♂Peter Christian Nissen Jensen

Peter Christian Nissen Jensen (4 May 1860 – 14 May 1914) was a Schleswig-born emigrant who settled in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He lived at Hill City and Rockerville, where he raised a family. He was the great-grand-uncle of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), the brother of Roger’s great-grandmother Bothilda Catharina Jensen (1851–1925).

Early life

He was born on 4 May 1860 at Jejsing, a village in Hostrup parish near Tønder, in the Duchy of Schleswig^W, and was baptized on 3 June. He was the third of the six children of Peter Nikolai Jensen (1820–1894) and Christine Marie Bossen (1829–1911). His three forenames were those of Peter Christian Nissen of Jejsing, who had been the first of the godparents at his brother Christian’s baptism in 1855. Schleswig passed from Denmark to Prussia in 1864 and returned to Denmark in 1920, and American records of his adult life give Germany as his birthplace.

The Black Hills

Five of the six Jensen children emigrated, and Peter went to the Black Hills, where his brother Christian Lauritz Jensen (1855–1930) was running stages. No record dates his crossing. He was probably at Rapid City in the early 1890s. A Rapid City newspaper of 16 October 1891 reported the birth of twin boys on the twelfth to the wife of a Peter Jensen, probably his. A mortuary record shows an infant Peter, son of “Peder”, buried at Rapid City in July 1892 at nine months, probably one of the twins. When his youngest brother Hans died at Hot Springs in August 1893, a brother Peter came down from Rapid City by train but arrived too late; he was most likely this Peter, since the other brother of the name stayed in Schleswig.

His wife was Anna Christine Jorgensen (1866–1912), born in Denmark and called Ona in the census. In 1900 the household was at Hill City in Pennington County, and in 1910 at Rockerville. Their children who grew up included Christine, Sophia Belle, Herman Lauritz and Albert Clinton, and probably also a son Peter, born about 1895, known only from census counts. A Find a Grave memorial gives Albert’s birth in 1905 at Keystone.

Death

Anna Christine probably died in 1912. Peter followed her on 14 May 1914, according to a Find a Grave memorial, which places his death in Pennington County and his burial in Keystone Cemetery without a burial date.

Notes

Identification

The Keystone memorial gives his birth on 4 May 1860, the day the Hostrup register gives. Two other points agree. His son was named Herman Lauritz, and Lauritz was his brother Christian’s middle name. Montana marriage records of his son Albert Clinton name a father Peter C. Jensen and a mother Anna Jorgensen. For a time the 1914 death was attached to his brother Peter Nikolai Jensen (born 1863), who stayed in Schleswig, and the memorial’s birth date matches this man’s.

Children

The death and burial rest on the memorial alone. The 1900 and 1910 censuses count children born and living in numbers that do not fit each other or the children named here, so the full number of children is uncertain.