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Wallace Erie Edgerton, son of Alonson Gifford and Lodema S. (Coe) Edgerton.

The following biography of Wallace E. Edgerton is excerpted from Memorial and Biographical Record…of Prominent Old Settlers and Representative Citizens of South Dakota  (G. A. Ogle & Co.; Chicago, Ill., 1899; p. 992).

“Dr. Wallace E. Edgerton, the pioneer physician and surgeon of McCook county, is now making his home and base of operations at Salem, where he is well known as a physician of marked ability, and enjoys a valuable and ever increasing patronage.

Dr. Edgerton is of English descent, although his ancestors for many generations have lived in America.  They were represented in the early colonial wars and also in the Revolutionary war.  Our subject is a native of Rome, Oneida county, New York, and the Empire state was the home of the Edgerton family for three generations.  Our subject was born February 3, 1853, the only son of a family of two children born to Alonson and Lodema S. (Coe) Edgerton, both of whom are still living.  The father, who was born in 1828, is a veteran of the Civil war and is now working on the Southern Pacific railroad.  The mother is making her home with our subject.  When he was a child, the family moved to Dodge county, Minnesota, and settled near Mantorville, where the father was engaged for a time in farming.  After completing his common school education, our subject went to Wyoming and studied telegraphy with a view of using this art to pay his way through medical college.  Finally he entered the Lawrence University at Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1870, and left that institution three and a half years later.  He then engaged in teaching school and at telegraphy until 1877, when he entered the medical department of the Iowa State University, and graduated in March, 1880, as an M.D.

In the spring of 1878, two years previous to his graduation from the Iowa State University, he went to South Dakota and filed a homestead and a tree claim in McCook county, and also did some practicing at his profession, becoming, as before stated, the pioneer physician in McCook county.  In 1882 he located in Salem, McCook county, and has since made that his home and base of operations, although he still holds one quarter-section of farm land.  Politically Mr. Edgerton is a Republican, and on that ticket has been elected to several of the local and county offices.  He was the first deputy treasurer of McCook county, and at the expiration of that term he was elected the second treasurer after the organization of the county.  Socially our subject is identified with the following secret fraternities: the Masonic, Knights of Pythias, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the K.O.T.M. and others.”

The household of Wallace E. Edgerton was recorded in the 1900 Federal Census of Salem, McCook County, South Dakota (pg. 267; dwelling #61; family #61; enum. June 4, 1900), as follows:

Wallace’s occupation was listed as “physician and surgeon”, and Lodema was listed as a “housekeeper”.

Original Source Documents:

1900 Federal Census – household of Wallace Erie Edgerton; Salem, McCook Co., SD.