C.A. Prettyman, dairy farmer?

dairy cowsI found a couple of clues today that indicate that my great-grandfather, Charles Austin Prettyman—in addition to being a barber, real estate appraiser, mortgage banker, insurance agent and real estate developer—was also a dairy farmer for a time.

According to the membership list published in the Proceedings of the 34th annual meeting of the Minnesota State Dairyman’s Association, held in Wadena, Minnesota, from January 16–19, 1912, Charles Austin Prettyman (referred to on page 13 simply as “Austin Prettyman,” one of several names he went by) was a member of the Minnesota State Dairyman’s Association in 1912:

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Luke McMurry’s journey to the Washington Territory

Luke cased image, small detailI’ve written about my more recent immigrant ancestors’ migrations from Norway in 1850 (and I’ve got an upcoming post on the Askew migration from England in 1875), but most of my ancestors have been on this continent for 300+ years, and as of yet I know little, if anything, about most of their journeys to the New World.

During the same time period (mid-to-late-1800s) that my more recent immigrant ancestors were sailing to the U.S., many of my longer-established ancestors were forging their way across the continent in search of new homes in the West. Today’s post gives some details of my research into the story of one such journey across the continent—that of my 3rd-great-grandfather Luke R. McMurry and his family.

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The Joseph Askew Homestead (part 2)

In my original post on this topic, I used the legal document recording Joseph Askew’s homestead and combined that with aerial imagery to locate the exact location and extent of the Askew homestead from 1875 until the 1890s. In some of the recent images, at least five buildings and a grain silo could still be seen standing, giving me hope that I might be able to glean at least a little insight into what the original buildings may have looked like.

In what appeared to be the most recent aerial photo, however, all of the buildings except the silo appeared to have been destroyed. I decided that on my recent family history trip to Wadena, I would have to go check the homestead myself to see if the buildings really had been destroyed, and to see if I could still learn anything about the layout of the original homestead.

I’ve now returned from my Wadena-area family history research trip and I’d like to share with you what I learned about the Askew homestead.

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Joseph Askew threshing wheat

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Today’s post is the first of two Thanksgiving-themed posts. This first post is a harvest-related post, in which my great-great-great-grandfather, Col. Joseph Askew, is seen running a wheat-threshing operation in Minnesota in the late 1800s.

Before I go any further, I’d like to acknowledge the Wadena County Historical Society and their Executive Director and Curator, Rose Bakke. The photo that is the focus of today’s post is one from their Genealogical Research Center collections, and I would not have been able to find it or take a scan of it without the kind and generous help of Ms. Bakke. I spent a full day in their collections, making wonderful discoveries every few minutes, and I left wishing that I had an extra few days to learn even more from their impressive collections. The Wadena County Historical Society’s Museum is an inspirational place, and I’d like to sincerely thank Rose and everyone who’s had a hand in building, curating, indexing, and databasing their collections for keeping Wadena County history alive.

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Horace Scott and the Civil War

The father of Frank Scott (the pickle proprietor of previous posts) was Horace L. Scott, my great-great-great grandfather. Horace was born in New York, around 1842, and died in Illinois, around 1870-1875.

If it weren’t for the Civil War, I would know almost nothing about Horace.  His headstone is a military-provided headstone, and nearly all the records I’ve been able to find that reference him are military records. Continue reading