Northwest Review (Volume 1); A Biographical and Historical Monthly

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1883. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THIS NORTHWEST EE VIEW. Vol. I. APRIL, 1883. No. 2. NEWTON EDMUNDS. IT is a matter of congratulation for Dakota, that among the first comers to the Territory were so many men who had faith in her for her own sake, and were willing to cast in their lot with her for good or for ill. Of course there were the usual number of adventurers; men who drifted thither without any purpose; men who came because it was then a land beyond the immediate reach of law; men who hoped to profit by the newness, and even the lawlessness of the Territory; and men who would as soon see disaster come to the Territory as success, provided that the event should turn to their advantage. But to counteract the evil of men like these, there have not been wanting from the first, men who were not driven here by necessity, either moral or financial, but men who saw;the possibilities of great States in the then large and almost unoccupied land called Dakota. Among these men who gave themselves without reserve to the building up of the great future, out of the weakness of her first days, Dakota can point to no name more prominent, than that of Newton Edmunds. Coming to Dakota in 1861, (those were early days, ) in the full prime of early manhood, he had behind him an ancestry to be proud of, and a record of his own that promised him victory. His parents lived in Rutland, Vermont, but moved by that strong impulse to go west, which we shall sometime see is God's plan to save our land, they left that place some years before the war of 1812, and settled in Niagara county, in the State of New York, perhaps thinking they had reached the extreme western limit. Here, in the town of Hartland, the subject of this sketeh was born, May 31, 1819. During their residence there the Niagara frontier was attacked by t...