USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 37
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Shortly after graduating, we find Mr. Cutler in Erie county, New York, at the head of the Spring-
ville Academy, thirty miles south of Buffalo. This school he taught only one term, when he went to Buffalo, and entered the law office of Talcott and Thompson, finishing his legal studies with J. D. Husbands, of the same city. He was admitted to the bar in October, 1855, and during the same autumn immigrated westward across the Mississippi. After prospecting in Iowa a few months he settled at Anamosa, Jones county, in May, 1856. He there practiced law, except when absent on civil or mil- itary duty, until 1864.
In September, 1866, Mr. Cutler removed to Deco- rah, and resumed the practice of law. Prior to this, for two years, he had been prostrated with sickness contracted in the army. Latterly, on account of the state of his health, he has not been able to attend to the arduous labors of an attorney, and has given his attention to business of insurance.
In September, 1862, Mr. Cutler was commissioned major of the 31st regiment of Infantry, and served until the following spring, when physical disability compelled him to resign.
Soon after locating in Anamosa he was elected
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prosecuting attorney, and served one term. In the autumn after returning from the war he was elected to the state senate, to fill a vacancy occasioned by the death of Captain Carpenter, serving one session, or until he left Jones county.
In the autumn of 1867 Major Cutler was elected judge of Winneshiek county, and at the end of one year was, by law, transferred to the office of auditor, commencing its duties on the Ist of January, 1869. To this office he was twice reelected, and held it five years. The duties of every position to which
he has been assigned he has discharged with fidelity, and to the entire satisfaction of his constituents.
He has always been a firm adherent to republican principles. His religious connection is with the Congregational church, in which he bears office.
On the 30th of July, 1857, he married Miss Sarah E. Brigham, of Keeseville, New York. They have three children.
Major Cutler has not at all times had the physical strength to do as much as he would like to, but what he has done has been done well.
EDWARD P. GREELEY,
NASHUA.
M ANY of the men who may well be called the fathers of thriving young cities west of the Mississippi river are still in their prime and en- joying the fruits of their early privation and toil. Twenty or twenty-five years ago, coming from the east and selecting a home in the wilderness, they made the first important improvements and gath- ered around them other enterprising men, and in a few years found themselves the center of small but lively and constantly growing towns. Of such men is Edward P. Greeley, who for twenty-one years has been a resident of Nashua, Chickasaw county, where he settled in March, 1856, at which time not more than half-a-dozen families resided there. The town was then known as Woodbridge, so called for Enoch D. Woodbridge, who was the pioneer settler. Mr. Greeley changed the name to Nashua, he being a native of Nashua, New Hampshire, where he was born on the 27th of February, 1833. He is a son of Colonel Joseph Greeley, a prominent citi- zen of that city. The maiden name of his mother was Hannah Thornton, a granddaughter of the signer of the "Declaration of Independence" of that name. His paternal grandfather was among the first to enlist in the war for freedom from the British yoke, and was wounded at the battle of Bunker Hill.
The subject of this sketch spent his youth in school and at farming on the old homestead. At sixteen he went to Boston, Massachusetts, and after being nearly six years in the commission house of Parker, Wilder and Co., came to Iowa, as before mentioned. He built the first store in Nashua, and spent one year in trade. He then bought the water-
power on the Cedar river at this point, of Wood- bridge and Sample, and milling has since been his principal business. In 1862 he put up a merchant mill, with granite foundation and frame above -a substantial structure, with four run of stone and a capacity for two hundred thousand barrels of flour per annum. This marked an epoch in the history of Nashua, making it a rallying point for business, and guaranteeing for the place more than simply "a local habitation and a name." Mr. Greeley early saw that the Cedar valley must, at a not very remote day, have a railroad, so he set a civil engineer to work to survey the route, and a few years afterward, in 1868, he enjoyed the pleasure of hearing the rumbling of cars rushing into town.
With the exception of the work he did in getting a railroad to this point, Mr. Greeley has attended exclusively to his milling business, never holding a political office. He seems to be contented with being a first-class miller and the leading builder of a beautiful little city. While we write he has a brick dwelling-house and two or three stores under way, and nearly every year has witnessed his enter- prise in this direction.
Mr. Greeley lives in a Gothic frame house on a rise of land overlooking the city from the west side, with a profusion of shrubbery, shade trees and other attractive surroundings,- the finest residence in this immediate section of the Cedar valley.
In politics, he is an independent or liberal repub- lican, and liberal also in his religions sentiments.
The wife of Mr. Greeley was Miss Mary A. Roby, of Nashua, New Hampshire; married on the 12th of May, 1859; he is the mother of three children,
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only two of them living. The varied qualifications of his wife make her an ornament and a general favorite in society.
At the celebration of our national independence, in 1877, at Nashua, Mr. Greeley was president of the day, and in the opening speech indulged in thé fol- lowing reminiscences of the "day of small things" in that now thriving young city :
The multitude here assembled demonstrates your con- tinned appreciation of this great day, the anniversary of our
nation's birth. The first celebration of this kind in Nashua happened twenty-one years ago, when the town was with- ont form or even a street, and when there was not a com- pleted frame building to be seen. Two log palaces and a few slab villas constituted the abode of her people. The few settlers up and down the Cedar joined the villagers and marched behind the fife and drum to Highland Grove, situ- ated on the bluff or bank of the river, where a stand and seats were rudely constructed. The late Deacon Wood- bridge officiated as president of the day, and the late Elder Babcock as chaplain. Hon. Moses Conger delivered an eloquent oration and I read the Declaration. The office of marshal was filled by Andrew Sample, and it required every other man present to fill the rest of the offices.
HON. ELISHA RANDALL,
MASON CITY.
O NE of the earliest settlers in Cerro Gordo county, and one of the most noteworthy men, is Judge Randall, who was one of the thirty-four voters that organized the county in the summer of 1855. Elisha Randall took the full name of his father, who was one of the judges of the court of Madison county, New York, for many years. The son was born at Brookfield, in that county, on the 22d of September, 1818. His mother, Betsy Brown Randall, was a daughter of one of the first settlers in Madison county.
Judge Randall, senior, owned a clothing-mill, a saw- mill and an oil-mill, and until he was twenty-two years of age the son worked with his father, at- tending a common school during part of his boy- hood. In 1844 the son moved to Edmeston, Otsego county, where he remained six years operating a grist-mill and manufacturing hardware. He then removed to Belmont, Allegany county, and spent nearly four years in manufacturing lumber.
In the autumn of 1854 Mr. Randall immigrated to Iowa, halting a short time at Waterloo, and the next June took up his permanent residence in Cerro Gordo county, one mile north of Mason City post- office. On locating here he built a saw-mill on Lime creek, in connection with Samuel Douglas, of Ben- ton county, and a grist-mill two years later, running both for several years.
In 1870 Mr. Randall built a lime-kiln, in connec- tion with other parties, and operated it a short time. He made the business a study, and in July, 1872, received a patent for the " Randall Perpetual Lime- kiln." Two years ago he sold his interest in this patent in Cerro Gordo county, and recently his mill property, moving on a farm two miles from town.
Judge Randall, as his neighbors love to call him, was the first supervisor of Mason township; was justice of the peace for several years after the county was organized; was county judge two years, and while holding this office was elected recorder of the county, serving one term.
He aided in getting the three railroads to Mason City, and at one time was a director of the Central Railroad of Iowa. He has done much to build up Cerro Gordo county.
Judge Randall belongs to the Masonic fraternity.
He has been a member of the Methodist Episco- pal church since he was seventeen years old, and has lived a consistent christian life, leaving in this respect a precious legacy to his family.
In politics, he was first a whig and then a repub- lican, and adheres to the latter party.
On the 31st of October, 1838, he was married to Miss Lucy M. York, of Brookfield, New York. They have had twelve children, eight of whom are living. Five of them, one son and four daughters, are mar- ried.
When the rebellion broke out, Judge Randall had no sons old enough to enlist, but sent three sons-in-law ; one of them, Charles H. Huntley, ad- jutant of the 32d Iowa Infantry, was killed at the battle of Pleasant Hill. Another was a Virginian, Henry Keerl, who promptly enlisted in the Union army, while four brothers at the south fought in the rebel army. He was a lieutenant in the 32d regiment, and for his bravery at the battle of Pleasant Hill was offered the captaincy of the company, but he refused to accept because of an impediment in his speech. At that battle he received a ball in his can- teen. The other son-in-law fought on the Indian
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frontier. His name was George W. Henderson. He returned after serving three years and three months in the 7th United States Cavalry. One of his daughters, the widow of Charles H. Huntley, is now the wife of L. L. Huntley, formerly United
States revenue assessor at Dubuque, and now of the White Lime and Stone Company, Mason City.
Judge Randall is a modest, social and very pleas- ant man, always hard-working, yet well preserved and likely to live to enjoy a serene old age.
MARCUS C. WOODRUFF,
DUBUQUE.
JOURNALISM, long followed, is a liberal educa- tion. The biographical history of this country abounds in instances of men who, educated at the printer's case, or editor's desk, or both, have thus found the stepping-stones to eminence. A list of the names only of this class would make a portly volume. Among the rising men of Iowa, in middle life, largely self-taught, and owing much in this respect to journalistic pursuits, is Marcus C. Wood- ruff, whose modesty shrank from appearing in a work like this, but whose habits of industry, great improvement in writing, and noble bearing, at the head of one of the leading daily journals of Iowa, embody a lesson worth perpetuating.
Mr. Woodruff was born at Aurora, Erie county, New York, on the 21st of March, 1831. He re- ceived the rudiments of education at the common school of his native village, and for a short time he attended the Aurora Academy, a respectable insti- tution of its class thirty years ago. At the age of eighteen he taught school one season in his native town, and then went to Buffalo and spent three or four years in book-keeping in a wholesale house. He then listened to the advice of an older jour- nalist, Horace Greeley, and came west, halting in Boone county, Illinois, and teaching school three years. Not having a thorough relish for this pro- fession, in 1855 he came farther west, locating in Hardin county, Iowa, selecting the picturesque
little village of Iowa Falls for his home. Here he pursued the business of land agent for several years. In February, 1856, he issued the first call for a republican convention in that county, and in compliance with the call a meeting was held, and the party was formally organized on the 22d of that month.
In 1863 Mr. Woodruff purchased the "Sentinel " newspaper establishment at Eldora, the county seat, and managed it there for two years, when he moved it to Iowa Falls, enlarged the paper, and conducted it with increased and marked ability. In May, 1870, he disposed of the "Sentinel," and, in partner- ship with Charles Aldrich, purchased the Waterloo "Courier," of which he was the sole editor most of the time for nearly four years. In February, 1874, he disposed of his property in Waterloo, purchased one-half interest in the Dubuque "Times," and has been its chief editor to this time. Though an ardent republican, he is courteous to contemporary journalists of the opposite party ; is dignified in the tone of his leaders; is a clear thinker and an able writer.
Mr. Woodruff was chief clerk of the Iowa house of representatives of the twelfth general assembly in 1868, and postmaster at Iowa Falls when he left Hardin for Black Hawk county.
On the 7th of April, 1861, he was married to Miss Eliza E. Weller, of Norwich, New York.
JOHN FOLEY,
NEW HAMPTON.
TF there is a self-made man in Chickasaw county, Iowa, that man is John Foley. He came to this state a poor boy twenty years ago; worked hard on a farm, and educated himself largely by studying during the evenings, fitting himself for a teacher and for general business.
Mr. Foley is a native of Ireland, and was born in the county of Galway on the 14th of August, 1840. His parents were Thomas and Catherine (Lyden) Foley, who immigrated to this country when John was a child. His father died in Baltimore, Mary- land, in 1852, and his mother in Iowa in the spring
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of 1877. John came with her to this state in June, 1857, and settled on a farm in Jacksonville town- ship, ten miles from, New Hampton. There he worked until 1871, being very industrious in his manual labor, and commencing to teach during the winters as soon as he could fit himself. This he did by giving to study hours which many young men give wholly to amusements, and some to dissipation.
Six years ago he was nominated for the office of treasurer of the county, and elected by a fair major- ity. So well did he discharge his duties that he has been three times reëlected, each time by a vote which showed that the people had an increasing knowledge of his eminent fitness for the office. After he had served the county nearly two years, the New Hamp- ton "Courier " of the 4th of October, 1873, thus spoke of his official work :
Attentive to the duties of this office, cordial in his inter- course with the taxpayers, and correct in his business, he has made scores of friends, and not a single enemy. It is infinitely to his credit that, without fear, without favor, and without prejudice, he has sought to perform the duties of the place rather than to build up a clique who should con- spire to keep him in office. A man of the people, he has faithfully performed the people's work, with an eye single to their interest.
He found the finances of the county embarrassed, its credit depressed, and distrust of its financial condition and
management universal. When he took possession of the treasurer's office county warrants had not been redeemed over its counter for years, but had been hawked about the streets, and peddled from hand to hand till they finally found their way into the hands of the money brokers at a dis- count, to the people, of from ten to thirty per cent.
His advent in the treasurer's office changed all this in a single day. Public confidence rose as by magic. The ability of the county to meet its obligations promptly was no longer doubted. County warrants commanded their face in greenbacks on the street and in the treasurer's office. They have continued to do so up to this hour.
The people of Chickasaw county owe Mr. Foley a debt of gratitude. He has done their work ably, faithfully, and for the compensation fixed by law. In his official capacity he has known no friends, and no enemies. He has favored no organized rings, and sought to build up no special inter- ests ; but with rigid impartiality has dealt honorably with all. More than this, at the time of his election he was perhaps the only man in the county upon whom all the elements of opposition to treasury misrule could have been concentrated. He accepted the office of treasurer at a posi- tive sacrifice of his private business interests.
Prior to holding the office of treasurer Mr. Foley had been a member of the board of supervisors for one term, and was for nine years connected with the school board of his town. He is an ardent friend of education, and labors assiduously for its advancement.
Mr. Foley was reared in the Catholic faith, and steadfastly adheres to the religious teaching of his ancestors.
HON. JOHN D. HUNTER,
WEBSTER CITY.
A MONG the self-made men of Iowa, whose edu- cation was acquired largely at the printer's case, and who have risen to considerable promi- nence in the state, is John D. Hunter, of Hamilton county. He was born at Knoxville, Jefferson county, Ohio, his father being a farmer, and now residing in Mahaska county, Iowa. His mother, before her marriage, was Nancy Day. The son spent his early youth on a farm, devoting but a few months yearly to attendance at school. At fifteen he became a printer's apprentice in Ashland, Ohio, completing his education in the " art preserv- ative " at Bryan, in the same state. On the day he was twenty years of age he started a paper, in part- nership with another man, at Angola, Indiana. That town was then small; the paper was not well patron- ized, and at the end of one year, without having essentially replenished his exchequer, he returned to Bryan.
In the autumn of 1856, Mr. Hunter came to 26
Iowa, halting a few weeks at Marion, Linn county, and settling at Eldora, Hardin county, in Decem- ber of that year. For a short time he worked as a journeyman printer on the "Sentinel," then the only paper in the county. He soon after pur- chased a half interest in the office, and in about two years owned the establishment. He con- ducted the paper until the Ist of January, 1864, when he sold out to M. C. Woodruff, now of the Dubuque "Times."
In 1865, in connection with other parties, he opened a store in Iowa Falls. Eighteen months later, in December, 1866, he removed to Webster City and purchased the Hamilton "Freeman," a paper which, with the exception of one year, he has continued to publish, and which he has made the leading journal in the Boone valley.
Mr. Hunter was chosen treasurer and recorder of Hardin county in 1863, and, after serving eight months, resigned to enter the military service. He
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was in the commissary department of the seven- teenth army corps, and served until the war closed.
In the autumn of 1867 Mr. Hunter was elected to the lower house of the general assembly, and was reëlected two years later. During the four years he was in that body he served on his full share of committees, and shirked responsibilities in none. During his second term he was chairman of the committee on compensation of public officers. Mr. Hunter originated the bill authorizing the governor to appoint a special committee to visit the charita- ble and other state institutions; though the bill, introduced very late in the session, did not pass that year.
He has been postmaster since February, 1873. He was appointed to the same office at Eldora in
1861, and resigned through inability to attend to its duties while editing the paper.
He is not a member of any church, though he attends the Congregational.
Mr. Hunter has always been a republican.
On the 23d of December, 1852, he married Miss Sarah A. Gates, of Mansfield, Ohio. They have had four children, three of whom are living.
During the ten years that Mr. Hunter has been editor of the "Freeman," he has made it a powerful agent in advancing the interests of Webster City and Hamilton county, and it is gratifying to him to know that the citizens of both fully appreciate his valuable services. The political party, also, to which he belongs is partially indebted to him for its local strength.
ROBERT N. MATHEWS,
ROCKFORD.
R OBERT NELSON MATHEWS was a native of New York, and was born in Clinton county, on the 5th of May, 1809. He was the son of John Mathews, a farmer and mechanic, who came from England, and settled near the line of New York and Canada.
Mr. Mathews spent his youth and early manhood at the east ; married Miss Caroline A. Horr in 1834, and in that year settled in Kane county, Illinois, building the first frame house on the site of Aurora. He opened a farm, and continued in agricultural pursuits until 1846, when, having read law at Aurora, he was admitted to the bar and commenced practice at Little Rock, Kendall county, continuing in his profession there for eight or nine years. His prac- tice was extensive and profitable. During four years of his residence in Kendall county he served as county judge, an office for which his sound judg- ment and administrative talents admirably qualified him. In 1853 he was elected to the legislature, and was associated in that body with such men as John M. Palmer, S. M. Cullom and John A. Logan. Mr. Mathews introduced the first bill for the protection of wild game. About this time he became interested in government lands west of the Mississippi, partic- ularly in Iowa and Nebraska, where he prospected considerably, making entries, and finally selecting his home at Rockford, on the beautiful Shellrock, where he settled on the Ist of January, 1857. Here
for twenty years he toiled hard to build up a town, leading off in every enterprise which tended in that direction, up to the time of his death, which oc- curred on the 3Ist of May, 1877. Judge W. B. Fairfield, of Charles City, long an intimate friend, pronounced his funeral oration, and thus spoke of Mr. Mathews as a lawyer :
As a lawyer, Mr. Mathews was well read, thoroughly versed in its principles, clear in his perception as to fact and law and the relation of one to the other, lucid in statement, logical in reasoning. Although he rarely in his later years conducted the trial of a cause in court, he frequently brought cases to the bar whose trial was intrusted to younger members of the profession. In all these cases, however, there was this that was noticeable-they were prepared. Not only was the law clearly defined and the authorities digested, but the preparation of the testimony in significance and sequence was masterly. The introduction of witnesses and testimony was so arrayed that as fact after fact and incident after incident was developed they consti- tuted, in the simple order of array, an argument at once clear and logical. No man at the bar in this district under- stood better the value and the weight of testimony.
The last eight or nine years of his life he was a banker, and was successful in this, as in every other enterprise in which he engaged. He left a large property in the village of Rockford, a farm of eleven hundred acres two miles south of town, another farm sixteen miles away in the edge of Franklin county, and other property scattered here and there.
Mr. Mathews was elected one of the supervisors of Floyd county, when the law establishing such an office first went into operation, and while in that
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office was instrumental in freeing the county of very heavy obligations in the form of railroad bonds. He took pride in the accomplishment of this work, and the taxpayers felt that they owed him a heavy debt of gratitude.
In his oration already referred to, Judge Fairfield thus spoke of the character of Mr. Mathews :
As a man, he was of large brain, large heart and gener- ous impulses. He had a will that would have been imperi- ous if there had not lain back of it a rare kindliness and a quick sympathy. Little children liked him, and dumb ani- mals never feared him: both certain indices of a kindly and sympathetic nature. He was a man given to hospitality in its broadest sense, and while he was not munificent in his giving, he was, according to his convictions of right, very generous. No person ever went hungering from his door, and the waif and the wanderer found at his table food and under his roof shelter cheerfully and unquestioningly given. To the poor, and those who by force of untoward circum- stances or the chariness of nature had been placed in posi- tions inferior to him, he was kind and gentle; to his equals, courteous, though sometimes brusque ; to his friend he was sincere, reliable, unswerving; toward those who disliked him he was independent and oftentimes defiant ; as a neigh- bor, kind and obliging ; as a creditor, lenient and forhearing, and as a counselor, shrewd and safe.
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