1900 Biography - Joseph A. Coulter

JOSEPH A. COULTER, the leading druggist of Dawson, Kidder county, is a pioneer settler of that city, and has been an important factor in its upbuilding. He is also engaged in farming and stock raising and has a well cultivated and improved farm in the vicinity of the town.

Our subject was born in the county of Londonderry, in northern Ireland, August 24, 1854, and was a son of Joseph and Mary Anne (Lytle) Coulter. His father was a teacher by profession and followed the same throughout his life. The family were Protestants and members of the Episcopal church. The grandparents on both sides of the family were farmers. Our subject was raised in Ireland and educated by his father, and at the age of fifteen years went to Canada and settled in Kingston. Ontario. He graduated from the military school in Canada, and then worked at various employments, clerking in a clothing store and working in a machine shop, and also attended school part of the time. He went to Story county, Iowa, in 1871, and worked two years at farm labor near Ames, and then learned telegraphy in the School of Telegraphy at Oberlin, Ohio, and worked on the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad in Iowa three years as operator and agent. He engaged as clerk in a drug store at Ogden. Iowa, in 1877, and learned the business, and in 1880, on account of ill health, returned to his home in Ireland, and in the fall of that year returned to Iowa and worked in the drug store in which he previously was engaged. He soon after- ward went to St. Paul and accepted a position with the Northwestern Telegraph Company, with his office in the Merchants' Hotel most of the time, and in February. 1881, went to Dawson. Kidder county, as agent of the Northern Pacific Railway. He was the second agent to assume charge of the Dawson station and the shanty in which the office was located, together with the section house and water tank, comprised the town of Dawson. There was also a dugout owned by a cattleman. Mr. Coulter resigned in 1881, and established a small store in Dawson, and remained agent for the townsite company and sold town lots, and in the meantime he had taken a homestead farm adjoining the townsite. He took a position at Glendive, Montana, on the Northern Pacific Railroad, in 1882, and spent five months in Montana, and opened the Billings telegraph office in August, 1882, for the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. He returned to Dawson, North Dakota, the same month and platted part of his homestead farm and sold it as town lots, and in the winter of 1882 opened the first fuel yard of Dawson, which he operated during two winters and then sold his interests. He went into the cattle business in 1884, in company with T. S. Doremus, and was thus engaged with him about one year, and in the fall of 1885 established himself in the drug business in his building which he has erected, in 1883. He now carries a complete line of drugs, notions, paints, oils and druggist's sundries, and also owns and operates a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, and one of eighty acres, devoting considerable attention to the breeding of fine driving horses.

Our subject was married, in 1886, to Alice M. Barron, a native of Chicago, Illinois. She died August 6, 1893. Her father, Richard Barron, was an American, and was engineer on the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. Mr. Coulter has been a member of the Masonic fraternity since 1878. He is fond of outdoor sports, and is an active member of the North Dakota State Sportsman Association. He is prominent in local affairs.

Extracted 22 Nov 2020, by Norma Hass, from Compendium of History and Biography of North Dakota published in 1900, pages 665-666.