The First Holidays In Yankton wvBy Chauntelle Wright As a woman business owner, I find myself wondering about the women who were instrumental in settling Yankton, laying the foundation for what our community is today. What it must have been like for these adventurous pioneers to travel to this barren land with unforgiving weather to build a community from the ground-up? “What it was like for women during these early years? As the holidays approach, I wonder what the holidays were like in early Yankton? In 1859, Yankton was a little village comprised of about a dozen buildings not far from the Missouri River’s edge. Like most settlers of the Dakota Territory, Henry and Mary Ash (Yankton’s first white female) were seeking financial opportunity, and made the decision to move from Sioux City, Iowa to Yankton. Henry Ash arrived in October with Mary and their two children Ben (8), Julia (6), and Anna Heider (14) an orphan girl the Ash’s were raising arriving on Christmas Eve. Christmas was not overlooked due to the timing of their move. Mary prepared the holiday meal for her family, and rumor has it several townsfolk as well. According to legend, the meal consisted of catfish and molasses with young Ben later recalling “after supper, father, mother and myself went to [Joseph] Presho’s cabin to spend Christmas Eve, who we found boiling mush in an old black kettle… Presho filled some tin plates for each one of us, with blackstrap molasses as sugar. It made a real Christmas treat…” Following this first Christmas, and as time went by, Yankton was growing. In 1861, Henry and Mary built their new hotel located within the Yankton Stockade on the northwest corner of what is now Third and Broadway. The Ash Hotel was the central location of town hosting most of the social activities within the village’s first few years of existence. As the population grew, Mary would no longer be the only white female citizen in Yankton. According to the Weekly Dakotian dated July 13, 1861 16vHERVOICEvNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 “…And in December 1859, Mrs. Ash became the first white female citizen in Yankton. The same winter came Mrs. Reynolds; and in the following spring and summer Mrs. Foote, Mrs. Stone, and Mrs. McLeese were added to our female society. Many lonely hour of tears and trials have these noble women passed in their jail-like cabins of logs and dirt, until better and more comfortable houses could be cut from the forest, hauled, hewed, and erected, for their accommodation. All of these ladies have, in days past, moved in refined society and enjoyed the pleasure and conveniences of eastern homes; and yet they have borne the hardships of their pioneer life with commendable patience and courage.” By 1864 more women and children had arrived in Yankton, which meant more holiday celebrations. Mrs. Osgood H. Carney, widow of a grocer and daughter of James S. Foster the first territorial superintendent of schools, shared her account of Christmas with her younger siblings in their log home on the west side of Pine Street between Second and Third Streets. Young Carrie was concerned Santa Claus would not find them living “so far out west”. While there is no mention of decorations or a Christmas tree in their home, a description of their twelve by fourteenfoot one room cabin (a former Army commissary) is said to have grease spots on the walls from where the meat hung and sheets tacked to the ceiling to prevent the sod roof from falling in. When Carrie turned 83 she wrote a letter to the editor of the Press and Dakotan about her first Christmas experience in Yankton: “December 24 [1864] came a clear, cold day, and after supper dishes were disposed of, three little stockings were hung on the wall behind the stove for Santa Claus, and the three little folks sat by the table, the girls telling their smaller brother wonderful stories until their eyes grew heavy. Then the trundle bed was drawn out and soon two little brown heads were still on their pillow and sweet sleep had claimed them, while mother rocked her baby boy to sleep in her arms. Before daybreak the next morning the happy children were out of bed after their stockings [and] back into bed again to examine the contents. Each on had received three cookies, a hard-boiled egg, a