Mellette County, South Dakota
Family Histories & Biographies - Wood Surname
Albert Kirk Wood History
by Virginia Kirk Wood
Transcribed from the "Mellette County Memories, Golden Anniversary Edition 1911-1961", published by Winifred Reutter, 1961
Albert Kirk Wood, "A. K." to all who knew him, and that was just about everyone throughout Mellette County, had great dreams for the future of the area, which were cut short by his untimely death, February 25, 1914, at the age of 36.
The Indians affectionately called him Hogongalishka (I'm very much in doubt about that spelling), meaning spotted fish.
Albert Wood was born February 4, 1878, in St. Louis, Mo., son of Laura Virginia Coons and William Albert Wood. After his father's death (when he was only 6), he, his mother and brother divided their time between Omaha, Nebr., and Culpeper, Va.
As a young man, he was associated with the Paxton and Gallagher Company in Omaha. But his pioneering spirit led him to South Dakota where he became a licensed Indian trader at Butte Creek for a period. He sold out his store and leased a ranch near Yankton where he brought his bride, a boyhood sweetheart, Jeannie Gray Miller of Culpeper, Va., whom he married April 6, 1904.
Fire terminated the stay in Yankton at the end of the year. It happened during a visit of Mrs. Wood to her home in Culpeper, Va. A. K. had been on an ill-fated trip to Omaha with a shipment of cattle. The cattle had lost weight enroute and upon arriving in Omaha he found that prices had dropped. He returned to Yankton to find their home burned to the ground. Looking at the ruins, he tossed the now useless front door key into a pool of melted cut glass and silver, the couple's wedding presents.
He was broke. He borrowed money to make the trip to Culpeper to see his wife and three-weeks old baby daughter, Mary Gray. He told Mrs. Wood, "I will have to begin all over again and I can't ask you to go through those hardships again. Stay here where you'll be comfortable until I get started."
But with the same spirit she has shown all through her life, Mrs. Wood packed baby and diapers and followed him west.
This time they went to the Rosebud where he began the work that finally led to the founding of the town of Wood, named in his honor.
He was instrumental in building many of the buildings in Wood and conducted the Wood Mercantile store with a branch in O'Kreek for several years.
In 1912 Albert Wood was one of the moving spirits that conceived .the idea of platting the town of Wood and the Wood Townsite Company was organized and incorporated. He was also one of the moving spirits to get Mellette County organized and opened for settlement.
During his sixteen years residence in the area he acquired considerable land. And his Cross A ranch abutted the edge of town. He was a great lover of animals, raising horses and selling them to the government. His stable had its front door in Wood and the back door opened on the plains of the ranch north of town.
A. K. experimented agriculturally for the government. Though he and his family (his wife and two daughters) lived a half mile, south of the town at first. (An Indian school for girls was later in our house.)
He had such big dreams for the future of this part of the country. It was his whole life. And, in fact, he gave his life for it. He was on the first board of County Commissioners. During the last election before his death he campaigned for Wood to be made the county seat, a campaign which you might say cost him his life. He spent some time in Silver City, New Mexico, in the Sanitarium and had been pronounced cured of tuberculosis and warned to take it easy. Instead, he went into a strenuous campaign. In all, he was ill 6 years - 1908-1914.
He could have returned to Wood to spend the last few months with his family, but he chose to sacrifice that pleasure and remain in New Mexico rather than expose them to his illness.
He wanted to do so much. His dreams were big, as were his hopes and plans for the future of this country, but his health wouldn't permit it.
Looking back, Mrs. Wood remembers they were very happy in the early years before his health broke. The life was hard for a girl from the east, but she was young and she had her family.
She liked the friendliness of the area, people dropping in for meals. In fact, it was nothing unusual to find a note on the kitchen table in the morning saying "Thank you for the breakfast, we were passing through." Travelers knew they were welcome, so had stopped to help themselves. She liked the Indians, too. She was the only white woman on the reservation and when she brought Mary Gray home, a little baby girl with golden curls, the Indians were fascinated. She was a great curiosity. Many a time Mrs. Wood would be working in the kitchen and have the feeling that someone was watching. Only to realize that it was a squaw with her nose pressed to the window pane. She would take Mary Gray out for them to see and touch, as if she were a doll. They wanted advice for their own babies and Mother's favorite prescription was "castor oil."
Mary Gray remembers they had a celebration for her and in a ceremony under a big bower of twigs gave her an Indian name, "Winchinchilla" (spelling is doubtful), meaning daughter or girl, woman with plenty of horses (I think).
Another ceremony she remembers was the exchange of a beaded dress made especially for her, for one of
A. K.'s horses. A. K. was one of the first to have a threshing machine. Also one of the first to have a car, a grey "Rambler" (not related to the present Nash) which was the only car that could take the dirt wagon roads with the high centers.
His dream of a railroad terminus in Wood was not realized until 1929, 15 years after his death. Winner was the terminus prior to that time. The Wood Townsite Company granted the land for the rights of way and the station and it was planned that in early October of 1929. Mrs. Wood would ride in on the first train to cross the prairie into Wood. The Indians had planned a fake abduction of her. But all good plans of mice and men . . . These plans were disrupted by not only the Wall Street crash, but an untimely blizzard which held Mrs. Wood, and the first train, in Winner for two weeks!
Many southerners and easterners joined A. K. and his wife in the development of the area. Among them, Mrs. Wood's two brothers, Dabney Gray Miller and Robert R. Miller (he lived in Carter and ran a hardware store), and their wives. (Robt. Miller, his wife and one son have all died. He was living in Cincinnati as district sales manager for Minnesota, Mining and Manufacturing Company at the time of his death May 30, 1950,)
Mrs. Wood's mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. H. Gilkeson, also lived in Carter. They came west from Culpeper. Mrs. Gilkeson died in 1916. .
Others from the east were Robert P. Carter from Baltimore, who came to Wood and became postmaster. He died out there; I don't know the date. Frank A. Brown from Piqua, Ohio, was helping daddy for quite a while. The last I heard of him he lived in Dayton, Ohio.
Mrs. Jeannie Gray Wood (Mrs. A. K) is living with her daughter, Virginia, in Toledo, Ohio. Mary Gray, Mrs. William Haynes, lives in Fremont, Ohio, 30 miles south of Toledo, and has a daughter, Caroline (Mrs. George Enslen) and a son, William Wood Haynes. She has two grandchildren (A. K.'s and J. G.'s great grandchildren) all of whom have been delighted again and again with the many colorful stories relating the early experiences of A. K. and Jeannie Gray on the "Rosebud."
Daddy was very active in the masonry in Wood and became a 32nd degree mason before his death. Mary Gray was 9, and Virginia 6, at the time of their father's death. Following are some of the things I remember of those six years on the Rosebud.
I remember prairie fires - caused by electric storms - the frightening experience of an electrical storm on the prairie. Lightning that whipped across the plains and hit the first thing in its path . . . and the fires that burned all in their way.
I remember, too, the dust storms ... the trips from Omaha on the train when you had to bury your face in a pillow to keep from breathing the dust. It took all day to make the trip. Winner was the last stop then. On a trip with Uncle Dabney Miller and my sister, Mary Gray, the train stopped for lunch at Bonesteel. We all got out and went into the restaurant. I was eating ice cream, a very slow eater, and the all-aboard signal came (think it was that big iron ring they hit). Mary Gray saId, "Let's hurry." Uncle Dabney said,"Let Virginia finish her ice cream." When we got outside, the train was going down the track. Fortunately, the brakeman was on the rear platform and saw us standing in the middle of the track, waving frantically. They backed the train to let us on. Would that happen today? Shades of the good old days!
Do tumble weeds still roll across the prairie?
I remember old Dick, an Irish setter and friend of all. He belonged to Daddy, but he visited everyone in town - made the rounds every day. They wrote a lengthy obituary for him on his death.
Mother remembers when she and Daddy and Mary Gray (then two years) and a couple of friends (she doesn't remember who) packed a covered wagon and took a trip to the Black Hills just for fun. This was 1907. The forerunner of the modern station wagon.
I remember the coyotes howling on the hill back of our house. And the Indians weeping loudly if there was a death in the family.
I remember the "deep freeze" - the ice house, dug out of the side of a hill. Ice was cut on the ponds in the winter, packed in straw and put in the ice house for use all year round.
I remember Freda Gudath who lived with us and read us the funny papers, which arrived more than a week late. She was German and the only thing she could read was parts of the "Katzenjammer Kids." We laughed loud and long just the same. I remember the great snows of winter that banked to the second story of our house. The wind blew a path around the house. But it was deep enough to cover the trees. Daddy drove the wagons out over it and it lasted all winter. When the spring thaws came, it was nothing to go to school in the morning but not be able to get over the creek (we called it "crick" then) to get home.
We never locked our doors. Never had any keys in the keyhole so that in the winter snow drifted through and made a pyramid of snow on the floor inside.
I remember the big Base Burner in the living room that made a "hot spot" close around it and yet threw such a warm light and flickering shadows throughout the room.
What has happened to Kenneth Mellott? He was the manager of Daddy's ranch.
I remember Mother telling of the 1910 version of a car heater. When they made the trip to White River, they warmed bricks and wrapped them, then put them under their feet. She says Dad often would stop and get out toshoot wolves that came toward the buggy.
by Virginia Kirk Wood
Transcribed from the "Mellette County Memories, Golden Anniversary Edition 1911-1961", published by Winifred Reutter, 1961
Albert Kirk Wood, "A. K." to all who knew him, and that was just about everyone throughout Mellette County, had great dreams for the future of the area, which were cut short by his untimely death, February 25, 1914, at the age of 36.
The Indians affectionately called him Hogongalishka (I'm very much in doubt about that spelling), meaning spotted fish.
Albert Wood was born February 4, 1878, in St. Louis, Mo., son of Laura Virginia Coons and William Albert Wood. After his father's death (when he was only 6), he, his mother and brother divided their time between Omaha, Nebr., and Culpeper, Va.
As a young man, he was associated with the Paxton and Gallagher Company in Omaha. But his pioneering spirit led him to South Dakota where he became a licensed Indian trader at Butte Creek for a period. He sold out his store and leased a ranch near Yankton where he brought his bride, a boyhood sweetheart, Jeannie Gray Miller of Culpeper, Va., whom he married April 6, 1904.
Fire terminated the stay in Yankton at the end of the year. It happened during a visit of Mrs. Wood to her home in Culpeper, Va. A. K. had been on an ill-fated trip to Omaha with a shipment of cattle. The cattle had lost weight enroute and upon arriving in Omaha he found that prices had dropped. He returned to Yankton to find their home burned to the ground. Looking at the ruins, he tossed the now useless front door key into a pool of melted cut glass and silver, the couple's wedding presents.
He was broke. He borrowed money to make the trip to Culpeper to see his wife and three-weeks old baby daughter, Mary Gray. He told Mrs. Wood, "I will have to begin all over again and I can't ask you to go through those hardships again. Stay here where you'll be comfortable until I get started."
But with the same spirit she has shown all through her life, Mrs. Wood packed baby and diapers and followed him west.
This time they went to the Rosebud where he began the work that finally led to the founding of the town of Wood, named in his honor.
He was instrumental in building many of the buildings in Wood and conducted the Wood Mercantile store with a branch in O'Kreek for several years.
In 1912 Albert Wood was one of the moving spirits that conceived .the idea of platting the town of Wood and the Wood Townsite Company was organized and incorporated. He was also one of the moving spirits to get Mellette County organized and opened for settlement.
During his sixteen years residence in the area he acquired considerable land. And his Cross A ranch abutted the edge of town. He was a great lover of animals, raising horses and selling them to the government. His stable had its front door in Wood and the back door opened on the plains of the ranch north of town.
A. K. experimented agriculturally for the government. Though he and his family (his wife and two daughters) lived a half mile, south of the town at first. (An Indian school for girls was later in our house.)
He had such big dreams for the future of this part of the country. It was his whole life. And, in fact, he gave his life for it. He was on the first board of County Commissioners. During the last election before his death he campaigned for Wood to be made the county seat, a campaign which you might say cost him his life. He spent some time in Silver City, New Mexico, in the Sanitarium and had been pronounced cured of tuberculosis and warned to take it easy. Instead, he went into a strenuous campaign. In all, he was ill 6 years - 1908-1914.
He could have returned to Wood to spend the last few months with his family, but he chose to sacrifice that pleasure and remain in New Mexico rather than expose them to his illness.
He wanted to do so much. His dreams were big, as were his hopes and plans for the future of this country, but his health wouldn't permit it.
Looking back, Mrs. Wood remembers they were very happy in the early years before his health broke. The life was hard for a girl from the east, but she was young and she had her family.
She liked the friendliness of the area, people dropping in for meals. In fact, it was nothing unusual to find a note on the kitchen table in the morning saying "Thank you for the breakfast, we were passing through." Travelers knew they were welcome, so had stopped to help themselves. She liked the Indians, too. She was the only white woman on the reservation and when she brought Mary Gray home, a little baby girl with golden curls, the Indians were fascinated. She was a great curiosity. Many a time Mrs. Wood would be working in the kitchen and have the feeling that someone was watching. Only to realize that it was a squaw with her nose pressed to the window pane. She would take Mary Gray out for them to see and touch, as if she were a doll. They wanted advice for their own babies and Mother's favorite prescription was "castor oil."
Mary Gray remembers they had a celebration for her and in a ceremony under a big bower of twigs gave her an Indian name, "Winchinchilla" (spelling is doubtful), meaning daughter or girl, woman with plenty of horses (I think).
Another ceremony she remembers was the exchange of a beaded dress made especially for her, for one of
A. K.'s horses. A. K. was one of the first to have a threshing machine. Also one of the first to have a car, a grey "Rambler" (not related to the present Nash) which was the only car that could take the dirt wagon roads with the high centers.
His dream of a railroad terminus in Wood was not realized until 1929, 15 years after his death. Winner was the terminus prior to that time. The Wood Townsite Company granted the land for the rights of way and the station and it was planned that in early October of 1929. Mrs. Wood would ride in on the first train to cross the prairie into Wood. The Indians had planned a fake abduction of her. But all good plans of mice and men . . . These plans were disrupted by not only the Wall Street crash, but an untimely blizzard which held Mrs. Wood, and the first train, in Winner for two weeks!
Many southerners and easterners joined A. K. and his wife in the development of the area. Among them, Mrs. Wood's two brothers, Dabney Gray Miller and Robert R. Miller (he lived in Carter and ran a hardware store), and their wives. (Robt. Miller, his wife and one son have all died. He was living in Cincinnati as district sales manager for Minnesota, Mining and Manufacturing Company at the time of his death May 30, 1950,)
Mrs. Wood's mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. H. Gilkeson, also lived in Carter. They came west from Culpeper. Mrs. Gilkeson died in 1916. .
Others from the east were Robert P. Carter from Baltimore, who came to Wood and became postmaster. He died out there; I don't know the date. Frank A. Brown from Piqua, Ohio, was helping daddy for quite a while. The last I heard of him he lived in Dayton, Ohio.
Mrs. Jeannie Gray Wood (Mrs. A. K) is living with her daughter, Virginia, in Toledo, Ohio. Mary Gray, Mrs. William Haynes, lives in Fremont, Ohio, 30 miles south of Toledo, and has a daughter, Caroline (Mrs. George Enslen) and a son, William Wood Haynes. She has two grandchildren (A. K.'s and J. G.'s great grandchildren) all of whom have been delighted again and again with the many colorful stories relating the early experiences of A. K. and Jeannie Gray on the "Rosebud."
Daddy was very active in the masonry in Wood and became a 32nd degree mason before his death. Mary Gray was 9, and Virginia 6, at the time of their father's death. Following are some of the things I remember of those six years on the Rosebud.
I remember prairie fires - caused by electric storms - the frightening experience of an electrical storm on the prairie. Lightning that whipped across the plains and hit the first thing in its path . . . and the fires that burned all in their way.
I remember, too, the dust storms ... the trips from Omaha on the train when you had to bury your face in a pillow to keep from breathing the dust. It took all day to make the trip. Winner was the last stop then. On a trip with Uncle Dabney Miller and my sister, Mary Gray, the train stopped for lunch at Bonesteel. We all got out and went into the restaurant. I was eating ice cream, a very slow eater, and the all-aboard signal came (think it was that big iron ring they hit). Mary Gray saId, "Let's hurry." Uncle Dabney said,"Let Virginia finish her ice cream." When we got outside, the train was going down the track. Fortunately, the brakeman was on the rear platform and saw us standing in the middle of the track, waving frantically. They backed the train to let us on. Would that happen today? Shades of the good old days!
Do tumble weeds still roll across the prairie?
I remember old Dick, an Irish setter and friend of all. He belonged to Daddy, but he visited everyone in town - made the rounds every day. They wrote a lengthy obituary for him on his death.
Mother remembers when she and Daddy and Mary Gray (then two years) and a couple of friends (she doesn't remember who) packed a covered wagon and took a trip to the Black Hills just for fun. This was 1907. The forerunner of the modern station wagon.
I remember the coyotes howling on the hill back of our house. And the Indians weeping loudly if there was a death in the family.
I remember the "deep freeze" - the ice house, dug out of the side of a hill. Ice was cut on the ponds in the winter, packed in straw and put in the ice house for use all year round.
I remember Freda Gudath who lived with us and read us the funny papers, which arrived more than a week late. She was German and the only thing she could read was parts of the "Katzenjammer Kids." We laughed loud and long just the same. I remember the great snows of winter that banked to the second story of our house. The wind blew a path around the house. But it was deep enough to cover the trees. Daddy drove the wagons out over it and it lasted all winter. When the spring thaws came, it was nothing to go to school in the morning but not be able to get over the creek (we called it "crick" then) to get home.
We never locked our doors. Never had any keys in the keyhole so that in the winter snow drifted through and made a pyramid of snow on the floor inside.
I remember the big Base Burner in the living room that made a "hot spot" close around it and yet threw such a warm light and flickering shadows throughout the room.
What has happened to Kenneth Mellott? He was the manager of Daddy's ranch.
I remember Mother telling of the 1910 version of a car heater. When they made the trip to White River, they warmed bricks and wrapped them, then put them under their feet. She says Dad often would stop and get out toshoot wolves that came toward the buggy.
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Wood Surname
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A. K. Wood
Mrs. A. K. Wood
