John H. Gaskin, a prominent merchant in Columbia, Brown County, South Dakota, was born in Dane County, Wisconsin, where he was raised on a farm and educated in district schools and an academy. In 1882, he moved to South Dakota and established a successful general merchandise business that grew to become one of the largest in the county. His store offered a wide range of products, from dry goods and groceries to hardware, with annual sales reaching $35,000. Gaskin was well-respected for his business acumen and integrity. A Democrat and active Mason, he married Louise J. Martin in Wisconsin, and they had two children, Effie Jean and Frank Jay.
John H. Gaskin, proprietor of one of the largest mercantile establishments in Columbia, Brown County, is a native of Dane County, Wisconsin, and spent his early life on a farm in that state, receiving a fair intellectual discipline in the district schools and an academy, which he attended at intervals until a youth in his teens. In the fall of 1882, he came to South Dakota and since that time has been actively identified, being especially interested in the commercial advancement of the city and in its prosperity along general business lines. Having early manifested a decided predilection for business pursuits, it was but natural that he should decide upon a career which would call into exercise the faculties of judgment, concentration, and foresight with which nature so bountifully endowed him. On leaving school, he turned his attention to mercantile life, and in due time was sufficiently experienced to embark in business for himself. Accordingly, in 1882, he established the well-known house of which he has since been the head and which under his able and effective management has become one of the largest and most successfully conducted establishments of the kind in Brown County. Mr. Gaskin carries a complete stock of general merchandise, including full lines of dry goods, clothing, hats, caps, gents’ furnishings, boots, shoes, hardware, provisions, groceries, in fact, every article for which there is any demand, his stock representing a capital of from five to eight thousand dollars, and his sales averaging as high as thirty-five thousand dollars a year. In addition to the general goods business, he buys and ships all kinds of produce, which constitutes no small share of his trade, and his patronage, already extensive and far-reaching, is steadily growing. Mr. Gaskin is widely known throughout Brown and adjacent counties, and his honor and integrity have been such as gain him notable popularity and the universal esteem and confidence of his fellow men. He is a Democrat in politics, but not an active worker, and his fraternal relations are represented by the Masonic order, of which he has been an earnest and consistent member for a number of years.
Mr. Gaskin is essentially a man of the times and possesses in a marked degree the sterling qualities of head and heart that command respect and make him an influential factor in business circles and a power in the world of affairs generally. Mr. Gaskin married, in the state of Wisconsin, Miss Louise J. Martin, and his home at this time is made bright by the presence of two children, a daughter by the name of Effie Jean and a son, Frank Jay.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.