USA > Iowa > Sac County > History of Sac County, Iowa > Part 65
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Mr. and Mrs. Irwin have reared five sons and a daughter, as follows : Mrs. Edina May Davis, residing on a farm in Boyer Valley township: Jesse
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Leroy, a farmer in Clinton township; George R .. Louis E., Frank D. and Orla E .. residents of Clinton township.
Politically. Mr. Irwin is a Progressive Republican, who feels that the highest principles of government can best be brought about by placing the best and ablest men in office and the enactment of wise progressive legisla- tion. His influence is always found on the right side of all movements hav- ing a tendency to bring about the betterment of wrong conditions. He is a Mason of high degree, being a member of the Lake View Lodge, and the chapter and commandery at Sac City, as well as Za-Ga-Zig Temple of Mys- tic Shriners at Des Moines. He is versatile, well read and broad minded, and his children are a credit to themselves and their parents and are becom- ing valued and stable members of the community through the wise moral guidance and example given them by their father and mother. Mr. Irwin is widely and favorably known throughout Sac county for his liberality and progressiveness and his energetic interest in movements having a pronounced intent of bettering and making more comfortable the lives of his fellow citi- zens in this prosperous county. Probably no citizen of the county has a wider circle of good and fast friends or has a higher standing than he of whom this chronicle is written.
HON. ASA B. SMITH.
Time softens and mellows a truly noble character, and as the fleeting years speed onward fond memories of the halcyon days of long ago cluster around the hearth and the heart expands with feelings of all kindliness and loving thoughts of friends and children whose pattering footsteps have been replaced in turn by the children of the second generation. Around the home of the aged Union veteran there is a glorious reminiscent feeling of the long-ago days, when he was a stalwart and brave soldier. Retrospec- tion brings to mind the thunder of the cannon, the screaming of the war eagle, the rattle of musketry, and strains of martial music, and the waving of the bright and beautiful battle flags in whose defense thousands of brave Americans fought and died. This is the glorious side and the one with which the younger generation has gained familiarity through the perusal of the pages of history. There is another, which the veteran can tell if he will, which will describe the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dead and the dying, the weary, forced marches, the gallant charges in the face of
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a flying hail of bullets, the terrible exposure and the deaths from disease, the wails and sufferings of widows and orphans and all the terrible after- math of war in all its desolation. Saddest of all, is the fact that but few" veterans in comparison with the vast army which passed in the Great Re- view at the close of the Rebellion in 1865 are remaining. One by one they are traveling onward to face Him who will judge them finally as to their deeds on earth and assign them a final resting place. Memories cluster around the home of Asa B. Smith, Union veteran and substantial pioneer settler in Clinton township. Sac county-memories which are pleasant and which recall the deeds done in a long and useful life, part of which was spent in defense of his country. Memory recalls that for over thirty-five years he has resided in Sac county, and served the people faithfully for a few years during that period in the halls of the state legislative body.
Asa B. Smith was born January 27, 1841, in Morgan county, Ohio, and is the son of William and Sarah ( Beal ) Smith, natives of Belmont county, Ohio. The mother of Asa B. Smith died in 1848, leaving a family of six children, as follows: John .A., a resident of Dewitt, lowa; Mary, who died at the age of eighteen years; Asa B .; Mrs. Sarah E. Mostiller, of Correc- tionville, lowa; Mrs. Edith Thorne, of Dewitt, Jowa; William, of De Witt, lowa. William Smith was married, after the death of his first wife, to Mary J. Hill, who bore him seven children, as follows: Robert MI., a resi- dent of Dewitt, Iowa ; Thomas, of Laharp, Kansas: Mrs. Nettie Seifert, of Page county, Iowa: Rebecca, deceased in Dewitt, Iowa: James, of Sioux City, Jowa: Frederick, who died in infancy; Charles, who died at the age of seventeen in Dewitt, Iowa.
In the year 1863 William. Smith removed with his family to Clinton county, lowa. During his later years he made his residence in the town of Dewitt and there died July 14, 1899.
Asa B. Smith enlisted August 8, 1862, at McConnelsville, Ohio, in Company C. Ninety-seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment, under the command of Captain Scott and later of Capt. W. P. Gilly. He served throughout the war and until June 10, 1865. when he received an honorable discharge from the service and was mustered out. He participated in the following battles : Perryville, Kentucky: Stone River. Tennessee : Missionary Ridge: Rocky Face Mountain, Georgia: Dalton, Georgia; Resaca, Adairs- ville and Dallas, Georgia; New Hope Church, Georgia ; Kenesaw Mountain. first and second assaults; siege of Atlanta : Lovejoy Station, Georgia ; Spring Hill, Tennessee; Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee, besides a number of minor engagements. He was wounded through the left temple at the battle
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of Missionary Ridge and was confined to the hospital for three months. Altogether, his was a most enviable soklier's record.
Asa B. Smith came to Clinton county and rejoined his parents after the close of the war and there resided until 1878, when he came to Sac county. He purchased three hundred and twenty acres of land in sections 33. 32 and 28 in Clinton township at a cost of five dollars and fifty cents an acre. There were no improvements on this land, which was unbroken prairie. During his first season he erected a small house eighteen by twenty-eight feet in dimension and twelve feet in height. He intended this building for a granary until he could erect a better home, which he eventually succeeded in doing. This estimable gentleman has so prospered that he was enabled to give outright a farm of eighty acres to each of his two sons and a daugh- ter. This has enabled him to be blessed with his children and grandchildren near him all the time and enjoy their companionship.
Mr. Smith was married in 1866 to Nancy E. Mummey, who was born in Morgan county, Ohio, in 1834, a daughter of Joshua and Catharine Mum- mey. Joshua Mummey died in Ohio and the mother and daughter came overland to Clinton county, Iowa. The aged mother died at the home of her daughter in 1894, at the extreme age of ninety-nine years, eight months and twenty-two days. Joshua Mummey was a soklier in the War of 1812. It is also well to record here that John Clancey, the great-grandfather of Asa B. Smith and one of his maternal ancestors, fought in the American war for independence. It is recorded in the government archives at Wash- ington, D. C., that he enlisted in the Continental army March 23. 1777, and served until peace was finally declared. He enlisted at Logtown, in the state of Maryland and served under Capt. Levine Winder and Capt. John Stone. John Clancey took part in the following historic engagements: Staten Island, Brandywine, battle of Germantown, battles of Stony Point and Paulus Hook. He was the father of Mrs. Beal, grandmother of Asa B. Smith.
To Mr. and Mrs. Smith have been born three children, namely: Charles Howard Smith, a farmer of Clinton township; Mrs. Mary E. Chandler, of Brooklyn, New York, the wife of Rev. Sydney Chandler, a former dean of Morningside College; Harland A., a resident of Malacca, Minnesota.
Mr. Smith has been a life-long Republican. He was elected representa- tive from Sac county in the fall of 1899 and served one term in the State Assembly. He and his wife are stanch members of the Methodist church and are devout Christian people, who have reared their childern to respect both man and God. He values highly his membership as a comrade of Goodrich Post. Grand Army of the Republic, and belongs to no other frater-
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nal organizations. During his long life his home has been his lodge and club room and he has enjoyed the companionship and faithful assistance of the truly noble woman who is his wife and helpmeet. Asa B. Smith is one of the grand old men of Sac county, who will live always in the hearts and minds of those who know him best and who have become familiar with his manly qualities and his just and upright methods of conducting his busi- ness affairs. This memoir is fittingly intended as a just and deserving trib- ute to this soldier pioneer and it is intended as a valuable memento to be treasured by his children and descendants in the years to come and to be read and appreciated by his many lifelong friends in Sac county.
JACOB BUEHLER.
Among the German residents of this county of a past generation, who entered largely into the life of this county, is the late Jacob Buehler, of Ode- bolt, Sac county, Iowa. He is a typical example of the ambitious young sons of Germany who came to this country before the Civil War with nothing but their own hands and willing hearts for their capital, and by their own thrift and frugality became prosperous citizens of this commonwealth wherever they chose to settle.
Jacob Buehler was born in Wurtemberg, Germany, October 25, 1835, and died in Odebolt, Iowa, March 21, 1907. He was a son of Jacob and Mary Katherine Buehler, who came to America in 1855, settling in Lake county, Indiana. when Jacob was only twenty years of age. In 1866 Jacob Buehler married Eliza Einspahr, a native of Germany and the daughter of Frederick and Katherine Einspahr. Her parents came to America in the spring of 1853 and settled in Lake county, Indiana.
In 1872 Jacob Buehler and his wife left Lake county, Indiana, and, going to Iowa, located in Sac county, where they bought two hundred acres of land in Richland township, for which they paid only four dollars an acre. They prospered, as all the German settlers have, and added to their original purchase from time to time until they owned four hundred and eighty acres in this county.
Jacob Buehler and wife were the parents of eight children: John, who now lives in California, is married and is the father of two children, Lyle and an unnamed infant ; Jacob, a farmer of Richland township, this county, who is married and has two children, Lillian and Orville; Mrs. Emma Sproul,
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who also is a resident of California: William, a farmer of this township, who has eight children, Florence, Verne, Lucetta, Emmett. Gladys, John, Katherine and Ellen; Emil, who resides in California, married and has one son, George; Katherine, who is now living with her mother, Mrs. Eliza Buehler : Mrs. Florence Hartley, of Battle Creek, Iowa, who has one dangh- ter, Frances Elise : Benjamin, who lives on the home place, is married and has three children. Ruth, Robert and Benjamin. Three of these sons, Ben- jamin, Jacob and William, are represented by biographies elsewhere in this volume.
Jacob Buehler was a Republican in his politics, but his large landed inter- ests kept him so busy that he was not able to take an active part in public affairs. He and his wife were loyal members of the Methodist Episcopal church and rendered it their earnest and zealous support at all times. He was a man who tried to do his duty day by day as he saw it. During his life in this county no action of his ever alienated the confidence of his friends and neighbors. He died as he has always lived, a man who was faithful to his fellow men, to his home and to his God.
HENRY CLARK ROBINSON.
The lives of great men do not go out. they go on, and this statement is true of the late Henry Clark Robinson. who, for many years, occupied a prominent place in the history of Clinton township, Sac county, Iowa. He was a.man whom it was a pleasure to meet. and in all the affairs of life he so conducted himself that he left behind a record which was free from blame. He came to this county with practically nothing, but he and his good wife worked faithfully until, in the course of years, they acquired a comfortable home and extensive farming interests. Such men are a blessing to the com- munity in which they live, and with his death there passed from his county a man who never failed to'do his duty as he saw it.
Henry Clark Robinson was born May 13, 1848, in Lee county, Illinois, and died on his farm in Wheeler township, Sac county, Iowa, February 18, 1912. He was the son of William Clark and Harriett Matilda ( Hausen ) Robinson, natives of Pennsylvania and Maine, respectively. William C. Rob- inson and wife were the parents of the following children: George W. and Georgiana, twins, deceased; Mrs. Sophia Lehman, of Valesca, Iowa, and Henry Clark, whose history forms the theme of this narrative.
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3.
HENRY C. ROBINSON AND FAMILY
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Henry Clark Robinson received his education in the schools of his home county, and lived with his parents until his marriage, which event occurred on New Year's day, 1874, when he was united to Jeannette Spiller, the daugh- ter of Truman and Laura ( Peaslee) Spiller, who were natives of New Ilampshire, and came to Lee county, Illinois, in about 1864. The mother died in New Hampshire, and the father in Lee county, Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Spiller were the parents of six children : Charles, deceased : Willis, of Belvidere, Ogle county, Illinois : Arthur, deceased; Mrs. Mary Robinson, of Belmont. Iowa: Jeannette, wife of Henry C. Robinson, and Nathan, of Odeholt, lowa.
In 1878 Henry C. Robinson and family came to Sac county, and in March of that year bought eighty acres of prairie land in Clinton township. While building their house, which was to be sixteen by fourteen feet, they lived in a hastily constructed shack which was only eight by sixteen feet. Six years later they were able to build a larger house with much better conven- iences. When they came to this township, in 1878, geese and ducks were flying overhead and other game was plentiful, and Mr. Robinson often went out and killed wild game for the table. In May. 1803. Mr. Robinson bought one hundred and sixty acres of land in Wheeler township, at a cost of forty doilars an acre. His land had no improvements upon it at that time, but they built a house and constructed barns and other outbuildings and lived here for the next eighteen years. In 1909 Mr. Robinson sold eighty acres and in the same year bought one hundred and sixty acres in Richland township, on which Oldlen C., one of his sons, is now living.
Mr. and Mrs. Henry C. Robinson were the parents of five children : Mrs. Harriet Matilda Perry, of Wheeler township, this county, who has three children, Henry George, Elden Wilbur and Evelyn Hope ; Olden C., a farmer of Richland township, now living on the old homestead farm; Roscoe, a suc- cessful farmer of Spencer. Towa, who is married and has four children, Roscoe Wayne, Esther Florence. Mary Helen and Henry Clark: Elmer, a garage man at Spencer, Iowa ; and Mary Ellen, the wife of James Preston Blount, of Wheeler township, this county, has one child, Bessie Jeannette.
Mr. Robinson was a Republican in politics, but never felt inclined to participate in political affairs. However, he was a well-informed man upon the current issues of the day and was able to discuss them intelligently. He and his wife were loyal attendants of the Methodist Episcopal church and subscribed to the support of that denomination. His death removed from Sac county one of her substantial and highly esteemed citizens, and the many kind
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words which were spoken of him at that time attested to the abiding place which he had in the hearts and affections of those who knew him. The death of such a man is a great loss, not only to his immediate family, but to his neighbors with whom he had lived and labored for so many years. He left to his family the rich memory of an unstained name and to his county he left a record of a long and well spent life.
THOMAS QUIRK.
There are as many as a score of foreign countries who have contributed to the present citizenship of Sac county, Iowa, but it is probable that there are only a few men in the county who were born on the isle of Man, which is located off the western coast of England. From this little isle came a young man about fifty years ago who is now a prosperous retired farmer of this county, a man who has made his fortune in the fertile fields of this county.
Thomas Quirk, a retired farmer of Levey township, this county, was born in 1844, on the isle of Man, England, and was a son of Thomas and Elinor Quirk. His people were farmers and lived all of their lives in the island of their birth. In this small island Thomas Quirk received his educa- tion, which was very limited, and when twenty years of age he went across to Liverpool, England. He returned home, and remained there until his marriage, at the age of twenty-two, in Liverpool, and then sailed for New York.
Thomas Quirk was married in Liverpool, England, in 1870 to Mary Cain, also a native of the isle of Man, and immediately the young bridal couple took passage for America, landing at Halifax in March, 1870. They had very little money, but they had stout hearts and willing hands, and with these assets, they felt confident of making a home for themselves in this country. They immediately came west to Davenport, Iowa, arriving here on April 1, 1870, and soon afterward took charge of a farm in Clinton county, Iowa, on the shares. They lived on this place for six years, after which, in 1876, they bought railroad land in Sac county, Clinton township. They purchased one hundred and sixty acres in section 35, for five dollars an acre, paying one-fifth down and providing for the remaining payments with time contracts. Since there were no buildings on their land they lived on an adjoining farm, which they rented for a year. Not liking the first farmi
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which he purchased, he bought another farin of one hundred and sixty acres, where he now lives and on which he built his home. They worked hard and were frugal in their habits, with the result that in the course of a few years they had their farms of two hundred and eighty acres all paid for. They have lived on their present farm for the past thirty-seven years, and have seen it increase in value from five dollars an acre to two hundred dollars an aere.
Mr. and Mrs. Quirk are the parents of three children: Lewis T., whose history is presented elsewhere in this volume: Mrs. Mary MeWilliams, and George W., of Cook township, this county. A brother of Mr. Quirk came to Sae county in 1876, and has become a prosperous farmer in this county. Mr. Quirk is a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons at Wall Lake, while. religiously, he and his wife are loyal and faithful members of the Methodist Episcopal church and give to it their earnest support at all times. Owing to his splendid success, his genuine worth and genial disposi- tion, Mr. Quirk has won many friends and has retained them because of his many good qualities. His life has been a busy one, a life filled with hard work, but he has never shrank from his duties as a citizen, his obligations to the church, his neighbors or his friends.
CARL A. OLDSEN.
Of late years farming has come to be recognized as a science and a distinet vocation in itself in contrast to the old, haphazard methods in which our fathers indulged. The progressive farmer of today takes no chances on the possible failure of his land to produce as it should and nowadays the younger generation of agriculturists are fast taking up the vocation as a science and a sure and certain means of extracting more than a livelihood from their acreage. The old methods are going fast and a newer and wiser set are gaining control of the farming areas. The science of agriculture and animal husbandry as taught in the colleges and state universities has at- tracted many young students, who have gone direct from the farins and re- turned after having studied their inherited occupation from a different an- gle ; then applied the knowledge they have learned in connection with a practical aptitude for the work and have made wonderful successes in tilling the soil and the breeding of domestic animals.
One of the notable examples of success in farming and live stock raising
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from a scientific standpoint is represented in the career of Carl A. Oldsen. of Clinton township. Mr. Oldsen is a widely known live-stock breeder. He has a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, of which he is the owner, and cultivates eighty acres in addition to this. There is no better equipped farm for the purpose in Sac county. The barns and outbuildings are large and well kept. In 1912 Mr. Oldsen erected a fine, modern home with every convenience, consisting of ten rooms in all: this home occupies a command- ing site and is visible for miles across the landscape.
Mr. Oldsen is a successful breeder of registered Shorthorn cattle. It is in this special vocation that his training at the State Agricultural School stands him in good stead and he has achieved a wonderful success in the few years that he has been breeding cattle for the trade and for the use of neigh- boring farmers in improving their herds. The farm produces forty head of pure bred Shorthorns annually. This is a profitable business for the breeder and it is a matter of note that on December 10. 1913, Mr. Oldsen held a sale at his farm which was attended by buyers from all parts of the state. resulting in the disposal of thirty-eight head of registered stock at an average price of one hundred and eighty-two dollars per head.
C. A. Oldsen was born April 20, 1881, on the farm where he now re- sides. He is the son of John D. Oldsen, of whom extended and favorable mention is given in this volume and who was one of the early settlers of Sac county. John D. Oldsen is a native of Germany, who came to America when eighteen years of age, locating in Clinton county, lowa, in 1873. He bought land in Clinton township, Sac county, in 1875 and later moved his family there. He became the owner of four hundred acres of land and moved to the town of Wall Lake in 1906. He married Anna Peterson, also a native of Germany, and who bore him four children, namely: Mrs. Sophia Tadsen, of Clinton township; Carl A .; Mrs. Agnes Jensen, residing on a farm three miles west of Sac City, and Maylinda, at home with her parents.
Carl .A. Oldsen received his primary education in the district schools of his native township and pursued a course in the Agricultural College at Ames, lowa, completing the course in animal husbandry in 1903 after four years' study in all. His success as a farmer and stock breeder is very pro- nounced and is due in great part to the intimate knowledge of his work which he obtained in the state college. He is a member of the American Shorthorn Breeders' Association and the lowa Shorthorn Breeders' Asso- ciation.
Mr. Oldsen was married in January, 1906, to Lulu J. Sutton, of Ode-
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bolt, Iowa, a daughter of William Sutton. He is the father of one child, Paul Oldsen, born in April, 1908.
Mr. Oldsen, like many other young men of the present day in Sac county, has allied himself with the Progressive party and is an exponent of and a firm believer in progressive principles of government. He is a mem- ber of the Masonic lodge in the town of Wall Lake. He is undoubtedly one of the rising young men of Sac county, possessing intelligence and education which, combined with an innate courtesy of demeanor and bearing, makes him a man worth while and worth knowing in the community.
WILLIAM L. UMBARGER.
Among the younger farmers of Sac county who are forging themselves to the front as successful agriculturists is William L. Umbarger, of Rich- land township, who was born May 23, 1879, on the farm where he now resides, and is the son of Nathaniel Brown and Mary A. (Brown) Umbar- ger. Nathaniel Brown Umbarger was born January 4, 1845, in Wythesville, Wythe county, Virginia, and died October 26, 1911. He was the second son of Stephen Umbarger, who enlisted in the Union army and was captured and imprisoned at Andersonville, where he died in the spring of 1865. His son, Nathaniel B., the father of the subject of this sketch, was drafted in 1864 by the Southern recruiting officers and compelled to serve in the Con- federate army. He was assigned to Company B, Thirtieth Regiment Vir- ginia Infantry, and fought under Gen. Jubal A. Early. He was captured at the battle of Newmarket and imprisoned at Elmira, New York, where he remained until the close of the war. He then took advantage of free gov- ernment transportation and came westward to Iowa to visit an uncle by the name of Kegley, and, after looking over the territory in the eastern part of lowa, he decided to invest and accordingly purchased one hundred and sixty acres in Jones county. He then returned to Virginia and in March, 1868. married Mary Agnes Brown. He and his wife immediately came to Iowa and located at Monmouth, Jackson county, and in 1873 they moved to Sac county, where they bought one hundred and sixty acres of land in Richland township, where they lived for the next thirty-two years, and became the owner of three hundred and twenty acres of land. In 1906 they moved to Odebolt, where Mr. Umbarger died in 1911. Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel Um- barger were the parents of seven children : A daughter who died in infancy ;
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