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1873 - 1883 Russian Mennonite immigrants in South Dakota who later became New Home, North Dakota Adventists.
These pages are intended for the few who may be interested in resource material for the Wall/Dirksen genealogy. You are welcome to look around.
They arrived in America at Philadelphia then boarded immigrant steam trains that ran day and night through Pittsburg, Chicago and Council Bluffs to Yankton in Turner County, Dakota Territory. Wagons took them over the old military Government Road toward Sioux Falls. They stopped at Swan Lake to sign papers in the Land Office then continued on to Finlay where they left the road to follow the East Fork of the Vermillion River less than ten miles to their homesteads in Brotherfield Township.
These Library of Congress railroad maps show the Yankton to Brotherfield area in 1874, 1876 and 1879. Daniel Unruh's settlement is shown as "Unruh's" on the 1879 map.