USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 97
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Amos Walton, son of Josiah Walton and father of our subject, was born in Temple, New Hampshire, in 1800, received an academic education at the New Ipswich Academy, being a classmate of Franklin Pierce. He married Miss Eunice Oaks and had two sons, J. P. and John W. Walton, both still living. Having spent his early life on a rock-bespattered farm in New Hampshire, he concluded to "go west " to secure land for his boys. He accordingly started from Lowell, Massachusetts, in October, 1837, in- tending to settle in Missouri, and to this end visited the iron mountains and other points in that state, as well as the city of Saint Louis; but happening to be in the latter city at the time of the murder of Lovejoy, at Alton, Illinois, and being averse to slav- ery and fearing trouble from that quarter, he decided to settle farther north, so as to be entirely free from |
its influence. His next objective point was Quincy, Illinois, but on the way thither he met with a gentle- man who spoke very enthusiastically of the country in the neighborhood of Muscatine, Iowa, or, as it was then called, Bloomington, and offered him tempting inducements to settle in Muscatine county, then in the Territory of Wisconsin, where he accordingly located. The postoffice address at that time was " Iowa Postoffice, Black Hawk Purchase, Wisconsin Territory." His family, which consisted of his wife and two sons, followed in the next June (1838). The country being then new, and full of malaria, most of the emigrants were afflicted with agne, the Walton family suffering much from the disease. The health of the family being thus seriously impaired and their money all spent, their situation became critical. At this juncture the "land sales," as the phrase was, came on, and their first claim of a half-section was entered by a speculator. After this Mr. Walton rented a small improved farm in the neighborhood of Bloomington, now Muscatine, and raised garden produce, which he hauled to the village in a wagon and sold from house to house to the citizens. It is probable that our subject, then a boy of twelve years, drove the first market wagon that was ever employed in Iowa. This occupation he followed for two years, but his father dying quite unexpectedly in 1841, and his mother marrying again in 1842, the family was scattered and Josiah P. thrown entirely on his own resources. He worked during the summer of 1842 with a farmer named Burdett for his board and a suit of very common clothes, and during the winter following he worked for a man named William Fish for about the same terms. In the spring of 1843, a separation having taken place between his mother and step-father, the little family was again united, and the mother rented a farm on Muscatine Island, which the boys operated on " halves," as the condi- tions were then expressed. Here the young Waltons and their mother passed the most trying period of their lives. They had no money to hire help or to
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buy provisions, and nothing but their "Yankee tact" and the mercy of a kind Providence carried them through. In the spring they caught a large supply of "buffalo " fish, salted and dried them. Cornmeal and dried fish, with the vegetables they could raise, served them as food. They raised some forty acres of corn and a small crop of oats and wheat, and in the fall sold their proportion of the corn at ten cents per bushel. They bought a pair of horses and some other necessary articles. In the following spring they hired the farm for another year, giving one third of the increase for rent. The season was good, the crop large and the proceeds considerable. The boys had grown stronger, and, with the little stock they had accumulated, in the autumn of 1844 they moved onto a new farm, now consisting of six hundred acres, on the northern border of Louisa county, which they entered, or bought of government, and on which the mother and younger brother, John W. Walton, still reside.
From the foregoing brief outline of the family his- tory it will be seen that Josiah Proctor Walton had but few of the early advantages of the youth of the present day, and that he is in the strictest sense of the term a self-made man. He enjoyed the privilege of a public school in Lowell, Massachusetts, previous to the age of twelve years, when he moved to Iowa, where the schoolmaster had not yet arrived and where the contest for food an'd raiment was quite as much as he could maintain, without a thought of school. At the age of twenty-two, in the year 1848, he went to learn the carpenter's trade in Muscatine, at a compensation of thirteen dollars per month, one half to be paid in goods from the store and the other half in a town lot, valued at fifty dollars,-the lot on which he now resides and on which stands one of the most beautiful and tasty villas in the city of Muscatine, ornamented with evergreen shade trees, aquaria, tropical plants and many curiosities of art and nature symbolical of the appropriate name which it bears -" Evergreen Nook."
Although, as the reader will infer, comparatively unlettered, young Walton was a natural genius; had a taste for mechanics and for the natural sciences quite extraordinary in a box of his previous experi- ences and habits. During the year which he served at the carpenter trade he picked up sufficient knowl- edge of the art of house building to start him in the profession of architecture, in which he has since dis- played very considerable taste and ingenuity. Ac- cordingly, in the fall of 1849 he commenced business
for himself as architect and builder, which he has since continued with very considerable success. The high school buildings of Muscatine and Wilton, the Episcopal Church, the large mansion of Mr. Benja- min Hershe (the finest in the state), the beautiful suburban Gothic residence of Dr. Weed, besides many others in Muscatine, were built by him from plans of his own devising.
He has taken meteorological observations for the Smithsonian Institute and the war department for the past fifteen years, and has now in his possession the oldest continuous records of this kind in the State of Iowa, commencing in the year 1839.
He was one of the trustees of the Library Associ- ation of Muscatine for several years, and one of the organizers of the Scientific Club, and is the principal manager of the lectures and entertainments of that organization. He also belonged to the Odd-Fellows society, and is an active Mason, having filled nearly all the offices in lodges, encampment and command- ery.
In 1864 he was appointed by Governor Kirkwood to receive the vote of the 37th Iowa Infantry for President and state officers, which was then stationed at Alton, Illinois.
In politics, Mr. Walton was formerly an old-line whig, but for the past twenty years he has been known as a radical republican.
He was raised in the communion of the Congre- gational church, but the antipathy of that sect to secret societies caused him to abandon it and to unite with the Episcopal church, to which he now adheres. He has officiated as vestryman, warden and Sunday-school superintendent for many years. He is a consistent, earnest and zealous churchman. and while he acted as superintendent his school was greatly increased in numbers and was among the most prosperous in the city.
He was married on the 2d of June, 1857, to Miss Mary Elizabeth Barrows, of Sauquoit, Oneida coun- ty, New York, a graduate of the Liberal Institute, Clinton, New York, a lady of culture, refinement and high literary attainments. Their family consists of three daughters, Alice Barrows, Lilly Proctor and May Oakes, all of them possessing liberal mental endowments. The two eldest are graduates of the city high school, and have given considerable atten- tion to the study of entomology, botany and natural history. They have accumulated perhaps the finest collections of entomological specimens in the west. equal to any exhibited at the "Centennial," and are
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great enthusiasts in this department of science. The cabinet also embraces a very fine and valuable geo- logical department, as well as one of the finest col- lections of specimens of natural history to be found in the west. They have, likewise, a very fine floral collection. The youngest daughter is still a member of the high school, but is not behind her elder sisters in the pursuit of natural science.
In personal appearance, Mr. Walton recalls the memory of the pioneer. Plain in dress, straightfor- ward in speech, blunt and honest in manner, yet warm-hearted and sympathetic in nature. He is a fair specimen of the better class of men who first settled Iowa and made it what it now is, the most progressive state of the northwest. Reared, as he was, on the border, with scarcely any school facili- ties, he has, mainly by reading and personal observa- tion since he attained to manhood, acquired such knowledge of men and things as has given him a prominent place in society. He takes a deep inter- est in everything tending to improve the morals and enlighten the minds of the community. He is fond of lectures, essays and disquisitions on scientific sub- jects, but he is not so much of an enthusiast as to be carried away by any mere theory. He wants to see everything demonstrated before accepting it as true. Such men are of incalculable benefit to the race.
He also takes a lively interest in politics, schools and nearly all other matters of public concern, though he has never been an office seeker, being too plain-spoken for that.
While he does not needlessly offend, he too dearly prizes his own independence to forego the privilege of expressing his opinions freely.
He is abstemious and economical in his personal habits, though in no sense parsimonious. His house is a model of taste and elegance, and he has spared neither time nor expense in the education of his daughters, whose literary and scientific attainments are of a very high order.
We should not omit to mention that Mr. Walton possesses one of the finest libraries in the state, which he has been accumulating for over twenty-five years. Besides a full collection of standard literature it in- cludes over twenty-five years of the "New York Weekly Tribune," substantially bound, twenty years of "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly," ten years of the "Scientific American," besides several other monthly periodicals, copies of the early law books of Iowa and many literary curiosities not usually found in private collections.
Mr. Walton was one of the twelve men who signed the call for the first republican convention of the State of lowa.
JOHN L. DANA,
VEVADA.
O NE of the first lawyers to settle in Story county, Iowa, was John Lockwood Dana, a member of the Vermont branch of the family. He is a native of Huron county, Ohio, and was born in New Haven township, on the 25th of March, 1827. His father, Joseph Dana, a soldier in the war of 1812-15, and in the battles of Bridgewater and Lundy's Lane, was a teacher in his younger years, and later in life an agriculturist. His mother was Alcy Lockwood. When John L. was five years old, the family, consisting of nine children, moved to Lower Sandusky, now Fre- mont. Both parents died in the spring of 1850, the mother aged seventy, the father eighty-two years.
The subject of this sketch had a strong avidity for knowledge, and spent nearly three years at Oberlin, paying his board, tuition, and for his text-books, with money earned by cutting wood, at thirty-seven and a half cents a cord. Owing to the demise of his
parents, he left the college in the middle of the soph- omore year, and afterward read law for one year at Oberlin, and attended the Cincinnati Law College. In 1852 Mr. Dana and his brother took a company of gold seekers to California, by the overland route. They went with about one hundred yoke of oxen and twenty wagons, there being eighty-eight men, who paid one hundred and fifty dollars each. Five died on the way. They went by boat to Kaneville, now Council Bluffs; thence with teams, and eighty- five, including the two Danas, reached Sacramento in safety. Mr. Dana returned the same year by the Isthmus. The following year he went to California a second time, riding one horse from Council Bluffs to Salt Lake entirely alone, being twenty-eight days on the way, and often obliged to hide from the Indi- ans at night. He sometimes rode through herds of bison, with five or ten thousand in a herd ! When he
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went through the first time there were no white in- habitants between Council Bluffs and Hangtown, now Placerville, California.
Mr. Dana was admitted to the bar at Sigourney, "Keokuk county, Iowa, in October 1854, and law has since been his occupation ; in connection with it also attending to war claims. At the end of one year he removed to Nevada, then recently made the seat of justice of Story county, and containing at that time perhaps twenty families. He has also operated in the land business, buying and selling for other par- ties, and being prospered in every branch.
As a lawyer, Mr. Dana has been a marked success. He is well read, and one of the best counselors in this part of the state. He is true to his client, up- right and reliable; an honor to the legal profession.
Mr. Dana was a member of the general assembly in the session of 1858, and in 1862 was elected to the senate by a large majority, but owing to the fact that the governor had failed to issue a proclamation declaring a vacancy, he did not get his seat. While in the legislature, and for two or three years after- ward, no man in Story county worked as hard as he to secure the Agricultural College. The success of the enterprise is probably due to his untiring efforts.
In November, 1864, Mr. Dana was elected captain of a military company, organized at Nevada under the state laws, but it was never called into service. He has been mayor of the city one term ; a member of the school board several terms, and its president most of the time while in the office ; and in other po- sitions has made himself eminently serviceable to the community. At one time he acted as an attor- ney for the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Com- pany, in relation to lands granted by Story and other counties in this vicinity to that company.
Mr. Dana assisted in organizing the republican party, soon after settling in Iowa, and has affiliated with it since that time, being active in all political matters.
On the 16th of February, 1854, he was united in marriage with Miss Harriet A. Davis, daughter of the Rev. John Davis, of Risdon, now Fostoria, Ohio, and forty years or more a preacher of the United Breth- ren persuasion. They have three children : Frank, aged nineteen, who graduated at seventeen from the Iowa Law School, and is practicing with his father ; Florence, aged sixteen, a graduate of the Nevada graded school, and Mabel, aged thirteen, now being educated in the same school.
WILLIAM F. KING, D. D., MOUNT VERNON.
W TILLIAM F. KING, president of Cornell College, was born near Zanesville, Ohio, on the 20th of December, 1830. His father, James J. King, was a farmer in good circumstances, and his mother, Mariam Coffman King, was a woman of re- markable force of character. Both parents are still living in Zanesville, having rounded up their four- score years. William was the eldest of three sons, all of whom are graduates from the Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware. His brother Isaac is pastor of a prominent church in Columbus, Ohio, and his brother John is a successful lawyer in Zanesville. As far as we can ascertain, the parental traits, indus- try, integrity, intelligence and high religious charac- ter, stamp themselves on all the children. Parents and children are all members of the Methodist Epis- copal church. Both parents sprung from old families of Virginia. The mother of our subject was brought by her parents to Ohio about the year 1800, and has lived most of the time on the old family homestead.
His father was born near Mount Vernon, on the l'o- tomac, the day that George Washington was buried, and on reaching manhood moved to Ohio, and was united in marriage with Miss Coffman in 1830.
The subject of this brief memoir early manifested a taste for reading and study, and a loving obedi- ence to his parents. Having spent several terms in the high school in Zanesville, he, in the spring of 1851, entered the Wesleyan University, then under the presidency of that accomplished educator, Bishop Edward Thomson, LL.D., and at the close of his freshman year he took charge for one year of the Unionville Academy, in Tennessee, whither he went for personal observation of the institution of slavery, and to obtain the means for carrying him through college. The next autumn he returned to the uni- versity, and graduated with honor, in the classical course, in 1857.
In college, as everywhere else, Mr. King spent his time to the best advantage, and having a well-bal-
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anced mind, he did equal justice to the different de- partments of the course of study.
Immediately after receiving his diploma he was invited to become a member of the faculty of his Alma Mater, where he held the position of tutor in mathematics for five years. On resigning his place in the faculty, his associates unanimously passed a series of resolutions in which they speak of his great fidelity and diligence, and his distinguished success as a teacher; his ubanity and christian courtesy ; the dignity and generous sociality which character- ized his intercourse with the faculty and students, and the sincere regret of the faculty in being called upon to sever the connection with Mr. King. The resolutions end with expressing "a sincere desire that he may find elsewhere a field of usefulness worthy of his talents, and suited to the magnitude of his aspirations."
When, in 1862, he resigned his chair in the uni- versity, he was intending to go abroad to travel and study for two or three years, but the civil war broke up his plans. In the autumn of the year just men- tioned he joined the Ohio annual conference, and was soon afterward transferred to the upper Iowa conference, and appointed professor of ancient lan- guages in Cornell College.
In June, 1863, at the close of his first year, oc- curred the death of President Samuel M. Fellows, A.M., at which time the board of trustees put Pro- fessor King in charge of the college, and from that date he has been responsible for its administration. He has been at its head for fifteen years, making him, if we mistake not, the oldest college president in the Methodist church, a high compliment alike to Presi- dent King and the college.
In 1870 he received the honorary degree of D.D. from the Illinois Wesleyan University at Blooming- ton.
In 1873 President King sent in his resignation to the board of trustees on account of ill health, but the board, unwilling to lose his services, urgently requested him to accept leave of absence for one year, and a continuance of his salary while abroad. The latter generous offer he declined, but made his trip. He sailed on the 28th of June, 1873; traveled extensively in Ireland, Scotland, England, Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Greece ; studied somewhat carefully the leading gal- leries, museums and universities; wrote letters for some of the leading journals in this country-letters which attracted considerable attention; and with his
health restored he returned and resumed his college work in the fall of 1874.
For the last two years much of his time has been spent in superintending the erection of the large new stone chapel; this care being in addition to his usual work. While he has received tempting offers from other fields, he has given his time faithfully and exclusively to the service of the college and the church ; Cornell having made grand progress under his administration.
In 1876 President King was a delegate to the last general conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, the highest legislative body of that denomi- nation. He has been a member of the church since ten years of age.
In politics, he is a republican, but does not think it consistent with his relations to the college to ac- cept office.
In August, 1865, he was married to Miss Maggie McKell, eldest daughter of William McKell, Esq., of Chillicothe, Ohio, and they have one child. Mrs. King is a woman of high culture, graceful manners and generous heart. Mrs. King is an own cousin of the wife of President Hayes, and possesses many of that exalted woman's admirable qualities.
President King is a vigorous and graceful writer, and a forcible and attractive speaker; and one who knows him well assures the writer of this sketch that " his urbanity, his liberal culture, his executive abil- ity and his energy, coupled with great prudence and deep insight into character, have conspired to make his administration of Cornell College one of the most successful in the west."
To the sketch of President King we add a brief history of Cornell College, which is one of the oldest and best institutions of learning in the state. Its founding and early growth are largely due to Rev. George B. Bowman, through whose influence the Iowa Conference Seminary was located at Mount Vernon, in 1851. It was opened in November, 1853 ; Rev. S. M. Fellows, A.M., principal.
In 1857 a college organization was consummated, and the name of Cornell College was given it in honor of W. W. Cornell, Esq., its generous benefactor, of New York city. Its first president was Rev. R. W. Keeler, D.D., who was succeeded in 1860 by Rev. S. M. Fellows, A.M. Since his death, in 1863, it has been under the presidency of Dr. King. The ladies' hall was completed in 1853, and was used for general schoo 'purposes until the main building was erected, in 1857. Five years later the gentlemen's hall was built, all being plain brick buildings, well suited for college uses.
Under the pressing demand for more room, a stately stone building, for chapel, library and museum purposes, has recently been erected, as already intimated. It is one of the most solid, useful and attractive educational buildings
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in the west. This fine array of buildings is well fitted up with appliances for instruction. The new and tasteful chapel will seat twelve hundred persons. Six literary so- cieties have neat halls for their weekly use. The library is large; the museum has a valuable collection, and the new laboratory is well stocked with material for its uses.
The location of the college, on the Chicago and North- western railway, is unsurpassed in beauty in the state, the sight being high and healthy, and taking in a grand sweep of country. It was a neat compliment to the school itself, made by Bishop Haven, when he said that " the college is worthy of its seat." An annual attendance of about five hundred students, male and female, indicates its popularity. Twenty classes have been graduated, with an aggregate of one hundred and seventy-three alumni, of whom fifty-nine are women and one hundred and fourteen men. The alumni have already given fourteen thousand dollars toward the endowment of their chair. The late Bishop Hamline and the Hon. Dennis N. Cooley have each endowed a chair, and other friends are progressing in the same direction.
The assets at this date ( March, 1878,) are, endowment, sev- enty thousand dollars; buildings and ground, ninety thou- sand dollars; library, museum and apparatus, ten thousand dollars; total, one hundred and seventy thousand dollars.
The college has a scientific and an engineering, as welt as classical, course. The last four years the general govern- ment has furnished the college a West Point army officer, to serve as professor of military science; and has also fur- nished arms and equipments. Students are organized for drill, instruction and exercise, and they have better health, and a greatly improved physical bearing. Much attention is also paid to the physical training of the ladies. The in- stitution has a remarkably pure record ; its affairs are man- aged with striking success; there is perfect harmony be- tween the faculty and trustees, and what is truly remarkable, " no rumor even of unfaithfulness or folly in the manage- ment of its funds stains the pages of its history."
The high moral and literary tone of this institution, and its successful management, are alike flattering to its presi- dent and all his associates.
HON. EPENETUS H. SEARS,
SIDNEY.
E PENETUS HOW SEARS, one of the early district judges in southwestern Iowa, and a prominent man in this part of the state for a quarter of a century, was born in the town of Ballston, Sara- toga county, New York, on the 3d of May, 1816, his parents being Alexander and Mary (How) Sears. He descends from the New England Searses, who early settled in northeastern New York. Both of his grandfathers were in the revolutionary war, and his paternal grandsire was wounded in one of the battles. His maternal grandsire died in Saratoga county when past ninety years of age.
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