Mr. Probstfield was born in Germany, November 9, 1832, and is a son of Jacob and Theresa (Richter) Probstfeld, the name having been changed by the subject of this article after his arrival in this country. He had his education in the private schools of his country, and in 1852 sought a home in the new world, becoming very soon after his arrival on the American shore a resident of St. Paul, Minnesota. Mr. Probstfield and two companions, Gerhard Lulsdorff and George Emmerling, started for the Red river country by team February 26, 1859, striking the river April 1, opposite the mouth of the Sheyenne river, at a point called Lafayette City, a mushroom growth of the time and mostly on paper. It was a small settlement, but at the time had assumed importance as the point where the first steamboat was built and launched on the Red river, and here Mr. Probstfield and his companions fished and hunted as well as traded with the Indians. The following year the trading post of Georgetown was established five miles north, and Mr. Probstfield squatted on land close at hand on account of better mail facilities. This was in the summer of 1860, and the following winter he was called to Europe on account of business, and on his return he brought with him three brothers and a cousin. They built a log house on his farm and his wife joined him in September, 1861, but their farming enterprises were broken up by the Indian outbreak of 1862. The settlers concentrated at Georgetown; a freighting train had arrived at Georgetown, consisting of about one hundred and ten wagons and thirty-six men, and the ensuing days were marked by extreme care and anxiety, the people daily expecting attack from the Indians then surrounding Fort Abercrombie. After considerable consultation the party concluded to reach Hudson's Bay Company territory, N. W. Kitson heading the party, in all forty-four men and some families. Mr. Probstfield joined the party and started north for a safer place, but later returned to Georgetown. Provisions ran low, and it was especially difficult to supply the demand for salt, old rusty salt pork barrels being resorted to in many cases. At the request of General Sibley he remained at Georgetown until 1863, when he was ordered on pain of arrest to go to Fort Abercrombie about the middle of March, 1863. From there he joined a large wagon train under military escort about June 22, 1863, and took his family to St. Cloud.

Undaunted by the perils and hardships through which he had passed, in the spring of 1864 Mr. Probstfield returned to the Red river without an escort and established a general store at Georgetown, where he presently became postmaster, and until the fall of 1868 was agent for the Hudson's Bay Company. In April, 1869, he settled on the farm where he is found to-day, a magnificent estate of four hundred and sixty acres lying alongside the river, and presenting every advantage of the garden of the north.

Mr. Probstfield is a thoughtful and intelligent student of politics and is at heart a Socialist. From 1891 to 1893 he served as state senator, where he was especially active in securing the passage of the Drainage bill, and the establishment of the normal at Moorhead.

Mr. Probstfield was married, in 1861, to Miss Catherine Goodman, of St. Josephs county, Indiana, who died November 18, 1899, having become the mother of a family of children, as follows: Mary A.; Randolph, deceased; Alexander P.; Justus; Edmund H.; Nellie J.; Susan T.; Dorothy C., deceased; Emilia M.; Carl, deceased; Walter G.; Arthur C.; and Josephine.

From: Compendium of History and Biography of Central and Northern Minnesota

(Chicago, Geo. A. Ogle & Co., 1904), pages 170-73