USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 104
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county, where he taught school for two years; also spent some time in surveying during the interim. In 1854 he was elected clerk of the district court, which office he held for five consecutive years, studying law at the same time, and was admitted to the bar at Indianola in 1857 and practiced steadily until the second year of the rebellion.
In 1862 Mr. Maxwell went into the army as bri- gade commissary, but at the end of about one year his health failed and he was obliged to resign. Re- turning to Indianola, he resumed practice ; in 1864 was elected attorney of the district embracing Polk
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and nine other counties; at the end of two years he was appointed judge, to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Judge J. H. Gray; in the autumn of the same year (1866) was elected for a term of four years; was reëlected in 1870 for another term, leav- ing the bench on the 31st of December, 1874.
On resuming legal practice, Judge Maxwell locat- ed at the capital, where he is still to be found, and is among the foremost attorneys at the Polk county bar. He does business in all the state and federal courts.
To the lovers of justice the administration of Judge Maxwell was especially satisfactory. To the violators of the liquor law and to criminals he sought to mete out the punishment which they merited. In all cases his sympathies were with the injured.
Judge Maxwell usually affiliates with the repub- lican party, but never knowingly votes for a man of bad habits. He is a strong advocate of the temper- ance cause.
He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, a man of unbending integrity, and is living a consistent christian life.
The judge has had two wives. The first was Miss Mary L. Johnston, of Indianola; married in 1853. She died two years afterward, leaving one son, Trenck J., now a merchant in Olathe, Kansas. The present wife of the judge was Mrs. Frances F. Fox, of Indianola; married in June, 1856. She has had four children, three of them yet living, Mary B., a teacher in Des Moines ; Sallie F. and Franc W. are being educated in the public schools.
CHARLES E. HEDGES,
SIOUX CITY.
C' HARLES E. HEDGES, deceased, was a son of Nathaniel G. Hedges, and was born in Switzerland county, Indiana, on the 21st of June, 1834. He remained in that state until his nineteenth year, receiving an academic education. He was the eldest child of the family, which moved to Keokuk, Iowa, in December, 1856. Attracted by the geo- graphical location of Sioux City, then recently sur- veyed and laid out, and its favorable situation as a business point, a month or two after reaching Iowa Charles E. and his father came to this place and opened a real-estate office. A younger brother, Dan- iel T., followed in April.
In the autumn of 1857 the subject of this sketch formed a partnership with J. W. Bosler in a private bank. During the same autumn Mr. Hedges was elected county recorder and treasurer, which office he held by reëlection four years, making, as he did in every kind of business through life, a clean record.
In 1860 the Hedges brothers went into the mer- cantile trade, which was continued for eight years. Charles, meantime, in 1861, was appointed trader at the Yankton Agency, holding it for six years, and residing there the greater part of the time. During the year 1866 he also filled the place of sutler at Fort Randall.
From 1868 until his death, in 1877, Mr. Hedges resided in Sioux City, all this time in partnership with his brother Daniel in various enterprises.
Among these were contracts for carrying the mail to Fort Sully and to points in Minnesota, and for furnishing military and Indian supplies for the United States government; dealing in cattle and grain as well as real estate; running an elevator and a steam flouring mill, and building the Woodbury county court-house and railroads. Mr. Hedges was one of the original projectors and owners of the Covington, Columbus and Black Hills railroad, holding the office of treasurer of the company for some time, and at the time of his death he was one of the directors of the new company. He and his brother contracted for and graded thirty-six miles of this road a short time before his death.
During some of these years, as we learn from the Sioux City "Journal," from which we glean several of these facts, the business of Hedges Brothers amounted to more than half a million dollars. That daily paper, in speaking of his death, in its issue of the 15th of August, 1877, says :
The occasion of Charles' death was contingent upon the circumstance that he was at the time engaged in filling a cattle contract with the Indian department, in which he had a one-fourth interest; and it is owing to the constant personal attention the Hedges Brothers gave their business, what- ever it might be, that led him to be there. They never shrank from the most arduous work, and no laborer in their employ ever gave so many hard hours a day to their busi- ness as they did themselves. Being men of very strong physical build, they have been able to stand what would long ago have taken down almost any other men.
Mr. Hedges died on the 9th of August, 1877.
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He was found about twenty-five miles southeast of Lower Brule Agency, on the west side of the Missouri river. He was traveling up the river in charge of his herd of five thousand cattle, and left the herd, going alone in his wagon to hunt a new trail to the agency, saying he would get into Brule Agency and return to the herd next day with pro- visions. Not returning as agreed, search was diligently made for him, and three days later his body was found a short distance from where he had left the herd. He was shot through the head. Everything was found in the buggy, not a single article of any kind missing. The general belief is that it was an accident; in what way happening can never be known. His pi-tol was found with two empty cart- ridges, one of which he exploded before he left the party ; the other it is rot unlikely he discharged by accident, by the revolver falling off the seat on the back of the buggy, and striking with the hammer on the side of the box.
At the time of his death Mr. Hedges was a mem- ber of the city council and a director of the State Agricultural Society.
He left a second wife to mourn her great loss. His first wife was Miss Mary L. Krutz; married at Flor- ence, Indiana, in December, 1868. She died in July, 1870. On the 9th of January, 1873, he was married to Miss Emma Quintrel, of Cleveland, Ohio,
He was buried by the Freemasons.
There was everywhere observable a spirit which showed the sorrow that filled the hearts of the community. . . . It was a tribute to the memory of a man the vacancy of whose position will for years be a potent reminder that a head and heart and hand are still that thought and telt and worked for the benefit of the community of which their possessor was a member.
He was, no doubt, the most energetic man that helped to make Sioux city what it is, the great com- mercial city of northwestern Iowa.
A few months after the burial of Mr. Hedges his remains were taken to Spring Grove cemetery, Cin- cinnati, Ohio.
The "Commercial Gazette," of Sioux City, thus spoke of Mr. Hedges at the time of his demise :
Dame Nature rarely grants to one community more than one such man; and by his death there certainly exists in the commercial ranks of Sioux City a vacancy which no other man can fill. With the body of a Hercules, the cour- age of a lion, the great force of character which made for him a fortune and a name, he has done for this community in the way of public advancement more than any other man could do. On both sides of the Missouri, from Council Bluffs to Niobrara, over the broad prairies of Dakota terri- tory, on the homesteads of northwestern Iowa and northern Nebraska the common verdict presses itself home to human hearts that his death was a public calamity.
Like all men of tremendous mental force, he had his ene- mies. The selfish and the envious ones lagging behind him in the race of fortune envied him who was so much their superior. But those who knew his warm and generous nature best loved him best. He leaves a fond wife, a brother, father and sisters to mourn his tragic death.
The same paper contained a metrical tribute to the memory of Mr. Hedges, concluding as follows:
" I weep not that the autumn leaves Are torn in fragments by the breeze ;
I weep not that the golden sheaves The sun in autumn fallen sees.
" I wecp that manhood in its prime Was torn from all that makes life sweet; That human life in summer time Its sad, untimely end should meet.
" And such a man-of giant form : A form that clad a mighty mind, With soul impetuous, brave and warm As ever dwelt in human kind.
" Sioux City, mourn your mighty son, That gave you much of power and pride, And grant him now, when life is done, The honor envy long denied.
" Green be the turf above his breast, And lightly o'er his grave the sod; And pray we that his soul may rest In peace eternal with his God."
JOSEPH T. BEEBE, M. D.,
AFTON.
N eminently self-made man, whose brief biogra- phy gives but an imperfect narrative of the many exploits of his early life, to which he now in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and in a perfect con- dition of health, adverts with more of the subject- matter of romance than of personal exploits.
It is only in the western section of the United States that such subjects are to be found. The self- imposed trials through which Dr. Beebe has passed should stimulate the young men of to-day, who have nothing but their innate courage to help them to ad- vancement in the social scale.
Our subject was born in Knox county, Ohio, on the 27th of June, 1821. His father was John Beebe, and his mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Tal- mage. The doctor has two brothers and two sisters now living. At the age of nine he commenced go- ing to a district school. He worked on the farm in the summer, and went to school in the winter months until he was seventeen, when he went to Dewit Academy, where he remained for seven months. From that time he worked upon the farm in the summer, taught school in the winter, and commenced the study of the preparatory course of medicine ;
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subsequently he read a regular course of medicine in the office of Dr. Page, at Delaware county, Ohio, with whom he remained till 1843, when he went to Cincinnati and registered at the Ohio Medical Col- lege, where he remained for two years under the faculty of said college, from which he graduated in March, 1845, then removed to Columbia City, Indi- ana, and commenced the practice of medicine.
At the time he left Cincinnati he owed fifty dol- lars on his tuition fee. He took stage to Saint Mary's, from which place, with less than three dol- lars in his pocket, he commenced his walk of sixty miles to Columbia City ; when he reached this place his finances were reduced to thirty-one cents, and he was a stranger in a strange land. He stopped at the hotel, and the next day made the acquaintance of one or two brother Methodists, to whom he ex- plained his desire to commence the practice of med- icine, but said nothing of his private impecunious- ness. Receiving encouragement from them, he re- turned to the hotel, then started for the home of a cousin, by marriage, who lived twenty-five miles dis- tant. He spent twenty-five of his thirty-one cents for food, begged his last meal at a farm-house, and finally reached his cousin's, to whom he told the story of his advent into Columbia City and his pros- pects there, and from whom he obtained a horse and bridle and ten dollars in cash ; and after resting him- self for a day or two he rode back to the hotel. He continued to board at this place, and at once built up a lucrative practice. This was in March. In the November following he returned to Knox county, Ohio. Here he remained for four weeks, and married Miss Philene Helt, of Sparta. His wife's father moved them to Columbia City. The father returned to Sparta, and young Dr. Beebe and wife went to housekeeping. Here they remained until October, 1847, when Mrs. Beebe's health declining they concluded to go to Mount Gilead, where the doctor bought property, commenced the practice of medicine, and remained there for seventeen years ; during which time he had born to him two boys and one girl. The latter, now Mrs. Rice, resides at Des Moines; the eldest son is in the wholesale drug busi- ness at Burlington, with the house of Reynolds and Churchill, and the youngest son is in business with his father at Afton. Though blessed with a very large and lucrative practice at Mount Gilead, Dr. Beebe conceived the idea of placing himself in such a position as better to advance the interests of his two sons, and with this in view he, together with
some seven other families, determined to go to Afton, Iowa. They were thirty-two days on the road, camp- ing out at night. Reaching Afton, then a hundred miles distant from any railway, he bought two hun- dred acres of land near Afton, which he commenced to improve.
In January, 1865, he bought a half interest in a drug store at Afton with Dr. Roberts, whom he sub- sequently entirely bought out.
. Early in the spring of 1866 he had built and oc- cupied his new home at the farm, intending to retire from medical practice, having sold his store during the preceding winter. But there was to be only a temporary respite from the cares of business. His old clients and new ones were continually importun- ing him to return to his practice. In the following October he sold his farm to good advantage, and concluded to remove to Brookfield, a division station on the Hannibal and Saint Joe railroad. Here he went into the drug business with his former partner, Dr. Roberts, and resumed his professional practice.
In 1868 Dr. Beebe returned to Afton, bought out a drug store, and commenced the construction of a dwelling, into which he moved in November follow- ing. At the same time he built a business block.
It was generally supposed at this time that Crom- well, sixteen miles from Afton, was to be made the division station of the Burlington and Missouri Riv- er railway, and Dr. Beebe also built a house and es- tablished a drug store at this point; but Cromwell was not made a division station, and the doctor con- fined his enterprises entirely to Afton, where he now built a fine building twenty by eighty feet, and two stories high, which he fitted up as the leading drug store of the town, which position it holds to the present day.
Dr. Beebe was among the first to enlist as a private on the call for three months' troops by the governor at the outbreak of the southern rebellion, but he was soon detached from the ranks and placed upon the medical staff.
Dr. Beebe has always taken a lively interest in agricultural matters and in the general improvement of stock. For seventeen years he has held office from secretary to president in such societies. The doctor has also given considerable attention to rail- way matters.
At a meeting of the stockholders of the Des Moines, Afton and Missouri railroad, held in Febru- ary, 1877, Dr. Beebe was unanimously chosen presi- dent of the road, a very proper choice, as the doc-
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tor has spent much of his time for the past year in raising stock for the road, and in looking after the general survey.
In May, 1875, the doctor determined upon the in- stitution of a national bank at Afton, and by con- stant and vigorous efforts succeeded in getting the capital stock subscribed.
In January, 1876, he was elected its president, and was reelected the succeeding year. He has been often elected to the city council, and has ever been very active in the cause of popular education.
In the summer of 1877 a company was organized to build the Saint Louis and Northwestern railway, to connect with the Chillicothe and Brunswick rail- way, to run to Storm Lake, in Iowa. From Saint Louis to Storm Lake is a distance of six hundred miles, two hundred and eighty-five miles are still to be built to complete all the connections. In this
road the doctor has five thousand dollars' worth of stock. Unsolicited by him the directors of this road have also elected him president.
Dr. Beebe was originally a whig in politics, then a republican. Voted for General Grant, but subse- quently voted for Horace Greeley, and is now a pronounced conservative, holding the individual merits of a nominee to be above the dogmatic creed of any party.
He has always been a confirmed Methodist in his religious views, and is an active member of that or- ganization.
It is to such men as Dr. Beebe that the great north- west is indebted for the giant strides it has made in developing its great natural resources. To a very active mind he adds great probity of character and a persistent will, and great energy in successful work- ing out everything he undertakes.
BENJAMIN F. GUE,
DES MOINES.
T THE subject of this sketch, a native of Greene county, New York, was born on the 25th of December, 1829, the son of John Gue and Catherine née Gurney. His paternal grandfather was named David Gue, while his maternal grandparents were Benjamin and Martha (Bedell) Gurney, of Greene county, New York. During the time of the French revolution his grandfather became a refugee from France, and, immigrating to America, settled in West- chester county, near the city of New York. His parents were both Quakers in their religious belief and persons of wide influence in their community. Lovers of liberty, they became pronounced aboli- tionists, and in the days of the underground railroad their house was used as one of the stations. The first paper our subject ever saw in his home was William Lloyd Garrison's "Liberator," the first anti- slavery paper that was published. When Benjamin was four years old his parents moved to Ontario county, New York, a place noted as the yearly meet- ing place of the Quakers of western New York, Can- ada and Michigan. Here our subject received his first education in the district school, and his father dying when he was ten years old left him the eldest of six children. By the aid of her children and the practice of rigid economy the mother kept her family together and gave them an education.
In the fall of 1851, being then twenty-two years of age, our subject returned to his native place and en- gaged in school teaching. Prompted by a desire to see the then growing west, he, early in the spring of 1852, in company with his younger brother, Joseph H. Gue, went to Iowa, arriving at Davenport, in Scott county, after a tiresome journey of three weeks. Going to the northern part of Scott county, to a place now known as Big Rock, they entered one hundred and sixty acres of prairie land and forty of timber ; they also purchased a team and farming utensils, and began to cultivate their land, living in a log house, and for a year and a half keeping "bachelor's hall." At the end of that time their mother, having pre- viously sold her farm in the east, removed to the west with her family and kept house for them.
Early becoming identified with the public inter- ests of his adopted state, Mr. Gue became known as an influential man of the people, and in the fall of 1857 was elected on the republican ticket to the state legislature, it being the first session held after the state capital was moved from Iowa City to Des Moines. During that session he became one of the authors of the bill providing for the establishment of a state agricultural college.
In the legislature he was known as a leading and working member, and so commended himself to his
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constituents that he was reelected in 1859. In the fall of 1861 he was elected to the state senate for a term of four years. During his term he introduced the bill prohibiting the circulation of foreign bank bills, also the bill regulating jury fees, a regulation which resulted in a saving to the state of about sixty thousand dollars annually. He was also one of the authors of the bill providing for the leasing of the land granted to the Agricultural College, by which the college realizes more than thirty thousand dol- lars annually.
Removing to Fort Dodge before the close of his term of office, he purchased the Fort Dodge " Re- publican," and became its editor.
In the fall of 1865 he was elected lieutenant-gov- ernor of Iowa, and ex-officio became president of the senate of 1866. During that session he was elected one of the trustees of the Agricultural College, and served in that capacity four years during the con- struction of the building and the organization of the school, being president of the board and chairman of the executive committee and committee on organ- ization.
Changing the name of his paper to the "Iowa Northwest," he continued its publication for a pe- riod of eight years.
In the summer of 1872 he removed to Des Moines
and purchased an interest in the "Iowa Homestead," and became chief editor of the same. Continuing to serve in this capacity until the following December, he was at that time appointed United States pension agent, a position in which he still serves (1878), giv- ing universal satisfaction.
In his religious belief Mr. Gue entertains liberal humanitarian views, and is identified with the Uni- versalist church.
He was married in November, 1855, to Miss Eliz- abeth R. Parker, daughter of Francis Parker, Esq., who was afterward killed by Mexicans in Arizona. Of the five children who have been born to them, four are now living. Horace Greeley Gue, born on the 17th of May, 1857, was educated at the Iowa Agricultural College, and is now proprietor of a drug store at Decatur, Illinois ; Alice L. Gue was born on the 11th of July, 1860; Gurney Chapline Gue was born on the 30th of October, 1862; the next, Birdie, died in infancy ; the youngest, Moinie, was born on the 10th of April, 1872.
Such is a brief outline of the life history of one who, by his own power, has risen from comparative obscurity to a position of honor and influence. He is, indeed, the "architect of his own fortune," and his life furnishes a most worthy example of what may be attained by constant, persistent, honest effort.
HON. JOHN B. DRAYER, MOUNT PLEASANT.
JOHN BREITENBACH DRAYER, circuit judge of the first judicial circuit, was born in Labanon, Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, on the 7th of April, 1823. His parents were Joseph Drayer, watchma- ker, and Henrietta Breitenbach, both of whom were of German pedigree, the families being among the early emigrants from the old world to Pennsylvania. The grandfather of John B. spelled his name Dreher, Joseph changing the orthography but retaining the German pronunciation.
The family removed to Hamilton, Ohio, when the subject of this notice was ten years old, and there he learned the trade of his father, working at it until in his nineteenth year, with no literary education ex- cept what he obtained in a common and high school. At the age just mentioned he commenced reading law with Hon. John Woods, since a member of con- gress from Ohio, and was admitted to practice in
April, 1844, when just twenty-one years old. He practiced at Hamilton about eight years, then at Eaton, Preble county, until March, 1858, when he removed to Mount Pleasant.
In 1862 Dr. Drayer entered the service as captain company H, 30th Iowa Infantry, and after seven months was obliged to resign through ill health.
He was elected county judge in 1863, and served from January, 1864, to January, 1869, when he went on the bench. He has been reelected twice, the last time without opposition, and his third term will not expire until the 31st of December, 1879. As a jurist, he is scrupulously conscientious and pains- taking, studying each case with the utmost diligence: and his decisions are rarely reversed. As a probate judge, it is doubtful if he has a superior in the state. In all the relations of life he has shown himself to be a man of the strictest integrity.
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Judge Drayer has been a member of the Meth- odist Episcopal church since 1846, and at one period of his life, since locating in Iowa, he preached for two years, resigning a pastorate in the Brookville circuit to go into the army. His christian record, as well as the ermine which he has worn so long, is un- soiled.
The judge was originally a whig, and on the de- mise of that party promptly, and with hearty sym- pathy, cast in his fortunes with the noble party of freedom. Before becoming judge he was quite an active politician. He has lost none of his attach- ment to the principles of the republican party, but in his official position his innate sense of propriety deters him from active partisanship.
He has taken the second degree in Odd-Fellow- ship.
Judge Drayer has a third wife. His first, Miss Mary M. Withrow, of Butler county, Ohio; married
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