The Descendants of John Heywood of Concord, Massachusetts

Page 97

While an infant, he moved with his parents to Beloit, Wisconsin. Upon graduation from Beloit High School he worked for his father as a gunsmith and jeweler. In 1879 he married Ella Frances Stone and moved to Blunt, South Dakota, where Harry started a 9, 19, and 99 cent variety store and later bought the town hotel and opera house. A sequence of poor crop seasons impoverished the area, and Harry returned to Beloit, Wisconsin, with his family. Later he went to Chicago where he became a salesman for Simpson, Hall and Miller, silver manufacturers; the firm was later absorbed by the International Silver Co., with whom Harry remained until deafness prompted him to retire in his 57th year after 27 years of service.

During his residence in Blunt, S. D., Harry took advantage of the Government's homestead act which encouraged the settlement of the West by deeding land in Indian Territory to settlers who were required to occupy the land for at least 24 hours each month for three years. Since there was little timber or stone available nearby, Harry built a sod hut on the prairie with a woodshed at the back in which to store food. when the family spent the requisite monthly night at the homestake, it was not unusual for Ella to be startled by curious Indians peering through the little window of the shed when she went there for food, or for the family to be kept awake by the howling of coyotes.

Upon one occasion, the family rode out on the plain to a large lone tree for a picnic lunch. A roving band of seven Sioux who were hunting buffalo rode up to the Shermans and took particular interest in Harry's small son Horace, who at that time had light blond hair. The Indians were fascinated by this unfamiliar sight, fingered his curls, and tried to buy the boy for their chief. Harry finally succeeded in dissuading the red men and, as soon as they rode off, the family quickly backtracked to Blunt. Among the tokens which Harry and Ella acquired during their stays at the rude homestead were two buffalo robes and a wolf robe tanned by the Sioux, a pair of beautifully beaded moccasins which belonged ot the daughter of the notorious Sioux chieftain Sitting Bull, and an Indian saddle mare. Harry bred the mare to a Shetland stallion and gave the colt to his son, Lytle, who rode it for many a year.