USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 101
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and has been a life-long democrat. At the age of twenty years he "stumped " the counties of Johnson and Iowa in the interest of James Buchanan. His first public office was that of alderman of the town of Marengo in 1860. In the same year he was a deputy United States marshal, and took the census of Iowa county. In 1861 he was nominated for the office of state senator for his county, but declined the candidacy. In 1864 he was a delegate-at-large to the national convention at Chicago which nomi- nated General McClellan for the Presidency. He was also a delegate to the national convention of 1866 at Philadelphia; also a delegate to the conven- tion at New York which nominated Seymour and Blair in 1868; a member of the Iowa state central committee for five or six years; was mayor of Dav- enport in 1873, and in 1874 was elected to represent the city of Davenport in the state senate and is still a member of that body. In the autumn of 1874 he lacked but one vote of receiving the congressional nomination of his party in the second district. In 1876 he was nominated by his party for that posi- tion, and ran against Hon. Hiram Price, making a gallant fight, but was defeated. He led the balance of the democratic ticket, however, by sixteen hun- dred votes, and received four thousand more votes than the successful candidate in 1874.
He is now attorney for the Life Assurance Asso- ciation of America, at Saint Louis, Missouri, which is one of the largest and most prosperous companies in the northwest. He is likewise a stockholder and director in the Davenport water-works, and is in- terested in various other corporations. In religion he is liberal.
On the 10th of May, 1859, he married Miss Mary Green, daughter of Samuel Green, a native of Eng- land. She was raised a Quaker, is a graduate of the Iowa University and a lady of culture and refine- ment. They have two children, Timothy and Jesse, both still in infancy.
Mr. Murphy is a gentleman of considerable ge- nius, wit, brilliancy and dash, characteristics derived from the Irish element in his composition. He is, moreover, hospitable, generous and open-hearted. As an entertainer he has but few equals in the west. His character in this regard will be more readily in- ferred from the fact that his home is the general stopping-place of politicians of all parties. It is no uncommon thing for opposing candidates to meet at his house as guests while seeking favors and support from friends of their respective political parties.
As a lawyer, he is full of expedients, but generally tries his cases on their merits, without resorting to subterfuges.
BENJAMIN GREENE,
ADEL.
A pioneer in Dallas county, Iowa, an enterprising man, and at an early day a member of the leg- islature, Benjamin Greene is well worthy of a place among the old settlers who are men of mark in the state. He comes from very old New England stock, the ancestor of the family settling in Newport, Rhode Island, a few years after the collapse of the English commonwealth. His name was originally Clark ; he was a distinguished nobleman ; a military officer un- der Cromwell, and when Charles the Second came to the throne, fled to the West Indies, and thence to Rhode Island. General Nathaniel Greene belonged to this branch of the family, and was a near relative of Silas Greene, the father of Benjamin. Silas was eighteen when the revolutionary war closed (1783), and two years before that date was wounded while aiding to clean out a squad of tories near Newport.
Benjamin Greene was born in Richfield, Otsego
county, New York, on the 4th of March, 1819. His mother was Deborah Brown, who sprung from a very early Massachusetts family. Silas Greene moved to the vicinity of Oswego, on Lake Ontario, when Ben- jamin was four years old. There the son was reared on his father's farm, picking up a fair education in the common schools, and beginning to teach during the winters when only sixteen years of age.
In 1838, anxious to see the west, he came out as far as Belvidere, Illinois, farming four seasons and teach- ing two winters; returned to Oswego in 1842, and read law and taught school until the spring of 1846, when he came to Iowa, taught a few months at Utica, Van Buren county, and then two years at Keokuk.
Mr. Greene first saw Adel, his present home, in April, 1849, when the village consisted of perhaps half-a-dozen log cabins, one of them having a few shelf goods, and another a generous stock of tobacco
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and whisky. He took up a claim one mile south of town and commenced digging a cellar, thinking. to locate there, but changed his mind and built in town. Here he sold goods five or six years, in the early part of this period purchasing the claim of the land on which he resides, adjoining the corporation on the south. He has a little over two hundred acres of land, one fourth of it timber, the rest devoted to agri- culture and horticulture, thirty-five acres in orchard. For the last sixteen or seventeen years Mr. Greene has given his attention mainly to nursery and fruit- growing, and has done a great deal to encourage fruit-raising in the county. In his nursery he raises none but the hardy varieties of trees, and they are being scattered all over the country.
Mr. Greene was elected school-fund commissioner about 1850; served one term, and during that time disposed of a large quantity of the lands in Dallas county selected for that purpose. In 1852, and again in 1856, he was elected a member of the legislature, attending in his second term the last session ever held in Iowa City. He has served several times in
the board of supervisors and on the school board, and is an eminently practical and efficient business man.
Mr. Greene is of federal stock in politics, voted the whig ticket in his early manhood, was a republi- can from 1856 to 1872, and has since been ranked among the independents. In religion he is equally independent. He is a great reader of scientific works, and forms his opinions therefrom.
Mr. Greene was joined in wedlock with Miss Per- melia C. Sturges, of Van Buren county, Iowa, on the IIth of October, 1848, and they have five children, four daughters and one son. Ada is the wife of Will- liam S. Russell, of Perry, Dallas county ; Mary is the wife of John B. White, an attorney of Adel, and Em- ma and Arletta are single. Sturges H., an attorney, has a family and lives at Adel. He graduated at the Iowa Law School. The daughters are all well edu- cated.
Mr. Greene has a family relic which he has seen fit to preserve - a calf-skin pocket-book purchased by his father in 1782, and presented to the son in 1838.
COLONEL GEORGE DUFFIELD,
BLOOMFIELD.
G EORGE DUFFIELD comes of good blood, his grandfather, William Duffield, with a broth- er, being in the revolutionary army. The Duffields are old Pennsylvania and Maryland stock, the father of George moving into eastern Ohio at an early day. His wife, who was born in Jefferson county, Ohio, on the 12th of February, 1828, was Barbara Roop, of Pennsylvania-German pedigree. When George was sixteen years of age, having received a fair common- school education, he accompanied his parents to Iowa; and, after spending one year in Van Buren county, in 1845 they settled in Davis county, where William Duffield yet lives, being in his eightieth year. His wife died in 1875.
George aided his father in opening a farm in Lake Creek township; commenced teaching winter schools when about eighteen, following that occupation two or three seasons; in 1850 moved into town; clerked two years in a general store, then went into the mer- cantile trade for himself and has continued this busi- ness ever since, except when in the military service.
In the summer of 1861 Mr. Duffield enrolled a company for the 3d Iowa Cavalry ; was elected cap-
tain of company E; at the end of one year was pro- moted to major ; at the end of another year to lieu- tenant-colonel, in that capacity serving until near the close of the war. Toward the end of its first term of enlistment Lieutenant-Colonel Duffield was detailed as enlisting officer, and more than seven hundred members of the regiment reënlisted.
During his term of service Colonel Duffield shared in all the hardships and perils of the regiment; had the command of it during the last two years, yet never received a wound that disabled him for an hour. This military record is creditable alike to him and the state.
The colonel is still in trade, being one of the older class of merchants in Bloomfield. He has had his ups and downs, but has, on the whole, had a fair de- gree of success.
He was recorder and treasurer of Davis county from 1855 to 1857, and was a member of the county board of supervisors when the civil war commenced, resigning that office to enter the army. In civil office as well as military he has been faithful and trust- worthy.
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At an early day Colonel Duffield was a democrat, and voted for Stephen A. Douglas for President in 1860. Since that time he has been an ardent, un- wavering republican ; but, though firm in his political principles, he lets nothing interfere with attention to business.
He is a Knight Templar among the Freemasons.
Religiously, he has a partiality for the Methodist church, where he is an attendant, his wife being a member of it. She was Miss Nancy J. Strahan, of Bloomfield, formerly of Henderson county, Illinois. They were united in matrimony on the 21st of Au- gust, 1851, and of four children born to them only one is now living.
AUGUSTUS BORCHERS,
HAMBURG.
A UGUSTUS BORCHERS, the man who laid out Hamburg and gave it its name, is a native of Hanover, Germany, and was born on the 26th of Au- gust, 1817, his parents being Frederic William and Amelia Steffen Borchers. His father died when the son was but four years old. He attended school un- til he was fourteen, and was then apprenticed to the mercantile business, serving until twenty years of age. In 1837 he came to the United States ; was two years employed in a store in Baltimore, Maryland, and in 1839 removed to Weston, Platte county, Missouri. There he engaged in mercantile trade in company with an elder brother, George Borchers. A few months later he went to Holt county, in the same state, and opened the first store in that county, his brother having an interest in it.
In August, 1840, he settled on the banks of the Missouri river, in Atchison county, and after trading two or three years with the Indians, the country be- ginning to settle up, he relinquished trade awhile, made a claim, and engaged in agricultural pursuits. He was thus employed when, on the 15th of May, 1846, the Mexican war being in progress, and the governor calling for troops, he enlisted as a private in company C, Missouri Mounted Volunteers, and served until the war closed.
Returning to Missouri, Mr. Borchers clerked in a store at Linden, Atchison county ; continued there until the spring of 1850, and then came to Iowa, be- fore Fremont county was surveyed and organized. He traded a short time at a place called " Forks-of- the-road," between the points where Hamburg and Sidney now stand; and in the autumn of the same year, when Sidney was selected for the county seat, he moved thither, built the first store, was appointed the first postmaster, and continued in business there five years. In 1857 Mr. Borchers laid out Hamburg, naming it for Hamburg in his native country. That
year he put up the dwelling-house in which he now lives- the first building of that kind in the place. Here he was engaged in the hardware business seven years, being in the firm of C. A. Danforth and Co. Since 1864 he has dealt in real estate, and has been eminently successful in his varied operations. His accumulations have been made by fair and honora- ble means, all his dealings with his fellow-men being in accordance with the strictest principles of integ- rity. He has always made it a rule to encourage settlement, and hence has sold property at low figures.
At an early day, while a frontier merchant, Mr. Borchers had one or two narrow escapes from death on the Missouri river. One time, while taking a load of potatoes down the river on a flatboat, it struck a snag, went to pieces, and he hung to a limb in the water four hours, and was finally picked up by some French mountaineers.
Mr. Borchers was in early life an old-line whig, and when that party dissolved he joined the democ- racy, with which party he still acts. He has frequent- ly been importuned to accept political office, but has sedulously refused. He is now treasurer of the school board, and in a quiet way is performing his duties faithfully as a citizen.
He is Lutheran in religious doctrine and belief, but there is no organization of the kind in Hamburg. He is a man of the purest moral character. He is a Master Mason, and secretary of the local lodge.
His wife was Miss Rosamound Nuckolls, of Vir- ginia ; married on the 12th of June, 1851. She had ten children, and died on the Ist of March, 1869. Five of her children are with her in the spirit world. Of the living, the eldest daughter, Elizabeth, is the wife of Edward H. Sweetser, of San Francisco, Cali- fornia. Albert is also married, and lives at Dead- wood, in the Black Hills country. The others, Carrie, Florence and George, are single.
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Mrs. Borchers was one of the constituent members of the Baptist churches at Sidney and Hamburg, an active, christian woman and an affectionate and true mother. She was an invalid for many years, but never failed to remember the poor.
In 1870 Mr. Borchers made a trip to Germany, tak- ing with him his eldest daughter, whose name is first mentioned above, and three years later he made an- other trip, taking Albert with him.
While the old world is making some progress, Mr.
Borchers has lived to witness grand strides in that direction in the new.
He has seen Iowa double her population three or four times, Fremont county settled with enterprising and thrifty farmers, and Hamburg, which he founded twenty-one years ago, expand into a city of three thousand inhabitants. The father of the place, and one of the prime movers in making it what it is, he is held in very high respect by its citizens, and by the people generally of Fremont county.
WILLIAM GORDON,
MUSCATINE.
T HERE are few lives of Americans which afford to the pencil so great a variety of shade and color, such opportunities for bold foregrounds and lengthened vistas, such temptations to paint the poe- try rather than the plain prose of life, as the career of William Gordon; the descendant of Scotland's proud dukes of Gordon, of Gordon Castle, and on his mother's side boasting the blue blood of the equally distinguished house of Ogilvie. The son of John Gordon and Margaret Ogilvie, he was born in the parish of Keith, Banffshire, Scotland, on the 12th of June, 1814. Gordon Castle, the home of his pa- ternal ancestry, is familiar to students and travel- ers; the Ogilvie farm, which is known as the mains (manse) of Glengerrick, where William passed his boyhood, is scarcely overshadowed in importance by its battlemented neighbor. Here the Ogilvies have lived for a score of generations, and as the last pro- prietor, William Ogilvie, the grandsire of William Gordon, had a family of eleven sons and three daugh- ters, all but one of whom have grown to man's and woman's estate, and some of whom are blessed with large families, it is probable that the old manse will remain with the Ogilvies for all time to come.
Little of the affluence or splendor of either castle or manse was reflected upon the pathway of William Gordon. Neither of his parents stood in the line of inheritance, and their children were early taught to be the architects of their own fortunes. Accordingly we find William apprenticed at an early age to the carpenter's trade, devoting five and a half years to that initiatory service. Then came a year all his own, which ended with the resolve to change the pent-up life of Scotland for the freedom of America. In the winter of 1833, being then nineteen years of age, he
embarked with the sailing ship Universe for New York, and after a long and perilous voyage, during which his ship was twice dismasted, he stepped upon the shores of the new world. Here he sought James Gordon Bennett, a former near neighbor of the fam- ily in Scotland, and was directed by him to the ex- tensive shops of Hon. Richard White, where he found instant employment, and after eight months' service as journeyman was promoted foreman of the works. Among the notable buildings constructed under his foremanship, was the Astor House, erected in 1835.
On the Ist of August, 1836, he resigned his position with Mr. White, and with a certificate from this gen- tlemen of which few carpenters at that day could boast, pursued his way westward until he struck the forest site of the present city of Muscatine. At this time Muscatine (then called Bloomington) had. but twelve white inhabitants; it was better known to the Indians, thousands of whom were making it their camping ground. Mr. Gordon has lived to see the twelve white faces multiplied to twelve thousand, and to maintain his rank as the first carpenter to locate in the place, nearly one-half of the city having been built by his hands, or under his superintendence.
The most notable event connected with Mr. Gor- don's pioneer life in Iowa occurred in 1839-40, on the breaking out of the " Missouri war." This memora- ble war had its origin in a dispute between the states of Missouri and Iowa over a strip of land claimed by Van Buren county, Iowa. In 1839 the governor of Missouri sent the sheriff of Clark county to col- lect the taxes assessed against the disputed territory, and in November of the same year Governor Lucas, of Iowa, ordered out his valiant militia to repel the in- vasion. Colonel John Vanatta, at Muscatine, was
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.commissioned to enlist all the able-bodied men of his county, and move them to the front, and on the rst of December there were mustered at Muscatine about a hundred of the bravest men that ever shoul- dered a musket. At three o'clock, on a day early in December, Colonel Vanatta's force formed into line, and stepping off in the face of a blinding snow- storm to the music of "The Girl I Left Behind Me," began its perilous march. Of this command Lieutenant William Gordon, in the sickness and ab- sence of Captain Norman Fullington, was acting cap- tain, and was only ranked by Colonel Vanatta.
On the third day the troops crossed Iowa river on the ice, hauling the wagons across by hand. Soon after ascending the bluff beyond Wapello the mail stage was met, the driver of which handed a'letter to Colonel Vanatta. The colonel read and passed it to his adjutant, John Marble, requesting him to " read it to the brave soldiers who had fought, bled and didn't die." The letter contained the glad tid- ings that the Hon. Stephen Whicher, of Muscatine, with his colleague, as commissioners appointed by Governor Lucas to settle the dispute, had signed articles of peace with the Missouri commissioners, agreeing to refer the casus belli to the arbitration of congress. The letter added that Colonel Vanatta's army was to continue its march toward Burling- ton, when it would be met by Captain Grimes (after- ward governor and United States senator), and be escorted by his company to the capital of the state. The line of march was taken up, Captain Grimes and his company were duly met, and under this escort the Muscatine boys were proudly conducted to the city and to the state house, where a bountiful spread was laid for them by the ladies of Burlington. Lodging in the capitol building that night, they vacated it the next morning to make way for the legislature which had been convened for that day. And now Mr. Hast- ings exchanged his position, as volunteer staff officer of General Fletcher, for his seat in the legislature, the army turned its face homeward and the Missouri war lived only in history. It may be added that congress finally settled the bloodless dispute in favor of Iowa.
On the 21st of October, 1840, Captain Gordon united himself in marriage with Miss Eliza Hannah Magoon, daughter of Isaac and Hannah Magoon, of Ware, Massachusetts, who emigrated to Zanesville, Ohio, in 1827, and to Warsaw, Illinois, in 1837, re- moving to Bloomington, Iowa, in 1839 ; of this union there were issue one son and four daughters, namely,
William A., Addie M., Mary E., Agnes S. and Clara Eliza. The son was wounded at the battle of Shi- loh on the 6th of April, 1862, and died from his wounds after years of intense suffering, on the 8th of July, 1866, in the twenty-third year of his age. After the partial recovery of his wound he served for two years as postmaster of the seventeenth army corps. Clara E. died on the 21st of January, 1863, at the age of thirteen years. The other three daughters are living, and married. Addie M. is the wife of Captain John H. Monroe, adjutant on the staff of General McPherson during the late war, and now clerk of the circuit and district courts of Muscatine. Mary E. is the wife of M. L. Mikesell, Esq., of At- tica, Indiana, and Agnes Seleucia is the wife of Will- iam M. Kincaide, Esq.
In the summer of 1857 Captain Gordon stood as the democratic candidate for sheriff in his county, and was successful in overcoming the strong repub- lican majority in the county, being elected by a very complimentary vote. The principal incident con- nected with his shrievalty, reflecting the highest cred- it upon his sagacity and resolution, was his discovery and arrest of the notorious counterfeiter William Shannon.
In 1859 Captain Gordon received his nomination for a second term, and was reëlected sheriff by an overwhelming majority. He continued in office until the close of his term, and retired to private life with the well-earned title of "the model sheriff of Iowa." Subsequently he has served his city and township in three different terms as assessor, acquitting himself with the praise of all honest-minded citizens.
In the order of Free and Accepted Masons Mr. Gordon has borne a distinguished part. He became a member of the order in 1850, and early won the initials of W. M. In the winter of 1854-55, with three other companions, he visited Chicago and re- ceived the red cross and templar knighthood from Apollo Commandery, No. 1. The accolade was con- ferred by Sir Knight J. V. Z. Blaney, then eminent commander. On returning to Muscatine, Sir Knight Gordon helped to organize the De Molay Command- ery, No. 1, the first commandery in the State of Iowa. He subsequently filled important offices in the chap- ter and commandery.
A darker shadow than had ever overcast the home of William Gordon fell across its threshold on the 8th of August, 1872. On this day died his wife, a leader and one of the most accomplished members of Muscatine society.
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In politics, Mr. Gordon has always been a democrat of the Jeffersonian school. In his religious views, he is a believer in the faith of the Church of Scotland.
In physique, Mr. Gordon presents a hardy Scotch frame, powerfully knit, six feet in height, and present- ing now, at the age of sixty-three, the elasticity and vigor of robust manhood. The same flexibility mixed
with strength mark the phases of his character. Stern and unyielding in the performance of duty, no one delights more in the kind and social offices of life. A devoted husband, an indulgent father, a steadfast friend, a faithful officer, William Gordon well merits the wide and deep esteem of his large circle of friends.
GEORGE W. CROOKS,
BOONE.
O NE of the self-educated lawyers of Boone county, and one of the best known men in the same locality, is George Washington Crooks, who first saw the light of this world in Vigo county, Indiana, on the 22d of July, 1836. His father, Jacob Crooks, was a farmer and soldier in the war of 1812-15, and his grandfather was in the first con- test with the mother country. The Crooks ances- tors were from Germany, settling in Pennsylvania prior to the revolution. The mother of George W. was Hannah Croy, also of German descent, of whose ancestors little else is known. When he was nine years old the family immigrated to Iowa, and after remaining on a farm two years at Fairfield, Jeffer- son county, removed to Boone county.
George farmed until seventeen, and then worked for several seasons in a grist and saw mill, earning a little money and then spending it in securing a com- mon-school education. He was quite studious in boyhood, and picked up a good deal of knowledge out of school during his leisure hours.
In 1861 Mr. Crooks was commissioned first lieu- tenant of a company in an independent regiment, which was finally mustered in as the roth Iowa In- fantry, rendezvoused with the regiment at Iowa City, and there became sick and was finally discharged.
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