Wordless Wednesday - Farming

Harvesting the crop circa 1929.  Scanned from original negatives.  Sheffield, Beadle County, South Dakota.


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Disaster!

Week 10: Disasters. Did you experience any natural disasters in your lifetime? Tell us about them. If not, then discuss these events that happened to parents, grandparents or others in your family.

I'm happy to say I've never had what I'd call  disaster happen to me or my family.  Living in Minnesota, we have always had interesting weather, and spent time in the basement waiting out tornadoes, but nothing ever came too close.  I do remember a time when I was young that a tornado did hit a mobile home park (why do they always target those?) but that was on the far side of town.

My paternal grandmother Alta May (Day) Dillman wrote and photographed about a tornado that went through their farm at Sheffield, Beadle County, South Dakota on 20 Aug 1934.

Dillman Cottage after Aug 1934 tornado.  Wreckage is from another structure.

Clyde W. Day's barn destroyed by tornado on 20 Aug 1934.

Fortunately, no one in either of the houses on the farm was hurt.  The barn was replaced the following year.

Thurston Thursday - Alfred Mellin Thurston

None of the usual Thursday genealogy memes really grabbed me, and since I have a Thurston line, I decided to go with Thurston Thursday instead!

Alfred Mellin Thurston (b. 06 May 1842, d. 31 Mar 1927)

Alfred Mellin Thurston was reportedly born to John Thurston and Keziah (Black/Blake) Thurston in Wellington, Piscataquis County, Maine on May 6th, 1842.  He had five siblings I have found.  I have virtually no information on his early life.  I did find him in the 1860 US Federal Census:

Surname        GivenName  Age Sex Race Birthplace State County Location                Year
THURSTON  ALFRED    17    M    W     ME            WI    DUNN  SPRING BROOK 1860

Head of household is listed as Seth Webb, so he's likely boarding away from home at school.

The next time I find him is during the Civil War.  Alfred fought for the Union Army and was wounded, gunshot wounds to the right thigh and left arm:

Name:     Alfred Thurston
Residence:     Springfield, Wisconsin
Enlistment Date:     24 Aug 1861
Side Served:     Union
State Served:     Wisconsin
Service Record:     Enlisted as a Private on 24 August 1861.
Enlisted in Company C, 8th Infantry Regiment Wisconsin on 24 Aug 1861.
Received a disability discharge from Company C, 8th Infantry Regiment Wisconsin on 28 Mar 1863.
Sources:     97

Source Citation: Side served: Union; State served: Wisconsin; Enlistment date: 24 Aug 1861..

Source Information:
Historical Data Systems, comp.. American Civil War Soldiers [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1999.
Original data: Data compiled by Historical Data Systems of Kingston, MA form the following list of works.

Copyright 1997-2000
Historical Data Systems, Inc.
PO Box 35
Duxbury.

Alfred returns to Wisconsin, where he regains his health.  Once again we see him enlist:

Name:     Alfred Thurston
Residence:     Oasis, Wisconsin
Enlistment Date:     2 Nov 1864
Side Served:     Union
State Served:     Wisconsin
Service Record:     Enlisted as a Private on 2 November 1864.
Drafted into Company K, 1st Cavalry Regiment Wisconsin on 2 Nov 1864.
Mustered Out Company K, 1st Cavalry Regiment Wisconsin on 29 Jul 1865.
Sources:     97

Source Citation: Side served: Union; State served: Wisconsin; Enlistment date: 2 Nov 1864..

Source Information:
Historical Data Systems, comp.. American Civil War Soldiers [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1999.
Original data: Data compiled by Historical Data Systems of Kingston, MA form the following list of works.

Copyright 1997-2000
Historical Data Systems, Inc.
PO Box 35
Duxbury.

Alfred survives this enlistment and returns home to a wife and a life of farming.  Alfred married Barbara Ann Messing (b. 07 Sep 1842 in Hesselhurst, Ortenaukreis, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, d. 03 Nov 1909 in Cavour, Beadle County, South Dakota) on 04 Jul 1863 in Oasis, Waushara County, Wisconsin.  They will have nine children to help with the farm chores.
 
The next time we see him, he's still in Wisconsin, and it's for the 1880 US Census:

A. M. THURSTON       Household
            Male    
     
      Other Information:
            Birth Year     <1842>
            Birthplace     ME
            Age     38
            Occupation     Farming
            Marital Status     M <Married>
            Race    W <White>
            Head of Household     A. M. THURSTON
            Relation    Self
            Father's Birthplace    ME
            Mother's Birthplace    ME
     
      Source Information:
          Census Place     Knowlton, Marathon, Wisconsin
          Family History Library Film    1255433
          NA Film Number    T9-1433
          Page Number    282A

Around this time, Alfred is awarded a pension for his Civil War service of $6.00 per month.  The pension data shows him living in Cavour, Beadle County, South Dakota already, so he's moved fairly soon after the 1880 Census in Wisconsin.

Beadle County, Dakota Territory 1883 List of Pensioners on the Roll                             Date of Original
Cert#      Name of Pensioner   P.O. Address Cause for which pensioned   Monthly Rate        Allowance
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
217,795  Thurston, Alfred M. Cavour           g. s. w. rt. thigh and lt. arm    $ 6.00        Sept.,1882

Not long after, we see Alfred being issued a Land Patent in Beadle County, South Dakota:

Names On Document           Land Descriptions
Patentee THURSTON, ALFRED M
         
Map                                          State-Meridian Twp-Rng       Aliq.   Sec.     Srv. #     County
Show land description on map SD - 5th PM     112N-060W  NE¼  30                       Beadle

Military Rank:     ---    
   
Document Numbers    
Document Nr:     649    
Misc. Doc. Nr:     ---    
BLM Serial Nr:     SDMTAA 123545    
Indian Allot. Nr:     ---    
   
Survey Information    
Total Acres:     160.00    
Survey Date:     ---    
Geographic Name:     ---    
Metes/Bounds:     No    
   
Miscellaneous Information    
Land Office:     Montana State Office    
Tribe:     ---    
Militia:     ---    
US Reservations:     No    
Mineral Reservations:     No    
Authority:     April 24, 1820: Sale-Cash Entry (3 Stat. 566)

    SDMTAA 123545     PatenteeTHURSTON, ALFRED M     11/20/1884     649     SD     5th PM     112N - 060W     NE¼     30     Beadle

 It doesn't show military rank, so this would seem to be a more usual homestead issue, and not a military grant.  Alfred and family moved to South Dakota prior to this Land Patent being granted, however, as their 8th child, Ida May Thurston, was born July 4th, 1883 in Liberty Township, Beadle County, South Dakota.  Ida May was my paternal great-grandmother.

The last official record I have found yet is from the 1910 US Federal Census, which shows Alfred still living in Liberty Township, Beadle County, South Dakota:

Surname       GivenName  Age  Sex  Race  Birthplace  State  County     Location     Year
THURSTON ALFRED M 68    M     W      ME            SD     BEADLE  LIBERTY  1910

 Alfred stayed in the area, but probably moved with one of his children slightly west in Hyde County, South Dakota, after Barbara died in 1909.  Alfred finally died as well on 31 Mar 1927 in Orient, Hyde County, South Dakota, and is buried in Shue Creek Cemetery Lot 3, 6 miles east, 5.5 miles north of Huron, Beadle County, South Dakota next to his wife.

The photo above is the only image I have of Alfred Mellin Thurston, and was cropped from a larger family photograph showing all of his family members:

The Alfred Mellin Thurston family circa 1907.  Back: Roderick, Jennifer, Joseph, Ida, Edward. Middle: Stephen, Erminnie.  Front: Alfred, Stella, Barbara

Amanuensis Monday: A History of Sheffield, South Dakota

Amanuensis Monday – An Amanuensis is a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another. Amanuensis Monday is a daily blogging theme which encourages the family historian to transcribe family letters, journals, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin – some we never met – others we see a time in their life before we knew them. A fuller explanation can be found here.

Amanuensis Monday is a popular ongoing series created by John Newmark at Transylvanian Dutch.

Here's my first Amanuensis.  This essay was written by my paternal grandmother, Alta May (Day) Dillman about the town where she was born and grew up.  It no longer exists.  The text is all hers, as is the large hand-drawn map of Sheffield.  The Cavour Township map is from an official South Dakota source which I failed to note when I found it years ago.  Without further ado, enjoy! (Warning! It's somewhat long!):

History of Sheffield, South Dakota

by Alta May Day

     On January 1^st, 1909, Clyde Wyman Day and Ida May Thurston of the Shue Creek area northeast of Huron drove to Huron and were united in Holy Matrimony by a minister at his office in Huron, South Dakota.

     Their new home was to be their home for the rest of their married lives excepting for 3 or 4 years from 1911 to 1915 when they lived several different places for a year each.

     Although I always knew the address as Sheffield those first years of life on this farm, I find Sheffield was not platted, and named as a village until April of 1910.  And I was born at this farm February 12^th, 1910.  I had always taken it for granted that Sheffield was in existence long before I was born.

     My grandfather, Frank Milo Day, bought this half-section of South Dakota farmland as an investment, and after renting it to several other families, my father decided he would like to rent the farm.  He had been homesteading land in Lyman County, South Dakota, which turned out to be very poor country to farm in.  It was ranch grassland west of the Missouri River and my father was a farmer, not a rancher.

     After farming, and growing up on a farm near Weeping Water, Nebraska until he was 21 years old, South Dakota was really a come down after that beautiful southern Nebraska farm country.  But he was a determined – what you'd call a very determined – sort of Englishman - make a go of it, or know why!

     My mother was born and raised on a farm in Shue Creek area about 16 miles northeast of Huron so when she came to the Sheffield farm she didn't have any delusions of what her married farm life was going to be.  Lots of hard work and determination.

     At 28 and 25, they weren't exactly what you would call young ones anymore.

     My grandfather Day decided to plat a small town and call it Sheffield after the city in England where his ancestors were born.

     He decided the best place for it would be on the north side of the farm as there was a township road there and the Great northern Railroad track was just to the north of the road.  The railroad owned a plot of property to the north of the road and between the rail line.  They had a depot there and a new row of coal sheds, and to the west a quarter of a mile was a grain elevator, and just east of the depot was another grain elevator.  The elevator company bought several of the lots in the newly plotted Sheffield and built a house and outbuildings there for the family who operated their elevator.

     Then a family built a general grocery store, and the government gave them the right to operate the post office for Sheffield.  This family also bought a lot next door west of their store and built a nice two-story home on it.  They also dug a really good 100-foot well which yielded very good-tasting soft water.  This well served the whole village of Sheffield for all the years I knew the town.  There may have been 6 or 7 families in Sheffield at the start, but from the time I was about five and can remember about things there were never more than four families in the town.

     There were living quarters in the back end of the grocery store and at times a family lived there and operated the store and post office.  This was still horse and buggy days.  People were just starting to buy Model T Fords.  They were so new-fangled yet at that time.

     The first people I remembered as Sheffield residents were the John York family.  He ran the store and they had a nice two-story home built next door west of the store.  They had two older sons, a daughter and a younger son.

     The elevator family were Alec Kyle, his wife and little daughter.  Mrs. Kyle was the neighborhood piano teacher.

     The fourth resident of Sheffield was an elderly widow who had a nice cottage and small acreage to the west corner of the town.  She kept a cow for milk.  Her name was Davis.

     Yorks also had a barn for their cow, and the pony the kids had to drive to school.  They used the vacant lots for pasture.  Their barn also had a good-sized ice house where they kept the ice they needed for their big ice box that they kept perishables in at the store. 

     As soon as there became a demand for gasoline, Yorks installed a gas pump.  Some of the neighbor women made butter and sold to the store along with the eggs most of them had to sell to help buy their grocery staple supplies.  And about that time they started selling what we called “boughten bread” at the store,

     John York was a man who liked to be outdoors a lot and being cooped up in that store didn't suit his liking at all so he sold the store to a young couple.  They only stayed with the store about three years as he had a chance to work as a grocery traveling salesman, and she couldn't raise a baby, and small child, and tend store too, so they sold the store to one of our local young couples who did the most for the store of any of the owners..  As so many of our farm families were milking 8 or 9 cows and had cream to sell, they decided to both take the course for testing for butterfat so they could buy cream.  My folks had been milking 8 or 9 cows, and that meant we had about 5 gallons of cream to sell twice a week.  We had been taking our can or cans of cream to the depot about every 3 days and shipping it by train to Huron.  For us who only lived half a mile from Sheffield that wasn't bad, but some of those families lived as much as 6 or 7 miles away.  It meant so much to be able to take their cream to Sheffield any time convenient instead of having to be there in the evening when the train came through to go to Huron.  You could take your cans home as soon as they were emptied instead of having to wait until they came back from Huron empty.

    What was funny when the Rural Free Delivery mail route came through from Huron our farm was right on the road it came by.  So we no longer got our mail at Sheffield.  There were only about 4 families who got mail from the Sheffield Post Office who were lucky enough to be on the new mail route.  It was to be sometime when I was about 20 before the Sheffield Post Office was disbanded and the other patrons put on a Cavour route, or extension of the one we had been on so many years (Route 3).

     I do not know the exact date this town was discontinued.  Bill and Genevieve Welty were the last store owners.  Jake and Grace Kauf also built a store, and ran the post office several years, but the post office was discontinued when the Rural Route was extended north and east of Huron and Cavour so Jake turned his store building into an automobile repair shop.  And the Welty's discontinued the store they owned and moved to the old Steinhoff Farm across the road from us.  Bill sold the store building in two pieces – one was moved to the Jake Arbiter farm and the other to the Dave Glanger farm.  They used them for granaries.  Yorks moved to Huron about 1935 and left their house vacant for some years.  It was the only place left there when Kauf's moved to Huron in a few years - they sold their buildings to be moved.  The No. 2 elevator burned in 1943 and the company sold the house to be moved.

     So by 1950 the area was just a bunch of dead trees and cement foundations and several basements.  My father, Clyde, the farm owner and Wayne McDonald, the farm renter finally cleared the [Sheffield town] land and my father got court orders to return it back to active tax lists as a part of the farm again.

Sheffield goodbye.

UPDATE: Fixed broken images.  Sorry!