Petersonm
Transcribed from "An Illustrated History of The Big Bend Country, embracing
Lincoln, Douglas, Adams and Franklin counties, State of Washington",
published by Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904.
MADS PETERSON is a prosperous
farmer dwelling about six miles north from Almira. He was born in
Denmark, on May 21, 1854. His father, Peter Peterson, was born in
Denmark and followed carpentering and mason work all his life. He
also served in the war between Denmark and Germany from 1848 to 1850.
The mother, Ellen M. (Dater) Peterson, was born and raised in Denmark.
Our subject was well educated in the public schools of his native land
then began working for wages. At the age of twenty-one, he enlisted in
the Danish army and served eighteen months. In 1883 he came to America
and went to work in a coal mine in Pennsylvania, where he remained one
year. The next year he came to Montana and while traveling there
met a very strange looking man who had exceedingly long hair and beard.
After some acquaintance with him, they went to prospecting together.
For two or three years they were associated more or less together, and
he learned that this man was well educated and influential and had left
a fine home in New York to dwell in the wilds of Montana. He abode
in the wildest spots he could find in Montana until his death, and was
known throughout the state as the wild man of Montana. He used to
live entirely on game that he killed and avoided all human beings.
In 1886, Mr. Paterson came to his present
location and took a homestead. He has remained here since, one of
the prosperous and industrious farmers. Mr. Peterson mastered the
English language and speaks, writes, and reads it well and is a well informed
man. He is a brother of Jens Peterson, who is represented in the
departments of illustration and biography of this work.
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