USA > Iowa > Floyd County > History of Floyd County, Iowa : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens > Part 78
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Charles F. Beck was born in Greene Township, Gallia County, O., May 18, 1845. He was the sixth in a family of thirteen. His parents are Jacob and Sophia Beck, now living in Riverton, whose biographies may be found in the contents of that township. Charles F., like the majority of boys in those early days, received but a common-school education, but by a wise use of that, together with shrewd powers of observation, has mastered all obstacles, so far as general knowledge and business laws, and the right and wrong in the political economy of the country goes. He was at home dur- ing his minority, and until his twenty-fourth year, when he took unto himself a wife, marrying Miss Viola Reynolds, daughter of S. L. Reynolds, formerly of this township, but more recently of Greene. Miss Reynolds had the honor of being the first teacher in School house No. 1, and perhaps in the district. Abont the date of his marriage he bought his present home-a farm of ninety acres, on section 8. To them one child, a daughter, lias been born. Mr. Beck crops about eighty acres on his own place, and some forty more on an adjacent section. Inasmuch as we found Mr. Beck to be one of Floyd's earliest settlers, we have used many of
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the facts thus gleaned in the body of the work, and for which we give credit.
John Frederick Christian Bicknese, born in Erichshagen, Wolpe County, Kingdom of Hanover, Dec. 17, 1815, was a son of Conrad and Marie (Lubbers) Bicknese, and the eldest son of six children. He lived at home until his fifteenth year, when he worked for a year and a half in a hotel. Then for two years for a dyer, when he entered into a contract to learn the trade. In Ang- ust, 1838, he took out a passport, dated Aug. 30, 1838. In those days a passport book had to be obtained and each night to be left with the police until further movements demand its possession. His movements were about as follows: starting from Erichshagen, he staid first at Celle; from Celle he went to Bremen, from Bremen to Oldenburg. At each place all travelers are examined to see if they have been vaccinated, and if they have traveling money-$5 being requisite before proceeding. From Oldenburg he went to Varel, then to Aurish, then to Burgsteinfurth, where he worked
nearly two months. After this to Osnedrick, then to Wildeshau- sen, then to Buckebnrg; from here to Hildeshein; from here to Braunschweig, then to Grimma, Saxony, then to Leipsig; from here to Dresden; from here he went to Breslau, Prussia; from here to Lignitz, then to a part of Prussia Poland, Zduny; from here to Kozmin; from here to Thoren, then to Elbing via Graud- ing and Marenwerder; from Elbing to Soldan; from here to Hohenstein ; here he worked three months. Then to Konigs- berg; from here to Danzig, Prussia, again; from here to Stolp, then to Coslin, then to Colberg, then back to Stolp, where he secured five weeks' work. From here to Landsberg, then to Rue- enwale; here he worked fourteen weeks. From here to Soldin, then to Stettin. During this time he was traveling on foot, and here, having sore feet, he had to be still a few days. Then to Stralsund; from there to Demmin, from there to Paswalk, from there to Naubrandenburg, from there to Frankfort-on-the-Oder, then back to Breslau; from there to Leobschuetz, then to Hirsch- berg, then to Zittan, then to Freiberg, from there to Chemmitz. There he was fortunate enough to find work for one year and a half, where he had charge of forty-five men. After this, desiring more experience, he resigned and went to Erfurth, working about five weeks; then to Gotha, then to Minningen, then to Coburg, then to Bavaria, Culmbach, from there to Bayruth, then to Schnabelwid, then to Nurnberg, then to Ausbach, then to Westertrudingen, then
Me Hle richerson
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to Koslinger, then to Donanworth, then to Augsburg, then to Schwabmunchen, then to Kanfburen, then to Kempten, then to Iesny, Wurtemburg, then to Leutkirch, then to Stuttgart, then to Nalen; there he worked fourteen weeks. From there to Gmund; there he again worked fourteen weeks. From there he went to Tubengen, then to Balingen, then to Schafhausen, then passing over the border of Wurtenburg, to Gallen, Switzerland; there he worked fourteen weeks. From there to Berne, then to Lucerne; from here back to Germany, Baden Baden, to Freiburg, then to Menheim; from there to Wurzburg, then to Bamburg; from there to Cumbach, then to Hof, then to Griez, then to Altenburg, then to Hildeshim, and from there to where he was born, arriving home Dec. 8, 1842, making a journey of four years and four months. This has been taken from the passport book. It also shows about what the German journeyman has to pass through to gain that perfection in his trade that brings demand for his labor. He worked at his trade about one year at home; then from Bremen sailed to Baltimore, landing in America, Aug. 18, 1844. From Baltimore he went to Wilkinsburg, Pa .; worked seven years and a half in the Baltimore coal mine, Alex. Gray being proprietor. From here to Dane County, Wis., in 1852. While in Wilkinsburg he married Frances Hogstien. He lived in Dane County fourteen years and a half. Then came to this township, Nov. 30, 1866. His children are-Clemerce L., Mary C., John Francis, Bernard, Katy. Frank, Joseph, Dora, and Lena. His wife died in March, 1878. He owns 40 5acres, and crops: of corn, eighty-five acres; of oats, forty-two and one-half acres; of wheat, eighty-six acres; tame grass, fourteen acres.
John Brisco, one of the earliest pioneers of Iowa, and one who has seen nothing but frontier-life since his early boyhood in Shelby County, Ky., until now, was born of good old Kentucky stock in Shelby County. His parents moved from there to Monroe County, Ind., when he was a small boy. His reminiscences of Indiana or Hoosier pioneer life; of their log cabins without a scrap of iron; their primitive customs as a whole, are very interesting. He lived at home, assisting his father to carry on the farm until his nineteenth year, when he went to work on the river, piloting the old-styled flat boat between Louisville, Ky., and New Orleans. It was a life of intense hardship. One of these boats, floating with the stream, took fifteen days or more to do the journey. The boats, when they
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arrived, were sold for the lumber in them, though some of them have been brought up the stream by means of ropes and horses. In 1843 he married Adeline Head, of Monroe County. Her father emigrated from " New Virginia" when she was but two years of age. Their names were Josiah and Lydia Head. Both died when she was quite young. Mrs. Brisco is a grand example of what our early pioneer women were, having endured privations and hardships with her husband, working in the field as in the house, being a " better shot" with the frontiersman's rifle than the majority of them themselves, and lastly having raised a family of fourteen children, the greater portion living to-day to bless the mother and father from whom they have inherited sound constitutions and pure blood. Mr. Brisco, to-day, is healthy and vigorous. Upon Mr. Brisco's marriage they moved to Kosciusko County in the fall of 1847, and from there moved to Allamakee, living there until 1861, when he moved to Riverton. In Allamakee County he moved to Rossville, where he bought 200 acres-two besides himself living in that section at that time, and laid out the town, now Rossville. He carried on the farm for three years, then moved to town and went into the manufacturing of plows and blacksmithing with David Skinner, and remained in the company seven years, when he so'd out and formed a partnership with Mr. Ross and built a steam grist-mill, which he ran about one year, returning to the farm. During the time he ran the manufacturing of plows he went into and established a shop at Oronoko, on Zumbro River, running it one year and sold out. During this time he also made two trips to Pike's Peak, it being the time of the gold fever, crossing the plains four times with an ox team; the first time there was a com- pany of sixty men and thirty wagons; the second time twenty-seven men, one woman and sixteen wagons. During the last trip they. made a halt at Denver, the Indians being on the war-path. At the
time of their settlement in Iowa, bears and game were abundant. Mrs. Brisco has seen five bears at one time. The pigs had to be kept in the house; and being afraid they would molest the children, Mrs. Brisco learned to use the rifle. Some of her shots rival the stories of the frontier marksman. Her husband once wagered a pair of pants against a new dress that she could not kill over four or fi ve partridges or wood pheasants at a shot; but her scoring thirty- one birds with every shot won the dress. Few women in the his_ tory of frontier life have equaled this. Squirrels and wild turkeys were doomed if she could see as much as their heads. She has
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killed two deer. In 1870 he bought a farm of ninety acres in Pleas- ant Grove and lived there four years; then sold it and bought the one of 160 acres, where he now resides. Their children are- Prier L., Lydia M. and Elizabeth Jane, born in Monroe County, Ind .; Jeremiah and Harriet M., born in Kosciusko County, Ind., Matilda I. (the first child born in the county), John L. (died when three years old), Emmie L. (died in infancy), Josiah, Clementine and Robinson M., born in Allamakee County, Ia .; Charles C., Francis U. and Walter M., born in Riverton, Floyd County.
Wesley Brownell was born in Delaware County, N. Y., Oct. 16, 1830; received a common-school education; remained with his parents until about twenty-one years of age, when he com- menced to do for himself, by working for his neighbors. At the age of twenty-four he bantered a chum of his own age to respond to the call from Kansas, for settlers from the East. Though his friend declined, he packed his trunk and started for the broad prairie land of the West. He spent the first year in Illinois, and in 1855 he cameto Iowa. An incident we here relate illustrates the expeditious- ness required upon the part of the settler in order to get land, on account of the fast inflowing population. Mr. Brownell arrived in this county Dec. 15; the Government land-office at Decorah opened on the 20th. He commenced improvements on 160 acres, section 24, Riverton, now Pleasant Grove, Township; filed his papers for pre-emption in the meantime, securing the land on the 20th. Upon this land he resided until 1868, when he sold and moved to Mitch- ell County and purchased a farm and made that his home two years. At the expiration of this term he returned to Floyd County, and farmed land on shares three years. In 1873 he purchased the farm of 160 acres where he still resides, section 36, Pleasant Grove. He crops apout 125 acres: corn, seventy ; oats, thirty-five; balance tame grass; keeps about twelve head cattle, four horses and from fifteen to one hundred hogs.
Has always escaped the hog cholera till last year, when he lost seventy-five head. During the war Mr. Brownell was drafted as second to a drafted man; there being only one man drafted in the company. Fortu- nately for Mr. Brownell, the man was accepted upon examination. The township organized an insurance company for the benefit of those who might be drafted. Their first papers proving inefficient they drew up new ones. They all signed the new ones except this Mr. Wilcox, who happened to be the only man drafted in the township. Mr. Brownell was married in Bradford, Chickasaw
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County, Ia., April 21, 1861, to Miss Jane Adams a native of Canada. Their family consists of five children-Elva A., Martin C., Minnie O., William I., and Robert S. He is a member of the order of Freemasons. Is a member of the Baptist church, and has been a Republican ever since the party had existence. Voted for Fremont in 1856 and was previously an Abolitionist. While a citi- zen of Riverton Township he held the office of Assessor seven years, and was County Supervisor some three terms; was Township Clerk one year previous. Since becoming a citizen of Pleasant Grove he was elected Assessor, which position he has held for the past three years. Besides being a member of the School Board the greater part of the time, while residing in both townships, several years, he acted as Secretary. Mr. Brownell cast the first vote in this township. Mr. Brownell stands high in the esteem of his fellow towns-people, as a man whose word is as good as his bond; such, too, is the reputation given the Brownells in the history of Delaware County, N. Y.
Allan. J. Doore, son of Joel and Sarah (Cushing) Doore, whose sketch joins this, was born in Atkinson, Piscataquis County, Me., May 19, 1844. He came to this township the first year of its organization. He received an academic education ; taught several terms of school winters, and helped his father on the farm snmn- iners. His idea of Western prospects have been quite fully realized. IJe married Alice M. Lockwood, daughter of J. C. Lockwood, of this township, May 19, 1872. Their children are-Raymond L., Allan W., Harry C., and Grace M. He has 240 acres of land in Scott Township, sections 32 and 33. Mr. Doore, like his father, is a thrifty farmer, bringing Maine pluck and energy. The attraction of the prairie to a farmer-bred New England are great. Mr. Doore when first arriving in this locality thought he saw, at least, " easy agriculture" compared with that among the rocks and stumps of Maine, and wrote his father to this effect. He had no intention of staving when he left home, the object being in the main to escort his sister, Mrs. Rodolpha Young, to her home. The surprise he had, together with the great difference between the soil of the Pine Tree State and that of the Hawkeye, made him form the resolution of staying, and, buying a quarter section, immediately sent word to his parents to come West. In two years his persua- sions brought the " old folks." Father and son live in happiness and comfort together. He has 225 acres under cultivation: 100
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acres of corn ; sixty, rye ; sixty-five, oats. Has gone into the bee culture, having at present fifteen hives.
Joel Doore, or "Uncle Joel," as he is familiarly called by nearly every one living in the " Maine settlement," came to Pleas- ant Grove Township in 1869, at the urgent solicitation of his son and daughter-now Mrs. Rudolph Young, of Verndale, Minn. He has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church for many years. The old-style Scotch practice, so eloquently described in Robert Burns' "Cotter's Saturday Night," seemed peculiarly ap- propriate to Mr. Doore's whole-souled, yet simplicity of, character, and the morning worship thus conducted will ever be remembered by the writer of this sketch. Mr. Doore was born in Dover, Pis- cataquis County, Maine, Nov. 7, 1813. He was a son of Joel and Hannah Doore, one of Piscataquis's early settlers. The family con- sisted of eight sons and three daughters. Of course in those early days, even East, schools were in a rude and primitive state, in consequence of which no one received but a common-school educa- tion, and education, like many other branches of vital importance to the development of character, being dependent on the man's mind, his powers of self-restraint, observation, integrity of charac- ter and purpose. He has always followed the farm as a means of livelihood, with the exception of one year, which he spent in Cali- fornia in 1849-'50. He married Miss Sarah Cushing, daughter of James and Nancy Cushing. The names of the children born to them are-Eliza N., James N., Nancy C., Isley O., Allen J., Pauline S. Eliza N. married Charles Ramsdell, and is living directly opposite her father's; his two sons, Isley O. and James N., were of the first of those brave volunteers who left the com- forts of their homes, their social and domestic pleasures, and who severed for the time the ties which linked them to their families and friends, to rally for the defense of their country and the insti- tutions under which they had been permitted to enjoy there comforts, pleasures and affections; to face the stern realities of grim-visaged war; to endure the hardships and privations of the field; to inhale the pestilential emanations from Southern swamps; to languish in sickness and pain, and to find solitary and unknown graves where neither father, nor mother, nor brother, nor sister could come to drop affection's tears. And thus they died, and lie with thousands of unknown and unmarked graves, the former near New Orleans, where he died of fever, November, 1862; the latter on Ship Island, of the same disease, July 17, 1862. But their patriot-
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ism and their sufferings, in the hearts of their towns-people, and on the Roll of Honor, shall be an enduring monument. Pauline S. married Clifton Huckins, M. D., son of Deacon Huckins. Mr. Huckins was the first and only physician in Pleasant Grove. Mr. Doore moved from Maine in 1869, buying 160 acres in section 32. He brought with him Maine ways and economy-the whole- some teachings of thrifty, broad-minded parents, as all New Englanders of the past generation, who reared large families among the rocks and the forests and the hills of the East, were. From these teachings he has been able to meet the world in a practical and yet pleasant way, and to have accomplished in these few years of Western experiences what many of our more Western residents, with an easier notion of life and methods, have been years longer in doing. He has fine buildings, a barn about 40 x 60, and his manner of husbandry evinces plainer than words its practicability. Politically he is a Republican, and when a resident of Maine held the various town offices at different periods. He crops this year about forty acres of spring wheat, twenty acres of oats, fifty acres of corn ; has a large number of horses, and about fifty pigs.
Andrew A. Egnew was born in Rockport, Spencer County, Ind., July 18, 1841. His parents were James and Elizabeth (Varner) Egnew, of Kentucky. His father followed farming for a livelihood. Of a family of fourteen Andrew A. was tenth. He lived at home during his minority, enlisting in the Fourth Indiana Cavalry, Company K, Captain C. C. Mason commanding, a month succeeding his minority. He was engaged the first six months in hunting, running down the Kentucky guerrillas, Mason, the rebel among them. After this he was in Rosencrans's advance, going through the ever-to-be-remembered battle of Chickamauga. After the retreat of the troops from Chickamauga this company went into the march after Wheeler, when he crossed the Tennessee, after the Federal supply trains. After this his regiment was ordered as the advance, doing reconnoitering and surveying duty near Fayettes- ville. While thus engaged, doing picket duty, a minie-ball entered the arm through the inferior portion of the triceps muscle, two or three inches below the articulation of the humerus with the clavicle, and passing just beneath the bone emerged near the center of the biceps" muscles, lacerating these most important appliances of nature's handiwork in a fearful manner, resulting in an almost total paralysis of the arm and a withering of the hand, the latter rigidly
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contracted. The ball passing out of his arm entered his right side, making quite a serious, though flesh, wound. After this he was transferred to the veteran reserve corps, not receiving his discharge until the February of 1865. He is at present drawing a small pension-a pension much too small. After his discharge he taught school for ten or twelve years about his home, assisting on the farm during vacations. He was married April 9, 1869, to Cynthia M. Starkweather. Their children are-Sydney C. and Minnie R. Mr. Egnew lived in Spencer County until March, 1877, when he moved to Butler County, Ia .; lived there three years, then moved to Marble Rock, residing there one year; from there to this pleas- ant locality, section 8, township 94 north, range 16 west. Although we cannot claim Mr. Egnew among Floyd's soldiers, we can claim the same spirit for him as imbued their breasts-to fight, suffer and die for the preservation of the Union and the honor of the stars and stripes.
James Fiddick, an Englishman by descent, was born in Simons- town, Cape of Good Hope, Africa, April, 1857. His parents' names were James and Elizabeth Fiddick. His mother was born in Cornwall County, England, in 1826; was married in 1852, and moved to Cape of Good Hope in 1853. Mr. Fiddick was for many years connected with the civil service at Simonstown, living there thirteen years. Mr. Fiddick died in Cornwall, Nov. 18, 1873. Their children, born at the Cape, were Priscilla J., Richard, James, William, Laura J., Ellen E. and Emma A. Thomas and Bertha M. were born in England. James, the third of the children, em- igrated. to Rockford, Ill., when his mother and family came, in 1874. They lived in Rockford five years, moving to Pleasant Grove Township, to section 19, where all the family are comfort- ably settled. He married Rebecca Pooley in 1881, sister of John B. Pooley, a near neighbor. He is cropping about 100 acres. Mr. Fiddick is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church at Greene, and a most exemplary man.
Lewi's Forthun, a native of Lyster, Southern Norway, was born in the year 1837, and was youngest and fourth son of Knut and Carrie Forthun. He lived with his parents until his nineteenth year, receiving such education as was to be had in Norway's con- mon schools, when the desire of adventure took possession of him, the wonders of America being the unknown magnet. Bidding good-bye to father and mother, sister and brothers, and his native land, he eventually reached Dane County, Wis., after many inter-
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esting experiences, as always happen to emigrants to whom the English language is foreign. Here he lived one year, moving into Rock County, where he farmed for six years. Here it was that he assisted in setting out the first acre of tobacco set out in this county- a branch of farming that now is extensively carried on. From here he moved into Crawford County, and from here, in 1864, he enlisted in the Eleventh Wisconsin Infantry, Company E, being engaged in the memorable battle before Mobile, where he was wounded, a minie-ball striking him directly in the mouth. The eagerness with which the majority of men of foreign birth, and, in some cases, of newly arrived emigrants, watched the late war, and enlisted when calls for more men were made, is a fact remark- able in history. After his return, in 1865, he married Mary E. Joslyn, danghter of Marsena and Mary A. Joslyn, late of Pleas- ant Grove Township, now residing in Greene, Butler County. In 1866 he moved to Pleasant Grove Township, and bought an eighty, or the Joe Ripley farm, in what was then Ripley's Grove. Also at the same time he bought an adjoining eighty of Washing- ton Young, moving into a shanty built by Mr. Young a few years before. The work at first, as was the case with all new farms in the timber, was that of grubbing, but by assiduous labors it has brought the acreage of available land from a few to those of his large farm of to-day, he cropping over 100 acres of corn and pats. A few years ago he bought another eighty adjoining, cast of the last, upon which he has built convenient farm buildings. Mr. Forthun has been active in politics, and has been chosen to most of the township offices, at different intervals, and for the past three years has held that of County Supervisor, of which to-day he is Chairman. Three children have been born to him-Jessie May, Horace Orville Wallace, and Walter S. Much credit is due Mr. Forthun as member of the Board of Supervisors for the rapid construction of the present court-house, and also as a man, who, coming to a new country, in a few years mastered its language, customs and politics so as to be one of the leading spirits.
William Grierish was born in Mecklenburg, Germany, in 1834, under the Grand Duke Frederick Frantz. His parents were Frederick and Lottie Grierish, and had six children, William be- ing the youngest. He lived at home, working on a farm till his nineteenth year, when, in 1854, he emigrated to America, landing first in New York, staying eight months, and eventually coming to Milwaukee, Wis., where he remained a short time, and then
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went to Waukesha County and worked on a farm till 1866, when he went to Columbia County and staid three years, finally coming to Pleasant Grove Township, Floyd County, where he still re- sides, settling on 120 acres of wild land. He now has 200 acres of fine land, on section 25, under a good state of cultivation. Has in crop forty acres of oats, twenty-five of wheat, sixty of corn, seven of barley, and twenty of tame grass. He owns forty head of cattle, nine horses and sixty hogs. He was married in 1861, in Waukesha, Wis., to Ann Bullen, a daughter of Edwin and Sarah (Osborn) Bullen, natives of England. They had a family of eleven children, Ann being the third child. They came to America in 1854 with a family of eight. Mr. and Mrs. Grierish have two children-Edward W. and Albert J., aged twenty and eighteen, both born in Waukesha, Wis. Edward W. is Secretary of the Blue Ribbon Lodge. His buildings are on the east side of his farm; the house is a story and a half, the front part being 16 x 20 with a wing 14 x 22. His granary is 18 x 28 and fourteen feet high, with stone basement underneath for horses; has an ad- dition to the granary for four horses; has a cow barn 22 x30, sixteen feet high and holds nineteen cows, with a hay-mow over- head; has a corn-crib 22 x 32, with corn on one side and hogs on the other; has a windmill, the Union Star, sixty feet high.
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