USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 59
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Mr. Price has always taken a decided and con-
I am truly Bouns A. Price
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sistent position in favor of the cause of temperance. He was one of those who, in February, 1848, organ- ized the Grand Division of the Sons of Temperance for the State of Iowa, and was elected first Grand Worthy A - -, and afterward Grand Worthy Pa- triarch for the state. He was elected for a number of years as representative to the National Division of North America. In 1847 he was instrumental in organizing a division of Sons of Temperance in Davenport, and was elected the first Worthy Patri- arch. His views, and the position he took upon the temperance subject, have given him a promi- nence possessed by no other private citizen in the state, and yet there was not a man of his opponents who did not respect the singular honesty of his endeavors, and his entire freedom from all effort to gain either personal or political popularity.
In religious views, he is a Methodist, having joined that church in his seventeenth year. He was treas- urer for the Scott County Bible Society for the years 1851, 1852, 1856 and 1857, and president for the years 1876 and 1877.
Mr. Price was raised in the democratic school of politics, and remained in that party until an attempt was made to force slavery into free soil, when he
helped to organize the republican party of Iowa, and has been ranked as a radical republican cver since.
He has passed some time in travels, having visited nearly every state in the Union, and has traveled over England, France, Switzerland, Ireland and Scotland.
He was married on the 27th of April, 1834, to Miss Susan Betts.
His son, M. M. Price, was United States consul to Marseilles, France, and one of his daughters is the wife of Hon. John F. Dillon, of the United States circuit court, one of the ablest jurists in the west ; another daughter married the Rev. Laird Col- lier, and another married Alfred Sully, of Brook- lyn, New York. His youngest son, W. H. Price, is a resident of Denver, Colorado.
In the various changes of an active life, Mr. Price has gained the respect of a large circle of friends, and the confidence of his business connections, and while making constant use of his natural powers, he has never wasted or weakened them, so he is still in possession of much of his native vigor and strength. At over three score his step is still firm, his form erect, and his countenance cheerful.
WILLIAM S. BOYD, M. D., VINTON.
O NE of the oldest and best educated physicians and surgeons in Benton county is William Swan Boyd, a resident of Vinton twenty-two years. He is a son of John and Rachel Waters Boyd, who resided in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, when the son was born, on the 20th of June, 1814. His ma- ternal grandfather and also his paternal were from Ireland. His father was a major in the war of 1812-15. William farmed on the homestead until about eighteen; attended the preparatory depart- ment of the college at Meadville, Pennsylvania, two years; read medicine with Dr. Thomas Brinker, of Unity, in the same state; attended medical lectures at Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated in February, 1849. After practicing between six and seven years in West Salem, Ohio, Dr. Boyd came to Iowa late in the autumn of 1854, stopped a short time at Iowa City, and at the close of January, 1855, settled permanently at Vinton. Early in the winter of 1868 he went to Philadelphia, and attended a full course
of lectures in Jefferson Medical College. The ben- efits of that course he has reaped in increased effi- ciency and skill in his profession, and the increased confidence of the people in him as a medical prac- titioner. Dr. Boyd was examining surgeon for pen- sions in Benton county about eight years, but has never held a political office of any importance.
He is a strong republican, and usually votes, but his life work has been in his profession, and there he excels.
He was reared a Presbyterian, but inclines to the sentiments of the Methodists. He has no church connection, but is a man of very pure character.
He belongs to the blue lodge in the Masonic order, but pays very little attention to anything out- side of his profession.
Dr. Boyd has a third wife. His first, Miss Jane Sloan, of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, mar- ried in 1839, died in about two months. His second, Miss Elizabeth Carothers, of West Newton, in the
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same county, married in 1842, died in 1852, leaving four children, two of them since following her into the spirit world. His present wife was Miss Cath- erine Winegardner, of West Salem, Ohio, married in 1853. She is a model step-mother. obliging, kind and affectionate. The eldest child of the second wife, John R. Boyd, has a wife, and is a physician and surgeon at Lost Nation, Clinton county. Rachel Ann is the wife of Henry Miller, shoemaker, of Vinton.
Dr. Boyd is a member of the Iowa Union Medical Society, and has an excellent standing in the pro- fession. His character is such as to command the high respect of the" community inside and outside the medical fraternity.
He has a fine brick residence located in the cen- tral part of the city, with umbrageous and delight- ful surroundings, one of the most pleasant homes in Vinton.
JAMES M. SHELLEY,
KEOKUK.
JAMES M. SHELLEY, the pioneer dry-goods mer- chant of southern Iowa, was born in Guilford county, North Carolina, on the 26th of January, 1813, and is the son of Francis Shelley and Nancy Shelley née Brown. Both his grandparents served during the war of the revolution. He was an apt scholar, and having the best advantages offered by the schools of his time, acquired a good English education, and, besides, a thorough knowledge of Latin. His early ambition was to become a law- yer, in which profession he would doubtless have excelled. His pecuniary circumstances, however. were not such as would allow him to gratify his de- sire, and accordingly, when he was twenty-two years of age, he engaged in mercantile pursuits, a line of business which has engaged his constant attention during a period of forty-one years. His first effort in mercantile life was with Governor Morehead, at Leaksville, North Carolina, and continued during the years 1836, 1837 and 1838. Aside from their regular mercantile trade he formed a partnership with P. S. Hamlin and Co., and carried on the manufacture of tobacco, then the staple product of their section of the south. Mr. Shelley, stationed at New Orleans, personally superintended the sales in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Mexico- a great undertaking before the advent of railroads, -and by his extensive travels gained a most valuable experience and knowledge of men and things.
In 1838, returning to his native state, he remained one year, and at the expiration of that time removed to Kentucky, where for ten years he was engaged in a successful mercantile trade ; and during the same time he served as justice of the peace of Calloway county, having been appointed by Governor Clark.
The judicial district, comprising twenty or more counties, was very thinly populated. The district judge not being able to hold his court in some of the counties oftener than once in twelve months, the legislature passed an act authorizing him to select one magistrate of each county, and to endow him with the power of issuing writs, determining habeas corpus, granting injunctions, etc. This honor was conferred upon Mr. Shelley by one of Ken- tucky's most noted jurists, the Hon. Willey P. Fowler.
Closing his affairs in Kentucky in the spring of 1850, he removed to Keokuk, Iowa, whose commer- cial future he was able to forecast. Forming a partnership with James and James F. Cox, he at once engaged in the wholesale dry-goods jobbing trade; two years later James Cox retired from the firm, and James F. Cox, by reason of ill health, withdrew in 1865.
Mr. Shelley is preeminently a business man, and succeeds in whatever he undertakes ; as a counselor, his advice is freely sought, and many of his wealthy customers admit that they owe their prosperity to him. A rule of his business life has been never to harass or oppress his customers by useless law- suits. When he traveled through the country doing his own collecting, by his agreeable manners he won his way to his debtors' confidence, and it was a trite saying among commercial travelers, during the financial crisis of 1857, that "it was of no use to go after a customer when Colonel Shelley had been before them, for if a man who owed him had any money, or could borrow it, he was paid first." He has never brought suit unless compelled to do so, and then has always given it his personal at- tention ; and by his remarkable memory of minor
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details, and shrewd judgment in determining the strong points, he has been enabled so to direct his attorneys as seldom to lose a case. He is probably the most widely known of any man in his line of business in the state, his name being as familiar as household words among all country merchants. Beginning life without means, he has carved his own history and made his own fortune. Though now sixty-three years of age, he is as active and energetic as when fired by youthful ambition; noble- hearted, public-spirited and generous, his character has ever been unsullied and above reproach.
Politically, Mr. Shelley was formerly a Henry Clay whig, and later identified himself with the repub- lican party. He was a warm supporter of the Union cause during the war, but believing that the tend- ency of the republican party was toward central- ization, he abandoned it in 1870, and two years later was the liberal and democratic candidate of his district for congress. Although he carried his own county, he was defeated by his talented op- ponent, Hon. George W. McCrary. He was demo- cratic candidate for state senator in 1873, but was defeated by a majority of fifteen. He has never sought political honors, and allowed his name to be used only at the urgent solicitations of friends. He made a gallant canvass for congress, and as a public speaker, though not trained to the rostrum, was logical, illustrative and eloquent; a man of commanding presence, finely-formed head, a clear ringing voice of great capacity, he easily won the attention and admiration of his auditors. He is now in full sympathy with the democratic party,
and believes in the old political tests of character, honesty, capacity and fidelity to the constitution. As a writer, he is clear and happy in expression, while as a conversationalist, he is fluent and mag- netic, being thoroughly posted in history, poetry and current literature.
At the present time (1876) Mr. Shelley is president of the Iowa Life Insurance Company, located at Keokuk, which is fast winning its way to public confidence.
His religious training was under the influence of the Quakers, and though not a member of any church, he makes the rule of his action that ex- pressed in the words, "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," giv- ing justice to all and oppressing none.
Personally, he is generous and courteous, and by his habitual suavity, impresses even the casual ob- server as a man among men capable of great things.
Mr. Shelley was married on the 13th of October, 1842, to Miss Louise J., daughter of the late Beverly B. Stubblefield, a prominent name in Kentucky. Mrs. Shelley is an estimable lady of fine native en- dowments, well educated, a devoted wife and fond mother.
Of their two sons, both of whom were educated at Princeton College, New Jersey, William F. is a partner of his father at Keokuk, and George M. a partner at Kansas City in the wholesale dry-goods jobbing trade; both were trained to mercantile pur- suits, and inherit the business talent and personal popularity that have so signally marked the career of their father.
HON. SHERMAN G. SMITH,
VERTON.
S HERMAN GRISWOLD SMITH, son of Ste- studies through the first term of the junior year, when he left and began to teach school and study law. He read at Urbana, Ohio, with James and Duell, and was admitted to the bar at a term of the : supreme court of Ohio held at Columbus in March, 1857. phen F. Smith and Amanda M. née Cole, is a native of Green county, New York, dating his birth on the 22d of May, 1831. His branch of the Smith family is of German pedigree, his grandfather com- ing to this country subsequently to the revolution, and settling in Green county. The Coles are an old On the 11th of November of that year Mr. Smith opened an office in Newton, Jasper county, Iowa, and here has since been his home and the field of his operations, except a little more than two years, which he spent in the military service. He went New England family. Sherman G. spent the first twenty years of his life on farms in Green and Mad- ison counties in his native state, then came as far west as Oberlin, Ohio, where he entered the pre- paratory department of the college, pursuing his . into the army in September, 1862, as major of the
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40th lowa Infantry, and was with that regiment through all its marches, expeditions, raids and battles until late in 1864, when he resigned at Little . the Hon. James G. Blaine. Rock, Arkansas, on account of ill-health.
Prior to going into the army, in the autumn of 1861, Major Smith was elected to the state senate, and served in the regular and special sessions of 1862, heartily supporting every war measure of the general assembly.
He was elected district attorney of the sixth judi- cial district in 1870, and served four years. But such positions are of very little consequence to him, as his professional business is much better than the emoluments of any office pertaining to the bar or bench. He is an excellent office lawyer and a pow- erful advocate, standing second to no man at the Jasper county bar.
Major Smith has always acted with the republican party, and is an influential member of it. He was
a delegate to the national convention in 1876, his favorite candidate for presidential nominee being
He has been mayor of Newton one term; has done good work at sundry times on the city school board, and is a trustee of the State Normal School located at Cedar Falls.
He is a Royal Arch Mason, and has been master of the Newton Lodge.
The religious connection of Major Smith is with the Congregationalists, where he has held a mem- bership nine or ten years.
His wife was Miss Louisa J. Dixon, of Newton, their union occurring on the 28th of April, 1859. They have three children, and have lost two.
Major Smith is a man of solid build, physically, morally and intellectually, having a stainless record. It is fortunate for lowa that she has a large class of just such men. Her honor rests upon them.
JACOB H. BRUSH,
OSAGE.
A an early period in American history three brothers came from England and settled in Huntington, Long Island, and from them have sprung the Brushes now scattered over the western as well as eastern states. Jacob Henry Brush, son of Albert and Julia Burchard Brush, is one of these descendants, and was born in North Salem, West- chester county, New York, on the 9th of July, 1833. Albert Brush is a farmer, one of the proprietors of Brewster, a town in the edge of Putnam county, on the Harlem railroad, and he and his wife are still living in Brewster. The Burchards were early set- tlers in Norwalk, Connecticut. Jacob spent his early years in Westchester and Putnam counties, receiv- ing his education at the North Salem Academy and Amenia and Charlotteville seminaries, teaching the district school one winter at Brewster.
About the time he arrived at his majority Mr. Brush became interested in the west, and concluded that here was a good field for young men of any business tact and a disposition to work. Thus impressed, he left Putnam county in May, 1855 ; reached Dubuque about the time the land office was being removed; followed it to Decorah ; there opened a real-estate office and bank, and again fol- lowed the United States land office when it was
removed to Osage in July, 1856. The next year Mr. Brush was joined in the banking business by his younger brother, Francis Albert, the firm name being J. H. Brush and Co. In 1861 another brother, Jesse Platt, and in 1866 the youngest brother, Avery, engaged with the subject of this sketch in banking, and they are still in business together. In 1865 their private bank was changed to the Osage Na- tional Bank, of which J. H. Brush is president, J. P. Brush, cashier, and Avery Brush, assistant cashier.
Of the land-office business Mr. Brush has had special charge since he began it. Few men have located as many acres of land in the Turkey river land district for non-residents as he, and probably fewer still have accommodated as many men who wanted to find homes in this district. During all these years he has never needlessly distressed a man -never took advantage of his necessities to foreclose on him, but has uniformly shown all possi- ble leniency. Indeed, he has seldom had occasion to resort to law.
Mr. Brush has engaged in other business when he could command the time to attend to it. In 1861 he built the Osage flouring and saw mills, and oper- ated them until October, 1873. He is one of the half-dozen Osage men who were most active in
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securing the railroad which reached this city in 1868, and one of those who labored and gave to establish the Cedar Valley Seminary, and also one of the very few to advocate and work for the total prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors in Osage. Few men in this section are more public- spirited or have labored harder to bring settlers, and those of the very best class, into northern Iowa. In his own city he has always been prompt to furnish means to men of real enterprise and stamina, who wished to put up blocks or single stores, and in addition to the mills and his own bank he has built some elegant residences.
Mr. Brush is a republican in politics, and a strong supporter of the party, but has held no office.
He has been a member of the Methodist Episco-
pal church since about 1851, and is generous in his support of religious, educational and benevolent in- stitutions.
On the 4th of May, 1862, Miss Julia Buckmaster, daughter of Francis Buckmaster, of Osage, became his wife, and has been the mother of five children. A son and two daughters are living.
Francis Albert Brush, of whom we have spoken, who was killed in the battle of Pleasant Hill, in April, 1864, was first lieutenant, company K, 27th Iowa In- fantry. He entered the service in the fall of 1862 ; was a brave soldier, and most highly esteemed by his comrades in arms, as well as by the community in which he enlisted. Few men who went from Mitchell county and laid down their lives for their country were, in their fall, more deeply lamented.
JAMES H. BROOKS,
TAMA CITY.
TAMES HARPER BROOKS comes of good pa- triotic fighting stock, both grandfathers being in the revolution. His grandsire Harper was a colonel; his grandsire Brooks a private. His parents were James Brooks, farmer, steamboat owner and con- tractor, and Mary Harper, industrious, well-to-do people, residing, at the time of the son's birth, on the 3d of April, 1829, at Conneaut, Ashtabula coun- ty, Ohio. His father was a private under General Harrison during the second contest with the mother country. James Harper made Ashtabula county his home until past age, although he was absent, more or less, nearly every year after sixteen. He finished his education at Kingsville Academy, in his native county.
In his seventeenth year his father sent him to Illinois with two thousand sheep, the only assistance he had being a boy one year younger than himself. His eighteenth year he spent mainly on the farm at home.
During the seasons of 1848 and 1849 he acted as clerk on the steamer Ohio, owned by his father, and run on Lake Erie.
In the spring of 1851 Mr. Brooks moved to Kane county, Illinois ; there farmed for three years, then took a contract on the Chicago and Northwestern railroad, furnishing the ties and some other wood- work for the track from the junction to Dixon.
In the spring of 1856 he removed to Iowa, set-
tling in Otter Creek township, Tama county, alter- nating between farming and railroading for ten or eleven years; most of this time, when off the farm, he was an employé rather than a contractor.
In the spring of 1866 Mr. Brooks moved his family into the new village of Tama City, then springing up on the Northwestern railroad, two miles south of Toledo. He went on the Union Pacific railroad and spent fourteen months there as a contractor, in company with Lewis Carmichael, the work done being largely between the Black Hills and Ogden. The operations of Mr. Brooks at this period were very successful.
Since leaving the Union Pacific Mr. Brooks has done some heavy work on the Chicago and North- western railroad in Monroe county, Wisconsin, on the Baraboo division.
Meantime he is also farming, merchandising and banking, mainly by proxy, and, strange to say, mak- ing a success of every branch. He has a thousand acres of land in Tama county, all under good im- provement, most of it cultivated by renters. He is of the firm of Brooks and Holmes, dry-goods mer- chants, Tama City, the business being managed principally by his partner, Ryland A. Holmes, a promising young man, son of Rev. O. A. Holmes. This store was opened two years ago, and is one of the largest and best in the place.
Mr. Brooks has been in the banking business for
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seven years, and is of the firm of Brooks and Moore at Traer, Tama county, and of Brooks and Moore Brothers at Reinbeck, Grundy county, both places on the Pacific branch of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern railroad.
Mr. Brooks has great energy and pluck, usually pushing his business rather than allowing his busi- ness to push him. He has kept all the irons in the fire, but let none of them become overheated.
Latterly he has let other parties assume most of the labor, and having a competency, he lives very much at his ease. He has one of the most delight- ful residences in the county, located in a two-acre lot most tastily embellished. The house alone cost twenty-five thousand dollars, and the entire home- stead, as it stands, must be worth twice that sum.
Mr. Brooks was in early life a whig; since 1855 he has been a republican ; is very decided in his | young man of sterling worth.
political sentiments; is ready to help a worthy friend to office, but has no aspirations himself in that di- rection.
His wife was Miss Harriet Hartshorn, of Erie county, Pennsylvania. Married at Meadville, on the 5th of December, 1850. Both are active mem- bers of the Baptist church, filling their places, and generously responding to the calls and requirements of the church, and of religions and charitable objects generally. Few kinder-hearted men live than James H. Brooks. He not only pities the poor and un- fortunate, but is always ready to help them.
Mr. and Mrs. Brooks have had two children, and lost one of them. Arthur Lee Brooks, their only child, has a family, and is managing the home farm, paying particular attention to the stock department. He is energetic like his father, a hard worker, and a
CHARLES SWEATT,
WEST MITCHELL.
O NE of the oldest merchants and bankers in West Mitchell, Iowa, and the man who built one of the first frame houses in Mitchell county, is Charles Sweatt, for twenty-two years a resident of this state. He is a Vermonter by birth, a native of Thetford, Orange county, dating his birth on the 30th of May, 1832. He is a son of William Sweatt, a physician, and Zylpha (Baxter) Sweatt. The Sweatts are an old New Hampshire family. His father was a surgeon in the war of 1812-15.
Charles was educated at the Thetford Academy ; commenced clerking in his native town at fifteen ; at the end of four years he went to Post's Mills, in the same township, and there and at Stanstead, Can- ada, continued clerking three years more, when, in 1855, he removed to Iowa, settling at West Mitchell. Here, in company with his elder brother, John Sweatt, he opened a general variety store, continuing in trade together until 1862, when Charles sold out to his brother, and rested on his oars one season.
county. The bank is doing a fair business, being the only one in the place.
In 1875 Mr. Sweatt took back the store and stock of his younger brothers, and is running it with fine success.
When first settled in Iowa, Mr. Sweatt entered government lands, and has dealt more or less in real estate during all these years. In this branch of his business, as well as the others, he has done well. He still owns some lands, but has his funds mainly in the bank, in merchandise and in mortgages. Few better business men ever operated in Mitchell coun- ty. He has always dealt fairly, and his reputation for honesty has never been marred an iota. It is such enterprising men as Charles Sweatt that have made the Cedar Valley what it is - one of the most blooming gardens in the State of Iowa.
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