Notes for William David HOLDREN

Notes for William David HOLDREN

SOURCES: Edith Clark, Spearfish SD. (1978). The book Cowboys & Sodbuster. Karen Winter, Provo UT. (1980)

Although Mr. and Mrs. Willis Holdren were born a little over 60 miles apart it took the lure of the West before they met here in western South Dakota. Willis Holdren was born in a little town near Compton, Illinois, about fifty miles west of Chicago on November 11, 1854. His parents came from Pennsylvania and lived for a time in Chicago where his two older brothers, Dennis and John, were born, His father was a cabinet maker, also he built grand stairways in mansions in Chicago. Later his parents moved to near Compton where Willis his sister, Jeannie, and two younger brothers, James and Barnes, were born.

During the Civil War, Wills father was drafted into the Union Army and Dennis, although only sixteen years old, enlisted. They were both killed in battles of the War. After the War, Willis and his brothers were sent to a school for sons of veterans of the Civil War. How long they attended this school is not known, but from old letters read, is is known Willis, while a young man, lived near where he was born.

John, his older brother, became an engineer on a train that ran into Kansas. On some of his runs, Willis accompanied him. On these trips he saw many buffalo heards. The sight of the buffalo decided him to be a buffalo hunter, and together with the reports received of finding gold in the Black Hills, he decided to come west. He told of driving a six-oxen team in a wagon train from Pierre to the Hills. Most merchandise was brought up the Missouri River to Pierre, bound for the Black Hills. Not until he arrived in Deadwood did he learn that one in the wagon train was Calamity Jane, as her manner and dress was of a man. On this trip it was one of Willis chores in the evening to reset the loose tires on the wagon wheels. The wooden felloes would dry out and the iron rims become loose. To make the rims tight again, They were removed from the wheels and heated so they would expand, then wet gunnysackin was placed around the felloes and the rims were hammered in place again. When the rims cooled they contracted and would be tight on the wheels again.

Will as he was called here instead of Willis, arrived in Deadwood in the spring of 1878, the trip from Pierre having taken about twenty-five days. Alva Young, who also drove a freight wagon, Clarence and Charles Holdren, cousins of Willis, all came at the same time. Clarence built a cabin in the east part of Sturgis which Calamity Jane occupied while he was buffalo hunting. Will liked sports, he was a good ice skater and told of skateing long distance on the Mississippi River before coming west. Here he used to skate up the Belle Fourche River to pay his taxes at Belle Fourche. He also played baseball and was the pitcher on the first team of Vale. Will was also the barber in the neighborhood the men coming to his home for haircuts. Likewise, he built the chimneys of many of the homes here abouts. Among them the Holst, Felion, McKillips, beside his own and on the early-day schoolhouses. He also served several terms on the Vale school board. He also liked hunting and together with Hanford Beals and Miner Wood used
to go to Piedmont to hunt deer. Win Cox, who then lived there hunted with them. Will had a hunting license every year until two years before his death. He also trapped beaver, gray wolves, and coyotes, some of the pelts he tanned and made into robes or rugs. Except for one trip he made to Chicago with
cattle, Will was never more than sixty miles from home. While in Chicago he visited his relatives near his childhood home.

from the book Cowboys and Sodbusterrs