| Notes |
- Peter McLaren, Sr. entered the United States at Port Huron, Michigan in March of 1884. From there he proceeded to the Dakota Territories with his wife and three children. He was forty five years old and his wife Elizabeth was forty three. In the Dakotas he would establish the Vienna Homestead.
The Vienna Homestead
The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed any person twenty one years of age and a citizen of the U.S., or who had filed a declaration of intention to become such, to file a claim on 160 acres of land in certain specified areas. By 1885 Peter had filed for a quarter section (160 acres) of land in the Dakota Territories, about a mile southwest of what would become the town of Vienna.
Peter was among the first settlers in this area and since he was accompanied by his wife and three children they obviously had the resources to survive until their land could be converted into a productive farm. Peter's younger brother, James, had inherited their father's farm in Lanark and may have provided financial support. We will never know. When the family arrived in the Dakota Territories, Peter Jr., the oldest boy, was eighteen years old. His brother, John Walker, was sixteen. Daughter Marion, the oldest child, was twenty. She did not marry until she was twenty four.
In 1887 fortune smiled, as the Duluth, Watertown and Pacific Railroad Company started to build a rail bed through the territory. The track would bisect their township from the southwest to the northeast, passing within a half mile of their farm. It was the railroad that created the town of Vienna, designated as one of its stops. In those days, the economic significance of having a rail station close to your farm can not be overstated.
In November 1889 the Dakota Territories became North and South Dakota and Peter Sr.'s family started to grow.
Once established and farming the land, Peter Sr.'s family began to experience the highs and lows typical of the times. The McLarens would spend more than three decades in and around Vienna. Here is a Family Timeline.
A Family Timeline
1889 - Daughter Marion ("Minnie") marries the local blacksmith, thirty year old James Sproat Henery. She soon delivers the first of eight children, only five of whom survive - not unusual numbers in that period of time.
1896 - Peter Jr. marries Mary Celia ("Minnie") Dixon, daughter of one of the original settlers. He is thirty, she is twenty four. They will have five children.
1897 - John Walker, Peter Sr.'s youngest son, died suddenly, at age twenty nine. John was a medical student in Minneapolis and the family legend was "a wrestling accident."
1898 - Peter Sr. is elected chairman of the Township Officers. Vienna is part of Pleasant Township, the total population of which is less than 500.
1899 - Peter Jr. and Mary Celia obtain 160 acres of land adjacent to Peter Sr.'s original farm.
1900 - Federal Census shows Peter Sr. and Peter Jr. farming their respective lands.
1905 - South Dakota Census shows Peter Sr. on his original farm. Peter Jr. has moved his family (now with three daughters) to the Dixon lands, just east of Vienna. He is still listed as "farmer" and is probably living in the house where my father will be born. He is next door to his father-in-law, Robert Arthur Dixon, and two brothers-in-law.
1908 - Elizabeth (Walker) McLaren, Peter Sr.'s wife, dies.
1910 - Federal Census shows Peter Sr., now widowed, living in Vienna with his granddaughter Pearl Irene Henery and a great grandson. Peter Jr. is still on the Dixon land and is now a "rural mail" delivery man for the U.S. Postal Service.
1913 - Peter Sr. dies. He is buried next to his wife and son in the Dixon Cemetery, at the northeast corner of the Dixon lands.
1917 - Peter Jr.'s father-in-law, Robert Arthur Dixon, dies.
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1839 - 1913 (74 years)
