USA > Iowa > Fayette County > Past and present of Fayette County, Iowa, Volume II > Part 6
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Mrs. Kuhen, who, as before stated, became the wife of John Kuhen in February, 1863, was born in the state of Pennsylvania and she is the daughter of Samuel Austin and Orfa (McCann) Wroe, the former born on the Atlantic ocean while his parents were enroute from Ireland to America, his father hav- ing been a sea captain. He grew up in Pennsylvania, studied medicine and became a noted surgeon. He came with John Kuhen and wife to Fayette county, Iowa, and lived retired until his death. For a short time he was a surgeon in the Union army, but on account of his advanced age and ill health he was not long retained. Three of Mrs. Kuhen's brothers were in Com- pany N, Sixth Virginia Volunteer Infantry, George Wroe serving four years, John Wesley Wroe, three years, and Jerome Wroe, during the last year of the war.
Eleven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. John Kuhen, two of whom died in infancy ; the other nine are living at this writing, namely : George L., Virginia Belle, Maggie Florence, Mary A. (deceased), Benjamin Franklin, Charles, Delbert, Emery L., Emma Zoe, Agnes A. (deceased) and Ethelpella Paola. All of these children are residents of Fayette county, Iowa, excepting Emery L., who is principal of the schools at Wimbledon, North Dakota.
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ARTHUR M. DOUGHTY.
Among the most respected and honored citizens of Fayette county stands Arthur M. Doughty, of Smithfield township, for he has not only shown his ability to achieve material success, but has lived that character of a life which commands the admiration of his fellow citizens.
Arthur M. Doughty was born November 11, 1869, in Byron, Ogle county, Illinois, being the fourth child of seven children born to John and Harriet E. (Parker) Doughty. The father was born near Quebec, Canada, October 8, 1832, his mother in Buffalo, New York, January 28, 1834. While both were still young children their parents moved to Ogle county, Il- linois, and here they both grew up on farms, and, on reaching maturity, were married, in 1861. There they began life on a farm and in 1871 removed to Fayette county, Iowa, locating in Smithfield township, where they purchased a fine tract of one hundred and sixty acres in section 32, to which they later added eighty acres in section 33. They made this large farm their home until the year 1900, when Mr. Doughty retired from active farm life and moved to Fayette, Fayette county, which he still makes his residence. Mr. Doughty is a stanch Republican and his loyalty to the principles of his party has brought to him the honor of several offices in his township. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which he has held, at dif- ferent times, all of the offices of the church. He may fitly be designated by that phrase which can so rarely be used, a Christian gentleman. Mr. and Mrs. Doughty are the parents of seven children, William W., born Novem- ber 5, 1862, who resides with his parents in Fayette; George E., born April 5. 1864, who lives in Smithfield township; Anna B., wife of Frank Chittenden, of Smithfield township, born January 15, 1866; Arthur M. (the subject of this sketch), born November 11, 1869; Jennie M., wife of J. F. Wilkin- son, born May 9, 1873; Edith E., born April 18, 1876, wife of Will Dugan, of Smithfield township; Jessie L., born October 13, 1878, wife of Joseph Woods, residing in Smithfield township.
Arthur M. Doughty has always resided on the home farm, making his home with his parents until they moved to Fayette. On their retirement from active farm life and removal to the city, he rented the home place from them, and in 1903, by reason of the exercise of that thrift and strict atten- tion to work which only bring success, was able to purchase the homestead of one hundred and sixty acres in section 32 where he now lives, farming this tract, which is always under a high state of cultivation.
In October, 1900, Mr. Doughty married Clara Prideaux, who was born
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in Grant county, Wisconsin, October 12, 1875, being the daughter of Thomas and Ellen (Hudson) Prideaux, both of whom were natives of Grant county, Wisconsin, the former born on May 23, 1842, and the latter on January 6, 1852. In 1893 they moved to Fayette county, Iowa, locating in Putnam township, where they lived until 1901, when they retired from farm life and took up their residence in Arlington, Iowa, where they still reside. Mrs. Doughty is the second of four children born to them. Mr. and Mrs Doughty are the parents of four children, Harlie Merwin, born January 1, 1901 ; Don- ald, Dean, born April 24, 1904; Elizabeth Ellen, born September 23, 1906, and John Russell, born November 25, 1909.
Politically, Mr. Doughty is a Republican, and has taken considerable interest in local politics, having very ably held the offices of township trus- tee, constable, and is now township trustee. His religious sympathies are with the Methodist Episcopal church, of which he is a member and in which he holds the office of trustee. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, Camp No. 4621, Maynard, Iowa. Mr. Doughty is regarded as one of the leading men of the county and enjoys the confidence, respect and esteem of the public.
HENRY S. COVENTRY.
The career of the well known and highly respected gentleman whose name heads this 'sketch, illustrates forcibly the possibilities that are open to men of earnest purpose, integrity and sterling business qualifications. A well spent life and an honorable career constitute his record and now, after long years of honest toil, he finds himself surrounded with all the comforts of a rural home in the midst of fertile and. well-cultivated acres which he can call his own.
Henry S. Coventry, a farmer of Illyria township, Fayette county, was born in Hudson, New York, March 8, 1850, and he is the son of Alexander W. and Catherine (Lowe) Coventry, the father born in Columbia county, New York, and the mother in Glasgow, Scotland, the date of the former's birth being May 29, 1809, and that of the latter March 8, 1822. The pater- nal grandfather was Thomas Coventry, a native of England. Both sides of the family were of sterling old Quaker stock. Thomas Coventry came to America in an early day and lived in Columbia county, New York, where he reared his family of four sons and four daughters. Grandfather John Lowe, a native of Scotland, married Elizabeth McLaren, came to America,
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and located on Staten Island, New York, where he died of a fever six weeks after landing there, leaving a widow and five children, namely: Peter, Wil- liam, Daniel, Catherine and Jane. Mrs. Elizabeth Lowe came to Iowa in 1861 and lived with the Coventry family until her death, in 1886, at the advanced age of ninety-three years.
Alexander W. Coventry was educated in the common schools and in youth learned the cabinetmaker's trade, later becoming a plate glass worker. He was reared in the state of New York, but lived for some time in Lennox. Massachusetts. On account of failing health he was compelled to give up his trade, and in 1861 he came to Illyria township, Fayette county, Iowa, where he procured eighty acres of land in section 13, only three acres of which had been cleared, and on this stood a log house and stable. He im- proved the place and made a very comfortable home here in which he lived until his death, in December, 1885, at the age of seventy-six years, his widow surviving until February, 1906, reaching the age of eighty-three years. He was a school director and held other minor offices. Politically, he was a Republican. He and his wife were the parents of two children, Robert H., who died in infancy in the state of New York, and Henry S., of this re- view.
Henry S. Coventry was educated in a log school house in Highland township, Clayton county, Iowa, and later in Illyria township, Fayette county, also taking a business course in the Bryant & Stratton Business Col- lege. He has engaged in various pursuits, including teaching school one term, which was very creditably done; also took up fire insurance, school supplies for A. H. Andrews & Company and Thomas Kane & Company of Chicago, at the same time looked after farming interests. He is the owner of ninety-five acres of land in Illyria township. He carries on diversified farming and dairying, and raises fine stock, Norman and coach horses and Poland-China hogs.
On March 8, 1880, Mr. Coventry married, at Elgin, Iowa, Mary C. Trumbold, a native of the state of New Jersey, and this union resulted in the birth of three sons, namely: Clarence W., born June 21, 1881, is living at home; George S. died when four years old; Arthur M. died when five months old. The mother of these children, who was a devoted member of the Lu- theran church, passed to her rest on October 8, 1891.
Mr. Coventry first cast his vote for Grant in 1872; he was later a sup- porter of the Greenbacks, and is now a Democrat. He very faithfully per- formed the duties of clerk of Illyria township for a period of seventeen years, was a valued member of the school board for a period of twenty years, and
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he was at one time a candidate for county recorder. Fraternally, he is a member of the Masonic order, Lodge No. 518 at Elgin, Iowa; also the In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows, Wadena Lodge No. 723, being a charter member of the same and is its present treasurer ; he belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America at Wadena, and the Ancient Order of Gleaners, No. 853, at Highland, Iowa. Clarence, the son, is also a member of the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows and the Ancient Order of Gleaners. Mr. Coventry is a well read man and keeps abreast of the times in all current events and he enjoys the respect and friendship of a wide circle of acquain- tances.
WILLIAM VALE MALVEN.
The subject of this sketch, a retired farmer living in the town of May- nard, is a native of Orange county, New York, born at Port Jervis on the 20th day of October, 1845. On the paternal side of his family is Scotch, his father, Charles Malven, having been born in the historic old city of Ed- inburgh. When fourteen years of age, Charles Malven came to America with his parents, who settled at Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, but subsequently removed to Orange county, New York, where they lived the remainder of their days. They had a family of five children, of whom Charles was the youngest, the names of the others being Grace, John, David and Samuel. Ann Michaels, wife of Charles Malven and mother of the subject, was born in Pennsylvania and came of sterling German stock, her ancestors having been among the early settlers and substantial people of Monroe county, that state. In 1850 Charles Malven moved his family to Delaware county, Iowa, being four weeks en route and settling about two miles from Colesburg, Dela- ware county, where he secured a tract of timbered land, which in due time he cleared and reduced to cultivation. Later, in 1858, he purchased a prairie farm about two and a fourth miles south of Colesburg, where he lived until 1864, when he disposed of his holdings near that town and moved to Greeley, in the same county. Purchasing a small farm south of the latter place, he retired to the same and there spent the remainder of his life, dying in the month of July, 1881, his wife in the year 1895. Mr. Malven was a self-made, self-taught man and stood high in the esteem of the people among whom he lived. His integrity was always above reproach and against his char- acter no breath of suspicion was ever uttered. He was one of the early tem- perance advocates of Iowa, used his influence upon all occasions for the good
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of his fellow men and his name is cherished as a grateful legacy not only by his family and descendants, but by the community in which his later years were spent.
Nine children were born to Charles and Ann Malven, namely: John, merchant and auctioneer, died in 1908; Nicholas, a merchant for a number of years at Medford, Minnesota, died in June, 1900; Capt. Daniel S., for twenty years a traveling salesman for the Olds, Milburn and Chatauguna wagon companies, and long a resident of Texas, died some years ago in Jackson. Mississippi; Mary, wife of James Potts, of Charles City, Iowa, both deceased ; William, the subject of this sketch; Frank H., of Greeley; Emma, who married Frank Burbridge, of Oneida, Iowa; Alice, wife of G. W. Dry- bread, a merchant of Emmettsburg, this state, and Lincoln, who lives at Temple, Oklahoma. Patriotism and love of country appear to be inherent in the Malven family, four of the above brothers having served in the late Civil war and achieved honorable reputations as soldiers. John enlisted in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry at the beginning of the Rebellion and served three years, during which time he took part in a number of campaigns and battles and made a record of which any soldier might well feel proud. Nicholas served one year in the Seventh Iowa Cavalry, and Daniel, who joined the Fifth Regiment, became captain of Company K, and was three years at the front, during some of the most trying experiences of the war. Returning home some time before the expiration of his period of service, he was in- strumental in recruiting three companies of the Seventh Cavalry, in one of which his brother Nicholas enlisted. The subject of this review also exper- ienced his baptism of fire, a reference to which will be found in another para- graph.
William V. Malven was reared to farm labor and enjoyed but limited educational advantages during his childhood and youth. He grew up on the home farm a strong, well developed young man and assisted his parents until February, 1864, when he enlisted in Company E, Fifth Iowa Cavalry, with which he served until August of the following year. He shared with his comrades the fortunes and vicissitudes of war, in Kentucky, Tennes- see, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, participating in a number of battles and skirmishes, among the former being the bloody engagements at Nash- ville and Franklin, to say nothing of his many long, tiresome marches and other duties which test a soldier's experience and prove his worth. Return- ing home at the expiration of his term of enlistment, he resumed the peace- ful pursuit of agriculture and four years later, on the Ioth of June, 1869, was happily married to Hattie A. Talcott, of Delaware county, Iowa, daugh-
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ter of Silas and Jane (Hammond) Talcott, natives respectively of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
In 1875 Mr. Malven came to Fayette county, Iowa, and located two and a half miles southwest of Maynard, where he lived for six years, at the end of which time he bought a farm two miles east of that town and still later invested in land a short distance to the north. He now owns two hundred acres of fine land, all well improved and in a high state of culti- vation. On this land he lived and prospered until the year 1906, when, finding himself the possessor of a handsome competency, sufficient indeed to make him independent, he turned his farm over to other hands and moved to Maynard, where he is now living a life of quiet and honorable retirement. Mr. Malven is an intelligent, enterprising citizen, deeply interested in the material advancement of the community and the general welfare of his fellow men, and enjoys to a marked degree the respect and confidence of all who know him. His life has been somewhat strenuous and singularly suc- cessful and his career may be studied with profit by the young man at the parting of the ways, whose record is still a matter of the future. Fraternally, he holds membership with Sunnyside Lodge No. 510, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and with Eastern Star Chapter No. 103 and Reynolds Post No. 47, Grand Army of the Republic, his wife being an active worker in the Woman's Relief Corps and the Eastern Star.
For over thirty years Mr. Malven has been a widely known and re- markably successful auctioneer, in which capacity he has come in contact with all classes and conditions of men in his own and other counties, making many warm friends and adding continuously to his popularity as a man and a citizen. He keeps abreast of the times on all matters of public interest, votes the Democratic ticket and is well informed on all issues of the day. All who know him speak in high terms of his many excellent qualities and his popularity is limited only by the range of his acquaintance.
Mr. and Mrs. Malven are the parents of six children, viz: Daniel S., who died at the age of twenty-one years; Charles C., a rural mail carrier, married Caroline Jacobson and is the father of four children, Madge B., Edith L., Alice I. and William J. B .; Harvey James, the third in order of birth, a farmer of Harlan township, married Tillie Struthoff, who has borne him two offspring, Herbert W. and George M. by name; Georgie, the next in succession, is the wife of Harry Hanes and the mother of three children, Charles M., Beulah and Doris; Carl V., the fifth of the family, is at home, and the third died when five years of age.
Mrs. Malven's maternal grandparents were David and Deborah (Jones)
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Hammond, both of Erie county, Pennsylvania, and of English lineage. They had five children, two of whom survive, Mrs. Jane Talcott and Mrs. Sarah Hitchcock, the latter of Lake Mills, Wisconsin. Silas Talcott, father of Mr. Malven, was a son of Joseph and Rebecca Talcott, of Lake county, Ohio. By occupation Silas was a carpenter and builder. He went to Greeley, Iowa, in 1852 and started a store which he ran for several years with gratifying success, later turning his attention to agricultural pursuits. He spent the lat- ter part of his life with Mr. Malven, dying in 1888, since which time his widow has made her home with the subject.
Mr. and Mrs. Talcott had four children, Linden C., of Delphos, Kansas, who served three years in the Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry, and is a car- penter by trade; Lemuel D., of Maynard, whose sketch appears elsewhere in these pages; Mrs. Malven, and Henry, a special detective for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, who was killed in 1891 while in the discharge of his duty.
GEORGE WILLIAM FITCH.
1. native of Youngstown, Ohio, born October 13, 1844, he is the second son and third child born to George and Deborah (Boleyn) Fitch, natives, re- spectively, of New York City and Ashtabula county, Ohio. The Fitch family has been identified with the growth and progress of this country from early colonial days. (For fuller genealogical record see personal sketch of Elmer E. Fitch, in this volume. )
The early members of this family were devoted to educational and philan- thropic pursuits, one of the ancestors being the founder of Yale College, at which several succeeding generations were educated. Another was the founder of a free hospital near Cleveland, Ohio, for the treatment of sick and wounded soldiers, during, and following, the war of 1812. This was, probably, the first free hospital in America. None of them were "money makers," in the sense of extensive accumulation, but devoted their means to the relief of others and to the upbuilding of public institutions. Among them are found in history, noted physicians, the first pastor of Saybrook Colony, the first gov- ernor of Connecticut, and officials and professionals of lesser prominence all alang the line of six generations in America. They have been a law-abiding race, moral and upright, though not distinguished as rigid adherents to churchi creeds. They have been more devoted to teaching than preaching, though each profession has had its able representatives.
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The Boleyn family, as represented by the mother of the subject of this sketch, is also of English origin, and was founded in America (Virginia) soon after the Cromwellian insurrection. In fact the founder of the family in this country, Col. Robert "Bolling," was one of Cromwell's exiled officers. They have been an intensely loyal race, and have borne arms in defense of American institutions throughout all the early wars with Indians and the mother country. The maternal grandfather of the subject was a soldier in the Indian wars, and also in the war of 1812, losing all his toes by freezing during his service in the latter. And though disabled for life, and very poor, he strenuously refused to apply for a pension, and went to his grave feeling that no man who is able to provide for himself should ever become a pensioner on the government. He was a cooper by occupation, and was thus enabled to provide a scanty living.
After the death of his father, in 1848, George W. Fitch was thrown mostly upon his own resources. His mother, during her widowhood, devoted herself to school teaching, and thus a maternal home was seldom established. For a few years the child lived with his mother's people, but from the age of nine years, and part of the time before that period, he lived in the families of strangers. Under his mother's supervision, it was always arranged that the boy should attend school, and in this way he acquired the rudiments of a com- mon school education in the backwoods of northwestern Pennsylvania. From the age of nine to fourteen he traveled two and a half miles to school, over unbroken paths, across fields and through the woods, often in deep snow and intense cold. But this was not the worst of it! Being the only male in a family composed of two invalid women, one an extremely old lady, and her invalid (old maid) daughter, it became the lot of the boy to not only do the chores outside, which included the milking of two or more cows, the care of a mare and from one to three of her colts, attending to hogs and chickens, pre- paration and carrying in of fuel, but most of the house work as well! This experience is cited here as an incentive to the boys who now "work for their board" and attend school from other than the parental home. Surely, boys, it is no "sinecure," which, in this sense, means "snap!"
But at the age of fourteen, his mother having gone to Iowa in 1852, the boy ran away from the embraces of sundry sticks of stove-wood, wielded by the sickly ( ?) old maid, and thenceforth paddled his own canoe! He made two or three trips across the mountains with droves of cattle and sheep, and was much incensed at the habitual call along the route by farmer lads, "Come boss-forty cents a day and no dinner!" But the drover boys were more
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aristocratic than the farmer boys knew, for they had "six o'clock dinners" that were partaken of with a relish born of starvation.
In winter time, the boy always pulled in somewhere and attended school. In fact it was his early ambition to acquire an education, and a term or two of schooling was always a consideration in making his arrangements with would- be employers. He worked one summer in a stone quarry at Shaw's Mill, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, and a short time in a coal mine near the same place. But the killing of the wheat and corn by an untimely frost in 1858 was a crushing blow, not only to the farmers who employed help, but more especially to the homeless boy who depended upon them for the means of ex- istence. There were no rich farmers in that day-at least not in northwestern Pennsylvania, and this was before the days of labor-saving farm machinery. All the hay was cut with scythes, and the grain was cut with cradles, or even the hand sickles, of which the present generation has no practical knowledge. In order to forestall the husky fellows of mature years, the boy was obliged to pose as a first-class mower and cradler, and, be it said to his credit, he made good the claim! At the age of sixteen, he could cut more grain with a cradle than any man could rake and bind behind him, and this was the "stint!" A few years later he posed as a first-class stacker, though he had then never laid a sheaf in a stack, but had "observed" how others did it! He made good there, also, as farmers now living in this county can verify, and his services were eagerly sought, at "harvest wages."
But in the fall of 1858, after the big frost, the outlook for the boy was gloomy, indeed. After many fruitless efforts to find a place where he could work a while in the fall, and chore for his board through the winter, he was directed to one James A. Phillips, near Butler, Pennsylvania. It was stated that "Jim" had no boys, but had eight girls! Think of that, boys! The appeal from a pale, immature boy, for the privilege of attending school from his house, touched the big-hearted Phillips, and he wept like a child! "Yes," he said, "You can stay and go to school from my house!" And to the credit of the fatherly Phillips, and the discredit of his self-imposed ward, let it be said that Phillips got up before daylight and went to a big barn on another part of the farm, and fed a large herd of cattle, attending to the horses, cows and hogs. without ever waking his sleepy "boy." He would then come to the stairway and call the boy to breakfast in a voice as tender and kind as though he were calling his own child! The best that the boy could do after that. was to skirmish around and get in some water, and a scuttle of coal, and away to school. "Jim's boy" committed to memory the "Speech Before the Virginia Convention," and was to recite it at school. After liearing sundry recitals.
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