USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 76
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Dr. Coldwell is a strong, unwavering republican, prepared at any time to give a reason for his polit- ical ethics. He is an Odd-Fellow and a Royal Arch Mason. His religious membership is with the Pres- byterians.
Dr. Coldwell married Miss Mellissa V. Maulsby, of Dallas county, on the 30th of September, 1860. They have no children.
The doctor has one of the finest brick residences in Adel, and is in all respects a marked success. His physique is splendid. He has a full, ruddy com- plexion ; a sanguine temperament ; is five feet eleven and a-half inches tall ; is very compact, and weighs two hundred and seven pounds. His health is per- fect. He obtained his medical education at his own expense, by zealous and untiring efforts, and now stands at the head of his profession.
HON. REUBEN NOBLE, McGREGOR.
R EUBEN NOBLE, the present judge of the tenth judicial district, was born on the 14th of April, 1821, near Kingston, Mississippi. His father, Henry Noble, was a farmer, and to that honorable employment the son devoted the first eighteen years of his life. At that age he left home, came north- ward to Illinois, and spent about three years at Co-
lumbus, Adams county, attending school part of the time, and working to supply the means for school- ing the remainder of the time. During this period he paid some attention to law books, and when twenty-one years of age went to Grant county, Wis- consin, continued his legal studies a short time, and was admitted to the bar at Mineral Point in the
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summer of 1842. He practiced in that county until October, 1843, when he crossed the river to Gar- navillo, Iowa, then the seat of justice of Clayton county. In 1857 he removed to McGregor, in the same county, where, as at Garnavillo, he has had a large practice.
About thirty years ago he was elected prosecuting attorney of Clayton county, holding the office two years. In 1854, when the whig party first came into power in the state, Mr. Noble was elected a member of the lower house of the general assembly, and was made speaker without any previous legislative ex- perience ; he proved to be a prompt and efficient presiding officer, and, on account of his impartiality, gave good satisfaction to all parties.
In October, 1874, Mr. Noble was chosen judge of the tenth district, and holds that position at this time. He has a good legal mind, well stocked with the best material; is quick in applying legal prin- ciples to cases which come before him, and equally as quick to discern legal distinctions. As a lawyer, he excels in jury trials, having, probably, no equal in the district. He has strong common sense, strik- ing clearness of comprehension, unqualified integrity and truthfulness, strong sympathies and much nat-
ural tenderness of heart; and these qualifications and characteristics combined give him wonderful power with a jury. The qualities which make him prominent as a lawyer make him a favorite as a judge. He is not a hair-splitter, but grasps the turning points of a case with great ease and firm- ness, and his rulings and decisions are marked with fairness and impartiality.
Judge Noble was a whig, then a republican, and latterly has been a liberal.
He is a Master Mason, and has been through the ordinary degrees of Odd-Fellowship.
On the 19th of June, 1844, he took to wife Miss Harriet C. Douglas, of Jersey county, Illinois, a rel- ative of the late Senator Douglas. She has had seven children, and five of them are living. The eldest daughter is the wife of John F. Day, of De- corah. The eldest son is married, and lives on a farm in Chickasaw county. The other children are with their father on a farm six miles northwest of McGregor.
Judge Noble is an unostentatious man, making little external show, and a stranger would at first sight underestimate his internal weight. His charac- ter is as solid as gold, and as pure.
DAVID A. HOFFMAN, M.D.,
OSKALOOSA.
T THE subject of this biography, a native of Jack- son Court House, Ohio, was born on the 28th of September, 1824, the son of Daniel Hoffman and Julia née James. His father, originally a gunsmith by trade, was a man of frugal, industrious habits, and became a prosperous merchant, farmer and stock- raiser. His paternal grandfather, who was a gun- smith by trade, purchased a farm in Ross county, Ohio, in 1806, he having removed thither from She- nandoah county, Virginia. He was one of three brothers who emigrated from Germany; the other two settling one in New York and the other in Pennsylvania.
The maternal grandparents of our subject, John James and Mary nee Cook, were farmers, and re- moved from Stonington, Connecticut, to Marietta, Ohio, in the fall of 1787, six months after Putnam, who made the first Ohio settlement. Settling on James Island, he remained there till 1806; at that time he removed to Jackson, then known as "Sciota
Salt Licks," where he died in 1851 at the age of eighty-four years. ·
After closing his studies in the common school David studied two years in the University of Athens, Ohio, and afterward studied medicine with Dr. W. Black, and later attended two courses of lectures at Cleveland, Ohio, graduating in 1848 with the degree of M.D. Removing at once to Logan, in Hocking county, Ohio, he established himself in his profes- sion with Dr. E. T. Brown.
In the following fall he was married to Miss Emily Smith, daughter of John A. Smith, a native of Penn- sylvania, and Mary née Embich, a native of Mary- land.
Settling in Jackson, his native place, Dr. Hoffman there continued his practice until July, 1855, when he returned to Logan and practiced in connection with Dr. N. Dalton until May, 1861. He next re- moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa, his present home, where he resumed his profession, which has steadily in-
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creased until he has become widely known as a reli- able, successful and skillful practitioner.
Besides being a diligent student in his profession, Dr. Hoffman has given much time to the study of geology and mineralogy. In January, 1874, he began collecting and now has several thousand specimens, also a numismatic collection of some seven hundred specimens, a fine collection of insects, and a large collection of the different issues of United States currency. His library consists of nearly a thousand volumes, comprising many old and rare books.
In 1846 he became identified with the Masonic fraternity, and since his residence in Oskaloosa has been one of its most active members. He has been worshipful master, high priest of the chapter, and eminent commander of the first commandery, which he was instrumental in organizing. In political sentiment, he is a republican.
In 1848 he united with the Methodist Episcopal
church, and has continued a faithful and zealous member of that body, although holding liberal, hu- manitarian views of religion.
Dr. Hoffman has four children : Edgar B., born on the 21st of August, 1849, who is now a farmer in Mahaska county, Iowa; John A., who was born on the 23d of April, 1851, is an attorney at Oskaloosa, Iowa. He graduated from the Iowa Wesleyan Uni- versity at Mount Pleasant, class of 1872, at which time Effie also graduated from the same institution. She is now living at home, and is a young lady of marked accomplishments. Repley C., born on the 12th of November, 1860, is now (1878) a student in Penn College at Oskaloosa, Iowa.
Throughout his career Dr. Hoffman has main- tained a high character, and wherever known is honored and respected. He has made his own way in the world, and may justly be classed among Iowa's noble and self-made men.
HON. E. C. BOSBYSHELL,
GLENWOOD.
E. C. BOSBYSHELL was born in the city of Philadelphia, on the 28th of May, 1822. He was the eldest son of William and Martha Bosby- shell, and grandson of Christian Bosbyshell, one of the earliest merchants in Philadelphia in 1780.
During his childhood his parents moved to Potts- ville, Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, where he re- ceived his early education, and was afterward sent to Litiz, Pennsylvania, where he finished his educa- tion by taking a course in civil engineering.
After leaving school he came with his father to Saint Louis, Missouri, where he accepted a position as clerk in his father's store; and in 1840, with the assistance of his father, he purchased a farm of two hundred acres near the mouth of the Illinois river. This he proceeded to put under the finest cultiva- tion and built a cabin.
He soon felt the need of a helpmeet, and on the 28th of May, 1844, he married Clara H. Williams, daughter of Rev. L. S. Williams, of Carlinville, Illi- nois. She had spent the most of her life with her parents in the south, as missionary among the Indi- ans, and was well fitted for the position she was about to fill, since she became acquainted with the hardships and privations of life in her frontier home. Upon his return with his bride to their cabin home
they found that the waters of the Illinois and Mis- sissippi rivers had held a revel upon their farm, and carried away with them to their watery home the hard labor of four years, leaving their farm barren and uninviting. It was now that Mr. Bosbyshell's determination to overcome difficulties was of use to him. He shouldered his axe, went to the woods, and while his fair bride spun her rolls, and bright- ened the cabin home in the thousand and one ways which only a woman understands, he cut wood, and after drawing it to town sold it for one dollar per cord.
In the spring of 1845 he moved on to a dairy farm in Macoupin county, Illinois, where, by the untiring efforts of himself and wife, he accumulated enough money to move back upon his farm and re- pair the ravages of the inundation.
About this time Mr. Bosbyshell was elected jus- tice of the peace and appointed postmaster; think- ing that the good people who came after their mail might be induced to buy some dry goods or grocer- ies, Mr. Bosbyshell concluded to begin store-keep- ing. Accordingly the cooking-stove was moved into the parlor, sitting-room, dining-room and family bed-® room, and the kitchen was fitted up for a store. Af- ter borrowing two hundred dollars of his hired man
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he went to Saint Louis to lay in his stock. During the same year he was elected associate county judge of Calhoun county, Illinois, which office he held un- til 1856. He then came with his wife and four chil- dren to Glenwood, lowa, at which time he possessed four thousand dollars in gold, the proceeds from the sale of his property in Illinois. He invested his money in real estate, and being furnished with ten thousand dollars' worth of goods by business houses in Saint Louis he again went into the mercantile business, receiving one half of the profits.
In 1857 Mr. Bosbyshell was elected county judge of Mills county, which office he held for over two years.
At the close of the war he was appointed by the state legislature a trustee for the orphan asylums of the state, and built the Orphans' Home located at Glenwood.
Mr. Bosbyshell became an Odd-Fellow in 1851, and in 1856 joined the Masons.
In religion, he is a Congregationalist ; joined that church in 1860. He is a consistent christian, and has done much to further the work of his Master.
In politics, he is a democrat ; gave his first vote for James K. Polk, and never " falling from grace."
In 1872 he was elected vice-president of the Mills County National Bank. In 1876 he was elected mayor of the city of Glenwood, and reelected in 1877.
He is five feet and eleven inches in height, and is straight and fine appearing. He is very active, and moves with the sprightliness of many but half his years ; is cheerful, kind-hearted, and is a personal friend of all. His education, and the constant com- panionship of an educated and refined wife, have fitted him well for the social position which he sus- tains. His home is a quiet, peaceful nook crown- ing the brow of one of Glenwood's most beautiful mounds, and deserves the name of "home " in the fullest sense of the term.
CARLTON CORBETT.
CHEROKEE.
C ARLTON CORBETT, who twenty-two years ago came to Iowa as agent of a Massachusetts emigration society, and who has done much to de- velop the agricultural resources of Cherokee county, was born in Milford, Worcester county, Massachu- setts, on the 12th of August, 1831, his parents be- ing John and Almira Parkhurst Corbett. He is of remote English descent, the Corbetts coming over and settling in the old Bay State at an early date. His grandfather, John Corbett, fought against the mother country in the contests for independence and was taken prisoner. He also enlisted in the second war, but took part in no action.
Carlton early learned to farm, and had only ten or twelve weeks' schooling annually after he was old enough to work.
In February, 1852, he went to California, engaged in mining between three and four years with a fair degree of success, and on his return came to Iowa as agent of the Milford Emigration Society, with Lemuel Parkhurst as an associate in the business. Albert Phipps, G. W. Lebourveau, B. W. Sawtell, James A. Brown, and others, came out from Massa- chusetts at the same time. The company consisted of about fifty members, for whom Mr. Corbett hunt-
ed up lands, they coming out and preempting them. He and others organized the county of Cherokee, in August, 1857, locating the seat of justice a mile and a half from the present city of Cherokee. The county seat was moved to the new town when the railroad came through in 1869.
During the winter of 1862-63, the winter follow- ing the Indian massacres which commenced in Min- nesota, Mr. and Mrs. Corbett were among the half dozen white settlers who remained in the county, partially protected by a few soldiers.
Mr. Corbett lived on a farm which he had early selected, improving it and raising stock, until about 1870, when he removed to the town of Cherokee.
In the spring of 1873 he formed a partnership with F. E. Whitmore, in the real-estate business, as agents for the Railroad Land Company, the firm name being Corbett and Whitmore. Their sales have been very large. In a single year, 1875, they sold eleven thousand six hundred and thirty-six acres, valued at eighty-four thousand dollars. Dur- ing the same time they also sold extensively for other parties. They are energetic and thoroughly re- liable business men, their transactions being marked by promptness and the strictest integrity.
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In 1860 Mr. Corbett was elected recorder and treasurer of the county, holding the office six years, and then served two years as treasurer alone. In 1870 he was chosen recorder, and held the office one term. He made a faithful and popular county officer.
In 1859 Mr. Corbett married Miss Rossabella
Cumings, of Milford, Massachusetts, an acquaint- ance of his childhood. They have three children, one son and two daughters : Elmer A., Idella F. and Mary E., who are being educated in the excel- lent graded school of Cherokee.
He has always been a republican, but not very active, except in local matters.
HON. JOSHUA TRACY,
BURLINGTON.
H ON. JOSHUA TRACY was born in Belmont county, Ohio, on the 12th of July, 1825, and is son of Joshua and Sarah Tracy nee Moore. The former was a native of Maryland, and the latter of Virginia. Their parents were among the early set- tlers of Ohio. His father was a farmer, and he was raised upon a farm, assisting his father until he was nineteen years of age, when he left his home and en- tered college. He was educated at Beverly College, Washington county, Ohio, and at the Institute of Professor Samuel I .. Howe, at Mount Pleasant, Iowa. He came to Iowa in the autumn of 1846, and settled in Burlington in 1850, and commenced the study of law with Hon. M. D. Browning, and was admitted to the bar in Burlington in the fall of 1852. He was elected city attorney for Burlington in the spring of 1853, and continued in office until the spring of 1855. In the fall of 1854 he was elected to the legislature, and served as member during the ses- sions of 1854-5, and at the called session of 1856. He was elected district attorney of the first judicial district of Iowa in the fall of 1858, and reelected to the same office twice, holding it until the fall of 1869, when he was appointed district judge to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge
Francis Springer, and was elected to office in 1870 for a term of four years, but owing to the meager compensation paid judicial officers by the state, he resigned in the spring of 1874 and entered into the practice of law. Judge Tracy has practiced most successfully his profession, and has been a zealous worker. In manners, he is singularly winning and gracious, and is noted for his hospitable and genial disposition ; and the high position he holds in Des Moines and adjacent counties as a lawyer and citi- zen, has been won entirely by his own industry.
In politics, he was formerly a democrat until the rebellion, since which time he has acted and voted with the republican party in all political issues.
He was married in October, 1847, to Mrs. Antoi- nette Kinney née Stone, daughter of Colonel H. A. and Mrs. Mirand Stone, formerly of Albany, New York, but who immigrated to the west, and were among the early settlers of Iowa.
Judge Tracy's son, Samuel K., is a partner in his father's law office, and is one of the rising young lawyers of Iowa.
He was educated at the Burlington University and at the Iowa Law School, and is now serving his sec- ond term of office as city attorney for Burlington.
EUGENE COWLES,
CHEROKEE.
T "HE first settler, with one exception, on the site of Cherokee city, was Eugene Cowles, who built the second dwelling house there, and who was a pioneer attorney. He is a son of Oliver D. Cowles, merchant, and Euletheria Andrews, both families of English descent, and was born in New Haven, Ver- mont, on the 10th of March, 1835. His grandfather,
John Cowles, moved from Massachusetts to Vermont when the latter state was an almost unbroken wilder- ness. Eugene devoted his boyhood and early youth to literary studies, but never entered college, al- though at seventeen years of age he was fitted in all branches, excepting Greek, to enter the junior class.
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In 1852 he immigrated to Iowa, and settled in Jackson county. From this date Eugene com- menced paddling his own canoe, and has never re- linquished the oars to other hands, not even for an hour. He read law at Bellevue, in the county just mentioned, and was there admitted to the bar in September, 1856. He practiced in Bellevue in com- pany with Judge D. F. Spurr until 1859, at which time he moved to Dubuque, making that city his home until 1869, with the exception of an absence of three years, during which he was looking after the interests of a client.
In June of the year last mentioned, Mr. Cowles looked over the grounds where the city of Cherokee now stands, the railroad having nearly reached the spot, and made up his mind that here a city must rise, and here he would pitch his tent. He soon had a house ready for his family, opened a law office, and has since been in steady and successful practice, doing a business second to that of no at- torney in Cherokee county. With the exception of some work in the city school board, where he has made himself very useful, he has kept entirely out of office, giving to his profession his closest atten-
tion, and to legal studies what spare time he could command. Hence he is a well-read lawyer, good to counsel in private, and strong before a jury. He would not be classed among the most fluent and eloquent of speakers, yet he has great success, being clear, logical and persuasive. He has a large amount of criminal practice, and rarely fails to gain the case. Probably no man in this part of the state has a more remunerative practice. His standing at the bar of the district is excellent.
In politics, Mr. Cowles is classed among the inde- pendent republicans. He is a Royal Arch Mason, and was master of the Cherokee Lodge three con- secutive years. In religious belief, he is a Unitarian.
On the 8th of December, 1859, Miss Julia Potter, of Jackson county, Iowa, became the wife of Mr. Cowles, and they have two children, both daughters, Engenie and Hattie.
Mr. Cowles reached Iowa at the age of seventeen, with very few dollars in his pocket, and every dollar of his accumulations acquired since crossing the Mississippi has been solely with his own hands ; therefore he is a good representative of self-made, successful men.
HON. JOSEPH CHAPMAN,
COLESBURGH.
JOSEPH CHAPMAN, an early settler in Dela- ware county, and still a resident of Colesburgh, where he originally located, is a member of the gen- eral assemby, and among the most practical men of that body. He is a man who does more thinking in private than talking in public, and can always be re- lied upon for prompt attendance and solid work in the committee rooms. He is a farmer, as was also his father, William Chapman, and was born in Ot- sego county, New York, on the 15th of June, 1821. The maiden name of his mother was Mary Hextell, of whose pedigree nothing is known. The Chap- mans were from England, the father of Joseph com- ing over in the year 1810. Joseph moved with his parents to Fulton county, New York, when about seventeen years of age, and enjoyed only limited opportunities for mental improvement, such as a common school afforded.
Mr. Chapman left Fulton county for Iowa in the autumn of 1850. He has a farm of one hundred and fifty acres adjoining the village of Colesburgh,
and under excellent improvement, and other lands in the adjoining county of Clayton, and some also in Mitchell county. He has always been industrious, prudent and economical, and is among the many ju- dicious and successful farmers whose lands lie along the south side of the Turkey timber, just south of the line of Clayton county. The writer speaks from careful and extensive observation when he states that it is doubtful if there is any better land in the State of Iowa than portions of the township of Col- ony, in which the village of Colesburgh is included. More than one of the agricultural princes of the commonwealth reside in that vicinity.
Mr. Chapman was justice of the peace for eight- teen consecutive years at Colesburgh ; was a member of the board of supervisors eight or nine years, and has represented his county, constituting the fifty- second district, in the last two sessions of the gen- eral assembly held in 1876 and 1878. In the latter session he was chairman of the committee on com- pensation of public officers and on the committees
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on county and town organization, private corpora- tions, the penitentiary at Anamosa and the hospital. for the insane.
Mr. Chapman was originally a whig, and joined the republican party at its formation; is quite active and influential in local politics, and often attends the state conventions. He is a Master Mason and an Odd-Fellow, having represented the latter order in the grand lodge four or five times.
On the 17th of February, 1852, Mr. Chapman mar-
ried Miss Susan E Potts, of Colesburgh, and they have had nine children, all living except two. Ida May is the wife of James Balsinger, of Colesburgh ; the others are single. William P., the eldest son, is a hardware merchant in Colesburgh. The youngest of the four sons living, Morris, was a page of the house in the seventeenth general assembly.
Mr. and Mrs. Chapman attend the Congregational church, with which the latter is connected. They are among the pillars of pure-toned society.
HON. ROBERT SMYTH,
MOUNT VERNON.
AMONG the Covenanters of Scotland who fled I to the north of Ireland at the time of the per- secution, was the Smyth family from which the sub- ject of this sketch descended. He was born in Tyrone county, near Londonderry, Ireland, on the 26th of February, 1814, his parents being Jeremiah Smyth, a farmer, and Nancy McElhenny. The family on the mother's side were also Covenanters, and driven out of Scotland Robert was reared on a farm, with ordinary common-school education ; at twenty came to this country, and was employed as a clerk six years in Bedford county, Pennsyl- vania. On the Ist of April, 1840, he settled on land in Franklin township, one and a-half miles west of Mount Vernon, Linn county. He bought a claim of a quarter-section, and three years later, after his parents had come to this country, the land was entered and divided, and Robert had one fourth, eighty acres, of it. Here his parents lived until their death, the remains of both lying in the Mount Ver- non cemetery. They were most estimable people.
Robert Smyth has added to his lands from time to time, and the original farm now embraces two hun- dred and eighty acres, most of it under superb cul- tivation. He has also another farm of a little more than one hundred acres, in Linn county, and other lands in Story, Calhoun and Woodbury counties, all in this state. Though a resident of Linn county since 1840, he has not been on the farm all of that time. From 1852 to 1866 he was a resident most of the time of Marion, the county seat, the greater por- tion of it being in a land, banking and law office. On going into the real-estate and banking business, he commenced reading law with his younger brother, the late Colonel William Smyth, who came to this
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