The Irish standard., 1917-09-22
DENNIS HANNAlN'$
ROMANTIC CAREER
squatter Governor Of North Dakota ,ls
Dying In Hospital.
Soldier, Scout, Adventurer, and Front
iersman Of Post-6ellum Period,
with Remarkable History.

with Remarkable History.
Bismarck, N. D., Sept. 15.-In a Bis
marck hospital are being written the
final chapters in the life of Dennis
Hannatin, "Squatter Governor" of
North Dakota, acquaintance of Sher-
man, Grant, Sheridan, Custer and Lo-
gan. For the first time in the u
years which he has been fighting a
mans battle-he began to fight when'
he was 1O-"Dinnie" has given up and
gone to hospital.
Born in Ireland on March Is, 1885,
Hannafin at the age of 10 emigrated
with his parents to America. His
father died at sea, and when his
mother reached Buffalo, with her chill
dren, little Dennis was the man of
the family. He BACKED boots, sold
newspapers and hired out to farmers
to earn money for the family, saving
enough meanwhile to acquire COM
mon school education.
Becomes Boy Soldier.
He was Is when he went west and
started to work on the Illinois Central
right of way. July IA, 1862, he en-
listed at Amboy, ILL.,, with the Seventy
fifth Illinois infantry, and Nov. 2 of
that year he was commissioned q lieu
tenant for conspicuous bravery at the
battle of Perryville. He was wounded
at Crab Orchard and was in the thick
of the fight at Stone River, with the
pioneer brigade commanded by James
st. Clair Morton, supporting the Chi
cago Board of Trade battery. He, help
ed build the Notifications at Murfrees-
boro and he went with Sherman on
his march to the sea.
Mustered out at Chicago at the end
of the war, the pushing of the Union
Pacific through the western desert
called him and he became famous
character of the COS at Cheyenne.
Larmie and Promontory Point. When
the Union Pacific was finished he went
to the Northern Pacific and was one
of the first white men to stake out
a claim in Moorhead, Mimi, in 1871.
He came to Bismarck in 1872, when
Indians and wild beasts were in full
possession of the country.
Fights With Indians.
His adventurous spirit carried him
westward into the Indian country. In
September, 1873, he, with John Warn,
Jack Kale and Jesse Mccoy, typical
frontiersmen, crossed the riger, fought
battle with hostile Sioux on the
bluffs now occupied by the city of
Mandan, drove the Indians back, and
forced on to the Green river, where,
near the present site of Dickinson,
they took possession of a coal mine,
built Fort Hannafin and held it for two
weeks against daily attacks from large
bands of Indians, disdaining military
aid. John Warn remained entrenched
in this outpost seven years, and mill
tary authorities have declared it one
of the strongest earthworks they have
ever known.
Admitted to Bar.
At Bismarck's first election Hanna
fin was elected county auditor, a post
WHICH lie ucCllllcu DcCduS0 lie udu
not been admitted to the bar. At the
first term of court held in Mandan,
Hannafin became a full fiedged bar
rister, but the law did not prove ex-
citing enough for him, and he devoted
little time to practise. In the early
days he frequently tramped from Bis
marck to Fargo and even to St. Paul
In 1874 he walked from Sioux City
Iowa, to Elk Point, now in South Da.
kota, to attend a democratic conven.
ton.
With the removal of the territorial
capital from Yankton to Bismarck in
1888, Hannafin became famous char
acter in the life of Dakota territory
and from that date to this has been
active in politics, always a notewor,
thy figure at legislative sessions, a
friend of governors and of men who
made governors.