Chain Migration to Emmons County, Dakota Territory from Missouri
By Mary E. Corcoran
 Chain migration occurs when families from one locale move to the same place and include even more families for later moves. In 1900, David Sites was a census taker in Emmons County for the U.S. Census. He dutifully enumerated himself and his family in Burr Oak Township, near Livonia. David reported that he had 8 years of schooling, which was unusual for someone in their forties from pioneer communities but it made him eligible to be hired by the census. David also enumerated numerous families who were related to him from Knox County, Missouri, a section of northeast Missouri, close to Mississippi River and the Illinois border.
David grew up in Knox County, MO, born in 1858, 06 October, to German parents, both born in Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany. German immigrants were drawn to Missouri before the Civil War, where they established farms. Their name was originally Seitz but became Sites in the later censuses. David’s father, George Seitz died in the Civil War in 1864, leaving his mother, Mary Ficken Seitz, with four children; by 1870 she had married Jacob Miller, a Bavarian- born farmer in Canton, Lewis, MO. Mary Ficken Seitz Miller was born in 1832, and died around 1900.
David’s older sister, Emma Sites, married into the large Suverly family in Knox, MO. The family patriarch, John Andrew Suverly also served in the same Missouri regiment as George Seitz, the 3rd Missouri Calvary Regiment, Company “B”. Emma married one of his twin sons, Sirean Kyle Suverly in October 1871 in Lewis, Missouri. In 1883, a large portion of the extended Suverly family, along with David Sites tagging along, emigrated to Dakota Territory. The Suverlys had 11 children, and five of them relocated to the Dakotas along with their spouses and children. The William Grogan family, and the George Smith family who lived near Burr Oak, ND were Suverly daughters.
Another family from their town, Anson Roderick Bates (1846-1914) along with wife Elizabeth M. Allen Bates (1850-1922), emigrated to Dakota Territory by 1883, along with her elderly parents, the Allens. Anson Bates had also served in the Civil War, according to the 1910 Census.
The Suverly family settled near the Missouri River near Gayton’s landing. The Bates family was near Glencoe, and David Sites worked as a ranch hand for Anson Bates in June 1889. The Emmons County Record newspaper reported that he “Visited” the Bates farm often. It became apparent that the draw was the oldest Bates daughter, Cora Abigail, who was born in Knox County, MO in November 1873.
David Sites married Cora Abigail Bates in 1893 in Stewartsdale, Burleigh Co, ND. David and Cora established a homestead near Livonia and had five children. His daughter, Emma F. Sites, a teacher, ran unsuccessfully for Superintendent of Schools in October 1894.
David Sites served as a juror on the Spicer murder case in June 1897 at Williamsport, ND, the county seat. He also served as the Clerk for the Burr Oak School District and prepared budgets and expenditures for the schools. David Sites retired from farming and moved to Bismarck, Burleigh, ND where he died on 13 June 1945. Cora Bates Sites died 14 November 1948 in Livona, Emmons, ND.
The chain migration brought three large extended families to the Dakota Territory, bonded by their Missouri roots and their Civil War service, and produced multiple descendants who continued to live in Emmons County for many years.
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