hogs in connection with grain farming.

	There are a few small streams in Union County and these in case of a 
cloudburst may cause some damage to fields and in loss of hogs, cattle or 
poultry. The most serious floods, however, have come from the overflow of the 
Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers. The spring breakup of the ice in these rivers 
may come at the same time, in which case the danger is greater than when the 
breaks come at different times. The Missouri presents two annual threats, one 
in February or March and the other in June or early July. The "June Rise" 
comes gradually and people can usually know beforehand as to the probable 
extent and, through preparations, may ensure themselves against loss of 
property or danger to life. But the spring breakup is quite another problem. 
If the winter has been cold, the ice in the river is thick; old settlers watch 
the conditions with anxiety. A low state of water in the river adds to the 
worry, for the exposed sandbars may cause ice to pile up in great gorges. 
Today numerous weather stations and greatly improved communication facilities 
permit people living in the danger zones to know what to expect and to prepare 
to meet real danger. However, in the 60's, 70's and 80's, danger to property 
and even threat against human life often came without warning.

	Space here will be given to a description of but two or the many floods 
occurring between 1860 and 1881. The winter of 1865-6 was long and cold; much 
snow had fallen in the mountains. Warm weather came early in Montana, sending 
the flood down the Missouri while the ice still held strong in Dakota. A gorge 
near the mouth of the James River forced the water out over the bottoms from 
Gayville to the Big Sioux. The writer's father, with other bottomland farmers, 
drove his cattle and horses to the Richland highlands. Wives and children had 
driven loaded wagons to safety with relatives and friends on the Brule. 
Although but a lad of seven, the writer remembers the raft which the farmers 
constructed and managed with poles, paddles and sail. On this they made 
voyages to their homes to feed the hogs and chickens that had been left on top 
of sheds and straw stacks. Frequently the families would gather where the 
water and highlands met to watch for the returning mariners. If the wind came 
briskly from the south, the bulging sail and resting farmers made all glad. 
But when the wind was contrary and the sailors were weary with poling and 
paddling their heavy craft, the rejoicing was less boisterous. When finally it 
was possible for the farmers to return to their homes, heavy layers of silt 
were found on the floors, loose boards, posts, and in some instances, small 
building had been carried away by the flood. However, some good resulted for 
the soil was thoroughly saturated with moisture and that gave promise of a 
bountiful harvest. This flood as well as others have demonstrated that the 
Missouri valley lands are much higher near the river than farther back and 
near the bluff. During the floor of 1866 the water ran a swift current from 
four to eight feet deep near the bluff but shallowed to two or three feet 
nearer the river.

	The flood of 1881 was different from other spring floods in that it 
brought disaster and loss to many and blessing to none. On October 15, 1880, a 
severe storm came down upon Dakota. Farm barns and sheds were not prepared for 
winter and stock suffered as a result. Eight fine steers perished as George 
Ford's herd of cattle was driven from his unprotected yards to shelter in the 
timber only a mile away. Winter weather was continuous till the following 
April. Ice froze on lakes and rivers to three or four feet in depth. As 
frequently happens the snow and ice of the upper reacher of the Missouri 
melted while it was still cold in South Dakota. Therefore the flood waters 
piled the ice in great gorges, blocking the river bed and forcing the water 
out over the valley lands from Yankton to the Big Sioux. Steamboats wintering 
at the Yankton docks were crushed like eggshells; one large one was carried 
far inland over the railroad to be left high and dry when the water receded.

	Clay County, with Vermillion its county seat, suffered the heaviest 
losses. At Vermillion a great gorge blocked the entire valley from bluff to 
bluff and flooded the Meckling bottom to six, and, and in the lowlands, to ten 
feet in depth. Only one person was drowned in Union County, but great numbers 
of cattle and other livestock were lost. The writer saw carcasses of three 
hundred cattle decaying in the C. N. Taylor stockyards at Meckling where they 
were drowned. At Vermillion one hundred thirty-two buildings were swept down 
the Missouri. (48) Union County had less property loss than Clay or Yankton 
Counties. But the entire Missouri valley through the county was submerged 
except small tracts at Burbank and just east of Elk Point. Long stretches of 
ties with rails attached were swept from the road bed of the Milwaukee 
Railroad into the current of the Big Sioux; most telegraph poles were cut down 
by the grinding ice. All lowlands remained bogs and swamps during the ensuing 
summer. Green slime, decaying fish and vegetable matter caused much sickness. 
Fortunately upland farmers raised good crops in 1881 which gave work and 
support to their valley neighbors. This flood gave rise to much road building 
in the Missouri valley. Washed out roads were repaired and many new grades 
were erected.

	Dread of grasshoppers and floods occupied the minds of the pioneers and 
to these was sometimes added the fear of prairie fires which, driven by high 
winds, would leave the land bare excepting here and there a home or haystack 
which had been exceptionally well protected by firebreaks. Every spring many 
fires were set to burn weeds in stubble fields, and old grass on meadows, to 
make ready for the new crop of hay. Farmers were careful and kept their fires 
under control in most cases. However, there were times when the wind would 
shift suddenly and, rising to a gale, would whip the flames into a raging 
inferno. Every efficient farmer in early fall plowed a double line of furrows 
about his farmstead, grain and haystacks and burned the grass or stubble 
between the lines of furrows which were several rods apart. Nevertheless, in a 
forty or fifty mile wind, flames would leap far into the air and carry bits of 
blazing grass across even a wide firebreak. In the 1860's and early 1870's the 
writer took part with many men, women and other children fighting the fire 
demon. In one case he was laid up for weeks by severe burns. Usually the worst 
fires came from the northwest. One of the largest and most destructive, 
however, started in the southern part of Union County late in March 1879. It 
swept up the Sioux valley, burning much grain and not a few houses and barns. 
Towns narrowly escaped and many cattle and horses perished. The flames leaped 
the Sioux River and burned over large sections of Iowa. For a week the battle 
went on with hundreds fighting to control the monster. In places the burned 
area was but two or three miles wide, but at other points the flames reached 
west into the hills twenty miles from the river. For a hundred miles north the 
flames did great damage and cost the people more in life and property than any 
former fire or flood. (49)

	Weather is a major factor in the production of crops. Everything 
considered, there are few places on the earth's surface where the farmer can 
prosper with as little effort as in the southeastern part of South Dakota. 
Among the southeastern counties, Union is one of the very best. The soil is 
fertile and that is especially true of the many acres of valley lands of which 
Union has more than other counties. Swamps and sandy tracts are almost 
unknown; ninety-nine per cent of the surface can be plowed for crops.
The rainfall might be considered light, but most of the twenty-six inches 
of moisture come during the growing season and failure of crops caused by 
drouth is uncommon.

	The pioneers who came in 1859 and during the sixties were at a great 
disadvantage. The newly turned sod did not absorb the moisture nor hold it as 
did the mature fields of the old home state--Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, or 
Iowa. Many of the grains and vegetables which they had previous raised were 
not adapted to this new country. This was especially true of fruits. For 
several years settlers though the growing season too short for successful corn 
raising. "Wheat, wheat and more wheat" was the way that men talked and 
practiced till diminishing yields gave warning that crop rotation was 
necessary. Usually it is the keenest members of the family that go pioneering 
and these wide awake folks experimented and read, and out of their common 
experiences developed agricultural methods adapted to the new environment. The 
north limit of the corn belt crept slowly from Nebraska through Union, Lincoln 
and by the nineties reached Minnehaha County. Thousands of apple trees of the 
Pippin, Baldwin and Rhode Island Greening varieties were planted, but they 
never produced fruit. Nevertheless, it was discovered, eventually, that the 
Duchess, Whitney and Northwestern Greening were adapted to the climate of 
southeastern South Dakota and would produce fruit abundantly. Immigrants from 
New England, New York and Michigan set out many sugar maple saplings but not 
one pail of sap did they ever gather to boil into delightful maple syrup. Most 
families soon discovered that sorghum produced from the sweet sap of the amber 
cane made a fair substitute. Oats, that fitted perfectly into Iowa's crop 
rotation, were found less satisfactory than barley. Winter wheat and rye, fall 
sowed in corn fields, was a late development that proved very satisfactory.

	Previous to 1872 grain as a cash crop was not profitable on account of 
the long haul to market. Raising of stock was a major industry, for horses and 
cattle could be sent to the markets at Sioux City or LeMars on their own power 
and thus produce a good profit.

	Beginning with 1865 the county enjoyed eight years of good crops and 
resulting prosperity. Immigrants were numerous and the cultivated areas 
increased rapidly. The disastrous economic conditions by which Dakotans and 
their neighbors in Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota found themselves encumbered 
during the years 1873-1879 cannot be laid to weather. Grasshoppers, the 
financial crash of 1873 and the depression incident thereto caused great 
suffering and many Dakotans gave up the battle and returned east. But those 
who weathered the storm were richly rewarded during the subsequent years.
Previous to 1859 white settlers were not permitted to live in what is now 
Union County, South Dakota. The Indians, squaw men and half-breeds living near 
the mouth of the Sioux River had little need for mail service. Sioux City 
became a post town in 1855 and the few Frenchmen who were living in Sioux 
Point could send letters to, and receive letters from, their French relatives 
in Canada through the Sioux City post office. Fort Randall was established on 
the west side of the Missouri River in 1856 in what is now Gregory County and 
thereafter regular mail service was maintained between Sioux City and the 
fort.

	At first one mail a week was carried by steamboat, on horseback or on 
foot. Soon military activities in connection with the forts up the river cause 
an increase in the volume of mail and Fort Randall became the distributing 
center for the forts and Indian agencies farther up the Missouri. Beginning in 
July 1859, there was considerable travel between Elk Point, Vermillion and 
Yankton. Roads between these point were good during dry weather but became 
almost impassable during a rainy period. The trip from Sioux City to Yankton 
could be made with team in a day if the roads were dry but might take a week 
if the mud was deep. One of the first mail carriers was A. C. Van Meter, a 
squaw man, who made his home at Vermillion and carried the mail between Fort 
Randall and Sioux City. (50) The first mail contract was granted to Charles 
Marsh and James Rustin in July 1860, and provided that mail should be carried 
once a week between Sioux City and Fort Randall. Marsh and Rustin's equipment 
included an eight-passenger stage coach drawn by a four-mule team. (51) In 1861 
the service was increased to two mails a week with post offices at Willow 
Creek, Elk Point, Vermillion, James River, Yankton, Bon Homme, Yankton Indian 
Agency and Fort Randall. The mail time-table provided that the mail should 
leave Sioux City on Mondays and Wednesdays at seven o'clock in the morning and 
arrive at Fort Randall Thursdays and Saturdays at one o'clock in the 
afternoon. (52)

	Telegraphic communication was established up the Missouri valley to 
Yankton during the summer of 1870.

	From 1862 till 1867, the Sioux River was crossed by a ferry operated by 
Paul Paquette, a French squaw man. This ferry was located about five miles 
west of Sioux City where the paved road now crosses that river. Congress had 
appropriated $25,000 in 1865 to improve the road from Sioux City to Yankton 
and to build bridges across the Sioux, Vermillion and James Rivers. G. C. 
Moody had received the contract to do this work and began to build the Sioux 
bridge in June 1865, but retired from the undertaking and an experienced 
engineer, A. B. Miller, was engaged to complete the work. He finished the 
Sioux bridge July 17, 1867. The other two bridges were finished a little 
later. (53)

	As early as 1862 Yankton businessmen and politicians were planning to 
secure a railroad to connect with the railroads that were slowing building 
westward through Iowa. The federal government had made large grants of land 
and loans of money to transcontinental railroads and it was hoped that such 
grants would be made to aid railroad extensions in Dakota Territory. However, 
no such grants were secured. Nevertheless, various plans were suggested and 
more than one corporation was organized to promote a western extension to 
Yankton. By 1868 the hope for federal aid was abandoned. Sioux City had a 
railroad line connecting with the east by means of the Sioux City and Pacific 
which connected with the Chicago and Northwestern at Missouri Valley. 
Therefore, it seemed that the best prospect that Union, Clay and Yankton 
Counties had was a line from Sioux City to Yankton. With this in mind citizens 
of Sioux City and Dakota Territory organized the Dakota and Northwestern 
railroad company which was chartered by the Dakota legislature in January 
1867. But nothing was done, so the Missouri Valley company acquired the Dakota 
and Northwestern franchise on condition that a survey would be made and at 
least one mile of grade be built by September 1870, and the whole road be 
completed from Sioux City to Yankton by September 1871. The company made the 
survey and completed the one mile of grade at Elk Point. This was the first 
mile of railroad grade built in Dakota. Capital could not be acquired to go 
forward with the work and Yankton businessmen decided that something 
constructive must be done. By questionable methods they secured a special 
session of the territorial legislature which passed a law permitting counties 
to vote bonds to aid railroad building. Under leadership of Yankton men the 
Dakota Southern railroad company was organized. Elk Point and Vermillion were 
ignored in the directorate for the reason that Yankton still hoped to have the 
road built from LeMars, Iowa, to Yankton. Yankton County voted $200,000 to aid 
the Dakota Southern and when the line was definitely planned to connect Sioux 
City and Yankton, Elk Point Township voted $15,000, and the village of Elk 
Point voted $5,000. Union County was not asked to vote a bonus and Clay County 
voted down such a plan by a large majority. But Vermillion business interests 
did secure the right of way through the county, raised $4,000 to build a depot 
and in addition donated one hundred fifty town lots to the railroad company. 
Construction of the Dakota Southern began in June 1872, at the Sioux River. 
The work train that laid the ties and rails passed through Elk Point in 
October of the same year. (54)

	Large industries have never been up in Union County. But at an early date 
mills for sawing lumber and cutting shingles were located in the timber along 
the Missouri River and two or more by the Sioux. Preston Hotchkiss and his 
partner, Whitcomb, built the first sawmill in a cottonwood grove about one 
mile west of Elk Point in 1862. At that time there was much timber along the 
Missouri; the belt averaged two miles in width. (55) There were oak, ash, elm 
and hackberry trees large enough to be sawed into lumber for sills, casing and 
plates used in home, and for singletrees, doubletrees and ax handles in which 
great strength and a smooth surface are desirable. But most of the lumber was 
made from second-growth cottonwood trees. Scattered through the forest were a 
few giant first-growth cottonwoods some of which were five or six feet in 
diameter and more than a hundred feet in height. The pioneer believed that 
these giants had escaped a great fire or other disaster which had destroyed 
most of the trees centuries earlier. These great trees were too large to be 
used in the primitive sawmills or even to be made into wood for the stoves or 
into blocks for cutting into shingles. Some of them were cut down to make room 
for younger and more useful trees, others were blown down by strong winds; in 
either case their great trunks were left to rot and produce fertilizer for the 
oncoming forest.

	Soon after the New Michigan settlement was begun in 1864, S. B. Stough 
built a mill near the Missouri opposite Ponca and supplied lumber and shingles 
for a wide territory on the Dakota and the Nebraska sides of the river. 
Between 1866 and 1870 several sawmills were set up along the Missouri. Hiram 
Stratton owned a sawmill on the Sioux River a few miles above Richland which 
his brother Johnnie Stratton ran for him. Joel Webber had a sawmill near the 
present site of Riversioux Park. South of Jefferson C. W. Patten made lumber 
for the Sioux City and local trade. "Uncle Jimmie" Curtis and the Kents 
planned a mill to be powered by steam that would produce lumber, flour and 
feed, and sorghum. This was located on the southwest quarter of section 31, 
township 92, range 50. Here a store was conducted and here they expected a 
town to grow up. They named the place Liberty (it was often called Green 
Point) but their ambitious hopes were blighted. However, they did produce 
lumber for the neighboring farmers and molasses for such as brought their cane 
to their mill.

	Flour mills were more costly than sawmills, hence fewer in number. The 
writer remembers but four gristmills that were built within the period covered 
by this thesis. Hotchkiss and Dexter put a dam in the Sioux southeast of Elk 
Point and built a good sized mill in 1867. Two sets of stone burrs were driven 
by the head of water furnished by the dam. The writer has pleasant memories of 
camping all night at the mill and fishing below the dam for pike, pickerel and 
sucker while Mr. Crill, the miller, turned the load of wheat into flour, 
shorts and grain. He took every seventh bushel of wheat that was brought as 
his toll, or pay, for grinding the remaining six-sevenths of the load. The 
railroad reached Elk Point in 1872 and the following year J. W. Hoffman, a 
local capitalist and banker, built a large three-run flour mill in Elk Point 
which, with improved machinery, produced four and feed in large quantity and 
excellent quality for years. Nine miles north of Portlandville (now Akron, 
Iowa) the Sioux cuts against the bluff on the Dakota side and here Hiram 
Stratton had a sawmill run by power furnished by a dam in the river. When the 
saw timber was exhausted, Mr. Otis bought the dam site and built a small grist 
mill which he ran for some years with moderate profit. The ownership change 
from Stratton to Otis was made about 1874.

	The Hotchkiss-Dexter mill was bought by Sargent and Crill in 1870 and 
continued to serve the public till 1887. (56) In 1876 Sargent sold his half 
interest in this mill to Crill for $5,000. Crill moved to Richland in 1878 to 
manage the new four mill which he and he son-in-law, J. D. Wood, erected and 
opened for business in 1876. But Crill retained a half interest in the Big 
Sioux mill for some years longer. (57)

	The Richland mill was much superior to those built earlier. Stone burrs 
were supplanted by steel rolls which produced a better grade of flour. For 
years this mill enjoyed a liberal patronage but gradually the larger mills, 
located in the great commercial centers, where transportation facilities were 
better, encroached upon the smaller mills' trade territory and Union County 
mills became unprofitable. Both owners and customers of these small mills was 
their doors close with regret.

                                  Chapter VII
                            OUTSTANDING PERSONALITIES

	Hundreds of personalities stand out in the mind of the writer as worth of 
a place in even a brief history of Union County. In chapter six the history of 
the milling industries of Union County was treated at some length. Hotchkiss, 
Crill, Hoffman, Sheafe Jr., and others who were interested in these industries 
were outstanding personalities.

	One name stands out as worthy of more than mere mention in early Elk Point 
business enterprise. Charles W. Beggs established a general mercantile 
business in 1868. He was a man of unexcelled energy, probity and executive 
ability. Promoters of any plan that seemed to be in the interest of Elk Point, 
Union County or Dakota Territory always found a sympathetic ally in Mr. Beggs. 
Into his employ he drew several young men of unusual worth. One of these A. O. 
Ringsrud, as a lad of sixteen, began working for Beggs in 1870. Later Ringsrud 
bought the Beggs business and built it into one of the big institutions of the 
state. Ringsrud was elected secretary of state for South Dakota, serving from 
1889 to 1893. He was nominated for governor in 1896 but was defeated by the 
Populists. Two other of the "Beggs boys," Olaf Johnson and John F. Reid, 
developed superior business ability and political acumen. As business partners 
of Ringsrud they were potent factors in the upbuilding of the Ringsrud 
Mercantile Company. Union County voters chose them to fill major county 
offices.

	Among others engaged in commercial pursuits during the 1860's and early 
1870's were the following: C. M. and E. S. Northup, Charles and George Freeman 
who bought out the Cooley store, H. H. Blair and J. S. Talcott, early 
druggists, and James M. Talcott who sold his furniture business to Benjamin 
Briggs and became a leading lumber dealer of southeastern Dakota. James M. 
Talcott was not an office seeker but was always an active leader in Republican 
politics.

	Early settlers will remember with interest the meat dealers, Henry Fleming 
and the Stroble brothers, Abe and Fred. The traveling public was cared for by 
J. H. Shannard who ran the Elk Point Hotel and Jim Ross, landlord at the North 
Star. Joseph Stringer dealt in boots, shoes and harness and rented the upper 
story of his building for church services, dances or other public gatherings. 
J. H. Bryan, the pioneer blacksmith, had his first shop one mile east of Elk 
Point by a lakeside which had been part of the Missouri River bed in 1804. 
Later Bryan served the county faithfully as sheriff and as register of deeds. 
Emory Morris, who for years was the very efficient secretary of the Union 
County Old Settlers' Association, was the motivating spirit in organizing the 
Union County Agricultural Society on February 23, 1870. Later Hans Murphy, the 
agricultural implement dealer, took over the burden of promoting the county 
fair. Both Morris and Murphy were unusually public spirited. Doctors William 
and James Conley cared for the sick for many years while J. A. Wallace, E. W. 
Miller, Alexander Hughes and E. C. Erickson handled most of the legal 
business. Hughes became prominent as a member of the capital commission that 
selected Bismark as the territorial seat of government in 1883 in place of 
Yankton, the original capital. Erickson was one of the ablest and best loved 
men in the Dakotas. He served in the territorial and state legislatures, as 
county superintendent of school for Union County and as a member of the state 
board of regents. His early death in 1909 cut short the hopes of many citizens 
to make him governor or United States senator. Will P. Chamberlain, poet, and 
Louis N. Crill, orator and statesman, should not be omitted, though but 
students in 1881. During the twenty-two years covered by this thesis many men 
were active in developing the resources of Union County. The names of a few, 
in addition to the above, are recalled: S. Crunrine, Runyan Compton, John and 
Samuel Dahl, Doc Dowlin, I. N. Flanagan, Robert Green, George Hoard, Judge 
Jacob Kiplinger, Charles LaBreche, Andrew Martin, Howard Mosier, Clark 
Northup, D. R. Pennell, John W. Reedy, Thomas Ronan, Carver Rosell, Duncan 
Ross, Adam Scott, George and John Sinclair, W. J. Steadman, J. W. Vandeveer, 
William Vinson, N. J. Wallace, Joel Webber, "Uncle Billie" Webster, M. J. 
White, William Winn, E. D. Wood, Joe Yerter.

	The list of names of resourceful, energetic and forward looking men, who 
took an active part on changing the raw prairies of Union County into fruitful 
farms, could be prolonged indefinitely.

                           BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.  Documentary Sources

"Legislative Journals of the House", 1862-1871.
"Legislative Journals of the Council", 1862-1873.
"United States Census" for 1860, 1870 and 1880.

II.  Newspaper Sources

"Dakota Republican" (Vermillion), April 9, 1931.

"The Marion Record" (Marion, Turner County), May 10, 1935.

"Union County Courier" (Elk Point), 1871-1880.

Items from the Yankton "Weekly Dakotian", "Union and Dakotian" and "Sioux City 
Journal" for the 1860's, furnished by Herbert S. Schell of the University 
of South Dakota.

III. Personal Sources--interviews and correspondence

Father Anirault, priest in charge, Jefferson, S. D.

George Hoard, Alcester, S. D.

George Kellogg, Sioux City, Iowa.

Mrs. Ransom Langdon, Elk Point, S. D.

Walter Ross, Akron, Iowa

William Seward, Brule, S. D.

W. H. Stoddard, Hurley, S. D.

Mrs. Alice A. Tollefson, Richland, S. D.

William Wixson, Sioux City, Iowa.

Mrs. Mary Wood Fickey, Elk Point, S. D.


IV. Secondary Sources

"Andreas' Historical Atlas of Dakota", A. T. Andreas Publishing Company, 
Chicago, Ill., 1884.

Armstrong, M. K., "Early Empire Builders of the Great West", Pioneer Press, St. 
Paul, Minnesota, 1901.

Briggs, Harold E., "Early Freight and Stage Lines in Dakota," "North Dakota 
Historical Quarterly", Vol. III, Number 4, pp. 229-261.

_____, "History of Clay County," South Dakota Historical Collections, Vol. 
XIII, pp. 69-157.

_____, "Pioneer River Transportation," North Dakota Historical Quarterly, Vol. 
III, Number 3, pp. 159-181.

_____, "Ranching and Stock-raising in the Territory of Dakota," South Dakota 
Historical Collections, Vol. XIV, pp. 417-466.

Chittenden, H. M., "History of American Fur Trade", 3 Vols., F. P. Harper, New 
York, 1902.

Coues, Elliott, "Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri, the Personal 
Narrative of Charles Larpenteur, 1833-1872", 2 Vols., F. P. Harper, New 
York, 1898.

De Land, Charles, "Biennial Address Before the South Dakota Historical 
Society," January 22, 1913, at Pierre, S. D., South Dakota Historical 
Collections, Vol. VII, pp. 41-87.

Fate, W. H. H., "Historical Glimpse of the Early Settlement of Union County, 
South Dakota", Perkins Bros., Sioux City, Iowa, 1924.

Foster, James S., "Outline of History of the Territory of Dakota and 
Immigrant's Guide to the Free Lands of the Northwest," South Dakota 
Historical Collections, Vol. XIV, pp. 71-178.

Hagerty, F. H., "Territory of Dakota, Historical and Political Abstract", 
Aberdeen News Print, 1889.

Hauge, Lars J., "Did the Norsemen Visit the Dakota Country?" South Dakota 
Historical Collections, Vol. IV, pp. 141-147.

"History of Southeastern Dakota, Its Settlement and Growth", Western Publishing 
Company, Sioux City, Iowa, 1881.

Kingsbury, George W., History of Dakota Territory, Vols. I and II, J. S. Clark 
Publishing Company, Chicago, 1915.

Le Raye, Charles, "Journal of Charles Le Raye," South Dakota Historical 
Collections, Vol. IV, pp. 150-180.

McInerny, Mrs. Jessie, "Congregational Church in Elk Point, South Dakota," 
unpublished manuscript.

Moore, C. S., "Clay County Atlas", Vermillion, 1894.

Nasatir, A. P., "Anglo-Spanish Rivalry on the Upper Missouri," Mississippi 
Valley Historical Review, Vol. 16, pp. 359-507.

Notson, G. T., "Relations of the Northwest Iowa and Dakota Conferences of the 
Methodist Church", address given at Rapid City, S. D., October 2, 1928.

Ravndal, G. Bie, "Scandinavian Pioneers in South Dakota," South Dakota 
Historical Collections, Vol. XIII, pp. 297-330.

Robinson, Doane, "History of the Dakota or Sioux Indians", News Printing 
Company, Aberdeen, S. D., 1904.

_____, "Encyclopedia of South Dakota", Will A. Beach Printing Company, Sioux 
Falls, S. D., 1925.

_____, "Lewis and Clark in South Dakota," South Dakota Historical Collections, 
Vol. IX, pp. 515-596.

Schell, Herbert S., "Early Manufacturing Activities in South Dakota, 1857-
1875," South Dakota Historical Review, Vol. II, No. 2 (January 1937), pp. 
73-95.

_____, "Official Immigration Activities of Dakota Territory," North Dakota 
Historical Quarterly, Vol. VII (October, 1932), pp. 5-24.

_____, "The Dakota Southern, a Frontier Railway Venture of Dakota Territory," 
unpublished manuscript.

Seton, Ernest Thompson, Life Histories of Northern Animals, Charles Scribners 
Sons, New York, 1909.

Smith, George M. and Young, Clark M., History and Government of South Dakota, 
American Book Company, New York, 1904.

Stoddard, W. H., Turner County Pioneer History, Brown and Saenger, Sioux 
Falls, S. D., 1931.

                               Footnotes

(1)	Lars J. Hauge, "Did the Norsemen Visit the Dakota Country?" South Dakota 
	Historical Collections, Vol IV, p. 141.

(2)	Verendrye Calendar, South Dakota Historical Collections, Vol. VII, p. 97; 
	Doane Robinson, "History of the Dakota or Sioux Indians," in South Dakota 
	Historical Collections, Vol. II, p. 55.

(3)	Charles E. DeLand, "Biennial Address," South Dakota Historical Collections, 
	Vol. VII, p. 68.

(4)	The writer remembers the Fourth of July celebration that was held in a 
	cottonwood grove which had grown up around that lone tree. Judge J. P. 
	Kidder of Vermillion was the orator at that celebration in 1866, the first 
	to be held in Union County.

(5)	Doane Robinson, "Lewis and Clark in South Dakota," in South Dakota 
	Historical Collections, Vol. IX, pp. 514-596.

(6)	H. W. Chittenden, History of the Fur Trade in the Far West, Francis P. 
	Harper Co., New York, `902, Vol. III, p. 952.

(7)	Doane Robinson, Encyclopedia of South Dakota, p. 50.

(8)	Doane Robinson, "History of the Dakota or Sioux Indians," in South Dakota 
	Historical Collections, Vol. II, p. 198.

(9)	Elliott Coues, Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri, the 
	Personal Narrative of Charles Larpenteur, 1833-72, Francis P. Harper, New 
	York.

(10)	George W. Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., 
	Chicago, 1915, Vol. I, p. 126; Doane Robinson, Encyclopedia of South 
	Dakota, p. 269, gives 1855 as the date when Fort Vermillion was abandoned.

(11)	Ernest Thompson Seton, Life Histories of Northern Animals, Chas. 
	Scribner's Sons, New York, 1909, p. 300.

(12)	Letter to the writer from W. H. Stoddard.

(13)	George W. Kingsbury, History of Dakota, Vol. 1, p. 140.

(14)	Sometimes written "Strikes the Ree."

(15)	Doane Robinson, "Tales of the Dakota--One Hundred Anecdotes Illustrative 
	of Sioux Life and Thinking," South Dakota Historical Collections, Vol. 
	Xiv, p. 517.

(16)	The names of John McBride and Christopher Maloney are added to this list 
	by G. W. Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, Vol. I, p.135.

(17)	Information furnished by Mary Wood Fickey, who lived in Elk Point from 
	1860 to the present.

(18)	Wm. Wixson, son of Eli B.Wixson, furnished the writer with the 
	incorporation documents and other data cited above.

(19)	History of Southeastern Dakota, Western Publishing Company, Sioux City, 
	Iowa, 1881.

(20)	G. Bie Ravndal, "Scandinavian Pioneers in South Dakota," South Dakota 
	Historical Collections, Vol. XII, p. 319.

(21)	Doane Robinson, Encyclopedia of South Dakota, p. 326.

(22)	Jotter in Weekly Dakotian, July 1, 1862.

(23)	Doane Robinson, "History of the Dakota or Sioux Indians," South Dakota 
	Historical Collections, Vol. II, p. 256.

(24)	W. H. H. Fate, Historical Glimpse of the Early Settlement of Union County, 
	South Dakota, Perkin Bros., Sioux City, Iowa, 1924, pp. 20-21; G. W. 
	Kingsbury, Vol. 1. P. 239.

(25)	A. T. Andreas, Historical Atlas of Dakota, Andreas Publishing Company, 
	Chicago, 1884, p. 96.

(26)	History of Southeastern Dakota, Its Settlement and Growth, Perkins Bros., 
	Sioux City, Iowa, 1881, p. 191.

(27)	W. H. H. Fate, p. 31.

(27)	James S. Foster, "Fourth Territorial School Report," House Journal, 
	1867-8, pp. 42-65.

(28)	W. H. H. Fate, p. 34.

(29)	Ibid., p. 31.

(30)	Doane Robinson, Encyclopedia of South Dakota, p. 668.

(31)	Ibid., p. 625.

(32)	G. T. Notson, Early Relations of the Northwest Iowa and Dakota 
	Conferences, address at Rapid City, South Dakota, Oct. 2, 1928, p. 2.

(33)	W. H. H. Fate, Historical Glimpse of the Early Settlement of Union County, 
	South Dakota, p. 49.

(34)	Told the writer by K. B. Stoddard, who frequently visited the stockade.

(35)	W. H. H. Fate, p. 49.

(36)	Rev. G. T. Notson, Relations of the Northwest Iowa and Dakota Conferences 
	of the Methodist Church, address given at Rapid City, S. D., October 2, 
	1928, p. 3.

(37)	Letter from Fred Harris to W. H. H. Fate, Oct. 13, 1920, in records of 
	Union County Old Settlers' Association.

(38)	G. W. Kingsbury, Vol. I, p. 947.

(38)	Jessie Hoffman-McInerny, Brief History of Congregational Activity in Union 
	County (in manuscript).

(39)	Data furnished by Father A. F. Arnirault, Jefferson Parish.

(40)	Mary Wood Fickey furnished the list of names.

(41)	G. Bie Ravndal, "Scandinavian Pioneers in South Dakota," South Dakota 
	Historical Collections, Vol. 12, p. 324.

(42)	Facts given by Rev. W. I. Aamoth, pastor of the Lutheran church in Elk 
	Point.

(43) It is the writer's opinion that the census is wrong is stating that the 
	one Catholic church in Union County was at Elk Point. It was built in 
	Jefferson, 1868. Moreover, there was but one Methodist church in Union 
	County in 1870, not two.

(44)  Exodus, 10: 5, 6; also Deuteronomy, 28: 42.

(45)  K. B. Stoddard, in Marion Record, May 10, 1935.

(46)  W. H. Stoddard, Turner County Pioneer History, pp. 172-185.

(47)  Union County Courier, May 5, 1875.

(48)  I. C. S. Moore, Clay County Atlas, Dakota Republican Publishers, 
	Vermillion, South Dakota, 1894, p. 6.
	"Floods and Ice Gorges of 1881, Vermillion Standard Herald (Yankton), 
	April 2 and 9, 1881, as quoted in History of Southeastern Dakota, 
	pp. 207-211, 245, 256.

(49)  G. W. Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, Vol. II, p. 1107.

(50)  G. W. Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, Vol. I, p. 127.

(51)  History of Southeastern Dakota, p. 192.

(52)	Harold E. Briggs, "Early Freight and State Lines in Dakota," North Dakota 
	Historical Quarterly, Vol. III, p. 234.

(53)  Ibid.

(54)  Herbert S. Schell, "The Dakota Southern, a Frontier Railway Venture of Dakota 
	Territory," (unpublished manuscript). The writer has a vivid memory of the grading 
	of the road-bed for the contractors boarded at the home of his parents. As a lad of 
	thirteen he led a group of younger brothers and cousins to a point half a mile east 
	of their homes to inspect the first Dakota Southern engine and construction gang as 
	they came through David Benjamin's grove half a mile west of Elk Point.

(55)	Herbert S. Schell, "Early Manufacturing Activities in South Dakota," South Dakota 
	Historical Review, January 1937, Vol. II, No. 2, p. 78.

(56)  Herbert S. Schell, "Early Manufacturing Activities in South Dakota," South Dakota 
	Historical Review, January 1937, Vol.  II, No. 2, p. 86.

(57)  Ibid., p. 91.