USA > Iowa > Jasper County > Past and present of Jasper County, Iowa, Vol. I > Part 39
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Mr. Fugard was born at Bellville. Richland county, Ohio, February 14, 1850, and is the son of John F. and Angalina (Cowan) Fugard. His father's people came from the Granite state, and his mother's from Maryland, and were among the early settlers of Ohio. One of his ancestors was Rev. Isaiah Stone, a prominent Baptist minister of New England. Another one was Samuel Fugard, of Bedford, New Hampshire, who had quite a good record as a Revolutionary soldier. He was a minute-man at the beginning of the war, and accompanied the illfated winter expedition against Quebec. He afterwards served for six years in the Continental line, or regulars, as a member of the Sixth Company of the First New Hampshire Regiment, and took part in the principal campaigns and battles of the war. He endured the hardships of Valley Forge, and was among the one thousand five hundred picked men who crossed the Delaware river and attacked Trenton, on a night so cold that two of their number froze to death. On this occasion his con- pany was given the post of honor, by being selected to lead the advance and capture the enemy's outposts, receiving great credit for their gallantry. . After his return from the war, he was granted a pension by the Legislature. The records state that he had been discharged as unfit for duty because worn out in the service, and that a certificate had been given him by his excellency. General Washington, stating that he was entitled to a pension.
Mr. Fugard's parents moved to Jasper county in 1855, and settled in Buena Vista township eight miles southeast of Newton. The country was then new and thinly settled, but they enjoyed pioneer life and did their full share towards building up the community, by actively favoring those things that were for the public good. Four children were born to them, three of whom died in infancy. Noble J. Fugard, of Newton, grew from childhood to honorable manhood in this home, and several other children also shared its benefits for one or more years, so that it was often known as the "Orphans' Home." The farm on which the Fugard family first settled remained in their possession for fifty years.
The father died at the age of sixty-three. His widow afterwards mar- ried J. J. Young, who is now deceased. She makes her home with her son. and, although past her eightieth year, she enjoys good health and takes an active interest in affairs at home and abroad, and has learned the great secret of how to grow old sweetly.
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Judson Fugard grew to manhood on the farm, and knew the meaning of hard work, performing his part in helping to develop the home place from its raw state. He attended the public schools and Hazel Dell Academy and graduated from the law department of the State University. He opened an office in Newton and practiced for a number of years alone, and after- wards was associated for some twenty years with A. F. Brown, Esq .. under the firm name of Fugard & Brown. He still maintains a law office, but de- votes a part of his time to looking after outside interests. Some years he has had charge of as much as two thousand acres of farm lands belonging to others. For several years he has been interested in dairying, and has a herd of thirty cows, and a modern dairy barn and silo in a fine grove adjoining town. Improved methods are used in caring for the dairy products, which find a ready market.
On March 5, 1884. Mr. Fugard was united in marriage with Ella Slem- mons, a worthy young lady of Des Moines township. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Stemmons, were highly esteemed people of that community. They afterwards lived at Newton for a number of years, and then removed to Mahaska county. Both are now deceased.
Mr. and Mrs. Fugard still reside in the same home in which they com- menced housekeeping. Two children have graced their union. John Reed, the son. is twenty-four years old, and married Rowena Owen, an excellent young lady of Plano, Illinois. He is a graduate of the Newton high school and afterwards took a four-years course of study in the School of Archi- tecture of the Illinois University. Upon his graduation from the latter insti- tution, he was offered a position with a prominent architect of Chicago and spent six months superintending the erection of some fine residences at Princeton. New Jersey. He is now located in Chicago and doing well. Florence Angelina, the daughter, is fifteen and is the light of her parents' home.
Mr. Fugard and his family belong to the Newton Baptist church and make four generations of their family that have been connected with it. He is also a member of the Iowa Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He is a Republican in politics. and has served his party as secretary of the county committee and in other capacities. At the time of the prohibitory amendment campaign, he served for three years as secretary of the amend- ment association and helped to thoroughly organize the county and carry it for prohibition by nearly two thousand majority. He has achieved some
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reputation as a writer, his articles possessing a quaint and interesting style, full of humor and pathos. For several years he had charge of the local work of the Newton Journal, was the Newton correspondent for the State Register, and has done considerable work for other papers, among them the Chicago Tribune.
Personally Mr. Fugard is a very pleasant gentleman to know, being genteel in manners, unostentatious and obliging.
ROSS R. MOWRY.
It is with marked satisfaction that the biographer adverts to the life of one who has had a successful career despite the somewhat discouraging and unpromising circumstances at the outset. Such a life abounds in lesson and incentive and cannot but prove a stimulus to those whose fortunes and destinies are yet matters for the future to determine. Ross R. Mowry, one of the best known of the younger attorneys of Jasper county, was ambitious to become an attorney, but the way was not clear to him, so he made a way, studied hard, worked his way through college and at an early age has made a record of which anyone might well be proud, his career proving what honesty of purpose and rightly applied energy may accomplish although in the face of obstacles.
Mr. Mowry was born in Clear Creek township, this county, March 5. 1882, of one of the highly respected old families of that part of the county, being the son of John E. and Louisa (Wilkins) Mowry, both natives of Penn- sylvania. The father devoted his life principally to farming, though he was for some time engaged in the mercantile business at Baxter, Jasper county, in which town he is now living retired. He is well known and has a host of friends throughout the county. There were ten children in his family, Ross R., of this review, being the youngest. They are all living but one, who died in infancy ; they are : Florence, widow of Henry Kline, of Baxter, this county ; Alice, widow of David Cross, living near Colfax, Iowa ; Jesse lives at Nevada, Missouri : Julia is the wife of Fred Dodd, living near Baxter ; William lives at Marshalltown, Iowa: Ella Buchanan is the wife of J. M. Buchanan, living near Colfax: Milton lives in Kansas City, Missouri; Anna is the wife of Carl C. Webb, of Baxter ; Ervin died in infancy ; Ross R.
The last named spent his youth on the home farm and assisted with the work about the place until he was fifteen years of age. He was always a
R. mowry
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ATOM LENOX TI. JE + FOUNDATIONS
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student and he applied himself carefully to his text-books in the country schools, later graduated from the high school at Baxter, with the class of 1900, then entered the State University at Iowa City, where he made an ex- cellent record and from which institution he was graduated, in the law depart- ment, in 1903. However, before entering the university he taught school for a time; as already stated, he worked his way through the university. In the spring of 1903 he was admitted to the bar when he was twenty-one years of age. He began the practice of his profession at Baxter, where he remained one year and was gaining a solid foothold, but, seeking a wider field for the exercise of his talents, he moved to Newton in 1965 and formed a partnership with John E. Cross, which was dissolved in 1910. Mr. Mowry has figured more or less prominently in local legal affairs all the while, being regarded as a very strong young lawyer and he has been very successful in all his legal work in the local courts.
In 1910 Mr. Mowry was the Republican nominee for county attorney and was duly elected at the ensuing election, and is now very ably discharging the duties of this office.
Mr. Mowry was married on September 15, 1908, to Edith Matthews, daughter of John L. Matthews, a well known, citizen of Newton. Mrs. Mowry is a young lady of education and many pleasing traits of character which have long rendered her a favorite with a wide circle of friends. This union has been graced by the birth of one child. Esther Virginia, who was born on November 8, 1909.
Fraternally, Mr. Mowry is a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen, and politically he is loyal in his support of the Republican party.
The Mowry family is of German stock, and the first specific record we have of them in America is when they settled in Pennsylvania in the early days.
JOSEPH M. WOODROW.
No business man in the city of Newton is regarded with higher favor than the gentleman to a brief review of whose interesting career the reader's attention is directed in the following paragraphs, Joseph M. Woodrow being one of those public-spirited men. who, while laboring to advance his own in- terests along legitimate lines, does not neglect to discharge his duties in fos- (28)
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tering the upbuilding of the community in general, and few men have done more to advance the material interests of Newton than he, owing to his high position in financial circles and his unswerving allegiance to the higher stand- ards of living.
Mr. Woodrow, president of the Jasper County Bank and one of the sub- stantial and representative men of Iowa, has been a resident of Jasper county since 1865 and he has thus lived to see and take part in the wonderful trans- formation of the same from a wild prairie country to a high rank in the great Hawkeye commonwealth, taking a great pride in its progress and al- ways standing ready to support any worthy movement having as its object the general welfare of his locality and state.
Mr. Woodrow is the scion of a sterling old family of the Empire state, he himself having been born in Genesee county, New York, September 8, 1840, and he is the son of Benjamin and Frances (Sprague) Woodrow, the father a native of England and the mother born in the state of Connecticut. The former was a tailor by trade, and after spending his youth in his native country, he emigrated to America in 1807 and became well established here.
Joseph M. Woodrow started in life for himself when twenty-one years of age, working on a farm, by the month, in Illinois. Believing that the newer state of Iowa held still greater advantages for one of his temperament, he emigrated further west and in 1863 became a clerk in a store at Mt. Pleasant. Iowa, where he remained until 1865. when he came to Jasper county and launched out in the boot and shoe business, the results of which were very satisfactory. In the spring of 1869 he sold out and started a nursery, which he operated successfully until 1883, when he sold out. Turning his attention to banking, for which he seems to have been best endowed by nature, in 1880 he became cashier of the Jasper County Bank at Newton. His close applica- tion to his duties in this connection and his honest and conservative policy. together with his uniform courteous treatment of the patrons of this institu- tion, resulted in gradually increasing its prestige and it became one of the popular and sound financial institutions in central Iowa. He became its president 'in 1889, which position he has very ably and worthily discharged to the present time, becoming one of the best known bank presidents of this part of the state, managing the affairs of this institution with rare discretion and foresight and keeping it on a sound and safe basis, so that it has been amply able to weather all financial crises.
The domestic life of Mr. Woodrow began in 1865, when he was united in marriage with Parmelia A. Fluke, daughter of Mrs. Judith Browning and a lady of many praiseworthy attributes, being the representative of an ex-
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cellent old family. To this union seven children have been born, namely : Frank M., Eva A., Mrs. A. C. Keinath, Harry E. (deceased). Fred C., Grace M., Mrs. A. E. Hindorft, O. Blaine and Benjamin W.
Mr. Woodrow's beautiful residence in Newton, which is modern and attractive in all its appointments, is frequently the gathering place for the many friends of the family, who never fail to find here an old-time hospitality and a sincere welcome, so that he and his wife have long been favorites with a wide circle of warm and admiring friends.
WILLIAM S. GOVE.
Many elements contribute to the development of a new country, but no one thing plays so large a part as sterling worth and character. It is to the rugged, steadfast men and women who come into its domain that the new land must look, and it is most often the plain, blunt men of business and every-day affairs who most affect a new country's history. While William S. Gove, the present able and popular sheriff of Jasper county, is not among the oldest of the county's settlers, yet he came here just at the close of the Civil war, and, throughout the years that have passed since then, his life has been a busy and fruitful one, and he has played an important part in the affairs of the community during the most important period of its development. Nearly every one in the county knows big, bluff, honest Will Gove, and the secret of his popularity lies in the fact that he has always been allied with those things which tend toward the advancement and betterment of men. While a keen, careful and straightforward business man, he has never become a dollar worshiper or permitted the lust of greed to eradicate his higher ideals, believing that life holds much of greater value than mere wealth of estate.
Mr. Gove was born in Vermont on May 23, 1855. the scion of a sterling old New England family, being the son of Sabin P. and Harriet ( Kendall) Gove, both natives of Vermont. The father was a farmer and it may truth- fully be said of him that he was a self-made man. Left an orphan when but a mere child, he was early bound out to an old doctor named Sabin, with whom he lived until almost reaching his majority. While this man was kind and did all for the boy he could, yet the youngster's life was very lonesome and he was glad to reach the day when he could start out in life for himself. which he did empty-handed. All he subsequently acquired he obtained alone and unaided, and when he died he had the respect and love of all who knew
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him. Sabin P. Gove and wife were married in Vermont, coming from that state to Kane county, Illinois, when the son, William S .. was but three months old. Upon their arrival there they purchased one hundred and twenty acres on which they lived nine years, then moved to Grinnell, at that time the ter- minus of the Rock Island railroad. That was in 1864, and the following spring they came on to Jasper county, locating on one hundred and sixty acres in Richland township, which land still remains in the family. there having been but one transfer made of it. the land being originally home- steaded by Mrs. . \. K. Banett, a sister of the subject's mother, from the gov- ernment and transferred by her to the subject's father, Sabin P., in 1863. Here the family prospered, the father added to it until he finally became the owner of six hundred acres of valuable land, thus becoming one of the country's largest landowners and most progressive farmers. In the spring of 1883 he retired from active life and moved to the town of Sully, where he built a comfortable residence. Later, his health becoming very poor, he and his wife moved to Pasadena, California, where he purchased two good residence properties, and there he resided until death ended his earthly career, on September 10, 1895, when he had reached the age of sixty-five years, the immediate cause of his death being heart trouble. He was a man of fine character and had the good will and admiration of all who knew him. After his death his widow returned to her home in Sully, Iowa, where she still resides, being now seventy-seven years of age. Her eldest son lives with her. She has a host of warm friends who admire her beautiful characteristics.
William S. Gove, of this review, is one of four children. all of whom are living ; of these, the subject and an elder brother were born in Vermont, the others being born in Illinois: they are Albert K., born August 9, 1853, lives in Sully : William S., of this review ; Harry M., born October 24, 1859, lives in Grinnell, Iowa; Tracey L., born August 2, 1861, also lives in Grinnell. At the age of twenty-one the subject began his independent life work by taking up farming and this he followed continuously until October. 1909. During the last twenty years of this period, however, he engaged in a very extensive stock business, buying all kinds of live stock all over the county and, in fact, throughout many states, especially those of the West and South. It is said of him that he has shipped stock over almost every railroad running into Chicago, and he is universally regarded as an expert judge of all kinds of stock. Few men are more widely known in this vocation and few have achieved greated success.
While never at any time pretending to be a politician. Mr. Gove has al- ways taken a keen and intelligent interest in political affairs, and so, at the
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November, 1910. election the people of Jasper county testified to the respect. confidence and esteem they held for him by electing him sheriff of the county, which position he is filling in a worthy and most acceptable manner, reflecting much credit upon himself and giving eminent satisfaction to all classes, dis- charging his official duties with that painstaking care and discretion, that un- swerving fidelity and aptitude that has ever characterized his business career. His son, Harry E. Gove, is acting deputy sheriff under his father, and they have the distinction of being the first sheriff and deputy to occupy the new court house. Mr. Gove has also held a number of the offices in Richland town- ship, among them being that of supervisor of roads and director of the town- ship schools.
On November 2, 1876, Mr. Gove was united in marriage with Amarilla Allen, a native of Illinois and the daughter of Ervin and Amelia ( Moshier ) Allen, both of whom were natives of the state of New York. They spent their lives on a farm and are now deceased, the father dying in Richland township, this county, at the age of seventy-eight years, his death occurring while he was here on a visit. He was buried in Oklahoma, where he had main- tained his home for some time. The mother died in that state at the age of sixty-six years. Mrs. Gove's parents came to lowa when she was but three years old, her birth having occurred on July 17, 1856, she being the eldest of four children, all living, namely : Laura married Albert Gove, a brother of the subject, and they live in Arabia, Arizona, where Mrs. Gove is matron of the Indian school; Frank M. Allen lives at Gates, Oklahoma ; Susan E. lives in Alva, Oklahoma.
To Mr. and Mrs. Gove of this review six children have been born, five of whom are living, namely : Jennie May, born May 1. 1877, is the wife of Frank B. Sparks and resides on a farm in Richland township, this county ; Cecil Rose, wife of Charles W. Sparks, a brother of Frank B., was born January 8, 1880; they live on a farm in Richland township: Harry E. Gove. born September 15, 1882, married Naomi Ewing and lives in Newton ; Hat- tie .\., born January 14. 1885, died December 10. 1905: Bessie E., born Jan- uary 29, 1890. is unmarried and is still with her parents; Mabel E., born July 31. 1892, has also remained single and is a member of the family circle.
In 1887 Mr. Gove went to southwestern Kansas and lived a year in Haskell county. While there he homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres which he later paid out under the provisions of the pre-emption law. receiving his patent from the President. December 28, 1889. it being the first patent ever issued in that county. He still holds this land, and also has other val- uable and extensive interests.
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Mr. and Mrs. Gove are kindly, affable people and their home life is ideal, their attractive and commodious dwelling being known to their many friends as a place where hospitality and good cheer ever prevail. They have long been prominent factors in the social life of the town and county and richly deserve the high esteem and good will which are freely accorded by all. Mrs. Gove comes of a long line of Quaker ancestry.
Mr. Gove has made a success of his life work, succeeding because he has been an adherent to those principles and ideals which the world admires everywhere. He has not depended upon the assistance of any one, preferring to be the architect of his own fortune, and is a fine type of the virile, useful, industrious, broad-minded and public-spirited self-made American.
COL. ELLIOTT E. LAMBERT.
The office of biography is not to give voice to a man's modest estimate of himself and his accomplishments, but rather to leave upon the record the verdict establishing his character by the consensus of opinion on the part of liis neighbors and fellow citizens. The life of Col. Elliott E. Lambert, a leading business man of Newton, Jasper county, has been such as to elicit just praise from those who know him best, owing to the fact that he has always been loyal to the trusts reposed upon him and has been upright in his dealings with his fellow men, at the same time lending his support to the advancement of any cause looking to the welfare of the community at large.
Colonel Lambert was born in. Licking county, Ohio, January 8. 1863, and he is the son of R. K. and Cynthia ( Benjamin) Lambert, both natives of Ohio. The father, who devoted his early life to farming, came to Iowa in 1868 and settled in Newton, soon buying one hundred and sixty acres of land, which he farmed until 1876, in which year he came to Newton and established the famous Lambert hotel, which he and his wife conducted successfully for a period of twenty-eight years, the same being popular with the traveling public and known throughout this part of the country. Mr. Lambert is now living retired in Newton. He is one of the interesting pioneers and has had a varied and interesting history, a representative of that sterling type of men who con- stitute the bone and sinew of any country. His grandfather, Francis Lam- bert, was a soldier in the war of 1812. The subject's father was a soldier in the Civil war, a faithful and efficient follower of the Stars and Stripes in many a trying campaign and hard-fought battle. He is known as a worker, a
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man who does things. AAlthough now advanced in years, having been born in 1839, he is today strong and vigorous. His wife is a woman of the fine old school who has given the world so much sweetness and refinement, hospitable and affable. Ever loyal to all that was best and truest, during all her life she has brought to her home and friends a benign and uplifting influence. She is a faithful church worker and her life has been filled with many charitable deeds. The three children in this family are all living, namely: William R. lives in Newton, Iowa; his son. Everett W., now deceased, had a national reputation as an all-around athlete : Elliott E., of this review ; Belle is now the wife of Doctor Besser, of Newton.
It was in 1886 that Colonel Lambert, of this review, began business for himself, by taking up the general freighting and transfer business in Newton, which he followed for a period of seventeen years, when he sold out and engaged in the implement business there, the style of the firm being W. C. Bergman & Company, which business he conducted with his usual success for two years, after which he engaged in the general fire and life insurance busi- ness, which he has continued to the present time, his offices now being in the Scharf building, north of the court house square. He has met with a large measure of success from the first in this line of endeavor and is one of the best known insurance men in central lowa.
On January 6, 1886, Colonel Lambert was united in marriage with Lizzie M. Boydston, daughter of James and Mary Boydston, the father dying soon after his daughter and the Colonel were married, and the mother died in New- ton on April 10, 1910.
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