Charles Lancaster

Charles Lancaster's signature, 1869 (SCSU Archives)

Mary Dean Lancaster, 1880-1889 (Ancestry.com)

Charles Frank Lancaster was born about 1850 in New Brunswick, Canada. His father, A. M. Lancaster, was a farmer. Charles immigrated to Calais, Maine, before coming to St. Cloud by September 1869, when he began his studies among the first students of the Third State Normal School. During his studies, he boarded with the family of John and Maria Wettstein, a Swiss and German immigrant family. As the only immigrant graduate in the school’s first class, Charles can be considered St. Cloud State University’s first internationally-born student.

After graduating, Charles taught in Minnesota public schools. In 1874, he married Mary “Minnie” E. Dean. The two had settled in Shakopee, Minnesota, by 1875, and their first child, Charles Frank, Jr., was born there on June 4, 1875. Their second child, Lillian “Lilly” Estelle, was born the next year. By 1880, they had moved in with Mary's father, Rev. Silas H. Dean, on his farm near Claremont. Charles, Jr. was not recorded in the 1880 census, indicating he may have died young. The family later moved to South Dakota, where on February 4, 1884, they had another daughter, Hortense, who later went by Katie Elizabeth. In Marshall, South Dakota, Charles and Mary ran a boarding house. Charles passed away circa 1887, a year before Mary remarried.

Sources

1857 Minnesota census, Scott County, Belle Plaine, p. 51, dwelling 16, family 16; Minnesota Historical Society microfilm publication MN1857_4, accessed July 23, 2019 on Ancestry.com.

1865 Minnesota census, Dodge County, Concord, p. 27, family 54; Minnesota Historical Society microfilm publication MNSC_1, accessed July 23, 2019 on Ancestry.com.

1870 U.S. census, Stearns County, Minnesota, population schedule, St. Cloud Ward 1, p. 131A, dwelling 66, family 66; NARA microfilm publication T132, roll 716, accessed July 23, 2019 on Ancestry.com.

1875 Minnesota census, Scott County, Shakopee, p. 409, family 131; Minnesota Historical Society microfilm publication MNSC_15, accessed July 23, 2019 on Ancestry.com.

1880 U.S. census, Dodge County, Minnesota, population schedule, Claremont, enumeration district 049, p. 396A, dwelling 84, family 86; NARA microfilm publication T9, roll 618, accessed July 23, 2019 on Ancestry.com.

1885 South Dakota census, Marshall County, enumeration district 200, p. 6, dwelling 82, family 86; South Dakota State Archives microfilm collection, rolls 9527-9528, accessed July 23, 2019 on Ancestry.com.

1900 U.S. census, Day County, South Dakota, population schedule, Rusk, enumeration district 0122, p. 3, dwelling 44, family 44; NARA microfilm publication T623, n.r., accessed July 23, 2019 on Ancestry.com.

Charles F. Lancaster, Jr. birth record, "Minnesota Births and Christenings, 1840–1980," index, FamilySearch, accessed July 23, 2019 on Ancestry.com.

John E. Selmser and Lillian E. Lancaster marriage record, 1905, certificate 353, South Dakota Department of Health, South Dakota Marriage Index, 1905-1914, accessed July 23, 2019 on Ancestry.com.

Mary “Minnie” E. Dean portrait, ca. 1880, photograph, uploaded January 13, 2014 to Ancestry.com by rollercoasteromg4, https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/tree/86334121/person/390102601131/media/78f76785-63af-4666-8c8c-b6df91dc22fd.

Memorial page for Kate Lancaster Snipstad (5 Feb 1884–8 Mar 1932), Find A Grave Memorial no. 88607400, citing Mount Hope Cemetery, Watertown, Codington County, South Dakota, USA; maintained by ADD (contributor 46942490); accessed July 23, 2019.

Memorial page for Lillian L. Selmser (1876–1949), Find A Grave Memorial no. 98296782, citing Mount Hope Cemetery, Watertown, Codington County, South Dakota, USA; maintained by ADD (contributor 46942490); accessed July 23, 2019.

“Normal School Examination: Exercises of the Graduating Class,” The St. Cloud Journal, July 6, 1871, http://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/hub (accessed July 16, 2019).

“Opening of the Normal School,” The St. Cloud Journal, September 23, 1869, http://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/hub (accessed July 16, 2019).

Silas H. Dean draft registration, 1863, Consolidated Lists of Civil War Draft Registrations, 1863-1865, NM-65, entry 172, 620 volumes, NAI: 4213514, Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau (Civil War), Record Group 110, National Archives and Records Administration, accessed July 23, 2019 on Ancestry.com.

State Normal School at St. Cloud, “Catalogue and Circular of the State Normal School at St. Cloud, Minnesota,” 1884-1885, p. 5, series 1, box 1, folder 1, St. Cloud State University Undergraduate Catalogs, 1869-2012+, St. Cloud State University Archives and Special Collections.

State Normal School at St. Cloud, “Record Book” 1869-1885, box 1, folder 1, Admission and Records Records, 1869-1939, St. Cloud State University Archives and Special Collections.

St. Cloud State University Archives and Special Collections, transcript index, https://www.stcloudstate.edu/library/archives/histories/transcript-index.aspx (accessed July 16, 2019).