Thomas Hudson Ruth
The hotels have shut down... They've been burning
lumber and now Banker Ruth has bought out the lumberyard, down to
the last shingle. – The Long Winter, Chapter 18, "Merry Christmas"
Thomas Ruth was born in 1844 in Carmichaels (Greene County) Pennsylvania. He was educated in the common schools of Greene County and at Greene Academy. He enlisted in the 58th Pennsylvania Infantry in June 1863. Following the Civil War, Ruth moved to Page County, Iowa.
In February 1880, Thomas Ruth moved to Kingsbury County, Dakota Territory. He was among those listed as attending the first religious service conducted in the area, held in February 1880 in the Surveyors' House (see By the Shores of Silver Lake, Chapter 23, "On the Pilgrim Way"). In her fictional account, Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't mention everyone who attended the service.
June 1880, Thomas Ruth established "A. Ruth & Company," with his brother Asa as president. The bank was incorporated in 1886 as the Kingsbury County Bank, with Thomas Ruth as cashier and his brother William H. Ruth as one of the directors. Edwin P. Sanford was hired as cashier in 1884. An article in the April 24, 1886, De Smet Leader read:
At a meeting of the directors of the Kingsbury County Bank it was decided to build a bank building at a cost of about $3000. We have seen a draft of the proposed building, and like the looks of it very much. It will be two stories high, with an east and south front. The material will be brick. Work will commence the first of August.
July 1880, Thomas Ruth was elected the first
treasurer of the De Smet School. In 1889, he was
elected as Mayor of De Smet. In 1890 he was
elected commissioner of schools and public lands.
In 1884, he organized Company E, First Regiment of
De Smet, Grand Army of the Republic, and was
elected Captain.
In 1879 Thomas Ruth married Lora Galbraith in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania. The couple had no children, although a nephew of Banker Ruth's made his home with the couple for many years; he was a veterinarian in De Smet as an adult. Mrs. Ruth died August 10, 1893.
In Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote that she and Carrie enjoyed walking to school from the claim, but that they had to pass several cows and a purebred Jersey bull belonging to Banker Ruth. Laura and Carrie became lost in the slough one day because they walked through the slough rather than risk an encounter with Banker Ruth's bull, which had pawed and bellowed at them on occasion. A variation of this 'lost in the slough' story is told in The Long Winter (Chapter 2, "An Errand to Town"). When Laura and Carrie told Pa about the bull, he became angry and said he would speak to Mr. Ruth. Banker Ruth did own a Jersey bull, as an advertisement in the August 23, 1884, De Smet Leader read:
For sale: A thorobred Jersey bull two years old. Will sell for cash or on time. T. H. Ruth
In 1895, Thomas Ruth married Amelia Bell (born
December 1859), sister of De Smet seamstress
Florence Bell, and daughter of James and Elizabeth
Bell of Carmichaels, Pennsylvania. Wilder
introduced Florence Bell in These Happy
Golden Years (Chapter 16, "Summer
Days"). Thomas and Amelia had one son, Edwin James
Ruth, born 1902 in De Smet.
Banker Ruth's Home in De Smet
In 1884, Thomas Ruth bought a lot on Third Street in De Smet. In 1894 he began building a substantial home there in anticipation of his second marriage. The Panic of 1893 (see Rose Wilder Lane's introduction to On the Way Home) which involved so many bank failures didn't affect the Kingsbury County Bank. The house is still standing; it is currently the Prairie House Manor Bed & Breakfast.
Thomas Ruth left De Smet in around 1906 and moved to Florida temporarily in hopes that his failing health would improve. He then moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, where he died in 1908; he was buried in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania.
Ruth, Thomas
