The old home of Governor Arthur C. Mellette and his wife Maggie is situated on a bluff overlooking the big Sioux River. Mellette left a law practice in Muncie, Indiana and came to Dakota Territory in 1879. He’d accepted the job of registrar of deeds in Springfield but didn’t stay there long. He was transferred to Watertown in 1880 and lived with his wife and four sons in an apartment above his office for nearly five years. They had their house built of brick from a nearby kiln that Mellette owned and moved in in 1885.
While tending to various business interests in Watertown, Mellette rose to prominence as a bigwig Republican in Dakota Territorial government, partly due to his political skills and partly because of his close personal friendship with President Benjamin Harrison. Both men were from Indiana, they shared the bond of service in the civil war, and both were lawyers. Perhaps Mellette's most significant contribution to South Dakota history has to do with his role in the decision to divide Dakota into North and South. There were numerous arguments for and against, but Mellette’s reasoning on one issue helped turn the balance. He believed that differences in the two state's agricultural practices ought to be a deciding factor.
Before he was fifty years old, Mellette’s future looked secure. He was the last governor of Dakota Territory and the first governor of South Dakota. But then, in 1895, State Treasurer W. W. Taylor pilfered a large amount of state money and ran off to Mexico. Although Mellette was no longer in office, he felt a duty bound to pay it back. He sold off nearly all of his assets and moved to Pittsburg, Kansas, where one of his sons had a home. He re-started his law practice… but in 1896, he died. He was 53.
What follows is the transcript of an interview with Prudy Calvin, President of the Mellette House in Watertown.
Brian Gevik: When did they build it? And what was their situation at the time?
Prudy Calvin: Well, the Mellette's had come to South Dakota, of course, land, that's what brought them the Homestead Act and you could get land. And he had been the registrar of deeds in Springfield, Dakota Territory in 1879. And finally the train got to Watertown. And so, we had transportation to get here and the homesteaders came and so he got a job transfer. He was transferred from Springfield, Dakota Territory to Watertown, Dakota Territory. And he arrived by train on May 1st, 1880. And then the family came a little later in the summer, just like we do now when we transfer, we don't all come at the same time. And they all lived downtown at that time because that's where you lived. There were no houses out around, and he had the land office and they lived in a four room above the land office. That's where they lived.
Prudy Calvin: And finally in 1885, he and his friend, Bill McIntyre bought this area of town and it was called to this day, The Mellette-McIntyre Edition. And he started to build this house and they were able to move in it. So, in 1885, he got to be in this house.
Brian Gevik: Describe to me the type of architecture, the size of the house, in terms of how many bedrooms and that sort of thing.
Prudy Calvin: Well, it's built of brick. And the brick actually is from a Brickyard that was about two miles west of town. And oddly enough, that Brickyard is called the Mellette-McIntyre Brickyard. So, it's local brick, which is not the best brick in the world because we don't have good clay soil. We have good farming soil, not with the clay, but that's what we're built from. And it was built in 1885. This house actually is 3,600 square feet, which is pretty darn good size. It has the upstairs, there are four bedrooms and a sitting room on the second floor. And then there's a third floor tower, which is very small, but it's more the style of the house. It's an Italianate house. And you had a tower when you had an Italianate house. And so that's why they have the tower. And downstairs, of course, is the dining room, the governor's office, a double parlor and the kitchen area. There's a front and a back stairway, the good stairs and the serviceable stairs that they used all the time.
Brian Gevik: What was life like here for the Mellette's and by that I mean, well, for one thing, they were apparently a fairly musical and arts oriented family.
Prudy Calvin: Very much so. To this day, the descendants are still musical and in art and it's in the genes, literally. Both the governor and Mrs. Mellette played the piano. I read about them playing at church. I read about them playing here at home. They had the square grand piano, and of course with no TV and no computers and all that is what you did. You got together and you had dances in your home and your parties would involve, your get togethers would involve playing the piano and playing the organ. Their son Wylie played the trumpet. And the early newspapers say he was the best trumpeter this side of the Mississippi. So, I think he was, and music was a big part of their lives. And he was a reader. He was very intelligent. I just admire him so much because he was not judgemental. He was very fair to people and he did his homework and his research on everything.
Brian Gevik: But people weren't in the end very fair to him.
Prudy Calvin: Well, when he was in Pierre or after he got back home, it was found that the state treasurer had absconded with about a quarter of a million dollars and Mellette, as I said, was such an honorable man, he had no knowledge that this had happened. He had no part of it, but he felt responsible because W. W. Taylor had been his treasurer. And so, he sold all of his property. He had property out at Lake Kampeska. He had this, and the only thing he kept was this house because of his family. But he sold all of his property to give the money to the state, which he had no obligation to do, to pay off that horrible debt. He didn't want the State of South Dakota to go under. He wanted it to be successful. Like I said, he was a very honorable man.
Brian Gevik: And what eventually became of him, when did they move out of this house?
Prudy Calvin: At that time, they moved to Indiana to where their children were, some of them. And he went back into the law practice. And what he wanted to do was to get money and be able to come back to Watertown and get his house back because he had had to sell it during this time. And sadly, during that period of time quite abruptly, he was only 52 years old, he became ill and he passed away. And Maggie came back to Watertown to visit, but she no longer lived here. She stayed with her sons. She never remarried. She was a widow of course, the rest of her life. And she stayed in Indiana and the house was sold to Mellette's law partner, Mr. George Case. And then, it eventually was sold and lived in as a private home. And eventually it was an upstairs and a downstairs at apartment and it fell into disrepair.
Prudy Calvin: And in the thirties, it was in, I understand terrible, terrible condition. The railroad is just down the hill from us. And I guess it provided housing for many of the hobos that rode the railroad and how it survived is a miracle. And in 1943, a group of citizens, the house was slated to be torn down. It was in such horrible, horrible condition. The citizens formed a group. And I laugh when I read about it. But smile and think they had every bake sale. They had everything to raise money because the house was $500 and they had to raise $500 to buy this house to keep it from being demolished.
Brian Gevik: And they did keep it from being demolished, but it sat for quite a while. Didn't it?
Prudy Calvin: Oh, quite a long time it sat. And again, they tried to use it for rental property, again trying to get some, but it sat a long time. And finally four ladies got together and they were the first that decided that, well, let's make this into restore it to what it was. And they contacted the Mellette's, their son, Anton was still living in Indiana and they contacted him and he said, "Well, come on out. Would you like some of mom and dad's original furniture?" Needless to say they went to Indiana. So, we are so fortunate, not all of the furnishings in the house, but we have many of the original furnishings because of the generosity of the Mellette's children. And then as it started being restored and brought back... Oh, again, I think every church group, everybody would have their meetings in here and they did anything to get a few nickels to rub together to restore something and get it going again.
Prudy Calvin: And when they got the original furnishings, they thought let's try to restore it to the way it looked when the governor and Mrs. Mellette lived here in the 1880s to 1895 when they moved out. And it was a fortunate time in some ways, because the people of Watertown and the area who had this old 1880, 1890 furniture, well, the ranch house was coming into style and they didn't want this old furniture. They wanted that new modern stuff. And so, many beautiful pieces that we have today that are age appropriate, were donated to us because the ranch house just looked silly with this old furniture in it. And fortunately we were here to get it. So, we were very fortunate in that way.
Brian Gevik: How long has it been, I'll say in the condition that it's in? Is it done? Are you...
Prudy Calvin: Oh, you're never done. It always needs something. We heat and air condition it, of course. And we are lucky as guides and the people that work here and the people that visit, were very comfortable, but I always tell them, it's not for you that we keep it comfortable. We keep it comfortable for these old plaster walls and our old furniture, because it can't take the temperature change, but we just benefit from it because we do keep it heated and air conditioned all of the time. But it has been... Oh, really the Centennial of South Dakota brought new life into everything. It was operating, but that really brought significance to, "Hey, look what we've got." And so, that I think gave it another shot in the arm of people being proud to have it and that it is a treasure to have.
Brian Gevik: Now you had a whole bunch of school kids in here the other day, too. So, it's got that purpose as well.
Prudy Calvin: Yes, we do school tours and that's quite interesting. They trying to get people to think back to the 1880s, is getting more and more difficult. They get back to the 1930s and think, well, this must be old enough. They don't realize, no, the 1880s we had no... One of the things we do with the school kids that is so fun is have them sit outside in the yard before they even come in the house and talk to them about what do you see today that you wouldn't see when the Mellette's lived here and were fortunate, the Mellette's had four boys.
Prudy Calvin: So, we talk about the Mellette children and them being children and living in this house. And what would you do today that the Mellette boys couldn't do well. They were on computers and TVs and everything, but what do you do? There's a lot of things you do the same as the Mellette boys. You play ball and you play outside and you have chores to do, you help your mom and dad. There are many things that you're like the Mellette boys too. So, they feel a bit of an identity with the house.
Brian Gevik: I wanted to ask you a bit more about the Mellette's when they were young. Could you tell me where they met? And also let's kind of go through that civil war era quickly, because they both wrote their diaries. And I read Calvin's, I haven't read Maggie's, but he appeared to be sick during the whole war.
Prudy Calvin: Constantly, constantly. He was raised in Muncy, Indiana. His dad was a minister among other things. They did farmed and minister and everything. And Maggie wrote about, after Cal had passed away, she wrote some memories that she had. He told about how he would get in trouble as a young boy, because he loved to learn. And when he was supposed to be working the field with his dad, he'd hide a book at the end of the row of crops, whatever it was. And he'd sneak and read a little bit and his dad would have to scold him that he had to get back to work, wasn't that he didn't like to work. It's just, he really would rather read. And he taught himself foreign languages. He was very educated. And then he went to the University of Indiana when he was able to and that was in Bloomington.
Prudy Calvin: And he boarded at professor Wylie's house. And professor Wiley had a lovely daughter named Maggie Wylie. And she was, of course, living at home with her mother and dad and siblings. And he was boarding there, which there were no dormitories. So, boarding in a house was normal and they were attracted to each other. And finally he felt that he just moved across the street to another boarding house because he just couldn't do his studies the way he should with Maggie was so distracting for him. And he wanted to do his studies. The civil war came along and his brother was going to be drafted. And his brother had always been very sickly. And so, he offered himself as a substitute. And that is how he went to the civil war for almost a year, 1864 to 1865.
Prudy Calvin: And sadly, whether it was food, water, whatever it was during the civil war, he was ill most of the time that he was in the civil war. He was sent to the south and he had a terrible time. When the war was over, he came back. He wanted to finish his studies, which he did, and he wanted to be a lawyer. So, he went to law school, which took an entire year to go to law school then, and he married Maggie Wylie. And that was what he did for the civil war.
Brian Gevik: And later on though, she was the sickly one.
Prudy Calvin: Absolutely. He went to practice his law, of course. In Indiana, he was a real force for public schools and for the education of women, those were two kind of different things at that time. And he pushed very hard that women got to go to school and Maggie was very well educated also. So, then he, Benjamin Harrison was from Indiana also, and a friend of his and Dakota Territory was opening up and they needed a registrar of deeds and they needed people. And so, Benjamin Harrison sent Arthur to be the registrar of lands and he was sent to Springfield. And so, he came and they came by boat as far as Yankton because boat was the best way to travel. There weren't roads. We forget about those things. And Yankton was early, early city in Dakota Territory.
Prudy Calvin: And they spent almost a year in Springfield until the homesteads were pretty well filled up. And then the railroad had come to Watertown, Dakota Territory, because we didn't have a navigable water to get here. We didn't have roads. Heavens knows we didn't have roads, but the railroad came. And so, we had a way to get here. And of course, when the railroad came, the homesteaders came because you got 160 acres of land. And so, he got a job transfer and he was transferred to Watertown, Dakota Territory to be the registrar of deeds. And they lived downtown because everybody lived downtown. They lived above the registrar's office, he and the Maggie and their four children.
Brian Gevik: At this point, I'm wondering if there's anything that you want to add about the Mellette's, specifically about them and their family, not necessarily about the house.
Prudy Calvin: Oh, well he is interesting to read about, he was so conscientious of making Dakota Territory into two states, North and South Dakota. He wanted that very badly. He felt that would be the best for everyone. He always had the good of the people first, always, no matter what it was, it was the good of the people that came before his own personal needs or wants. He was, I think, a very kind caring person, all his life.
To learn more about the Mellette House and Mellette family, and to plan a visit to the home, go to http://mellettehouse.org/