[floriduh voter]

Friends, the 1915 date of publication is accurate. However, discovering that Great Grandfather Magnus was a public servant and a Republican, was "breaking news" to me just weeks ago. Upon learning of his conservative activism, the search through drawers and boxes at my mom's to locate his biography began. Magnus was still living when The History of South Dakota and Its People was published. My grandmother Alice, who attended a Swedish school, was one of his daughters. Great Grandfather Magnus lived at his homestead until he passed on in 1931 at the age of 84.

I do think that Great Grandfather Magnus had a fine mustache, but I am especially proud that he was an active Republican and prosperous agriculturalist over 100 years ago. Finally, by all accounts, it appears that Great Grandfather Magnus was a man of integrity. I am honoring him at Free Republic for Father's Day.

If you have a forefather who made a lasting impression on your family or who made his own unique contribution to our great country, this is your opportunity to symbolically register him at Free Republic.

God bless our great nation. Floriduh Voter.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Tribute to John Richard Longacre

PART I Preface

Allow me to introduce you to a man I’ve met just recently through newly discovered cousins. He died long before I was born, so I didn't have the privilege of knowing him in person. However, I would like to nominate him for special Fathers’ Day honors today because of his ordinary, yet remarkable, life.

Early Years

My great grandfather, John Richard Longacre, was born in Tennessee in 1839 – part of a family of Swedish extraction that immigrated to North America in 1643, arriving on the Swedish ship, the “Kalmer Nyckel” and first residing in the New Sweden area (Chester County) of Pennsylvania. John Richard’s mother died before he was 7 years old. His father re-married in 1847, and he moved with his family to Missouri.

No one knows what his early childhood was like, but we do know that his family was lovingly close, despite the hard times of the day. Numerous letters and pictures that they exchanged throughout their long lives survive and are testaments to their affection for each other, even after they had been separated by a continent, a war, and a lifetime.

It is evident that his family taught him how to read and write because he left at least two diaries and numerous letters for his descendents. His family also imbued him with self-discipline, self-reliance, basic business sense, as well as generosity and compassion for others and a strong moral character. All that is clearly evident from the surviving written record.

John Richard Longacre as a young man

I do not know what impetus was behind my great grandfather’s trek to the Oregon Territory, or exactly how old he was when he made the arduous trip; but a study of the times, as well as family records, suggests many incentives. His Missouri home was the jumping off point for the wagon trains headed west. Gold had been discovered in California when he was a just boy of nine, and the traffic heading west past his father’s farm swelled to more than 350,000 people by the time he was a teen.

One can only imagine how he may have wheedled and cajoled his father and stepmother to allow him to join the crowd of emigrants that gathered every spring in St. Joe, Westport, and Independence. In later years, members of the family who visited Longacre homesteads in Missouri told of observing deep, grass covered wagon ruts cutting across the countryside between the farms. They were told that those scars were all that remained of the Oregon Trail. The temptation for a young man to set forth on a great, western adventure must have been irresistible.

Wagons gathering in Missouri at the head of the Oregon Trail

Continued at Part II…

[floriduh voter]

FV visits with Gomer in eastern South Dakota, circa 1999.

[Illbay]

Yeah, I love stuff like this. I have a book on the history of Monmouth County, New Jersey, published about the turn of the Twentieth Century, just chock full of stuff about the original settlers of that place many of whom (surprisingly many, as I've found out) are my direct ancestors.

It's interesting to see a book published with photos from about 1905 with captions that read things like "homestead at _________ which now looks about as it did when first constructed a century ago."

[dennisw]

Not a single freeper can measure up to your Magnus Johnson. Every generation is inferior to their fathers. This is how it is these days. We just try to do our best.

[ppaul]

Great lil' history lesson.
It's just one more thing I love about Free Republic.
Thanks.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Thanks for the great thread.

[IowaHawk]

'Magnus Johnson'?

Strangely enough, that's my wife's pet name for me.

[Aliska]

Above are the General Store and Railroad Depot early last century in Fall River County. These pictures were taken by my great aunt who homsteaded and taught school there.

For more South Dakota and history links:

Click here

[floriduh voter]

The rolling hills of Eastern South Dakota

Mom's flying out of Tampa this afternoon and will be with her brother and sisters for Independence Day in a setting like this photo. While she's having a ball, I'll finish wallpapering her foyer while she's out of town. I started the project last year.

For their 4th of July in S.D., I contributed patriotic slap bracelets for mom to hand out to the children. Mom is the special guest since she's the only out of towner for the 4th.

Some of the kids are Magnus Johnson's great, great, great, grand children; hopefully after fall 2002, they will all live in Thune Country. I'm sure that GGF Magnus would like S.D. to change their tune. The death tax may be the death knell for SD dem politicians. We shall see.

I am bumping this and may bring more pictures next week. I am finally being scheduled for diagnostic neuro tests so I'll be busy with doctor visits during July.

[floriduh voter]

The jpegs are long gone. Great stories in here.

[floriduh voter]

I’m an independent now but still vote conservstive. GGF was a Republican 4ever.