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 80
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mustered out at Davenport at the close of the war and with a most creditable military record returned home.
During the early period of his residence in Iowa Mr. Cooper worked at the breaking plow behind oxen, assisting in the arduous task of developing the home farm, to the work of which he returned when the war was over although he soon afterward accepted a position in the dry-goods store of Charles Witmer at Wil- ton. There he remained for a brief period, after which he began clerking for F. Bacon, and in 1876 embarked in business on his own account, becoming a partner of W. H. Bacon in the conduct of a clothing store. This partnership was ter- minated by the death of Mr. Bacon on the 4th of May, 1878, after which Mr. Cooper purchased his interest and for a time was at the head of one of the largest business houses of the kind in that section. He successfully conducted the enter- prise until 1886, when he sold out and in June, 1887, came to Des Moines. For two years thereafter he was one of the representatives of the Mutual Life Insur- ance Company, but on the expiration of that period purchased an interest in the suspender factory of this city and devoted his remaining days to the development of the Northwestern Suspender Company and the extension of its trade interests. Under his control the business grew rapidly, becoming one of the important man- ufacturing concerns of Des Moines. Mrs. Cooper still retains the interest for- merly held by her husband and is now vice president of the company.
It was on the 23d of June, 1870, that Mr. Cooper was united in marriage at Wilton, Iowa, to Miss Bell Witmer, a daughter of George and Catherine (Wirt) Witmer, who were natives of Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, who came to Iowa at an early period in its development. Mrs. Cooper was born in North- umberland county, May 6, 1848, and by her marriage became the mother of six children : Wirt Arthur, now deceased ; Charles Clarence, who is looking after the interests of the family in the suspender business; Mrs. Elsie May Matthews, of San Francisco, California ; Mrs. Grace Maude Messenger, of Urbandale, Iowa; Myrtle Mabel and Harold Wilbur, both at home.
The death of the husband and father occurred July 3, 1907, when he was in the sixty-third year of his age. It came to him when he was in the midst of a highly successful and honorable business career, his work proving an element in the commercial welfare of Des Moines as well as the source of his own pros- perity. He did not confine his attention to business, however, to the exclusion of all else, but found time and opportunity to aid movements and measures for the public good. Questions of moment received his earnest consideration and he stood by all that he believed to be right and by the principles which he deemed in- dispensable elements in the development of honorable manhood. He was ever an earnest and indefatigable temperance worker and was equally active and help- ful as a member of the Presbyterian church, doing everything in his power to further its growth and extend its influence. His political allegiance was given to the republican party. He was rich in those qualities which men esteem as of value in the world and thus his death was the occasion of deep and widespread regret.
WILLIAM HERBERT HARWOOD.
William Herbert Harwood, secretary and manager of the Inter State Realty Company, in which connection he is developing one of the finest residence por- tions of the city, has throughout his life displayed an initiative spirit that has carried him into important relations and made his work of signal service and benefit in the upbuilding of the community in which he has operated. Iowa numbers him among her native sons, his birth having occurred in Fairbank, Buchanan county, August 28, 1857. His parents were William Newton and
WILLIAM H. HARWOOD
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Lucia (Sabin) Harwood, the former a native of Herkimer county, New York, and the latter of Burlington, Vermont. In the paternal line he is descended from Captain Nathan Harwood, of Windsor, Massachusetts, who was a soldier of the Revolutionary war. There is a complete genealogical record of the fam- ily back to 1738, in which year the Harwood homestead at Littleton, Massachu- setts, was purchased from the Indians and has been continuously in possession of the family since that time. William N. Harwood was a carpenter by trade, following that pursuit until 1863, when he enlisted in the Union army and died in the service in 1865.
William H. Harwood pursued his early education in the common schools of Bremer county, Iowa, and afterward attended the State Teachers College at Cedar Falls, Iowa, from which he was graduated in June, 1879. His youthful experiences were those of the farm boy and at the age of seventeen years he began teaching in the country schools, following the profession for six years, during which time he was principal of the schools at Oelwein, Fairbank and New Hartford, Iowa. Later he turned his attention to the banking and real- estate business, in which he engaged in Lake Mills, Iowa, in 1881. Four years were there passed and in 1885 he came to Des Moines, where he was chosen secretary and treasurer of a loan company, with which he was thus officially connected until 1892. He afterward conducted a private loan real-estate and insurance business for ten years, on the expiration of which period he or- ganized the Inter State Realty Company of which he is now secretary and man- ager. In this connection he is largely engaged at the present writing, in the winter of 1910-II, in the development of Gil-Mar Park, an exclusive residence addition to this city. His labors in his present line of business have been a tangible element in the city's development and improvement and while he has won the substantial profits of labor, he has at the same time contributed in substantial measure to the welfare of the city. He is associated in his real- estate operations with the Hon. W. B. Martin, who was secretary of state for Iowa for six years, and G. S. Gilbertson, who was treasurer of the state for six years. In all of the fields of business in which he has operated his labors have been resultant and beneficial. He was one of the organizers of the Des Moines Broad Gauge Street Railway Company, which owned the first street railway in Des Moines operated by electric power. This company afterward merged with the Des Moines Narrow Gauge Street Railway and formed the basis for the present Des Moines Electric Railway System. Mr. Harwood is also secretary and treasurer of the Western Land & Irrigation Company, a corporation own- ing sixteen thousand acres of land in Wyoming. He is president of the Des Moines Real Estate Exchange and is regarded as one of the prominent repre- sentatives of real-estate interests in the capital city. Formerly he was auditor and secretary of the Great Western Accident Association and treasurer of the Bankers Accident Company of Des Moines. His keen discrimination into busi- ness situations enables him to readily understand the opportunity of coordinat- ing forces into a harmonious whole for the attainment of larger success.
Aside from the interests which are strictly of a business character Mr. Har- wood has figured in the public life of the city in various official and other con- nections. He was a member of the board of education of North Des Moines from 1896 until 1898 and was a member of the board of trustees of the State Teachers College at Cedar Falls, Iowa, in 1908 and 1909. This was succeeded by the state board of education, established in the latter year. In January, 19II, he was elected president of the Des Moines Real Estate Association for one year; was chosen a member of the executive committee of the National Real Estate Association to represent Des Moines ; and elected a delegate to the annual meeting of that association at Denver, Colorado, July 18-20, 1911. He, with others, was instrumental in getting a law passed in the legislature in regard
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to smoke abatement and is secretary and a member of the Des Moines Smoke Abatement Committee.
In politics he is a progressive republican, serving as president of the Young Men's Republican Club in 1893 and as a delegate to numerous conventions of his party. In 1892 he was an assistant sergeant at arms in the national repub- lican convention at Minneapolis. He is in harmony with the purposes and plans of those men who are seeking to make the party the instrument of public opin- ion and not the tool of the few and in all matters of citizenship he has displayed a progressive spirit that seeks to do away with an existing order of things when it is detrimental to the best welfare and introduce ideas that are in keeping with the advancing spirit of the times.
On the 25th of November, 1880. in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Mr. Harwood was united in marriage by Professor J. C. Gilchrist, then president of the State Teach- ers College, to Miss Jennie A. Macy, a daughter of Nathan and Jeannette Macy, of Springdale, Iowa. Mrs. Harwood is a Quaker and a direct descendant of Goodman Macy, of Nantucket Island. They have only one child, a son, Her- bert Macy Harwood, who was born February 5, 1886, in Des Moines, and was graduated from the West Des Moines high school in 1904, after which he at- tended the University of Chicago in 1904-5. In the fall of the latter year he entered the University of Iowa and was graduated on the completion of the lib- eral arts course in 1908 and on the completion of the law course in June, 1910. For three years he was editor of the Daily Iowan and is now a reporter on the Des Moines Daily Register and Leader.
Mr. Harwood is not affiliated with any church but has acted as a trustee for the Methodist Episcopal church at Lake Mills, Iowa, and for the Prospect Park Methodist Episcopal church of Des Moines. More recently he has at- tended the Christian Science church of this city and is recognized as a man of liberal religious views. Fraternally he is connected with Des Moines Lodge, No. 68, Knights of Pythias, and served as prelate, vice chancellor, chancellor commander and past chancellor between the years 1887 and 1892. He also be- longs to Capital Lodge, No. 110, A. F. & A. M., to the Grant Club, the Coun- try Club and to the Iowa chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution. En- dowed by nature with sound judgment and an accurate, discriminating mind, he has not feared that laborious attention to the details of business so necessary to achieve success, and this essential quality is guided by a sense of moral right which will tolerate the employment only of those means that will bear the most rigid examination and by a fairness of intention that neither seeks nor requires disguise. It is but just and merited praise to say of him that as a business man he ranks with the ablest, as a citizen he is honorable ; prompt and true to every engagement and as a man he enjoys the honor and esteem of all classes of peo- ple, of all creeds and political proclivities.
ARTHUR EVERTS DEWEY, D. O.
Among the practitioners of osteopathy in Des Moines is Dr. Arthur Everts Dewey who, since 1907, has been a resident of this city and has met with marked success in his calling. He is a native of Alpine, Schuyler county, New York, born June 13, 1873, a son of George Johnson and Cornelia Ann (Everts) Dewey. The father served during the Civil war as a private in Company F, Eighty-ninth New York Volunteers. Shortly after the war he was married to Miss Cornelia Ann Everts and settled on a farm in Schuyler county where the family lived for forty-five years, when he and his wife removed to Montour Falls, New York. They were lifelong church members and earnest workers in every movement aiming to advance the moral and spiritual welfare of the community. The father
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was descended from Dr. Levi Ives, of Boston, Massachusetts, and the grand- father of our subject was named Levi Ives Dewey in honor of Dr. Ives, and was a native of Connecticut. The mother descended from Judah Everts, who came from England to America with two brothers. The name is supposed originally to have been spelled Evarts. The grandfather of our subject on the maternal side, Marshal M. Everts, was born in Vermont in 1802 and was a typ- ical Green Mountain Yankee. He engaged in the Baptist ministry for forty years. The grandmother, on the maternal side, was Lovina Reed, who was born in Connecticut in 1800. Her father's name was Noah Reed and her grand- mother was Hannah (Winter) Green, descended on the Winter side from a wealthy landowner in the north of Ireland, and one of her ancestors in the Green branch of the family was General Greene of Revolutionary war fame.
Arthur E. Dewey received his education in the country schools, the Montour Falls high school and Cook Academy, both of the latter being located at Mon- tour Falls. He attended the Courtland State Normal School at Courtland, New York, and in June, 1904, graduated from the S. S. Still College of Osteopathy at Des Moines with the degree of Doctor of Osteopathy. He was a student in the medical college of Drake University from September, 1907, to June, 1909. He engaged in teaching for seven years in New York state, after which he began to prepare for the practice of osteopathy. He began practice at At- lantic, Iowa, in July, 1904, and attracted a lucrative clientage, but sold this business in September, 1907, when he removed to Des Moines and became a student of Drake University. He has served as professor in the Still College of Osteopathy since September, 1907, and professionally is a member of the American Osteopathic Association, the Iowa Osteopathic Association, and the Polk County Osteopathic Association, having served as president of the latter organization. The profession of osteopathy had its start in 1894, and after seventeen years of progress has enrolled over five thousand licensed practi- tioners and is recognized by statute in forty-two states, the practitioners being allowed to proceed without molestation in the remaining states and territories.
On the 5th of July, 1905, Dr. Dewey was married at Montezuma, Iowa, to Miss Nina Almetta Wilson, the seventh child of James Walker and Elvina Madison (Taylor) Wilson. Mrs. Dewey was graduated from the Montezuma high school in 1889. After teaching in the country schools she attended Iowa Wesleyan University and also became a student of the Chicago Training School, and later attended Grinnell College. She was graduated in 1905 from the S. S. Still College of Osteopathy with the title of Doctor of Osteopathy. She then took an examination under the state medical board and received a certificate to practice for life in the state of Iowa. Her ambition as a child was to be a teacher and this profession she followed for several years, beginning her graded school work as a primary school teacher at Cawker, Kansas, going from there to her home at Montezuma where she taught for four years. She was then elected to a position in the Grinnell schools, which she resigned to take up the study of osteopathy. After two years' practice she was called to the chair of obstetrics and gynecology in the Still College. This position she resigned, and with her husband opened an office in Des Moines. She is a member of Chapter Q. P. E. O. She is also a member of the Ladies of the Maccabees, and was a member of the Browning Club. She has been an active worker in the Political Equality Club and was state corresponding secretary of the Iowa Equal Suffrage Association. She is now state superintendent of church work in the Iowa Equal Suffrage Association, and is state secretary for the Osteopathic Association. While a young girl she united with the Methodist Episcopal church, but is now a member of the Greenwood Congregational church. Her father came from Indiana to Iowa in the territorial days, and he and his father attended the first government sale of Iowa land at Burlington. Her mother arrived in this state at the age of twelve years, the family making the journey westward in wagons. They
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settled in Poweshiek county, being the only white settlers in that section, their only neighbors being the Indians.
Dr. Arthur E. Dewey gives his support to the republican party, but he be- lieves that the character of the candidate for office should be considered as being of greater importance than party affiliations. He is a member of Ben Hur Lodge and held the office of chief in 1905. He also belongs to U. S. Grant Camp, No. 108, M. W. A., and is connected with the Commercial and Congregational Clubs of Des Moines. He was a charter member of the Des Moines branch of the Men's League for Woman's Suffrage of the State of Iowa, and at At- lantic he served as secretary of the Choral Union. He was for a number of years a member of the Baptist church but is now connected with the Green- wood Congregational church of Des Moines, of which he is a deacon, being chair- man of the board. One of the far-reaching measures enacted into a law by the thirty-fourth general assembly was the Perkins bill to "prevent the procreation of confirmed criminals, idiots, feeble-minded and imbeciles." Dr. Dewey is proud of possessing the pen with which the governor affixed his name, thereby making the measure a law, on account of being the author of the bill and its features, in which it differs materially from measures of similar import in other states. From his youth he has been a great inquirer after knowledge and, be- ing a lifelong student, he has a well stored mind, especially on subjects pertain- ing to his profession. He and his wife met with a generous reception at Des Moines and have won high esteem on account of their sterling qualities.
GEORGE HARNAGEL.
George Harnagel, who as a member of the Des Moines bar has continued in the general practice of law, displaying in connection with important litigation a comprehensive knowledge of the principles of jurisprudence, entered upon active connection with the profession in 1898. He was then a young man of about thirty years, his birth having occurred in Lee county, Iowa, August II, 1868. His father, Andreas Harnagel, a native of Hanover, Germany, settled in Lee county on coming to America several years prior to the Civil war. He was one of the early residents of that locality. He married Sophia Schoene, a native of Lee county, and both are now deceased, Mrs. Harnagel having passed away April 5, 1909. In their family were ten children, eight sons and two daughters.
George Harnagel is indebted to the public-school system of Lee county for the early educational privileges which he enjoyed. After completing his pre- liminary studies he attended the high school at Keokuk, Iowa, but did not grad- uate. He prepared for a professional career as a student in the Iowa College of Law, which is the law department of Drake University, and was graduated with the LL. B. degree in the class of 1898. He then located for practice in Des Moines and has always followed his profession independently. He engages in general practice and has proven his ability in the capable and successful con- duct of important litigated interests. He prepares his cases with great thor- oughness and care, is strong in reasoning, and logical in his arguments and de- ductions.
On the 15th of October, 1901, Mr. Harnagel was married in Des Moines to Miss Bertha Mae McGiffin, a daughter of Silas B. McGiffin, a native of Pennsylvania. Three children have been born of this marriage: George Mc- Giffin, born in Des Moines, June 2, 1903; Margaret Elizabeth, born January 4. 1906; and Mary Frederick, July 31. 1910. Mr. Harnagel is a home man and his greatest pleasure comes to him in the society of his wife and children, all of his spare time outside of his business hours being devoted to his family. He
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is an active worker in the interests of the democratic party, of which he has always been a stalwart advocate.
His religious faith is indicated in his membership in the Presbyterian church, which finds in him a faithful and loyal representative. His influence is always found on the side of right, progress, reform and improvement, and in his chosen profession he has proven himself an able advocate in the temple of justice, who, while devoted to the interests of his clients never forgets that he owes a still higher allegiance to the majesty of the law.
ADDISON C. PAGE, M. D.
An able physician of Des Moines is Dr. Addison C. Page, who has been en- gaged in general practice here for twelve years. He is one of Iowa's sons hav- ing been born in New Sharon, this state, on the 3d of October, 1874, his parents being Dr. Homer R. and Harriet E. (Frisbee) Page. The family removed to Des Moines in 1878 where the father, who was a physician, engaged in practice until his death, which occurred November 5, 1891, and mention of whom is made in another part of this work.
A child of four years when his parents located in Des Moines, Dr. Page has spent the greater part of his life in the city where he is now residing. His early years were spent in a manner very similar to those of the average boy reared in the refining atmosphere of a good home. He attended the public schools in pursuance of his education, after the completion of which he entered the Des Moines College. Having early decided that he would adopt the voca- tion of medicine for his life work and after having laid aside his academic studies Dr. Page went to Chicago and matriculated at the Physicians' and Sur- geons' Medical School, being awarded the degree of M. D. with the class of 1898. After his graduation, feeling the need of a more practical knowledge of the science, he entered Cook County Hospital, where he served as an interne for eighteen months. At the expiration of that period he regarded himself very well qualified, both theoretically and practically, to assume the responsibilities of a private practice, and returning to Des Moines he established an office, which he has ever since maintained. He has succeeded in building up a very satis- factory practice, which is constantly increasing.
As he has never married Dr. Page continues to make his home with his mother. His religious faith is evidenced through his membership in the Bap- tist church and he is also affiliated with the Golf and Country Club. His fra- ternal relations are confined to his identification with the Knights of Pythias lodge. His political support Dr. Page has always accorded the republican party, although he has never aspired to public honors or the emoluments of office and does not actively participate in civic affairs, concentrating his energies upon the development of his practice, to the interests of which he is earnestly and. con- scientiously devoted.
FRED L. MORGAN.
One of the earnest, hard working citizens of Des Moines who can attribute whatever success has rewarded his efforts to his own endeavors is Fred L. Mor- gan. He is one of the nine children born unto William and Helen (Francis) Morgan, his birth occurring in England on the 30th of September, 1875. His parents migrated from the mother country to the United States in 1885, locating in Des Moines on the 24th of June of the same year. Here the father, who was
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a bookbinder, worked at his trade until he passed away in 1892 The mother, however, survived sixteen years thereafter, her demise occurring in 1908. They were both laid to rest in Woodland cemetery.
Being a lad of ten years when his parents removed to this country, Fred L. Morgan began his education in his native land, continuing to pursue his studies after arriving here until he had completed the course of the grammar school, at which time he put aside any further thought of schooling in order to assume his share of the responsibility of the family support. His first position was as messenger with the A. D. T. Company, with whom he was identified for one year, and then became an office boy of Bennett Brothers. He withdrew from their service at the end of fourteen months to accept a similar position with L. Harbeck, the furniture dealer, with whom he continued for a year. At the end of that period he became a collector and bookkeeper for Fred Redhead, who is engaged in the coal business, resigning at the end of a year to enter the employ of Fred Whitney, with whom he continued for a brief time, and then returned to the employ of Mr. Redhead. Later he again withdrew to go with the Key- stone Coal & Mining Company, with whom he was identified for eleven years. On the Ist of July, 1908, Mr. Morgan was elected clerk of the U. S. Grant Camp, No. 108, M. W. A., which position he still holds, having filled every sta- tion except that of banker in the above lodge.
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