Papers of the Forty-second Annual DAKOTA CONFERENCE A National Conference on the Northern Plains Western Highways: Journeys through Space & Time Augustana College Sioux Falls, South Dakota April 23-24, 2010 Complied by Lori Bunjer and Harry F. Thompson Major funding for the Forty-second Annual Dakota Conference was provided by Loren and Mavis Amundson CWS Endowment/SFACF, Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission, Carol Rae Hansen, Andrew Gilmour, and Grace Hansen-Gilmour, Carol Martin Mashek, Elaine Nelson McIntosh, Mellon Fund Committee of Augustana College, Rex Myers and Susan Richards, Blair and Linda Tremere, Richard and Michelle Van Demark, Jamie and Penny Volin, and the Center for Western Studies. The Center for Western Studies Augustana College 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface .................................................................................................................................................................. v Amundson, Loren H. John & Dena Elm Families ..................................................................................................................... 1 Amundson, Loren H. Huntimer, Minnehaha County: The Settlers, Church and Hamlet ....................................................... 7 Anderson, Grant K. The First South Dakota Volunteer Regiment as Political Pawns ....................................................... 15 Bockelman, Adam Alice Chapman to Mrs. Grigsby, May 12th, 1906................................................................................. 26 Fanebust, Wayne The Nobles Road – A Noble Idea ........................................................................................................ 30 Gutch, Elizabeth R. A Missionary and His Daughter ........................................................................................................... 40 Hayes, Robert E. “Bob” The First Steps for Man’s Journey to the Moon – 238,857 Miles ....................................................... 45 Jenson, Amanda Over One Hundred Years Served: The Journey of the Riggs Family ............................................... 56 Johnsson, Lillian She Chose Her Own Path! Nellie Z. Willhite, South Dakota’s First Female Pilot ............................. 70 Kilian, Tom Traces in the Grass .............................................................................................................................. 76 Laycock, Ronald How the Oregon Trail Enabled the Pony Express to Become the “Greatest Enterprise of Modern Times” ...................................................................................................................................... 81 Lee, Shebby How the Lewis & Clark Expedition Influenced America’s Road System ............................................ 85 Preston, Margaret An Irish Missionary’s Journey to the Prairie: Mother Raphael McCarthy.......................................... 94 ii Puschendorf, L. Robert Following the Grid: Pioneering the Meridian Road, 1911-1916 ...................................................... 103 Schleusener, Kate A White Man’s Letter from an Episcopal Indian Mission, December 18, 1873 ................................ 116 Timm, John Margaret “Wylie” Mellette, “South Dakota’s First, First Lady” ........................................................... 123 White, Greg A Journey Through Native American Memory and History from Sand Creek ................................. 135 Wilson, Jim Interstate Highway System ................................................................................................................ 141 Wittman, Kadyn. The Archival Experience .................................................................................................................... 145 Woodard, Aaron Robert Water in the Wilderness – Jed Smith’s Trails and Trials .................................................................. 148 iii PREFACE Dedicated to examining contemporary issues in their historical and cultural contexts, the Dakota Conference on Northern Plains History, Literature, Art, and Archaeology is a signature event of the Center for Western Studies, which provides programming in Northern Plains studies at Augustana College. Titled “Western Highways: Journeys through Space and Time,” the Forty-Second Annual Dakota Conference returned to the multi-year theme of transportation to examine paths, trails, roads, and highways that crisscross the Northern Plains and trace their impact on the lives of indigenous and immigrant peoples of this expansive land. Previous conferences on transportation considered railroads (2007) and rivers (2008). For 2010, presenters discussed various forms of ground transportation, from moccasins to motorcycles, and also spiritual and metaphorical road journeys. Nine of the seventeen sessions were devoted in their entirety to the conference theme, with additional papers on roads and highways included in other sessions. More than 220 attendees traveled from as many as twelve states and were treated to presentations by students and scholars, readings by writers, a panel discussion on a new history of Dakota Territory, and music by guitarist and songwriter Jami Lynn. The conference’s unique blend of academic and non-academic presenters has won the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which awarded a Challenge Grant to the Center for Western Studies, citing the conference specifically as deserving of support. If you, also, value learning about the past through the lively debate of a conference, there is still time to help CWS meet its NEH endowment match. Thanks to each presenter and session chair, whose dedication to research and writing made this conference possible. Thanks, also, to the major underwriters of this year’s conference: Loren and Mavis Amundson CWS Endowment/SFACF, Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission, Elaine Nelson McIntosh, Richard and Michelle Van Demark, and the Mellon Fund Committee of Augustana College. Please note that not all papers presented at the conference were submitted for inclusion here. Harry F. Thompson, Ph.D. Executive Director The Center for Western Studies iv JOHN & DENA ELM FAMILIES Loren H. Amundson Stonecutter John Elm John Elmer Elm aka Johan Hjalmer Alm, was born about 1863 in Sweden, and came to America but his emigration path is not known. Alm was a military term in Swedish and the Elm family wonders if his skills were honed from military experiences. It seemed likely to the family that he emigrated sometime after 1880 as he is not shown in the 1880 U.S. Census however he has not been located on shipslists to date. It is not known when or from where John came to Dakota Territory but he was found working as a stonecutter in the quarries at East Sioux Falls and lived there before he married Dina Mathison in Sioux Falls on November 20, 1887 at the residence of Probate Judge, R. E. Hawkins. John E. Lind was the only signed witness to their marriage; he was born in Sweden November 26, 1849, was a retired laborer when he died October 2, 1924 of a stroke and was buried at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Sioux Falls October 5th. John E. Lind's wife's name was Hilda, born in Sweden April 28, 1866. She later married Ernest V. Bliss who was the informant on her death certificate when she died November 13, 1955 in Sioux Falls. Hilda Lind Bliss is buried next to first husband, John Lind, at Mt. Pleasant near the Bliss lot where Ernest was buried after his death in 1987. Who was Dina aka Dena Mathison? She signed the marriage license in 1887 as Dina Mathison, born in Norway and married at age 25. It was not known when she came to America but was not found in 1880 U. S. Census records. Where her roots were had not been determined but she was likely related to Hamre and Aker families who homesteaded Minnehaha County and had originated near Sorfjord in Hardanger, Norway. Elm and Hamre-Aker genealogists have attempted to identify Dena’s family of reference in Minne- haha County as four of the five children were given to Hamre and Aker ancestors settled in the county by the turn of the century. John and Dena lived in a quarry company owned home at East Sioux Falls where all five children were born within a decade. Their first child, Oscar, was born in 1888 and fifth child, Mabel, in 1898 when wife Dena died within three months after childbirth, likely from “child-bed fever.” Mabel survived. A book, "Where the Sioux River Bends," by Wayne Fanebust [Pine Hill Press 1985], chronicled quarry days and its trials and tribulations with featured stories about individuals and families. [Ed. One story told the tragic circumstances of John Elm, a stonecutter at the quarry, who was believed to have committed suicide on September 19, 1899 from despondency over the death of his wife a year earlier. A housekeeper 1 found him in extremis when John was gasping his last. A physician, Dr. Files, performed an autopsy the next day and reported that he died of excessive alcohol in his system. [Elm, like so many of his fellow quarry workers, turned to liquor for pleasure, solace or both.] His funeral was at his home and he was buried next to his wife at "Hockenson" Cemetery where graves were free for the needing.] Elm family records have shown that Rev. N. N. Boe officiated at both Dena and John’s funerals, held in their East Sioux Falls home. Rev. Boe was pastor of St. Olaf Lutheran [now First Lutheran] in Sioux Falls and also for Split Rock Lutheran congregation which became part of the Brandon Lutheran Church parish of today. A search was done