USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 12
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of colonel, that officer having been promoted to the rank of brigadier-general. At the battles of Fort · Donelson and Shiloh, Colonel Tuttle displayed marked courage and self-possession, and made a record that placed him in the front ranks of Iowa's brave soldiers.
During the fall and winter of 1862 he held com- mand of the forces at Cairo, but in the spring of 1863 was assigned the command of a division of General Sherman's corps. While serving in this capacity he was an active participant in the cam- paign against Vicksburg and in the capture of Jack- son, Mississippi.
In the fall of 1863 he was the democratic can- didate for governor of Iowa, but that party being greatly in the minority, defeat was inevitable. Re- turning to the army, he rendered efficient service until the fall of 1864, when he was mustered out.
Settling at Des Moines in the ensuing autumn, he was engaged in farming during the next two years, and since that time has been largely interested in pork packing. He first began the business in part- nership with his brother, Martin Tuttle, under the firm name of Tuttle Brothers. In 1870 he pur- chased his brother's interest, and three years later formed a partnership with Lewis Igo. The firm of Tuttle and Igo continued until the spring of 1875, when Mr. Tuttle purchased his partner's interest in the business, and since that time has conducted it in his own name.
In 1866 he was a candidate for congress, his op- ponent being General G. M. Dodge, and ran ahead of the party ticket by two thousand votes. In 1871 he was elected a member of the state legislature and served one term. He is now (1877) actively iden- tified with the republican party.
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As a business man, General Tuttle is prompt and energetic ; upright and honorable in all his dealings, he has secured the esteem of all with whom he has had to do, and attained to a well merited success.
He has been twice married : first, on the 22d of September, 1847, to Miss Elizabeth J. Conner, of Fayette county, Indiana, who died on the 21st of September, 1851; and on the 17th of August, 1853. he was married to Laura M. Meek, daughter of Dr. S. G. Meek, of Farmington, Iowa.
Of the five children who have been born to them, Laura, born on the 16th of July, 1854, is the wife of Albert 1 .. West, cashier of Capital City Bank, East Des Moines, and has one child, Florence ; George, born on the 26th of January, 1856, died at Vicks- burg on the 16th of October, 1863; Mary, born on the 25th of March, 1860, died on the 2d of May, 1862; Mella, born on the 13th of July, 1865, is now attending school; Joel was born on the 4th of April, 1872.
HON. JAMES UNDERWOOD,
ELDORA.
AT T an early day in the history of our country three brothers by the name of Underwood emigrated from England. Of these, one settled in Massachusetts, and was the ancestor of many of the Underwoods of New England and the west ; a sec- ond settled in Virginia, and from him sprang many of that name in the south and west. The history of the third is not known with any degree of cer- tainty. David Underwood, a major at the battle of Bunker Hill, engaged in farming after the close of the war. He had a son, Jonas, who also was a farmer, and lived to an old age. He, too, had a son Jonas, who married Mary Vorse, and became the father of six sons and five daughters, of whom four sons and one daughter are now living. Of these, Henry Underwood married Almira Conley, and has four children, and is a farmer and stock- dealer near Marengo, Illinois; Malinda is the wife of Harry McIntyre, trackmaster of the upper branch of the Des Moines Valley railroad; Dr. Myron Un- derwood, a physician at Eldora, Iowa, is a graduate of Rush Medical College, Chicago; he was a sur- geon in the 12th Iowa regiment during the civil war; he married Sophia Ellis, and has four children living; David Underwood is a farmer and stock- dealer at Steamboat Rock, Hardin county, Iowa; he married Ann Harnard, and has one son. James Underwood, our subject, a native of Montville, Geauga county, Ohio, was born on the 25th of ()c- tober, 1830. His maternal great-grandmother was a relative of John Adams; his paternal grandmoth- er's name was Boydon. His maternal grandfather, Henry Vorse, a millwright by occupation, was a man of superior intellect ; being too young to enter the army he served as page to an officer during the
revolutionary war. He had a family of five sons and three daughters, of whom four are now (1877) living. Henry Vorse, about eighty-three years of age, is a resident of Kalamazoo, Michigan ; one of the daughters is living at Binghamton, New York ; the younger brother, William Vorse, a mechanic, lives near St. Paul, Minnesota. The mother of our subject, now eighty years old, is living with him. His only paternal uncle, Asa B. Underwood, a resi- dent of Grundy county, Iowa, is now over eighty years of age, and a man of unusual activity and in- telligence.
Mr. Underwood passed his early life amid the scenes of what was then the far west. He endured many hardships, and at the age of twelve years was able to do a man's work chopping. Although he labored under many disadvantages in acquiring an education, he studiously improved his opportunities and gained a fair knowledge of the ordinary Eng- lish branches.
In the fall of 1845 his father moved, with a herd of cattle, to Riley, McHenry county, Illinois, where he purchased and improved a farm. Here our sub- ject was engaged in such work as is incident to the pioneers of a new country, and received some edu- cational advantages. He was accustomed to drive to Chicago with produce, and it is worthy of note, as showing the difference between prices then and now, that his hotel bill, for supper, lodging and breakfast for himself and hay for his horses, and two drinks of whisky, was fifty cents. He remained on ·the farm until his nineteenth year, when he com- menced to learn the carpenter and joiner's trade, but only continued at it a few months. He was next engaged in carrying goods and passengers
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westward from Elgin. During the winter of his twentieth year he taught school, " boarding around " and receiving a compensation of ten dollars per month. Purchasing his time of his father in the following spring, he bought a yoke of oxen, and put in fifty acres of wheat and seven acres of oats. He then entered school and studied until July, and afterward harvested his grain, expending but five dollars for help. During the next winter he taught the same school for sixteen and two-thirds dollars per month, and in the spring, buying two yokes of steers and a yoke of oxen, broke prairie for one dol- lar and fifty cents per acre. He next taught a school at twenty dollars per month, having sixty- four pupils, of whom fifty became teachers. After the close of his school he cut the timber and erected a barn, twenty-six by thirty-six feet and twenty feet high, for his father for fifty dollars, it being the last payment on eighty acres of land which he had purchased of him. He spent ten weeks in school at Mount Morris, Illinois, in the following fall, studying grammar, rhetoric, algebra and geometry, and also taking an active part in de- bating societies. During the following winter he taught at Mount Morris for twenty-six dollars per month. In the spring of 1854, in connection with his brother, he purchased the homestead, making a farm of three hundred and fifty acres. Soon after- ward he sold his interest and bought his brother's farm of one hundred and fifty acres. He con- tinued farming, teaching winters, until 1861, when, through embarrassment caused by becoming surety for a friend, he sold his farm, paid off his indebt- edness and removed to Steamboat Rock, Hardin county, Iowa. Here he engaged in general work and in farming until the 11th of August, 1862, when he enlisted as a private in company F, 32d regiment Iowa volunteers. Going to Camp Franklin, Dubuque, he was appointed first duty sergeant in October, and on the 17th of November started for the south. At St. Louis the regiment was divided, his company, with four others, going to Cape Girardeau. In the following July, with a lieutenant's commission, he recruited a company of colored troops. In August, being taken violently ill, he was obliged to remain behind for a time, his company going south. He afterward recruited some twenty-five more men, and joined the regiment at Helena, Arkansas. It was very sickly, and they buried three hundred and eighty-three of their men between the Ist of Sep- tember and the Ist of December.
Mr. Underwood was in very poor health, often having to be brought in from picket duty, but kept up until the following July, when he was stricken down with fever and obtained a leave of absence of nineteen days, and went north to Marengo, Illinois. Returning to his regiment, he was sent to Island No. 63. and not improving in health, but continually growing worse, he was sent north on a surgeon's certificate. Finding that there was little prospect of his recovery, he, on the 16th of December, sent in his resignation.
Being in a poor state of health, he worked at va- rious things during the next few years, and in 1871 removed to Grundy county and engaged in farming, continuing that occupation until the present time.
In politics, Mr. Underwood is a thorough repub- lican. He was a strong abolitionist, and cast his first ballot for John P. Hale, being the only man in his town who voted that ticket. At the next elec- tion all but thirteen persons in the town voted with him. In the fall of 1860 he was captain of a com- pany of "wideawakes," and in 1868 captain of a company of "tanners."
From November 1, 1851, until 1861, he was treas- urer of the school fund at Riley, McHenry county, Illinois, and during that time was several times town clerk. In 1872 he was elected town trustee at Melrose, Iowa, and during the past three years has been serving as assessor. In October, 1875, he was elected to the state legislature for a term of two years.
Mr. Underwood's sympathies have always been with the laboring classes, and he has taken an act- ive part in the grange movement. He has been a leader in the local organizations, and is now (1877) a member of the executive committee of the state grange. He has for many years been actively con- nected with agricultural societies, and has given much attention to raising fine stock. Himself a man of cultivated mind, he has always advocated that the farmer should be a man of the highest type of intellectual and moral worth.
Since June, 1850, he has been an active member of the Methodist church, and during much of that period has been superintendent of the Sabbath- school. He has also been leader, trustee and stew- ard, and in the autumn of 1857 was licensed as a local preacher. In the fall of 1870 he was ordained a deacon.
Mr. Underwood was married on the 31st of ·| March, 1854, to Miss Melissa Gardner, eldest
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daughter of N. C. Gardner, postmaster at Union, McHenry county, Illinois. He was formerly a farmer, and is an only son of his father, who also was an only son. The family is descended from the family who owned "Gardner's Island." Mrs. Underwood's mother was Susasan Ann née Sanders. Of her family two sons and four daughters are now living.
Mr. Underwood has had six children : Olin Clark, born November 27, 1855, who is now study- ing medicine; Osman Watson, born December 27, 1857, who died May 7, 1861 ; James Myron, born October 22, 1859, now at home; Milton Ferree, born July 22, 1866, who died July 11, 1868; Henry Mason, born February 9, 1869, and Luella, born November 7, 1871.
JOHN FORREST,
DAVENPORT.
A MONG the early settlers of Davenport in the year 1837, when on the site of the present large city was but a small village with few inhabit- ants, may be found the name of John Forrest, now one of Davenport's affluent citizens, enjoying the memories of the past, as well as the substantial results of a successful life, after a long period of patient toil, firm perseverance, but restless activity of thought. These, conjoined with prudence and good management, added to quickness of percep- tion and promptitude of action, have produced the usual result -success. There are lives the story of which are more sensational, but no condition of life confers greater benefit on society, and deserves higher encomiums, than that of the successful self- made man.
John Forrest was born in the town of Russia, Herkimer county, New York, on the 14th of July, 1807. His parents were natives of Ireland and were among the first settlers upon what was known as the "royal grant," where they lived to an advanced age, dying within a few months of each other. Young Forrest commenced life as a farm boy, assisting on his father's farm, and being reared to habits of economy and industry, which were of great aid to him in after life. He received a com- mon school education, and after attaining his major- ity accepted a situation as clerk in a store, remain- ing as such two years, then going into the mercan- tile for himself, which he followed successfully until 1837, when, being drawn by the current then pre- vailing, he started west. He traveled extensively through the western states and territories from May until September of that year, with a view to the selection of a place preparatory to moving his family to the west as their future home. After diligent search he selected Davenport, then in Wisconsin .l
territory, as being preferable to all others, and mak- ing an investment in claims returned east for his family. In October, 1837, he again started for the west, and after six weeks of hard travel via Erie canal, Lake Erie, Ohio canal, Ohio and Mississippi rivers, arrived in Davenport on the 4th of December, 1837. On their way up after arriving at Burlington they were unceremoniously put ashore, the owner of the old craft being afraid to venture farther north, fearing they might get caught in the ice, but on the third day another boat took them to Rock Island and thence home. During the time they were in Burlington the territorial legislature of Wisconsin was in session, and the representatives of this county, without his application or knowledge, had a justice's commission from Henry Dodge, then governor of Wisconsin territory, made out, and sent to him soon after his arrival. Government lands not having been offered for sale, there was much litigation about claims which could only be settled in a justice's court with twelve jurymen. This involved great costs and much excitement. This office he held by appointment and election until June, 1845, when he was appointed postmaster, which office he held four years. Mr. Forrest has filled many offices of trust. He was alderman of his ward, and for one term held the office of mayor in the absence of the mayor elect, General Sargant.
He was very active in the question of the con- tested county seat, and it was due perhaps more to him than any other man that it was conceded to Davenport. In the election before the last a major- ity of twenty votes was for Rockingham. He and his friends succeeded in getting the supervisors of Dubuque county, to whom the returns were made, to delay the canvass and entry of record until they could satisfy them of the fraud on the part of Rock-
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ingham in conducting the elections. They were given three days in which to come from Dubuque and return there again with the testimony. Mr. Forrest started out through the country, and as he found a party who had voted against them illegally he, as a justice, at once took his deposition and within the time specified succeeded in obtaining the affidavits of a sufficient number to cast the vote in favor of Davenport, and the commissioners so re- corded it.
Mr. Forrest is an active member of the Methodist church, having joined that faith more than forty years ago. He is also a staunch member of the
Sons of Temperance, and was one of the originators of the order in Iowa.
He was educated in the democratic school of politics, to which party he still adheres, and is an earnest advocate for reform.
He was married on the 28th of March, 1835, to Miss Annie E. McMasters, of Russia, New York, a lady of high attainments.
Mr. Forrest is a self-made man. Commencing life in straightened circumstances, he has, by his own indomitable energy and perseverance, made for him- self a fortune, meriting and receiving the confidence and respect of his fellow-citizens.
HON. AZRO B. F. HILDRETH,
CHARLES CITY.
T `HE Hildreths belong to an early New England family, being descendants of Richard Hildreth, who came to this country with a company of Puri- tans from the north of England about 1640, and settled in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. He be- came a freeman of that colony on the 10th of May, 1643, his home then being in Woburn, ten or twelve miles northwest of Boston. At first he received grants of land to the amount of a little more than one hundred acres, and in 1664 additional grants of one hundred and fifty acres. He died in 1688, and his remains lie in the old burying-ground in Chelmsford,- the town from which Lowell, Mas- sachusetts, was taken about 1823. The descendants of this Richard Hildreth are scattered over the New England and middle states, and a very few are found in the western and southern states. Among them are noted historians and professional men. Richard Hildreth, author of a history of the United States, and Dr. Samuel Prescott Hildreth, the an- tiquarian and historical writer, of Marietta, Ohio, belong to this family. Eminent physicians in Dra- cut, Methuen, Marlborough and other towns in Massachusetts, were of this stock. Many of them have been graduates of Harvard College. A work called " Dragoon Campaigns to the Rocky Moun- tains," published in 1836, was written by James Hildreth.
Hon. Azro Benjamin Franklin Hildreth, the sub- ject of this memoir, is a descendant from the original Richard Hildreth, buried in Chelmsford nearly two hundred years ago. He is a son of Daniel Hildreth,
a Vermont farmer, and somewhat noted wool grower and stock raiser, and Clarissa Tyler, and was born in Chelsea, Orange county, February 29, 1816. He is the eldest child in a family of twelve children, nine of whom lived to grow up. His maternal grand- father, Jonathan Tyler, was one of the patriotic sons of New Hampshire who aided with musket in gain- ing American independence.
Young Azro seems to have had a natural and strong love for books; used them freely at a very early age, and took as much care of them as of his younger sisters. His name, Benjamin Franklin, caused him to become a printer and editor. As early as sixteen years of age, though aiding his father on the farm during the busy season, he had fitted himself for a school teacher, and began that profession at that early age. He taught several winters, farming meanwhile during the summers, and attending some academy, at Bradford or Ran- dolph, during the autumns.
At nineteen he left his native home and state by his father's consent, crossed the Green Mountains, went to New York city, where he worked one season in a book publishing house, returned the next year to Chelsea, worked one year in the printing office of William Hewes, spent another year as a com- positor in the city of New York, and in 1839 went to Lowell, Massachusetts, and started the " Literary Souvenir," a weekly paper which be conducted about three years, a neat and well edited publication, having a good circulation, and, as the writer well knows, it was quite popular, especially among the operatives
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in the Lowell mills. The writer was a careful reader of this publication. During part of this period Mr. Hildreth also published the "Ladies' Literary Re- pository," and for a while the " Daily Morning News," long enough to lose some money in the venture. In the autumn of 1842 Mr. Hildreth was persuaded to return to Vermont, locating at Bradford. There he published at first the "American Protector," a high- tariff weekly, advocating the election of Henry Clay to the Presidency. Not long afterward he changed the name to the "Vermont Family Gazette," starting a monthly at the same time, called the "Green Mountain Gem." Both were high-toned publica- tions, filled with excellent reading for the domestic circle.
At the end of ten years a returned Californian, with his pockets full of gold, made Mr. Hildreth a tempting offer. He sold out, went to Holyoke, Massachusetts, and spent three years operating at first a book and fancy goods store, and then pub- lishing and editing the "Holyoke Mirror." In November, 1855, he sold out, and the next spring settled in Charles City, Floyd county, lowa. Here he found a broad field for the development of his energetic, go-ahead character.
On the 31st of July, 1856, twenty-one years ago, he issued the first number of the "Intelligencer," a seven-column paper, with the names of John C. Fre- mont and William L. Dayton at the head of the editorial page, as candidates for President and Vice- President. It was a novelty to see a large, live newspaper, damp from the press, so far up the Cedar valley, and the first copy printed was put up at auc- tion, and brought twenty dollars. Three thousand copies of the first number were sold. Mr. Hildreth conducted the paper about fourteen years, disposing of it on the Ist of October, 1870. During the crash of 1857, and all the hard times following, it never shrunk a particle in size, never abated an iota its editorial fullness and vigor, was enlarged as the vil- lage (now city) grew, and was and still is noted for its excellent moral tone and its strong support of the republican party. During the rebellion Mr. Hil- dreth did valiant service for the cause of the Union.
In the spring of 1871 Mr. Hildreth aided in or- ganizing the First National Bank of Charles City, of which he was and is a stockholder and director. Two years later the Floyd County Savings Bank was incorporated, and he is its president. For some years he has been a member of the city school board, and is president, In that capacity he is doing most
excellent service, his tastes running to educational matters. This fact was discovered soon after his settlement in Iowa, and as early as 1858 he was elected a member of the state board of education, representing ten counties in the northeastern part of the state. He proved a very active and serviceable member of that body during the four years he was in it, and some portions of the present school laws of lowa are the production of his pen. It was through his influence that the doors of the State University were thrown open to females as well as males, he introducing a bill for that end and secur- ing its passage amid strong opposition. It was one of the best acts of his life, and he ought to be proud of it, if he is not. For this act the women of Iowa will always owe him a debt of gratitude.
In 1863 Mr. Hildreth was elected a member of the general assembly, serving one term. There he was chairman of the committee on schools and state uni- versity, and was also on the committees on banks and banking and printing. Here, likewise, he car- ried through an important measure for his part of the state, a measure tried more than once before and failing. He drew up a memorial to congress for a land grant on or near the forty-third degree of lati- tude, running from McGregor westward through Charles City. Through his skillful and untiring efforts this memorial passed the legislature, was sent to every member of congress, and cars of the land- grant road entered Charles City in 1869, opening northern Iowa to the eastern markets, and giving a grand impetus to the growth of Mr. Hildreth's adopted home. He saw the place when it had less than three hundred inhabitants ; he sees it now with three thousand, and has the satisfaction of knowing that his pen has contributed largely to its prosperity.
From what has already been written it may be correctly inferred that he was originally a whig in politics, transferring his affections to the republican party. To the latter he still adheres. He was never an office-seeker, and never, as he has been heard to declare, asked for any man's vote.
Mr. Hildreth was an Odd-Fellow in New England, a member of the Encampment and of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts at the time of leaving there, when his connection with the order ceased.
He'is a Unitarian in religious sentiment, but there being no church of that order in Charles City he attends the Congregational church, of which his wife is a member; and he is a liberal contributor to christian and benevolent institutions generally.
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His present wife was Miss Liveria A. Knight, daughter of Josiah Knight, of Fryeburg, Maine, they being married on the 21st of October, 1844. They had one child, a bright and promising daughter, who
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