Emmons County history : compiled for the bicentennial, 1976

• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: North Dakota State Library 2014
• Subjects: Bismarck; Black Hills; Canada; Corral; Douglass; Hummel; Keller; Kramer; McAllister; Sand Creek; Beaver Creek
• Online Access: http://cdm16921.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ndsl-books/id/13442

GEORGE McLAIN (1850-1907) MARY CATHERINE STOUDEN McLAIN (1855-1923) A Civil War veteran, George McLain married Mary Catherine Stouden at Crestline, Ohio on Nov. 9, 1876. They came to Emmons County, D.T., and settled on a claim in Sand Creek. George became prominent in political circles in the county in the early days. He was chairman of the Republican Central Committee, and for 8 years served as a county commissioner. After his death, Mrs. McLain carried on the farming activities with the help of their only child, Clarence. KARL KELLER (1888-1958) When Karl Keller was 9 months old, he came to this country with his parents, Egidi and Agatha (Wald) Keller. They homesteaded 2 miles north of Strasburg. His marriage to Katherina Baumgartner occured at Strasburg on Oct. 24, 1910. The Kellers had one of the largest families in the county. Their 17 children were Marie (Schwab), Agatha, Barbara (Zacher), Helen (Bauman), Cecelia (Knoll), Gene, Alvina (Hummel), Katie (Kramer), Bernie (Materi), Charles, Geneva, Hilda (Horner), Harleen (Walther), Henrietta, Robert and Ursula. SAM E. McELERY (1810-1885) The first man to build a house in what is now Emmons Co. was Sam E. McElery, who worked for the American Fur Co. The building was made of logs and used as a trading post. It stood where Wm. Badger's cattle ranch was opposite old Fort Rice. It was built in 1852, but used only one winter, for in the spring came a flood that marooned them for 6 weeks. He had lived on the Missouri River since he was 19. He traded with the Indians all winter and then floated down the river in the spring with his harvest of buffalo robes and nearly every kind of fur. He remembered seeing trains of as many as 1500 carts come down from the Red River country, owned by Red River half-breeds who made the trip to produce buffalo robes and meat. GUILFORD MANDIGO (Information taken from the Warren Mandigo autobiography) At the urging of a relative, Guildord Mandigo and his family moved to Dakota from Sutton, Quebec, Canada in the spring of 1886. He sold his farm and shipped an immigrant car containing a span of mares, 10 head of cattle, a dog, lumber for a frame house, furniture, bedding and clothing for the family to last for a number of years, tubs of maple sugar and a barrel of salt pork. The Mandigos went to stay with the Albert Robinsons in their four-room house, and Guilford filed on a claim. They stored their belongings and moved in with him for a while. Just a few days later the house caught fire. Cousin Israel saw it and thought of the new desk his father had just given him. He rushed into the house and moved the desk part way through the door and could get it no farther. Mrs. Mandigo grabbed arms full of clothing from the bedroom and ran to the door, thinking the men would soon be there to help move the desk and clothes out. However, the fire burned so fast that she was obliged to break a window and escape that way, minus the clothes. It burned all the furnishings, clothing and food. They had no place to live after the fire, but found an abandoned corral where they drove the cattle that night and slept on the floor. Guilford built on his claim that fall but had no shelter for the cattle. Winter came so early and was so severe that they moved back to the bachelor's place, therefore spending the first winter in the one room shack. There were three and sometimes four adults and four children in a room 12 x 14. The winter of '86-'87 was the most severe they had ever seen. Mr. Mandigo's wife was the former Fidelia Robinson, and their children were Warren, Ira, Narcissa and Wellington. WILLIAM MACNIDER (1850-1940) From the obituary of Wm. Macnider as it appeared in the Bismarck Tribune In the fall of 1892 Wm. Macnider came to Jamestown by wagon train to take charge of his uncle's general supply store. This store carried supplies for the railroad construction crews and emigrants. The stock of goods was housed in a large tent, as practically all of the business there at that time was done under canvas. The railroad pushed its construction to the Missouri River in 1873 and he moved on with the first train into what is now Bismarck and set up his store tent on what was later Main Street. In July, 1873, Macnider took in John A. McLain as a partner. After formation of the new partnership, they built a store building of native cottonwood lumber and later conducted a wagon train from Bismarck to the Black Hills, hauling supplies for the prospectors that flocked in during the gold rush. Remaining at the head of the McLain and Macnider store in Bismarck until the summer of 1876, he branched out and went to Fort Yates when the government established the fort there and opened a trading post for Douglass and Mead. In September of that year he brought down the river, from Bismarck, the first two boatloads of merchandise. Macnider continued in the post store for over twenty years, trading with the soldiers, settlers and Indians and handling purchase of wood, hay and feed and beef for sale to the government. While he was in charge of the post store, Mr. Macnider bought land on this side of the river at the mouth of Beaver Creek and established a cattle ranch of close to a thousand acres. After leaving the fort post, he operated a store on his ranch for several years. He was married in January 1897 to the former Dr. Cynthia Estella Pingree, who was a doctor at Reed's hospital at Fort Yates (1858-1943). Their children; Margaret (Johnson) and John R. william McAllister U867-1952) MAGDALENE DOCKTER McAllister <i879-i958) William McAllister was one of three children of John and Catherine (Colville) McAllister. His widowed mother being poor, William, at age 14, went to work as a riveter in the shipyards at Campbeltown, County Kintyre, in his native Scotland. There, from the stories he heard, he conceived the idea of emigrating to America to join his uncle, William Colville, in Dakota Territory. When he arrived in Newport News, Va., he was 19, almost broke and sick, so he got in touch with a friend, Alex MacDonald of Emmons County, to borrow $75.00, and with this help he arrived here and went to work for Billy Colville. He later worked as a sheep herder for Thomas Kelly on the land now owned by McCulleys, and for the Campbell sheep ranch near Kintyre. There he met Magdalene Dockter and they were married in 1900. At this time he bought Section 29, 135-74 in Tell Township, and later owned in addition, half of section 28. The McAllister children were Catherine (Lilja), Emma, Caroline (Erickson), Margaret (Gunefelder), William, Flora (Nelson), Eva (LaBraska), James, and Marjory Jean (Kleppe). 135 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.