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 87
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and was compelled to live on corn bread, but fortunately venison was very plentiful. His wife would make pumpkin pies, and in the absence of flour used corn meal, which "filled the inner man," and was perhaps more healthful than much of the modern-day superfine flour. We will now ask the reader to go with us to Hardy County, Va., for it was there that our subject was born, February 24, 1823, and when ten years of age his father moved to Ohio, remained ten years and moved to Indiana ; in 1855 came to this county.
Our subject was married in Indiana, March 13, 1850, to Sarah Gilmore, by whom ten children have been born- James, and John, deceased; Fer- nando, George, Jane; Walter and Abraham, deceased; Rebecca and Anna, (twins), (deceased) ; and Arthur.
Sarah (Gilmore) Ritchison, was a native of Ohio, and died July 31, 1878, and March 13, 1879, our subject was united to Miss Amelia Lawson, the daughter of Alexander and Jane (Barr) Lawson. Our subject and his present wife have two children, May and Harriett. Mrs. Ritchison is a member of the Woman's Relief Corps, at Modale. She is an old school teacher, having taught forty terms of school.
Politically, Mr. Ritchison believes in the general principles of the Republican party, and has held numerous local offices, including Township Trustee, and is at present one of the Road Com- missioners.
OHN STRAUSS, another pioneer of Harrison County, and one of the settlers of 1860, who now resides on section 20, of Cass Township, is the subject of the following sketch: His
birth-place was in York County, Pa., and the date of that event was June 27, 1831. He is the son of Adam and Rebecca (Morthland) Strauss, whose father was of German descent, while the mother was of Scotch ancestry. The father was a tanner by trade, and followed this nearly all the days of his life, but at an advanced age he found his way to Harrison County, where he died two years later at the house of our subject, aged eighty-three years. The mother died in Wooster, Ohio, two years later.
When our subject was fourteen years old, just when boyhood puts on the ambi- tions of manhood, he started for himself, following farm labor until he was of age. with some time spent at teaming and driv- ing a stage. He was large of his age, and could always command a man's position. The year he was of age he hauled grain and merchandise for H. J. Frost, of Wooster, Ohio, who operated a large store, and the following year drove stage out of Wooster to several country points. In the fall of 1854, in company with sev- eral others, he came West, bringing a lot of horses and stage coaches to Iowa City, which was then the capital of the State.
From that point they made their way through Iowa to Council Bluffs, there es- tablishing what is known as the Western Stage Company, for which Mr. Strauss worked about seven years, running the stage line from Council Bluffs to Sioux City, and later was at St. Joseph, Mo .- drifting about in this kind of work until he came to Harrison County.
An important event in the history of his life, which should here be recorded, occurred July 5, 1857, and was his mar- riage at Glenwood, Mills County, Iowa, to Jenette Runyan, a native of Trumbull, Ashtabula County, Ohio, born Septem-
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ber 13, 1838, and the daughter of Nich- olas and Emily (Woodruff) Runyan, and was the second child of a family of five children.
After coming to Harrison County, for two years he rented land and worked in the packing house at Council Bluffs until the fall of 1866, having bought his present farm in the summer of 1865, moving his house from Jeddo, the same having been built for a hotel by Mr. Vore. Mr. Strauss' present farm consists of one hun- dren and twenty-five acres, sixty acres of which is plow land, and the remainder pasture and meadow.
LEXANDER B. CASE, of Cass Township, came to Harrison Coun- ty in May, 1865, in company with his parents, and assisted them on the farm until he was of age. He then worked for his father two years, receiving a team, harness and wagon for the same. After this he rented land for two years, when he bought his present place, which had twenty-six acres of breaking, and a small house upon it, to which he has made several additions. He paid $10 per acre for the land, and was obliged to go in debt for a portion of it.
Our subject's father, Nelson Case, was born in Delaware County, Ohio, in 1818, and remained there until eighteen years of age, and then came to Knox County, Ill., where he followed farming, boating and general employment. In the fall of 1847 he started for Iowa, and settled in Warren County, but after eighteen months removed to Lucas County, being the first settler in Otter Creek Township in that county. He remained there until the
spring of 1865, and then moved to Harri- son County. He had a family of six children, of whom our subject was the fourth. The children were as follows : John W .; Isaac M., born March 4, 1851, Phoebe C., November 25, 1852; Alexan- der B., February 26, 1854; Thomas L., June 17, 1856: Albert M., October 20, 1858.
Our subject was married May 23, 1874, to Susan Chappell, daughter of Thomas and Mary E. Chappell, who was born in Utah. Her mother went with her first husband from Arkansas to Utah, and he started for California and was not heard of after the Mountain Meadow Massacre, at which place it is supposed he was slaughtered. After this occurred his wife married Mr. Chappell and lived in Utah for ten years, but then drifted back to Iowa.
Mr. and Mrs. Case are the parents of six children-Thomas N., born December 2, 1877; Effie E., August 30, 1878; Ethel E., April 7, 1880; James L., May 28, 1883; Charles A., December 28, 1885, and Her- bert A., October 29, 1887.
HARLES HAUSE, a farmer, living . on section 2, of Cincinnati Township, was born in Canada, January 17, 1848, and when eight years of age and in the spring of 1856, accompanied his parents to Harrison County, and there settled on section 11, of Cincinnati Town- ship, his father being one of the first to effect a settlement in the township. He entered quite a large tract of land. Our subject remained at home until the autumn of 1870, when he moved to the farm on which he now lives, having pur-
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chased it some time before and made improvements upon it. He built a small frame house, 16x20 feet, to which he has made additions. He first bought one hundred and twenty acres of land, but as he has been prospered, bought more until he now owns five hundred and eighty-two acres. In 1876, he erected a good barn, and generally keeps his farm well supplied with live stock, averaging about one hundred head of cattle.
Our subject was married in Harrison County, Iowa, February 20, 1869, to Miss Susan Eddie, and they are the parents of eight children: Jolin, William, baby boy, deceased; Albert, Minnie, Frank, Lillie and Ida.
Susan (Eddie) Hause, daughter of John and Jane (Seaton) Eddie, was born in Canada, July 20, 1850, and when quite a small child her parents moved to Minne- sota, remained several years and then came to Harrison County, where she remained with them until the date of her marriage. Both of her parents died in this county.
E PHRAIM STRAUSS, who came to Harrison County in July, 1861 (that being the first year of the Civil War), is now a resident of section 20, of Cass Township, to which place he moved in 1864. The first two or three years he was in the county wild game was exceed- ingly plentiful, and he having a taste in that direction, spent part of his time in hunting, through which occupation he made a livelihood. He narrates to the writer how that he possessed only $5 in money, an old linch-pin wagon and a yoke ef oxen. In the fall of 1863 he filed
a claim, by which he was enabled to home- stead his present place. For ten years he lived in a prairie palace, which may better be described by the use of the word "dug- out." Now that those early days have passed by, and people are in better circum- stances, it may be said that our subject was somewhat of a mechanic, and used his mechanical genius in the erection of a superior style of a dug-out-laying up sod for a part of it, and employing puncheon for the interior of the walls, which pro- vided him with a residence at once warm, cozy and strong, though perhaps not beautiful.
Our subject was born in York County, Pa., on the site of the present town of Wellsville, April 7, 1828. He is the son of Adam and Rebecca(Morthland) Strauss. The father was of German extraction and was a good old-fashioned tanner by trade, who doubtless served a seven-year ap- prenticeship, in order to fit him for the art of leather-making. At an advanced age he came to Harrison County, and January 23 died at John Strauss', and the mother died in Ohio two years later.
When our subject was sixteen years old he commenced to battle life for him- self, having worked four years previous to this time in the tanyard grinding bark, as this was before the days of "patent tans." He tired of this laborious work
and went to Shermantown, Cumberland County, Pa., to learn the wheelwright trade. He had saved up a small sum of money from his work in the tannery, and his father made a bargain for him to work two years and a half, furnish his own clothes and received $20 therefor, but on account of his boss having borrowed $1 of him and failing to pay the same, he quit short of his time.
He then commenced working in a
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wagon-shop in the country near Harris- burg, where he worked a year, and then went to Dauphin and worked two years, after which we find him in a boat-yard, and in order to get his wages from the wagon-maker boarded with him. After a year and a half he ran on a canal for a time, and was at one time engaged in the Pennsylvania car-shops, which he left in the fall of 1855, and went to Lafayette County, Wis., where he worked at house- carpentering for two seasons, and then dropped over into Grant County, Wis., . and went into a wagon-shop. In the spring of 1858 he formed a partnership and started a wagon-shop in Beetown, Wis., but sold his interest within a year, believing that there was more money hid- den away in, and about Pike's Peak, awaiting his arrival, than there was in the wagon business, he forsook that trade and fitted out for an expedition, taking in company with him his brother-in-law, named Quimby. They started with one yoke of oxen, one yoke of cows, one span of horses and two wagons; and upon their arrival at Winterset, Iowa, they con- cluded to go to Texas. They consequently started for St. Joseph, when their plans were again changed, Quimby going to Texas, and Strauss sold out his stuff and went to St. Louis by boat, and we soon find him working on a farm in Missouri, but next working at the carpenter's trade at Iron Hill, which he followed until May 8, 1861, when he started on a journey, which finally brought him to Harrison County, Iowa.
He was united in marriage, August 24, 1852, to Mary A. Hoffman, a native of the Keystone State, born September 23, 1834, and the daughter of Daniel and Anna (Coleman) Hoffman, who was the fifth child of a family of eight children. Her
father was a cabinet-maker and died in Pennsylvania, in 1870, aged seventy-five years. The mother died at Dallas, Tex., in 1887, aged seventy-eight years.
Our subject and his wife are the parents of eight children-Charles A., born De- cember 1, 1853; Emma R., July 11, 1856; William C., January 8, 1861; Harry E., born October 19, 1863, died November 5, 1863; Ella J., born January 21, 1865; Anna M., born January 25, 1868, died Sep- tember 14, 1869; George N., born October 23, 1871; Arlon V., January 20, 1886.
Politically Mr. Strauss is identified with the. Republican party. The above sketch is but a brief outline of an eventful life of a man who has seen much of the world, and over whose pathway the ill-winds of adversity have not unfrequently swept by, but who has lived a life of integrity, be- lieving that a fair name was better than untold wealth.
OSIAH A. NOBLE, (deceased), was born November 19, 1823, in Mis- · souri, and when a mere lad removed with his parents to Bellevue, Iowa, on the Mississippi River. In the spring of 1857 he came to Harrison County and purchased a claim in Cincinnati Town- ship. This was on section 36, and was where he made his home until his death, September 10, 1889. He was married in Bellevue, Iowa, September 17, 1848, to Miss Laura Neff, the daughter of John and Rachel (Starr) Neff. By this mar- riage nine children have been born, three sons and six daughters. Of these children seven still survive, four living in Harrison County, two in Omaha, and one in Wash- ington (State).
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HARRISON COUNTY.
When they came to the county, Council Bluffs was their nearest trading point, and all was new and wild. Mr. Noble secured two hundred and eight acres of land, and held the same at the time of his death. The names and births of our subject's children are as follows: Martia, born Au- gust 9, 1849; Mary L., April26, 1853; John A., February 29, 1856; Clara L., October 21, 1858; Lewis C., October 28, 1862; Jo- siah S., May 17, 1864; Emma L., August 26, 1867; Anna L., October 17, 1870; Eva L., March 14, 1874. Martia L. died in May, 1856, and Lewis C., January 26, 1863; Mary L. married Nathan Stokes, August 1, 1878, and they are now living in Harrison County; John A. married Miss Sylvia Preston, and lives in Omaha; Clara L. married Mathew Balfour, February 6, 1879, and lives in the State of Washing- ton; Josiah S. married Miss Ida Jones, and lives in Omaha; Emma L. was mar- ried January 15, 1888, to Albert Stewart, who is a resident of Harrison County.
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OHN H. RICE, M. D., may well be counted among the pioneers of Har- rison County, as he has lived at Magnolia since 1854. He being a representative man, both in his profession as well as in his community, the history of his county will not be complete with- out a personal notice concerning him. The Doctor is a native of the Green Moun- tain State; was born in Enosburg, Vt., February 28, 1827, and remained on his father's farm until he was nineteen years of age and then taught school four years, after which he commenced the study of medicine under Dr. Eaton, in the town of Enosburg, with whom he remained
three years, excepting two courses of lectures at Castleton Medical College of Vermont, graduating from that College in 1852. In 1853 he came to Wapello County, Iowa, where he practiced his chosen profession one year and then came to Harrison County, where he resumed the practice of medicine, remaining at Magnolia until the spring of 1870, when he moved to his farm on section 10, of Magnolia Township, the same consisting of a quarter section of wild land, which he had purchased two years previous. To this farm he has added until he now has two hundred and eighty acres all well im- proved. In Jackson Township he owns four hundred and forty acres which is used as a pasture.
He continued to practice the healing art until 1881, when he withdrew, on ac- count of ill health and his extensive busi- ness affairs, which really demanded his whole attention.
He was the first regular practicing phy- sician in Harrison County, and thousands upon thousands of sick beds has he visited in the last third of a century, during which time Harrison County has undergone great changes.
Miss Harriet N. Taylor, of Lee County, Iowa, became his wife May 9, 1855. By this union eight sons and daughters were born-Homer E., Myra G., Ada, Newton J., Waldo G., William, Mattie E. and Stella. Of these Ada, William, Mattie, and Stella are deceased.
Harriet N. (Taylor) Rice, wife of our subject, was born in Enosburg, Vt., May 25, 1833. Her parents both died before she was ten years of age; after which she went to live with her uncle, Reuben Taylor, at New Ipswich, N. H., and re- mained there until about eighteen years of age, when she came to Lee County,
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HARRISON COUNTY.
Iowa, where her brother was living. She attended school at Denmark Academy, of that county, for one year, and then taught school at Denmark and other places until about the time she was married.
Waldo G. Rice, son of our subject, was born at Magnolia, Harrison County, Iowa, February 25, 1862, and has remained with his parents thus far in life. He attended Tabor College three years, commencing in September, 1879, attended one year and was out until the fall of 1882, and then went back and spent two years more, after which he went to Knox College Galesburg, Ill., where he graduated in the spring of 1885. He was married at Tabor, Iowa, April 3, 1890, to Miss Cora E. Gaston, and they are the parents of one child-Marie H., born January 22, 1891.
Cora E. (Gaston) Rice was born at Tabor, Iowa, August 27, 1864, and re- mained with her parents until the date of her marriage. She graduated from Tabor College in 1886.
Dr. Rice and wife, also Waldo,their son, and wife are members of the Congre- gational Church.
M ATT A. ELLISON, ranking among the early pioneers of Har- rison County, having come in with his parents in 1852, is entitled to a biographical notice in this connection. He was born in Monroe County, W. Va., October 27, 1833, and is the son of Isaac and Cinda (Clark) Ellison, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work. In the autumn of 1855 he pre-empted eighty acres of land on section 9, of Cass Town- ship, and proved up in 1856, paying the Government price of $1.25 per acre. The
first piece of land he owned, however, was forty acres of timber on section 17, which he purchased in the autumn of 1854 and still owns with the exception of a five-acre lot
Having faith in this country and in- tending to make a home and become a man among men, lie sought the heart and hand of Miss Hannah Vallier, to whom he was married May 23, 1855. She was a native of Ohio, born May 23, 1836, and was the daughter of Alexander and Mary Vallier. The father was French while the mother was German.
Shortly after our subject's marriage he embarked in the realities of life for him- self, having worked out just previous to his purchasing his first piece of land, and the first summer of his married life he made his home with his parents, while he was building a log house on his land, on section 9. This house was of the hewed double room style of architecture, native lumber being used for the floor. Into this cozy house, which defied the ele- ments, and was the subject of a "house raising," this newly-married couple moved in the spring of 1856, occupying the same until 1879, at which time Mr. Ellison moved to Logan, after which he still looked after his stock on his farm which he rented. But two seasons of town life, sufficed for this mån of push and energy, and in the autumn of 1880, he removed to the old log house in which he lived until he had raised two crops, and then built his present two story farm house, which is 16x24 feet, with an addition sixteen feet square.
Our subject's present landed estate amounts to eight hundred acres, includ- ing two hundred and forty acres belong- ing to his wife. He pays great attention to the growth of stock, usually keeping
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about seventy-five head of cattle with the corresponding number of hogs.
Mr. and Mrs. Ellison are the parents of eight children-Elvira, deceased; Mary Cinda, Becca Rosilla, Edward Brazillia, Ida Irene, Maggie Caroline, Bessie Violet and Robert.
Politically Mr. Ellison votes with the Republican party, and in matters of reli- gion he is in sympathy with the Latter Day Saints Church.
S TEPHEN I. COOPER, who is numbered among the later class of settlers who wended their way to the limits of Harrison County soon after the construction of the Northwestern Railroad, will form the subject of a notice in this connection. His present home is located on section 4, of Cass Township. In company with his parents, Charles H. and Lucinda M. Cooper, he arrived in Harrison County during the month of March. His parents now reside six miles from Turin, Monona County. They first staid one year at Jeddo, and the next year lived one mile south of Woodbine, also lived at different places in Crawford County, where they purchased a farm in 1875, and resided until 1878, and then re- moved to Monona County.
Mr. Cooper was born in Oswego County, N. Y., April 29, 1855, and was the third child of a family of six. His early years were spent in the old Empire State, as- sisting his father and attending the dis- trict schools until the family moved to Harrison County.
When our subject left home he was sev- teen years of age and possessed a robust
constitution, so lie followed farin work, receiving a man's wages until 1880, work- ing by the month. On March 6th of that year he was united in marriage to Rosella R. Ellison, a native of Harrison County and a daughter of- M. A. and Hannah Ell- ison, a sketch of whom appears else- where in this work. They commenced their married life on one of the Pecken- paugh farms, which they rented for four years and then purchased his present farm on sections 3 and 4, of Cass Township, comprising eighty acres of well-tilled land.
Mr. and Mrs. Cooper are the parents of three children-Walter, deceased, born December 17, 1880; Floyd H., born May 4, 1886; and Hattie B., born September 2, 1888.
What our subject owns he has made through his own exertion, labor and good management. Politically, he supports the Republican party.
SEIZE
ONALD MAULE, one of the repre- sentative citizens of Raglan Town- ship, residing on section 22, is one of the few pioneers who ventured into this portion of Iowa, in 1851, to build for himself a home. The reader should re- flect that this was just forty years ago, and while the Indian tribes were yet us- ing the Missouri Slope for their hunting camping grounds. It was ten years be- fore the Civil War, and sixteen years a- head of any railroad in Western Iowa. Our subject first located on Allen Creek, in what is now Taylor Township. This was before the Government survey had been made and two years before the coun-
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ty was organized. He claimed a quarter section of land, upon which he built a log house, 16x18 feet, the roof of which was made of "shakes," and the floor of punch- eon ; while sticks and mud formed the chimney to the fireplace. He remained on this claim two years, sold out and bought the place he now occupies. This had no improvements, except a log house 12x14 feet, same having a bark roof. He soon built a hewn-log house, provided with rived oak shingles for a roof. On this place he made substantial improve- ments, later on built a good house, shed ding, granary, double-cribs and a good barn. He also dug two wells and erected two windmills, and set out an orchard of five acres. As the years have rolled away this frugal, painstaking man has added to his land until his acres now number seven hundred, two hundred of which are · under the plow, and the balance in mea- dow, timber, and pasture land, all enclos- ed within a substantial fence.
Our subject came to Harrison County with scarcely any means; he himself re- lates, to the writer, how that he resem- bled a certain fowl, which Job claimed to own at one time-the turkey! He had plenty of company, for bank accounts were unknown on the Missouri Slope, in 1851. Coming here at that early day and remaining ever since, he experienced the never-to-be-forgotten hard winter of 1856- 57, as well as the grasshopper years of a later period. While he had Indians for his neighbors, they were of the peaceable tribes causing him no trouble.
Go now to Scotland, where lived John and Mary Maule, who were the parents of seven children, including our subject whose birthday was June 23, 1821.
The first sixteen years of Donald's life, were spent in and about his father's home
enjoying the sports and pleasures common to the Scotch youth, who looks out upon the crystal lake and craggy mountain, in- hales the invigorating air of that clime. At that age he went to serve an appren- ticeship, on board of a Scotch vessel, and for the next eleven years, his was the life of a jolly sailor boy. He sailed as a second mate and at one time came near being lost by shipwreck, their full sails being blown away, the crew were left to the sport of the wind. In 1849, he took passage from Liverpool, and landed at New Orleans and from thence followed the waters of the Mississippi to St Louis, where he was engaged eighteen months in a wholesale boot and shoe store. He then came to Council Bluffs, near which place he work- ed on a farm, for one year and then came to this county.
He took to himself a companion, in the autumn of 1844, when he was united to Jane Fotheringham, daughter of John and Charlotte Fotheringham, natives of of Scotland, whose children were: John, Jane, Margaret, William, and Sarah. After five years journeying as companions on the road, our subject's wife died in St Louis in 1849, leaving two children-Char- lotte and John (now deceased), and in the autumn of 1850, Christina Crawford, a na- tive of Scotland, became his second wife. The children of her father's family were- Margaret, James, John, and Christina.
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