USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 94
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For the last five years Dr. Conaway has been United States medical examiner for pensions.
He was state senator from January, 1874, to Janu- ary, 1878; was chairman of the committee on town- ship and county organizations, and acted on four or five other committees. While in that body he was appointed to visit the Hospital for the Insane at Mount Pleasant.
Dr. Conaway was a democrat until the repeal of the "Missouri Compromise," and has since usually acted with the republicans. When elected to the senate he was nominated and supported by the " Pa- trons of Husbandry "
He is a Master Mason and an Odd-Fellow. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, has been a steward nearly thirty years, and is a trustee of the Wesleyan University, a Methodist school lo- cated at Mount Pleasant.
The doctor's wife was Miss Mary E. Cunning, of Rogersville, Ohio; married the 7th of October, 1849. They have lost three children, and have three still living. Frances is the wife of O. F. Dorrance, a merchant of Brooklyn, lowa; Florence Narcissia is a music teacher, and Freeman R. is a student in the State Normal School at Cedar Falls.
WESLEY W. WEBSTER,
MUSCATINE.
W ESLEY WENTWORTH WEBSTER, manu- facturer, was born near Chester, Meigs county, Ohio, on the 9th of September, 1835, and is the son of Isaac A. Webster and Lydia née Ashton, the for- mer a native of Connecticut and the latter of Penn- sylvania.
The Websters were among the earliest colonists of New England, of Puritan ancestry, and for many generations have been among the leading minds of the country. The celebrated statesman and jurist of the Bay State, as well as the no less distinguished lexicographer, were both of the same lineage, and not very remotely connected with our subject.
His father removed to Ohio in 1810, and was among the early pioneers of "the west," as that state was then supposed to be, and was familiar with all the hardships and privations of frontier life, man- fully battling with the difficulties of the situation. He became the owner of a tract of heavy-timbered land, on which he erected mills, which he operated
with fair results, and also farmed the land as fast as it was cleared. He was an honest, energetic busi- ness man, of intelligence and high moral principles. He and his wife were both members of the Method- ist Episcopal church, and exemplified in their lives the sincerity and earnestness of their profession. The mother died in 1857, and the father in 1865. They had a family of eight children, four sons and four daughters, of whom our subject was the fourth, who were all raised in habits of industry and fru- gality, and enjoyed all the facilities for education that were afforded by the primitive condition of the country. They were also taught in early life the value of money, by being obliged to earn it by work. In short, this was by no means the least important part of their secular training, and it has contributed more to their success in after-life than any other dis- cipline.
Wesley W. Webster received what was then con- sidered a good common-school education, which
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was supplemented by a couple of terms at an acad- emy, where he studied the higher mathematics and some of the more advanced English branches. From the earliest period of his career he was char- acterized by great thoroughness and energy ; what- ever his hand found to do he did with all his might, and he has seldom failed of accomplishing his pur- poses, whatever they may have been : this very fre- quently in the face of difficulties that would have disheartened and overcome many a man of greater age and more robust health, for W. W. Webster was for many years the victim of feeble health and deli- cate constitution.
The boundless prairies of the west, of which, dur- ing the last years of his school life, he had heard much, had a peculiar fascination for 'his youthful mind, and the more so on account of its contrast with the wooded and hilly country of his nativity, and he resolved to make a home somewhere in the valley of the Mississippi. Accordingly, after quit- ting school in 1856, in company with an older broth- er, he went on a tour of observation through the states of Illinois, Iowa and Kansas, and was won- derfully charmed with the scenery and the pros- pects, his anticipations being more than realized. Having completed their tour and laid plans for the future, they returned to Ohio and spent some two years in helping to carry on their father's business and placing it in a shape to be conducted in their absence; which completed, our subject, in the au- tumn of 1859, removed to Muscatine, Iowa, where he spent two years in learning the marble and gran- ite-monument business.
In August, 1862, with other young men of his ac- quaintance, he enlisted in the 126th regiment Illi- nois Volunteer Infantry, and spent the next two years in helping to quell the rebellion, participating with the sixteenth army corps in the campaign of the Mississippi, being present at the siege and over- throw of Vicksburg and at the capture of Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1864, however, his health, which was never at any time robust, gave way under the malarious climate of the south, and he was obliged to quit the service as the only way to save his life, although he was very anxious to remain in the field and share the glory of the final triumph over treason and aggravated rebellion, but to stay longer in the south would have been certain death. After quit- ting the military service he returned to the home- stead in Ohio, where a year's careful nursing restored him to health and vigor, and since then he has en- 66
joyed remarkable immunity from disease and in- firmity.
In the summer of 1865 he returned to Muscatine, Iowa, bought out the establishment with which he had formerly been connected, and has since then devoted his energies and personal attention to the marble and granite trade, giving special attention to monumental works, at which he has attained to great proficiency and success.
He was brought up under Methodist influence, and in early life became a member of that commu- nion, in which he continued until 1871, when he transferred his membership to the First Presbyte- rian Church of Muscatine, with which he is now in union, being also one of the trustees of the congre- gation.
He has always been a member of the republican party, and cast his votes against the spread and in- fluence of slavery.
From the earliest dawn of reason he has been an unflinching advocate of the principles of total ab- stinence, and has never in his life tasted intoxicat- ing drink of any kind nor used tobacco in any shape. He lends his aid toward the promotion of every in- stitution and enterprise for the elevation, enlighten- ment and moral progress of the people. He is pres- ident of the Citizens' Association of Muscatine, a member of the board of directors and of the exec- utive committee of the Muscatine water-works, a director of the county agricultural society ; has helped to build up schools and churches, and has always been a promoter of the best interests of the city of his adoption.
In personal appearance, Mr. Webster is tall and graceful. His manner is pleasant and agreeable; a fluent conversationalist, easily forms acquaintances, and readily remembers faces and names. He is well posted generally, but more especially in the de- tails of business. His whole air is that of the agree- able, quick-witted business man. He is always on the move, travels a great deal in pursuit of business and health, both of which are now thoroughly estab- lished. He also takes pleasure in spending his money for the good of others, and is among the most benevolent and public-spirited of the citizens of Muscatine. The handsome and creditable mon- ument which ornaments the court-house square, and was erected to the memory of the soldiers of Muscatine county who fell in putting down the slaveholders' rebellion, is largely the result of his energy and generosity. He undertook its construc-
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tion when no one else could be found to risk the chances of compensation, and it is strongly sus- pected that he fell considerably short of the con- tract price from the subscription list which was turned over to him for collection.
Mr. Webster is an example of what industry and unflagging perseverance may accomplish. Though yet a young man, he has achieved a success in busi- ness rarely reached in a lifetime of laborious effort. Coming to Muscatine as the employé of the only marble establishment in the place, he soon became its proprietor, and has so extended and enlarged its business that it now rivals those of metropolitan cities.
On the 25th of May, 1865, he married Miss Eliza Jane Galbraith, a native of Pennsylvania, of Scotch
ancestry, who in childhood removed with her par- ents to Ohio, where her early years were passed. They have three very promising daughters, namely, Nola, Alice, Jessie Bell and Inez, all of whom are being carefully educated for useful and honorable stations in life.
As a husband and father, Mr. Webster is kind and indulgent, taking pleasure in ornamenting and beau- tifying his pleasant home, situated on one of the choicest sites in the picturesque city of Muscatine, commanding an extensive view of the great river and of the country on both sides of it for many miles north and south. Nor is it too much to say that his house is one of the most delightful to be found throughout the length and breadth of the great valley of the Mississippi.
ELIJAH D. WALN, MOUNT VERNON.
T HE first general mercantile trader in Mount Vernon was Elijah Dick Waln, who took up land near the present site of the city in the autumn of 1841. At that time this part of Linn county was a wild, unbroken country, with few cabins of any kind in sight, and quite as many red men as white; now his present farm is in the corporation, with twelve hundred neighbors around him. No vestiges of savage life remain, but in their place are the most impressive indices of civilized, christianized society, and an institution for the highest literary culture.
Mr. Waln is a native of Virginia, and was born in Winchester, Frederic county, on the 29th of Decem- ber, 1814. His father was Samuel Waln, a farmer and miller, and his mother was Margaret Dick. One of his great-grandfathers, John Bonard, a native of Hesse, has a singular history. At the age of seven- teen he was drafted into the army of Germany, was captured by the French and enlisted in their army in order to get out of prison; served in the French army until captured by the English, in whose army he enlisted to again obtain his liberty. When the revolution broke out he was sent to this country as a "red-coat," and while fighting against the colonies met a brother German, who, in the Teutonic tongue, enlightened him in regard to our struggle for liberty. Ile immediately forsook the British army and aided the Yankees in gaining their independence. After
seventeen years of age he heard no news from his relatives in Hesse, excepting that they had left the old world. At the close of the revolution he set- tled in Frederic county, Virginia, and died there in 1824, aged one hundred and ten years.
Elijah D. was the eldest child, who lived to ma- ture years in a family of nine children. At the age of fifteen years he lost his father, and the widowed mother and children moved to Pickaway county, near Circleville, Ohio, where he spent three seasons on a farm. When about eighteen he obtained em- ployment in a store at New Lexington, Highland county ; remained there one year, and then spent five years as a clerk in a wholesale dry-goods house in Cincinnati, at the end of which time he returned to New Lexington and embarked in mercantile trade for himself, continuing it until 1841, when he immi- grated to Iowa. After spending a few weeks at Iowa City he bought a squatter's claim, and in October of that year settled near the spot where his present home is found. There being but few families in the township he concluded to adopt the occupation of a farmer for a few years and wait for mereantile op- portunities to present themselves. In May, 1849, he opened the first general variety store, and the sec- ond store of any kind, in Mount Vernon. It stood on the southwest corner of Main and Jefferson streets, opposite the brick store built in 1856, which he now owns and which is occupied by Mr. E. T. Gough.
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Mr. Waln retired from mercantile life in 1860, and since then has attended to his farm, besides operat- ing at times in the insurance business.
He was one of the first movers in the literary en- terprise projected about 1850 and resulting in the founding of Cornell College, one of the most pros- perous institutions of learning in the state. The first prime movers were Rev. George B. Bowman, Elijah D. Waln, Jesse Holman and A. 1. Willits, the last named man being the person who laid out the village of Mount Vernon. The first money raised for the starting of this institution was paid by Mr. Waln. He has always been its warm friend, and has given thousands of dollars toward its grounds, build- ings and endowment. He was secretary of its board of trustees for ten or twelve years, cheerfully giving much time as well as much money.
Mr. Waln was one of the representatives from Linn county to the general assembly in 1858, and has held several offices in the municipality of the place. He is now a member of the school board, and is an ar-
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dent worker in educational matters. In politics, he is a republican, with whig antecedents.
His church connection is with the Methodist Epis- copal. He has been a class leader and is now pres- ident of the official board.
On the 10th of September, 1836, he was joined in wedlock with Miss Mary Jane Adams, of New Lex- ington, Ohio. They have nine children living and have lost three; two died in infancy, and one son, Charles Adams, in his twenty-first year. He was accidentally killed while getting on the cars at Cedar Rapids on the 12th of August, 1877. Alonzo T., the eldest child, has a family and lives in Mount Vernon ; Melissa J. is the wife of G. W. Hayzett, sheriff of Black Hawk county; Cinderella M., of Lucas R. Wilson, of Elwood, Clinton county; Ann Eliza, of . Henry D. Fullerton, of Wright county; Josephine R., of Albert C. Powers, of Peoria, Illinois; Sarah E., of William T. Wright, of Harvey county, Kansas, and George E., Minnie S. and Edith are single and live at home.
JOHN W. GILLETT,
ATLANTIC.
O NE of the earliest settlers in northeastern Iowa, a pioneer in what is now Clayton county, and the first man to turn a furrow there, was John Wooley Gillett, a native of Maryland. He first saw the light of this world in Worcester county, on the 9th of July, 1809, and although he is approaching his seventieth year, he is quite active. His father, John Gillett, was a farmer. In 1830 John W. went to Camden, New Jersey, and worked two or three years for a gardener who raised fruit and vegetables for the Philadelphia market. After spending a year in Virginia Mr. Gil- lett came to the Mississippi river, worked awhile at the carpenter's trade (which he had picked up) at Dubuque, Galena, and other points in that part of the country, and in 1836 located in Clayton county, then in Wisconsin territory. He settled on three hundred acres of land one and a half miles north- east of where Garnavillo now stands. There were then but two or three families in the county, and the country was as wild as nature, undisturbed, could make it. Deer, elk, bears and wild turkeys were abundant. and now and then a few bison were seen.
Mr. Gillett cultivated his farm for nearly forty years, until he saw Clayton county everywhere thickly
populated. He was deputy sheriff one term, and assessor and supervisor several years in succession. He has always been very robust, and a great driver of business until quite recently.
In March, 1876, having disposed of his Clayton county property, Mr. Gillett removed to Cass county, settling in Atlantic, and purchasing a farm of one hundred and sixty acres four miles southwest of the city. He is a good farmer and has the best of crops. In 1877 he raised seven hundred bushels of spring wheat on twenty-six acres.
Mr. Gillett has a second wife, his first being Miss Emma Castle, of Garnavillo, Iowa; married in 1852. She had eleven children, and died in February, 1875. Six of her children survive her. In September, 1876, Miss Lizzie Goff, also of Garnavillo, became his wife. She has one child.
At an early day in Clayton county Mr. Gillett and a dozen other men tracked some bears into their cave in a ledge of rocks, where they had taken up their winter quarters. These brave men debated what should be done, for some time, each one deciding that he was too large to get into the crevice. Finally they procured four or five gallons of whisky, drank
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freely, and then all made up their minds that they could goin. With gun and lighted candle and long rope one after another crept in eighty feet, one of the party at a time, and shot his bear. The experi- ment was repeated until no live animal was left, each bear, before being shot, approaching the marksman a few steps, snuffing and appearing very stupid. Fastening the strong rope to the dead animals, one
at a time was pulled out, and at length eight full grown bears lay at the mouth of the cave, and the residue of the whisky soon disappeared.
Mr. Gillett has had a thorough taste of frontier life, has a good memory, and a rich store of anec- dotes of the olden times in " the Turkey river coun- try," and his reminiscences are decidedly amusing and interesting.
WILLIAM W. McKNIGHT,
WINTERSET.
O NE of the oldest bankers and most successful business men of Madison county, Iowa, is William Wylie MeKnight, a native of Washington county, Indiana. He was born near the town of Salem, on the 16th of September, 1822, his parents being Robert R. and Anna Little Mcknight. His paternal ancestors were early settlers in Pennsylva- nia. His maternal grandfather, Alexander Little, was a member of both houses of the Indiana legis- lature, and marshal of the state at an early period in its history.
William W. aided his father on a farm in his youth ; supplemented his common-school privileges with a year's attendance in the preparatory depart- ment of Hanover College, Jefferson county, Indiana; taught three years in his native county ; spent four or five years in Marion and Hendricks counties, in the mercantile trade and in teaching, and in April, 1855, settled in Winterset. Here, after dealing in land about two years, he resumed the mercantile business, following it until September, 1864. The following January he aided in organizing the Na- tional Bank of Winterset, and became its cashier. That position he held, with the exception of about eighteen months, until January. 1877, when he retired from the bank. During the ten years or more that
he was cashier he had the entire management of the institution, and there showed his excellent business capacities. He made it a very popular institution, and left it firm and sound.
Mr. McKnight owns several large farms near Win- terset ; is doing an extensive business in the agricul- tural line, and something also in brokerage. He is in independent circumstances, and can live at ease the residne of his days.
Mr. Mcknight has avoided public life as much as possible, and with the exception of acting several years on the village or city school board (mainly in the capacity of treasurer), he has kept out of offices of the least consequence. On that board he did valuable service to the community, and has been prominent in other interests of great benefit to the public. He is whole-hearted and generous, a kind neighbor and valuable citizen.
Mr. McKnight is a republican, with whig antece- dents; a Knight Templar in the Masonic fraternity, and is now serving his third term as treasurer of the grand chapter. He is a communicant in the Pres- byterian church.
His wife was Miss Hannah Likins, of Vermilion county, Illinois; married in December, 1855. They have seven children.
PRESLEY SAUNDERS, MOUNT PLEASANT ..
T HE original proprietor of the site of Mount Pleasant was Presley Saunders, who made the purchase of the government at the first land sale in what is now the State of Iowa. He is a native of Fleming county, Kentucky ; was the son of Gunnell
and Mary (Mauzy) Saunders, both Virginians by . birth, and was born on the 12th of July. 1809. His branch of the Saunderses was of English origin, and is an old Virginia family, spreading thenee westward into Kentucky. The maternal grandfather of Pres-
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ley was a revolutionary soldier, and his father was in the second war with England.
The subject of this notice lived in Kentucky until about 1827, farming, with very limited opportunities for education. At the date mentioned he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and engaged in farming there for about seven years within the present corporation of that city. In 1831 he volunteered in the Black Hawk war, and served until its close the next year, Black Hawk himself being captured in what is now the State of Wisconsin in August of that year.
Two years after the close of this war Mr. Saunders crossed the Mississippi, entered the so called " Black Hawk Purchase," about which there had been great excitement, and in 1834 reached the spot where Mount Pleasant now stands, then in Michigan terri- tory. Here he pitched his tent in a wild region among the Indians before the land had been sur- veyed. Late in 1835 he drove the first stakes for the location of Mount Pleasant, where his squatter's claim was located. At that time there was an In- dian trading-post at Rome, eight miles farther west, kept by William Phelps. In 1836 he opened a small frontier store, and has continued the same business up to the present time, his being probably the oldest mercantile house in the state.
Mr. Saunders was on the first grand jury that con- vened west of the Mississippi river, in what is now
Iowa, it then being in Michigan territory. In 1862 he added banking to his mercantile business; in 1864 organized the First National Bank of Mount Pleasant, and has been its president ever since, the only office he has ever held. He is one of the most prudent, careful and successful business men of the place, and has always borne an irreproachable char- acter. The first settler in the place and an excel- lent citizen, he is held in high esteem. He has lived a very quiet life, never allowing himself to be car- ried away by political excitement.
He is a republican, with whig antecedents.
Mr. Saunders has had two wives: his first was Miss Edith Cooper; married in 1829, at Springfield, Illinois. She had three children, and died in 1836. Only one child, Mary, the wife of John McCoy, of Mount Pleasant, is living. She was the first child born in Mount Pleasant. His present wife was Miss Huldah Bowen, of Mount Pleasant ; married in 1837. She has had four children, all living and all married : Smith and Alvin are merchants in Mount Pleasant ; Eliza is the wife of John Bowman, of Cal- ifornia, and Etna is the wife of Frederic Hope, of Mount Pleasant. All of Mr. Saunders' living chil- dren were born in Mount Pleasant : Mary in Mich- igan territory, Smith in Wisconsin territory, Alvin in Iowa territory, and Eliza and Etna in the State of Iowa.
CHARLES G. PERKINS,
ONAWA.
C HARLES GOVE PERKINS, postmaster at Onawa, is a native of the Granite State, dat- ing his birth on the 23d of January, 1830, at Wind- ham, Rockingham county. His father, James W. Perkins, was a physician early in life, and later a Congregational minister. The Perkinses came to this country from England somewhere about the beginning of the eighteenth century and settled in Massachusetts. The grandfather of Charles Gove was in the revolution, taken prisoner, carried to England and released at the close of the war; and his father was a private in the second war with the mother country.
Dr. Perkins left Windham when the subject of this sketch was less than a year old; practiced two or three years in New Boston, New Hampshire, and about 1833 became pastor of the Congregational
Church at New Hampton, in the same state. He afterward preached at Warner, Alstead and Hock- sett, and died in 1873. His wife, whose maiden name was Fanny Cochran, died in 1874. Charles G. was educated mainly at Francistown and Pem- broke academies.
In 1846 he started on a whaling voyage, going around Cape Horn into the Pacific and Arctic oceans, his first trip lasting four years. He made other voyages, the seafaring period of his life lasting between seven and eight years.
In 1853 Mr. Perkins started the tailoring and ready-made clothing business at Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, and two years later removed to Wiscon- sin, settling on a farm in New Chester, Adams coun- ty. There, while engaged in agricultural pursuits, he served on the board of supervisors five or six
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