Polk County, Minnesota - Biographical sketches, 1916 (part 13 of 15)

homestead claim on his tract of 160 acres, and he now owns, in addition to his homestead, a whole half-section in Fisher township and another fai-m of 160 acres in Tynsid township, the homestead being in Section 15, Tynsid township, and bordering on the Red river. For many years Mr. Quirk farmed all of these farms and got large returns from them. He came to this county with only about .$500. His first home in it was a little log cabin, and his first team was a yoke of oxen. The log cabin has been replaced by a commodious and comfortable frame house, and the oxen have given way to horses and steam and gasoline motive power. Thus the hard.v and adventurous pioneer of the W'ilderness has kept pace with the progress of events and improvement, and he has shown himself to be of a progressive and productive nature, and well qualified to make the most of his opoprtunities, surroundings and resources. But he has devoted his energies wholly to the requirements of his farming industry, raising wheat as his main crop, and has never held or sought a public office, although he has been interested in the development of his locality and done his part to promote that with ardor and intelligence.

Mr. Quirk was married three years after comiug to this county to Miss Lizzie Lealos, also a uative of Ireland but residing at Red Lake at the time of her marriage. Their offspring numbered eight, three sons and five daughters. Of the sons Edward is living on a farm near that of his father. John is a resident of Bygland township, and Matthew is cultivating the home place. Only four of the daughters are living, the oldest, Maggie, having died in early life. Annie is the wife of John Gannaw of Grand Porks. Lizzie and Mamie are living at home, and Delia is the wife of Patrick Quigley, the nearest neighbor of the home family. Mr. Quirk is a Democrat in political faith and allegiance and all the members of his family belong to the Catholic church at Pisher.

Odin J. Bjornstad

Although he is one of the younger farmers of Polk county and also one of the youngest of the public officials of his township, Odin J. Bjornstad, who lives on Section 24, Hubbard township, one mile west of Neilsville, is one of the most aggressive grapplers with problems involving advanced agriculture for the welfare of his locality and public interests for the good of the whole county now residing in this part of the state of Minnesota. And he has already made a record for progressiveness and breadth of view that would be creditable to a man much more advanced in years and experience.

Mr. Bjornstad was born on the farm on which he is now living October 15, 1886, the son of J. J. and Karen Bjornstad, natives of Norway, who came to the United States and direct to Polk county in 1875 and at once took up a homestead which is a part of the present family home. They had only $1 when they arrived here, and Mrs. Bjornstad went to Grand Forks to get employment for her support, while her husband lived in a dugout and did his own cooking until they got a start in the New World. A little later he built a little log cabin on his land, but still worked out for his living, being employed by his brother-in-law, Nels Paulsrud.

Times have mended for the family since then, and in the course of a few years Mr. Bjornstad, the elder, bought an additional quarter-section from the estate of his brother Hans, who took it up as a homestead on which he died. J. J. Bjornstad cultivated the whole half-section until 1909, when his son Odin took charge of it, and the father has since lived retired from active pursuits but maintained his home on the farm. He and his wife became the parents of .seven children, five of whom are living. Mary has her home with her parents. Eliza is the wife of George Burd, of Hubbard township. Odin J. has charge of the home farm. Nettie has taught in the schools of Ottertail county in this state and during the last five years in those of North Dakota. She is now teaching in the high school at Hillsboro in that state. Hans is living on the farm with his parents.

Odin J. Bjornstad completed his academic education at Concordia College, in Moorhead, from which he was graduated in 1907, in the classical course. Since assuming control of the farm he has made a specialty of raising potatoes, devoting about seventy acres to this one product annually. He Ls a partner with T. A. Thompson in the ownership and operation of the potato warehouse at Neilsville and has a one-half interest in it. They store about 18,000 bushels of potatoes in this warehouse and they are all held for seed, the Red River Ohios being the favorite species, and the most of their stock is shipped to Kansas City, Missouri, more than 300 carloads being sent from Neilsville to that mart for seed in 1914.

Mr. Bjornstad has also taken a warm and helpful interest in the public affairs of his locality and is at present (1916) chairman of the township board and in the third year of his service as such. He is independent in political affairs. Like the other members of his family he belongs to St. Peter's United Lutheran church aud he has been for some years secretary of aci-es of land in Traill county, North Dakota, three the congregation. He is unmarried. In addition to miles west of Neilsville, which he has farmed by a his holdings in Polk county, Minesota, he owns 285 tenant.

Theodore M. Boyer

Theodore M. Beyer, who is now one of the leading merchants at Beltrami, was born in Wisconsin, July 31, 1870, and was brought by his parents to Becker county, Minnesota, the next year. His parents, Peter 0. and Barbro Boyer, are still living in Becker county, where the son was reared to the age of eighteen on the home fann. He began his education in the district schools and completed the academic part of it at a college in St. Paul and the State Normal school in Moorhead. He also pursued a special course of training for business at a commercial school in St. Paul.

After leaving school Mr. Boyer clerked in a general store in Steele county. North Dakota, for a year and a half and after that in a store in Becker county, this state, for two years. On March 9, 1897, he came to Polk county, and for a short time clerked in a store at Climax. He was then appointed postmaster at Eldred, receiving the appointment in May. By June he had completed the second building and the first store house in the new village and opened the first store there. He had about $1,500 to start the store with, including the building, and he kept the store until the spring of 1912, a periocl of fifteen years.

In 1903, in partnership with his brothers, M. P. and C. A. Boyer, he opened his present store at Beltrami under the firm name of Bover Bros. & Co. M. P.

Boyer had been associated with him in conducting the store at Eldi-ed, but in 1903 he took charge of the Beltrami store, and later he returned to Eldred, where he died January 3, 1912. The other brother, C. A. Boyer, was in charge of the Beltrami store one year. After that Theodore took charge of it, and he has since been its sole proprietor. He liandles all kinds of farm pi'oduce, uses $8,000 to $10,000 in his business and employs two clerks. His trade has grown from the start and is steadily increasing all the time.

Mr. Boyer served as treasurer of Roome township two years while living there. He was married at Eldred on June 1st in 1890 to Miss Angeline Arness, a daughter of Alexander P. and Randine Arness, who are now residents of Fisher, in this county. Mrs. Boyer was born in Norway but brought by her parents to Polk county, Minesota,, when she was eight years old. She and her husband are the parents of five children, Pereival, Alexander, Theobald, Ruth and Lucille. Mr. Boyer, in fraternal relations, belongs to the Order of Woodmen and takes an active interest in its welfare, and of which he was venerable consul for one year and clerk for five years. After moving to Beltrami he has served on the village board as councilman for six years.

John 0. Christi Anson

John 0. Christianson, who owns and lives on a fine farm in Section 10, Garfield township, on which he located in 1892, is one of the enterpi-ising, progressive and succes.sful farmers of Polk county and enjoys the respect and confidence of all who know him. He was born in Allamakee county, Iowa, October 14, 1864, his parents having located there just prior to the Civil war and his father's brother three or four years earlier. They both took up government land, and in 1880, the parents of John 0., who were Ole and Anna Christianson, moved to this county and took up a homestead in Garfield township, which is now owned and occupied by their son Otto.

acres, is located three miles and a half northeast of Fertile, and is now under cultivation to the extent of ninety-five acres. He bought it in 1892 at $16 an acre. Fifty acres were then in a partial state of cultivation, but the land had on it no buildings fit to use. He built a log house, of logs cut in hLs own timber mainly, and chose an excellent location for it on an elevation thirty-five feet above Lake Arthur, an expanse of 200 acres, which it overlooks, and in the midst of a beautiful grove. The other improvements on the farm are also of good quality.

Mr. Christianson raises grain, hay and mixed live stock, one of his specialties being white Chester hogs. He keeps ten cows for milk for the Co-operative Creamery company at Fertile, in which he is a stockholder. He served as road overseer for a number of years and as a member of the school board for a long time. His first venture in land in this county was on a homestead in Onstad township, and his brother Ole took up the present farm as a homestead for himself. Later John 0. sold his homestead in Onstad township

In 1889 Mr. Christianson was united in marriage with Miss Carrie Nesseth, a sister of the late Thomas II. Nesseth, a sketch of whose life will be found in this volume. Ten children have been born of the union, and nine of them are living. Henry 0. has been operating a threshing outfit for six years. Albert M. has a homestead in Canada on which he lives. AVilliam T., Clifford I., George N. and John ai'e living at home and helping to operate the farm. Mabel S. i.s the teacher of the school near the family home. She is a graduate of the high school at Fertile and of a course of training at the Moorbead Normal school. Clara and Lillie are living at home with their parents. All the members of the family belong to the Little Norway United Lutheran church. Mr. Christianson 's father donated three acres of ground for the church site and the cemetery belonging to it.

F. Guy Stearns

As proprietor of the Climax Roller Mills, which make 100 barerls of flour a day for merchant and custom trade, supplying a large local and an extensive Eastern market, F. Guy Stearns is carrying on a very useful industry and ministering in a substantial way to the comfort and general welfare of his fellow men as well as to the industrial and commercial consequence of his home township, coimty and state. The mills were built in 1898 by Brasseth Bros, at a cost of nearly $20,000. They have five double stands of rollers and a feed roll, and are operated by water and steam power. In 1909 the mills were bought by Messrs. Nelson & Gilbertson, and in 1913 Mr. Stearns purchased them and has made many improvements in them, having installed modern machinery throughout. He is now installing an electric light plant to supply the mills and the village of Climax with light. The plant M'ill be one of thirty horse-power and the current of

220 volt D. C. strength. It should be stated that Mr. Stearns manufactures in his mills a cream of wheat food and also Graham flour in addition to the large quantities of wheat flour he turns out.

Mr. Stearns was born in "Webster City, Hamilton county, Iowa, in 1879, and learned his trade as a miller and all the details of the flour-making industry under the instruction of his father, who was in charge of a large mill in Webster City, where the father and son had built the Stearns mill. The son spent eleven years as owner and manager of the Webster City mills. He then sold them and in 1910 went to North Dakota, where for three years he was manager of a flour mill, grain elevator and electric light plant at Walhalla, North Dakota, until he bought the mill at Climax and became a resident of Polk county, Minnesota, in 1913. He served as a justice of the peace in North Dakota and has served as a member of the village council of

In fraternal relations Mr. Stearns is connected with the Ma.sonic Order and its auxiliary, the Order of the Eastern Star, of which his wife is also a member, the Order of Elks and the Order of Woodmen. He was married in Illinois in 1903, to Mis.s Geneva Mershon, daughter of Dr. J. I. Mershon, a native of Mount

CarroU, Illinois. They have four children, Robert Maynard, Dorothy Florence, Frances Jeannette and Raymond Guy. At stated periods, when the father needs relief from the exacting cares of his business and physical recreation he seeks them in fishing and hunting trips, which never fail to give him the benefit he looks for.

With his early manhood filled with hard.ships, privations and adventures and his later years devoted to arduous toil in the struggle for advancement and the full development of the land on which he squatted when other human habitations around it were few and far apart, William Fleming, who is now living retired at 501 Nortli Third street in East Grand Forks, has had an interesting career. He battled bravely with adversity and through all circumstances and conditions he maintained his steadiness of pui-pose, and in the course of time he won a substantial triumph over all obstacles and wrung from unwilling fate a comfortable competence for life.

Mr. Fleming was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, November 24, 1835, and emigrated to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, in 1860. He was a farmer in his native land and in Canada, and wa.s constantly on the lookout for better opportunities in his chosen occupation. In 1867 he came to Olmsted county, Minnesota, and during the next four years worked at railroad ])uilding and in other lines, and in 1871 he became a resident of this county. Before leaving Canada he was married to Miss ilary Ann Dodds, a native of Dumfermline, Scotland, and when he settled in Polk county they had two children. At that time Mr. Fleming had about $500 in money and two yoke of cattle, but after being one day on the road to this county, when near Rochester, his cattle wandered off into the brush and for four days were lost to him. A heifer and calf that went with the cattle were never recovered, but the yoke cattle were, and for some time were of great service to him.

At Rochester Mr. Fleming fell in with Robert Coulter and Thomas McVeety, known as "Long Tom," who had yoke teams and were on their way to Canada. Mr. Coulter was married and had his wife and two children with him, but Mr. McVeety was single. They traveled together and reached the Red river, which they swam and then moved down the west bank to "The Salts," about twenty miles north of where Grand Forks now stands, there being no settlement there at that time. At that place their longing for Canada ceased and they decided to locate in Minnesota. They chose a region on Red Lake river about seven miles east of what is now East Grand Forks and all settled close together. The Hudson Bay company had a store at the Forks, and they made their headquarters in this, until they swam their cattle across the river to get to their land. They were almost alone in the wilderness, N. C. Nash, a ]\Ir. Hunt and a Mrs. ^Vlley being the only persons within miles of them, and they had come that spring.

For awhile our adventurers lived under a tree and began at once to break their land. They got fifteen acres broken the first year, and then had a long fight with the blackbirds in getting their seed covered, and they also planted a few potatoes. Mr. Fleming used his yoke teams for some years, then traded them for horses, which he found more satisfactory. In winter he took a load of lumber to Grand Forks, a distance of seven miles in a straight line, but eighteen traveling on the ice on the Red Lake river. In March the ice broke under his team and he lost both of his horses, during the deepening gloom of a dark night, and within eighty rods of his home. The Sioux and Chippewa Indians were frequent visitors at his home, and they would dig potatoes and do other work for food. He huilt a log house as soon as he was able, and his neighbors did the same, each putting up one for himself. Upon one occasion three bears were shot within a few rods of the log house.

In the course of a few years Mr. Fleming became the owner of 423 acres of land, through which he gave the railroad company a right of way. He raised grain and live stock, good horses and Shorthorn cattle, and was the first man in his locality to own an imported stallion.

By his first marriage Mr. Fleming became the father of ten children, one of whom died in infancy. His son John died of fever January 26, 1894, aged twentytwo, and his son Robert of the same illness two days earlier at the age of twenty. The children who are living are : William, who is a farmer in California ; Mary, who is the wife of John Silcox and lives in

Saskatchewan, Canada; David, who is a member of the police force in Crookston; Margaret, who married Thomas Cameron and is also a resident of Saskatchewan ; Isabel, who is Mrs. John Chaplin, of Saskatchewan ; Thomas, who is living on the old family homestead, and Frank, who is a mechanic and a resident of East Grand Forks.

In 1898 Mr. Fleming revisited Scotland, and on his return he built the fine dwelling house now on his farm. He has also put up good barns and other structures needed on the farm at a cost of $6,000. He has taken a very active and helpful part in the affairs of the Bethel Presbyterian church, which he helped to build, on the bank of the Marias river, and which all the members of his family living near enough attend regularly.

Mrs. Fleming died in California October 23, 1903, and in November, 1911, he sold the place and moved to his present residence in East Grand Forks.

Asa Alvern Merrill

Owning 480 acres of well-drained, highly improved and very productive land in sections 33, 34 and 35, in Nesbit township, and knowing how to farm it to the best advantage, the late Asa A. Merrill was one of the substantial and prosperous farmers of Polk county, and he was what he was because he had the ability, pluck and self-reliance to make himself so. He was born in the state of New York May 14, 1861, and was something more than a year older than his brother, C. A. Merrill, a sketch of whom, containing the family history, is published in this volume.

Mr. Merrill came to Minnesota with his parents after a residence of some time in Boone county, Illinois. He remained at home until February 16, 1887, when he was united in marriage with Miss Mary Speiser, a native of Germany, who came to this country alone when she was twenty years of age. She lived with her brothers in Minneapolis and visited Polk county, and she thus became acquainted with

After his man-iage Mr. Merrill formed a partnership with his brother, A. C, and together they purchased their father's farm, on which A. C. afterward lived. The partnership was dissolved at the end of two years, and then Asa A. Merrill moved to the farm on which he lived until his death. His father gave him this 160 acres unimproved and without buildings of any kind, the son having erected the buildings now standing on the farm in 1889 at a cost of over $4,000.

Mr. Merrill, after living some years on his first 160 acres, bought 160 acres more in section 35 and another in section 34, making 480 acres in all. He also owned a tract of timber land on the Red Lake river.

For the prairie land he owned Mr. Merrill paid $20 an acre. He raised grain on a large scale and farmed in the most enterprising and progressive manner after he got his land drained and in a condition to work with some degree of certainty. A picture still extant showing him and his force engaged in harvesting one season exhibits a long line of reapers with plentj' of men to iiandle their operations. His plan was to harvest, thresh his grain, stack his straw and do his plowing all at one time and with the same motive power, and he employed thirty hands in this work.

But he did not reach this leading position among the farmers of the county without many disasters and misfortunes. For years hail storms destroyed his crops. At other times the heat in dry seasons burned them lip, and at still others the land was so wet that it would not produce much. One year the whole crop on 400 acres was lost. But in time the ditch was dug, and after that conditions were far better and prosperity came rapidly and kept coming with steadily increasing volume.

Mr. I\Ierrill served as treasurer of Nesbit township three years, and as school director of his district many more. Fraternally he was a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and in religious matters was friendly to all churches but favored none in particular. He died July 20, 1914, and, as he was a resolute and energetic man, was his own manager to the time of his death. He and his wife were the parents of four children. Myrtie was drowned in the Rfld Lake river at the age of thii'teen. Ira is operating the farm. Floy is the wife of E. F. Hollands, an engineer, and lives in Winnipeg, and Arthur is still living with his mother, who continues to live on the farm.

George Coulter

This gentleman, who built up and developed the Forest Home stock farm of 800 acres in Huntsville township, this county, and gave it a national reputation, turned his attention to a new enterprise, that of clearing, improving and transforming into a good farm 320 acres of brash land iu Beltrami county, ten miles south of Bemidji. He bviilt his dwelling near a fine spring on the farm and at once began cleaning np the land. In the two years of effort which he has devoted to this work he has cleared seventy-five acres and built two miles and a half of good road, being still very enterprising, although well advanced in age. He paid $20 an acre for his land and it is now worth .$.35 and steadily increasing in value.

Mr. Coulter was born in County Lanark, Ontario, January 31, 1856, and became a resident of Polk County about 1875. He took a homestead at what is now the village of Mallory on the Great Northern railroad, and on this he lived about ten years, several of them as a bachelor and doing his own housework, often having other young men visiting him. His next home was the renowned Forest Home stock farm, which is now occupied by his son George. He bought a small part of this at fir.st and kept on increasing it until he now owns 800 acres in one body in this farm. He conducted it.s cultivation and live stock industry until 1912, when he turned it over to his son.

On this farm Mr. Coulter, the elder, bred Aberdeen- Angus cattle for beef and exhibition, and showed specimens at local and state fairs in Minnesota, winning many first prizes, keeping up the industry until he left the farm and sometimes raising 100 head of beef cattle in a year, but selling most of his product for breeding purposes. He also bred and exhibited Scotch collie dogs, being an enthusiast in these as well as iu Aberdeen- Angus cattle.

The Forest Home stock farm is composed in part of railroad and school land and the residence on it is on the bank of Red Lake river in a fine location. A good house which Mr. Coulter had previously built was destroyed by fire in 1906. Grain was his principal agricultural product while he managed the farm, and of this he was one of the most extensive producers in Polk county, but he was also a leader in the live stock industry, and takes no backward place in any line of endeavor in which he engages.

to Miss Agnes Brown, a daughter of Aaron Brown of East Grand Forks, a sketch of whom appears in this work. She was not yet seventeen at the time of her marriage, but she at once took charge of the housekeeping at the old homestead, and there one daughter was born in the family. She and tive of the subsequent children are living, one having died in infancy. Margaret is the wife of Jesse Coulter, at The Point on Red River, and has four children, Clara, William, Kenneth and Myra. George L., who has charge of the stock farm, married Miss Mary Cole and has two children, Lorna and Robert. Harriet, a graduate of the Agricultural college at Crookston, is the wife of Irving Bjerke, of Bemidji. Florence, who completed her education at the University of North Dakota, is the wife of Benjamin Dietz and lives on her father's old homestead. She has two children, her daughters, Agnes and Jean. Alvin and Elsie are living with their parents, the latter being a student at the high school in Ea.st Grand Forks. All the members of the family have been reared in and hold to the Presbyterian church.

Olof Erickson

Almost single handed and alone this hardy adventurer dared the dangers and defied the hardships and prirations of the frontier when he located on 160 acres of the farm he now occupies in Section 34, Fisher township, this county, which he took as a homestead in 1874. He was then the resident dwelling farthest south in this region, but Andrew and Nels Malmberg, who came with him, were perhaps not very far away. They had all worked on the Northern Pacific railroad, and the Malmbergs had helped to build it into Crookston. On February 21st and 22d Mr. Erickson walked from Glyndon to Crookston alone, a distance of 68 miles. In April, 1874, he dug a cellar and put up a log house. No trains went to Crookston that winter.

Mr. Erickson was born in Sweden April 12, 1843, and remained in that country until he reached the age of twenty-six years. In 1869 he came to the United States, stopping at Red Wing, Minnesota, for a short time, then going to Sioux City, Iowa, to work on a railroad in course of construction from Lemars east through Cherokee to Storm Lake, which is now a part of the Illinois Central system. The only railroad into Sioux City at that time was the Missouri "Valley from Council Bluffs.

In 1871 Mr. Erickson joined the force on the Northern Pacific and helped to build that road to Moorhead. He saved $300 of his earnings at railroad work, but felt that this was insufficient for his venture in the wilderness. Therefore, after he filed on his homestead he went to Winnipeg and for a year he worked in a brickyard in that city, thereby laying up more money, and a few years afterward he bought eighty acres of railroad land at $9 an acre, with the usual rebate conditions included in the contract. This tract contained forty acres of timber, which the owner has found to be enough for all his needs.

Mr. Erickson built the dwelling house which he now occupies in 1900 and made the other improvements on the place at different times. His principal industry has been raising grain, mostly wheat, but he has also raised a large number of heavy draft horses for sale in the neighborhood and elsewhere. He has served as road overseer, and in that capacity has helped to improve roads in his township. He and his neighbors Imilt the first bridges on the creeks and the river at Fisher. He farmed with oxen six years and was the first one to cross Fisher bridge with an ox team.

In all the early activities of this part of the Northwest Mr. Erickson had a busy hand. He helped to load the first ear filled with wheat that ran out of Crookston in the fall of 1875, he and five or six of his neighbors having sold 400 bushels for the purpose at 90 cents a bushel. But he did not forget the "girl he left behind him" in the old country. After he had been in the United States three years and got a good start here he sent back to Sweden for her to come

This first child, a son named Alex, died at the age of fourteen. Six others were born in the family, and they are all living. Abel is a well digger. Axel is living at home. Lena is the wife of R. 0ms, of North Dakota. Mary is the wife of Christ Engen, of Lariiiiore, and Julia, Hulda and Lottie are milliners at Larimore, North Dakota. Mr. Erickson has been something of a hunter and fi.sherman in his time, and in the early days his wife often shot prairie chickens. She died in 1896, and her remains and those of the deceased son are buried on the farm. For many years Mr. Erickson rendered good service to the community.

John G. Vraa

This gentleman is one of the prosperous, progressive and successful farmers of Polk county and also one of the leading citizens of Vineland township, on Section 33 of which his fine farm of over 200 acres is located. It is two miles southeast of Climax, and is improved with a very good dwelling house, and he is now (1916) completing a large and substantial barn on it. He was bom in Norway January 7, 1865, and came to this country in 1872 with his parents, Gerraand Nereson and Leve (Olafsen) Vraa, who located in Faribault county, Minnesota. The mother died in Norway in 1868, and in 1876 the father brought his five children to Polk county and took a homestead in Vineland township eighty acres of which are included in the farm now owned and occupied by his son John G.

The father, who died in 1897, also owned eighty acres of railroad land and had all of both tracts under cultivation. He devoted his whole attention to his farm and the rearing of his children, who are : Ole, a resident of the village of Climax ; Michael, who lives on the farm adjoining the home place; Gunder, who has part of the family homestead ; Hage, who was the wife of Ole Bramseth (and the youngest of the children), and who lived also on a farm adjoining the homestead, she died in 1902, and John G., who carried on the home place in partnership with one of his brothers for six years before their father died.

On the death of his father John G. Vraa got 125 acres of the old farm, and to this he has added eighty acres half a mile distant but cultivated as a part of his farm. Raising grain has been his main dependence and industry on the farm, and his crop in 1915 aggregated 1,800 bushels of wheat, 1,200 of oats and 600 of barley. But he also keeps eight to ten cows and does some trading in dairy products. This is, however, only incidental, as his general farming activities engage nearly all of his attention, as they always have from the time when he entered upon them.

Mr. Vraa was married in December, 1887, to Miss Maria Anderson and they have four children, Lena, Albert, Cecil and Minnie, all of whom are still at home with their parents. He has been supervisor of the township board for five years and clerk of the school district for twenty-five. He and his wife are members of the church congregation near his home whose meetings are held in the schoolhouse, and they take an active part in all its work.

John Logan

Living on an excellent farm of 300 acres fronting on Red river and lying sixteen miles west of Crookston, John Logan is very comfortably fixed in a worldly way, and he has the satisfaction of knowing that all his possessions are the fruits of his own energy, thrift and good management. He was born in County Galway, Ireland, and came to the United States in 1865. Until 1878 he lived in New Jersey and worked at

railroads as a section hand. In the year last named he came to this county with his mother and a sister with a view to getting land on which he could establish a home and work out a prosperous and useful career in a line of endeavor that embodied something beyond a daily recompense for migratory toil.

3Ir. Logan had about ,$1,000 when he came here, and he at once bought a tract of railroad land at $5 an acre, with the usual rebate agreement in the contract. He procured a team of oxen and with this he broke up fifty acres of his land the first year. He had a fairly good crop and has continued to raise grain as his chief product ever since. His first residence on the land was a log house with a shingle roof, something very unusual in this locality at that time. The dwelling in which he now lives was built about 1895, and is a verj' substantial and comfortable one.

From time to time Mr. Logan bought additional land until he owned 500 acres and had nearly all of his acreage in seed, his annual crop averaging about 4,000 bushels. The most of his land in 1891 was in Section 1, Tj'nsid township, but the farm on which he now lives is in Section 3. It comprises 300 acres, the rest of his holdings having been sold. He paid $6 an acre for what he has, and, through his well-applied industry and the general improvement of the region, it is now worth at least $60 an acre.

In connection with his own place Mr. Logan for years cultivated one belonging to his mother, with whom his only living sister dwelt. The mother died when she was far advanced in years, and after that his sister made her home with him. He was married in 1885 to Miss Margaret Quirk, a daughter of Mattliew Quirk, who died in Craokston in 1914. Mrs. Logan came to this county from Pennsylvania soon after her uncle, Michael Quirk, settled here. She was born and reared in Pennsylvania.

Mr. and Mrs. Logan are the parents of thirteen children, Martin, Nellie, Edward, Matthew, Thomas, William, Leo, Ambrose, Blanch, May, Leslie, Margaret and Louise. They and the parents belong to the Catholic church at Fisher. Mr. Logan has served as supervisor on the township board at different times. In state and national political affairs he is a firm adherent of the Democratic party but in local matters he holds himself aloof from party ties and acts independently according to his judgment.

Carl J. Gilbert

After years of experience in sevei'al occupations in different places, and a successful career in each, according to the time he devoted to it, Carl J. Gilbert has found a field of operation well suited to his taste and capacity and profitable in its returns in well drilling over a large extent of country radiating in every direction from the village of Eldred, of which he is the present postmaster. He was born in Buffalo county, "Wisconsin, June 10, 1870, and came to this county with his parents, John and Karen Gilbert, in 1878. The parents were born, reared and married in Norway and came to the United States just before the Civil war. The father was a farmer and improved a good farm in the wilds of Wisconsin, which he occupied until 1878.

On his arrival in Polk county in 1878 the elder Mr. Gilbert took up a tree claim and bought railroad land on the prairie, in Sections 3 and 4, Roome township, nine miles west of Crookston and several miles from any neighbor. He had about $500 in money when he came here and a wife and seven children to provide for. He became the owner and cultivator of 360 acres of land; reared his children in comfort; raised large crops of grain ; held different offices in the township ; helped to found and maintain Bardo church, a mile distant from his home, and after the death of his wife sold his farm and retired to Pelican Rapids, in Ottertail county, where he died in 1914 at the age of seveuty-three years.

farm ami obtained a limited education at a country school. At the age of twenty-two he was married to Miss Bertha Lunos, who was then twenty, the daughter of Halvor Lunos, who located in Roome township in 1879. lie and his wife later joined the Bella Coola colony in British Columbia, and their two sons went with them. The father died in that colony in 1913, and the mother is .still living in it with her sons. The family was successful and prosperous in the colony.

Mr. Gilbert farmed rented ground for three years after his marriage and then bought his father-inlaw's farm of 160 acres. He made many improvements on this farm and conducted its operations until 1901, then sold it at a good profit, having accumulated $2,800 in nine years with nothing to start on. He invested in a new hardware store at Berthold, North Dakota, and also filed on land near the village. He was its first merchant, the first treasurer of the township in which it is located and a member of its first village council after he helped to organize it as a village. He also served on its school board, which, under hi.s influence, built a good schoolhouse at a cost of $7,000. The village had a population of 300 when he left it after residing in it and doing business there four years.

Mr. Gilbert's trade at Berthold grew large and his experience in it was very satisfactory. But in 1905 he sold the store and moved to Crookston, where he bought a $9,000 stock of hardware and an old stand.

He carried on this business three years, then sold it and moved to Eldred in 1908. Since then he has been engaged in well drilling on a large scale, running two rigs and drilling wells 200 to 300 feet deep. He has also been active in all movements for the improvement of the village and township, and is now serving his fourth year as president of the school board. He also helped to organize and has aided liberally in supporting the Lutheran church at Eldred.

One of the achievements for which ]\Ir. Gilbert is entitled to special credit is the establishment of the consolidated school at Eldred, which was formed by consolidating four districts. Mr. Gilbert, T. E. Johnson and H. P. Boukin were the principal backers of this enterprise, and they had to work hard to carry it to success, but now the consolidated district has a fine four-room school house, which is one of the best of the kind in Polk county. When he came to Eldred Mr. Gilbert found that the schools showed little improvement from the time when he was a pupil in thera himself, and he began to agitate for a better arrangement, with the result as stated above.

Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert have five daughters and one son. Cora, the oldest child, had a course of special training at the Crookston business college and is now a stenographer. Emma is a student in the high school, and Mary, Carroll, Helen and Andrea are at home and attending the union school.

Ole 0. Estenson

Ole 0. Estenson and his parents, Ole and Ingro (Peterson) Estenson, were all born in Norway, where the son's life began October 28, 1848. In 1857 the family, consisting of the parents and seven children, the youngest born on the railroad train near Chicago, arrived in Green county, Wisconsin, and there found a new home near the village of Argyle, which is just over the line in Lafayette county. After the birth of her child on the train the mother was obliged to lie on the floor of a waiting room in the Chicago railroad station because of tlie lack of other accommodations. The child died soon after the arrival of the family in Wisconsin.

Ole E.stenson, tlie father, was a day laborer in Norway, and when he left that country he had only enough money to pay the the way of the family as far as Milwaukee, and was obliged to leave his trunks in bond in that citj' for the fare to Argyle. He had to send $20 to Milwaukee to get his trunks, and this he earned chopping wood and doing other work at thirty- seven and a half cents a day. In 1860 he moved to Pierce county, Wisconsin, and there for two years he worked at farm labor. In 1862 he changed his residence to Freeborn county, Jlinnesota, where he bought and improved some land and then sold it to advantage, and after passing one winter in Ottertail county, he brought his wife and six children, of whom Ole 0. was the oldest and then twenty-two, to Polk county in the spring of 1871, traveling in wagons and driving his cattle along. Peter 0. Satermo and Ole Jevning, then unmarried, accompanied the family on this trip.

Before reaching this county, however, Ole O. left the party and returned to Freeborn county, finding his parents in their new location on July 4 the next year, they having reached it on June 10. The father took up a homestead in Section 14, Vineland township, on which E. 0. Estenson, the youngest son of the family, now lives. The parents passed the i-emalnder of their lives on this farm, the father dying on it at the age of seventy-six years and six months and the mother at the extreme age of ninety years and eight months. Their six children are all living except one. Peter 0. lives on his homestead ad.ioining the home place. Ingeborg is the wife of Ole Jevning, a sketch of whom appears in this volume. Elizabeth married Peter 0. Satermo and died in 1914. Esten 0. owns and cultivates part of the old homestead, and Maret is the wife of Ole 0. Stortroen and lives on another part of the old family farm.

Ole 0. Estenson homesteaded in Section 23 half a mile south of his father's place and has since bought eighty acres in addition to his homestead and forty more farther oiit on the prairie. His home farm of 240 acres borders on the Red river and is three miles northwest of Climax. He had no money when he located on his homestead, but he, Mr. Satermo and Mi*. Jevning united in building log houses on their thi'ee places and plowing five acres of each. They did no outside work except cutting cord wood for the Hudson Bay company's boats on the Red river, and to the men in charge of these they also sold beef, butter and other supplies, there being no other market for them. His first crop, which was harvested in 1872, was 200 bushels of wheat, a large yield for the acreage seeded. He got some live stock from his father but he lived as a ])achelor for three years, hLs mother doing the housework for him as well as for her own household.

In 1875 Mr. Estenson was married to Miss Pauline Hanson, a daughter of Evan Hanson, who came to tliis county from Freeborn in 1874, and whom Mr. Estenson had known in Freeborn county. Five children have been born of the union : Emma, who is the wife of Martin Strommen and lives near her parents ; Helmer, who is a resident of Climax and has a sketch i)i this work ; Peter, who is cultivating the home farm, and who married Miss Josie Ellingson and has two children, Celia and Ordin; Ida, who married Severt Rostvet and resides at Newburg, North Dakota, and John, who is living with his parents and is a bachelor. He assists in the work on the farm.

Mr. Estenson has about 180 acres of his land under cultivation. He keeps a good deal of live stock, including cattle for beef and cows for milk and butter, and raises large crops of wheat and oats. During the last four years he has also devoted about thirty acres to potatoes with excellent results. He built his present dwelling in 1907 and tlie other improvements were made at different times. When the time came for the organization of Vineland township he was one of the most active men in the work, and he has served one term as county commissioner. His associates on the board were Messrs. Frederick, Jarvis, Higdem and Salverson, and during his term the old court house, which stood on the site of the present one, was built. The county was then several times as large as it is now, but he has not held any other position in its government. He was one of the founders of the Vineland Farmers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company in 1885 and has been the treasurer ever since. He was also one of the founders of the Climax Co-operative creamery in 1903 and has been the manager ever since.

In his political affiliation Mr. Estenson has been a Prohibitionist from the organization of tlie party. He is a total abstainer himself and firmly opposed to the manufacture and sale of intoxicants as beverages. He does not use tobacco and never hunts, although the locality was full of game when he settled in it. A gnu was accidentally discharged in his hands and the charge came near hitting one of his sisters when he was a young man, and he has never touched one since. He was one of the founders of the Free Lutheran iliureh at Xehy, three miles noi-th of his place, and has been connected with it ever since in a leading way, serving as one of its trustees and as a participant in all its useful work of everv kind.

James Jerome Hill

There are names which in themselves are a history and an inspiration - themes which are their own eloquent interpreters beyond the power of speech or writing - and who is there that can add a word or a thought to the story involved when before the people of the northAvest, or any part of it, one mentions the name and calls to notice the achievements of James J. Hill?

The record of this master producer and empire builder is written in his work, and that is ever present under observation in the appreciative regard and service of millions of our people.

It is beyond tlie purpose of the present writing, however, to present a narrative of IMr. Hill's life, and happily such an act is no longer anyw'here necessary. The salient features of Mr. Hill's career are so well known, the world over, that they need no repetition in any part of it. But his fruitful connection with the early history and development of Polk and the adjacent counties, especially in drainage, railroad building and agricultural progress, and the valuable results which have flowed from his activities here, have been so potential for good to this region that they are deserving of special mention in a work devoted exclusively to Polk county chronicles. Indeed, so productive of large consequences have those activities been that no compendium of Polk county history would be complete without some account of them.

Mr. Hill passed a number of the years of his early manhood at Fisher's Landing, as the village of Fisher in this county was then called. Early in the seventies the thought of a possible railroad through the northwest began to occupy his mind. The thought came from his experience in Northwestern transportation problems, his faith in the productive powers and natural resources of this part of the country, and of the state of railroad conditions at the time. The feverish activity in obtaining land and cash in concessions to railroad enterprises during the sixties had brought on a collapse, and a great many of such enterprises were wrecked in the panic of 1873. But Mr. Hill retained his faith in his project and began to prepare for carrying it into tangible realization.

The fragments of the old St. Paul & Pacific system were available for the development of the northwest if converted into real assets, and the holders of their securities were eager to sell them for what they could get. Their value lay to a considerable extent in what was left of a land grant, and they were in the hands of a receiver. "Yet so great seemed the task and so uncertain the reward, in the general opinion," according to Mr. Hill's own statement, "that any plan of acquiring and reorganizing the property was regarded as visionary in those days by most holders of capital and most men of affairs."

Mr. Hill did not share this view. In company with the late Lord Strathcona, George Stephen, afterward Lord Mount Stephen, and Norman "W. Kittson, he bought the defaulted bonds and at once began operations. The gaps in the lines that first required filling were those between Melrose and Barnesville and Crookston and St. Vincent. Filling the former was necessary to save the land grant, whose time limit, already extended, was about to expire ; and filling the latter was required for connection with a railroad projected by the Canadian government from Winnipeg south. These gaps were soon filled, and the sub-

The land grant enabled the promoters to push the road and open the country to settlement. They sold the railroad lands to actual settlers at $6 an acre on a partial payment plan and with a rebate of $3 on every acre broken up and seeded at the time when the last payment was made. Sales were rapid and new settlers began to come into the region in very promising numbers. Then a new difficulty of magnitude arose, and this, too, severely taxed the resources of the master mind that was so vigorously stimulating the colonization of the northwest.

The difficulty was this: A considerable part of Polk county is low, and in the early days water covered it to such an extent during several months of the year that the land could not be cultivated regularly, and even after seed was put in and gave promise of a good yield a wet spell would often ruin the crop. A comprehensive plan of systematic drainage was requisite to overcome this difficulty, and Mr. Hill inaugurated and directed this with the sweep of vision and practical ability which have characterized everything he has done. He sent oiit an engineer to make a survey and determine the elevation at each section corner. He then had an elaborate drainage map made to show how the drainage woi'k should be done. A few years later the legislature enacted the present drainage law and appropriated $100,000 for a drainage system for Polk county. Mr. Hill agreed to add $25,000 to the fund on condition that the railroad company be allowed to name a competent civil engineer as one member of the drainage commission. This was the beginning of the admirable system of drainage work that has so materially helped to bring about the advanced agricultural development of the present day in Polk county.

But this step, serviceable as it soon proved to be, was not in itself sufficient to fully accomplish the purpose desired. Mr. Hill was a laborious and critical student of the science of agriculture and he realized that there was great need among the people of the northwest of more general and exact practical knowledge of that science based on experimental study of it. He therefore induced the railroad company to donate 400 acres of land for an agricultural school and experiment station at Crookston. The land lay idle for years, and he then informed the state authorities that unless they decided to carry out the purpose of the donation without further delay the land would revert to the company. Hon. A. D. Stevens, then a member of the state senate, persuaded the legislature to appropriate $50,000 for the erection of the first buildings, and since then the school has advanced in progress and usefulness at a very gratifying rate.

Mr. Hill did not, however, stop with this effort to elevate the farming industry in Polk county and other parts of the northwest. During all his subsequent years he has been very active in this behalf, and in frequent public addresses on notable occasions and pamphlets widely circulated has continued to lead the farmers of Minnesota to higher aims and greater profits in their work, and to teach them how to reach the goals he has pointed out. His interest in everything that pertains to the welfare of this region is now, when he is well advanced in age and laying aside many of the burdens of a long term of great activity, as great as it has ever been, although the need of his personal stimulus in the matter has largely passed aAvay.

Gustav Christianson

This enterprising farmer and public-spirited citizen of Minnesota, who lived for a number of years in Scandia township, Polk county, and improved a large farm there but is now a resident of Norman county, dwelling on a farm two miles south of Rindal, was born in Norway in 1864 and came to this country with his parents iii liis boyhood. The family located in Goodhue county, Minnesota, for a few years and in 1881 moved to Norman county, where the father took up a homestead and passed the remainder of his days.

When Gustav was eighteen he obtained employment on the Harriot farm near Beltrami and worked on it two years. In 1885 he filed a homestead claim on part of the land now owned by his sons Alfred and Benjamin, and that fall he put up his first dwelling on the farm, the one that is now used as a chicken house. On November 15, 1885, he was married on the Harriot farm to Miss Anguina Anderson, then twenty-one years old, who came to the United States at the age of two with her mother, Guria Andei'son, who was her brother Olous' housekeeper.

After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Christianson made their home on a farm they rented for a year and then moved to their homestead. They had a couple of cows and a few chickens, but only one chair and one stove, and what little more they had of household goods Gustav made himself. He continued to work for other farmers off and on for three years, during which time he purchased a colt and a young yoke of oxen, which he used to cultivate and improve his own place, and this he continued to do for twenty-two years, until he sold his Polk county land to his two oldest sons and moved to his present home in Norman county.

Before he left this county, however, the father added another 160 acres to his Scandia township farm, making it a half -section, and this also he owned and cultivated for a number of years. In addition he bought another tract of eighty acres and gave each of his sons Alfred and Benjamin half of it. He was chairman of the township board some years, and filled the office of township clerk when he left the county. He helped to start the Lutheran church near the homestead, raised a good deal of shorthorn stock for the purpose of supplying cream to the co-operative creamery, produced large quantities of grain on his farm, and erected all the buildings now standing on the land.

In 1909 Alfred and Benjamin Christianson bought the farm from their father, which he priced to them at $30 an acre. They are in partnership in all their industries, raise grain and live stock, keep forty head of cattle, milk fifteen cows and raise annually a large number of hogs. They have added eighty acres to the farm in recent years, making it 480 in all, and put in enough small grain to raise some 5,000 bushels a year and have forty to fifty acres in corn besides. The roads in and around the farm are all ditched, the outlet being the big swamp to the west of them.

Alfred Christianson was born on the farm adjoining his present home October 24, 1886, and was married November 15, 1913, to Miss Alice Marj' Carlson, of Norman county. They have one child, their son George. Alfred is chairman of the township board now (1916) and in his fourth year of sei'vice as such. He succeeded his father as township clerk. Benjamin Christianson was born in Shelly township, Norman county, Minnesota, September 12, 1888. He was married July 6, 1912, to ]\Iiss Nellie Boen, of near Rindal, Norman county. They have two children. Alma Katharine and Orville Gilraan.

John Stromstad

Overtaking good fortune after it had fled from him for a number of years, John Sti'omstad, one of the leading farmers and live stock men of Scandia township, he and his son Theodore owning and cultivating all of Section 34, has kept a firm grip on his opportunities and made the most of them ever since. His fine farm and pleasant country home is twenty miles south of Crookston and seven miles southwest of Beltrami. He was born in Norway October 5, 1850, and came to the United States alone in 1871 and located in Houston county, Minnesota. He had a little money left when he reached his new home, but did not invest it immediately. For two years he worked at farm labor in Houston county, and then, in 1873, was married there to Miss Martha Christianson, a native of that county, where her parents settled in 1853, when they came over from Norwaj' among the first emigrants from that country to locate in Minnesota.

After his marriage Mr. Stromstad bought a farm in Houston county, but chinch bugs and other pests destroyed his crops, hard luck attended him in many forms, and in 1884 he was worse off than having nothing. He owned a team but it was not paid for. That year he determined to seek a new basis of operations and came to this county and took up as a homestead the northeast quarter of Section 34 in Scandia township. He built a small frame house on his land, hauling the lumber for it from the Red river, and covered the building with tar paper inside and out. Until he was able to get some of his own farm into condition for cultivation he worked with his team on other farms, especially during harvest times.

Mr. Stromstad and his son Theodore now together own all of Section 34 and carry on flourishing industries in raising grain and beef and dairy cattle. They have stock in the co-operative creamery at Beltrami and keep sixteen to twenty milch cows from which they furnish cream to that institution. They breed their dairy cattle from a thoroughbred shorthorn sire and keep them in good condition by giving them careful attention. Their grain product is also large, the crop of wheat, oats and barley in 1915 totaling over 10,000 bushels. For one quarter-section of his land Mr. Stromstad paid the sum of $4,400, but it is worth a great deal more than that now.

Mr. and Mrs. Stromstad have two children. Their daughter Milla is now the wife of Andrew N. Mjelde and lives two miles distant from her father's farm. Theodore, who is the other child of the household, lives with his parents. He married Miss Helene Evje, of Norman county, Minnesota, and they have one child, their son Melvin. Theodore is at present township supervisor and has been on the board some years. He has also operated a threshing outfit for ten or twelve years. His father was one of the founders of Helleland United Lutheran church near his home, which was organized soon after his arrival in the township, and all the members of the family belong to it and are active workers for its advancement. Part of the dwelling house now on the farm was hauled from Beltrami, seven miles away. It was built in portions at different times. The first barn put up by Mr. Stromstad was constructed of sod and covered with marsh hay. He and his son have a genius for improvement and have lately taken contracts to do ditching along the public roads to the great advantage of the town.ship and its residents.

Alp Thorson

This now prosperous farmer, who lives on Section 26, Roome township, one mile northwest of Eldred, and owns a well improved farm of 200 acres, one corner of which the railroad crosses, came to Polk county in 1879 almost penniless, with his firm heart and strong limbs as his only sources of encouragement and means of advancement. He was born in Noi*way June 24, 1845, and came to the United States in 1867, locating in Winneshiek county, Iowa, where his brother Thomas, who had served in the Union army during the Civil war, was living. Alf bought 160 acres of land in Iowa, for which he paid $1,100 he had saved out of his earnings, and lived on this land five years without making any progress whatever. Prices were low and times were hard, and there seemed to be no prospect of improvement where he was. So he concluded it was best for him to abandon what he had and seek a better opportunity in a different locality.

When Mr. Thorson located on his homestead in 1879 only two other men, Ole P. Krogen and Martin Likeness, were living in the neighborhood. Mr. Krogen had two yoke of oxen but none of the three had a sleigh or drag of any kind. lu fact, Mr. Thorson had spent his last two cents for postage on a letter informing his people in Iowa that he had obtained land. The winter was a very severe one, and it was necessary for the three men to get food and fuel. They constructed a log sled and opened a road through the snow six miles to the Red river to get wood and another nine miles to Fisher to get food. And, as the snow drifted frequently, they had to work hard to keep these tracks open or risk having to make them all over again.

Mr. Thorson passed his first winter with his two neighbors in a log house they had built, and the next summer they all joined in building one for him, hauling the logs for it from the Red river through sloughs and across creeks which sometimes covered the wagon and its load. But the logs made a warm house, and he lived in it until 1905, part of the first seven years as a bachelor doing his own housework and part with his sister as his housekeeper. There was so much water on his land that only the high ridges could be plowed, but he got work on other farms, especially in harvest times, and so was able to live and make some little progress.

wheat on 65 acres. He sold liis crop at Fisher at forty-two cents a bushel, which was very little, but it enabled him to pay for his new house. In 1915 he rai.sed 3,000 bushels of grain, averaging over twenty bushels of wheat to the acre. He had ditched his farm thoroughly by this time, and high water has not troubled him for a number of years. He had also made a purchase of forty additional acres.

Mr. Thorson helped to organize the township, which was named in honor of one of its pioneers, and he has worked on every road in it. He has always been a firm and loyal member of the Republican party and above all other considei'ations a thoroughly true and consistent American from the time of his arrival in this country. He is also well pleased with Minnesota and devoted to its welfare. He was married some years after he .settled in Polk county to Miss Ida E. Gudvaugen. They have had two sons and five daughters. One of the sons died in childhood. The children living are: Alven, aged si.Kteen, but not the oldest; Dena, a dressmaker ; Sena Marie, a graduate of Akers Business college, and Tillie, Mrs. Elmer Foss, Mabel and Edith. They all make their living in useful occupations. Mrs. Thorson and the daughters are members of the Synod Lutheran church at Eldred.

Ole Jevning

Owning 480 acres of fertile laud in Polk county, in several different tracts, most of them containing improvements of value and large parts of them under cultivation, Ole Jevning, one of the entei-prising and progressive farmers of Vineland township, has used his time to advantage since he became a resident of the United States, for all his possessions are the fruits of his own iudustrj', frugality and good management. His home farm is in section 14, Vineland township, four miles northwest of the village of Climax, and the rest of his land lies near this.

journey in a sailing ship which kept him nine weeks and three days on the ocean, landed him at Quebec, Canada, and was one for which he waited three weeks at Bodo, in his native land. From Quebec he traveled by rail to Sarnia, Can., from there by boat to Milwaukee, and from there by rail to La Crosse, then up the Mississippi to Winona, and from there by rail to Rochester, which was then the end of the railroad line. He had started for Freeborn county, Minnesota, and he reached his destination the last day of August.

After living two years in Freeborn county Mr. Jevning moved to Ottertail county, where he started to improve a farm. But in 1871 he was induced to accompany Ole Estensou aud his family and Peter Satermo to the Red River country. When they reached the Red river valley, after many privations and adventures, they had to build a bridge of elm logs in order to get across Wild Rice river. This occupied them three days, and while they were doing it Gulik Spokely and others joined them, and they all traveled on together to where the village of Neilsville now stands. Mr. Jevuing, Ole Estensou and Peter Satermo journeyed farther, reaching the land on which Mr. Jevning now lives June 10, 1871, and on which he immediately squatted. The next year it was surveyed, and he then entered it under a preemption claim for which he paid $200. It contains about sixty-five acres of timber, and the rest of the quartersection is prairie.

The new settlers in this wilderness were alone. There was no resident to the north of them on the east side of the Red river, and their nearest neighbor was a long distance off. Mr. Jevning 's first house was a log cabin 16 by 16 feet in size and covered with straw and sod. His present dwelling house was built in 1876, and the other improvements on his land were made at different times as they were needed and he was able to make them.

In 1872 Mr. Jevning was married to Aliss Ingeborg 0. Estensou, a daughter of Ole Estenson, one of his companions from Ottertail county, and twenty years old at the time of her marriage. They managed to live on the farm, as his neighbors broke up five acres for him and the same quantity for each of themselves, and he had an ox team to cultivate his with. Later, at different times he bought railroad land at $5 to $10 an acre farther out on the prairie until he owned all of the 480 acres he now has, and he put all his purchases under cultivation as rapidly as he could.

Raising grain was for a long time Mr. Jevning 's principal industry, but for a couple of years he has been putting about twenty-five acres in potatoes with good results. He has served some years as township supervisor and in other local offices. He and his wife became the parents of nine children, one of whom, Ingvard, died in childhood. Of those who are living Ingeborg is the wife of Andrew Stortroen of Fisher. Johan and family have a farm near Pitt, Minnesota. Ole and family live at Fisher. Ida is the wife of Christian Munson of Minneapolis. Inga is the wife of Peter Evenson of Vineland township. Anna is living at home ; Olivia is the wife of Cecil Neal, who is operating the home farm.

Charles L. Ryan

Representing the second generation of his family in this county, and conducting extensive farming operations here in the manner for which that family has long been noted, Charles L. Ryan, who lives three miles east of East Grand Forks on the north bank of Red Lake river, is one of the substantial and highly serviceable citizens of Polk county and a very worthy representative of the sturdy and sterling Irish ancestry from which he sprang. He was born in County Lanark, Ontario, January 3, 1866, and was in his thirteenth year when he came with his parents, John and Elizabeth (Hollinger) Ryan, to find a new home in Polk county, Minnesota.

Perth, County Lanark, Ontario, January 3, 1822, of parents who came to the Dominion from Ireland, and were among the first settlers in the neighborhood of Perth. In consequence of the remoteness and sparseness of the settlement the father was compelled to carry the first seed wheat he sowed on his back for a distance of sixty miles. He became possessed of a farm of 200 acres, and on that farm his son John grew to manhood, helping to till the soil in summer and acting as a logging contractor for leading lumbermen in winter.

In March, 1878, Mr. Ryan bought a carload of horses in Carleton Place, Ontario, and shipped them to Fisher in this county, which was then the railroad terminal and four miles east of the homestead on which he afterward lived. He drove his horses across the country from Fisher to Grand Forks, crossing the Red river on a ferry at that place. There he sold some of the horses for cash and traded the rest for land at Portage la Prairie in Manitoba, sixty miles west of Winnipeg. The Sullivan boys, old friends of his in Ontario, were living in Polk county, and in May or June, 1878, he returned to their residence and bought the Bert Haney and James Jenks homestead, which is a part of the farm now owned and occupied by his son Charles. The homestead contained 200 acres on the Red Lake river, and he paid $10 an acre for it. Sixty acres were in seed and there was a little frame house on the place and some straw shacks had also been put up on it.

Mr. Ryan rented his land, went back to Ontario, sold his property there, and on October 17, 1879, returned to this county with his wife, his sons Thomas, John and Charles L. and his daughters Theresa and Elizabeth. The mother was Miss Elizabeth Hollinger before her marriage. Their eight horses and household goods were brought by rail to Fisher and conveyed from there to the farm. Mr. Ryan put more land under cultivation and bought 120 acres from the railroad company. In 1902 he sold his land near Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, and bought more here. His holdings finally totaled 840 acres, 520 in his home farm and 320 in Sullivan township, some miles distant. He also found that he had made a good investment in the land for which he traded horses.

The father worked all his land as soon as he could get it ready to be farmed. His oldest son, Thomas, had 160 acres adjoining his own home place. Thomas had married Miss Mary Jane Dougherty, who died about eighteen months previous to his demise, which occurred in June, 1901, when he was about forty-eight years of age, leaving five children, Mary, John, Edward, Thomas and Francis, and they still own the fai-m that belonged to him. Charles' brother John died at the parental home in 1883 at the age of twentythree or twenty-four. Thomas, John and their sister

Theresa each took up a homestead in Grand Forks county, North Dakota. Theresa married John Bowes, a Great Northern railroad man, and they are now living in East Grand Forks, where he is connected with the management of the church of the Sacred Heart and the school attached to it. As soon as Elizabeth was old enough she filed a homestead claim on a tree claim in Sullivan township taken up by her father, and she still owns it. She married James T. Sullivan and has her home in Sullivan township.

After the death of his brother Thomas Charles L. Ryan returned to his father's farm and took charge of it. He cultivated a half-section of land and also acted as salesman and collector for the McCormick Harvester and Machinery company, covering the territory around Grand Forks. He soon became manager of the whole farm, however, though his father continued to live on it until his death on January 2, 1903. The mother lived until September 21, 1908. They were of nearly the same age. In the early days the father was township clerk for some years. He was a Democrat in his political relations and a Catholic in his religious faith, being one of the original members of the church of the Sacred Heart. He took an active part in all movements for the improvement of his locality and was widely known and very much esteemed. All travel through this region in the early times was over the Indian trail along the river through his farm.

Charles L. Ryan grew to manhood on his father's farm and completed his academic education at the University of North Dakota. In 1886 he pursued a course of special training at a commercial college in Minneapolis. For seven years he bought wheat at various stations and also wrote insurance. But after taking charge of the farm and assuming the interests of the other members of the family in it he began to devote himeslf wholly to its management. He has bought 320 acres more, and the farm now contains 930, and includes the old Zebina Hunt farm of ninety acres, which was one of the first on Red Lake river. He also cultivates his brother Thomas' old farm, thereby conducting the operations on 1,090 acres. He raises grain and live stock, producing about 18,000 bushels of wheat, oats and barley a year in nearly equal quantities and keeping 80 to 90 head of cattle regularly and fattening many head of steers for the markets every season.

In addition to his extensive farniiug and live stock operations Mr. Ryan carries on an active dairy business, milking 24 cows and selling cream by wholesale to the ice cream factories. He also raises horses for his own use, requiring fourteen to work his land, having three four-horse terms and keeping them busy, and he employs two men all the year round and others as he needs them. For twelve years past he has filled the office of township assessor and is still filling it, and for many years he has been the treasurer of the school district and a trustee and the treasurer of the Sacred

Heart church and school in East Grand Forks. In addition, he is treasurer of the Huntsville Mutual Fire Insurance company, which does business in twenty-two townships in Polk county.

On December 27, 1899, Mr. Ryan was united in marriage with Miss Luella M. Dinnie, a native of Morrisburg, Ontario, who was brought to Grand Forks when she was two years old by her parents, John and EUen (Sehwerdefeger) Dinnie. The father was a leading contractor and builder in Grand Forks and mayor of that city for eight years in the nineties. He died there in December, 1910, and his widow is stiU living there, Mrs. Ryan being the only member of the family residing in this county. She and her husband are the parents of two children, Mary Louise and Charles John. Mr. Ryan is administrator of his brother Thomas' estate and guardian of his children, and they also have their home with him and his family.

Thomas Barlow Walker

Many events, seemingly unimportant in themselves and some of them even accidental on surface appearances, have contributed largely to the rapid settlement and development of Polk county since its great virgin natural resources and vast industrial and commercial possibilities were first seen and made luiown by a few master minds. Like Caesar, in his campaign in Asia Minor, these men of broad vision and daring nerve could claim they came, they saw, they conquered; but, unlike him, they did not subjugate peoples and put them under the yoke of a foreign government. They subdued only the wild forces of nature and helped to turn the enormous wealth those forces held in useless thrall into marketable shape and make it serviceable on a gigantic scale to the children of men.

One of these events, to which no special importance was attached at the time, even by the chief actor in it, was the arrival in this region of Thomas Barlow Walker, of Minneapolis, as a member of a United States surveying party. Mr. Walker, who now enjoys world-wide renown, was then in the dawn of his manhood and unknown to fame. But he had the forces of giant creative and productive genius slumbering within him and only waiting for a proper occasion to awaken them and call them into action. He was born, reared and educated in Ohio, had taught a district school in that state, and had then come into the northwest as a traveling salesman of grindstones, wooden bowls and wagon wheel spokes.

Mr. Walker's engagement as a surveyor occupied him only a part of each year, but he continued in it for a long time, and during his connection with the party he helped to survey a considerable part of Northern and Western Minnesota and divide it into townships and sections. His experience in this work proved to be of great advantage to himself and the country in general in business lines, and it was of special benefit to Polk county and the upper Red river valley in helping to open up the country to settlement and prepare the way for the great industrial and agricultural development that has since been wrought out in the region.

intimate knowledge of the white pine regions of Minnesota, and this knowledge led him to unite with other men in purchasing extensive tracts of the white l)iue lands for the manufacture of lumber. This changed the whole course of his career. lie abandoned his previous purpose, and the man who gave promise of winning commendable success and prominence as a surveyor and builder of railroad lines became one of the leading lumbermen of the world. He and his associates purchased large areas of pine land on the head waters of Red Lake and Clearwater rivers, beginning in 1880, and to utilize the timber there he and his oldest son, Gilbert M. "Walker, organized the Red River Lumber company and built two large mills, one at Crookston and the other at Grand Forks on the North Dakota side of the Red river.

For a long time these mills were in full operation the year round, giving employment to thousands of men, ministering to the comfort and happiness of hundreds of homes and supplying the means for the education and improvement of hosts of children in this region. They also aided greatly in swelling to large proportions the manufacturing and commercial business of the region, whereby its influence in the affairs of the state was noticeably augmented. All the currents of life in Polk county, moral, mental and material, were visibly quickened and enlarged by

.Mr. Walker's activities and the forces he set iu motion here, and by the stimulus of his inspiring example. His energies, in every region in which he has taken sufficient interest to exert them, have covered the whole field of human needs, and his fostering hand, which has been kind as well as firm and skillful, has been helpful in every part of that field.

An account of Mr. Walker's zealous, comprehensive and serviceable work in other localities is not within the purview of this volume. It is enough to say that his efforts everywhere are and always have been commensurate with his expansiveness of mind and vision. AYhat he has done for the progress and improvement of Polk county is a fair sample, but only a sample, of what he has done for many localities in ways adapted to their needs. Moreover, all his activities have ever been guided and governed by moral powers as well as mental endowments of a high order. He has a clear head and a strong mind, and these have been cultivated throughout his long career by reading, study and observation, and by constant intercourse with many of the best citizens of his own and other states, all of whom he numbers among his friends. His whole life, commercial and domestic, has been marked and directed by fixed principles of purity and benevolence.

Frank J. Zejdlik

This enterprising and prosperous farmer and business man, who is vice president of the First State Bank and owner of an imposing and valuable business block in East Grand Forks and also the owner of 1,235 acres of land in Polk county, one tract in Tabor, another in Northland and the third in Keystone and Huntsville townships, was born in Bohemia October 27, 1859, and came to this country in 1876, locating in McLeod county, Minnesota, where he remained until the spring of 1880. He then moved to this county and took up a homestead in Tabor township eighteen miles northeast

This location was remote from human habitations at the time, but before the end of the year there was quite a settlement of newcomers in it, among them John Majerchin, Joseph Hunderley, Mr. Zejdlik's brother Vaclav, and John Zavoral, and the next spring ]Mr. Zejdlik's father, also named Frank J., John and Joseph Bren, Andrew Palya, Frank Kolars, James Hullifer and others came and helped to swell the population.

When he came to this county Mr. Zejdlik had no capital. He worked on the railroad running between Euclid and St. Vincent for a time, and in 1884 he bought a farm and broke up forty acres of it with hi.s yoke of cattle and sowed the tract by hand. He then went West and was unable to drag his land, but he got a crop of 800 bushels, which he sold at $1.13 while other wheat growers got very little for theirs, some not more than 25 cents a bushel. This gave him a start, and in 1885 he bought eight}' acres more, and he kept on buying until he acquired the ownership of 1,235 acres, paying for some $37.50 an acre. He erected good buildings and made other substantial improvements and lived on the farm until 1901, when lie moved to East Grand Forks.

While he cultivated his land Mr. Zejdlik raised corn and small grain and handled a good deal of live stock. He also took an active part in the public affairs of his localitj', helping to organize Tabor township, which was first called Osseta, and served on the township board as supervisor. His extensive farming operations and his public duties kept him very busy,

In 1901 he bought a home in Ea.st Grand Forks and moved to that city to give his childx'en good school facilities. He then had $17,000 loaned out. This he collected in and invested in a business Hock, which he built in the heart of the town on De Mers avenue. He is a member of the city Light and Water commission and otherwise interested in the advancement and improvement of the community. He also bought stock in the First State Bank of East Grand Forks and became its vice president.

Mr. Zejdlik was married in McLeod count.y, Minnesota, in 1888 to Miss Anna HoUob. They have seven children, Edward, Matilda, Annie, Frank, Emily, Bessie and William. Edward keeps a meat market in East Grand Porks and Frank, who is a graduate of the high school and the onty one of the children living away from the family, cultivates the home farm. All the members of the family stand well in the community and richly deserve the esteem they enjoy.

Andrew Eleven

The course of this enterprising and energetic farmer and stock breeder, whose fine farm of 720 acres in and adjoining Section 9, Roome township, and his other place of eighty acres near Eldred are models of skillful cultivation and high productiveness, has been one of steady progress since he became a resident of Polk county in 1877 and bought his first tract from the railroad at $8 an acre, with a rebate of $3.50 an acre for clearing, plowing and seeding three-fourths of it. He had nothing then but enough mone.y to make a small payment on his land, two teams and a few farm implements.

Mr. Eleven was born in Norway in May, 1849, and in 1874 he came to this country and located in Goodhue count.y, Minnesota, where he remained nearly three years. In the spring of 1878 he built a little frame house on his land and set in to breaking up the stubborn glebe with his horse and ox teams to get crops and save his rebate. Two years later he bought more land, and he has kept on buying from time to time until he is now one of the most extensive landholders in the Red river valley. He owns 800 acres and has all under cultivation, grain being his principal product. His crops in 1915 aggregated 18,000 bushels, 8,000 being wheat and the rest oats, barley and flax.

The farming operations of Mr. Eleven are conducted on a large scale, as must be the case. They keep fifteen horses busy most of the time, and he also has 30 to 40 head of cattle and milks ten to twelve cows regularly, supplying cream to the creamery at Fisher in which he is a stockholder. His home farm is well located, the dwelling house, which was built in 1910, commanding an extensive view in all directions. The farm is well eqiiippetl with modern raaehinery of the most approved designs, and everything is at hand for the most skillful cultivation of it, including the mind (if a master workman in the person of its owner. ]\Ir. Kleven made two trips to Norway since coming to this country. The last trip was made in 1914.

At this time (1916) Mr. Kleven is chairman of the township hoard, a post of responsibility and trust which he has filled with credit at different times during his residence here. He has long taken an active jiart in all work for good roads and ditching, and lias given intelligent and stimulating attention to all other public interests in the township. Before the end of the first year after his arrival in Polk county he was united in marriage with Miss Sarah Tiklen, also a native of Norway. They have six children living: ]\Iinda, who resided in Grand Forks ; Lucas, who is his father's main assistant on the farm, and Cora, Toma, Hartuig and Joseph, and are also merabei-s of the parental family circle.

Esten 0. Estenson

This gentleman is a member of a family that has been prominent and stood high in the regard and good will of the people in the southwestern part of Polk county for two generations of human life, and this period covers nearly the whole history of settlement and civilization there. He is a son of Ole Estenson, one of the esteemed pioneer farmers of Vineland township and is living on eighty acres of his old homestead, on which he filed when thei-e were very few families in the locality and almost all of it was Avilderness. He is also a brother of Ole 0. Estensen, one of the county commissioners who built the court house which was destroyed by fire some years ago. The family hi.story is told in a sketch of Ole 0. on other pages of this work.

E. 0. Estenson was born in Green count}% Wisconsin, February 22, 1861, and was old enough to note when his father entered the Civil war as a Union soldier and returned to his home at tlie close of that sanguinary conflict. He remembei'S these incidents vividly and he also remembers incidents of the trip of the family through many wilds and some infant settlements from his native county to this one in 1871. His boyhood was passed on his father's farm in Vineland township, that part of the period which belongs to Minnesota, and his experiences were much like tho.se of other boys in his situation. He hunted the small game with which the region abounded, went to school when he could and assisted in the work on the farm

After his marriage Jlr. Estenson took up his residence in Crookston and became janitor of the old court house, the one his brother Ole 0. Estenson helped to build as a county commissioner, and also served as engineer of the steam heating plant in the jail, then recently built. He remained in Crookston seven years, then returned to the country and located on eighty acres of his father's old homestead. He has added eighty acres to his farm and for years has given his whole attention to the cultivation of his 160 acres of superior land and the industries incident to that.

Mr. Estenson 's main dependence on his farm was grain until recently, but some j'cars ago he began to keep bees and gradually increased his business in this line until he had 100 hives or more. He kept this number for over ten years and produced about two tons of honey annually. His hives are fewer in number now, but he is still warmly interested in bees and gives them a great deal of attention. He also raises large quantities of apples on the 200 trees which he planted and has guided to maturity, and by this indu.stry he has dissipated an old belief that apples could not be successfully raised in the Red river valley.

For a number of yeai-s Mr. Estenson has followed the trend of his neighborhood and produced large quantities of potatoes, which are sold in Kansas and Missouri for seed. His crop in 1914 was about 10,000 bushels and the same in 1915, the yield being over 350 bushels to the acre on special parcels of land. In 1904 he entered a homestead in Beltrami county, and on this he passed five years. He has added to it until he and his sons together own more than 640 acres there, nmeh of the tract being covered v^ith cedar, spruce and similar growths of timber. He has held no public office except that of school clerk, which he filled for a number of years.

Kjolhaug, of near Fosston. They have six children living and lest four in infancy. Those living are Oliver, Thomas, Ivan, George, Esther and Haaken Mouris, the last named born on the day of the coronation of the present king and queen of Norway, Mouris being the Norwegian equivalent of Maud. The father 's farm extends to the Red river and the dwelling on it is on the bank of the Evje Marias, Evje being the Scandinavian for slough or bayou.

Frank W. Kolars

Frank W. Kolars was born in Bohemia November 12, 1848, and came to the United States with his parents in 1860. They lived one year in Chicago and then moved to Le Sueur county, this state, where the father bought a farm and became an influential citizen, serving in several township offices and contributing generally to the advancement and improvement of the county. He and his wife both died on the Le Sueur county farm several years ago.

Their son Frank obtained a common school education in his native land, in Chicago and in Le Sueur county. In 1873, when he was but twenty-five, he was elected clerk of District Court of Le Sueur county. Judge Chatfield being then on the bench. Mr. Kolars was elected for a term of four years, and two years later he was elected register of deeds, and dui'- ing the next two years he filled and discharged the duties of both offices. He was elected court clerk for three successive terms, serving thirteen years in all in the office, ending his tenure of it in 1886. In 1890 he was the nominee of the People's pai-ty for clerk of the state supreme court, but only one man on the ticket of that party was elected, and he had the indorsement of the Democratic organization and the rank and file of that party. Some years later Mr. Kolars was the People 's party 's nominee for register of deeds in Polk county, but the party had grown weak, and he was not elected. Since then he has been a Democrat and was the Democratic candidate for the state house of representatives in 1908 in Polk county.