USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 65
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120
JOHN F. McGUIRE,
CLINTON.
J
OHN F. McGUIRE, lawyer, and brevet-major in the Union army, was born in a small town among the Adirondacks, New York, on the 22d of February, 1838. He is of Irish ancestry, as his name denotes, his forefathers having early emigrated to this country. His father was a country merchant, and having failed in business in 1850, the son was sent to Canada to be educated. He, however, be- coming homesick, the mother's tender sympathies for her absent child induced his father to recall him. At the age of thirteen, being of an active and independent temperament, he apprenticed him- self, without his father's knowledge, to learn the nail-making trade. In this occupation he contin- ued nearly three years, working in Troy, New York, and other localities. While in Troy, he was pur- suaded by a Scotchman, a deserter from the British army, to accompany him to South America. Arriv- ing at New York city, on their way thither, they were disappointed in securing immediate passage, and, being destitue of means, his companion enlisted in the United States army. Soon after, his own funds becoming exhausted, he endeavored to find employ- ment, but without success. As a last resort, he pawned his dress coat for a small consideration, and with the proceeds he, like the Prodigal Son, sought the paternal mansion. Previously, while in Brook- lyn, with an eye to the navy, he visited the receiv- ing ship North Carolina, then lying in the navy-
yard, and decided not to become a sailor, wisely concluding that a sailor's life was not as poetical and romantic as the imagination of Ned Buntline has pictured it. Having resumed again home-life, he devoted his time principally to reading law and teaching, alternately. His limited means at this pe- riod precluded his entering college, and he finally determined, at least for the present, to relinquish the design for a more extended course of study. He con- tinued the study of the law, however, and labored to qualify himself for the duties of this profession.
At the breaking ont of the rebellion he retired to Montreal, Canada, partly with the view to learn. French, but more especially to gratify his mother, who feared he might be persuaded to unite in the pending struggle. At this time the Canadian senti- ment was very bitter against the north. While pur- suing his studies quietly as an American yonth, his patriotism was often insulted and his country vilely traduced. On the following 4th of July, however, unitedly with two or three other American students, he publicly vindicated his country by displaying the American flag and firing a national salute. The love of country had often led him to walk the en- tire length of the wharfs at Montreal to obtain one look at his country's flag; and when he saw the stars and stripes floating only over the American consul's house his eyes filled with tears and his young heart with emotion.
456
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
After the disastrous battle of Bull Run, the Cana- dian feelings became so abusive and vindictive, he left the school and returned home. He felt that his country demanded his services, and his patriotism would not permit him longer to withhold it. In his native town not one man had responded to the call of the government. In two weeks a draft would be made to fill the quota. In this emergency he was appointed, young as he was, first lieutenant, with power to secure enlistments. At his own expense he opened an office, hung out the stars and stripes, and by canvassing the adjacent section, in due time obtained forty-five good and able-bodied men for his country's service, and took charge, under the title of lieutenant commanding. He had so ex- hausted his limited means in securing his company, that on arriving in New York city he had no funds to purchase himself a uniform. In this extremity his company made him a present of a sword, sash, belt and a revolver, and Lient .- Colonel Thomas Arm- strong presented him with a suit of military clothes.
His military career was throughout varied and honorable. The first duty of his company was to be sent on detached mission with the provost-mar- shal south of the Potomac. He subsequently did difficult and responsible duty in the vicinity of Washington. Having been called to the depart- ment of the Gulf, he served with Banks in his Red river expedition, participating in all the skirmishes and fights in his subsequent harassing retreat, and commanded the rear guard after the battle of the Sabine Cross-Roads. Leaving New Orleans in July, 1863, he subsequently participated in the various battles and skirmishes in defending the capital from the invading rebel army under Early, and assisted in driving him back across the Potomac. He like-
wise participated in all the marches, skirmishes and battles of General Sheridan in the Shenandoah val- ley, and after the assassination of President Lincoln was on picket duty in and around Washington un- til the capture of Booth, and guarded the United States arsenal during the trial of Mrs. Surrat and the other conspirators. Having discharged faithful- ly and with honor these high and responsible duties, he was subsequently ordered to Savannah, Georgia, where he was detailed as assistant provost-marshal of the city, until October, 1865, at which period he was ordered to New York to be mustered out of service. He was promoted by the governor of New York to brevet-major, for gallant and meritorious services. He had previously been made captain in command of the company he recruited and led into service. His distinguished services have won for him the esteem and respect of his fellow-citizens and the gratitude of his country.
Having returned to civil pursuits, he resumed his law studies, and in 1867 was admitted to the bar. In 1868 he located in Clinton, Iowa, where he has devoted himself energetically and most successfully to his profession.
He has manifested commendable public spirit in the growth and prosperity of the town, and has ta- ken an active part in every public improvement, and contributed liberally to every enterprise. His well-known and acknowledged activity and zeal have tended greatly to advance the public improve- ments in and around the vicinity of Clinton.
He is emphatically a self-made man, and a most laborious student and worker. Possessing a sound constitution and robust figure, he promises many years of useful labor to the state, in whose growth he has always been so profoundly interested.
WILLIAM LOCKRIDGE,
NEVADA.
AV AMONG the successful business men of Story county residing at the seat of justice is Will- iam Lockridge, a native of Virginia. He was born in Augusta county, on the 23d of June, 1832, his parents being John and Eliza (Erwin) Lockridge. The Lockridges are of Scotch-Irish descent, the progenitor of the family in this country settling in Virginia at an early day. John Lockridge was a soldier in the second war with the mother country,
and at the time of William's birth was a farmer in the Old Dominion. William was the sixth child in a family of seven children. He remained at home until of age, farming in the summers and attending a very ordinary common school in the winters. At twenty-one he attended a graded school a full year; in his estimation, as we once heard him intimate, a precious expenditure of time and money, as it fitted him for a prosperous business life.
457
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
John Lockridge located a quarter-section of land in Story county as early as 1852, and when William was of age promised the land to any one of his sons who would accept and improve it. William accepted the proposition, and after the year's schooling which his father had the thoughtfulness to suggest, and some subsequent delays, including teaching for five months, he came to Iowa, reaching Nevada in May, 1856. He had no immediate means of improving the land, which was one mile southeast of Nevada, and, luckily, the next month obtained a situation as deputy treasurer and recorder of the county under Mr. J. C. Moss. The next April Mr. Moss resigned ; the judge appointed Mr. Lockridge to fill the va- cancy, and in August, 1857, he was elected by the people for the term of two years, at the end of which time the legislature extended his term from August to January. He held the office nearly three years, and made a competent and faithful servant of the people.
In 1860 Mr. Lockridge went on his land, worth then less than one thousand dollars; carefully culti-
vated it for ten years; sold it in 1870 for fifty-six hundred dollars, and went into the lumber business, which he still follows, and in which he has marked success. He receives about three hundred car-loads of lumber annually, selling, on an average, about three million feet.
Mr. Lockridge has held various offices in the municipality of Nevada, and is a very useful citizen.
In politics, he has always been a democrat, but is not very active. Business with him takes the prece- dence of everything else.
He is a Master Mason, and a chapter member of the Odd-Fellows fraternity.
Mr. Lockridge's wife was Miss Lydia A. Letson, a native of Ohio, residing at Nevada when married, on the 19th of February, 1860. She has had seven children, six yet living.
Since a resident of Iowa, and all his life as far as we can ascertain, Mr. Lockridge has been very in- dustrious, doing everything he undertakes carefully, expeditiously and thoroughly. In all his business transactions he leaves a clean balance sheet.
WILLIAM BRADLEY,
CENTERVILLE.
T HE biographical history of the self-made men of Iowa affords very few such brilliant examples of success resulting purely from industry, economy, prudence and sagacity, as the life of William Brad- ley. Left an orphan when just merging upon his teens, thrown upon the world, and left entirely to himself for support, he pushed on, working at first upon farms for food, clothes and schooling ; then carrying a mail at six dollars a month ; a little later peddling on foot from door to door, rising step by step as his means accumulated, until he is now president of five banks, with a controlling interest in all of them, and owns at least five thousand acres of land in the State of Iowa.
Mr. Bradley was the son of James Bradley, car- penter, and Phebe Fulton, and was born in Beaver county, Pennsylvania, on the 18th of December, 1825. His mother died when he was twelve and his father when he was thirteen years of age, leav- ing him no legacy but a strong constitution, inherited from his father, and the wholesome counsel of an affectionate, christian mother. Left parentless, he sought a home among farmers for four or five years,
laboring for his support, with the privilege of at- tending a district school during the winters. For four months, in 1843, he carried a mail from Wash- ington, Pennsylvania, to Georgetown on the Ohio river, receiving six dollars a month and his board. With twenty-four dollars in his pocket he went to Pittsburgh; bought two tin boxes; started off on foot ; peddled four years in Pennsylvania and Ohio; cleared sixteen hundred dollars, and never spent a cent of it for tobacco, liquor, or any kind of per- nicious or vicious indulgence.
In 1850 Mr. Bradley went to California by the overland route; mined sixteen or eighteen months ; returned by way of the isthmus, with two thousand dollars in his pocket ; commenced peddling again, mainly jewelry and oilcloths; went through from Keokuk, Iowa, to Des Moines, on a prospecting as well as peddling trip; returned to Pennsylvania ; bought a peddler's wagon at Pittsburgh ; shipped it to Keokuk, and run it two years.
In April, 1856, Mr. Bradley located at Centerville, bought a lot, built a house, and started in the mer- cantile trade, with a capital of four thousand dollars,
458
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
continuing in the business for ten years, and being very successful. Meantime he farmed more or less, and dealt at times quite heavily in live stock. He continued to add to his lands from time to time until he had three thousand acres in Appanoose county, half of it in farms under improvement, and two thousand acres of wild lands in Woodbury county.
In 1863 Mr. Bradley organized the First National Bank of Centerville, of which he owns nearly four- fifths of the stock. He has been its president from the start. It is one of the soundest institutions in southern Iowa. In 1872 he organized the First National Bank of Trenton, Missouri; in 1873 the Mercer County Bank, Princeton, Missouri ; and in 1874 the First National Bank of Allerton, Wayne county, Iowa ; he owning a half interest in these last three banks. In the spring of 1877 he organized Bradley's bank at Bloomfield, Davis county, he own- ing all the stock. He is president of all of them, managing them with consummate skill.
Mr. Bradley has had something to do with rail- roads; has been a director of two or three of them, but banking is his main business, and he may with propriety be called its king in southern Iowa.
In politics, he is an independent democrat with whig antecedents. He shuns political offices.
He is a member of the Presbyterian church ; an elder in the same, and an enthusiastic worker in the Sunday-school cause. He is superintendent of the Presbyterian school in Centerville, the largest in this
part of the state, and is doing a noble work among the young, who all know him. The poor, also, know him, to their great joy. Having the means as well as the disposition to relieve distress, Mr. Bradley has thoroughly tested the scripture adage regarding the pleasure of giving. A kinder heart than his does not beat in Centerville. Its pulsations are the sweetest music of humanity.
On the 26th of September, 1855, Mr. Bradley was married to Hiss Amanda T. Campbell, of Madison county, Iowa, and they have four children living, and have lost two.
Whatever money Mr. Bradley obtained. in early life was the proceeds of faithful, closely-applied la- bor, and he early learned the value of a dollar. As far as we can ascertain, though he was exposed to strong temptations in youth, he never deviated a step from the path of integrity; kept clear from the vicious habits into which many young men fall; carly learned to be prudent and saving, as well as honest, and has since learned that wealth thus ob- tained is the kind that affords comfort and satisfac- tion. Having obtained his accummulations by fair means, and using them for the benefit of others, as well as himself, Mr. Bradley is a happy man. The indices of his public spirit are seen in more than one splendid block which fronts the public square of his adopted home, and his generosity is like the gulf stream from the tropics, sending its warming influ- ence into many a heart chilled by penury.
REV. THADDEUS McRAE,
CEDAR RAPIDS.
T' HADDEUS McRAE, was born in Marlboro district, south Carolina, on the 10th of October, 1831. His grandparents all came from Scotland prior to the revolutionary war, and some of his im- mediate ancestors participated in the struggle for independence. His father, James McRae, moved to Mississippi soon after that state was admitted to the Union, and losing his means through the dis- honesty of others, had to begin life anew. He im- proved a farm, brought up his family in habits of industry, and at the breaking out of the rebellion possessed a moderate fortune.
He was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church, and was highly esteemed for his strict integrity and large liberality.
The earlier years of Thaddeus were spent on his father's farm, where he was trained to hard work. From childhood he was fond of books. He at- tended school in De Kalb during the winter, and in summer labored in the field, but kept up with his class in school by studying at home. At the age of sixteen he began Latin, and mastered the rudiments of the reader and several books of Cæsar, all while at work on the farm, studying at noon and night. He then thought of the law as a profession. Some of his youthful companions were addicted to social drinking and card-playing. On one occasion, being solicited to join them, he reflected on the evil of such habits, and formed a resolution to abstain from all such indulgences. This resolution he has
459
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPIIICAL DICTIONARY.
kept, and to it he attributes much of his success in life. About the same period another incident oc- curred which probably tended to elevate his mental and moral tone. A novel fell into his hands, and he read it; the story stirred his sensibilities intensely, so that he read and wept alternately. After finish- ing the book he felt ashamed of himself for wasting his time and expending his sympathies on mere fiction, and concluded that he would henceforth avoid such unrealities. This resolution he has also observed, having read only a few standard novels to this day.
He next entered the high school at Salem, Mis- sissippi, in 1849, where he remained three years, at the end of which time he had accomplished a four- years' course, leaving his class one year behind. Such close application impaired his health, and he would not advise anyone else to attempt it. He entered the college of Hanover, Indiana, in 1853 ; but, having read more Latin and Greek than was required by the curriculum, and his health being feeble, he left before graduating. He then taught school in Mississippi, completing his course in math- ematics and the sciences in the meantime. His early tastes were literary, and his ambition thorough scholarship. He was always fond of metaphysics, the natural sciences and the standard poets, and still finds time to read up in these studies. Besides the Latin and Greek, he has studied the Hebrew and French languages. Having resolved to enter the gospel ministry, he studied theology with Rev. John Morrow, at Columbus, Mississippi. This was advised by his presbytery. He was ordained in November, 1855, by the presbytery of east Missis- sippi. His first pastoral charge was at Jackson, Louisiana, where he remained three years. In 1861 he was called to Port Lavaca, Texas. Here he took a decided stand for the Union. He had always been opposed to slavery, and was often denounced as an abolitionist. His life being in danger, he escaped to New Orleans in December, 1863, leaving his family behind. He served in the Union army one year as chaplain, getting his family through the lines in the meantime. Then, to the close of 1865. he supported himself and family with his pen. At one time he was associated with ex-Governor Flanders in the treasury department. Returning to Texas in January, 1866, he found that his property had been confiscated by the confederacy, some of which he recovered. At this time he received and accepted a call to the First Presbyterian Church at Austin 46
City, Texas; both he and the church refusing con- nection with the Southern church. He was the subject of much political abuse for this bold stand for reunion, but he remained firm, and succeeded in winning over to his cause two other ministers and their churches; with these the presbytery of Austin was organized, which was admitted to representation in the general assembly in 1869. Whilst pastor of that church he served also as private secretary to Governor Pease, and wrote considerably for the press.
Several flattering offers were made him by prom- inent statesmen of Texas to enter politics, but he persistently declined. Tired of strife, having put the church of Texas on a sure union basis, and desiring better advantages for his family than Texas afforded, he accepted a call to McVeytown, Penn- sylvania, in 1869. There he wrote a work entitled " Lectures on Satan," which was published by Gould and Lincoln. The book was well received and highly commended by the leading reviews. The publishers failed soon afterward, so that he did not realize much from it. In 1873 he accepted a call to the First Presbyterian Church at Renovo, Penn- sylvania, and in 1875 he removed to Cedar Rapids, and at this writing is pastor of the Second Presby- terian Church of that city. In the pulpit Mr. McRae is earnest, plain, concise and forcible. In the dis- cussion of his subjects he is argumentative and con- clusive, never leaving a point unsettled, an argument unfinished, a conclusion not clearly arrived at, nor a proposition not definitely established. His lan- guage is peculiarly forcible, his manner attractive, and while his eloquence may not be regarded as of the highest order, his forcible manner, his argumen- tative style, his clear, concise statements, and his powers of description, place him in the front rank of - the pulpit orators of the west.
In 1855 he was married to Miss Anna T. Brad- shaw, daughter of Rev. Fields Bradshaw, of Alabama. By this union they had five children, two boys and three girls. She died at McVeytown, Pennsylvania, in 1872. He was married to Miss Susan D. Potter, daughter of General James Potter, of Pennsylvania, on the 21st of May, 1873. Mrs. McRae belongs to an historic family, one of the oldest, and at one time the wealthiest, in Pennsylvania. Her great-grand- father, General James Potter, was a major-general in the revolution, and for several years an officer on the staff of Washington. He possessed the entire confidence of his commander-in-chief, and at the
460
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
close of the revolutionary struggle was sent at the head of a detachment of troops into central Penn- sylvania to overawe the Indians and protect the settlers. Potter's Fort in Penn's Valley, Center county, Pennsylvania, was built and fortified by this expedition ; and at the termination of the Indian troubles the commander was so charmed with the natural beauties and advantages of that region that
he took up his permanent residence near the site of the "Old Fort," and here her father was born. Mrs. McRae is also heir to a flag captured from Colonel Monckton at the battle of Monmouth, by her grandfather, William Wilson, on the 28th of January, 1778. By this marriage Mr. McRae has one child.
He is a kind husband and indulgent parent, and a loved and much-respected pastor.
SUMNER B. CHASE, M. D.,
OSAGE.
O NE of the oldest and most eminent physicians of Mitchell county, Iowa, is Dr. Sumner Burnham Chase, who platted the village, now city, of Osage, gave the streets their names, and assisted in giving the town its first start by aiding to secure the location of the United States land office here. He is one of those New England men who seem to be reared expressly for town builders, and who have been the founders of scores of thriving villages and cities in every western state.
Dr. Chase is the son of Moses and Mary (Libby) Chase, and was born in Limington, Maine, on the 4th of October, 1821. He was educated at Par- sonfield Seminary and Limerick Academy; read medicine with Dr. Seth L. Larrabee, of Scarboro, Maine; graduated from the medical department of Bowdoin College in the spring of 1849; practiced in Portland until September, 1855, and then moved to Decorah, Iowa, where the United States land office had recently been located. On the 20th of the next January he settled permanently in Osage, coming hither partly in the interest of the land office, which was soon after moved, and he was sub- sequently (September 1, 1857) appointed its register. In laying out the town late in the winter of 1855-6, he drew the stakes on a hand-sled, the town plat con- sisting of nine hundred and sixty acres. Dr. Chase bought eighty acres and built a one-story frame house immediately after locating. Believing with Lord Ba- con that "true dispatch is a rich thing, for time is the measure of business as money is of wares," the doctor put up his house in a hurry, it being a fear- fully cold winter, as the residents of lowa twenty- two years ago will recollect. The frame house into which he moved one Saturday night was in the standing trees the Monday morning before. The roof was double-boarded, there being no shingles
in the place. The house was sixteen by twenty- four feet, with a partition in the middle, and the doctor and his family occupied one end and two brothers-in-law, Edward F. and James H. Merrill, with their families, the other. Cold as it was, the lumber dried rapidly, and before "the ides of March " the cracks were an inch wide, and called for a liberal supply of batten. There the families lived not only contented but happy ; and there be- ing only thirteen members in the aggregate, all of these families took boarders! In the spring of 1856 the doctor was appointed postmaster, and, as he had an abundance of room, his half of the building being just twelve by sixteen feet, he kept the post-office in his house -the mail itself in a small tin milk-pan.
Dr. Chase was register of the land office until September, 1859, when it was closed. The office of postmaster he had resigned on being appointed register. With the exception of the autumn of 1860 spent in Des Moines, he has been in prac- tice at Osage since leaving the land office, and while register did not wholly abandon it. Of late years it seems to have grown upon him; he was never more popular, and never busier.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.