History Hotdish Ep. 34 - The Williams & Towne Families

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to History Hot Dish, a casual conversation about the
historic people and events that give Bismarket's unique flavor. History
Hot Dish is brought to you by the Bismarck Historical Society,
a local nonprofit whose mission is to learn, preserve, and
promote the history of Bismarck. Sit back, turn up the
volume and enjoy another helping of History Hot Dish.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to another episode of History Hot Dish. I'm your
host Kate Waldera, a member of the Bismarck Historical Society's
Board of Directors. Today's episode is a special version of
History Hot Dish where we feature another important project of
the Bismarck Historical Society, the Prairie Pioneers Early Families of

(00:44):
Bismarck Programs. The Prairie Pioneers Project is a video collection
of twenty interviews with current family members from some of
Bismarck's early and influential families and residents. The Prairie Pioneer's
Early Family Only's a Bismarck project was funded through a
donation by Chad and Stacy Walker of Bismarck, a Cultural

(01:07):
Heritage grant through the State Historical Society of North Dakota
and donations from local history enthusiasts. The project was done
in collaboration with Matt Fern and his team at the
Creative Treatment. Matt is joining me today in the studio
to help bring you another tasty helping of history hot dish,

(01:29):
and of course, another wonderful partner in this project has
been the Dakota Media Access, where you can find each
of The Prairie Pioneer's original ten episodes, along with ten
new families and their stories of Bismarck that began airing
on Community Access in December. Matt, thank you for joining

(01:49):
me today to share some of your work with our audience.
For your listeners, please take a moment to introduce yourself
from the role that you played in this wonderful collection
of interviews and videos.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Thanks for having me, Kate. I'm Matt Fern. I'm born
and raised here in Bismarck. It's my favorite city in
the whole world, and I've been running the Creative Treatment
for about fifteen years here in Bismarck. We do a
lot of ads across the state and across the country,
as well as podcasts and documentaries. My main my main

(02:24):
passion has always been telling the stories of North Dakota.
I did a docuseries called Daily to Codin that kind
of started out my whole my whole filmmaking career, and
so when the opportunity to do Prey Pioneers came up,
I jumped on it. A lot of these names Walked
or Woodman, See, they have been around, you know, the

(02:46):
Bismarck community, my whole life, and so to put a
face to the name, to humanize and to actually hear
the story behind those names was really exciting, and so
I'm very grateful to be part of the project. And
it wasn't just me. I have a great team working
with me as well as the Bismarck Historical Society and
Dakota Media Access. But this has been just a really

(03:09):
awesome project where the Bismarck community has come together and
some of the histories.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Of these families have just been very unique, very interesting,
and as always, everyone learns a lot about the families
and their important part that they played. Today's episode of
History Hot Dish will focus on the Williams and Town families.
We will hear stories and shared memories from Anne de Crae,

(03:38):
the granddaughter of E. A. Williams, an early Bismarck resident
who held some very important positions in government. We will
also hear from Rusty Town, grandson to E. A. Williams,
and Gael Town and some interactions with a famous army
general from the eighteen seventies. And what can you share

(03:59):
about the making of this episode, Matt, This is.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
One of my favorite episodes to shoot because we filmed
it at the residence and uh, it's not really part
of the episode, but we really got an amazing tour
of the house and I remember this old one hundred
year old piano that they showed me, and just amazing
stories of you know, the family entertaining different dignitaries coming

(04:27):
through and just uh and just the impact of that family.
I had not known about the Town family. I had
not known about the Williams family, but they really had
an impact on the community. And uh, just just just

(04:48):
really great people to interview. And the one thing my
son loves about this episode is when we wrapped, we
dropped off a copy of the episode and the family
was so sweet. They said, oh, we got to pay
you for it, and I said, we can't accept any
money for this. Very happy you know, you guys did
us a favor of being part of this show, and

(05:10):
so they slipped my son twenty dollars. Edie still talks
about can we go to that house again and get
that money? But just the sweetest family and really incredible episode.
And my favorite probably story of the episode is the
story of how Bismarck became the capital. Originally it was Yankedon,

(05:33):
I believe.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, Yankton was the territorial capital.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
And they tell Gail I believe, tells their incredible story
of how they switched it from Yankedon to Bismarck. But
they had to do it in Yankton, so they did
it on a moving train as it was going through
town and people were trying to stop them. And I
just love that story.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
And well, and I think Jamestown was vying for the
state capital, if I remember my history too, but Bismarck
one became the new territorial capital, and then he became
the state capitol when the states were signed into being.
And I know E A. Williams too, if I remember right.

(06:15):
He was Bismarck's first lawyer and then he also was
in the territorial and state legislatures, so he had quite
an impact on the region as well. I think his
nickname was the General Right.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
And the house you know that he built and that's
very prominent in the stories, is still standing and it's
right across the street from Bismarck HI High School. So
if you're ever driving down that one way looked, you're
right right outside the door of Bismarck HI, and you'll
see the Williams Townhouse.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
It's wonderful that some of those old historic houses are
still here. And with that we will launch into the
episode highlighting the Williams and town families.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
Another train pulled into the station and there was some
wag and containers on it that was leaning over the tracks,
and the train pushed that wagon and it pushed it
into my grandfather and crushed him against the deepot walls,
so he was killed.

Speaker 5 (07:56):
In eighteen seventy two, Erasus Appleman or EA Williams, moved
to Bismarck while I was still a railroad camp east
of the Missouri River known as Edwinton. He became Bismarck's
first lawyer and served in both the territorial and state legislatures.
He also served as the United States Surveyor General and

(08:17):
was affectionately known as the General. While practicing dentistry in Washburne,
North Dakota, doctor Roytown became engaged to Alice Williams, daughter
of Ea Williams. Doctor Town moved to Bismarck in nineteen
ten and opened a dental office and was very active
in many civic affairs.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
When I was about two and a half years old,
my parents moved back. My parents moved to Bismarck. We
lived with my grandma in this house for a year
or two, and so I'm pretty familiar with this house,
and I can tell you that it was bought bought
my great grandfather, other Erastus Appleman Williams, in nineteen hundred.

(09:06):
Now Erastus is of English descent. He was born in
eighteen fifty in Mystic, Connecticut, and they were in the
lumber business, and then they moved west to Wisconsin, and
Erastus had most of his primary education in Wisconsin, and

(09:31):
then they moved to Illinois and he decided to go
into law, and he went to law school and was
admitted into the bar in eighteen seventy one. At that
point in time, he was looking to move to the
Western frontier and his older brother Dan was in the

(09:54):
Dakota Territory working in Yton doing a settlement for some
estate up in what is now North Dakota, in the
Painted Woods area. And he followed his brother Dan to Yankton,
South Dakota, and actually practiced law there at the age

(10:16):
of twenty when he started practicing law there, and he
was the assistant US District Attorney there. And in the
meantime Dan kind of fell in love with the area
in North Dakota and moved up into the Painted Woods area.

Speaker 6 (10:34):
My sister had mentioned Danny come up earlier and you know,
settling this a state up in Painted Woods it and
he there built a cabin and him and I think
it was Taylor, they did some trapping. Taylor was a
gentleman across the river and had written Taylor books talking

(10:56):
about their escapades trying to trap beaver and encounters within
the and chose not to shoot at him and saved
their lives by not doing that. And he spent his
time as would check up there and did that. And
that's then Ea followed and that was always a place,

(11:17):
a special place for the family to go to. We've
always kind of wanted to reacquire painted woods.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
My aunt did, we did.

Speaker 6 (11:26):
But it just never was something that was able to
be done. It was kind of a shame it got
tore do because actually, in my mind it was in
a historic landmark.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
About a year or so later, my great grandfather Erastus
we've always heard referred to as Ea, came up with
the stagecoach and their headquarters were here in what was
a little settlement at that time, and they called it Edwardton.

(12:02):
So EA came up with them, and he decided to
settle here in Edwarton, and he decided to become an
attorney here. So he put his little sign up and
had his office and a log building, I believe in
the main part of the downtown area, and became quite

(12:24):
acquainted with all the locals and got quite involved with
the community because he was so well liked in the
area here. He ran for the Dakota Territorial Legislature and
one and he had five terms in that legislature, and

(12:46):
a couple of those terms he was a Speaker of
the House in eighteen eighty two, and during that time
some of the legislation the Territorial Legislature passed included the

(13:07):
establishment of the University at Grand Forks, also the penitentiary
in Bismarck, and the removal of the capital for the
territory from Yankton to Bismarck. And I should say Bismarck,
because while he was here in Bismarck, he and some

(13:29):
of the other locals changed the name from Edmonton and
incorporated this settlement into the city of Bismarck and also
the County of Burley. He was on the Territorial Commission,
and they voted to remove the capital from Yancton to
Bismarck because of the railroad up here and the river

(13:54):
and other political aspirations. I believe he, being an attorney,
realized that even though they voted for this, they had
to have signed the papers in Yankton. So he and
the other members got on the train, and I gotta

(14:17):
say I got to read it. It was the Milwaukee Railroad.
In fact, they cooperated with the Milwaukee Railroad, which furnished
the special train and General Lawler who arranged a clear track.
And the plan never could have been carried out otherwise

(14:40):
if it hadn't been for the railroad. So the commission
got on the railroad and they drove towards Yankton, and
when they got into city limits of Yankton, they kind
of slowed down to what I think about thirty five
forty miles an hour, and Yankton was ready to arrest
them all when the train stopped, but they just went

(15:01):
slowly through the city limits of yanked And the Commission
then signed all the legal documents removing the capital from
Aanked to Bismarck. And he was part of that whole effort.
I guess.

Speaker 7 (15:18):
EA Williams and Custer didn't know each other. They weren't
very friendly towards each other. From the stories I've read.
EA didn't care too much about Custer's arrogance, and they
had a few of the disputes, and one time EA
Williams good buddy was a lot of them. Were the

(15:40):
wood chucks back then were chopping down the timber, and
the army issued Custer issued in order that you cannot
cut down the timber because we need it in case
we need to build more forts for the Indian Wars.
But the woodchuck has lived there. He went and cut
down some timber. He was arrested and he was in jail,

(16:03):
and Custer said he was going to be tried, and
he Williams said, well that is nonsense. I want my
friend out this minute, and Custer said no. And then
when they got to Bismarck, as soon as he stepped
into Bismarck, they had let him go. But there's a
lot of stories about the Old.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
West like that.

Speaker 7 (16:26):
Some of the memories are the favorite things I have
in our house is our diaries of Alice and Jenny,
who have lived in this house before, which is Rescu's
grandmother and great grandmother. And the writings in the diaries
and the autograph books. Now, when people would visit the

(16:49):
home back in the olden days, you probably would not
see them again if they would come from another state.
So what they would do is they would leave comments
and comments about their visits here, and they would thank
everybody for coming here and visiting, and then they would

(17:11):
leave it, and so the family would always have a
little bit of history and memories of the person. The
diaries are from Rusty's grandmother when she was a young
child up until when she was older, but it tells
of her going out and the wagons out past Mary

(17:35):
College and if you know that huge butte there out there,
they would drive all the way out there by horse
and buggy, and they'd have these picnics out there, and
I just thought that was wonderful to be going out
there and just for a picnic. And then they would
go do horse and buggy and horses to Painted Woods.

(18:00):
And Ea died in the Wilton Hotel of a heart attack,
and he would always be in that area from Wilton
to Painted Woods to hear.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
A reminder for our guests that have just joined us,
you're listening to a special serving of History hot Dish
on Radio Access one oh two point five FM. I'm
your host, Kate Waldera and today Matt Fern with the
Creative Treatment, has joined me in the studio to discuss
the Bismarck Historical Society's Prairie Pioneer programs that Matt and

(18:35):
his team helped create. Each episode has been adapted as
an audio broadcast to help the Bismarck Historical Society fulfill
its mission to learn, preserve, and promote Bismarck's rich history.

Speaker 4 (18:50):
My grandma Town, who is Alice Town, married Roy Salem Town.
Actually he was doctor Roy Salem Town. And again the
Town family came from the Great Yarmouth area, of England,

(19:14):
and they came over to the United States to Salem,
Massachusetts in sixteen thirty seven. Around sixteen thirty five sixteen
thirty seven, the Towns lived and purchased some land in
the Salem area and were farmers there. But then after
farming for a couple of years, they sold that land

(19:38):
and bought some land in Topsfield, Massachusetts, which I don't
think is too far from Salem. And the family head
at that time was Williamtown He's the one that emigrated
from England, and some of his family members were pretty

(20:00):
notable if you wanted. They were three family members, Rebecca
Town Nurse, Mary town Esti, and Sarah Town Kloy's and
these three sisters were accused of being witches in the

(20:22):
sale and which craft delusion is I've been told, and
they weren't witches, but Mary and Rebecca were charged with
being riches witches and were found guilty and hung. Sarah

(20:46):
was charged and arrested but never found guilty beIN she
survived and just served in jail because I believe the
governor at that point in time intervened and stopped the
whole craze that went on at that point and from
my understandings from family history, it had a lot to

(21:07):
do with property. Those that accused the people of being
witches lived on one side of this line and those
that were accused and killed lived on the other side.

Speaker 5 (21:24):
Helped tell the stories of Bismarck's past and become a
financial sponsor of this program. Contact info at Bismarckistory dot
org to learn more.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
From that family line. One of them was roy Salem
Town my grandpa, and grandpa was actually born in Dennis
and Iah, Iowa, which is pretty close to where they farmed,
and I believe he went to country school in that

(21:59):
far army area until he graduated, and then when he
graduated from school, he went to Denison Normal College for
two years, graduated from that college in nineteen oh four,
and then he completed three years of college in the

(22:20):
dental school at the University of Iowa and graduated in
nineteen oh seven as a member of the college and
with a degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery. Well, it
seems like my family all wanted to move west. At
some point he decided to move west and he moved

(22:45):
to Washburn, North Dakota, and practiced dentistry there. Now, at
that point in time, my grandmother, who is Ea William's daughter,
was teaching in Wilton. Grandma, of course, was born in
Bismarck and did her education here, went to Bismarck High
School and then went to Valleys City State College and

(23:08):
got a teaching degree. And so she was teaching up
in Wilton, and my grandfather was a dentist in Washburn.
While they started dating, and then I think right about
the time they were going to get married, he moved
to Bismarck and set up a practice, a dental practice

(23:28):
here in Bismarck. Had a pretty successful practice here in Bismarck,
and in nineteen nineteen he actually took special courses in
oral surgery at Columbia University in New York. And then
he served as a member of the North Dakota State
Board of Health, the North Dakota State Dental Association, and

(23:50):
the American Academy of Paradontology. In nineteen twenty three, he
was elected secretary of the Hygiene Section of the American
Dental Association and became chairman of it in nineteen twenty seven.
What's interesting is he authored a textbook on mouth hygiene

(24:15):
that was used in the schools, and I believe in
the schools in North Dakota, and I have a copy
of that. And he also wrote many papers about dentistry.
At that point in time, when you got married and
you were a teacher, you had to quit. So Grandma
of course came down to home and got married in
the house here, and then they lived here in Bismarck.

(24:38):
At the time, my great grandfather was still living in
this house. So Grandma and Grandpa lived on sixth and
D on the corner house and lived there for a
few years and then purchased this house and moved into
this house. Now, my grandma and Grandpa struggled to have children.

(25:01):
She had many miscarriages and they were married about fifteen
years until my dad was born in January of nineteen
twenty six, and then the following year my aunt Matilda
was born in nineteen twenty seven, and so they all

(25:23):
lived in the house and they, you know, they had
a pretty good family life. But Grandpa was pretty dedicated
to the community and his practice, and he, according to
what my father told me shortly before he passed, my
grandfather was going to do a surgery on a young

(25:44):
man and man dad and it was pretty complicated. So
he was going down to Minneapolis to get some special training.
So he got on the train and was on the
train and they stopped in Jamestown because I think it
was one of those overnight things, and he decided to
get outside to get fresh air and stretch, and a

(26:10):
quirky kind of thing happened. Another train pulled into the
station and there was some wagon with containers on it
that was leaning over the tracks, and the train pushed
that wagon and it pushed it into my grandfather and
crushed him against the depot wall. So he was killed.

(26:32):
At that point, he was fifty years old. My dad
was ten result so yes, and then grandma and my
dad and my aunt lived here for forever. Well, for

(27:01):
lunch before my grandpa, doctor Roy's Town passed away, my
dad and aunt and grandparents went a lot up to
the ranch up unpainted in painted woods a lot of
times in the summer, and they talked an awful lot

(27:22):
about being up there and on the river. But they
also talked about when the state capitol burned down. And
according to what I was told by my dad, Roytown Junior,
he woke up early one morning and looked out the
window and saw smoke and then awoke his parents and

(27:44):
his sister, and they realized the capital was burning. So
they went up to the roof or the widows peak
of this house and watched the capitol burn from the
top of the house. And it seemed to make quite
an impression on him and my aunt, because they always

(28:08):
referred to it when they talked about things about Bismarck.
After Grandpa died, my grandma owned this property and the
duplex to the west of it, and then the house
on Sixth Street. So in order to survive, they rented
out those properties, and she also rented out rooms in

(28:30):
this house, especially to legislators during the session, so that
she could earn extra income. I should also mention that
my dad, before my grandfather got on the train and
went towards Minneapolis, my dad walked him down to the
train station, and my grandfather, kind of on a last

(28:57):
minute thing, took out rowed insurance policy, and then a
few hours later the accident happened in Jamestown, and my
grandmother said that insurance policy paid off, and I remember
her telling us that she lived off some of that

(29:18):
insurance policy that he had took off right before he
got on the train.

Speaker 7 (29:23):
If you go around the house, and I'm sure you
went around the house today, you'll see the signatures where
Ea had carved his name E W for E Williams
as a little boy. That was Bud his son. His
son had carved his carved and would.

Speaker 4 (29:43):
As on the table in the dining room.

Speaker 7 (29:46):
As of our kids have done things like that. When
we say the memories, there's kind of like, not really
a joke, but there's a story about how did they
get our piano in the house, because they don't know
how came in. But that is eighteen eighties piano. It's
George Steinway autographed it. And they used to have beautiful,

(30:10):
beautiful dances in here and balls. They would roll up
the tables from the Capitol and Ea would host all
his buddies and everything Christmas would be just beautiful, like
Ann was saying, the trees, the piano would be playing.
It would just be a fairy tale. Once you would

(30:33):
come into this house, this home, I tell you, is
our dream, it's our life. We've had so many generations.
This is the fifth generation of town Williams that have
gone through this house. And I believe this will be

(30:53):
the only family that will ever live in this home.
This is this is their home. The echoes from everybody
still are in this home. You look around, there's the furniture,
those are the photos. There's clothes, there's everything from the
beginning of the eighteen hundreds. There are Bibles from the

(31:16):
seventeen hundreds. There's just so many things that cannot be
bowled over by a bulldozer and put up a parking lot.
This home will stay as long as our family is here.
We love this home.

Speaker 4 (31:42):
Matt.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Thank you again for joining me today. Please tell our
audience where they can find the video versions of each
of the Prairie Pioneer programs.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, everyone can. The best place to go is going
to be Bismarkhistory dot org. The Bismark Historical Society's website.
Dariel have a link to the YouTube page which is
Bismarck Historical Society, and there you can watch all the
past episodes of Prey Pioneers, as well as other programs
produced by the Bismarck Historical Society.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Thank you for listening to History Hot Dish. If you
like what you heard. The Bismark Historical Society hosts programs
and events throughout the year. We welcome all those with
an interest in local history to join us. For more
information about programs or membership, visit our website Bismarkhistory dot
org or find us on Facebook. You can find History
Hot Dish on one o two point five FM, Radioaccess

(32:34):
dot org, and anywhere you find great podcasts. History Hot
Dish is produced by the Bismarck Historical Society and partnership
with Dakota Media Access