To request a copy of this photo for your own personal use, please contact our state coordinator. If you are not a family member or the original photographer — please refrain from copying or distributing this photo to other websites.
Thank you for visiting the South Dakota Gravestone Photo Project. On this site you can upload gravestone photos, locate ancestors and perform genealogy research. If you have a relative buried in South Dakota, we encourage you to upload a digital image using our Submit a Photo page. Contributing to this genealogy archive helps family historians and genealogy researchers locate their relatives and complete their family tree.
Submitted: 10/8/19 • Approved: 10/8/19 • Last Updated: 10/11/19 • R270260-G0-S3
Birth 13 Feb 1856
Franklin County, New York, USA
Death 8 Mar 1923 (aged 67)
South Dakota, USA
J. W. BENNETT is the proprietor of one of the fine farms of Grovena town ship, Moody County. His career has been marked throughout with persistent and faithful efforts to advance his own interests and those for whom he worked, and he has been rewarded by the acquisition of a good property and a high reputation.
He was born in Franklin county, New York, February 13, 1856, a son of Robert and Mary Bennett, both deceased; the father died in 1859 and the mother in 1864. They were the parents of three children, namely: Mrs. Emma Gooldie, St. Lawrence County, New York. J. W. and R. L., Grand Forks County, North Dakota.
After the death of his parents, our subject resided one year with his grandfather, Bennett, and then went to Grundy county, Iowa.
At the age of ten years he began life on his own responsibility, and although quite young he did the work of a man. At Parkersburg, Butler County, Iowa, he worked in a meat market, and attended school until sixteen years of age, and then bought a team of horses and began looking about for odd jobs. Next he bought an interest in an old threshing machine, which he helped to operate during the fall.
In 1878 he moved to Dakota, arriving at Sioux Falls on Christmas day, and remained there that winter, and worked at freighting to Beaver Creek. In January, 1879, he filed on his homestead, but continued his freighting until the following summer, when he built a small house and began to improve and develop his farm, but as he had no capital he was obliged to work at whatever he could get to do to earn a living until his farm was sufficiently developed to net him an income. He worked two winters in the Wisconsin lumber regions, receiving forty-five dollars per month, and thus by working rented land, clerking, breaking, freighting, chopping, threshing, etc., he managed to make a livelihood, and make for himself and his family a home on the beautiful prairie.
His farm now consists of two hundred and forty acres of good land, all well-improved, and two hundred acres under the plow. - Politically, he is a staunch advocate of the principles of the Republican party, and by that party has been elected to several important offices, being a number of times delegate to the county and state conventions, and has been twice elected sheriff of Moody county.
July 17, 1877, Mr. Bennett was united in marriage to Miss Junia E. Manson, sister of ]ay Manson, and their wedded life has been blessed to them ... three children, upon whom they have bestowed the following names: William James, Robert Leslie and Emma Azuba. Mr. Bennett is a self-made man, and his early struggles with poverty taught him a sure road to success. Frugal and industrious, he has gotten together a competency to tide him and his wife to the shore from. which all must embark to the life beyond. He has been a good husband and indulgent father. Mrs. Bennett is a devout Christian and a member in good standing of the Methodist church. She is a model house wife, wrapped up in the affairs of her house hold, and the kindest of mothers.
Contributed on 10/8/19
Suggest a Correction
Record #: 270260