YELLOW MEDICINE COUNTY MINNESOTA
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Submitted to the Minnesota Biographies Project by:
Name: LaNaye Hennen
Email: henfarms@clarkfield.ruralink.com
Date: 29 June 2000
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"A History of Yellow Medicine County" by Arthur P. Rose,published in 1914


JOHN D. OTIS (1870)

John D. Otis, deceased, who, in later life served Yellow Medicine county for
fourteen years as judge of probate, was one of the earliest settlers of the
Granite Falls country, coming with the settlers of 1870.

Judge Otis, as he was for many years familiarly called, was born in Lynn,
Massachusetts, June 13, 1833.  Coming westward with the "Star of Empire", he
located in the vicinity of Granite Falls in 1879, before the organization of
the county.  In 1873, when the township in which he had made settlement took
up local government, it was named Otis , in his honor.  Judge Otis had the
distinction of bringing the first white woman to Otis township, not one
having resided in that township previous to the coming of Mrs. Otis.

At the general election of 1872 Mr. Otis was elected a member of the Board
of County Commissioners, and some years later served as chairman of the
board.  Some time after retirement from the commissioner's office he moved
to Texas, but after a limited residence there he returned to Yellow Medicine
county, which was ever afterward his home.

He was elected judge of probate at the regular election in 1888, and so well
were the voters of the county satisfied with his conduct of the office that
he was re-elected at each election thereafter until his death which occurred
on September 12, 1902.