USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 42
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Our subject was educated at the Binghamton Academy, a literary and scientific institution located at the county seat of Broome county, New York. From his earliest recollections he desired to be a physician. This was the one and only aim of his life, and toward this end his reading and studies 29
were all directed. His father, however, was strongly opposed to his plans, and desired him to follow the business of agriculture, refusing to furnish him the means to obtain a professional education, and he was consequently thrown upon his own resources at the age of fifteen years, at which period he left the parental roof and launched out in support of himself. For several years his experience was va- ried, and sometimes rough. He worked as a hand in a saw-mill, as an agricultural laborer, learned the art of daguerreotyping, which he carried on for two or three years, and which afforded him not only leisure for study, but means to defray his expenses. He read the usual medical works, and studied the science of healing under the direction of his uncle, S. H. French, M.D., who was then and is still a dis- tinguished practitioner in the town of Lisle, Broome county, New York. In 1853 he entered the Berk- shire (Massachusetts) Medical College, from which he graduated with honors the same year, after which he located in Hyde Park, Pennsylvania, where for five years he pursued the practice of his profession with very satisfactory results. At the end of this period his uncle, whose practice had grown to be
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quite large, offered him an equal partnership, which he accepted, and accordingly returned to the town of Lisle, where he had pursued his medical studies, and continued there in active and successful prac- tice for three years. In the autumn of 1860 he was induced to remove to the west, and located at the town of Anamosa, then a rising village, in Jones county, Iowa, where he soon built up a large and lucrative practice, and took high rank as a skillful and reliable physician. Soon after the out- break of the late rebellion he joined the army as surgeon in the 31st Iowa Volunteers, in which he served with fidelity and great usefulness, part of the time on the operating staff of the division, till the 20th of June, 1863, when a serious attack of illness brought on by the incessant drudgery of his position, obliged him to resign his commission, nor did he recover sufficiently to reenter the service during the remainder of the war. In 1863 he was appointed, by the President, examining surgeon for pensions for the district in which he then lived. In 1865 he removed to the larger and more desir- able city of Davenport, which has since been his home, and where his merits as a practitioner have brought him ample recompense. After the organ- ization of the board of medical examiners for ap- plicants for pensions in Davenport, he was elected president of that organization, a position which he still fills with ability and credit. The doctor has
never given himself to specialties, or taken up any particular branch of the profession, but is a phy- sician in the broadest acceptation of the term, treat- ing successfully the various ailments and accidents to which fallen humanity is heir. He is, moreover, a gentleman of great amiability of character and urbanity of manners; prompt in responding to the calls of duty, irrespective of the social position of the patient, his first and main concern being the relief of suffering. He loves the profession for its own sake, and the opportunity for doing good to his fellow-men which it affords. He is a gentle- man of high social position, enjoying the confidence and esteem of all who know him.
He was brought up under Methodist influence, but of late years has been an attendant upon the services of the Protestant Episcopal church. In politics, he has always been a republican. He joined the Ma- sonic order in 1856, and continues his membership, having passed through the master's degree.
In 1854 he was made a member of the Broome County Medical Society, New York, and in 1865 became a member of the Scott county, Iowa, Med- ical Society, of which he was president during the years 1868-9. He is also a permanent member of the State Medical Society.
On the 15th of April, 1868, he married Miss Agnes Norval, of Iowa. He has one child, a daughter, the result of a former union.
JOSEPH L. REED,
WILTON.
JOSEPH LAUGHREY REED, for many years the first business man of Wilton, was born at Blairsville, Pennsylvania, on the 29th of December, 1831, and was the son of James Reed and Hannah née Pomeroy, both natives of Pennsylvania, the lat- ter of German origin. His parents removed to Wayne county, Ohio, in November, 1832, and soon after to Holmes county in the same state, where the father died in 1841 and the mother in 1843, leaving Joseph L. an orphan at the tender age of ten years. The paternal grandfather of our subject was a na- tive of the north of Ireland, of Scotch ancestry, and emigrated in early life to Pennsylvania, where he married and pursued the business of farming until his death. A few of his descendants still reside in the Keystone State, where they are mostly tillers of
the soil. They are a superior race of men, of strong religious convictions,- generally attached to the Presbyterian faith- highly moral and industrious.
After the death of his parents our subject was taken charge of by an elder brother, George, under whose care he remained until the age of sixteen years, when he placed him in a store in Nashville, Ohio. Meantime he had received a common-school education, and was a bright and promising boy. After remaining a short time in Nashville he re- moved to Dalton, in Wayne county, Ohio, where he learned the saddler's trade, at which he worked in Coshocton and various other places until 1854, when he went into partnership with his brother George in the stock business for about a year.
On the 2d of January, 1855, he arrived in the
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State of Iowa, first stopping with his sister, Mrs. McKinley, in Cedar county. From thence he re- moved to Iowa City, and worked at his trade in the shop of Mr. J. B. Daniels, of that place, for about eighteen months. In the spring of 1857 he re- moved to the town of Wilton, then an incipient village of but a few houses, and commenced the harness business for himself, with a very small capi- tal, in a little frame shanty; but in a short time he accumulated sufficient means to purchase a lot and build a more commodious shop for himself. In the new quarters he remained about seven years, pros- pering and accumulating. Meantime he branched out into other departments of trade, bought and shipped large quantities of grain, provisions, cattle and hogs to Chicago; dealt in stocks and United States securities, and was for a number of years one of the heaviest operators on the stock exchange of that city ; all his transactions eventuating success- fully. In 1866 he built a large grain elevator on the railroad at Wilton, and in 1867 he erected a large brick building on Cedar street, in which he organized a bank,-the first in the place,- which was set in operation on the 20th of July of that year, and continued with great success for about nine years. Subsequently he added two additional stores, which, with the bank, were burned to the ground on the 20th of August, 1874. This great disaster, which piled in ruins the business center of the town, and paralyzed for a time its commercial activity, produced but little effect upon Mr. Reed. The next day his banking business was transferred to a grocery store, and he received grain at the rail- road warehouses; and while the embers were still glowing, his plans were matured for rebuilding on a larger and greatly improved scale, and to-day the beautiful brick block on Cedar street, the pride of Wilton, remains as a monument of his indomitable perseverance and liberal enterprise. During a period of eighteen years his success as a business man was uninterrupted ; every enterprise which he undertook brought a large return, and he amassed a fortune estimated at one hundred thousand dollars.
On the 28th of May, 1860, he married Miss Maria Herr, daughter of Christian and Susan (Stiver) Herr, of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, her father be- ing of Swiss origin some four generations since, and her mother of English ancestry. Mrs. Reed is a lady of culture and refinement, a member of the Presbyterian church, and a leader in every good and noble work inaugurated in the community.
They have two sons, Charley L., born on the 11th of April, 1861, and Harry J., born on the 21st of March, 1863; both young men of bright intellects and large promise. The former is being trained for the pursuit of business, and the latter for the medical profession.
Mr. Reed was accidentally thrown from his buggy on the 4th of November, 1875, and received inju- ries from which he died on the morning of the 5th, universally regretted. His death cast a gloom over the entire community, and his funeral was attended by an immense concourse of citizens, the procession reaching all the way from the house of deceased to the cemetery, a distance of a mile. He had been a member of the Odd-Fellows society, which was largely represented at his funeral.
In politics, he had been a Jefferson democrat through life, but had never sought or held office, except that of city treasurer of Wilton, of which he was the incumbent at the time of his death.
He had never connected himself with any cor- porations other than his bank, but had become the owner of two large stock farms in Muscatine county, numbering about six hundred acres, and also large tracts of land in Nebraska, which remain in posses- sion of the family.
Mr. Reed possessed rare business talents, was gifted with a shrewd and far-seeing mind, which seemed able to forecast the future with remarkable accuracy, so that he rarely made a mistake in trade, added to which was a character of unswerving in- tegrity. He was never known to break his word or violate a trust. He kept but few accounts, and was wont to make all his calculations mentally, rarely employing a pencil, and generally more accurately and expeditiously than the most experienced ac- countant. But while careful in business, and scru- pulously exact in all his transactions, he was a man of the greatest benevolence and generosity. His gifts to the cause of religion and charity were noble, while he was continually relieving the wants of the poor and unfortunate, and so unostentatiously were his benefits bestowed that sometimes years elapsed before the donor became known. He was piously educated, and continued through life to entertain the highest respect for the cause of religion, his preference being for the church of his fathers, the Presbyterian. He was a very liberal supporter of the Wilton church and Sabbath school of that de- nomination, giving in a way characteristic of his generous nature, without parade or display. He
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generally contributed one-half to the current ex- penses of the church, and time and again has doubled his contributions to the Sabbath school, for libraries, periodicals, etc .; and mainly through his instrumentality was the beautiful and commodious parsonage of the Presbyterian church built. Nor were his liberal gifts confined to the church of his choice, the other evangelical churches of the place were likewise liberally aided by him. New facts every day coming to light show the greatness of his
generosity and the multiplicity of his acts of benev- olence. His loss was regarded as a publie calamity. While reticent to the outside world, yet to his inti- mate friends he revealed a depth of religious feel- ing that was but rarely suspected. His deeds of benevolence were wrought not for show, but for the love of doing good, not letting his left hand know his right hand's doings. His acts of kindness will be lastingly remembered by the citizens of Wilton, while his loss to the community seems irreparable.
THOMAS C. HOLYOKE, M.D.,
GRINNELL.
T HOMAS CHAMBERLAIN HOLYOKE, a pioneer settler and physician in Poweshiek county, Iowa, was born and reared in the town of Brewer, opposite Bangor, Maine, dating his birth on the 16th of March, 1818. He was educated at the Bangor Seminary; read medicine and attended lectures in the medical department of Harvard University, there graduating in 1847 ; practiced two years at Surry and five at Searsport, Maine, and in March, 1854, found his way to the wild prairie on which the city of Grinnell now stands. At that date there was no shanty, not even a wigwam, on the site of the place. He came in company with Hon. J. B. Grinnell, late member of congress, H. M. Hamilton and three or four others, to found a Congregational town, the parties purchasing next month several thousand acres, including all the business part of the present city.
There was a small grove west of town, and Dr. Holyoke felled the first tree for a rude cabin, which was erected in great haste as a shelter from the March winds, so searching in a prairie country. He was soon made county surveyor, and laid out the town and fixed the boundaries of the farms. His hand was in every important work until the popu- lation had so largely increased as to demand his whole time in his profession. Up to the day of his death, which occurred on the 10th of February, 1877, he was very busy in his regular calling. His rides were often long and tedious, the families in the country, having been accustomed to test his skill, being unwilling to exchange for a younger man their old family physician. He found comfort in obliging them, though the exposure to which he was sometimes subjected was not unlikely delete-
rious to his health. He was stricken with paralysis of the left side just after rising one morning, and died before midnight. Physicians attributed the immediate cause of his death to cerebral hemor- rhage.
The usefulness of Dr. Holyoke, as a citizen as well as physician, and his solid character and influ- ence, can be best told in the language of parties who knew him best, and whose sad duty it was to pay the last rites to his mortal remains. Mr. Grinnell paid a touching tribute to his memory at the funeral, and from his remarks we make the fol- lowing extracts :
Who so near to a community as he who administers medicine to body and soul, faithful to allay the burning fever, or, when the grim messenger has claimed his victim, closing the eyes of our beloved in death, and commending the bereaved to the God of the widow and fatherless? Such were the ministries of our friend, who for twenty years met the blinding snow-storms and drenching rains tar out in the country, attending the poor who had no reward to bestow but the "God bless you!" and at last worn out by attendance and anxiety at the bedside of your friends so justly confiding in his fidelity and professional skill. We mourn for an eminent professional career closed, unclouded by one suspicion, and there is the fit acclaim, " Well and faithfully done." ... For the young, he was a Sabbath-school superintendent, an instructor and leader of the church choir. Education had no warmer or more intel- ligent friend than he. He was for years president of the board of the literary fund of Grinnell University ; a trustee since the removal of Iowa College to Grinnell; for years at the head of the executive committee, and an able lecturer on physiology and health before the students. His
opportunities were numerous and well improved. With a naturally conservative mind he was abreast with every im- provement, and a full sharer in the labors of moulding a community. The county had his service as an officer, the State Agricultural College as a trustee, and honorable ser- vice was performed in the state legislature.
Hle donated the right of way for a railroad from the east through his homestead, and gave his thousands, the largest subscription, to build the Central railroad of Iowa. In tree planting and fruit growing, making long, weary journeys for the rarest standards, he was the pioneer, and an example
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in home decoration, as evinced by his tasteful residence and grounds, where for him there shall never be again the early bloom of flowers and the sweet spring carol of birds, their owner and protector having gone to walk in the Paradise gardens above.
He was an humble man, often tremulous in speech, and with a subdued utterance which we shall no more hear, but may gratefully remember the spirit and words of him whose life was a gospel, and whose voice is now hushed in death.
On the same occasion President Magoun, of Iowa College, thus spoke of his connection with that institution :
He had been a trustee for more than sixteen years, hav- ing been elected the year after it was resolved to remove the college, in view of commencing the college work here. He had also been all that time a member of the executive committee. They had asked him to share their trust not merely because he was prominent and held in high esteem in the town which he had aided to plant and to build, but because of his excellent professional education and acquire- ments, his interest in general education, his superior intel- ligence, his unquestionable integrity, and because he was thoroughly a christian man. They found him in this duty · and trust what he had always been in other things, a man
who never came forward unless called forward, a man of few words, but possessed of great soundness of judgment, sagacity, plain sense, honesty, conscientiousness and fidel- itv. Ile was ordinarily in the board retired, quiet and silent; but its records and those of the executive committee show how largely he was called to act in the transaction of business, and the confidence reposed in his intentions and his wisdom. He was a man to be intrusted with difficult business, a man to be trusted, utterly. He was untiring in respect to the interests of the college, vigilant against cost, loss and mistakes, patient and attentive to minute affairs, thoroughly faithful to this trust as to others. He was the only trustee who had been at the same time an instructor, giving gratuitously lectures to successive classes on the application of physiology to the care of health.
On the 2d of October, 1849, Miss Nancy C. Clark, of Searsport, Maine, became the wife of Dr. Holyoke, and they had four children, all sons, three surviving him. Frederic S. died in early infancy ; William Pond, the eldest son, is a medical student ; Edgar Loomis is in the sophomore class of Iowa College, and Robert Ames is in the preparatory department of the same institution.
CHARLES E. WITHAM, M.D.,
WILTON.
C HARLES EMERSON WITHAM, eldest son of Ebenezer Witham and Susannah nee Hop- kinson, was born at New Sharon, Franklin county, Maine, on the 21st of October, 1830.
The name is of English origin : the family tradi- tion is that three brothers of that cognomen came from England about the beginning of the seven- teenth century and settled in Massachusetts. From one of these brothers our subject claims descent. The towns of Withamsville, in Massachusetts, and in Clermont county, Ohio, derive their names from members of this lineage, by whom they were founded. Colonies of Withams are still in New England, while detachments of them have found their way into Ohio and other western states. The great-grand- father of our subject was a soldier of the revolution- ary war, was wounded at Bunker Hill, and died a prisoner of war at Halifax, Nova Scotia, while his grandfather served through the war of 1812. The mother of Dr. Witham was a sister to the late Hon. Thomas Hopkinson, of Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, and a descendant of Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the declaration of independ- ence. Thomas Hopkinson was a graduate of Har- vard University, in the same class with Charles Sumner, and subsequently an eminent lawyer of
Boston, and at one time president of the Boston and Worcester Railroad Company. Mrs. Witham was a lady of high literary attainments, having been in early life a teacher ; she was, moreover, a devout member of the Baptist church, in which faith she educated her children, impressing upon them all a deep rever- ence for the bible and the institutions of Christianity, and to her influence is mainly due whatever of suc- cess in life may have been achieved by her children, all of whom have the liveliest memories of her motherly care and holy influence. She died at Mainville, Ohio, in 1867, at the age of sixty-two.
The father of our subject, Ebenezer Witham, was a natural-born mechanic, with a special talent for mill machinery, the details of which he seemed to acquire by intuition. He removed to Farmington, Maine, when our subject was but four years old, where he erected a flour-mill for himself on an im- proved plan of his own devising. He afterward erected other mills in different parts of the state, in several of which he retained an interest, and was supposed to be among the wealthy men of his day. He was a man of great physical strength, large framework and iron constitution. Had never been known to complain of ill-health during his lifetime until he was smitten down with typhoid fever, of
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which he died in 1840, at the early age of thirty-two years. Like many men of genius, his financial affairs were loosely conducted, and for much of his property held in copartnership he had no writings, and when his estate was settled up, instead of being amply provided for it was found that his widow and eight children were virtually penniless, and thrown entirely upon their own resources.
Charles E. Witham received his juvenile educa- tion partly in the public schools, but chiefly at the knee of his excellent mother, and although he was not in early age a bright scholar, yet he possessed an in- tense desire for an education. His days were usually spent at such manual labor as he could procure, and the proceeds were sacredly devoted to the main- tenance of the family, of which he was for many years the chief support, while his nights were de- voted to reading. His early years were thus fraught with toil and privation, and void of most of the enjoyments which generally render the season of youth the most happy period of life. Notwithstand- ing these hardships and difficulties he had attained his maturity at the age of sixteen years, when he not only passed for a man, but received the wages of a man, and often extra wages for extra work. Like his father, too, he possessed a peculiar mechanical genius, which also brought its reward. He spent the years between sixteen and eighteen in the starch factory of Abiel Abbott, Esq., of Farmington, and was soon made foreman of the works. In 1848 he sold out the little property which the family still owned, and with his mother and seven younger children immigrated to Mainville, Warren county, Ohio, where the mother had some relations. On arriving at their destination their entire capital amounted to two hundred dollars, most of which they invested in a cabin and patch of ground, while Charles E. entered a manufacturing establish- ment, where he earned fair wages, and by his heroic exertions not only kept the family in food, but com- fortably clothed.
About the year 1853 certain circumstances tended to bring the lightning-rod industry into great de- mand. Our subject was employed as agent by a firm who had entered largely into the manufacture of those articles, to make contracts with house- holders and superintend the erection of those pro- tectors on their houses. The enterprise proved profitable, and young Witham soon accumulated capital enough to embark in the business on his own responsibility ; success followed, he became all intent
on money-making, which was then the one aim of his life : a few years and he should be rich and able to devote his time to the acquisition of knowledge. In the midst of these pleasing reveries he was smit- ten down with Asiatic cholera, and for days his life hung by a thread. Then he remembered that there was something else to live for besides riches; that his Creator and his fellow-men had some claims on him. He learned to sympathize with suffering, to feel another's woe, and during convalescence he resolved to educate himself for a physician and de- vote the remainder of his life to the alleviation of human suffering. But on his recovery he was destitute of means, and the way seemed dark and hedged up. He had, however, established a rep- utation for wisdom and integrity which now stood him in the stead of capital. He resolved to make a trip, on his own account, to the southern states, with his enterprise, and in this way endeavor to obtain means to prepare for the profession to which he had resolved to devote his life. Kind friends indorsed him, and his guardian-angel mother encour- aged him. He left Ohio in the fall of 1853, traveled over the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, South and North Carolinas, and returned in the spring of 1854, having netted by the trip the handsome sum of two thousand dollars. This loosened his hands. He attended three courses of lectures in the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati, and pursued his studies in the office of Dr. C. H. Cleveland, one of the professors of the institution, and was graduated with honors in the spring of 1856. He subsequently attended another course of lectures at the College of Medicine and Surgery, Cincinnati. He located at Mainville, Ohio, his old home, and immediately entered upon the practice of his profession. He was skillful, enthusiastic, and of course successful.
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