Daniel Edmunds McKim

Daniel Edmunds McKim was born in Ohio on January 9, 1835, and came to Nevada before the Civil War. He was the son of Noble and Abigail (Edmunds) McKim. Daniel married Patience Ann Evans (born June 6, 1839), the daughter of Judge Evan Cadwalleder Evans, the first county judge of Story County. Daniel and Patience Ann married in Nevada on January 31, 1856. They moved back to Illinois briefly before returning to Nevada in 1865. He was a member of the Odd Fellows Lodge and the Knights of Pythias. He was a brick mason and supervised the building of several brick business blocks in downtown Nevada. There is a story that someone tried to rob him one night after he had withdrawn $700 from the bank to pay the men of his crew the next day. Someone bumped the door and rattled the doorknob and even yelled “Fire!” Daniel started to get up but his wife held him back and later they discovered several houseplants knocked over where someone had tried to come in the window. Daniel and Patience Ann had five children, Annette (born October 26, 1857, died January 8, 1940); Evan Franklin (born August 3, 1860, died November 18, 1921); Oscar Clayton (born November 22, 1862, died March 15, 1915); Noble William (born November 27, 1864, died July 3, 1865); and Isaac Meredith (born March 6, 1870, died June 1, 1950). Annette married Francis Boone Tallman and they had five children. E.F. (Frank) married Frances Zack and they did not have children. Oscar married Amelia Garlock and they had three children. Isaac married Mary Elizabeth Hefley and they had 12 children. In 1884, Daniel and his family moved to Highmore in Hyde County, South Dakota, with the Tallmans and homesteaded near Patience’s sister, Elizabeth (Libby) and William Bisbee. After the death of Patience Ann on September 20, 1884, and after proving up his claim, Daniel returned to Nevada. Isaac was 14 years old when his mother died and he stayed with his sister, Annette, in South Dakota. Issac later came to live with his uncle, Lafayette McKim, on his farm northwest of Nevada in Milford Township. Daniel married Alice (Daugherty) Goldsberry (born 1853) on November 15, 1885. They had two sons: Arthur (born and died 1887) and Ralph Edmunds McKim (born July 22, 1888, died December 31, 1943). Ralph married Ella Smith, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. F. S. Smith of Nevada and they had three daughters. Daniel served on the City Council of Nevada. Daniel died in Mason City on May 25, 1914. He was buried in Northville, South Dakota, beside his first wife, Patience Ann.