The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume, Part 110

Author: American biographical publishing company, pub
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Chicago, New York, American biographical publishing company
Number of Pages: 954

USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 110

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Mr. Powers is an Odd-Fellow, and has passed all the chairs in subordinate lodges. He is a republican, and one of the leaders of the party in the county.

He is a Congregationalist, and one of the constitu- ent members of the New Hampton Church. He has

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been superintendent of the Sunday school for several years.

On the 31st of May, 1859, Miss Eugenia F. Steb- bins, of Long Meadow, Massachusetts, became his wife, and they have three children and have lost one child.

Mr. Powers is a stockholder and director of the Bank of New Hampton ; was a leading man in get- ting the McGregor and Sioux City railroad to this town; was attorney for the road in Chickesaw county for some time, and is an influential and very useful man.

LEVI J. ALLEMAN, M. D.,

BOONE.

A MONG the younger class of physicians in Boone county, Iowa, is Levi J. Alleman, who grad- nated from a medical college before he was of age, and whose entire time has since been given to his profession. He is a native of Seneca county, New York, the time and place of his birth being Fayette, on the 12th of December, 1841. His father was Jacob D. Alleman, a merchant tailor, and his moth- er, Caroline Niess, both of German pedigree. His paternal grandfather, who was born in this country, was a soldier in the second strife with England.

Dr. Alleman worked on a farm in boyhood; was educated at the high school or academy in Water- loo; began to read medicine at seventeen years old with Dr. O. S. Patterson, of Waterloo, in his native county ; attended lectures in the medical depart- ment of the University of New York city ; was ex- amined and ready to graduate in 1862, but not being of age did not receive his diploma until the early part of the next year.

After practicing a few months with his preceptor at Waterloo, Dr. Alleman went into the army in the autumn of 1863 as assistant surgeon of the ist New

York Veteran Cavalry, and served in that capacity until the regiment was mustered out in September, 1865. His two years' practice in surgery in the tented field was a valuable experience to him, and being a close student and thoroughly devoted to his calling, it is not surprising that he has a high stand- ing in the profession.

At the close of the rebellion, on leaving the ser- vice, Dr. Alleman came directly to Boone, then a new town on a new railroad. The road has since pushed on to California, and the nucleus of a village has grown to a city of thirty-five hundred inhabitants. The doctor is the oldest physician in years of prac- tice here, and second to no one in the county in skill. He is United States examining surgeon for pensions.

Dr. Alleman is a member of no church, but in- clines to the Episcopal form of worship and tenets.

He has had two wives : the first was Miss Marga- ret O'Neil, of Waterloo, New York ; married in 1866, and dying in 1868, leaving one child, Harriet M., still living ; his present wife was Miss Florence L. Colman, of Boone ; married in 1870. They have had three children, of whom two are still living.

PATRICK M. GUTHRIE,

CARROLL.

P ATRICK M. GUTHRIE, the treasurer of Car- roll county, and for twenty-four years a resi- dent of Iowa, is a native of Ireland, and was born in the county of Clare on the 16th of October, 1830. His parents were Matthew Guthrie, farmer, and Sa- bina Stuart, both of Scotch descent, though natives of Ireland. Patrick spent his early youth on the farm ; from sixteen to eighteen was employed by the British government on public works, keeping the time of two thousand men, measuring their work and

paying them weekly; in 1848 came to the United States, landing in New York city on the 4th of July; proceeded as far west as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and, after clerking there for a short time, was employed as a foreman on the Michigan Southern and North- ern Indiana railroad while it was being constructed. Subsequently he took contracts on different railroads in Illinois, so doing until the 10th of October, 1854, when he settled in Dubuque, Iowa. There he was a contractor and builder for seven or eight years. put-

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ting up some of the important public buildings, in- cluding the city hall, erected in 1857. In 1859 and 1 860 he was connected with Colonel H. H. Heath in the publication of "The Northwest," a democratic newspaper.

In 1862 Mr. Guthrie was elected city treasurer, and held the office by reelections five years. The writer of this sketch was a citizen of Dubuque dur- ing the period here referred to, and has no hesitation in saying that a more faithful officer never disbursed the funds of that city. At the close of his last term as treasurer Mr. Guthrie made an abstract of the titles in Dubuque county, managed that business for three years, and in 1871 moved to Carroll, the seat of jus- tice of Carroll county, where he engaged in the real- estate business with Mr. T. L. Bowman, the firm name being Guthrie and Bowman. In this enter- prise they have been very successful, having sold upward of half a million acres of land in the coun- ties of Carroll, Sac and Calhoun, being the agents of the Iowa Railroad Loan Company. They have opened an office at Lemars, in order to settle up

Plymouth county, and Mr. Bowman superintends that office. As a dealer in lands, as in all other business transactions, Mr. Guthrie is candid, straightforward and reliable. His coming to Carroll county marked an epoch in its history. He brought others with him from Dubuque county, and by his fair dealings and easy terms of payments has induced many industri- ous men to settle on wild lands in western Iowa. He is an eminently useful citizen of Carroll county, and his popularity is well merited.

Mr. Guthrie was elected treasurer of Carroll coun- ty in 1875, and now holds that office.

In politics, he was reared a democrat, and has never voted any other ticket.

In religion, he was born in the Catholic church, and firmly adheres to the faith of his ancestors. In moral and christian character his standing is highly commendatory.

Mr. Guthrie has been a married man since the 9th of June, 1862, his wife being Miss Emma Mahar, of Galena, Illinois. They have four boys living and have lost five children.

HON. W. M. WILSON,

OSCEOLA.

T HE subject of this sketch was born at Greens- boro, North Carolina, on the 23d of April, 1838. His father's name was R. D. Wilson. He was born on the 15th of May, 1805, at the same place ; was a graduate of a scholastic institution. His mother was born at the same place on the 12th of April, 1811. His father was a farmer. He re- moved from Greensboro in 1851 to Henry county, Indiana, where he resided for about two years, and then removed to Mahaska county, Iowa.

W. M. Wilson commenced going to a high school at Oskaloosa, Iowa, and continued there from 1857 to 1860. He had belonged to a militia company while at the high school, and had been elected a first lieutenant and subsequently a captain in this organization. On the government's second call for three hundred thousand men, the quota of the State of Iowa had been filled when he made his requisi- tion for authority to raise a company, and he there- upon, without waiting to graduate from the high school, volunteered as a private, and was mustered into company D, ist Iowa Cavalry, in which he served as a private for nearly two years, and was

then promoted to a corporal. He continued in the service for two years and eleven months, when, from sickness, he was relieved from active duty and de- tailed to act as drill-sergeant of raw recruits. He had the captaincy of two commands offered him at this time, but his health failing him he was ulti- mately mustered out of the service at Davenport, Iowa, on the 13th of September, 1864.

In the spring of 1865 he married Miss Martha Fleming, of Warren county, Iowa, where he bought a small farm and commenced its cultivation. Dur- ing that summer he bought a half interest in a saw- mill located on a part of his farm, and in the suc- ceeding fall bought the remaining half interest in this mill, which he continued to run until 1866. In the fall of that year he commenced to read law in the office of P. Likes, of Warren county, Iowa. Mr. Likes at this time had formed a copartnership with a Mr. Cheney at Osceola, but continued his resi- dence in Warren county and practiced in both places. Mr. Wilson therefore continued to read law in this office, and was admitted to the bar at Indianola, Warren county, Iowa, in January, 1869.

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In March, 1869, he came to Osceola. Cheney and Likes having dissolved, Mr. Wilson made a co- partnership with Mr. Likes, which continued until August, 187 1, when he dissolved with Mr. Likes and made a copartnership with Mr. Cheney, which con- tinued until November, 1872. He was admitted to the bar of the supreme court of Iowa in June, 1872. He then commenced business on his own account, which has grown into a highly successful practice.

Mr. Wilson has held the office of assessor of Clark county, mayor of the city of Osceola, and justice of the peace. He has always taken a lively interest in all educational matters; has been secretary of the school board, and is now its treasurer. In 1873 he was placed in nomination as a candidate for the state legislature by the republican party of Clark county. He failed, however, of his election by a very small majority against him.

On the 25th of February, 1876, he was appointed receiver of the First National Bank of Osceola,

which position he still holds, the bank not yet being closed.

Mr. Wilson has always been a strong temperance advocate. He was elected mayor of the city on that issue, receiving two hundred and seventy-five ma- jority over two competing candidates.

He has been a Mason since 1871, and has been connected with the Methodist church since 1867.

He is a radical republican in politics. Himself and his father, being born southerners, were never- theless anti-slavery men, and his adhesion to such principles forms a marked distinction to the south- ern race. W. M. Wilson verified his principles by entering the Union army at the earliest practicable moment, and served it gallantly for nearly three years, when his health failed him and disenabled him for active service in the field.

He has had born to him eight children, two of whom (girls) are dead. He has now three girls and three boys living.

WILLIAM McK. FINDLEY, M.D., BLOOMFIELD.

W ILLIAM MCKENDREE FINDLEY, for forty years a medical practitioner in Iowa, was born in Dayton, Ohio, on the 30th of July, 1816. His father, Rev. John P. Findley, was for years pres- ident of Augusta College, Kentucky, and his grand- father, Robert W. Findley, was a Methodist minister for sixty years, dying at Eaton, Ohio, in his ninety- sixth year. An uncle of William was a missionary among the Wyandots in northern Ohio. The Find- leys are of Scotch-Irish descent, pioneers in North Carolina, and a large number of them have been clergymen. The mother of William was Sarah Strain, and his grandfathers on both sides fought in the revolution, his mother's father being with Gen- eral Washington at the memorable crossing of the Delaware.

John P. Findley moved with his family to Piqua, Miami county, Ohio, when the subject of this sketch was quite young, and died in 1825, when William was nine years old, the Rev. Dr. Henry Bascom, of Augusta, becoming his guardian. After spending two or three years in the preparatory department of the college, young Findley was obliged to strike out for himself. He spent two years with his uncle at the Wyandot mission, studying with the Indian boys

and becoming an interpreter. He read medicine with Dr. Sabin, of Troy, Ohio; attended lectures at Pennsylvania University, Philadelphia, and gradu- ated in 1837.

After practicing one year in Shelbyville, Indiana, Dr. Findley pushed farther westward; crossed the Mississippi river; located at the four corners called New London, Henry county, Iowa; practiced there until 1843, and then settled permanently at Bloom- field. Davis county. There was neither city nor village here then, hardly the embryo of a village. Dr. Findley was therefore a pioneer in Bloomfield, and soon became an extensive circuit rider, having a range of thirty miles, sometimes fording streams on his horse in order to reach his patients. On one occasion he lost his saddle, but was thankful that his life did not go with it. Several times he was lost on the prairies, and was compelled to remain out over night. Once or twice, when bewildered, he heard a cowbell, started up the animals, and followed them until they led him to a shelter and farm-house hos- pitality. In those early days, while in the prime of life, he spared no pains to respond to calls.

In 1863 Dr. Findley became surgeon of the 4th Iowa Cavalry; was in the Vicksburg campaign ;

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with General Sherman as far as Atlanta, on his way to the sea, and with General Thomas when he whipped Hood at Nashville. After that he returned to Chattanooga, and was in the surgeons' garrison until the close of the war, at all times attending very assiduously to his duties.

Dr. Findley has entered a great deal of land in Iowa for himself and other parties; has been an ex- tensive dealer in improved real estate, and owns both improved and unimproved land in Davis county, and in several counties in the western part of the state. He has five or six business houses and other property in this city, besides his pleasant homestead. He was president of the First National Bank of Bloomfield, which closed in 1876.

Dr. Findley was always anti-slavery in his polit- ical sentiments, and joined the republican party at its formation, but does not, we believe, regard him- self as a politician.

Dr. Findley is a member of the Methodist Epis- copal church.

The wife of Dr. Findley was Miss Mary Bangs, daughter of Captain John Bangs, of Cape Cod, Mas- sachusetts, and was married in New London, Iowa, on the 3d of October, 1839. Of seven children, the fruit of this union, only three are now living: Anna M. is the wife of John Duffield, a merchant in Bloom- field; John Bangs is a druggist, and Samuel Parker is a jeweler, both of them married and living in Bloomfield.

JOHN A. PITZER,

WINTERSET.

O NE of the most solid men that ever made his home in Winterset was the late John Allen Pitzer, many years a merchant and county officer here. He was a man who, in form and character, always stood erect ; who was kind to the poor, per- fectly reliable and trustworthy, and whose whole life impressed his neighbors with the correctness of the poet's saying : " An honest man's the noblest work of God." He was a native of Virginia; a son of Frederick and Nancy Kimberland Pitzer, and was born on the 22d of February, 1813. When he was about a year old the family removed to Christian county, Kentucky, where his father was an extensive manufacturer, running a hemp factory and grist and saw mills.

John A. Pitzer was educated in the common schools, and began to teach when about nineteen or twenty, continuing to instruct for two or three win- ters. When he was about twenty-two he moved to Morgan county, Illinois, farming a season or two, and in 1840 removing to Fairfield, Jefferson county, Iowa, there serving as county clerk for four years. In 1849 he settled in Winterset, trading in general merchandise for thirty years, being the first merchant here, and successful most of the time in his business. A more straight-forward, fair-dealing man has never stood behind a counter in Winterset.

When he first located in Madison county he did considerable government surveying, sectioning, it is said, one-half of the county. Though largely self-

taught, he was quick and accurate in figures, and his mathematical work in the county was very satisfac- tory. A little later he took the office of county judge and held it six years, and still later was treas- urer of the county, leaving a clean balance-sheet on retiring from each office, and possessing the un- limited confidence of the citizens of the county.

Early in 1863 Mr. Pitzer went into the army as paymaster, with rank of major, and served until the autumn of 1865.

In early life Judge Pitzer joined the Disciple or Christian church, but a few years before he died changed his connection to the Baptist church, in which he died, the sad event occurring suddenly on the 18th of May, 1876. He was passing along a business street in Winterset, when he suddenly stopped and complained of being tired ; he sat down on a box by a store door, dropped his head, and fell asleep, " like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams."

The services at his funeral were conducted under the auspices of the Masons and Odd-Fellows, and an immense concourse of people followed his re- mains to "that bourne whence no traveler returns."

His life was a record of noble deeds. It is said that during the financial panic of 1857-8 his store was a "commissary of subsistence." He gave over five hundred sacks of four to poor families, without the least expectation of any pecuniary reward.

Judge Pitzer left a wife and several children to

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mourn their great loss. His wife was Miss Elizabeth Jane Rogers, residing near Jacksonville, Illinois, at the time of their marriage, which took place on the 3d of December, 1835.

Of ten children which Mrs. Pitzer has had, only five survive the father. Of the deceased, the second child in the family, Mary E., was the wife of Leander

M. Sprague, and died at Denver City, Colorado, in November, 1871. Of the five living, all are married but Clara May. William F. is a trader in McPher- son, Kansas; John M. and James L. are merchants and partners, doing business in Winterset, and Meckie is the wife of John McChaughan, a lawyer of the same place.

HON. HENRY O. PRATT, CILARLES CITY.

H ENRY OTIS PRATT is a son of Seth C. Pratt and Mary née Herring, and was born in Foxcroft, Piscataquis county, Maine, on the 11th of February, 1838. He lived at home, farming and at- tending school, until 1860, receiving his literary edu- cation at Foxcroft Academy, and his legal at the Cam- bridge (Massachusetts) Law School, spending two years in the latter institution. He was admitted to the bar in Mason City, Cerro Gordo county, Iowa, in June, 1862. Soon afterward a call was made for six hundred thousand volunteers, to which he re- sponded, enlisting as private in company B, 32d Iowa Infantry. He became completely broken down in health in less than a year, and was discharged in the spring of 1863. The following summer, while re- gaining his health, he taught a small school in Worth county, Iowa, and the next winter settled in Charles City, and there taught during one term.

His health being restored, Mr. Pratt commenced the practice of law at Charles City in 1864, and has continued to practice since that time. As a lawyer, he is very candid in the trial of a case ; never tries to defeat the ends of justice; never resorts to clap- trap, and never forgets the dignity of his calling. He is a fluent speaker, and excels as a jury advo- cate.

In the autumn of 1867 he was elected county su- , perintendent of schools, and served two years; was elected to the lower house of the general assembly

in the autumn of 1869; reelected in 1871, and re- signed in February, 1873, in order to take a seat in congress, where he represented the fourth district. He served in that body from the 4th of March, 1873, until the 4th of March, 1877; in the forty-third con- gress he was on the committee on private land claims and the committee on expenditures for public build- ings and grounds; in the forty-fourth congress he was on the committees on claims, on expenditures on public buildings and grounds, and on a select com- mittee called the real-estate pool committee, raised to investigate the operations of the so-called real- estate pool of the District of Columbia, and of Jay Cooke and Co's indebtedness to the United States. This committee was afterward empowered to inves- tigate any official misconduct not under investiga- tion by any other committee. He made a highly creditable record while in congress.

Mr. Pratt has always cooperated with the repub- lican party, and has usually been very active as a public speaker. During the campaign of 1876 he spent several weeks in the field, speaking mainly in New Hampshire, Maine and Indiana.

Mr. Pratt is a Methodist in religious sentiment ; was converted in April, 1877, and for the last few months has given his time mostly to lay preaching.

On the 2 1st of October, 1865, Miss Mahala Wood- ward, of Charles City, became his wife, and they have five children.

HERMON C. PIATT, TIPTON.

H ERMON C. PIATT, nearly twenty-five years a resident of Tipton, is a native of Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, and was born on the 24th of March, 1824. His father, William Piatt, a tanner

and farmer, was a representative to the legislature from the Lycoming district, and associate judge of Lycoming county for several years. His ancestors were early settlers in New Jersey. The mother of

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Hermon was Hannah Brady Piatt, a sister of General Hugh Brady and of Hon. Jasper E. Brady, once a member of congress from Pennsylvania. Young Piatt was employed for some time on a farm ; wrote awhile in the county clerk's office ; prepared for col- lege at Mifflinsburg, Union county ; entered the sopho- more class of Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Wash- ington county, in 1847, and graduated in 1850 ; taught one year in an academy at La Porte, Indiana; read law in the office of Joseph L. Jernegan, of South Bend, in the same state; was there admitted to the bar in November, 1852, and in the spring of the next year located permanently at Tipton. He has been in the steady practice of the law for twenty-four years, is now of the firm of Piatt and Carr, and one of the leading lawyers in Cedar county.

Like most young professional men settling in a new country, Mr. Piatt came to Iowa with more en- ergy and ambition than pecuniary means, not hav- ing even one dollar in his pocket; and that he has made his profession a success will be seen from the fact that, besides his home in the city of Tipton, and other property here, he has four farms under good improvement, in Cedar county, and three thousand acres of wild land in Sac, Sioux and Lyon counties.

Mr. Piatt has a taste for stock-raising, and indulges it not only in blooded horses, cattle and hogs, but

also in fine poultry. At county and other fairs he can make a good show, and delights in getting up a spirit of emulation among farmers and stock raisers. He understands the nice points in a horse as well as in the law. He is president of the Cedar County Fair Association, and has held that position at sundry times, in all, at least ten years.

Mr. Piatt was elected treasurer of Cedar county in 1854, and was kept in the office between five and six years, leaving it with an unblotted record. He was on the local school board a long time, and for some years at its head. He is one of the trustees of the Iowa College for the Blind, at Vinton.

Mr. Piatt has always acted with the democratic party, and has long been one of its most influential members in Cedar county.

In religious sentiment he is a Presbyterian.

He is a member of the blue lodge in Freemasonry.

On the 3d of November, 1852, Miss Margaret Eason, a native of Pennsylvania, then residing at La Porte, Indiana, became the wife of Mr. Piatt, and she has been the mother of five children, only three of them, two daughters and one son, now living.

Mr. Piatt has been identified with all railroad and other enterprises tending to advance the interests of Cedar county and the city of Tipton, of which he may be justly regarded as one of the live men.

DANIEL FINDLEY, M. D.,

ATLANTIC.

D ANIEL FINDLEY is of Scotch-Irish descent, his ancestors on both sides of the family be- ing of that blood. His grandfather, Samuel Find- ley, senior, was an associate judge of Butler county, Pennsylvania, and a member of congress from that state at an early period after the adoption of the federal constitution. His father, Samuel Findley, junior, D.D., was an Associate Reform Presbyterian clergyman for about forty years, thirty of them pastor at Antrim, Ohio. He died at Newark, New Jersey, on the 22d of February, 1870.

The mother of David, before her marriage, was Margaret Ross, an exemplary christian woman. She died at Antrim, on the 22d of September, 1846, in her fifty-fourth year.

The subject of this sketch, born in Washington, Guernsey county, Ohio, on the 21st of August, 1830, was educated at Madison College, Ohio; graduating

in 1853. He read medicine with Dr. William Ander- son, of his native town, but before attending lectures made a trip to California, starting in 1854 and re- turning in 1856. He then finished his medical course by attending lectures in the medical depart- ment of Western Reserve College, Cleveland, being admitted to practice in February, 1858.

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The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume, Part 110

Author: American biographical publishing company, pub Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Chicago, New York, American biographical publishing company Number of Pages: 954

Author: American biographical publishing company, pub
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Chicago, New York, American biographical publishing company
Number of Pages: 954