USA > Iowa > Harrison County > History of Harrison County, Iowa. Containing full-page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county. Together with portraits and biographies of all the governors of Iowa, and of the presidents of the United States > Part 49
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122
Our subject and his wife are members of the Baptist Church at Missouri Valley, and in his political belief, Mr. Briggs is a Democrat.
Fred R., son of our subject, is also a butcher by trade. He married Miss Nora Sproll, a native of this county. They are the parents of two children-Sadie Lula and Bessie R.
h ON. D. M. HARRIS, more famil- iarly styled Judge Harris, editor of Missouri Valley Times, is too well known throughout the length and breadth of Iowa, and especially of the Missouri Slope to need an introduction to the readers of this volume. But for the information of those who may come after him, it may be said in this connection that Mr. Harris came to Missouri Valley when that town was yet in its infancy and es- tablished the Times in the month of June, 1868. The first paper was issued July 3d, and he has been the editor-in-chief ever since, with the exception of four years. For a full account of the history of this newspaper the reader is referred to the city history of Missouri Valley.
A man who isthree-score-and-ten years old, if he has improved his time and tal- ents, has had ample time to accomplish much toward filling the short space nec- essarily alloted to him for a biographical notice in the history of his home county.
30
452
HARRISON COUNTY.
Our subject was born in Montgomery County, Ohio, at what is now the city of Dayton, July 21, 1821. He is the son of Daniel and Mercy (Boker) Harris. The father was from Massachusetts and the mother from Pennsylvania. His parents died when he was but nine years of age, and he went to Maury County, Tenn. to live and remained there until 1854, and there received his early education in the common schools, after which he engaged in the mercantile business, then read law and was admitted to the bar in Maury County, and practiced law there for four years, and in 1854 removed to Audubon County, Iowa, remaining there until 1862, following the practice of law until 1876 in various places. He was elected County Judge of Audubon County, in 1856, being the second Judge of that county. He served two terms as Judge, and in the antumn of 1859 was elected as a Member of the House in the Eighth General As- sembly of the State of Iowa, serving in the regular session of 1860 and the extra (war)session of 1861. Hisdistrict comprised four counties. In 1886, he was elected to the Twenty-first General Assembly, serv- ing with distinction and in a satisfactory manner to his constituents. Politically, the Judge is a Democrat, and one who is ever ready to defend the principles of that party, being at all times ready to give a reason for the hope within him concern- ing his political faith.
He was united in marriage July 29, 1841 to Martha M. White, who is a native of Tennessee, by which union ten children have been born, all of whom are still liv- ing, six sons and four daughters-Mary Isabel, wife of Jolin Crane, of Exira, Iowa; William J., Daniel W., of South Dakota; Clarinda C., widow of John P. Lahman; John W., at home; Rob-
ert H., at home; Edwin T., of Shel- don, Iowa; Ellis N., in South Dakota; Virginia Tennessee, wife of William W. Rutledge, of Castleton, N. Dak .; and Emma E., wife of Charles H. Russel, now of Clarinda, Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Harris have fourteen grand-children and one great-grandchild. They are exemplary members of the Christian Church. He is a member and a leading spirit in the Masonic and Odd Fellows lodges, at Mis- souri Valley and his wife is identified with the Eastern Star and Rebecca degrees of these orders.
Among the most enjoyable occasions it is the good pleasure for man and wife to take part in, is that of a Golden Wedding anniversary which bespeaks of fifty years of wedded life. Such a boon is of rare oc- currence, but Providence has permitted Judge Harris and his estimable wife to travel life's journey as man and wife for a half century, and to rear a family of ten children, with never a death in their house- hold the family chain being yet unbroken. So it was that on July 29, 1891, a large company of their good friends at Missouri Valley and elsewhere, assembled at the Judge's residence, and after the marriage ceremony was renewed, areminder of that day in 1841 when they embarked in life together, many golden gifts were bestowed upon this worthy couple, who count their friends, wherever they have lived, by the one word legion. Among such gifts was a purse filled with gold presented to the good wife and mother, while a magnificent Elgin gold watch was presented to Mr. Harris, with befitting remarks, and the watch itself having an appropriate inscrip- tion engraved upon its chaste case.
Judge Harris has been a strong political factor in the Hawkeye State, for many long years ; and while he is a man of deep
453
HARRISON COUNTY.
convictions, and in his editorial writings, at times scathing, yet he perforce of his genial and manly course, makes but few personal enemies, and like most men who express their political and reli- gious convictions, regardless of fear or favor or of what the world may say, he stands to-day high in the estimation of a very large class of people in Western Iowa. At one time he edited the Defender, at Exira, Iowa; and also a paper called the Capsheaf, at Atlantic, Iowa ; and the Kan- sas Democrat, at Independence, Kan., which has given him a diversified editorial. experience as the conductor of a genuine Democratic journal.
In 1884 Mr. Harris was a delegate-at large to the Democratic National Con- vention, and was the first man in Iowa to raise a flag in honor of Grover Cleveland. Twice served on the electoral Democratic ticket of Iowa, and in 1888 was the Dem- ocratic candidate for Congress in the Ninth Congressional District, running considerably ahead of hisparty ticket. He has served four terms as Mayor of Mis- souri Valley, and filled many other minor offices in the city and county. As editor he has conducted the Guthrie County Leader; Harrisonian, of Missouri Valley ; Kansas Democrat, of Independence, Kan .; Audubon County Defender ; Atlantic Cap- sheaf, and then returned and bought his old office, which had been changed to the Missouri Valley Times. He began his editorial profession in 1864, and has been connected with the business ever since.
L UCIAN WILSON settled on sec- tion 16, of Washington Township, in the spring of 1867, where he bought a quarter-section of wild land, and built a frame house, 14x18 feet, one story
and a half high, to which he has made two additions. At the time of his coming to this locality, there was but little im- provement in what is now Washington Township. There was a log school house at Walkers' Grove, and a few settlers liv- ing here and there; but generally speak- ing, this part of the country was a sea of prairie grass. Since coming to the county, he has added to his farm until he now has a half section of well improved land. Four years after coming in, there was a school house built within one mile of his place. At first he had to go to Logan. or Wood- bine to trade, but upon the construction of the Rock Island Road, he went to Neola and Shelby, until the building of the Mil- waukee lines through Persia.
Our subject comes from good old Puri- tan stock, and was born February 16, 1835, in Berkshire County, Mass. At the age of nineteen went out into the world for himself, and followed agriculture, until he came to Harrison County.
He was married in the county of his na- tivity, March, 1856, to Miss Mary Chur- chill, by whom two children have been born, Adaline L., and a boy which was still-born. The mother, for reasons best known to themselves, did not come West, but the little daughter did, and has lived a portion of the time in this county with her father, but is now married and living in York State. After coming West, Mr. Wilson obtained a divorce, and married Miss Frances Place, of York State, with whom he had been acquainted since he was a child. She died in 1869, leaving him with a girl baby, Sophronia Amanda, one year old, who died in 1889, with ty- phoid fever.
He married his present wife, Sarah C. · Shaw, a resident of Harrison Co., in 1872.
The father of our subject, James Wil-
454
HARRISON COUNTY.
son, was born in Berkshire County, Mass., in 1803, and died in the same county dur- ing the month of August, 1880.
The mother of our subject, Amanda (Garfield) Wilson, was born in Berkshire County, Mass., and died in the same county.
Politically, our subject is in sympathy with the Republican party. In his relig- ious views, was raised a Methodist, but never united with any church.
Mr. Wilson does a general farming and stock-raising business, and is a breeder of Hereford cattle, having at present eighty head, every one of which are white-faced, and, as a herd, this is looked upon as the finest in Western Iowa. Every acre of this man's farm is under the plow, except what is in tame grass, with about ten acres timber.
S AMUEL R. HARVEY, a black- smith, who wields the sledge, and fans the forge at the village of Mo- dale came to Harrison county in the spring of 1880, first operating a shop at California Junction, in partnership with Rance Dewell. In the autumn of that year he bought Mr. Dewell out and con- tinned the business alone, until the spring of 1881, when he sold and went to Coun - cil Bluffs, where he worked at boiler re- pairing and also constructed some new boilers, being in company with A. S. McCreary. In August of the same year le came to Modale and formed a partner- ship with Rance Dewell, which continued until the fall of 1882, when he built the shop he now occupies ; the same being 16 x 42 feet. He is a skillful mechanic and
can construct almost any article made from iron.
He was born in Jefferson County, Ohio, August 7, 1848. He remained at home until twelve years of age, and for the next two years worked on a farm, at the end of which time he commenced to learn the blacksmith trade at Wellsville, Ohio, ser- ving an apprenticeship of three years. Af- ter having mastered his trade, he continu- ed in the shop for six months, and then went to dressing tools for the C. P. & W. R. R. Company, with whom he remained . for six months, and then became a fire- man on the same road. After serving in that capacity for six months, he became engineer of that road and followed it for one year and a half and then went to blacksmithing again. He was at Liver- pool, Ohio, and on the Ohio River, for eighteen months, where he learned steam- boat engineering. We next find him in Wellsville, Ohio, where he was made fore- man in the shop in which he learned his trade. He remained there until the au- tumn of 1876, and then went to the oil re- gions of Pennsylvania and followed his trade for three years and then came to Harrison County, Iowa.
He was united in marriage in Beaver County, Pa., on July 5, 1875, to Miss Lizzie Marker and they were the parents of seven children-Samuel S., Lelia F., and Bertha. The deceased are, William Charles, Emma and a boy who died in infancy.
Lizzie (Marker) Harvey was born in Liverpool, Ohio, and when a girl her par- ents moved to Hancock county, Va., where she remained until the date of her marriage. She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. .
Politically, our subject affiliates with the Republican party. During the Civil
-
455
HARRISON COUNTY.
War he belonged to the Ohio State Mili- tia, and helped capture John Morgan, who made his noted raid throughi Ohio. Our subject belonged to Company I, and was only thirteen years old at the time he en- listed.
P RANK A. DEAN, druggist, Dun- lap, Iowa, is a native of Clinton County, Iowa, born October 2, 1866, son of H. F. and E. P. (Pelhan) Dean, natives of New York State, but now resi- dents of West Side, Iowa.
The father of our subject removed to Iowa from the Empire State in 1857. He was married in 1865, at the close of the war. He served in Company H, Twenty- sixth Iowa Infantry. He entered the ser- vice as Color-Sergeant and was discharged as First Lieutenant. He has always fol- lo wed farining and stock raising. He and and his wife are the parents of seven children-Frank A .; Alfred S., a resident of Gowrie, Iowa; Jessie is a teacher in the Dunlap schools; Dasie, Grace, Boran and Claude.
Frank A. was educated in the common schools, and when twelve years of age en- tered the drug store in West Side, where he remained one year and then went to Arcadia, where he remained five years. The next year he spent in Carroll, and in 1885 came to Dunlap and entered the employ of L. G. Tyler, with whom he was employed for one year, at the end of which time he formed a co-partnership with Ed. Lehan, under the firm name of F. A. Dean & Co., who are now carrying about a $6.000 stock, and their sales amount to $20,000 per annum. They have a fine business house, well furnished
with all that pertains to a first-class drug- store.
Mr. Dean was married October 7, 1887, to Miss Minnie Bickford. They are the parents of two children-Minnie, born July 29, 1888; Hazel, March 16, 1891.
Mr. Dean is a member of the Masonic fraternity, belonging to Hospitable Lodge, No. 244, A. F. & A. M .; Golden Rule Lodge, No. 179, I. O. O. F., of which lodge he is Vice Grand and Secretary. He is also a member of the Modern Wood- men of America.
Politically Mr. Dean is a Republican and has held many of the local offices in his community, and is the present City Treasurer of Dunlap, and was Recorder for two terms; he is also a member of the School Board.
M ARION ARNOLD, a resident of Harrison Township, is a native of Knox County, Ohio, born in May, 1827, and is a son of Moses and Mary (Morgan) Arnold, natives of Mary- land and Virginia, respectively. Our sub- ject was reared in the Buckeye State, un- til he was eighteen years of age, and was brought up to farm life. The family re- moved to Indiana, and remained until 1856, and then came to Iowa, locating in Decatur County. The mother died in Ohio, and the father in Harrison County, Iowa, to which locality he came in 1869. They had a family of sixteen children, our subject being the third child, and when about twenty years of age, he began life for himself, coming to Harrison County, in 1868, from Potawattamie County. He is a carpenter by trade, but has paid spec-
456
HARRISON COUNTY.
ial attention to his farm labors. He came to Harri-on Township, in 1886. He oper- ates the Kellogg farm.
Politically he is a supporter of the Re- publican party. He was married in 1860 to Miss Susan Stewart, who was born in Ohio, in 1837. By this marriage union five children have been born-Ella J., wife of James Boyd, residing in Harrison Town- ship; Albert, in Harrison Township, Mary E., wife of Justin Rigg, a resident of Lin- coln Township ; Charles E. and Orville M., at home.
Our subject and his wife, are members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. Arnold is the oldest representative of his father's family. His father passed from the scenes of this life about 1885.
D ANIEL P. BAKER, an energetic business man of Missouri Valley, will form the subject of this bio- graphical notice. He was born in Mills County, Iowa, November 1, 1861. He is a son of Daniel B. and Martha (String- ·field) Baker, the former a native of Penn- sylvania, descending from the Pennsyl- vania German stock, while the latter was a native of Kentucky. The Stringfields are of Scotch descent. Our subject's fa- ther was a soldier in the Rebellion, and went from Mills County, Iowa. He was through the whole war and served one year and a half after the general surren- der. He held the rank of Captain and was wounded in battle, from which he never fully recovered. After the war he followed farming, and was a blacksmith by trade. He now resides in Jefferson County, Kan., at Meriden, near Topeka. The mother died in the spring of 1888,
and was buried at Meriden, Kan. Their family consisted of three children, of whom our subject was the second. Daniel received his education in Kansas, to which State the family moved in the spring of 1867. When twelve years of age he left home and began to serve an apprenticeship as a printer. For three years he followed railroading in Missouri and Iowa, and has been engaged in the pump, well and windmill business since that time. He has for a partner E. F. James.
Our subject was married, July 29, 1884, at Sioux Falls, S. Dak., to Miss Maude Day. Her parents are Scotch, and she herself was born in Scotland. Her father was a farmer, and now lives a retired life at Sac City, Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Baker are the parents of one child-Gertie, born July 4, 1886.
Mr. Baker in his political choice affili- ates with the Democratic party. He was a member of the City Council one term and has been Water Commissioner ever since the waterworks were provided.
M ICHAEL BARRETT, one of the representative business men of Dunlap, has been a resident of Harrison County since 1868. Hav- ing been a prominent factor inHarrison County, it is appropriate in this connec- tion, that the subjoined sketch of him should appear.
Mr. Barrett is a native of the Emerald Isle, born in County Mayo, Ireland, No- vember 11, 1834. He is a son of Jacob and Mary (O'Connell) Barrett, who emi- grated to America in 1847, and located in New York State, and two years later re-
457
HARRISON COUNTY.
moved to Madison, Ind., where the fam- ily remained until 1852, then moved to Clinton County, Iowa, where they made their home until 1868. During that year our subject came with his family to Har- rison County ; having been here the year previous, just as Dunlap was being platted, and located lands in Shelby, Crawford and Harrison Counties, purchasing some thirteen hundred acres. He moved his family to his farm, one mile south of Dunlap, where they remained two years. In 1870, he in company with two of his brothers, engaged in the mercantile busi- ness, under the firm name of Barrett Bros., which firm continued until 1879; Martin Barrett, however retired in 1875. In 1879 J. H. retired leaving our subject in full control of the business, and in 1884 the firm name was changed to Barrett & Sons, composed of Michael Barrett, E. H. Barrett and M. J. Barrett, which firm put in a stock of general merchandise with a cash capital of fifteen thousand dollars. The firm has always done a general busi- ness, and is now carrying a stock of twenty-five thousand dollars, their annual sales amounting to seventy-five thousand dollars. The business is conducted in a fine two-story brick building, which was the first brick business house erected in Dunlap it, being completed in 1874. This building is twenty-five feet front, by one hundred feet in depth. M. J., one of the firm, managed a branch store at Ute, Iowa, for four years. They are also ex- tensively engaged in stock raising, prin- cipally standard grade horses, and have turned off some very fine trotters ; having reared some animals of the 2:30 class. At this writing they have fifteen standard bred horses. Among them might be mentioned. " Almont Wagoner," "Fred Dunlap" and "Young Ranger," They
have in and around Harrison county, over thirty thousand dollars worth of real estate, as connected with their farming and breeding ranch enterprises.
The parents of our subject came to Harrison Township, in 1870, where the father died July 1, 1887, at the age of eighty-two years. The mother is still living aged seventy-nine years. They reared a family of six sons and four daughters-Michael, our subject; Ann, widow of L. Devitt, a resident of Dunlap; Mary, wife of Thomas Higgins, of Dun- lap; Martin, a resident of Dunlap; Rose, deceased; Catherine, deceased; Jacob H., president of the Omaha Vinegar Works, and the owner of a cattle ranch in Neb- raska; Edward and Thomas, both deceas- ed.
Our subject was united in marriage at Madison, Jefferson county, Indiana, in July 1853, to Rose Caulffield, born in Ire- land in 1835. Mr. and Mrs. Barrett are the parents of ten children-Anthony, de- ceased; Bessie, wife of of M. C. Dally, a resident of Dunlap; Jennie, wife of J. M. Smith, of Dunlap; Edward H., a member of the firm of M. Barrett & Sons; M. J., a member of the same firm; Mary, wife of Dr. William Beatty, of Dunlap; Ella, wife of James H. Purcell, of Omaha; Jose- phine, deceased; Jacob, deceased, and James F. at home.
Politically, our subject is a stanch supporter of the Democratic party, and has held his share of local offices. He has been a member of the school board, as well as one of the Town Council. He and his family are members of the Roman Catholic church, and have always been liberal donators to their own church, as to those of other denominations. Our subject has improved six farms in this
458
HARRISON COUNTY.
and adjoining counties, besides erecting several substantial buildings.
The man of whom this sketch is written, together with his family, is a true ex- ample of what honest industry can accom plish, under our form of government. It will be remembered that our subject ex- changed his native land-Ireland, for America when he was a mere boy, and hence has made all he has since coming to our shores.
MITH M. CHILD, present Post- Master at Dunlap, ranks amongst the very earliest pioneers of that place, as may be seen by the subjoined notice.
He is a native of Bath, Grafton County, N. H., born October 5, 1836. He is the son of David and Charlotte M. (Moulton) Child, both natives of the Granite State. The mother died in 1886, at Nevada, Iowa, at the age of seventy five years, and the father died in Illinois, in April, 1891, aged eighty-six years. They were of English ancestry and were among the pio- neers of Story County, Iowa, and came to the State in the spring of 1855.
Our subject was one of a family of seven children. His education was obtained in the public schools and acadamies of the East. At the age of seventeen years, he started out for himself, traveling over many of the Western States and territo- ries, until the spring of 1862, when he en- listed in the Thirty-second Iowa Infantry, being mustered out in the spring of 1865. He made a faithful soldier, and belonged to the Sixteenth Army Corps under A. J. Smith, and was in the battle of Pleasant
Hill, Nashville, Tupelo, was with Sher- man on his Meriden expedition ; also on the Red River raid. After his service in the Rebellion, he entered the employ of the Chicago & North-Western Railway Company, commencing as clerk at the Nevada office, which was at that time the end of the road. At the end of one year, he was placed in charge of several important points along the line and in the winter of 1867, he was located at Woodbine, and in June of that year came to Dunlap, and opened the depot office, in a box-car, before there had been a single building erected in the place. He built one of the first residences of the place, in which he still lives. He remained as sta- tion agent at Dunlap, until 1873, since which time he has been variously engaged, but principally in the stock business. He traveled for a commission firm some five years. and was Deputy Sheriff, of Harri- son County for four years. He was also special agent for the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Com- pany.
In February, 1890, he received the ap- pointment of Postmaster at Dunlap, un- der President Harrison's administration. He is a supporter of the Republican party, and of late years, has been active in the political work of his county.
He is a member of Shields Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, of which he has been Commander twice. He is Vice Chancellor of the Knights of Pythias or- der.
Mr. Childs was married June 10, 1867, to Miss Rachel L. Trumble, of Delaware County, Ohio, where she was born April 2, 1844, the daughter of Samuel and Harriet (Wells) Trumble.
Mr. and Mrs. Childs are the parents of two sons, Edward T., and David T., both
459
HARRISON COUNTY.
at home. The former is at school and the latter is his father's assistant in the Post- office.
LFRED SELLERS, who is num- bered among the pioneer band who sought for themselves a home in this goodly portion of Iowa, has been a resident of Harrison County, since 1853 and hence a short sketch of his career is truly befitting in this connection. He is now a resident of section 21, Union Township. He first settled at Union Grove, where he became a "squatter." He andhisuncle bought out some old Mormon claims, upon which had been erected log cabins, and a few acres of hazle-brush land under cultivation. Here our subject re- mained with his uncle about three years, and then purchased eighty acres of land ; forty of which was Government land, and the remainder he bought of the county, paying $1.25 per acre. This land was fenced by rails, stakes and posts riven from the native forests by his own hands. Among the improvements that he put upon this place was a house 18x20 feet and twelve feet high, with an addition, 8x20 feet. Here our subject remained for twelve years, when he sold the place and removed to Council Bluffs, where he rented land one season; then went to Ill- inois and farmed one year, when he be- came convinced that no state was quite equal to the Hawkeye, so he moved to Des Moines, where he was employed at carpenter work one season, but by a force of circumstances, again returned to Ill- inois, where under contract, he hauled coal for two years, and then moved back to Harrison County, Iowa.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.