USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 64
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no remuneration for his work. Ever after, in seek- ing employment, one of his first objects was to ascertain if the parties were reliable. His early resolutions to form temperate habits were prompted by the example of William Batterton, with whom he worked at Bloomington, Indiana. Mr. Batterton had been a very intemperate man, but resolved total abstinence, and in order that he might overcome the temptation of drinking he worked five years with a pint of liquor hanging over his work-bench. The bottle hung there till all its contents had evaporated, without his once tasting liquor. James thought if Mr. Batterton, who had been an habitual drunkard, could so manfully resist the temptation of a culti- vated appetite, that he could surely benefit by his example, and resolved to live a temperate man. He continued working at different places until he would procure sufficient amount of means to proceed on- his journey northward. He did his last work at Greencastle. Indiana, and arrived at Bainbridge, In- diana, on the 6th of March, 1836, with his kit of tools and seventy-five cents in money, where he commenced business for himself. There were but three log cabins in the place. His first shop was made of buckeye poles. The fireplace consisted of a hole in the floor, and one in the top of the roof for the smoke to escape. The only store was heated by a kettle of coals. The citizens being anxious for him to commence business, John W. Cooper, one of the citizens, proposed to furnish him one hundred dollars, providing he would return him one hundred and fifty at the end of a year for the use of it; but as he succeeded so nicely in the business, when the time arrived for the payment Mr. Cooper only re- quired the original sum with ten per cent interest. He boarded with Mr. Cooper, at seventy-five cents per week, and he was to take the amount in stock from the shop. His business increased till it became necessary to build a larger shop. The main build- ing in the place was a grocery and saloon, and in building it was more convenient to build near it; but he had such an abhorrence for liquor that he would not build in range of such an establishment. Some of the citizens were determined unless he placed it in range they would not help him in rais- ing it, so they all left him. Some of the old pioneers of temperate habits came and assisted him, and after the other parties found he would build where he chose they offered to help him if he would treat to a gallon of whisky ; this he would not do. In that shop was placed the first stove that was in the vilage.
While boarding at Mr. Cooper's he formed the acquaintance of Miss Cintha Graves, a sister of Mrs. Cooper and daughter of Peter Graves, formerly of Knox county, Tennessee, and one of the first pioneers of Indiana. They were married on the 13th of October, 1836. She died on the 8th of April, 1854. By this union they had eight children, four of whom are living, one boy and three girls.
On going to housekeeping, himself and wife carried their cupboard ware and cooking utensils home in their arms. By industry and economy they were so successful that in 1840 they had accumulated three thousand dollars. After a time, in order to improve the country and town, he engaged in speculating in fine horses; but it was at too early a day to make it a success, and he lost some nine thousand dollars. During 1841 and 1842, there being no demand for merchandise, he cut and split rails at fifty cents per hundred, to support his family. Business opening again, he took a sub-contract to carry the mail from Indianapolis to Montezuma. The mail he had car- ried by a boy whom he had found in the woods, almost starved to death, and was afterward bound to him by the overseers. He obtained sufficient amount of funds from this contract to reestablish business, and met with great financial success. He resolved to become a public benefactor, and spent much money in making plank roads, railroads, building churches, school-houses and academies. The con- tractor of the academy failed, so he superintended, built and paid for the Bainbridge Male and Female Academy. He was afterward reimbursed by the community for a part of it. To improve the place he built and furnished a fine residence on Main street, on one of the most desirable building lots in town. Close confinement to the shop and business was injurious to his health, and for a recruit he took a contract on the Louisville, New Albany and Chi- cago railroad. After the completion of the road he engaged in buying mules and horses, and ship- ping them to the southern markets. In 1859 he lost thirteen thousand dollars' worth of stock by overheat on the train and disease which followed. From this embarrassment he did not fully recover till 1869.
In 1861 he left the shop and purchased a farm three miles south of Bainbridge, where he remained ten years. In 1871 he moved to near Winterset, Iowa, and engaged in raising thoroughbred stock. He still continues in that business, with marked success.
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In politics, he is a firm republican.
Mr. Carter is gifted with a fine constitution, which alone could have borne him through the labor of this life. His mental and moral standing is suffi- ciently given in his record. Sound in judgment, thoroughly conscientious, broad in views as in cul- ture, well informed on a great range of subjects, one who sounds the depth of everything he handles
and judges accordingly, affable in manner yet firm in purpose, he is one in which implicit confidence is placed by all who know him. Mr. Carter is a kind and indulgent parent, devoting his whole time to the education and interest of his children.
He married Miss Pricilla, daughter of Michel Daggy, on the 19th of October, 1854. By this union they have one child, a girl.
HON. LEWIS W. ROSS,
COUNCIL BLUFFS.
EWIS WILLIAMS ROSS was born in Butler county, Ohio, on the 15th of October, 1827. His lineage is from the Scotch. The annals of the family show that his ancestors were Protestants, and were driven from Scotland into north Ireland, and thence to the New World. Daniel Ross, one of the colonists of New Jersey, was the first representative of the family in this country. The Rosses, from time immemorial, have followed agriculture, and it is believed that the subject of this sketch is the only one of the name who has made a departure from that pursuit and kindred vocations. His father, Amos Ross, and grandfather, Ezekiel Ross, were pioneers in Ohio, settling there in 1812, when the country was an unbroken wilderness. At the age of twenty Lewis W. left his father's farm, with such education as the log school-house of those days furnished, and studied at Farmers' College, near Cin- cinnati, for two years. He then entered Miami University, Oxford, and there graduated in 1852. At Farmers' College his studies were mainly under Dr. R. H. Bishop, a Scotchman of great learning and singular abilities as a teacher. At the university he had among his instructors James C. Moffett, now of Princeton College, and James Mathews, the father of Stanley Mathews, United States senator. Among his classmates we find the names of David Swing, now of Chicago, Benjamin Harrison, of Indianapolis, and Milton Saylor, of Cincinnati.
From college Mr. Ross passed into the law office of Scott and McFarland, Hamilton, Ohio, and there remained two years, gaining admission to the bar in 1854. In 1856 he visited Cass county, Iowa, partly on business and partly home-hunting. Being pleased with the Nishnabotna country, and being assured that the Mississippi and Missouri River railroad would soon be constructed to the Missouri river,
he settled in Lewis, then the county seat, intending to follow his profession after the manner of pioneer lawyers; but he was soon crazed by the mania for speculation then prevailing throughout the west, and made such investments of his limited means as to require his undivided attention for the next two years, resulting at the end of that time in a total loss of capital and labor. His experiences in this respect are like those of many early settlers in Iowa. He is not the only lawyer who has tried to gain wealth by buying and running a saw-mill.
In 1858 Mr. Ross opened a law office in Lewis, and soon found full, but not very lucrative, employ- ment in settling up the mistakes and failures of the hard times of 1857-58. In 1861 he removed to Council Bluffs, where he has since quietly but persistently followed his profession.
In the autumn of 1863 he was the nominee of the republican party for the state senate in a district then considered close, and was elected by a majority of several hundred votes. His record as a legisla- tor is without spot or blemish. He was a member of the judiciary committee at the sessions of 1864 and 1866, and chairman of the committee on public lands at the latter session. Perhaps he did more to shape legislation, and to prevent the enactment of unwise laws, than in the origination of subjects of legislation. Of conservative mind and painstaking habits, he was regarded as a safe leader. In 1864 Mr. Ross was elected by the legislature a trustee of the State University of Iowa for a term of four years ; was reëlected in 1868, and served until the reorganiza- tion of the university, and the creation of a board of regents. Without any solicitation on his part, he was elected regent in the session of 1874 for a term of six years, and now holds that office. As trustee and regent, he has done much in developing and enlarg-
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ing the work of that institution. The establishment of the departments of law and of medicine has been the especial subject of his labors. Here, as in the legislature, his faculty as an organizer has shown itself. The idea being furnished, he has found the ways and means for its practical operation. Politi- cally, Mr. Ross has always been a republican.
Religiously, he comes of Presbyterian stock, but since settling in lowa has been in connection with the Congregational church.
Domestically, he is the husband of one wife, Zoe M. Brown, taken on the 12th of July, 1855, at Leb- anon, Ohio. Is the father of five children, and is happy in the society of this wife and these children.
SAMUEL A. JAMES,
SIGOURNEY.
SAMUEL ADAMS JAMES, capitalist, was born in Botetourt county, Virginia, on the 27th of De- cember, 1823, his parents being Thomas James and Barbara née Britts. His father was of mixed Scotch and Welsh lineage, while his mother was of pure German stock. The former had a very limited common-school education, but was nevertheless a man of great shrewdness and considerable general information, while the latter never attended school so much as a single day. Although English was sometimes spoken in her father's family, yet the German was that most commonly used. By the time she was grown, however, she could read quite fluently in both English and German. Among the earliest youthful recollections of our subject is that of hearing his mother reading alternately from her English and German bibles. She was a pious and exemplary woman, a member of the Christian church, and left the impress of her pure and practical char- acter upon her son. The father inclined to the Baptist faith, but never united with any church.
In the year 1829 the family removed from Vir- ginia to the State of Indiana, and settled in Hen- dricks county, in which and the adjoining county of Montgomery Samuel A. obtained a common- school education. His school opportunities, how- ever, did not commence until after he had attained his eighth year, at which period he was able to both read and write. At this period books were not as easily obtained as now; especially was this the case in the wilds of Indiana; but he possessed a peculiar fondness for study, that would, doubtless, under more favorable auspices have carried him to distinc- tion in the world of letters. His early library was composed of the Bible, Weem's " Life of Washington and Marion," and "Peter Parley's" young reader. The first and only newspaper taken by the family for many years was Joseph C. Neal's "Saturday
Gazette," published at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, embracing the time of his charcoal sketches, from the perusal of which Samuel derived much profit and general information.
As soon as he was old enough he had recourse to the usual expedient of aspiring youths, school teaching. In 1840 he taught the Byrd School in Montgomery county, Indiana, many of his former schoolmates being now his pupils, the school term at that period consisting of the three winter months. This he continued three terms, being at the same time an industrious and diligent student himself.
In the spring of 1842 he resolved to pitch his tent still farther west, and turning his back upon the scenes of his boyhood, he started alone and on foot, with a pair of leather saddle-bags straddled over his shoulders, and crossed the states of Indiana and Illinois into the then territory of Iowa, and to the town of Washington, which he reached on the 25th of March, 1842. The troubles of the Black- hawk war were now over, and everything being settled upon a sure foundation, Iowa was considered the most promising state of the Union, a promise which has been amply fulfilled in the case of our subject.
In the fall of the same year he taught one term of school in Washington; but in the year following (1843) he removed to Keokuk county, and made a claim about four miles north of Sigourney. In the autumn of the year, however, he returned to Wash- ington and spent the following winter in the study of law, and was admitted to the bar in Sigourney soon after.
As yet the territory now forming Keokuk county was still a part of Washington, and in March, 1844, Mr. James was appointed clerk of the district court, with a special commission to organize the county of Keokuk, and accordingly, equipped with the same old
1.Dans
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saddle-bags, he journeyed to the southeastern part of the county, where he arranged places for holding the first election, and designated the judges thereof, after which he canvassed the returns and qualified the first set of county officers. On the 10th of May of the same year Sigourney was selected as the seat of justice, and about the Ist of June our subject ar- rived upon the spot, the luxuriant prairie grass as yet undisturbed by ought save the long pole which had been set up to designate the site of the court- house. Finding board and lodging at the only claim cabin in the vicinity, he erected on the town quarter a log court-house twelve by sixteen feet, in which primitive structure was held the first district court of the county, commencing on the first Mon- day of July, Judge Williams, of Muscatine, then Bloomington, presiding. Soon after this he was appointed postmaster of Sigourney, simultaneously with which Governor Clarke sent him, without so- licitation, a commission as notary public. He re- mained at Sigourney till the autumn of 1847, when the seat of justice having been removed by a vote of the county to Lancaster, he followed the office to the latter place. The removal of the county seat had engendered considerable local feeling, and the movement having been strenuously opposed by Mr. James, the same vote that decided the question in the affirmative subsequently defeated his reëlection to the office of clerk, and in the autumn of 1849 he shook the dust of Keokuk county off his feet and removed to the city of Keokuk, in Lee county, where he was soon after appointed deputy clerk of the district court, with headquarters then at Fort Madison. In 1852 he was elected clerk of the county, and reëlected in 1854. Having no resources with which to command the public favor other than the hardest industry and the sternest faithfulness in the discharge of duty, he worked so laboriously and incessantly that his health gave way. and after struggling for a year in the vain hope of recuper- ation, he was finally obliged to resign as the only means of prolonging his life. In the autumn of 1853 he returned to Keokuk county in time to cast his vote in favor of the removal of the county seat back to Sigourney.
In May, 1861, he was appointed by President Lincoln postmaster of Sigourney, a position which he retained over five years, but refusing to “ Andy- Johnsonize," as the movement was then phrased, he was superseded in August, 1866. The interval between that date and the present time he has
devoted to private pursuits, giving his attention mainly to transactions in real estate, the preparation of abstracts of titles, and in the brokerage and money-loaning business. The large advance in real estate, together with prudent investments in other property, have combined to make him one of the richest men of his county.
In politics, he was raised in the democratic faith, but was always opposed to slavery ; like the pious John Wesley, he regarded the institution as "the sum of all villainies"; and although he found it hard to break with old friends, still, when the political issue came to be hinged on this question, he hesi- tated not as to duty, and took his stand with the party of freedom. Owing to defective eyesight, from which he has suffered since the age of sixteen, he was unable to enter the military service during the slaveholders' rebellion, but he did excellent work for the Union cause with his pen in the columns of the Sigourney " News," of which he was the princi- pal editor during the first years of the war. In addition to the offices already named, he held the position of alderman of Fort Madison in 1854, and that of mayor of Sigourney in 1860. He has also served a number of terms on the school board, and took a prominent part in advocating the erection of the magnificent school-house which is now the glory and ornament of the southern part of the town.
He has always been a man of public spirit, advo- cating every measure calculated to benefit the city ; and when the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company proposed extending their line to Sigourney, he was one of fifty citizens of the county to pledge and pay for the right of way.
In 1847 he became a member of the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows, and was for several terms district grand master, and also served as representa- tive to the grand lodge of the state. During the centennial year of the republic he made an extended sojourn at the Philadelphia exposition, and contrib- uted a series of very valuable letters on that sub- ject to the Sigourney " News," which were among the most interesting and graphic of any that were pub- lished in the state on that subject.
He was brought up in the "Campbellite " or Chris- tian church, that being the faith of his mother. In 1850, however, he united with the Methodist Episco- pal church at Keokuk. Seventeen years later his at- tention was directed to the writings pertaining to what is called the "Second Advent " of Christ, and he was not a little surprised at the large number of passages
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of holy scripture which emphasized this doctrine which had hitherto failed to arrest his attention. His study of the prophecies of Daniel and the Rev- elation of St. John led him to adopt the peculiar views of the Adventist, and he now looks for the " second coming " of our Lord in person at a period in the near future-the exact time not being re- vealed to man .- when this earth shall be renovated and become the paradise it was intended to be from the beginning, and be the everlasting habitation of the saved of the human race of all ages. In con- nection with this subject, he also considered the question of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. To his equal surprise he was unable to find a single text of scripture that to him authorized, much less directed, the change ; on the contrary, finding many injunc- tions to observe the royal law, he decided to ob- serve the fourth commandment of the decalogue, and, true to himself as he has always been to others, he has, ever since January, 1873, laid aside business on the " seventh " day, regarding it, as Elihn Burritt did, as the only Sabbath to be observed in holy writ.
He was married in Sigourney on the 2d of Sep- tember, 1847, to Miss Sarah Moody, daughter of the late Thomas Moody, of Licking county, Ohio, an extensive manufacturer of pottery ware, and one of the most genial men of his time; a most excellent woman, to whose good sense, careful prudence, pa- tient forbearance and holy influence is largely owing the success which has crowned his efforts in this life. They have had six children, three of whom
died in infancy, and three survive. The eldest, a son named George Stover, is now in business with his father. The others are daughters, named Libbie Ann and Ida Bell, the elder of whom is said to be the best pianist in Sigourney.
In physical appearance, Mr. James is about five feet ten inches high, and weighs about one hundred and sixty-five pounds. In demeanor, polished and gentlemanly, courteous, graceful and dignified, mod- est and unassuming, he is known at sight by almost every inhabitant of the county. He is, moreover, a man of undoubted integrity and of the highest moral character ; steady and sober in all his habits, prompt and transparent in all his deal- ings, and a most generous contributor to benevolent and religious enterprises. His experience in this re- gard has been, that the more he has given, the more he was prospered ; and yet his gifts have been so quietly and unostentatiously bestowed, that his right hand has not known of the doings of the left. In the decline of life the sun of God's love shines upon him, surrounded by a happy family, and by kind and trusting friends and neighbors. In the struggle of life, and in battling for the right, he has sometimes been reviled because wrong, injustice and decep- tion did not prevail.
With a competency for old age accumulated by honest industry and by painstaking forethought, a comfortable and happy home, together with a con- science void of offense toward God or man, he awaits calmly the summons that shall call him to a higher state of existence.
HON. HARDIN NOWLIN, WATERLOO.
H ARDIN NOWLIN was born on the 11th of October, 1804, in Saint Clair, Illinois. His parents were Lewis and Mary (Whiteside) Nowlin. He lived at home until of age, working on the farm and attending a district school in the winters.
At the age of twenty-one he went into the mining business in Missouri, and in 1829 removed to Jo Davies county, Illinois, settling near Galena and continuing to mine. In June, 1833, immediately after the Sac and Fox Indians were removed from lowa, he went to Dubuque, and in that county made his home for nearly forty years. Part of the time he was in the mercantile business in the vil-
lage, now city, of Dubuque, and part of the time on a farm. The first year he was in Dubuque he owned, at one time, about ten acres of land near the center of the present city, and sold the whole at one sale for one hundred dollars. About the same time he sold lots on Main street for seventy- five cents each. He secured those lots by placing four logs in the form of a square on each of them. In 1871 Mr. Nowlin removed to Waterloo, Iowa, where he still resides. During his middle life, and up to a few years ago, he was the recipient of re- peated honors at the hands of the people.
Mr. Nowlin was a member of the first Wisconsin
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territorial legislature held at Belmont, Wisconsin, in 1836. The next year he was a member of the same body, when it met at Burlington, then in Wisconsin territory, now in Iowa. When Iowa became a sep- arate territory he was for three or four years a mem- ber of what is now called the general assembly, the last two sessions in which he served being held at Iowa City. He was always in the lower house, and serving so long and always being a diligent man, he became quite influential. For twelve or fourteen years he was surveyor of Dubuque county, and very accurate in all his work. During part of this time he was also engaged in government surveys in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. He was careful and reliable, and enjoyed a good reputation in this line of work.
Mr. Nowlin has been a faithful member of the Methodist Episcopal church for a period of more than forty years.
He was a democrat until the rebellion broke ont, since then he has been a republican.
On the 15th of May, 1825, he was married to Miss Martha Eckert, of Kentucky. They have had four children, and two are living. One of them, James L , is a merchant at Peosta, Dubuque county ; the other, Mary C., is the wife of Henry B. Allen, Esq., an attorney at Waterloo.
Though living a frontier life for many of his younger years, Mr. Nowlin has always been a man of exemplary habits, and now, past his three-score years and ten, he has a steady nerve and writes a neat hand, almost as good as in middle life.
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