Mr. Haven was born in Guildhall, Vermont, August 27, 1843, and was only two years old when he accompanied his parents on their removal to Kenosha county, Wisconsin, where the father engaged in blacksmithing and teaming. (More extended mention is made of the family in the sketch of Harris Haven on another page of this volume.) In 1858 our subject went with the family to Minnesota, and in 1861 joined the First Minnesota Regiment at the president's first call for three-months' men. On the 19th of August, 1862, he re-enlisted in the Ninth Minnesota Infantry, and with his command was first sent to the seat of the Indian troubles. After participating in the Birch Coolie engagement they marched to the Missouri river to meet Sully, but were forced to return to Fort Snelling for rations. In the fall of 1863 they took the fleet south to Missouri, and were stationed at different points in that state, our subject being at Jefferson City most of the time. In the spring of 1864 he was ordered to Memphis, Tennessee, where by good luck he escaped Forrest, having been sent on detail duty the day before the battle. During the remainder of the war he was forage master in the quartermaster's department, and was mustered out June 28, 1865, at Louisville, Kentucky, whence he went to, Chicago, where he stayed over the 4th of July with a brother.
Returning to his home in St. Anthony, Minnesota, Mr. Haven spent the following six years working in the lumber woods and in sawmills, and in 1871 started a dray line in East Minneapolis, which he conducted until the fall of 1881, when he sold his business. The following March he came to Spink county, South Dakota, and took up a homestead on the northeast quarter of section 14, Tetonka township. The first year he broke about thirty-five acres which he sowed to oats and sod corn. He rents a quarter-section and now has two hundred and eighty-five acres under a high state of cultivation and planted to small grain, while thirty-five acres near his house is used as pasture. In connection with general farming, he is interested to some extent in stock raising and usually keeps over the winter ten horses and fourteen head of cattle. He has upon his place two wells about five rods apart, one of which is forty nine feet deep with a thirty-two inch bored hole and furnishes an almost limitless supply of water, while from the other, which is a dug well seventy-feet deep with a four foot hole, from which he gets a fair supply. In 1888 Mr. Haven had a very narrow escape from being lost in the blizzard, and in 1893 he was visited by a terrible hail storm and a small cyclone, which destroyed all his small grain and most of his corn.
Mr. Haven was married April 27, 1876, to Miss Mary B. Arnundsen, a native of
Norway, and to them were born two children: Mamie M., who is now successfully
engaged in teaching school in Flandreau, South Dakota; and Freddie, who died May
6, 1882. Mr. Haven has been a stanch supporter of the Populist party for
thirteen years or ever since the first farmers' organization was established in
the northern part of the county. He is also a woman's suffragist and believes in
state control of liquor. While a resident of Minneapolis he held membership in
the Grand Army of the Republic. As a citizen he is ever ready to discharge every
duty that devolves upon him and commands the respect and esteem of all who know
him.