1900 Biography - John Noonan

JOHN NOONAN, the present popular and efficient sheriff of Kidder county, and one of the earliest settlers in the county, holds first rank among the enterprising agriculturists of the county. His farm is located in township 140, range 71.

John Noonan is a native of Ireland, and was born in 1860. His parents, John and Cecelia (Kilbred) Noonan, were farming people in the Emerald Isle, and our subject, the fifth child in a family of six children, was reared on the farm, and attended the country schools. At the age of twenty years he came to America. He went to Minneapolis and remained six months, and then, in March, 1881, he came to Kidder county, North Dakota. At that time the only signs of civilization between Jamestown and Bismarck were the railroad and section houses, excepting at Tappen, where the Troy farm was located. He took up government land in 1882, but was compelled to work for others as he had no means whatever on arrival in Dakota. He and his brother built a shanty 14x20 feet, on the line dividing their lands, and there they lived together and batched for some time. He raised his first crop in 1885, consisting of sixty acres of wheat, from which he harvested one thousand seven hundred bushels, some of the land yielding forty bushels to the acre. He suffered, however, some losses, as the year following this great crop he lost one hundred tons of hay by a prairie fire. He has engaged extensively in stock raising. In 1889 he started with one cow, and from this small beginning he now has a herd of about sixty head of cattle, besides selling a large number from time to time. He has made a success of agriculture, and is now the owner of three hundred and twenty acres of valuable land, two hundred and fifty acres of which is in a good state of cultivation, and his farm is well stocked and supplied with the best machinery for farm purposes.

Mr. Noonan was married, in 1889, to Miss Johanna Odona. Mrs. Noonan was born in Canada, her father having emigrated to that country from Ireland, his native land. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Noonan, named as follows: Cecelia N., Thomas and Mary, all born in North Dakota. Mr. Noonan has taken an active part in public affairs. He is a Republican in party faith, and in 1898 was elected to the office of sheriff of Kidder county. He has attended a number of state conventions of his party, and was a delegate-elect to the state convention held at Grand Forks in 1900. He was one of the organizers of Kidder county, and is thoroughly conversant with its inmost history, and well deserves a place in the annals of North Dakota.

Extracted 22 Nov 2020, by Norma Hass, from Compendium of History and Biography of North Dakota published in 1900, page 889.