USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 48
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open after hours if by so doing he could oblige any person. Few people were ever more attentive to their calling, or more punctual and prompt in the discharge of obligations. So wedded was he to business, that he paid little attention to politics except to vote, and more than once refused to ac- cept office. He acted with the democrats until the rebellion broke out, after that with the republicans.
He was a member of the blue lodge in the Ma- sonic fraternity, but rarely met with the order.
Mr. Weiser was a communicant in the Protestant Episcopal church, and much of the time an officer in that body, and maintained an unblemished and exalted christian character.
On the 14th of July, 1859, he was united in mar- riage with Miss Louise M. Amy, daughter of John and Cynthia (Smalley) Amy, of Fort Atkinson, Iowa. She has three children : Amy Spangler, aged fifteen ; Charles J., aged twelve, and Anna Louise, aged seven, all bright and promising children. They became
fatherless on the 19th of July, 1875, while their mother was absent from the state. Though not in good health for three or four years, Mr. Weiser was as well as usual that day, was quite cheerful in the evening, retired at a late hour, and soon afterward was found dead in his bed, the cause supposed to be apoplexy.
Mr. Weiser early identified himself with the in- terests of his beautiful Iowa home, took pride in the growth and material progress of the place, now a city of nearly five thousand inhabitants, and lent his aid in every enterprise tending to develop the wealth of the county. Few men more public- spirited ever lived in Winneshiek county, and no man here ever accumulated such a fortune. He was thoughtful and considerate, lenient toward his debtors, never taking advantage of their necessities ; heedful of the wants of the poor and destitute ; kindly in his feelings toward all; social and cheer- ful in disposition.
EDWARD RUSSELL,
DAVENPORT.
A MONG the successful men of Iowa may fairly be placed the name of Edward Russell. Suc- cess brings honor in every honest occupation, and where is it better earned than by the earnest, honest journalist and editor ?
Edward Russell was born in London, England, on the 6th of October, 1830. His parents, William and Elizabeth Russell, were from good Scotch families, and were both eminent in their circle for earnest religious faith and activity in christian labor. His father was an early adherent of the temperance cause, and prominent in its advocacy among English reformers, and was for several years the secretary of the order of Rechabites, a temperance secret and benevolent organization, strong in numbers and in- fluence. From them Mr. Russell very early received religious impressions, and the steadfastness of his convictions, which is one of his strongest character- istics, is largely due to the influence of the examples and teaching he received during his youth.
His early education was obtained in England, at the grammar school in London, and at Hill House Academy, in Northamptonshire; subsequently only such as could be obtained from evening and home studies in New York and elsewhere in the United
States. He developed early a taste for solid read- ing, was studious, and much interested in politics and public affairs. His father's family removed to the United States in September, 1845, and from financial reverses which his father met with soon after their arrival he was under the necessity of laboring in aid of the support of the family. All of his earnings up to the day he was twenty-one were given to his father. After leaving school he engaged as errand boy in a store, and after a short service was apprenticed to a carpenter and joiner, on his own choice. In the fall of 1847, his father having bought a tract of native forest land in Callicoon, Sullivan county, New York, he removed with them there, with the intention to help make a farm there- on. He assisted until March, 1848, aiding in build- ing a small house and the clearing off of several acres of land, when he went to New York, and be- gan to travel through several states, selling goods as a peddler for a mercantile house in that city. Al- though young he was very successful, and gained much knowledge of localities and men, and an experience very useful in after life. Continuing his travels he turned westward, and first placed foot on Iowa soil on the 7th of September, 1848, at Le
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Claire, Scott county, with the purpose of visiting an old friend of his father's, Rev. W. Rutledge, having been joined on his way there by his father and younger brother. They were so well pleased with the state that they resolved to make it their home. To this end the New York land was sold, and the family removed to Le Claire. After working a few months on the farm he returned to his trade, and continued, with a single intermission, until the fall of 1858. About seven months were spent in 1850 in traveling through south and west. This added greatly to his stock of experience and information. He was much interested in the active discussions of political affairs, resulting from the repeal of the Missouri compromise in 1844 and 1845, and this led to his first contribution to the press, which appeared in the columns of the Iowa "True Democrat," an anti-slavery paper then published at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, after which he was a frequent con- tributor to the "National Era," the anti-slavery paper of Washington, District of Columbia. Mean- while he labored at his trade by day, studying and writing at night. In 1856 he began to write for the Davenport "Gazette," first as correspondent, then as contributor of political articles, both over the nom de plume of "Agricola." In 1859 and 1860 he began and continued to be an occasional contribu- tor of editorial political articles for the same paper. In the fall of 1858, on urgent request of friends, he assumed his first editorial position as editor of the Le Claire "Express," which was soon changed to Le Claire " Republic." This he left in 1859, on finding that the enterprise did not pay, and returned to his trade. In November, 1859, he removed to Daven- port, and took a position as clerk in the office of the county recorder, remaining till the Ist of May, 1861, when he was appointed assistant postmaster at Dav- enport, which office he resigned in September, 1862, and became editor and one of the proprietors of the Davenport daily and weekly "Gazette." In August, 187 1, by advice of his physician, and in consequence of nervous prostration and threatened congestion of the brain resulting from excessive labor, he sold his interest in the "Gazette," and retired from the edi- torship, but resumed this relation on the 4th of November, 1875, by repurchase of his former inter- est in the "Gazette." He held the position of assist- ant postmaster from the Ist of May, 1861, till the 31st of August, 1862 ; was appointed postmaster and entered upon the duties of the office on the ist of May, 1864, from which position he was removed by
President Johnson, for political offenses, in October, 1865. He was the first official in the United States removed by Johnson on political grounds. The reason of his removal was that he had gained prom- inence as a radical republican, by early taking ground against Johnson's reconstruction policy, the "Gazette " being the first paper in the west to do so, and by introducing into and carrying through the Iowa republican convention of 1865 what was known as the negro-suffrage amendment to the fourth reso- lution of the platform. This occasioned much dis- cussion in the party at the time. He was appointed postmaster by General Grant, taking the office on the Ist of May, 1869, and was again appointed four years thereafter. He is secretary of the county re- publican organization, formed through his efforts in the years 1860 and 1861.
He is an earnest worker in the Sabbath-school cause, and was president of the Sunday School Union from 1865 to 1871, as also president of Scott County Sunday School Association in 1871, which office he still holds, and has been for three years treasurer of the Scott County Bible Society. He has perhaps done more in the aid of the Young Men's Christian Association in Iowa than any other one man in the state. He was president of the Davenport Young Men's Christian Association in 1873, 1874 and 1875, and of the State Young Men's Christian Association in 1874 and 1875. He is now chairman of the state executive committee, and the corresponding member for lowa of the National Young Men's Christian Association. He has been superintendent of the sabbath schools most of the time since 1856, and is at present superintendent of the Bethlehem Sunday School.
He is a member of the Masonic order, having joined in 1865 : also a member of the Sons of Tem- perance.
Mr. Russell has ever been prominent in the ad- vancement of all enterprises for the benefit of the city and country. He is a member of the board of trade, and very active therein.
He is a member of and an elder in the Presby- terian church, although he was educated in the Congregational church, and was a member thereof from 1851 to 1872. He is a firm believer in evan- gelical christianity.
He was raised in the republican school of politics, has always been a radical anti-slavery man, an aho- litionist and opponent to caste. and is now president of the county republican organization.
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In 1868 he made a short visit to Europe for his health, visiting many points of interest.
He was married in April, 1852, to Miss Lydia R. Rutledge, daughter of Rev. W. Rutledge.
Mr. Russell stands high as an editor, a very useful and respected citizen, and one of the most promi- nent of those who helped build up the press of the
great west. He has pursued his chosen course with untiring zeal, and with a success which has already earned for him no inferior rank among the editors of the country. The growing prosperity of the paper over which he presides, and the prominent position into which it has sprung, might satisfy any ordinary ambition.
JOHN S. DAVIS,
DAVENPORT.
A MONG the enterprising manufacturers of the | northwest we find the name which heads this sketch. John S. Davis occupies a prominent posi- tion and has taken an active part in the mercantile community of Davenport for the past twenty years. He has worked shoulder to shoulder with other public-spirited citizens in various enterprises for the development of the city and country.
He was born in Gloucester county, New Jersey, on the 12th of November, 1816, and is son of Charles and Mary Davis née Fisher, both natives of that state. He commenced life as a farm boy, and was reared, as boys of that day were, to habits of econ- omy and industry. His opportunities for education were limited, confined as they were to the common schools and the ordinary branches. After leaving school in 1838 he went to Cincinnati, engaging in the store of William Resor, manufacturer of stoves, where he remained till 1855, when he removed to Indianapolis, Indiana, and engaged in the leather business, under the firm name of Fishback and Da- vis. He continued there only one year, when he sold out and removed to Davenport, lowa, and es- tablished the firm of Davis, Watson and Co., manu-
facturers of threshing machines and agricultural im- plements. This firm was very successful, building up for themselves an enviable name as manufact- urers. In 1864 Mr. Davis took the business in his own hands, and has continued the same to this time. Much of his success may be attributed to his habits of industry, perseverance and business energy, which have acquired for him a competence. Notwithstand- ing his success, he gives his personal attention to the superintendence of his works.
He is not a member of any church, though brought up in the Methodist faith.
He was educated in the republican school of pol- itics, although never taking any active part in polit- ical matters.
He was married on the 24th of February, 1848, to Miss Eliza J. Hasselman, daughter of Lewis Has- selman, Esq., a prominent manufacturer at Miamis- burgh, Ohio.
Mr. Davis is emphatically a self-made man. Com- mencing life in straitened circumstances, by his own energy and perseverance he has made for himself an honored name, and gained the confidence and es- teem of his fellow-citizens.
SAMUEL H. SHOEMAKER,
DE WITT.
T' THE present postmaster at De Witt is a fair representative of the Iowa journalists who have had a printing-office education. He never went to school a day after he was sixteen years old, and when he joined the list of compositors he took little with him but good moral habits, and a settled deter- mination to succeed in his new undertaking, if faith- fulness and industry would do it. He began aright, and his course has led on steadily to success.
Samuel Henry Shoemaker, son of Samuel and Sarah Long Shoemaker, is a native of the Empire State, and was born at Millport, Chemung county, on the 19th of July, 1840. The Shoemakers are a patriotic race, some of them having fought against the mother country in both wars. Two uncles were taken prisoners by the British in 1812-15. In 1847 Samuel Shoemaker moved with his family to Will county, Illinois, and settled on Rock creek, where
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he died the next year. Left with a family of seven children, the widow removed to Joliet in order to obtain better school privileges. Three years later she removed to Monmouth, where she married Judge Daniel McNeil.
In 1853 Samuel came to De Witt with the family, and in 1856 entered the office of the De Witt "Clintonian," O. C. Bates, editor and proprietor, remaining there two years. With slight interrup- tions, he worked at printing until the rebellion broke out, enlisting three days after the president's first call, in a company whose services were not then re- quired. In June, 1862, he again enlisted, this time in the 18th Iowa Infantry, going to the front two months later as second sergeant in company A, and returning the following January completely broken down in health. It was a long year before he recov- ered sufficiently to resume business.
In July, 1864, he started the "Observer," an out- spoken republican paper, of which he is still the editor and proprietor. It is a good county as well as political paper, looks well to all local interests, and has a good support. Thoroughly appreciating his services to the national administration, in 1872 President Grant appointed Mr. Shoemaker postmas- ter, and so faithfully did he discharge his duties that at the end of four years he was reappointed for an- other term, which he is now serving. He is and always has been very industrious, and both as post- master and newspaper conductor gives excellent satisfaction. He is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and of the Methodist Episco- pal church.
He has a wife and two children, a son and daugh- ter, having married Miss Rette Ferree, of De Witt, on the 4th of September, 1866.
HON. GEORGE F. WRIGHT,
COUNCIL BLUFFS.
G EORGE F. WRIGHT stands prominent among the leading lawyers of Iowa; his firm pur- pose from the beginning of his legal career has been to honor his profession; and his success in this regard is best attested by the high esteem in which he is held by the members of the bar.
He is a native of the town of Warren, Washing- ton county, Vermont, and was born on the 5th of De- cember, 1833. His father, Franklin A. Wright, of English descent, was a farmer by occupation, and a man of decided character, who exerted no small amount of influence in the community where he lived.
George received a good academic education, and designed to pursue a course of collegiate studies. At the age of seventeen, however, he engaged in teach- ing, and continued that vocation for four years; at the expiration of that time, in the spring of 1855, he settled in Keosauqua, Van Buren county, Iowa, and there began the study of law in the office of Messrs. Knapp and Wright. He was admitted to the bar in 1856, and became a partner in the firm with whom he had studied, taking the place of Mr. George G. Wright, who retired from the firm for the purpose of assuming his duties on the bench of the supreme court of lowa.
Continuing in practice at Keosauqua until 1868,
with good success, Mr. Wright then removed to Council Bluffs, his present home, and resumed his profession as a partner with Judge Caleb Baldwin, whose sketch appears in another part of this volume. This partnership continued until the death of Judge Baldwin, which occurred in the winter of 1876, and since that time until the present (1877) Mr. Wright has conducted the business in his own name.
During the said partnership connection Messrs. Baldwin and Wright acted as attorneys for the Chi- cago, Rock Island and Pacific railroad, and also for the Burlington and Missouri, and the Union Pacific railroads. His fellow-citizens recognizing in Mr. Wright a peculiar fitness for official positions, have honored him with various responsible trusts.
While a resident of Keosauqua he was solicited to become a candidate for the legislature, but by reason of business engagements was compelled to decline the honor. In the year 1874 he was elected to represent in the state senate the district compris- ing Mills and Pottawattamie counties, for a term of four years. In public enterprises he has been espe- cially active, and has been instrumental in organ- izing several corporations of prominence in the state, being owner of a large portion of their stock, and acting as their attorney.
Among these may be mentioned the Broadway
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Street Railway Company, of Council Bluffs, organ- ized in July, 1868; the Council Bluffs Gas Light Company ; the Ottumwa Gas Light Company, organ- ized in October, 1871; the Mount Pleasant Gas Light Company; the Elgin Gas Light Company, organized in November, 1871; the Cedar Rapids Gas Light Company, organized in January, 1872; and the Sioux City Gas Light Company, which he organized on the 22d of February, 1872.
While in the state senate he acted a prominent part, and to his efforts is due the securing of the appropriation for building the west wing of the insti- tution for the deaf and dumb at Council Bluffs.
During the civil war he rendered very efficient
service to the state in raising troops, and through his efforts the necessity of a draft in Van Buren county was prevented. Upon the first call for volunteers by President Lincoln he was commis- sioned by Governor Kirkwood, and, raising a com- pany, repaired to the rendezvous ; but the call being already filled, his company was disbanded.
Personally, Mr. Wright is a man of admirable qualities, and possessing a wide range of experience and fine conversational powers, is a most excellent social companion.
He was married in 1865, to Miss Ellen E. Brooks, of Northfield, Vermont, and by her has two sons and two daughters.
GEORGE H. WRIGHT,
SIOUX CITY.
I F there is a self-made man in lowa it is the pres- ent register of the land office at Sioux City. He never spent three weeks in a school-room, yet suffi- ciently improved his mind as to be deemed worthy of a place in the councils of the state of his adop- tion and an important office under the United States government. It was not his fault that he had no school education. Even as late as his nineteenth year he entered an academy in Livingston county, New York, but the very first day he was taken sick and remained so until the end of the winter term, when, being a sailor, his services were required on the lakes. What education he has he picked up at odd intervals, both on the land and water.
George Henry Wright was born on the 3d of No- vember, 1829, in Troy, New York, his parents being Allen M. and Abigail Valentine Wright. He lost his father when four years old. A few years later his mother married Daniel Morgan, and the whole family went, in 1838, to Black Rock, now a part of Buffalo. In 1843 the family moved to Grand Island. George worked with his step-father at the cooper's trade from eleven to fifteen years of age, but did not like the business, and went on the Niagara river and ·subsequently on the lakes, starting as a wheelsman on the steamboat Commerce, running on the river, and working his way up to the master of a vessel on the lakes at twenty-one.
Mr. Wright piloted the first vessel that went into the port of Tonawanda, the top-gallant-rig schooner Hudson, owned by Winslow and Co., of Cleveland,
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Ohio. During his sailor life he had some dangerous adventures. In the spring of 1857 he swamped his vessel off Buffalo in a fearful squall. His wife was with him with an infant son, and for twenty minutes he held to a ring-bolt with his left hand and to his wife with the right hand, she, meanwhile, holding the child in her arms, with the sea rolling over them all the time.
Two years later the steam-tug Jenny Lynd was wrecked in the Niagara rapids between Chippewa and the head of Goat Island, and Mr. Wright was persuaded by her owner to superintend the perilous work of taking her off. It required a man of much aquatic experience and strong nerve to do it. Mr. Wright succeeded in two days, sleeping one night on the wreck with the waves foaming round him. He received two hundred dollars for his two days' work.
Like landsmen, sailors have their financial ship- wrecks. In the summer of 1857 Mr. Wright had seven thousand dollars, all of his own earnings, in- vested in the Lake Navigation Company, and the hurricane of that season sank every dollar of it.
In July, 1859, Mr. Wright removed to the west, spending one year in Wisconsin, three years in Des Moines and Fort Dodge, Iowa, and eight years at Grant City, Sac county. He sold fruit trees and agricultural implements at Des Moines, bought furs at Fort Dodge, and sold goods and built and oper- ated a flouring mill at Grant City. He was also an internal revenue assessor in Sac county in 1868 and 1869.
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On the 12th of July, 1871, he came to Sioux City under appointment of the United States government, and one week afterward assumed the duties of reg- ister of the land office. He has proved himself so competent and faithful an officer, so prompt and en- ergetic, that he is now holding under a second ap- pointment.
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Mr. Wright was a member of the lower house of the general assembly during the thirteenth session, 1870, representing Sac, Beuna Vista, Cherokee and Clay counties; acted on five committees, and was chairman of the committee on domestic manufac- tures. He aided in drafting the herd law, and the best powers of his active mind were used while in the legislative body.
A democrat until 1855, he has since voted with the republicans. He is connected with no church.
Mr. Wright is a prominent member of the Ma- sonic order, having taken thirty-two degrees.
On the 24th of October, 1854, Mr. Wright took to wife Miss Sarah Smith, of Penfield, New York, and they have six children. He is giving them a good education.
Mr. Wright has quite a taste for numismatics, and has gathered more than a thousand pieces of coin, no two of them alike. He has several coins older than the christian era. One of them is Roman, representing Romulus and Remus suckled by the wolf. This coin was found by an officer in the French army, George Schenster, now a resident of Sioux City. He presented it to Mr. Wright. The subject of this sketch has also a fine collection of postage stamps, gathered from more than a hundred and twenty-five nations and provinces. He has also a great many stuffed birds, common to the Missouri valley, col- lected, however, mainly by his boys. He likes to encourage them in any pursuit that will enlarge their knowledge.
He cultivates fruit and has an extensive nursery, giving the few leisure hours at his command, at cer- tain seasons of the year, to horticultural pursuits. He is a busy man. He started out for himself a little more than thirty years ago, with twenty-five cents in his pocket, and not even the education of experience, and to-day has a competency and stands among the honored men of the state.
MYRON UNERWOOD, M. D ..
ELDORA.
A MONG the thoroughly educated physicians of Hardin county, lowa, and one whose life record is second in purity to none in that section, is Myron Underwood, a native of Ohio. He was born at Montville, Geauga county, on the 7th of August, 1833. His father was Jonas Underwood, a farmer. His mother, before her marriage, was Mary Vorse. Some of the ancestors on both sides of the family participated in the revolutionary strug- gle. When Myron was twelve years old his father immigrated to McHenry county, Illinois, and settled on South Prairie, on the west side of Coon creek - the pioneer in that immediate locality. There the son passed the remainder of his youth. He and a younger brother, David, used to travel three miles to attend the winter school, the summers being given to work on the farm, until he was twenty. Of his schoolmates in those days, a few years subse- quent to his father's settlement on that prairie, were five who afterward graduated from Rush Medical College, Chicago, two who are now lawyers, and three who are ministers of the gospel. An elder
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