USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 109
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While in Audubon county Mr. Harris served as county judge three terms. He represented the twenty-
sixth district, composed of Guthrie, Audubon, Shelby and Harrison counties, one term in the general assem- bly, and served in the regular session of 1860, and also in the extra session of 1861. He was a candidate for lieutenant-governor on the democratic ticket with Judge Mason in 1866, and a Presidential elector on the same ticket in 1868, receiving the full strength of the party vote in both cases, but having no chance for success in this strongly republican state.
Mr. Harris is a Master Mason, an Odd-Fellow, and very active in the order of Good Templars. His heart is in every good cause, tending to the social and moral improvement of society, and he is most esteemed where best known.
His wife was Miss Minerva M. White, of Tennes- see ; married on the 26th of July, 1841. She has had ten children, six boys and four girls, all living and all now residing in Iowa. Three sons, William J., John W. and Robert H. are married. Mary Isabella is the wife of John Crane, of Audubon county, and Clarinda C. is the wife of John P. Lahman, of Mis- souri Valley. Daniel W., Edwin T., Ellis M., Vir- ginia T. and Emma E. are single.
WILLIS F. WILLIAMS,
VINTON.
W TILLIS F. WILLIAMS, son of a woolen man- ufacturer, William E. Williams and Mary Lumb, was born in the town of Thornville, Perry county, Ohio, on the 22d of May, 1830. His father was a native of Maryland, and is now living in Vin- ton in his seventy-fourth year. His mother was born in England, and came to this country when three years old. She is also living, and is in her seventieth year. While Willis was in his infancy the family moved to Lancaster, in the same state, and he was educated in Greenfield Academy, near Lan- caster. At seventeen he went into a drug store, re- maining in that business until 1849, when he went to California with one of the first companies of gold seekers. He spent seventeen years there. He worked in the mines the first year, the remainder of the time was merchandising.
In 1856, while on a prospecting tour in the cen- tral western states, he purchased a farm of five hun- dred acres, ten miles northwest of Vinton, built a three-story stone house and made other improve- ments.
Mr. Williams started for California with simply funds enough to reach that opening El Dorado; he went there expressly to make money, carefully hus- banded his accumulations, and in 1867, when he per- manently located in Vinton, he had enough funds to make a good start in business. He immediately went into the banking firm of Traer and Co., which, in a short time, changed its name to Traer and Williams. He sold out in 1871, and in January, 1872, started a bank of his own, which he is still managing, aided by C. S. Bennett, cashier.
Since settling in Vinton Mr. Williams has been a heavy dealer in real estate, no person in town, prob- ably, doing more in this line. He has bought and sold more than fifteen thousand acres of farming and unimproved lands in the last ten years. Suc- cess here, as in every other branch of business which has occupied his attention, has attended his efforts. Several years ago, in company with J. C. Traer, he laid out ninety acres as an addition to the town, containing seven hundred and twenty residence lots, and they have all been sold. Mr. Williams has been
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one of the foremost men in Vinton in adding to its accommodations, he having erected no less than twenty buildings. He has built sixteen residences in Vinton, costing from twenty-five hundred to twenty thousand dollars; has remodeled and enlarged half a dozen dwellings; has built and remodeled four business houses, and bought and sold more than forty residences not mentioned above.
Mr. Williams is a member of the Presbyterian church, and very liberal in religious and benevolent enterprises.
In politics, he was originally a whig, but in latter years has been a republican. He has frequently been
solicited to accept office, but he has sedulously re- fused to do so.
On the 26th of January, 1860, Miss Frances Ellen Fielding, of Lancaster, Ohio, became his wife, and has borne him four daughters, all yet living.
He has had from boyhood, what the writer once heard him call " a weakness for fine horses." He now, and usually we believe, drives the best trotter in Ben- ton county, yet he never patronizes races. He has a competency, and sense enough to know how to en- joy a portion of its annual income. He has done a great deal for Vinton, and the citizens are not insen- sible of the worth to the city of such a man.
HON. DAVID EDMUNDSON,
NEWTON.
D AVID EDMUNDSON was born on the 9th of June, 1811, the son of William Edmundson and Mary née Cook, both of whom were natives of Virginia and of Scotch-Irish descent. His paternal grandfather, Mathew Edmundson, was a native of Ireland, while his grandmother, Margaret Patterson, was a native of Virginia. His father, born on the 19th of October, 1750, was a farmer by occupation, and died in 1828 in Putnam county, Indiana. His mother, born on the 5th of October, 1768, died in Oskaloosa, Iowa, on the 10th of November, 1862. Of their family of five children, Mathew, a carpenter by trade, now resides in Des Moines county, Iowa; Mar- garet died in 1862, in her sixtieth year; William married Miss Priscilla De Pew and raised two sons, James and William. He died in September, 1862, at the age of fifty-seven ; Mary was married to George J. Sharp, a farmer. She died in 1838, leaving three children, Margaret, William and George.
David's maternal grandparents were John Cook and Margaret née Blair. The former, born in 1729, was a native of Pennsylvania, but was raised in Vir- ginia; the latter was born in Virginia in the year 1735.
When our subject was about seventeen years of age his father died. He received but meagre school privileges and continued on the farm with his mother until 1833.
Removing, then, to Rockville, Indiana, he there, in company with his two brothers, engaged in mercan- tile business under the firm name of M. Edmundson and Co., and continued the same for three years. At
the expiration of that time he removed with his brother Mathew to Burlington, Iowa. In 1845 he removed to Oskaloosa, Iowa, and spent one year in farming, and then settled in Jasper county, Iowa, where he was engaged in farming until the fall of 1849, when he settled in the immediate vicinity of Newton. In the spring of the following year he went to California by the overland route, but not meeting with the success which he had anticipated he returned to his home in August, 1853.
Mr. Edmundson has always taken an active part in public affairs, and in 1846 was elected the first sheriff of Jasper county. In 1856 he was elected to represent Jasper and Poweshiek counties in the state legislature, it being the last session held in Iowa City.
In August, 1857, he was elected judge of Jasper county, a position which he held until the Ist of January, 1862. During that month he was sergeant- at-arms in the state senate. In the following summer he entered the army as first lieutenant of company D, 40th regiment Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and dur- ing one year of his service was judge advocate of a military commission, having his office at Columbus, Kentucky. Returning to his home in August, 1864, he has since that time been engaged in various oc- cupations, and since 1876 been justice of the peace.
In political sentiment, he was formerly a whig of decided anti-slavery principles, and since the organ- ization of the republican party has been identified with that body.
Throughout his life he has maintained a high
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standing as a man of high moral tone, and in his habits has been strictly temperate and moderate, having never used either tobacco or intoxicating liquors.
Mr. Edmundson was married on the 18th of March, 1841, to Miss Temperance Gordon, daughter of Alex- ander Gordon, of York, Pennsylvania. They have had eight children : Arabella, born on the 25th of
June, 1842, was married in 1856 to Mr. S. W. Macy, and now resides in Jasper county ; Lizzie was born on the 22d of April, 1845; William A. was born on the 4th of October, 1847; David G. was born on the Ist of August, 1850; Ella was born on the 5th of July, 1854; Frida was born on the 31st of October, 1856; Mary was born on the 5th of June, 1859; Charles was born on the 2d of August, 1862.
REV. ROBERT A. McAYEAL, D. D., OSKALOOSA.
T' HE subject of this biography, a native of Wash- ington county, Pennsylvania, was born on the 9th of January, 1825, the son of James McAyeal and Margaret née Miller. His father, a native of Ireland, became a merchant after coming to this country. His grandfather, Alexander McAyeal, was of Scotch ancestry ; he followed farming in Ireland, and emi- grated to America in 1810, settling first at Wilming- ton, Delaware, whence he removed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and there engaged in farming.
His maternal grandparents, Henry and Margaret Miller, were natives of Ireland, of Scotch descent. They emigrated to this country about 1810, and set- tled at Wilmington, Delaware, where his grandfather became an operator in Du Pont's woolen mills, on the Brandywine.
Robert lived at home until he attained his twen- tieth year, working on the farm, attending school, and clerking in his father's store. He spent one year at a Friends institution, at Wilmington, Delaware, and later studied four years at West Geneva College, in Logan county, Ohio, where he graduated in June, 1853, with the degree of A.M.
He next pursued a three years' course of study in the Theological Seminary, at Alleghany, Pennsylva- nia, uuder the auspices of the Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church. He was licensed to preach in the summer of 1855, and in the spring of the fol- lowing year took the pastoral charge of the Associate Reformed (subsequently the United Presbyterian) Church. The organization was at that time very small, constituting only a missionary field, but grad- ually grew until it became self-sustaining, and in 1869 sent off a branch that is now known as the United Presbyterian Church of Unity.
His church from the first maintained pronounced anti-slavery principles, and from a membership of
one hundred and fifty sent forty-two into the army during the war of the rebellion.
In August, 1862, Mr. McAyeal entered the service as chaplain of the 33d Iowa Volunteer Infantry, but at the end of one year, by reason of ill health, re- signed and returned to his pastorate.
In political sentiment, he was a thorough aboli- tionist. He attended the convention at Pittsburgh, in the winter of 1854, upon the formation of the re- publican party, and has since been identified with that party.
After settling in Oskaloosa, Mr. McAyeal opened a select school in connection with his church; the school was academic in its character, and very suc- cessful. Five of his students have become minis- ters of the gospel, and one of them is a missionary in India.
During the past six or eight years he has been a member of the school board of Oskaloosa, and dur- ing that time the graded system has been introduced into the schools, and an elegant school building erected. He has been a constant and thorough stu- dent, and has always taken an active interest in educational matters. He was among the first to aid in establishing the Monmouth College, and is at the present time one of the directors of the same. In June, 1875, that institution conferred upon him the honorary degree of D.D.
Dr. McAyeal was married on the 2d of June, 1856, to Miss Mary Ellen Sharpe, daughter of George W. and Caroline R. Sharpe-the name of her mother, originally Schneider, was changed to Snider. Mr. Sharpe was editor of the Olentangg (afterward Dela- ware) "Gazette," of Delaware, Ohio. He died in 1853, and his widow now resides in Kansas.
Mrs. McAyeal's paternal grandparents, George and Ann Sharpe, emigrated from England, and settled
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at Cumberland, Maryland. Her maternal grandpar- ents, Colonel Nicholas and Margaret Schneider, were natives of Prussia; they settled at Baltimore, where he died in 1856, and she in 1857. He served as colonel in the war of 1812, and was for seventeen years marshal of Maryland.
They have four children : Carrie Margaret, born on the 9th of May, 1857, is now engaged in teach- ing; Howard Shriver was born on the 8th of No- vember, 1860; Mary Louie was born on the 18th of July, 1864, and Katie Cullier, on the 18th of Sep- tember, 1871.
Throughout his career Dr. McAyeal has been a man of wide influence. He has fearlessly advocated and maintained his principles, however unpopular, and been true to his convictions of duty and right regardless of public opinion. A man of independ- ent thought, he has by his pure and upright life attracted many warm friends, and gained the confi- dence and esteem of all with whom he has had to do. He has been a man of the people, and to this, together with the fact that he has been true to the highest principles of honor and morality, may be attributed his success in his life work.
HON. FRANK T. CAMPBELL,
NEWTON.
F RANK TAYLOR CAMPBELL, lieutenant- governor of Iowa, is a self-made man, and fur- nishes another good illustration of the educating power of the printing-office. He went to the case when he was so young and small that he had to stand in a chair to reach the type, and from that date till of age he made a hand at the case, or was alternately a pupil in the public schools, from which source he drew his education. His father was a publisher and editor ; had five sons, who all became typos and editors, and Frank seemed to take to the printing-office as a duck takes to water. He has served in all capacities from the carrier boy and "printer's devil " to editor-in-chief, and while can- vassing the state, in the fall of 1877, he met Ohio people who reminded him of the time when, a very small boy, he used to deliver the "Ripley Bee " once a week at their door.
He is a native of Ripley, Ohio, and was born on the 8th of May, 1836. His father, Charles F. Camp- bell, was an attorney-at-law, probate judge, for many years editor and proprietor of the "Ripley Bee," and a very influential whig politician, dying at George- town, Ohio, in 1864.
The Campbells were originally from Scotland. The mother of Charles F. Campbell was an Alexan- der, a sister of the late Archibald Alexander, of Princeton College. The maternal grandmother of Frank T. died in her ninetieth year from a fall down the cellar stairs. She was left with eleven small children on her hands, and maintained and reared them by keeping a hotel. The Alexanders were from the north of Ireland.
Having thoroughly learned the printer's trade, the subject of this biography came to Newton, in April, 1858, a poor boy with no capital, and bought, on time, a one-half interest in the Jasper county "Express," a republican newspaper, changing its name to "Free Press," his brother, Angus K., soon after purchasing the other half. Leaving this paper in charge of his brother, in November, 1860, Frank went to Monte- zuma, bought the "Republican," was appointed post- master, and managed the two offices until August, 1862, when he resigned the postoffice, sold out the paper, enlisted as a private in the 28th regiment of infantry, but in November following was commis- sioned captain company C, 40th regiment, going to the front in December, 1862. He was in the Vicks- burg campaign, and in the expedition led by General Steele against Little Rock, in 1863; in the Camden expedition, a year later, distinguishing himself for coolness and courage on more than one occasion, and resigning in 1865.
In the spring of that year he became sole propri- etor of the " Free Press," at Newton, and has since made this place his steady home. He conducted the paper just mentioned until 1867, when he dis- posed of it and went into the mercantile trade. In 1874 he started the Jasper county "Head Light," conducting it for two years, still continuing his iner- cantile business; sold out the paper in September, 1876, which had become one of the leading county papers in lowa, and now attends to mercantile traf- fic only. While in journalism he was never satisfied with making any but a first-class newspaper.
For eight years, ending December 31, 1877, Mr.
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Campbell was a member of the state senate, where he was chairman of the committee on railroads, and drew the original bill of the present Iowa railroad tariff law, in 1874. He was on the committees of ways and means, military, county and township or- ganization, and one or two others. While in the senate he did so much excellent work, and became so popular, that in the summer of 1877 he was nomi- nated by the republicans for the office of lieutenant- governor, and was elected by a flattering majority. His eight years' experience in the senate, together with his careful study of parliamentary rules and his native candor and urbanity of disposition, make him a good presiding officer.
On the moth of September, 1861, Miss Minerva Dixon, of Newton, became the wife of Lieutenant-
Governor Campbell, and they have three children, all boys. Both parents are members of the Meth- odist Episcopal church, and earnest workers in many a good cause.
Mr. Campbell is rather short and thick set, being hardly five feet and seven inches tall, and weighing one hundred and seventy-five pounds. He is open- faced, frank, in a double sense, very cordial, yet modest and unassuming, and a perfect gentleman.
Angus K. Campbell, the brother mentioned in this
sketch, is still a resident of Newton. He is an at- torney-at-law, with a large practice; is one of the regents of the State University, and a man of a good deal of influence and usefulness. He has a wife and eight children, and a delightful home in the outskirts of the city.
HON. JOHN G. PATTERSON, CHARLES CITY.
TOHN G. PATTERSON, one of the leading at- torneys in the Upper Cedar Valley, is a native of Clinton county, Pennsylvania, and dates his birth on the 3d of September, 1831. His parents were Robert Patterson and Eleanor Bowers, both reared on the frontier, and accustomed to hardships, not to say perils. Some of the Bowerses were in the Indian wars, and in girlhood Eleanor saw an uncle of hers cut down and hacked to pieces with a tomahawk. The Pattersons were originally from the north of Ireland, and settled in Pennsylvania at an early day. When John was two years old his father removed to Seneca county, Ohio, where he, the third of a family of sixteen children, grew up on a farm, with a grave experience at solid work. His business, after be- coming old enough to use an ax and farm tools, was to aid in clearing and working leased lands - the best his father could do at that time. Late in life, after a prolonged and serious struggle, by the aid of his industrious sons, Robert Patterson became the owner of a farm.
In youth John had few holidays or half-holidays; had no experience in going to town, and indulging in even an hour's social intercourse or innocent rec- reation ; it was work, work, but he did not murmur or complain. Up to eighteen he had had nothing more than the education picked up in a log school- house during the winter months. At that age he started out, attending the Republic, Seneca county,
Academy, in the spring and autumn terms, teaching in the winters and farming in the harvest time. This he did until twenty-two, when, his father being sick, he cheerfully gave a whole season to work at home.
In the autumn of 1854 Mr. Patterson, with ten dollars in his pocket, commenced the study of law, reading with Pennington and Lee, of Tiffin, Ohio ; was admitted to the bar at that place in September, 1856, and on the 21st of the next June settled in Charles City, where he is still engaged in legal pur- suits.
In 1861 he formed a partnership with S. B. Starr, the firm of Starr and Patterson continuing till 1873, when Mr. A. M. Harrison joined the firm, and is still in it. It does an extensive legal and collecting bus- iness, and is, in fact, the leading law firm in the county.
Mr. Patterson has bought and sold lands at times, and owes his accumulations in a large measure to his shrewdness and good luck in this line. He has a farm of two hundred and twenty acres near town, which is under excellent improvement, and which he rents; has other lands in Floyd county ; owns one- half of the old homestead in Ohio, and one-fifth of the stock of the Charles City Water Power Company, of which he is secretary, and which has a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. He is alive to every interest of this city, and one of the foremost men in devising means for its advancement.
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Mr. Patterson was elected state senator in the autumn of 1863; was reëlected in 1867 and served eight years, or in four sessions. He was chairman of the committee on township and county organiza- tions three sessions; was on the judiciary committee three sessions, and chairman of the railroad commit- tee the last session. He was sent to the general assembly especially to aid in securing a land grant for a road on the forty-third degree of latitude ; worked with others unceasingly for that purpose, and succeeded. Probably a more industrious man never went to the legislature from Floyd county, and he did himself great credit while in that body. As a lawyer, he is equally industrious, and rarely relin- quishes a case until it is won.
Mr. Patterson has always been a republican ; is a
member of the blue lodge of Freemasons, and is rather liberal in his religious views.
He was first married in 1856, to Miss Hester E. A. Quiggle, of Pennsylvania. She had eight chil- dren, and died in 1872, six of her children outliving her. His present wife was Mrs. Sarah Smith McCann, their union taking place in April, 1875. Two of the older children have spent two or three years at the State University, and all are being carefully ed- ucated.
Mr. Patterson has a solid build and a robust con- stitution, or he might not have seen his forty-sixth year. Through early hardships, and a serious strug- gle with fortune in early married life, he has pushed on, arriving at independence with a body, mind and heart capable of enjoying it.
HON. JULIUS H. POWERS,
NEW HAMPTON.
T HE branch of the Powers family to which the subject of this sketch belongs is old Vermont stock. Hiram Powers, the sculptor, belongs to it, and a genuis for this art seems to run in it, for Miss Hosmer is related to it. Julius was born in Roches- ter, Windsor county, Vermont, on the 22d of May, 1830. His father, Alanson Powers, was a mason by trade. His mother was Sarepta Martin, whose fam- ily aided in gaining American independence. When Julius was about six years old the family moved to Portage county, Ohio, where the son attended a district school until thirteen and then commenced learning his father's trade. He followed it until nineteen, working during the summers and attending school in the winters, finishing his education at the Kingsville Academy, Ashtabula county. At the age of twenty he commenced teaching in Berlin (Erie county) Academy, studying law at the same time with Judge Taylor, of Milan, Huron county. At the end of one year he went to Dayton and read two years with M. B. Walker and Louis Gunkle, Walker now being a judge in Texas, and Gunkle was a mem- ber of the forty-third congress. During this period he taught during part of the time to defray expenses, as he had to depend entirely on his own resources for funds.
Mr. Powers spent a year in Texas, working at his trade, laying the brick of the court-house and jail of Bastrop county. Returning to Ohio, he attended the
law school at Cincinnati, where he was admitted to the bar on the 7th of April, 1855. During that year he visited Allamakee county, Iowa, and, after pros- pecting a short time, received intelligence of his father's death and returned to Ohio. In May, 1857, he again visited Iowa; opened an office at Forest City, Chickesaw county, and removed to New Hamp- ton in 1858, on the day that the county seat was moved hither from Bradford. Mr. Powers was ap- pointed deputy clerk that year, practicing law at the same time and still continuing the practice. He is of the firm of Powers and Kenyon, the leading law firm in the county.
He was chosen state senator in the autumn of 1859, and was in the regular session of 1860 and the war session of 1861, resigning his office to go into the military service. He enlisted as a private in the 7th Iowa Infantry, but was soon afterward appointed captain of company I, of the 9th, and served until April, 1862, when he was compelled by disability to be mustered out. He has never fully recovered his health. He has a large practice, however, attends very carefully to his business, and as a lawyer has no superior in the county.
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