The Haskins Home
211 5th Ave NW
The land that this home was built on was originally granted to the Northern Pacific Railroad by President Grover Cleveland on January 17, 1896. In 1905, James L. Haskins, who had purchased the land for $600, built this home. In 1932, the house was leased with option to buy to Elise C. Ness, who was the wife of Anton P. Ness. The home was purchased by the Ness family, as the home was arbitrated by Judge K. Engleter, in September of 1940.
Anton was born in Minnesota in 1880 and trekked to McClusky in 1915 to farm. The story has it that Anton had a gift for healing by laying on of hands. This healing resulted in an estimated 30,000 people coming from all over for healing. People would camp out in the Ness’s farm yard, waiting to be cured.
Anton and Elise gave birth to eight children: Paul, June, Carroll, Evelyn, a child who died in infancy, two still born babies, and Merle, who was killed in a car accident.
After Anton and his family moved to Mandan and into the Haskin home, Anton opened an office with Elise was his secretary. They had a phone system at their home where he would treat people over the phone. It is rumored that he kept a phone by his bed so that he could take calls in the middle of the night. Local calls would ring two short rings while long distant calls would ring one long ring.
Anton died at age sixty. Later, his daughter Evelyn J. K. Engelter’s story to a friend, “She said her father was in a coma and he’d wake up periodically and ask if it was two o’clock. and they said no it isn’t. About every hour he’d wake up and ask if it was two o’clock. He died at two o’clock!” After her father’s death, Elise and the children returned to Minnesota.
Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Serhienko purchased the home in 1980. The home is currently undergoing restoration to return it to its previous grandeur, complete with massive woodwork that is period correct and a wrap around front porch. The previous front porch was incorporated into the house when it was a boarding house in the ’40s and ’50s. When the garage was being re-shingled they actually discovered several of the roof boards were signed by local carpenters from 1880.
Draft OCR transcription from the photographed sign; it has not yet received a second review.