USA > Iowa > Woodbury County > Sioux City > Past and present of Sioux City and Woodbury County, Iowa > Part 2
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THOMAS JEFFERSON STONE.
Thomas Jefferson Stone, deceased, passed away at the age of seventy-nine years after a residence of forty-eight years in Sioux City. Not only did Mr. Stone witness the development of Woodbury county from a wild country with only a few white inhabitants to a rich agri- eultural and commercial distriet, containing thousands of good homes and many growing towns and cities inhabited by an industrious, prosperous, enlightened and progressive peo- ple, but he participated in and assisted the slow, persistent work of development, which was nec- essary to produce a ehange which is so eom- plete that it may almost be termed magieal. He came to northwestern Iowa in 1856 and was for many years an active factor in real estate and financial eireles and up to the time of his death was a director of one of the lead- ing banks of Sioux City. He continued as a factor in the active affairs of his adopted state up to the time of his demise and no resident of Sioux City was more uniformly honored and respected than Mr. Stone.
A native of New York he was born in Roy- alton, Niagara county, on the 13th of August,
Shuof Stone
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1825, his parents being Isaiah P. and Merey (Sawyer) Stone. His boyhood days were spent upon his father's farm until he had attained the age of fifteen years and during that period he spent about three or four months cach win- ter in attending the district school. IIe after- ward entered Oberlin College at Oberlin, Ohio, with the intention of pursuing a full course of study in that institution, but when in his freshman year his health failed and he was obliged to abandon the idea of pursning a lite- rary course. He traveled westward with a sur- veying party and was thus engaged in Wiscon- sin and Iowa in locating land grants, following that profession until 1856. During that period he also spent four years in the office of the treasurer of Linn county, Iowa, occasionally going into the field with chain and compass, doing considerable surveying for the govern- ment. For a short time before leaving Marion, the county seat of Linn county, he was engaged in the banking business under the firm style of Smyth, Stone & Company.
Mr. Stone came to Sioux City in May, 1856, and began operating in real estate, continning in that business until 1874, with splendid suc- cess. For many years he paid taxes for more than one thousand persons and did more as land agent and in other capacities in entering government lands and promoting the settlement of northwestern Iowa than any other one man. He has, indeed, been one of the builders of this commonwealth and his name is inseparably in- terwoven with the history of the northwestern portion of the state. In 1867 he opened a pri- vate bank, which he conducted in connection with his landed operations, continuing in this for three years, when in 1870 he organized the First National. The work of the organiza- tion was perfected August 30, 1870, and the new institution opened its doors for business with the following officers in charge: 1. W. Hubbard, president, and Thomas J. Stone, cashier. The bank was capitalized for one hundred thousand dollars and snecceded the
private banking house of Thomas J. Stone. At a later date Mr. Stone was chosen presi- dent of the bank and continued in that capa- city until 1899, while his son, E. II. Stone, held the position of cashier. For a number of years he gave little attention to real estate operations outside of Sioux City, his undivid- ed time and energies being devoted to the up- building of the banking business and to the promotion of various other interests. He owned much property within the corporation limits of the city, including some of its best business blocks. He was director at the time of his death of the Merchants' National Bank, which was organized in January, 1900, with a capital stock of one hundred thousand dollars. After his retirement from active connection with the banking business, he was associated with his son in real estate operations and np. to his death devoted his attention to this line of activity, although one of the oldest men of the city. Among his contributions to public enterprises may be mentioned the following : Fifteen hundred dollars toward building the Hubbard House, now the Mondamin Hotel, five hundred dollars to the Grand Opera House and ten thousand dollars toward building the Pacific Short Line Railway.
On the 12th of May, 1852, Mr. Stone was united in marriage to Miss Alice A. Heathcote, of Mount Vernon, Ohio, and unto them were born a son and daughter. The former, E. H. Stone, is a graduate of Yale College and had for a number of years been his father's active associate in extensive and important business enterprises in Sioux City. The daughter, Alice E., is the wife of George P. Day, cashier of the Merchants' National Bank of Sioux City. Mr. Stone lost his first wife in 1882 and in 1886 he married Mrs. Frances A. Flint. He we was afterward married to Mrs. Emma Q. Ifedges, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, the wed- ding being celebrated in that city on the 7th of July, 1892. She was formerly the wife of Charles E. Hedges of the firm of C. E. and
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D. T. Hedges, of Sioux City, prominent in the development and upbuilding of this portion of the state.
In public affairs Mr. Stone has been promi- nent and influential and few men have as inti- mate, close and accurate knowledge of the pub- lic life and the development of Sioux City and of northwestern Iowa as has the subject of this review. During his early residence here he was clerk in the office of the county treas- urer and was very careful and efficient in the discharge of his duties as in every other posi- tion of life. From 1861 until 1866 he was county treasurer. In November, 1856, he served as foreman of the grand jury at the fall term of court, a session made memorable on account of this being the first time in which the court records were kept. He was the first assessor of Sioux City, and aside from his office holdings he has put forth earnest, effective and beneficial effort for the welfare, progress and development of this place. He was treasurer of the corporation which built the water works plant, and afterward turned it over to the con- trol of the city. The plant is a model and has often been referred to as an instance of suc- cessful municipal ownership. He was presi- dent of the Library & Building Association, which erected the magnificent stone building at the corner of Sixth and Douglas streets; was a charter member and officer of the Sioux City Academy of Science & Letters; and belonged to a number of other literary, scientific and so- cial organizations. He was also one of the chief spirits of the building of the First Con- gregational church and of the Samaritan Hos- pital. He made frequent and substantial con- tributions to the Samaritan Hospital, and also furnished and fitted up a room at the hospital which was called the Stone room. He was justly proud of the fact that he aided in build- ing the library building and the city hall, and his last public and official act on earth was to preside as chairman of the meeting of the Sioux City Academy of Science & Letters in that
splendid building. His death occurred sud- denly from heart failure on Tuesday, April 19, 1904, and one of the largest concourses of people ever seen in Sioux City was that which gathered at his bier, the best and last tribute of respect paid his memory. He was laid to rest with Masonic rites and a profusion of floral tokens indicated the warm friendship which had been entertained for him. In the funeral services his pastor said :
"Mr. Stone had in large measure the qual- ities called for in the type of citizen that makes a community rich. What is it you ask for in the citizen whom a city delights to honor ? You surely ask that he be a home maker, a home lover. Mr. Stone was pre-eminently these. His home was his shrine. His was the clean, unselfish life without which there can be no home. To the home he gave his best. For it he reserved his best. He made his home beautiful within and without. He enriched it with rare books which made him contemporary with the men of all ages, a true citizen of the world. Let the community prize its true home makers. It can not honor them too highly.
"How he measured up to the conceptions of a true man of public spirit, giving not only of his means, but lavishly of time and thought, in labors of love that brought no compensation, but that which always accompanies heroic sac- rifice, his colleagues in large enterprises vital to the community's welfare-like the establish- ment of the city water system and the erection of the city building-bear ready and ungrudg- ing testimony.
"The loss of this life to the community, af- fluent as it is in men tried and true, is great. To more than one home in our midst it is a loss irreparable. May those of the community still left in the ranks give yet more valiant serv- ice to make up, if possible, in a measure foi the comrade who has fallen. And may the God of all comfort have the stricken wife and children in His holy keeping, sustaining them in the tender embrace of the everlasting arms."
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W. F. MeQUITTY, M. D.
Dr. W. F. MeQuitty, who is one of the prom- inent members of the medical profession and the oldest practitioner in Correctionville and the northeastern part of the county, has re- sided here since March, 1883, and his pro- fessional skill and upright life have gained for him not only business success, but also the esteem and confidence of his fellow men. A native of Missouri, he was born in Boone county on the 13th of January, 1852, and is of Scotch lineage. His grandfather, David MeQuitty, was one of the early settlers of Mis- souri, establishing his home there in 1818. The father, A. J. MeQuitty, was also a native of Missouri, born in Howard county. There he was reared, spending the days of his child- hood and youth in attendance at the public schools and in assisting in the work of the farm. He afterward removed to Boone coun- ty, Missouri, where he was married to Miss Elizabeth Hawkins, a native of Kentucky. He still resides upon the farm there and is now a hale and hearty old man of seventy-eight years. He lost his wife, however, in 1898. They were the parents of three children, of whom two are still living, the brother of Dr. MeQuitty being J. D. MeQuitty, of Columbia, Missouri.
In the usual manner of farmer lads of that locality and period Dr. McQuitty was reared to manhood in Boone county, Missouri. He attended the University of Missouri, but after completing his junior year was taken ill with measles which left him with chronic laryngitis and poor health generally. He was ill for almost a year and consequently did not com- plete his academic course. He has kept up his scientific and literary studies, however, through the perusal of scientific and medical works by the leading authors of the day. After completing his literary education he took up the study of medicine in the same institution, pursuing his first course of lectures in 1878 and gradnating with the class of 1879. IIe began practice in Woodlandville, where he con-
tinued for about four years and in March, 1883, he came to lowa, opening an office in Correc- tionville, where he has since remained in active practice, his business extending over a radius of ten or fifteen miles. Almost from the be- ginning of his residence here he has enjoyed a very extensive patronage and his practice in the year 1903 was greater than ever before. He pursued a post-graduate course in the Post- Graduate School of Chicago in 1898 and he is a member of the Woodbury County Medical Society, the Sioux Valley Medical Association, the Northwestern Iowa Association and the Iowa State Medical Society. He takes a very active interest in his profession from the sci- entific standpoint and from the humanitarian standpoint as well, and he has carried help and hope into many a household in the north- western part of the county. He is well known to the medical profession throughout the state and has gained an enviable reputation as one of its most able and learned representatives.
On the 23d of June, 1887, at Malvern, Iowa, Dr. MeQuitty was married to Miss Rachel M. Brannian, a native of Ireland, who was reared and educated in Illinois and Iowa. She be- came a teacher iu the schools of Correctionville and was well known here because of her ex- cellent work in behalf of the public school sys- tem. Two children have been born unto Dr. and Mrs. McQuitty, Fielding and Fanny.
Dr. MeQuitty gives his political allegiance to the Jeffersonian Democracy and cast his first presidential vote for Samuel J. Tilden in 1876, while his last vote was cast for W. J. Bryan. He has never sought or desired public office, but has always been a warm friend of progress and improvement and has been especially act- ive in support of good schools. He is now serving for the fourth term as a director of the city schools of Correctionville and is president of the board. Dr. MeQnitty is a member of the Baptist church, while his wife belongs to the Congregational church. He is likewise a Master Mason and he and his wife are con-
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nected with the Eastern Star. He also belongs to the Modern Woodmen Camp and to the Knights of Pythias Lodge. He is well known as a successful practitioner of western Iowa, as a man of good business ability and a public- spirited citizen. He has built and improved residence property in Correctionville and he takes an active and helpful interest in the ad- vancement and upbuilding of this place, where he is widely known as a man of integrity and moral worth.
JUDGE G. W. WAKEFIELD.
George Washington Wakefield, who since 1886 has occupied the position of district judge of the fourth judicial district of Iowa, is a representative member of the Sioux City bar, whose career has conferred honor upon the peo- ple who have honored him. He comes of a family distinctively American in both direct and collateral lines and his ancestry is traced back through eight generations to John Wake- field, who was a shipwright and boatman and re- sided in Boston, Massachusetts, where he died in the year 1667. His son, John Wakefield, was born in 1640, also became a shipwright, made his home in Boston and died in the year 1703. He was the father of John Wakefield, third, who followed in the business footsteps of the preceding members of the family and whose birth occurred in 1668, while his death occurred in 1735. His son Joseph Wakefield was born in Massachusetts in 1701 and died in 1732. He was the father of Thomas Wakefield, the great- great-grandfather of Judge Wakefield, who was born in Boston, August 5, 1727, and died in Amherst, New Hampshire, in 1791. He had followed the dual pursuit of carpentering and farming. The great-grandfather, Joseph Wake- field, was born in Reading, Massachusetts, May 9, 1752, followed the occupation of farm- ing as a life work, served as a member of the Patriot army in the Revolutionary war and was
in the memorable battle of Bunker Hill. He died in Windsor, Vermont, in June, 1827. His son, Joseph Wakefield, the grandfather of Judge Wakefield, was born in Amherst, New Hampshire, October 7, 1779, carried on agri- cultural pursuits, founded the family in the Empire state and died in Watertown, New York, May 6, 1842. Orin Wakefield, the fa- ther, was born in Watertown, New York, August 27, 1808, and died in DeWitt, Illinois, May 3, 1885. He, too, had carried on agricul- tural pursuits.
Early generations of the family were identi- fied with shipbuilding, but later generations were representatives of agricultural life, and it was upon the home farm which his father estab- lished in Illinois that Judge Wakefield was reared, early becoming familiar with the duties and labors that fall to the lot of the agricultur- ist. He attended school during the winter months and from the time of early spring planting until crops were harvested in the late autumn he spent his time in the fields. It is a well established fact that the strongest men of the nation have passed their boyhood days amid rural surroundings or in small country towns and from such environment they seem to gain a strength of purpose and a character that forms a splendid foundation for accom- plishment in later manhood. In his eighteenth year Judge Wakefield entered the preparatory department of Lombard University at Gales- burg, Illinois, remaining in school for a year and thereafter attending for an occasional term as he found opportunity, thus pursuing an elective course. He gave special prominence to the study of mathematies, in which branch he displayed exceptional ability. He was a young man of twenty-one years when, on the 27th of July, 1861, in response to his country's call for aid he enlisted in Company F of the Forty-first Illinois Infantry as a private soldier and on the 7th of August, following, he was mustered into the United States service with the rank of cor- poral. On the 9th of October, 1861, he was sent
Valefield. District Judge
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to the hospital with a severe attack of fever, from which he did not recover in time to join his regiment until the latter part of February, 1862. He then remained with his command until after the expiration of his three years' term of service, when he was mustered out on the 20th of Angust, 1864, with the rank of first sergeant. He participated in a number of important engagements, including the battle of Shiloh and the siege of Corinth, Vicksburg and Jackson. IIe was wounded in the charge of Lamman's brigade at Jackson, Mississippi, July 12, 1863, and experienced all the hardships and difficulties incident to military service.
After being mustered out Judge Wakefield resumed his studies in Lombard University and enjoyed an uninterrupted course of one year. He afterward engaged in teaching for two or three terms in the country school and devoted his leisure hours upon the farm to reading law, going twice a month to the county seat to re- view his studies under Hon. Henry S. Greene. At the end of two years' study he had gained a proficiency in legal lore that secured his admnis- sion to the bar and he was admitted to practice by the supreme court of Illinois in January, 1868. Believing that the west would furnish broader scope for his expanding powers as a lawyer, Judge Wakefield started for Sioux City, Iowa, in February with the fixed intention of making this place his home. He arrived on the 6th of March and has continuously been a resident of this city, where he has won high honors in his profession and has gained reeogni- tion not only as a leading representative of the bar but also as a man whose loyal citizenship and worth of character have made him a vahi- able addition in community interests. Having had no offiee experience at the time of his ar- rival here, he secured a desk in the office of Judge Pendleton and devoted himself to the further mastery of law principles and the build- ing up of a practice. Like all who became connected with the bar, he had to demonstrate his ability ere winning any large number of
clients and in 1869, in order to help out his rather limited finances, he gladly accepted the position of auditor of Woodbury county, to which office he was elected by popular suf- frage. In 1871 he was re-elected and then from 1874 until 1884, inclusive, he continued actively in the practice of his profession with a constantly growing clientage of continuously increasing importance. During this period he demonstrated his ability to cope with the most intricate problems of the law and having won publie confidence he was in 1884 elected cir- cuit judge for the second cirenit of the fourth judicial district. In 1886 he was elected dis- triet judge, which office he still holds, having been re-elected on the expiration of each suc- cessive term. In his new field of labor Judge Wakefield displayed the same characteristics that had won the confidence and respect of his associates on the bench and at the bar, and that had already made him a conspicuous figure in the legal world-namely, solid intellectual ability, thorough knowledge of the law, great fairness, and a personal bearing that combined dignity and firmness with unfailing courtesy.
On the 29th of October, 1873, Judge Wake- field was married to Miss Kate Pendleton, who died in 1880 at the age of thirty-six years, leaving three children, but Hiram Pendleton, the second child, died in 1882. The surviving son and daughter are Albert Orin and Bertha.
Amid a large circle of friends Judge Wake- field is widely known and his personal char- aeteristics are familiar to many of these. Ile possesses fine social qualities and the ready taet which enables him to place others at case in his presence. When addressing an audience upon a momentous question his utterances ring with deep, sincere thought and candor and his ideas are presented with elearness and force. ITis reputation as an after-dinner speaker ranks him with the best in Iowa and, in fact, has made him known beyond the boundaries of this state. In matters of citizenship he has always dis- played marked loyalty and a devotion to the
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good of the majority. In fact, his life has ever been permeated by a patriotic spirit of that quiet, self-denying kind, which is working for the good of all in securing a better civil gov- ernment and which has not the plaudits of the crowd and the deep gratitude of the people as a reward for labor and self sacrifice. In the long run this kind works more for the good of the country than any other. It needs not the spirit of palpable danger or the excitement and fervor of war's alarms to arouse it; it is a con- stant force working for publie righteousness and it is this kind of patriotism that has been illustrated in Judge Wakefield's career and that has given him his weight in publie life.
JOHN CHARLES KELLY.
John Charles Kelly, whose business inter- ests, extensive and prosperous, have also con- tributed to the substantial progress and im- provement of the state, has since 1880 been connected with journalistic interests in Sioux City as editor of the Sioux City Tribune, and also as general manager of the Sioux City Printing Company, controlling an industry of considerable importance.
Mr. Kelly was born in Cortland, New York, February 26, 1852. His paternal grandfather was a business man of Ireland and his son, Thomas C. Kelly, born in Ireland, completed his edneation in the University of Edinburg, Scotland, after which he spent several years in travel. Two of his uncles held commissions in the British Army but Thomas Kelly was educated for the pursuits of civil life and came to the United States in December, 1849. He wedded Mary Kelly, who, although of the same name and a native of Ireland, was not a rel- ative. Her father was a farmer of Ireland and married a Scotch woman, Mary Graham. They became farming people of the state of New York, and after his marriage Thomas Kelly engaged in the same pursuit and that
of civil engineering, but at the beginning of the Civil war he put aside all business inter- ests and personal considerations and in response to the president's first call for volunteers he tendered his services, raised a segment of a company and was commissioned a lieutenant. He had become a naturalized American citizen and took a deep interest in public affairs, ally- ing himself with the Douglas wing of the Dem- ocratie party.
John C. Kelly strongly desired to enter the army in whatever capacity possible and in 1862 went to Washington, arriving there in time to witness "MeClellan's Grand Review." but his extreme youth thwarted his desire.
On the 23d of May, 1873, when twenty-one years of age, Mr. Kelly removed to Iowa to enter the service of Mills & Company, state printers at that time. Mr. Kelly organized the first building association in Iowa, at Des Moines, and became the first secretary of the association. He also read law while living in Des Moines, in the law offices of Connor & Davis, under the direction of Judge William Connor, and likewise engaged in merchandis- ing, thus becoming identified with many lines of activity which contributed to the material development and business improvement of the city, but eventually he returned to the printing business and purchased an interest in the Daily State Leader, of which he became one of the editors. Three years later Mr. Kelly disposed of his interest in that paper and removed to Sioux City, having purchased the Sioux City Weekly Tribune. In 1884 he established the Sioux City Daily Tribune, of which he is the editor and proprietor and during the same year he organized the Sioux City Printing Company, which has grown into a large manufacturing establishment, dealing in printers' supplies and doing an auxiliary publishing business.
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