USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 93
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
-
In 1846 Judge Drake founded the town of Drake- ville, Davis county, where he traded until the spring of 1871, when he started a private bank. In 1876 the Appanoose County Bank was started at Center- ville, the county seat ; Mr. Drake was elected its president, and in March, 1877, removed to Center- ville.
At the time of writing he is still running the Drakeville bank, but is preparing to close it. His faculties seem to be unimpaired, but there is no ne- cessity for burdening himself with cares at this pe- riod of life and in his comfortable circumstances,
Mr. Drake was a member of the legislature in the session held at Iowa city in the winter of 1852-53. representing Davis county.
He was formerly a whig, but is now a republican. He has been a member of the Christian church a long time, and was an elder many years. The char- acter of no man in Appanoose county stands fairer. He is a christian gentleman and philanthropist.
On the 12th of June, 1826, Miss Harriet J. O'Neal. of Franklin county, North Carolina, became his wife, and she is the mother of fourteen children. seven of whom are now living, two sons and five daughters. The sons are elsewhere mentioned in this work. The daughters are all married : Nancy M. is the wife of J. B. Lockman, of Drakeville ; Jane, of F. M. Kirkham, of Centerville; Henrietta J., of G. T. Carpenter, of Oskaloosa; Adeline, of M.
633
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
H. Kirkham, of Centerville, and Ella, of C. W. Lane, of Centerville.
Having lived a christian life at least forty-five years, and having always been a man of temperate
and virtuous habits, Mr. Drake enjoys a green old age, free from the remorse attending wasted energies and sin-blighted hopes, and has a spiritual elasticity which an age of folly might behold with envy.
REV. GEORGE S. BRADLEY, A. M.,
WILTON.
G EORGE SAUNDERS BRADLEY, professor of ancient and modern languages, etc., was born in Canterbury, Merrimack county, New Hamp- shire, on the 28th of May, 1830, and is the son of John L. and Hannah Bradley née Mason, both of New England parentage.
The name (Bradley) is of English origin, the fam- ily tracing their lineage back to Abraham Bradley, | who is supposed to have immigrated to New Eng- land early in the eighteenth century, and settled in Haverhill, Massachusetts, from whence, in 1730, he removed to Concord, New Hampshire. Benjamin Bradley, the grandfather of our subject, was second in descent from Abraham Bradley, and was a sol- dier of the revolution, and fought at Bunker Hill and other hotly contested fields of that memorable struggle. He was also the hero of some thrilling adventures with the Indians. He was a man of powerful frame-work, and lived to the age of eighty years. His mother is the daughter of Benjamin Mason, of Chichester, New Hampshire, a large and portly man, noted as a great story-teller and a firm believer in witches. He lived to the age of eighty years. The Mason family is likewise of English lineage.
The ancestors on both sides as far back as known were tillers of the soil, men 'of probity and sterling worth, inheriting and transmitting the strict religious principles of the early New England colonists.
His father, John L. Bradley, was the owner of a small farm on a rock-bespattered hillside in the Granite State, and the father of a family of eight vigorous and healthy children, of whom George S. was the eldest; from which circumstances it may be inferred that the children were early initiated into habits of economy and frugality. They were like- wise early taught good morals by their mother, who was a most excellent christian woman and devotedly attached to her children. She gave them their first start in reading and arithmetic.
Until the age of seventeen our subject worked on
his father's farm, attending school for a number of terms at the New Hampshire Conference Seminary, at Tilton. He also attended for several terms at the Gilmanton Academy, defraying his own expenses as best he could. His object in early life was to fit himself for the profession of teaching, and he passed through many struggles and privations in order to attain this end. The severe discipline of this pe- riod prepared him for endurance and success in after life, while it has given him a hearty sympathy for students who, like himself, have had to work their own way to an education. In the hour of his greatest necessity God raised up for him a friend in the person of the Rev. Edmund B. Fairfield, his pastor and teacher in New Hampshire, subsequently president of Hillsdale College, Michigan, and now Chancellor of the University of Nebraska. This gentleman often gave him jobs of work, for which he paid him generously, but ofttimes his purse was empty and he knew not where the next dime would come from. By the advice of this excellent friend he removed to Michigan in 1849, and by his influ- ence he was appointed tutor in Hillsdale College, where he taught and studied for seven years. He was an ambitious student, and was rarely second in his class. He gained a thorough knowledge of the Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages (to which he has since added German), as well as the natural sciences, being especially proficient in chemistry. This institution conferred upon him the degree of A.M. in 1871.
Before leaving New Hampshire he had experi- enced religion and united with the Freewill Baptist church, and during his early christian experience he greatly desired to go to India as a missionary. This aspiration was encouraged by Rev. B. B. Smith, since a successful missionary among the Hindoos. With this end in view he entered the theological department of Oberlin (Ohio) College in 1858, where he was placed under the instruction of the cele- brated Rev. Charles G. Finney, under whose tuition
634
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
he remained two years, having in the meantime taught school one winter at Mount Gilead and an- other at Xenia, Ohio. The labor and anxiety inci- dent to these years of study and self-sacrifice so impaired his health that his friends persuaded him to relinquish his missionary plans and to accept a tutorship in Hillsdale College, which he retained for a short time, and in 1859 accepted the principal- ship of the seminary at North Parsonfield, Maine, which he conducted successfully for two years, when he returned to the west and was called to the pas- torate of the Baptist church at Mount Pleasant, Ra- cine county, Wisconsin. Here he remained for three years, when he accepted a commission as chaplain of the 22d Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. He joined his regiment at Nashville, Tennessee, on the 19th of April, 1864, and made the famous "march to the sea," participating in all the hardships, dangers and privations, as well as the glories, of that memorable campaign. being present at the "grand review " in Washington, on the 25th of May, 1865, which pro- claimed the war ended and the authority of the gov- ernment restored in the rebellious states.
After his discharge from the army he returned to his former charge at Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, and remained there two years longer. In the spring of 1867 he opened a private seminary at Rochester, which he conducted successfully for two years over and above his pastoral duties. In 1869 he became principal of the Evansville (Rock county, Wisconsin) Seminary, which he conducted with very consider- able success for six years.' In 1875 he received a very flattering invitation from the board of directors of the Collegiate Institute at Wilton, Iowa, to take charge of that institution, which he accepted, and conducted for two years with marked success. In #1877 he was invited by unanimous vote of the board of directors to take the superintendence of the pub- lic schools of Wilton, Iowa, which he accepted, and is now (1877) the incumbent of that office.
As a teacher, the professor has been eminently successful; his pupils have always been warmly attached to him. His scholars, who are now quite numerous, are scattered over the nation from Maine to California, and are among the most prosperous business and professional men to be found in the country. As a pastor, he has also been a great fa- vorite and not less successful, though he considers teaching to be his mission, but his versatility of tal- ents would have qualified him for any of the pro- fessions. During the many years he has devoted to
teaching he has rarely been without one or two churches to look after. He has seen many of his students converted to God, a large number of whom he has devoted to Christ in baptism. As a public speaker, he is terse, logical, argumentative and en- thusiastic. He has also been a voluminous and conspicnous writer. At the age of sixteen he com- menced contributing articles to the " Boston Culti- vator," which were generally credited to a popular writer living in the same town. In 1858 he spent a vacation in Canada West, gathering facts and sketches of slave life in the south, which he pub- lished in the " Morning Star " of Dover, New Hamp- shire. He has also written a good many polemical articles for the press, under such titles as "Second Adventism," "Women Speaking in Meeting," "John's Baptism," " Foundations of Moral Obliga- tion," "Infant Salvation," " Union of Baptists," etc., some of which had a wide circulation, and were af- terward put into pamphlet form. In 1874 he was editor and proprietor of a weekly newspaper in Ev- ansville, Wisconsin, entitled " The Evansville Jour- nal." He was also one of the prime movers in starting the "Christian Freeman " of Chicago, a weekly denominational paper, which was finally merged into the "Baptist Union " of New York, and has for many years written largely for both the secular and religious press. But the largest contri- bution to the current literature of the period, and that by which he is best known to the public, is his history of "The Star Corps, or Notes of an Army Chaplain during Sherman's Famous March to the Sea," which he published in 1865, giving a minute and thrilling history of that memorable campaign, inter- spersed with anecdote and incident of march, camp. skirmish, forage, devastation and all the horrors of war. While many of the incidents are so ludicrous as to stir the risibles, others are so sad as to moisten the eyes with tears. The volume is interspersed with a number of very spirited and meritorious pa- triotic songs and poems, which are of the chaplain's own composition.
The professor has also been an extensive lecturer on educational topics, especially before teachers' institutes, and has won an honorable place as a pub- lic speaker. As early as the year 1856, while teach- ing in central Ohio, he became very much interested in the " spelling reform," and since then he has been an ardent advocate of the phonetic system, and has written and lectured largely on the subject.
He has never been sectarian in his religious work,
635
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
but has operated in harmony with all evangelical denominations. In 1873 he held a public discus- sion in Evansville, lasting for three days, with some of his brethren of the "close communion " school, in which he took the ground that all believers have a right to the Lord's Supper, and should be invited thereto by all christian churches. He has recently written a lecture on a "New Theory of Creation," in which he denies the eternity of matter, and ad- vances the idea that matter is force, and that the world is only an exhibition of God's eternal power. His conclusions are arrived at by an original and ingenious method of reasoning, making, upon the whole, a novel and interesting theory. He has al- ways taken a prominent part in ministers' meetings and institutes, and at all times and in all places has strenuously advocated the principles of total absti- nence.
Reared among the hills of New England, he early imbibed an ardent love of liberty ; and although his relations and associates were all democrats, yet he seemed to drink in abolition principles by instinct, and from early boyhood antagonized the institution of slavery, and consequently found his place in the republican party, the principles of which he has in- variably advocated. He has never held any polit- ical office, but has often been honored by his own de- nomination of christians with positions of trust and responsibility. In 1874 he was elected to a profess- orship in Hillsdale College, which he declined.
He has given considerable attention to the subject of natural history, and has a very fine ornithological cabinet, as well as a number of specimens of the smaller native quadrupeds of the west. He is also
the owner of one of the finest libraries of the coun- try, embracing an endless variety of subjects, be- sides one hundred large scrap-books, each devoted to a special department of literature.
On the 12th of December, 1858, he married Miss Sally Ann Weaver, a native of Somerset, Michigan, a lady of very high literary attainments, who has generally assisted him in his educational labors, taught classes in his seminaries and written exten- sively for the press. She has, moreover, drank deeply of the sacred "Castalian fount," and is one of the sweetest poetical writers of the period. Many of her poems, elicited by incidents of the late war, are interspersed through the volume above alluded to, adding a peculiar charm to its pages. She seems to fathom the depth of human affection, and to bring to the surface the best and purest feelings of human- ity. They have had a family of four children, only one of whom survives, namely, Charles Clement, born in 1871.
The professor, like his forefathers, is a splendid specimen of humanity; over six feet high, of easy manners, pleasing countenance and dignified bear- ing; strong in his friendships and uncompromising in his principles, Sensitive of his good name, he is scrupulously upright in character. He is an inde- pendent thinker, outspoken in the advocacy of his opinions and penetrating in his judgment. In his relations to society he realizes that he is one of the people, and that their interests are his interests, and that it is in their prosperity alone that he can pros- per. With his irresistible will power and nerve force he is destined to carve a niche still higher up in the temple of fame.
HON. GEORGE W. RUDDICK,
H'AVERLY.
G EORGE WILLIAM RUDDICK is of Scotch- Irish pedigree, his ancestors, in the days of persecution, fleeing from Scotland to the north of Ireland, whence his father, William Ruddick, emi- grated to this country, settling in Sullivan county, New York. There George W. was born, in the town of Thompson, on the IIth of May, 1835. His mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Conner, who died when he was less than two years old. His father was a farmer and lumberman, and died at the old homestead in Sullivan county on the 1st of Octo-
ber, 1861. The son worked at farming and lumber- ing until fourteen years of age, then spent two years at an academy in Kingsville, Ashtabula county, Ohio, supplementing it with a similar course of instruction at Monticello, New York, and at eighteen commenced reading law in the same place with A. C. Niven. In September, 1855, he entered the 'law school at Al- bany, graduated the following spring, and came directly to Iowa. After a few weeks spent in pros- pecting he concluded to settle in Waverly, and here he is still to be found. Part of the time he has
036
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
practiced alone, and the remainder of the time with other parties; from 1858 to 1860 with H. A. Miles, the firm being Ruddick and Miles, and for a short time, commencing in 1865, with O. F. Avery, the firm being Ruddick and Avery. During the twenty- one years that Mr. Ruddick has been in the Cedar valley he has probably had more offices bestowed upon him than have been held by any other man in Bremer county. He was elected prosecuting attor- ney of the county in 1857, and held the office until the new constitution did away with it; was elected to the general assembly in 1859, and served in the regular session of 1860 and the special or war session of 1861 ; was elected county judge in 1862, holding the office two years ; was elected circuit judge in 1867, and entered upon the duties of that office on the 1st of January, 1868; held it nearly two years, when he was elected judge of the twelfth judicial district, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Hon. W. B. Fairfield. To the latter office he has been twice reelected, having held it seven consecutive years.
Judge Ruddick has emphatically a logical mind. and is remarkable for the clearness of his perceptions, and his comprehensive and masterly grasp of the details of a case. He is not swift to decide, but is correct in his conclusions, and is no doubt the best equity lawyer in the district. He has great executive ability, a good measure of dispatch in business, and is impartial. He has been strongly recommended by lawyers and others who best know him for the supreme bench of the state.
Judge Ruddick has always acted with the repub- lican party, and in being elected to office from time to time has usually drawn much more than the party vote. He is very popular in his judicial district.
On the 15th of December, 1859, he was united to Miss Mary Estella Strickland, of Andover, Ohio, and they have four boys.
Judge Ruddick is of full medium height, of good proportions, of dignified bearing, and in social and moral character and legal qualifications is an honor to the bench.
JOSEPH R. GORRELL, M. D.,
NEWTON.
A MONG the physicians of Newton no one has a better reputation for skill than Joseph R. Gor- rell. He is as much a student now as he ever was ; devotes his leisure to reading his medical periodicals and other scientific works, and hence is constantly progressing in knowledge, and, as a practitioner, in the confidence of the people. His mind is of that inquisitive, inquiring cast which is never satisfied without trying to look to the bottom of a subject, and without seizing any newly developed truths in medical science, and making use of them. Such minds can never become dry, they must expand.
Dr. Gorrell is of distant English descent, spring- ing from early settlers in Pennsylvania, his parents being Joseph and Esther Glass Gorrell. His pater- nal great-grandfather was in the first war with the mother country.
Joseph R. was born in Trumbull county, Ohio, on the 6th of May, 1835, and at ten years of age moved with his parents to Wells county, Indiana, where they settled on a farm, and where the son remained until about sixteen years of age. He then spent four years at institutions of learning in Fort Wayne ; read medicine at Bluffton, with Dr. J. R. McCleary ;
attended one course of lectures in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and another in Buffalo, New York, where he graduated in the spring of 1859.
After practicing three years at Newville, DeKalb county, Indiana, in the autumn of 1862 Dr. Gorrell was commissioned assistant surgeon of the 129th regiment Indiana Volunteers; went south in the win- ter following, and served nearly two years in that capacity ; was then commissioned surgeon of the 30th Indiana, but owing to poor health resigned and returned to the north.
Late in the winter of 1865 Dr. Gorrell settled in Newton, where he soon secured a remunerative prac- tice. He makes a specialty of no one branch of the healing art; has a good name both as a physician and surgeon, and usually has as much business on his hands as any one man ought to be obliged to attend to. Pecuniarily as well as professionally he has been quite successful.
He is a member of the State Medical Society, and has been treasurer of the county society.
In politics, he is a republican, but seeks no office. He is thoroughly devoted to his profession.
The wife of Dr. Gorrell is a daughter of J. E.
637
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
Hendricks, Esq., editor and publisher of " The An- nalist," of Des Moines. They were married on the 2d of December, 1860, and have two children.
Dr. Gorrell is an extensive reader of scientific
works outside of his profession ; is a great admirer of the writings of Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, and that class of thinkers, and indorses, in the main. their views of religion as well as science.
WILLIAM S. GRIMES, M.D.,
DES MOINES.
W TILLIAM STEWART GRIMES, for twenty years a medical practitioner, and three of these years in the Union army, is a native of Wheel- ing, West Virginia, and was born on the 22d of Au- gust, 1835. His father, William Grimes, was a black- smith by trade, and his grandfather was General Washington's blacksmith in the revolutionary war. The Grimes family were from Coot Hill, Ireland, and settled in Virginia. The mother of Dr. Grimes, whose maiden name was Rebecca Buff, and who was a native of Virginia, died when he was born. The son lost his father when only twelve years old, and he was reared in Cincinnati by an aunt, Sarah Ber- tholf, who is still living in that city in her eightieth year.
The subject of this sketch was educated at Wood- ward College, Cincinnati, and graduated in 1854. He read medicine with the celebrated Dr. R. D. Mussey, of that city ; attended lectures at the Mi- ami Medical College, Cincinnati; graduated in 1857; came to Iowa and practiced in Council Bluffs until the civil war broke out in 1861. He accompanied the 4th Iowa Infantry, Colonel Dodge, to the south as assistant surgeon; served in that capacity one year, and was promoted to surgeon 29th regiment, Colonel T. H. Benton, remaining in that position un- til July, 1864, when an affliction of the eyes com- pelled him to resign. After the battle of Pea Ridge, and while with the 4th regiment, he spent six months
in the hospital at Cassville, Missouri, taking care of the sick and wounded. He was at home a short time when the 29th was raised, and aided in the work.
On leaving the army Dr. Grimes located in Des Moines, where he has been the leading surgeon for a dozen years or more. His opportunities for edu- cation while in the army were very favorable, and he improved them to the best of his abilities.
Not fully satisfied, however, with his medical and surgical attainments, Dr. Grimes spent the winter of 1873-4 at his old medical Alma Mater, Miami Col- lege, attending lectures and devoting especial atten- tion to surgical science, in which he is very proficient. He is also an aurist and oculist, having an extensive practice in both these branches of the healing art.
In politics, the doctor is an unwavering republi- can, but he will not turn aside from his profession to accept any civil office.
His religious connection is with the Baptists.
Dr. Grimes was first married in 1857, to Miss Ida C. Campbell, of West Point, Lee county, Iowa; the second time, in 1870, to Mrs. Julia G. Mayne, of Du- buque, Iowa. By her he has three children.
Although unusually tall, six feet and four inches, the doctor is well proportioned, and, without being corpulent, weighs two hundred and thirty pounds. He has a ruddy complexion, dark hazel eyes, a san- guine-bilious temperament, and a very quick step.
JOHN CONAWAY, M.D.,
BROOKLYN.
JOHN CONAWAY, for the last four years state senator representing Poweshiek and Tama coun- ties, is a native of Cadiz, Ohio, born on the 16th of November, 1822. His parents were Charles and Frances Arnold Conaway. The Conaways were from Ireland, and among the pioneers in Maryland and
Virginia. The subject of this notice spent his youth in and near his native town, tilling the soil, and im- proving his mind so far as a common school afforded opportunities. At twenty years of age he entered the academy at Hagerstown, Carroll county, spend- ing two years there, teaching during the winter sea-
638
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
sons. He read medicine, while continuing his teach- ing, for four years, two with his cousin, Dr. Enoch Conaway, of Franklin, Harrison county, and two with another cousin, Dr. Henry Conaway, of Rogers- ville, Tuscarawas county; practiced five years at Bakersville, Coshocton county ; attended lectures at the Eclectic Medical Institute, Cincinnati; gradu- ated on the 25th of February, 1854; practiced three years more at Bakersville, and on the rst of May, 1857, reached Brooklyn, Poweshiek county, where he settled, and where he has been the leading phy- sician for twenty-one years. He has had a very extensive ride, often reaching into Iowa county on the east and sometimes into Tama on the north. He has a good name wherever known.
The winter of 1866-7 Dr. Conaway spent in New York city, attending lectures in Bellevue Hospital Medical College, the Eclectic Medical Institute and the Ophthalmic Hospital, giving himself a thorough brushing up in several branches of the healing art, and increasing the confidence of the people in his skill. His medical education is thorough. During the last seven years he has been associated with Charles D. Conaway, a younger brother, and both have ordinarily all the business they could desire.
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.