Des Moines, the pioneer of municipal progress and reform of the middle West, together with the history of Polk County, Iowa, the largest, most populous and most prosperous county in the state of Iowa; Volume II, Part 34

Author: Brigham, Johnson, 1846-1936; Clarke (S.J.) Publishing Company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1464

USA > Iowa > Polk County > Des Moines > Des Moines, the pioneer of municipal progress and reform of the middle West, together with the history of Polk County, Iowa, the largest, most populous and most prosperous county in the state of Iowa; Volume II > Part 34

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WILLIAM B. STARKEY.

One of the well known lawyers of Des Moines is William B. Starkey who has for eleven years past been successfully engaged in practice in this city. From the beginning of his professional career he showed an aptitude for his vocation which attracted the favorable notice of the people and he soon received a fair share of patronage, his clients now being numbered among the leading men in this sec- tion. Born in Van Buren county July 17, 1870, he is the son of Marion B. and Ruth (Middleton) Starkey, the latter of whom was also born in Van Buren county.

His father was a native of Illinois. He came to Polk county, Iowa, previous to the Civil war and enlisted in Company B, Thirty-ninth Iowa Volunteers, serv- ing with the highest credit to himself and the great cause he represented until the close of the conflict. After receiving his honorable discharge he located in Van Buren county, but his constitution had been undermined by exposure while in the army and he was no longer able to engage actively in business. He passed his later years in Iowa City where he died in 1892.

William B. Starkey received his preliminary education in the public schools of Polk county, later attending the graded schools in Des Moines. As a young man he decided to devote his life to the legal profession and as soon as opportunity offered he matriculated in the law department of Drake University from which he was graduated with the degree of LL.B in 1898. He began practice in Des Moines immediately after leaving the university and later for one year was as- sociated with S. F. Balliett. Since 1902 he has been a partner of Judge Hal- loran. This is one of the best known law firms in the city, with a liberal and growing clientage. By earnest application and close attention to the interests of those by whom he is employed Mr. Starkey has won a gratifying measure of pros- perity and he justly occupies a prominent place in the bar of Polk county.

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On the 25th of September, 1904, Mr. Starkey was united in marriage to Miss Jennie Parrott, of Modesto, Illinois, and one child, Eunice, was born of this union, her natal day being November 6, 1905. Mr. Starkey is a very active worker in the ranks of the republican party, but he has not sought the emoluments of office, as he has preferred to devote his attention to his practice. He is identified with fraternal orders, being a member of Adelphic Lodge No. 509, A. F. & A. M., the Knights of Pythias and other organizations. He has a genial, pleasing man- ner which invites approach, and he can claim a host of friends who have un- failing confidence in his integrity and ability. The success he has attained in a difficult profession is the merited reward of his good judgment and untiring industry.

GEORGE ANSON JEWETT.

While in the field of business George Anson Jewett has accomplished results that would alone entitle him to mention with the valued and representative citi- zens of Des Moines; in other fields his labors have always been a tangible ele- ment for progress and he is no less widely known as secretary of Drake University and as an active worker in the Central Church of Christ than he is in business circles, wherein he has instituted and carried forward to successful completion enterprises of magnitude.

He was born at Red Rock, Marion county, Iowa, September 9, 1847, a son of George Enoch and Pattie Maria (Matthews) Jewett. An extensive genealogical history of the Jewett family has been prepared by Dr. Frederic Jewett, of Balti- more, who says that the Jewetts are descendants from the "House of Juatt" of England, and in his opinion from Henri de Juatt, the knight of the first crusade. In December, 1638, Rev. Ezekiel Rogers, who was the minister at Rowley, England, landed at Boston, Massachusetts, accompanied by twenty other Puritans and their families, numbering sixty persons in all. They had come to seek religious liberty and of this party were Maximillian and Joseph Jewett, of Brad- ford, Yorkshire, England. Their father was born in 1580 and was married October 1, 1604, to Mary Taylor. His will, dated February 2, 1614, and on file in the Archbishopric of York, shows him to have been possessed of considerable property and also indicates that he was a man of God, "trusting to have full and free pardon and remission of all my sins by the precious death and burial of Christ Jesus my alone Saviour." His coat of arms, which was brought to this country by his two sons and carefully guarded by them, is described on old records both in France and England: "He beareth, Gules, on a cross Argent. Five fleur-de-lis of the first. Crest: an eagle's neck between two wings, dis . played. Argent, by the name. Jewett," with the motto, "Toujours le meme." (Always the same.)

Maximillian Jewett was thirty-one years of age and Joseph Jewett twenty- nine years of age when they came to America. In Yorkshire they had engaged in the manufacture of woolen cloth and soon established a similar business in America, this probably being the first cloth manufactory in this country. Their wills would indicate that they still had interests in England at their death. After a winter spent at Salem, Ezekiel Rogers and his company settled at Rowley, Massachusetts, in April, 1639, and Maximillian Jewett became one of the deacons in the church there organized, his immediate descendants continuing to hold the office for nearly a century. An examination of the history of the Indian wars, the war of the Revolution and the war of 1812 shows that a large number of the Jewetts were taking an active part in the struggle for American independence and in the efforts to secure liberty both civil and religious on the American continent.

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Joseph Jewett was the great-grandfather of George A. Jewett, and with his large family left New England and settled near Metz, New York. His son David Jewett, the grandfather of George A. Jewett, was born in Haverhill, Grafton county, New Hampshire, in 1791, and was the founder of the family in Des Moines, where he arrived in 1843. He was a farmer by occupation and cultivated the tract of land that is now Capitol Park, having entered it from the government. He died in Des Moines in 1857. In 1817 he had wedded Mary Bostedor, who was a daughter of Henri Bostedor, of French extraction, who came to America with La Fayette. Her mother was from Holland. George Enoch Jewett, son of David and Mary Jewett, was born in Mentor, Lake county, Ohio, February 20, 1820, and his wife was born there, June 29, 1818. Both became residents of Henry county, Iowa, in 1838, and were there married in 1840, removing thence to Red Rock, Marion county, in 1845. They were pioneers of Ohio and also of the two counties Henry and Marion, in Iowa. An aunt of George A. Jewett, Mrs. Eunice (Jewett) Thrift, and her husband, Josiah M. Thrift, were the first settlers of Des Moines and Polk county, and as a bride she was brought by her husband to the capital city when it was but a fort at the forks of the river. This was in 1843 and Mr. Thrift was tailor for the soldiers. When the fort was abandoned and the soldiers left, Mr. and Mrs. Thrift remained and became the first settlers of this locality. Mrs. Thrift was born in Burton, Ohio, in 1824, a daughter of David and Mary Bostedor. Her father was born in Haverhill, New Hampshire, in 1791, and was the eldest son of Joseph and Hannah (Fenton) Jewett.

George A. Jewett spent his youthful days in his parents' home and supple- mented his early education, acquired in the public schools, by study in Central University, at Pella, Iowa. He did not graduate but afterward received a degree and Drake University has since conferred upon him the LL. D. degree. He en- tered business life as bookkeeper for the firm of Brown, Beattie & Spofford, dealers in agricultural implements, at the corner of Court avenue and First street in Des Moines, in 1865, when not eighteen years of age. He was con- nected with that firm for eight years, after which he became bookkeeper for H. F. Getchell & Sons, lumber dealers of Des Moines, with whom he continued until 1879, when he engaged in the lumber business on his own account as a member of the firm of Ewing, Jewett & Chandler, his associates being David R. Ewing and Ed. S. Chandler. Their first yard was located at the corner of Sixth and Cherry streets, whence they removed to Locust, between Ninth and Tenth streets, in 1881. Since 1879 Mr. Jewett has been engaged in the lumber business and on the death of his partner, D. R. Ewing, in 1902, he organized the Jewett Lumber Company, which took over the business of the firm of Ewing & Jewett and has since operated under the former name, conducting a business of large, gratifying and growing proportions. In 1871 Mr. Jewett aided in organizing the Des Moines Scale Company in association with S. F. Spofford, Wesley Red- head, H. F. Getchell & Sons, J. D. Seeberger, F. R. West and others, this being one of the first successful manufactories in Des Moines. He also assisted in developing the Duplex and Jewett typewriters and introduced these machines throughout the entire world under the name of the Jewett Typewriter Company. He spent the greater portion of ten years in Europe, visiting every country and personally introducing the Jewett typewriter on the continent. He seems to understand every phase of a business situation and has ability to coordinate seem- ingly diverse interests into a harmonious and unified whole. His ready recogni- tion of opportunity is followed by utilization of the advantages which lie before him and in the field of legitimate endeavor his constantly expanding interests have won him success.

Mr. Jewett has been equally fortunate in his home relations. He laid the foundation of a happy home life by his marriage, in Des Moines, on the 28th of October, 1868, to Miss Annie Henry, a daughter of James Madison and Mary

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(Oldham) Henry. Her father was from Pennsylvania and was of Irish de- scent, while the mother, a native of Indiana, was of English lineage. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Jewett were born two daughters: Bonnie Ella, the wife of Dr. Hugh G. Welpton ; and Margaret, the wife of David Lewis Jewett. The latter couple have three sons, Gerald Anson, David Warren and Homer Henry Jewett.

In his political views Mr. Jewett has ever been a stalwart republican. In the days of the underground railway he drove a wagon which conveyed run- away slaves on their way to freedom in the north, although but a boy at the time. He is an advocate of temperance and a friend of all those uplifting influences which promote humanity and advance the moral progress of the race. He was one of the organizers of Drake University, of which he was elected secretary in 1882, serving continuously in that office to the present time. In July, 1911, the Christian church held its annual convention in Portland, Oregon, and one of the interesting social features of the occasion was a banquet there held by the alumni of Drake University. A local religious paper in speaking of this occasion said: "George A. Jewett was called upon as one who had been con- nected with Drake University as its secretary for nearly thirty years, and whose name was to be found upon every diploma issued by the university save that of Brother Denton's. He expressed his pleasure at meeting so many of the alumni of Drake and said that while they told of their beautiful homes in Washing- ton, Oregon, Idaho and California, making them out to be veritable paradises, yet each would say how much he would give to walk across Drake University campus again, or to be in the old college buildings." Mr. Jewett has not only served as secretary of Drake University but has also been a member of its board of trustees for almost three decades. He holds membership in the Central Church of Christ at Des Moines, with which he united soon after his removal to this city in 1865. The following year he was elected church clerk and has served continuously since. In 1879 he was elected church treasurer and has occupied that position to the present time. He is one of the most active workers in Central church, being untiring in his efforts to promote its growth and ad- vance its various lines of activity. He was prominent in the work of "home coming" among the members of the church on the occasion of the semi-centen- nial celebration. He has been the editor and publisher of the Christian Worker for a quarter of a century, and many articles from his pen have been strong and forceful factors in supporting the church and in holding its members to the teach- ings of primitive Christianity. In 1867 he was appointed representative of the Smithsonian Institution, of Washington, which then had charge of the weather bureau and he thus became the forerunner of those who have made weather fore- casts at Des Moines. The duties and obligations of citizenship are recognized by him and fully met, but his chief interest and activity center in the church and his life is a contradiction to the too prevalent opinion that the religious life and the successful business career are antagonistic forces, that both cannot be followed at the same time. Real life and character are to him more than wealth, and yet he has been blessed with success as the reward of earnest application and business methods which have neither sought nor required disguise.

GEORGE A. WILSON.

Prominent among the younger leaders in the ranks of the republican party in Iowa stands George A. Wilson, of Des Moines. He was born on a farm near Menlo in Adair county, Iowa, September 1, 1883. His father, James H. Wilson. was a native of New York and, on leaving the Empire state in 1866, made his way westward to Iowa, settling in Adair county, where he secured a tract of land and turned his attention to farming. He was busily engaged in tilling the soil

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for a number of years or until 1896, when he became connected with the office of secretary of state, and has now made his home in Des Moines for the past four- teen years. He too is a prominent republican and has been a candidate for the offices of lieutenant governor and railroad commissioner. He was also private secretary to Lieutenant Governor Herriott. He married Martha Varley, a native of England, the wedding being celebrated in Adair county.

George A. Wilson largely acquired his education in the schools of Adair county, mastering the preliminary branches of learning in the public schools and afterward attending the Menlo high school, from which he was graduated in 1900. Later he spent three and a half years as a student in Grinnell College and on the completion of his more specifically literary course he entered upon prep- aration for the practice of law, spending three years as a student in the law department of the State University. He was graduated in 1907 and began prac- tice in Des Moines in October of that year, since which time he has been a repre- sentative of the bar of this city and has won a creditable position for one of his years.

Mr. Wilson is well known as one of the younger leaders in the republican party and for three years filled the office of first assistant secretary in the state senate, and was secretary of the thirty-fourth session, his previous experience well qualifiying him for the office. In the republican national convention of 1908 he filled the position of reading clerk. He is a member of Sigma Chi, a college fraternity, the Phi Delta Phi, and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is a rising young lawyer and political leader, actuated with a laud- able ambition and popular by reason of his social qualities.

EDMUND P. CHASE.

Although fifteen years have elapsed since the death of Edmund P. Chase his friends have not forgotten his many kindly acts, nor will they permit the memory of his virtues to pass from their minds. He was one of the most highly re- spected citizens of Des Moines and for more than thirty years was prominent in business and religious circles. A man of the highest integrity, he possessed the qualities which attracted friends and marked him as a true lover of his race.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, May 30, 1821, he was a son of William Chase, of Shirley, New Hampshire, who for a number of years was engaged in the dry- goods business in New York city. He came west with his family to Beardstown, Illinois, in 1842, and continued in the mercantile business there until his death, which occurred in 1869. He was a man of sterling character and of a highly social nature, who readily made friends and was a leader wherever he was known. The mother of our subject.was Hannah Parker before her marriage, a native of Pepperell, Massachusetts, and she had two brothers who served in the Revo- lutionary war. She died at Beardstown in 1847 and was known as a woman of unusual intelligence and one who possessed many noble traits of character.

Edmund P. Chase was reared under favorable conditions and after making thorough preparation matriculated at Yale College, from which he was gradu- ated in 1841, at the age of twenty. Later he took post-graduate courses at Wash- ington, D. C. His early ambition was to devote his life to the law. He moved to St. Louis in 1844 and engaged in active practice for two years, at the end of which time he went to Illinois, where he was married. There he became con- nected with the mercantile business. He never resumed the legal profession.

In 1870 he settled with his family at Des Moines, where he spent the remain- der of his life. He was a man of remarkably vigorous mind and throughout his life was a zealous student, much of his time being spent in his library, which contained the works of the principal thinkers of the world. He was especially

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fond of philosophy and history and made a deep study of metaphysics in the various schools upon the subject of which he was unusually well informed. A patriotic citizen he was an ardent supporter of the federal government at the time of the Civil war, and out of his own resources maintained several families whose heads were engaged fighting for the cause of the Union in the army. His character for fairness and integrity was unquestioned and he was for several years the receiver and distributor of much of the money received by the soldiers of his county in Illinois, being also known as their trusted banker.

In October, 1846, Mr. Chase was married at Rushville, Illinois, to Miss Eliza A. Scripps, a daughter of John and Agnes (Corrie) Scripps. The father was a native of London, England, and the mother of Dumfries, Scotland. They met in America and were married in this country. To Mr. and Mrs. Chase were born ten children, six of whom are still living, all of whom reside in Des Moines, except William, who is engaged in the music business in Chicago. Those living are : John W., Charles R., Edmund C., Harry S., William P. and Mrs. Harry West.

The death of Mr. Chase occurred in this city .June 21, 1896, the last two years of his life being spent in retirement. His sons and his son-in-law, Mr. West, acted as pall-bearers at the funeral, which was one of the largest in the history of the city. He was during many years of his life an active member of the Congregational church. He served as an officer in the church and was super- intendent of the Sunday school before locating in Des Moines. He was a dili- gent student of the Bible and an unfaltering believer in the teachings of the great Master in whose footsteps he walked for fifty-six years. His body rests in Woodlawn cemetery beside that of his beloved daughter, Jennie.

IRVEN R. STUBBS.

Irven R. Stubbs, who has been engaged in the jewelry business in Des Moines for the past nine years, is a native of Polk county and a son of William and Georgiana (Skinner) Stubbs, his birth occurring on the 17th of October, 1882. When a young man William Stubbs migrated from Indiana to Iowa, where he met and married Miss Skinner, who passed away in 1886. During the first few months of his residence in the state he lived at Earlham but later removed to Des Moines where he bought a farm the greater portion of which he devoted to the fruit industry unil 1910, at which time he disposed of his property and engaged in the grocery business with a son, Elmer E. Stubbs.

The preliminary education of Irven R. Stubbs was acquired in the common schools of Polk county, but this was later supplemented by a course in the Capital City Commercial College. At the age of eighteen years the young man desired to begin working for himself and accepted a position with his brother, A. O. Stubbs, who was engaged in the dairy business. He continued in this occupation for three years at the end of which time, having decided to become a jeweler, he entered the employ of G. L. Eason for the purpose of learning the trade. After five years' service, during which period he had not only mas- tered the trade but thoroughly familiarized himself with every detail of the business, he bought Mr. Eason out. Although he is yet very young Mr. Stubbs is well established and enjoys a large and constantly increasing patronage. He has been soccessful in his business and in addition to his store owns a nice resi- dence and one-half acre of land at South avenue and Fourteenth street.

On the 28th of April, 1906, Mr. Stubbs married Miss Agnes S. P. Wilcox. who is a daughter of Curtis W. and Mary (Page) Wilcox, natives of Vermont, and who for many years have been residing in Polk county. Three children have been born unto Mr. and Mrs. Stubbs: Helen A., Kenneth I., and Kathrine A.

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Mr. and Mrs. Stubbs attend the services of the Methodist Episcopal church, of which denomination they are communicants.

In matters political Mr. Stubbs always gives his support to the prohibition party, thus giving full expression to his ideas on the temperance question. He is one of the progressive and enterprising young business men of Des Moines whose future, gauged by his past, must needs be a successful one.

WILLIAM N. JORDAN.

A well known and successful member of the Des Moines bar is William N. Jordan, who during the twelve years of his residence in this city has won prominent recognition throughout this section of the state because of the ability he has displayed in the handling of some most intricate legal problems. He was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, on the 14th of June, 1864, a son of the Rev. William H. Jordan, D. D., and Mary Jane Kirkpatrick, a daughter of John Kirkpatrick, a lieutenant of the Black Hawk war, one of those who participated in the battle of Stillman's Run. Dr. William H. Jordan migrated to the United States from England when a youth of seventeen years. He belonged to a family of culture and refinement, both his father and grandfather having been graduates of Ox- ford College. He began his ministerial career at the age of twenty-one years as a circuit rider, continuing in the work until his death in 1910. Mrs. Jordan, a native of Illinois, but of a Georgia family, passed away on the Ist of August 1899.

Reared amid the refining influences of an intellectual home William N. Jor- dan pursued his education in the common schools of Illinois, graduating from the high school of Princeton in 1883. Subsequently thereto he attended Adrian College at Adrian, Michigan, receiving his Ph. B. with the class of 1886. Upon the completion of his education he accepted the position of principal of schools at Neponset, Illinois. He withdrew from this at the end of a year to become editor of the Hancock County Herald at La Harpe, Illinois. From there he mi- grated to Holyoke, Colorado, where he founded the Colorado State Herald, with which publication he was identified for nine years and controlling the manage- ment for two.

Mr. Jordan has had rather extensive interests in several banking institutions of the west, among them being the Farmers and Merchants Bank at Holyoke, the Commercial State Bank at Champion, Nebraska, and the Exchange Bank at Venango, that state, and also the Jordan Bank at Baxter, Iowa. Recognizing a broader field for his abilities Mr. Jordan withdrew from journalism and, com- ing to Des Moines, entered the law department of Drake University, from which he obtained the degree of LL. B. in 1899. The extensive scope of his activities united with a keen intellect and the well trained mind of the scholar, enabled Mr. Jordan to begin his practice on a plane which the majority of his profession do not attain for several years following their admission to the bar. A compre- hensive understanding of the principles of jurisprudence, together with active reasoning powers and the ability to quickly recognize the flaws in his opponent's argument, have made Mr. Jordan a much dreaded adversary in forensic encounters.

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Des Moines, the pioneer of municipal progress and reform of the middle West, together with the history of Polk County, Iowa, the largest, most populous and most prosperous county in the state of Iowa; Volume II, Part 34

Author: Brigham, Johnson, 1846-1936; Clarke (S.J.) Publishing Company, Chicago, pub Publication date: 1911 Publisher: Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company Number of Pages: 1464

Author: Brigham, Johnson, 1846-1936; Clarke (S.J.) Publishing Company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1464