Dickey County Township Histories

TOWNSHIPS OF DICKEY COUNTY

• Ada Township
  The first settler to this township was Mr. McPherson, who came about a week ahead of a group from Michigan. Then a party of home seekers came out by way of Jamestown, some of whom found claims in the township; about the same time a number of Finnish people came out from Calumet, Michigan, and located in the southern part of what is now Dickey County. Some of the people who came out were not well posted upon conditions and they brought with them stup pullers, axes and logging tools with which to clear their land. They found a land much different from that in their Michigan home and were pleased that they could put their plows into the ground and turn over the soil without having to grub out the stumps.
• Albion Township
  In the Dakota Atlas of 1886 Townships 130-64 and 130-65 together make the civil Township of Enterprise. Just where this name originated is not told, perhaps for the reason that naming towns does not follow a system. Later when the Township of Enterprise was divided on lines of the congressional townships the east part was named Albion, but the reason for this name is not stated in the early accounts. The word signifies white or whiteness and is an English name of long standing. Like other townships of the new region it was located by its boundary lines only and the homesteaders took only squatters rights at first. The Elm River afforded good drainage and the soil was good. A list of its early settlers gives seventy-seven names as follows:

  Levant Bangs	Thomas Colvert	James Hyde	Wm. Retzlaff	George Towers
  Andrew B. Blumer	Isaac Cole	Robert Karl	Andrew Smith	Frank P. Warne
  Wm. Bolen	Benjamin Day	John Keogh	James Storre	Theodore Gray
  Patrick Bolen	Carlton Dickinson	Frederick Kalbus	Joseph Taylor	Everett Gray
  John Bolen	O. C. Farnsworth	Edward Lauer	Albert Thomas	Robert Gregory
  Michael Bolen	Emmett Gray	Truman Laurence	F. Townsend	George Harvey
  Frederick Bristol	Titus Harvey	Ed McEntee	Seth Tubbs	George Noyes
  Henry N. Bristol	Frank Harvey	S. M. Mowyer	Edward Retzlaff	Hulbert J. Perine
  Peleg Bristol	Carl Heine	Henry Negley	Emil Retzlaff	James Pierson
  John Burkhalter	Gustav Heine	Lewis Noding	William Rose	L. W. Pike
  P.H. Bunker	John Hickey	Anderson Noding	Chas. Schroder	Edward Williams
  William Burton	William Howard	Augustus Noess	Amy Schwartz	Ludwig Weis
  William Campbell	H. B. Homedew	August Prochnow	Gustauf Steffen	Jacob Young
  Wm. D. Campbell	George Homedew	John Prochnow	Augustus Steffen	Frederick Zinter
  Chas. L Chapman	N. J. Homedew	James Proctor	Albert Storms
  Thomas Clark	Henry Hoermann	Peter Rasmussen	George Stubbs

• Albertha Township
  Albertha Township lies in the southwest corner of Dickey County entirely within the hills, and for that reason is one of the most interesting places from the geological standpoint in the county. A hilly country withs its mysterious gorges, its pretty dells of native bush and its bold outlooks from the higher hills is always the place of romantic tradition and mystic interest. The first settlement in the township was made in the spring of 1882 by Orville Childs Hart, who together with his family and that of his son James, moved to Dakota Territory from Lake Lillian, Minnesota. A postoffice was established at the residence of John Wolff in the southwest quarter of section twenty-nine in 1910, but was soon discontinued. It was named Wolff Postoffice. A postoffice was established at the residence of Mark Hambrook in 1897 in the Northeast part of Section five. It was named Albertha Postoffice. This was discontinued in 1906. None in the township since then.
  Taken from A History of Dickey County.
• Bear Creek Township
  The Bear Den Creek was known early in the history of Dakota territory, or in fact before there was such a territory. The name was given the creek by the Indians and the Indian name was translated as "The place where the grizzly bear has his den." This was the name of a hill from which the creek gets its name. The guides of the Nicollet and Fremont Expedition in the summer of 1839 knew the creek by name. The stage line established in 1880 to connect Columbia with Jamestown ran across this township, and had a relay station where the driver changed teams, and passengers could get meals or stop over night. This relay station was located on a hill near where the highway crosses the creek, at the corners of Sections 4, 5, 8, and 9, and was a prominent land mark for the early years. The station was designated the polling place for the three townships in the northeast corner of the county in 1884.
• Clement Township
• Divide Township
  There was a rural school located in Sec. 2-132-59. The teacher there about 1914 was Henry Grosshans, a long-time resident of Glover and in the mid 1980's a resident of Oakes Manor.
  (The Oakes Centennial Book p.124; published 1986)
  
• Elden Township
  When the Milwaukee Railroad was first built into Dickey County, the end of the track was about two and a half miles north of the present city of Ellendale, in section 26-130-63, in the present township of Elden, and at that place hundreds of cars of emigrant freight were unloaded, though the town was platted in township 129. The farmers got busy and broke up the prairie, and for several years Elden produced more bushels of grain than any other town in the county. Among the first to arrive were Jake Byers and Jim Hodge from Canada, followed in a day or so by George Rose who was in the Illinois group. On April 1st 1889, a prairie fire swept the town and destroyed all his buildings, tools, stock and hosehold effects, without insurance Mr. Rose sold a quarter of land for $150 to get a little money to build a small home and buy provisions for the family.
• Ellendale Township
• Elm Township
  Elm Township lies in the southern tier of townships in Dickey County, being township 129, range 64. The Elm River which flows through it from north to south, makes it a fine location for stock-raising as water is abundant and the grazing luxuriant. In its early organization it was the east half of Lorraine Township, but it soon was made a separate civil township.
• German Township
• Grand Valley Township
• Hamburg Township
• Hudson Township
• James River Valley Township
• Kent Township
• Kentner Township
  Most of the New York colony which came out to Dickey County were from around Livonia. They organized the colony before starting from the East and sent out a man, Mr. Hogaboom, to spy out the land. This man probably went out in the fall of 1882, and the colony came on April 7th, 1883. Every one unloaded at Ellendale as that was the end of the road, in fact the only road into the county at that time. They had special emigrant rate of $22.50 per head for the people and then had to ship their household goods in addition. Some few shipped stock and machinery, but not many. The landowners in this township gives the following names: Albert Anderson, Fred Blumer, Norton W. Bucklin, Alex Bristol, David Creighton, James B Collins, J. P. Deauneans, Thomas Doyle, George A Dugar, Alvin Dugar, Thadden Ellis, Frank W. R. Emery, S. R. Kentner, E. W. Kentner, William Little, William W. Little, Louis Larsen, Isaac Lewis, Frank Letson, D. H. Long, W. C. McLeod, Daniel McLeod, J. Virgil McMillan, Fred MacFarland, John Patrick, Leslie Pratt, Lewis Pratt, David A Pratt, William Pingree, John S. Richie, James Roberston, Edward A Schiefner, Marcellus Simons, John Stephens, Joseph Stephens, S.K. Stopl, William Finch, A. W. Finch, A. W. Fountain, Ezra B Fountain, Chester G. Higgins, Samuel Jackson, A. Jefferson, Hans Johanson, James G. Morrison William Morrison, F. B. Nelson, H. Nichols, Ellis Owen, Aaron Phillips, N.B. Phillips, William Thomas, Earl Thompson, Omond Thompson, H. S. Thompson, Edward Tobin, Ole H. Wentzell, and Jacob B Morrison. The pioneer men were quite well supplied with modern machinery, perhaps more than they could afford to buy, and much of it was shipped out later as scrap iron. The women in the more prosperous homes were well supplied with equipment for doing their work.
• Keystone Township
• Lorraine Township
• Lovell Township
• Maple Township
• Maple Township
• Northwest Township
• Port Emma Township
• Porter Township
• Potsdam Township
• Riverdale Township
• Valley Township
• Van Meter Township
  Van Meter Township is located by government survey as Township 129, range 62. It crossed the Maple River which flows south and is spanned by six steel and concrete bridges. It is a level and very fertile prairie township, being entirely occupied by well tilled farms. It was settled in 1882 and 1883, before the land was surveyed, and the older residents were squatters. The first marriage in the township was that of Mr. and Mrs. H. E. Geschke, January 23rd 1883. The first death was that of George F. Dinsmore who died from apoplexy on July 18th 1883. The first school was taught by Lillian Godfrey, in the spring of 1884, in the Mussey shanty, over on the west line of the township. The first township caucus was held at 2 P.M. on Saturday, March 1st, 1886, at the home of L.W. Wilkinson. The first organization of the township was in connection with town 130 north (what is now Kentner) with Dr. Long as chairman and J. H. VanMeter and Ed Fountain as supervisors, and was called Carlton.
• Whitestone Township
• Wright Township
• Yorktown Township
• Young Township

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