Daugherty/Pepper Story - Part 2

In my last posting I relayed the story of the axe and the possible connection of Abraham Lincoln and the Daugherty/Pepper family. Today I'm continuing with the second story. This one is from a delightful man named Ralph (Doc) Pesicka, grandson of Hattie Daugherty Place.

I met Doc in his community of Dupree, S.D. Dupree is the county seat of Ziebach County. The population is around 200 people.

While talking with Doc this last summer, he told me the story of the Pepper cradle. He knew that the cradle was in his basement...just not sure where. The rockers of the cradle no longer were attached. A few weeks later Doc did assure me that the rocker was still in his basement. Anyway here's the story from what I understood...

Abe Lincoln was a neighbor of the William Daugherty family in Illinois (this is very, very possible). According to family legend, Abe used to rock the cradle and read books to someone in the Pepper family. At this time Abe was a grown man.

George Daugherty (my ggrandfather) was born near Delevan, Illinois, south of Peoria, north of Springfield. As the story goes, George brought the cradle from Illinois. Remember that George's mother was a Pepper. The cradle is about 30ft long and quite deep. Anyway, George threw the cradle in the dump in Wessington. George's son, Robbie, was a habitual dump-visitor and found the cradle and brought it to his home. George's sister, Hattie Daugherty Place (born in Mason County, Illinois), saw the cradle, and said (according to Doc), "This is our cradle!". She brought it to her family and it's been taken care of by the Place/Pesicka family since.

Boy, this is a confusing story...and definitely has some source of validity. The solution will take using maps and dates to figure out where and when all these people moved in and out of Illinois.

I've written Doc and asked him about the story, but writing is very difficult for him and he's been ill. I'm hoping his children will learn more, but am afraid much of what happened disappeared with the death of Ralph's mother Edna and his grandmother, Hattie.

The accompanying photo is of Ralph (Doc) Pesicka.