USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 75
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months in the service he acted as judge advocate. For mental recreation, and as a partial episode in his life, before going into the military service, from November, 1860, until January, 1862, Mr. Anderson edited a democratic paper at Knoxville, not, how- ever, to the neglect of his legal practice. He is of the firm of Anderson and Gamble, his partner be- ing J. D. Gamble. They have a large and excellent library, and do a great amount of collecting as well as criminal and other law business. Mr. Anderson is a good judge of law, a powerful reasoner, deep and clear in argument, and makes a very forcible plea. He is humorous and spicy withal, even on the driest topic, and succeeds in putting himself on the best of terms with a jury, with whom he has great influence and success. He is regarded as a brilliant lawyer.
Captain Anderson has always acted with the dem- ocratic party, for whose father, Thomas Jefferson, he was named. He was a candidate for judge in the sixth judicial district in 1874, and ran more than a thousand votes ahead of his ticket, but the district is strongly republican. He was a delegate to the national democratic convention held at Saint Louis in June, 1876, and is an influential man in his party in this part of Iowa. He is a Blue Lodge Mason.
On the 26th of February, 1862, Miss Mary A. Rousseau, daughter of Dr. Rousseau, of Hamilton
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Marion county. became his wife, and she has been the mother of five children, all living but one.
Major Anderson, as everybody in Marion county calls him, has a light complexion and blue eyes; is solidly built, six feet and two inches in height, and weighs two hundred and fifteen pounds. In appear-
ance he is health personified. There is no finer physique seen daily on the streets of Knoxville. Socially, he is a rich entertainer, full of anecdote, and the best story teller, probably, at the Marion county bar. He is a foe to dullness, has many friends, and is respected by all who know him.
SEAMUN R. HEWETT, M.D.,
VORA SPRINGS.
A1 MONG the younger class of physicians in the Shellrock valley, no one probably stands high- er in the practice, and particularly in surgery, than Dr. Seamun R. Hewett. For this branch of the heal- ing art he has a decided taste, and to it has devoted a great deal of time and study. His popularity as a surgeon is well established, although he has been in Iowa but a few years.
Seamun R. Hewett is the son of Samuel and El- mina (Tucker) Hewett, and was born in Wyoming, New York, on the 22d of July, 1839. Both his par- ents are still living. His paternal and maternal great- grandfathers were soldiers in the revolution. Sea- mun farmed until twenty years of age in Wisconsin, whither the family moved when he was seven years old. He attended the Baraboo Institute two or three terms, also reading medicine at that period, part of the time with Drs. B. F. Dodson and Miles Mix, of Berlin, Wisconsin. He attended lectures at Rush Medical College, Chicago, and there graduated in February, 1867. He practiced two or three years in Berlin and Waupun, Wisconsin, and in December, 1869, removed to Nora Springs, where he has since
been in steady practice with growing favor in the community.
During the rebellion he spent two years in the Marine Hospital and Infirmary, of Chicago, and his experience there has been of great benefit to him in his profession.
Dr. Hewett is a scarlet member of the Odd-Fellows fraternity, and a Master Mason ; not, however, pay- ing so much attention to the meetings of either or- der as to conflict with his professional interests.
In his political views, he is republican; in his religious, liberal.
He was married on the 30th of October, 1867, to Miss Alice E. Talcott, of Alto, Fond du Lac county, Wisconsin, and has one child. Mrs. Hewett is a woman of fine attainments and superior talents, and very active in the Methodist Episcopal church.
Dr. Hewett possesses a good library, which is well stocked with medical periodicals ; devotes some time to the reporting of cases for medical journals, espe- cially pertaining to the department of surgery, and more of his leisure to careful study of medical and surgical science.
WILLIAM L. HUSTON, M. D., MARENGO.
W ILLIAM LANGFORD HUSTON, a native ! of Carroll county, Ohio, and son of John Huston, farmer, and Elizabeth Langford, was born on the 19th of March, 1830. His maternal grand- father fought in the revolution. William 1 .. comes from an old Pennsylvania family, and his father was among the pioneer land-clearers in Carroll county ; opening the farm in Harrison township, on which the son was born.
William L. was the youngest child in a family of
ten children, and had some taste of farm work in early life. He does not, however, seem to have been suited with that kind of labor, and after fifteen or sixteen years of age gave most of his time to literary pursuits.
At eighteen he entered Hagerstown College, in his native state, and spent three years there, acquir- ing a good English and a fair classical education, but not going through the full college curriculum.
He read medicine at Carrollton with Dr. John Q.
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Adams; attended lectures at Jefferson Medical Col- lege, Philadelphia; practiced three or four years; attended another course of lectures at the same college, and took his degree in 1856. After practic- ing a short time at the east, Dr. Huston pushed westward across the "Father of Waters," and lo- cated near Oxford, Johnson county, Iowa. He prac- ticed there until the war broke out in the southern states; enlisted as a private, under Colonel Hatch, in the 2d Iowa Cavalry ; in a short time was com- missioned assistant surgeon 32d Iowa Infantry, John Scott, colonel, and served in that capacity until the rebellion ended.
During part of the time that he was in the ser- vice Dr. Huston was on detached duty, being in the hospitals at Memphis, Tennessee ; Columbus, Kentucky, and New Orleans, Louisiana. His la- bors at times were very arduous, but he was always at the post of duty.
On returning to Iowa, after prospecting awhile,
the doctor located in Marengo, Iowa county, where he has since labored in the constant practice of his profession. Though doing a general business, he makes a specialty of surgery, performing the most difficult operations in that line in his vicinity. His experience in the army was in this respect of great benefit to him. He was surgeon for the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company three or four years, and still does some business for that com- pany.
Dr. Huston is a strong republican, but rarely has time to do more than cast his vote on election day.
He is a Royal Arch Mason, but not a regular at- tendant at lodge meetings.
Religiously, he has a preference for the Presbyte- rian church, which he attends, but is not a commu- nicant.
Miss Antha Groff, of Marengo, became his wife on the 29th of November, 1866. They have three children, two of whom are still living.
ALEXANDER BURNS, D.D.,
INDIANOLA.
A' LEXANDER BURNS, for the last nine years at the head of Simpson Centenary College, is a native of Belfast, Ireland, and a son of James and Eliza McAdam Burns. He was born on the 12th of April, 1834. In his thirteenth year the family crossed the ocean, and after remaining three years in Quebec, settled in Toronto, Ontario. The son was educated at Victoria College, Cobourg, in the same province, spending six years there before grad- nating, and, at the time of graduating in 1861, re- ceived the Prince of Wales gold medal. He was tutor in the same institution four years, and taught one year after graduating.
Dr. Burns was reared in the Presbyterian faith, but joined the Wesleyan Methodists at Toronto when a young man, and in 1862 entered the ministry, preach- ing at Guelph, Ontario.
At the solicitation of Rev. Dr. Charles Elliott, president of Wesleyan University, Mount Pleasant, Dr. Burns came to Iowa and taught three years in the institution just mentioned, acting also, at the same time, as its vice-president. In 1868 he was elected president of Simpson Centenary College. A year later he was offered the presidency of Wesleyan University, but refused to leave Indianola. His
coming here marked an epoch in the history of the institution. The year before it had been raised from a seminary to a college, with a full classical course, and, commencing with his second year, has graduated a class annually. The college has had a steady growth, and enrolls each year from two hundred and fifty to three hundred students in its several departments. At the time of writing (Octo- ber, 1877,) nearly two hundred names are on the roll. While Dr. Burns' special chair is that of Mental and Moral Science, he teaches various other branches, having great versatility of attainments as well as tal- ents. Recently his name has been mentioned in con- nection with the presidency of the State University at Iowa City, but it is doubtful if he could be per- suaded to leave Indianola at present. He received the title of doctor of divinity from the Indiana State University in 1869.
Simpson Centenary College has an endowment of about seventy thousand dollars, and nearly every dollar of it has been raised by the president during his leisure time. He has great physical as well as mental energy, and rarely fails to accomplish what- ever work he undertakes. He is practical and forci- ble as well as scholarly.
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As a scholar, Dr. Burns appears to be at home in every branch,-the higher mathematics, the classics, the physical sciences generally, as well as the particu- lar branches assigned to his chair, and in biblical history it would be difficult to find his peer in the northwest. As a speaker, he has great power; is logical, clear and animated, usually flinging his whole
soul into his subject, rising at times into high strains of oratory. Such a man cannot fail to make some indelible footprints on the sands of time.
In June, 1864, Miss Sarah Andrews, a native of Devonshire, England, became the wife of Dr. Burns, and they have had five children, all living except the first-born.
REV. JOHN ARMSTRONG,
FAIRFIELD.
JOHN ARMSTRONG, president of Parsons Col- lege, Fairfield, is a native of Oxford, Pennsylva- nia, and was born on the 11th of March, 1825, his parents being Andrew and Maria (Thomas) Arm- strong. His branch of the Armstrong family is Scotch-Irish stock; William Armstrong, its first set- tler in this country, coming from Ireland about 1736 and settling in Bucks county, Pennsylvania. The Thomases are of Welsh descent, and also settled in eastern Pennsylvania.
The grandfather of president Armstrong served a short time in the first war with England, and his father was in the second, the latter drawing a pen- sion until his death in 1872. The subject of this sketch spent his early youth in his native town, aid- ing his father, who was a farmer. He prepared for college at the New London Academy, Chester coun- ty; taught two years in the southern states ; entered the sophomore class of Lafayette College, Pennsyl- vania, in the autumn of 1847; at the end of one year went to Washington College, Lexington, Vir- ginia, and was there graduated in 1850. He spent three years at Princeton Theological Seminary ; was ordained to the gospel ministry by the presbytery of New Castle in April, 1853 ; preached one year at Platte City, Missouri ; was pastor of the Presbyte- rian Church at Hazleton, Luzerne county, Pennsyl- vania, ten years, and the same length of time of the Presbyterian Church in Muscatine, Iowa. These twenty years of pastorate over two churches were marked by the steady and healthful growth of both.
In Pennsylvania he had a new and, at first, es- pecially hard field of labor (a newly developed coal region), preaching in school-houses, private houses, and even saw-mills.
Leaving Muscatine for Fairfield, in 1875, marks an epoch in Mr. Armstrong's life. He became an educator in classic halls rather than in the pulpit.
Parsons College, at the head of which we now find him, owes its origin to the late Lewis B. Parsons, senior, of Buffalo, New York, a man of very benevo- lent impulses, and who died in 1855. From the second and last annual catalogue of the college we learn that he was a merchant, and a man of most marked character. Almost from his boyhood he was a decided Christian, and'a great advocate of all educational enterprises. Being deeply impressed with the importance of education under christian influences in this new state, he invested what means he could command in government lands in Iowa; and in his will directed his sons and executors, General Lewis B. Parsons, junior, Charles Parsons and George Parsons, to found a college, to be under the control of the Presbyterians of Iowa, and to endow it with this property. On the 24th of Feb- ruary, 1875, General L. B. Parsons, junior, and his co-executors, in accordance with the provisions of the will, and acting in cooperation with a committee of the synod of Iowa South, founded the college at Fairfield, and transferred to a board of trustees, whom they selected, the legacy, consisting at that time of four thousand and sixteen dollars in cash and notes, and about thirty-six hundred acres of unimproved land. This constitutes the "Parsons Fund," the income only of which can be used. Twenty-seven thousand dollars have been received from the sale of a portion of these lands, including the four thousand dollars above mentioned, and the value of the remainder is about thirteen thousand dollars. The citizens of Fairfield have also con- tributed about twenty-seven thousand dollars, which have been expended in the purchase of a site and the erection of suitable buildings. By the terms of the college charter the synod of Iowa South has the right to veto the election of any trustee, and also to appoint annually a visiting committee.
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Mr. Armstrong became deeply interested in the founding of this college before its location had been decided upon, and while still a pastor at Muscatine, he having been designated by the Parsons executors six years before as one of the parties to select a site for the institution. Upon his vacating the pulpit in 1874, the synod of Iowa South appointed him its agent to attend to the great work of founding the college.
He had previously traveled over a considerable portion of the state, at his own expense, in order to awaken an interest in this grand enterprise. He now, in company with the sons of Lewis B. Par- sons, gave an entire winter to this work, traveling, at his own expense, in the interest of this institution ; the result being the locating of it as before men- tioned, and the appointment of Mr. Armstrong as financial agent by the board of trustees.
In the summer of 1875 he was elected to the chair of English literature, history and moral philosophy, the college opening in September of that year. He teaches without compensation, cheerfully giving, in fact, more than his time. He has decorated the grounds with evergreens and flowers; he has sup- plied the college with excellent physiological charts and geographical maps, costly philosophical appa- ratus, and a fine collection of geological specimens, and has also contributed several hundred volumes for the library. It will readily be seen that it is owing largely to his benevolence and untiring labors that the college owes its existence and prosperity.
In June, 1877, he was elected president of the
college, and has settled down to what seems likely to be his life work. He is a man of fine education and large practical ability. His genial manner and pleasant sympathy give him an influence over the students that restrains disorder without the use of force, and his teaching is the fruit of wide reading and accurate research. His special department is mental and moral sciences, but he is also well at home in history, of which eh is an able teacher.
As a preacher in the college chapel, his discourses evince careful preparation and great earnestness, and always command careful attention. The college is located in a twenty-acre lot, on a rise of ground in the northern part of the city. The college building is a substantial brick structure, well arranged and well equipped for educational purposes. In another brick building are the rooms of the literary socie- ties, the college library, etc. The college has made an excellent beginning, and its friends have no fears of a failure.
President Armstrong is one of the directors of the Northwestern Theological Seminary of the Presby- terian church in Chicago.
The wife of president Armstrong is a daughter of Samuel Rowland, late a prominent business man of Rowlandville, Cecil county, Maryland ; they were married on the Ist of May, 1855, and have no chil- dren. Mrs. Armstrong heartily sympathizes with her husband in his great and noble work, and ren- ders him valuable assistance, without which he could not have accomplished all that he has done; she is a true helpmeet.
JONATHAN T. BUTTOLPH,
IOWA FALLS.
JONATHAN TREADWAY BUTTOLPH, for more than twenty years a resident of Iowa Falls and one of its most successful business men, is a native of the Green Mountain State, and was born in Middlebury on the Ioth of December, 1826. His parents were Joseph and Harriet Treadway But- tolph, residing on a farm one mile from the village. The Buttolphs early settled in Connecticut, and Eli- sha Buttolph, the grandfather of our subject, was one of the first men to settle in Middlebury. Jona- than Treadway, the maternal grandfather of Jonathan T., was a revolutionary soldier, and his father was in the second war with England.
The subject of this notice was educated in his na- tive town, intended by his parents to be sent through college, but he left in the freshman year. A student's life seems to have been distasteful to him. He had a speculative turn of mind, afterward fully and freely developed, but it ran to live stock and corner lots rather than to philosophy or any other branch of science.
At eighteen years of age he went to Ticonderoga, New York; was there employed as clerk for two years, then came as far west as Fond du Lac, Wiscon- sin, in 1849, and engaged in speculations; a year or two later returned to Vermont and farmed six or
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seven years in Orwell, and in June, 1857, located at Iowa Falls, one of the best sites for a town in the valley of the Iowa river, and then a village of less than thirty families. Here he began at once to buy and sell land, and to deal in live stock.
On the Ist of October, 1874, the Bank of Iowa Falls was incorporated; Mr. Buttolph was made its president, and that position he still holds. It is a firm institution, solid as the rocky foundation of the town, and is in high repute in Hardin and Franklin counties.
Mr. Buttolph has been a lifelong democrat, strongly attached to his party and quite active in county pol- itics, but has no aspirations for office. In this line
he will work zealously for his friends while he would do nothing for himself.
He has been a member of the Baptist church for nine or ten years, and is a liberal supporter of relig- ious and benevolent enterprises.
On the Ist of January, 1859, he was married to Miss Maria Woodruff, of Iowa Falls, and they have had three children, all yet living. He is carefully attending to their education.
Mr. Buttolph is endowed with a large degree of common sense, good judgment, and a liberal share of Yankee shrewdness; and being a prudent and careful manager, success has attended him in every branch of business.
WILLIAM C. LEWIS, M. D.,
CLERMONT.
D R. LEWIS was born near the city of Worces- ter, England. His parents dying in his in- fancy, he was reared by his maternal grandfather. He was educated chiefly at the collegiate school of Worcester Cathedral, and commenced studying medicine shortly after leaving that school, but did not complete his studies in that line until after his settlement in this country, in the autumn of 1843.
He attended lectures and demonstrations at the medical department of Washington University, Bal- timore, at Castleton. Vermont, and at the medical department of New York University. He received diplomas at both of the last two institutions, at the former in 1845, and at the latter in 1852. The med- ical professors at the New York University at that time were Valentine Mott, John W. Draper, Martyn Paine, G. S. Bedford, Meredith Clymer, Alfred C. Post, William H. Van Buren and William Darling. All of these men were highly distinguished, and their indorsement was so eagerly sought that at that date the classes averaged five hundred.
Dr. Lewis practiced medicine four or five years in the city of New York, and was one of the founders of that widely known and useful institution, the New York Academy of Medicine. Subsequently he prac- ticed at Key Port, New Jersey, and was a member of the New Jersey Medical Society. Some months pre- vious to and during General Mcclellan's campaign before Richmond he was surgeon of the Ist regiment New York State Militia, known in the service as the 82d United States Volunteers. While the army was
at Harrison's Landing, and just after the battle of Malvern Hill, he left in ill health, and examined re- cruits in the city of New York, by order of the sur- geon-general of the State of New York.
In the summer of 1856 Dr. Lewis removed to Cler- mont, Iowa, where he has been eminently successful as a practitioner and is quite popular. The North Iowa Medical Society has twice elected him its pres- ident.
He is a member of the benevolent order of Odd- Fellows, and has attained high rank in that body.
He was educated not merely under Episcopal in- fluences, but chiefly in an Episcopal institution, and probably few persons are better acquainted with the Prayer Book and Episcopal , service. Its liturgy seems to be at his tongue's end, and he says he cannot recall to mind the time when he was not familiar with it. Between three and four years he relinquished the practice of medicine, and during a portion of that time officiated, with general accept- ance, as a minister of the Protestant Episcopal church, to which office he had been ordained by the Right-Rev. B. B. Smith, of Kentucky. To this work he was led by the urgent solicitation of friends of the church and his own strong convictions of duty. However, ill-health coming on, he fell back on his original profession.
Dr. Lewis has never changed his political creed, and is a democrat.
In December, 1870, he married Miss Elizabeth Whitely Blackett, daughter of William Blackett, then
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of New York city, and now of Clermont. She is a highly cultivated woman.
An eminent physician, who lives in an adjoining county, and who has known Dr. Lewis intimately
since the latter settled in Iowa, speaks of his skill as follows : " As a physician and surgeon, in my hum- ble opinion, he stands at the head of his profession in northern Iowa."
TIMOTHY J. COLDWELL, M.D.,
ADEL.
T HE best read physician and surgeon in Dallas county, Iowa, and the most extensive practi- tioner. is Timothy Jourdan Coldwell, a graduate of two medical colleges. He comes from the farming class, his father, William Coldwell, living in Vermil- ion county, Indiana, when the son was born, on the 2 Ist of July, 1836. The Coldwells are an old North Carolina family, extending into Virginia and Ohio, and states farther west. The grandfather of Timothy J. was a prominent Baptist minister ; participated in some of the skirmishes with the Indians in Ohio, and built what is known in history as the Cold- well Block-house, located in Preble county. The maiden name of Timothy J's mother was Mary Jour- dan, who was descended from Kentucky stock. Our biographical subject developed his muscle on an Indiana farm ; finished his literary education at the Newport Seminary, in his native county; came to Dallas county in 1853, and located eight miles from Adel; aided his father three years in opening a farm ; commenced reading medicine in 1856 with Dr. A. M. Nelson, of Wiscotta, in the same county ; attended lectures in the medical department of the State University at Keokuk, now called the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and graduated in Feb- ruary, 1861.
Locating at Adel, Dr. Coldwell practiced here steadily until 1864, when he joined the Union army
as assistant surgeon of the 23d Iowa Infantry, serv- ing in that capacity until the close of the rebellion.
Returning to Adel in the summer of 1865, after practicing a few months, he spent the following winter at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, and has since reaped the benefit of a thorough re- view of medical and surgical science. He has per- formed the surgery in Dallas county for the last ten or twelve years, and in special cases he visits adjoin- ing counties. He bears a high reputation, and one which is on the increase.
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