History of New Rockford: Feb. 13, 2023

On Oct. 2, 1905, County Commissioners Dafoe and Gunvaldson and the Eddy County Superintendent of Schools had the portion of T150, R63 [Eddy], north of the Sheyenne River annexed to the Washington School District 9; the portion of T150, R64 [Hillsdale], north of the Sheyenne to Tiffany School District 8; the portion of T150, R65 [Bush], north of the river to Rocky Mountain School District 11; and the portion of T150, R66 [Gates], north of the Sheyenne River to Sheyenne School District 12.

On Oct. 2 and 3, bank examiner N. Hayes checked the books of the Bank of New Rockford, found them in “first-class condition,” and praised cashier E.S. Severtson for his fine work.

On Oct. 3, Dick Trembly came in from Larrabee; he had just returned from the Missouri River country, where he looked over land for a stock ranch. Peter Hanson came down from the Sheyenne Valley. Went Mcgee was in town. John Nystrom of the Sheyenne Valley, J.R. Craig from northeast of town, David Geiger from southeast of town, and William Cornish, Peter McAvoy, Andrew Johnson, and Burrill Daniels, all from Tiffany, were in on business. Mr. and Mrs. Herman Hallquist were in shopping; his No. 2 Northern wheat had run 15 bushels to the acre. Miss Blanche Anderson returned from a visit with Mrs. George Woodward in Devils Lake. That afternoon, Dennis O’Connor’s separator was nearly caught in a fire, but O’Connor managed to pull it out of the way, suffering a badly burned foot. Not so lucky was F.S. Dunham, whose separator was lost in a fire started when a spark landed in a load of bundles. The separator operator Robert Weddle was injured when he was caught between the separator and the steam engine as the crew tried to move them apart; his face was also burned. However, he had recovered enough so that he was able to work after Dunham borrowed Dennis O’Keefe’s outfit. That evening, Miss Laura Frankenfield appeared as Mercy Merrick in the play “Her Double Life” at the Opera House. She was backed by a company of ten in the drama based on Wilkie Collins’ novel “A New Magdalen.” Mr. and Mrs. A.H. Johnson of Sheyenne attended.

On Oct. 3 and 4, Mrs. J.W. Richter was down from Sheyenne to see her daughter Miss Jet, who was attending Phillips Academy.

On Oct. 4, Mr. and Mrs. Louie Schafer returned from St. Paul, where Mr. Schafer had gone for medical treatment following a runaway two months before; he was feeling much better. Miss Elizabeth Trainor returned from a visit to her old home Wilton, Wisconsin, and to Chicago. Will VanHorn came up from Ellendale to visit friends for a few days. D.Y. Stanton was in from the farm to visit and to do some business. Mrs. J.L. Kinnaird visited in Sheyenne, and Mrs. Dorothea Lewis visited her brothers there. That evening, Miss Ethel Phelps, the daughter of Mrs. Fannie Phelps, who had served as the Phillips Academy matron the previous year, and Herbert Auringer were married at the home of the groom’s parents near Carrington. Mr. and Mrs. John F. Goss and Miss Elizabeth Chapman drove to Carrington that day to attend the wedding.

At 2 a.m. Oct. 5, Margaret (Mrs. Dennis) Nunn, 92, died at the home of her daughter Mrs. J.B. Dafoe six miles east of Sheyenne. Her husband had died Dec. 2, 1904, and her health had declined since then. They had pioneered in the county in the 1880s. The funeral was at the Dafoe home at 10 a.m. Oct. 7, with interment in the Sheyenne cemetery. [Either she was not buried there or her body was disinterred later, because her present grave is in Prairie Home Cemetery next to her husband’s. A common tombstone reads “NUNN DENNIS NUNN DIED DEC. 2, 1904. AGED 92 YEARS. MARGARETT NUNN DIED OCT. 5, 1905. AGED 90 YEARS. SECURE IN JESUS LOVE.” The intertwining leaves of a vine are carved in the upper left corner of the large granite stone, which rests on a large granite base.]

On Oct. 5 at 3:30 p.m., the High School Literary Society met and presented the following program: a song by the Society; Mabel House, recitation; Jennie Hersey, essay; a duet by Hazel Healey and Mabel Kennedy; Wanda Keime, recitation; a song by the eighth grade; a debate on the question, “Resolved, That the fear of punishment will influence a person to greater exertion than the hope of reward.” The Affirmative was upheld by Roger Mattson and Sadie Clark, while the Negative was argued by George Healey and Irene Barron. The Affirmative won. It was decided to admit the seventh graders to the Society. A song by the Society closed the meeting.

On Oct. 5, Chauncey Payne and his parents arrived from Churchs Ferry and moved out to the Healey farm east of New Rockford that evening; the next morning Chauncy was riding a horse, was thrown off, and broke his arm. Merchant Peter Prader fell into the cellar of his store. He was badly shaken, suffered bruises, and had a severe gash on his head. A doctor used several stitches on the gash and put arnica and witch hazel on the bruises. The Cemetery Improvement Society was formed and officers elected: Mrs. Viola Woodward, president; Miss Vannie Hall, vice president; Mrs. W.E. Radtke, secretary; and Alice (Mrs. J.W.) Rager, treasurer. [An Eddy County Cemetery Association had been organized in Aug. 1893, but apparently was no longer active.] That evening, H.J. Radtke and Edythe L. Hall were married by Rev. J.R. Beebe in the parlors of the Hotel Brown. They would live in New Rockford, where he had a cigar-making establishment.

About 10 p.m. that night, a farm worker from east of New Rockford was walking on Villard Avenue when he was joined by two men unknown to him. They were a suspected bootlegger and a black man who had just served his time for threatening someone with a razor in Sheyenne the previous week. They “enticed” the man into a dark alley [the alley that runs north and south off Central Ave. today, just east of the old Cities Service gas station], where the black man held a revolver on him while the other man took about four dollars from his pockets. The pair ran off into the night. The farm worker hunted up Marshal Robert O’Neill and told him what had happened. The marshal knew the white man from his description, arrested him, and brought him to the jail. Neither O’Neill nor Sheriff George F. Fahrer could locate the black man until the next morning when O’Neill placed him under arrest. During the night, the “hold-up artist,” who was in jail in the basement of the court house, set fire to his bed clothing and pushed them through the bars and onto the floor “with the evident intent” of setting fire to the building; Marshal O’Neill was able to douse the flames before any damage was done. Fahrer brought both men before Justice J.L. Kinnaird the next morning and they were bound over to district court with bond set at $500 each.