Category Archives: Canton / Commerce City, S. Dakota

Canton is in South Dakota. It was a small town with boosters who wanted to create a bustling city. It was also called the Gateway City and Trappers Shanty.

Employees at Canton Asylum

Leave a reply

Settlers Wait to Enter Surplus Lands at Fort Hall Reservation,1902, courtesy Library of Congress

When the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians first opened, employees took on a variety of tasks not necessarily in their job descriptions. Dr. Turner, the assistant superintendent and the only doctor at the asylum, often traveled out-of-state to escort new patients to the asylum.

On February 4, 1905, the Sioux Valley News reported that Turner and an employee named Hans Loe, had just returned from Fort Hall in Idaho with two Shoshone patients. That week, the financial clerk also returned from a trip to bring back an Apache patient. Turner was scheduled to go to Indian Territory to pick up an insane woman at Union Agency, while O. S. Gifford was set to go to Minnesota to get a patient from White Earth reservation.

Though this may have been an especially busy week, employees obviously could not give patients their full attention.

Indians Making Maple Sugar at Cass Lake, 1905, courtesy Minnesota Historical Society

White Settlers in Indian Territory, 1883, courtesy Robert E. Cunningham Oklahoma History Collection

______________________________________________________________________________________

Harry R. Hummer’s Family

Leave a reply

Dr. Harry Reid Hummer was born in Washington, DC in 1878. When he and his wife, Norena, arrived in Canton, South Dakota, they had two young sons: Francis, and Harry, Jr. They later had a daughter who died shortly after birth. Hummer’s ambition may have been a good role model for his sons. Harry Jr. attended the Naval Academy and rose to the rank of rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, and Francis became a doctor.

Most of Hummer’s extended family resided in the east. He had a brother (Washington, DC) and sister (Silver Spring, Maryland) who survived him, as did his wife. When Hummer  died  in 1957 at the age of 79, he also had four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

View of Capitol, circa 1853-1878

South Capitol Street, circa 1957, courtesy District Dept. of Transportation Historical Photo Archives

______________________________________________________________________________________

 

Oscar S. Gifford’s Family

2 Replies

Oscar S. Gifford, first superintendent at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, was the exception to the rule–he did not live on the asylum grounds as most asylum superintendents did. He already had a home in Canton, and his assistant, Dr. John F. Turner, had a family who needed the rooms set aside for the superintendent. Gifford had a room at the asylum where he could spend the night if needed, and boarded a horse there, as well.

Gifford married Phoebe Fuller in 1874 and had a son named Oscar Bailey, who grew up in Canton and eventually became a pharmacist in Minnesota. Bailey and his wife lived in Minneapolis,  but visited  Canton frequently and were able to enjoy the hospitality offered within a large, comfortable home.

Gifford had been a widower several years before he married Jenny H. Rudolph in 1899; they had a daughter named Frederica.  The Giffords entertained frequently, were involved in community affairs, and belonged to many clubs. Jenny Gifford was instrumental in bringing a fine library to Canton through a donation from the wealthy philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

Andrew Carnegie

Lincoln County Court House, circa 1902, Canton SD

______________________________________________________________________________________

Canton Asylum’s Second Superintendent

Leave a reply

Dr. Harry R. Hummer

The Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was unusual in that it was a short-lived institution with only two superintendents. Unlike Oscar Gifford (see last post), Canton Asylum’s second superintendent was well qualified to run an insane asylum. Born in Washington, DC and educated at Georgetown University, Dr. Harry R. Hummer was an ambitious young man who desired prominence and prestige.

He worked at the Government Hospital for the Insane ( St. Elizabeths) for nine years before applying for the position of superintendent at Canton Asylum. Married with two children when he moved to Canton, South Dakota, Hummer badly wanted to run his own institution.

It must have been a difficult move for the whole family, since they had no ties whatsoever to the West. Norena Guest Hummer, cousin to the poet Edgar Guest, was used to the nice dinners and servants available as a doctor’s wife at St. Elizabeths. Hummer was used to having his orders obeyed without question, common at authoritarian eastern asylums, and certainly common at the military-style government asylum. It was a shock to both Hummers to arrive in South Dakota among a much more independent type of employee.

Poet Edgar Guest

Georgetown Medical School, circa 1900, courtesy National Library of Medicine

______________________________________________________________________________________

How Unusual Was Canton Asylum?

Leave a reply

Oscar S. Gifford

Though early asylum superintendents in the U.S. had to both establish their profession and learn how to run asylums, they generally had at least some experience working in large institutions. Superintendents were medical men who usually acted as the  asylum’s chief physician, and supervised assistant physicians and attendants. The Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was unusual in that its first superintendent had no medical background whatsoever, and had never managed anything more complex than his own small business.

Gifford was born in New York, and spent part of his childhood in Wisconsin, and later, Illinois. He served in an  Elgin, Illinois unit during the Civil War, then studied law. He became a merchant and surveyor, and eventually a lawyer and a territorial delegate (from Dakota Territory). After a distinguished career, during which he helped guide South Dakota to statehood, Gifford was elected South Dakota’s representative to Congress. After he had moved back to Canton, South Dakota (where he had once been mayor), Gifford became superintendent of Canton Asylum.

Elgin, Illinois Street Scenes, courtesy Elgin Area Historical Society

Dakota Territory, courtesy South Dakota State Historical Society

______________________________________________________________________________________

Newspapers And Local Mention

Leave a reply

Many early newspapers had society columns which detailed the entertainments and travels of prominent people. Small-town newspapers often had their counterpart, and reported on anything of interest which the town’s citizens might be doing. Here are entries in The Sioux Valley News‘ Local Mention column for Dec 4, 1903:

First Thanksgiving, (photo circa 1900-1920) courtesy Library of Congress

— Tom and Mrs. Stinson entertained a number of friends on Thanksgiving day.

— Oliver Carpenter’s many friends in this city will be pleased to learn that he has been promoted to the law department of the bureau of commerce at a salary of $1,200 a year.

— Mrs. C. M. Seely and Mrs. Dr. Turner gave a very pleasant dinner party to a few of their lady friends Monday afternoon at the Indian asylum.

— The Flandreau Indians scalped the Canton boys in foot ball Thanksgiving day by a score of 11 to 10. As this is Canton’s only defeat this year, the boys are quite happy. The game deserves an extended write-up but lack of space prevents.

Genoa Indian School Baseball Team, courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society

________________________________________________________________________

Digging Through Newspapers

Leave a reply

The Sioux Valley News, August 9, 1895

Newspapers can give tremendous insight into an era, and small-town newspapers are gold mines of localized information, attitudes, and values. Many reported the comings and goings of their town’s citizens and reported on odd topics of interest. On Jan 22, 1904, the following items appeared in The Sioux Valley News in Canton, SD:

— Mrs. George Alexander of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. began crying for no apparent cause and literally sobbed herself to death.

— A few days ago H. Davison of Norfolk, Neb., purchased a pair of blue socks. Now his feet are in such a condition from wearing them that his attending physician says they will have to be amputated.

— As a result of drinking ginger ale flavored with lemon extract, Charles Benke, Albert Lewis and William Prudence are dead at Alexander, Ark.

The modern reader wonders what in the world happened in these three medical incidents, which were published as straightforward news items.

Vintage Ginger Ale Ad

Vintage Cigarette Ad

________________________________________________________________________

An Easy Escape

Leave a reply

Sisseton Agency, 1891

Most patients at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians were allowed some degree of freedom if they were not violent or abusive. Elizabeth Faribault (originally from the Sisseton Agency) simply left the grounds without permission one evening in January, 1920. Asylum staff located her a couple of days later in Alvord, Iowa and brought her back to the asylum.

Faribault escaped again in September, 1921 by opening a window on the asylum’s sun porch and jumping through a screen to the ground. Once again she was returned to the institution, where she died of heart failure in 1928 at the age of 35. She had displayed no symptoms of  illness prior to death.

Indian Family, Sisseton 1885, courtesy http://www.firstpeople.us

________________________________________________________________________

Escaping the Insane Asylum

Leave a reply

1890 Census Report

Few patients enjoyed their stay at an insane asylum. Sam Black Buffalo managed to escape from the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians the week after Thanksgiving, in 1905. Canton’s weekly newspaper, The Sioux Valley News,  recounted the escape, saying that Black Buffalo slipped away during an afternoon rain shower and wasn’t missed until supper. The paper called Black Buffalo “sharp as a tack, but deaf and dumb.” Even this early in its existence, the asylum was being used improperly to detain inconvenient, rather than insane, Indians.

On the same day it told of the escape, The Sioux Valley News gave its conclusion: “Dr. Turner, assistant superintendent of the asylum, went west Tuesday and discovered the fugitive on a way-freight at Emory. The conductor picked the fellow up at a watering tank and was afraid to put him off for fear he would freeze.”

Sam Black Buffalo was returned to the asylum on Wednesday, after two days of freedom.

One-Handed Alphabet for the Deaf and Dumb

Deaf and Dumb Asylum, Little Rock, Ark., (1905-1915)

________________________________________________________________________

Clashes Between Indians and Whites

Leave a reply

Returning War Party, courtesy Library of Congress

Dakota Territory, where the city of Canton was eventually established, embraced the Mandan, Arikara, Kidatsa, Assiniboin, Crow, Cheyenne, Cree, and Dakota (Santee Sioux) tribes. The Lakota Sioux were openly hostile to white newcomers, and even the early trappers avoided their sacred land in the Black Hills. Things changed when pioneer families came in and railroads began to snake through the countryside. Railroad workers arrived in hordes to cut through previously untouched land. People who had heard rumors about gold sometimes sneaked into the Black Hills.

The Lakota Nations were important to peace in the region, and in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the U.S. government granted them a huge parcel of land west of the Missouri River. The government forbade settlers or miners to enter the Black Hills without permission, and the Sioux agreed to stop fighting with the newcomers.

Some people inevitably broke the treaty, and inevitably there were clashes. One Sioux retaliation tactic was to raid settlements and then retreat to the Black Hills where they were protected from pursuit by their treaty. The military wanted a fort in the area to better their chances of cutting off the Sioux before they could get to the Black Hills. That desire for a fort changed everything.

My next post will discuss what happened when the government pursued building a fort in the area.

Sioux Indians From Pine Ridge Reservation, S.D., courtesy Library of Congress

Sioux Delegation, 1891, courtesy Library of Congress

________________________________________________________________________