USA > Iowa > Clinton County > Wolfe's history of Clinton County, Iowa, Volume 1 > Part 57
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Mr. Siegmund was married on November 26, 1889, to Julia Dalton, a lady of genial disposition and the representative of an early and honored fam- ily of this county. This union has been graced by the birth of three children, namely : Helen Blanche, born in 1900; Margaret Ellen, born in 1904; Wini- fred Katherine, born in 1906.
Mrs. Siegmund is a member of the Catholic church at Grand Mound. Fraternally, Mr. Siegmund is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America and the Modern Brotherhood of America. In politics he is a Democrat and has always taken an active part in party affairs. He has been tax collector of Olive township for a period of eight years. He is now treasurer of the town of Calamus, which office he has held for a period of twenty years. He is president of the local school board, having been a member of the same for the past fifteen years. He was postmaster during Cleveland's second administra- tion. Since he was twenty-one years of age he has been a member of the (37)
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Wheatland Schuetcen Society. He has very faithfully and ably performed his public duties and has long been regarded as one of the most influential and public-spirited men of this township and no man has done more for its general development. Personally, he is known to be a man of scrupulously honest principles, generous. kind, always ready to do his full share of the common duties of citizenship, in short. a genteel, broad-minded gentleman whom to know is to respect and admire, for with all of his commendable attributes he is entirely unassuming, preferring to secure his own ease and advancement last. if he can be of service to his neighbors and friends.
JOHN STRUVE.
The gentleman to a review of whose life the reader's attention is here respectfully directed, is recognized as one of the energetic, progressive busi- ness men of Lyons, who by his enterprise and modern methods has contrib- uted in a material way to the commercial advancement of this community. besides gaining the position that all men ought to strive for-that of a pub- lic-spirited, honored and trustworthy citizen, and, considering the fact that he has labored of his own account to advance himself rather than depend upon the assistance of anyone, the large success that has attended his efforts has been worthily gained.
John Struve was born of an excellent family of German stock, on Au- gust 13, 1860, in Jackson county, Iowa, the son of Ernest H. and Catherine Struve. The father was born in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. in April. 1827. He grew to maturity in his native land and was educated there. He crossed the Atlantic in an old-fashioned sailing-vessel and landed. after al- most as tedious a journey from the coast, at last in Iowa, settling in Jack- son county in 1849, and there he farmed until 1868, getting a good start. He then turned his attention to the milling business and rented a flour mill at Tedds Grove, Iowa. In 1870 he went to the Elk River Mills, Clinton county. remaining there until 1881. and he retired from active business life at that time, having been very successful in his milling business and won a reputa- tion as an able, honest and friendly man of affairs. His death occurred in 1900. Politically. he was a Republican, and in religious matters a Lutheran. He married Catherine Schnoor at Bellevue, Jackson county, Iowa, in the early fifties. Her death occurred in 1898. To this union seven children were born, five sons and two daughters.
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John Struve, of this review, grew to maturity in his native community and received a good common school education. He learned the miller's trade under his father and in 1881 he, in company with his brothers, Paul and William, rented the mill at Elk River from their father and continued to run it successfully. In 1887 he came to Lyons, Clinton county, and started the Lyons Roller Mills, and soon had an excellent patronage. This mill was dismantled in 1898 and Mr. Struve erected the present popular Model Mills, of which he has since been proprietor and which is universally regarded as one of the leading mills of this type in eastern Iowa, turning out a most ex- cellent grade of work. It has two stories and basement, thirty-six by forty, engine room attached. It is equipped with the latest and best machinery and has a daily capacity of seventy-five barrels, manufacturing the famous brands, "Star," patent, and "Golden Crust." He keeps two wagons and five people. This mill is the outgrowth of the old mill on Main street, between Eighth and Ninth streets, which was built in 1887. Here may be procured an excellent grade of corn-meal and bran, also.
Politically, Mr. Struve is a Republican and in religious matters a Lutheran.
Mr. Struve was married in April, 1887, to Annie D. Neilsen, of Clinton, Iowa. She was born in Denmark, in July, 1868, and this union has resulted in the birth of seven children, named as follows: Ernest H. is a law student in the University of Iowa, and will graduate in 1911; Hans N. is working in the mill at Lyons; Bertha M. is attending high school; Emma C., Ollie, Elmer and Clarence are in school.
Mr. Struve has been very successful in his operations and is now very comfortably established. He has won the confidence of all with whom he has had dealings owing to his honorable methods.
HENRY JENS TOENNINGSEN.
In the course of an honorable career that has been attended by abundant success, Henry Jens Toenningsen, one of the best known and most repre- sentative citizens of Lyons, has shown what an earnestness of purpose and right principles properly applied can accomplish although one's life path be strewn with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Realizing early in life that the idler and dreamer never attain the goal sought, he went to work with a will and by persistent efforts rose gradually to a conspicuous place in the
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community, became well established in the business world and won the con- fidence and undivided esteem of all classes of citizens.
Mr. Toenningsen, who may be found at No. 431 North Seventh street, Lyons, was born November 25, 1857, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and there his childhood days were spent. He is the son of Nicholas and Hen- rietta Toenningsen. The father was a blacksmith and did a great deal of iron work on wooden ships, being regarded as a very skilled workman.
Henry J. Toenningsen received a good education, and, having always been a student, he has kept well abreast of the times and is a well informed man. He came to Lyons, Iowa, in 1882, and, turning his attention to mer- chandising, he clerked in a dry goods store here for a period of seventeen years. In 1900 he became deputy county treasurer under C. Arlen and held this responsible position to the satisfaction of all concerned and with much credit to himself, for a period of six years. He then became assistant cashier of the Iowa State Savings Bank, the duties of which he very worthily dis- charged until assuming the office of county treasurer, to which responsible position he was elected on November 8, 1910.
In fraternal circles Mr. Toenningsen stands high and is influential, be- ing a Mason, a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Woodmen of the World, and he has been president of the local German Association for a period of twenty years. He is a member of the grand lodge, Knights of Pythias, and in September. 1910, he was elected grand master of exchequer in that body. He belongs to the local society of Turners. Politically he is an unswerving Democrat.
Mr. Toenningsen was married on November 25, 1884, to Meta An- dresen, a native of Germany, whose birth occurred on May 10, 1861, and to this union one child, Alma, has been born; she is a teacher in the Lyons school's and is a young lady of education, culture and genial disposition. This is one of the popular families.of Lyons and its friends are numerous throughout Clinton county.
LANGDON J. CUMMINGS.
The pioneers in any great reform must bear the brunt of the hard knocks and of the disapprobation; then, when the reform is finally accomplished, they are likely to be lost sight of, and the glory rightfully theirs awarded to some opportunist who only espoused the cause of reform after it became pop- ular. Such was the case with the Abolitionists. Slavery would never have
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been abolished but for their labor and agitation, yet they were alike unpopu- lar in the North and the South and the praise for the abolition is mostly given to the Unionists of the Civil war period, who directly accomplished it, but whose work was the result of the agitation of the Abolitionists. Such is always the fate of the pioneer in reform, whose task is the hardest on earth, who is hooted and jeered when he begins his agitations, and forgotten when the reform is accomplished. Therefore it requires a brave man to be a re- former. And let us in this instance give full credit to the stanch Abolitionist father of Mr. Cummings.
Langdon J. Cummings was born in Caledonia county, Vermont, Novem- ber 16, 1845, the son of Joseph and Sarah (Morse) Cummings. His paternal grandfather died in Plymouth, New Hampshire, when Joseph was twelve years old. His maternal grandfather, Josiah Morse, was a resident of Ver- mont and an early settler in that state, in which he was prominent in public affairs. His wife was Sarah Coffin, a relative of Senator Grimes of Iowa.
Joseph Cummings was born in Plymouth, New Hampshire, his wife being a native of Vermont. He was a contractor and builder until he was seventy, and met his death when eighty-eight by falling through a trap-door in a barn. He was an Abolitionist, and was secretary of a local abolitionist society. Of his five children, three are living. One son, William G., was a breveted colonel in the United States army.
Langdon Cummings attended the St. Johnsburg Academy and entered the army on his eighteenth birthday, in 1863, in the First Vermont Cavalry, serving until the close of the war. In the latter portion he was under Custer and Sheridan, whose campaigns are well known. W. G. Cummings, a brother to the subject, was a lieutenant-colonel. Mr. Cummings was captured at Annandale and was five months in Libby prison. His war record is highly creditable. He had learned the carpenter's trade from his father and lived at home and worked at that until 1887, when he came to Clinton, Iowa. There he and his brother entered the coal and ice business, and later added feed to their line and have had a large and extensive trade. In 1905 his brother retired on account of a disability resulting from a head wound re- ceived during the war. In politics he is a Republican. He belongs to the Western Star Lodge of Masons, and is a member of the Grand Army.
Mr. Cummings was married in 1871 to Carlie Carpenter, who was born in Vermont, the daughter of A. B. and Cosbi Carpenter, who were of an old Waterford (Vermont) family. They were the parents of one child, Cosbi, who is a graduate of Clinton College and has been some time a teacher and is now principal of the Irving school. Carlie Cummings died in 1877, and
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her husband later married her younger sister, Mae, who has borne to him two children, Carlie Mae, a teacher in the Hawthorne school and a graduate of Clinton high school, and William, a railway mail clerk, also a graduate of the same high school.
Mr. Cummings has prospered in his business and is a man who has many friends, being very popular. He was a brave soldier and has been a straight- forward, clean-cut business man, and upright, conscientious citizen.
ISRAEL HIGGINS.
Iowa owes her high rank among the states to her farms more than to any other cause. Her pre-eminence is as an agricultural and not as a manu- facturing state, and the high character of her citizens is largely due to the fact that the most of them received the early training in character and in the practical work of life which is best obtained on the farm. On the farm the subject was born and there he spent the greater portion of his life and the later portion either in handling the produce of farms or in selling farm- ing lands, so that his life has throughout been connected with the farms.
Israel Higgins was born in Lambertville, Hunterdon county, New Jer- sey, January 9, 1835, the son of Israel and Rebecca (Taylor) Higgins, who were both natives of New Jersey, and here spent the days of their lives. Israel Higgins, Sr., was a farmer and a carder by trade, and also added to his income by acting as auctioneer. In politics he was a Democrat. He and his wife were members of the Presbyterian church. He died in 1865. his wife in 1847.
Israel Higgins, Jr., and one sister are the only living members of a family which consisted of four sons and three daughters. He was reared on the farm and attended the common schools. In 1856 he came to Cordovia, Rock Island county, Illinois, and in the fall of the same year he came to Camanche and worked for Butcher & Daily, general merchants and grain dealers, and remained with them for about four years and then bought one hundred twenty acres of land and began to farm. In 1864 he went into the grain dealing business at Remsa, about one and one-half miles east of Malone, Iowa, and after nine years there he went to Malone and was a grain dealer there for some time. There he also carried on a mercantile business, and was postmaster and lived there twenty years. In 1887 he came to De- Witt, Iowa, and entered business as a stock and grain dealer. He continued
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in this business until 1901, when he went into the real estate business, con- tinuing in that until recently, when he retired. In his various business en- terprises he has displayed much ability and has found them very profitable. He is a charter member of the Farmers and Citizens' Bank, and a director in the First National Bank and in the Farmers and Citizens' Savings Bank. In politics he is a Republican and has been justice of the peace and township trustee, and for nine years city alderman. He is a Mason and attends the Congregational church.
Mr. Higgins was married on October 20, 1859, to Hannah Daniels, of West Virginia, who has borne to him two children: J. M., a Pullman car conductor, and Mary Alice, wife of W. W. McCredie, of Vancouver, Wash- ington, now representing his district in the United States Congress.
Mr. Higgins has made many acquaintances in the course of his dealings in this county, and is well thought of among them.
SAMUEL CREW SCOTT.
There is nothing which stimulates a man to deeds of worth more than the recollection of the strength of character and examples of right living which have been shown by his ancestors. In this respect Mr. Scott is for- tunate beyond the majority of men, in being descended from a long line of men who have been in their communities men of strength and influence, doing their duty well, whether in the peaceful pursuits of life, or on the battlefield, at the nation's call. The heritage of such a memory of the lives of one's forefathers is of far more value than the heritage of material wealth.
Samuel Crew Scott was born in Lyons, Iowa, on September 1, 1860, the son of Walter and Anna J. (Crew) Scott. Walter Scott was born on De- cember 10, 1825, on a New Jersey farm, and came to Lyons in 1853. His father, Joseph Scott, was a veteran of the war of 1812, his valor in which service had gained for him almost a national reputation. He came to Lyons in 1860, and died here. Walter Scott engaged in the lumber business, and was a carpenter and building and moving contractor, and has been very suc- cessful in his work. He is now retired, and enjoys the respect and esteem of those who know him. In politics he is a Republican, and has been a man of no little influence in his community. Walter Scott was married to Anna J. Crew, a native of West Virginia, who, after many years of married life, died in November, 1907. To this marriage were born five children, of whom
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four are living, namely : William W., of Lyons; Samuel C .; Frank O., of Minneapolis, and Augusta W., at home.
Samuel C. Scott graduated from the local high school with the highest honors of the class of 1879. He then took a collegiate course at Iowa State College at Ames, and graduated there in 1883. In 1884 he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law at Lyons, where he has since re- mained. He brought to his profession a mind of strong intelligence and high educational equipment, coupled with a spirit of ambition and energy, has spared no pains in the preparation of all legal matters entrusted to his care, and has had a successful practice. In 1896 he was elected city solicitor of Lyons, and served for one term. In politics he is a Republican and takes active part in the local work of the party. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, having attained the thirty-second degree, and of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In religion he is affiliated with the Congrega- tional church.
In 1890 Mr. Scott was married to Emma E. Manz, of Lyons, who was born on April 9, 1862. They are the parents of three children: Anna E., now in Oberlin College (Ohio) ; Clara Alice, and William L., in school. Mr. Scott is a man whose ability and character have gained for him high stand- ing in his community, and a lawyer whose associates in the profession recog- nize as thoroughly skilled in its practice.
JEROME DUTTON.
A tradition sometimes repeated by Jerome Dutton ran to the effect that his family was descended from three brothers who emigrated from Wales, but the earliest authentic information is of his grandfather, a Charles Dutton, "who had a brother named Samuel" and who married, "in a suburb of Bos- ton," probably Charlestown. Massachusetts, a widow of the name of Tarbell. Subsequently the couple moved to the vicinity of Bennington, Vermont, where were born to them, in the order given, the following children : Stephen, Sallie (married Van Renselaer), Charles, Asa, William, Polly (married Nichols). The third of these children, Charles, was born in 1788, and about 1796 he. with his parents, moved to a farm in the vicinity of Afton (then Bainbridge). Chenango county, New York. In the war of 1812 he served as sergeant in Capt. Nathan Taylor's Company. Seventeenth (Mead's) Regiment. and in Capt. James Sellick's Company. Twenty-seventh (Bellinger's) Regiment of
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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX, AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS R L
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JEROME DUTTON
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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX, AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS B. _ Ļ
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New York Militia, his period of service extending, with intervals, from September 8, 1812, to November 22, 1814. About 1815 he was married to Nancy Pearsall, and from this union resulted the following children, all born at Afton: Leroy (born April 21, 1816, died December 19, 1894, in Olive township, Clinton county, Iowa), Lorenzo Dow (born June 28, 1818, died March 13, 1895, in Olive township), John (born February 2, 1820, died in 1840 in Olive township), Charles (born September 17, 1823, died April 2, 1899, in Durant, Iowa), Jerome Bonaparte (born March 2, 1826, died October 4, 1893, at Wheatland, Iowa), William Butler (born 1828, died 1830), and Lucretia, who died in infancy.
The mother of this family died in 1837 and in the fall of the same year the father, with his five surviving sons, went to Potter county, Pennsylvania, where he worked at lumbering until the spring of 1838. Then, following the great highway of western emigration by the means of transportation so often employed at that period, he built a raft of lumber on which he and his boys floated down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers to Madison, Indiana, where his younger brother, William, was a prosperous merchant, operating a large store and shipping merchandise down the river on flat boats to St. Louis and New Orleans. This brother had accumulated large means and supported his fam- ily in what at that time was considered luxury. maintaining a private tutor for his children and dwelling in a large mansion handsomely furnished, where- in his visiting nephews beheld a piano for the first time. In December, 1838, the father, with his sons John, Charles and Jerome, took passage on a steam- boat destined for Camanche, Iowa, but when the steamer reached Alton, Illi- nois, in its passage down the Ohio and up the Mississippi. the river became frozen over and the party were detained in Alton until the following spring. In the meantime Leroy joined them, and when the river cleared they all took boat for Camanche, where they disembarked April 2, 1839, and journeyed out on foot to the home of a brother-in-law, William Pearsall, situated on the Wap- sipinicon river near what is now the southeast corner of Olive township. Here, on adjoining farms, the father and his sons, Leroy, Lorenzo (who came on from Madison in 1841) and Charles, established the homes where, with the exception of Charles, who moved from his farm only a year or two before his death, the remainder of their days were spent. The father died in 1859.
For many years after his advent to Iowa, Jerome Dutton made his home chiefly with his brother Leroy, working at intervals in other places and at different pursuits. As a boy of fifteen or sixteen, he carried the mail on horse- back through the thinly settled country from Davenport to Dubuque and re- turn, making the trip twice per week. In the middle forties he aided in con-
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veying a flatboat down the river from Davenport to New Orleans. In 1850 he joined a party of California emigrants headed by R. S. Dickinson. This party was composed of himself, his brother Lorenzo, Josiah Hill, Daniel Car- lisle, John Gochenous, Solomon Gee, John and Henry Hart, Mr. and Mrs. Powell, Samuel, Adam and John White and the latter's wife, and R. S. Dickin- son, wife and son. With their belongings loaded in wagons drawn by oxen, the party set forward on April 3, 1850, and from the Missouri river onward the men in the company made the entire journey on foot. After many hard- ships, the party arrived at Weaver, California, on the Ist of September. Jerome Dutton kept a journal of this expedition, which, along with many other of his papers, letters and effects, is now deposited with the Iowa Histor- ical Department at Des Moines. In California he followed the varied pur- suits of mining, teaming, clerking in a tavern and keeping a store. For the most part, he dwelt in the long-since deserted mining camp known then both as Mormon Island and Natoma, whereof J. Neely Johnson, afterwards gov- ernor of California, was the only lawyer, and wherein the leading merchant at the time was Leland Stanford, later foremost in building the Central Pa- cific railroad. Both were well known to Jerome Dutton, and while living here he also formed an intimate friendship, testified to by much correspond- ence that is yet preserved, with Benjamin P. Avery, subsequently United States minister to China. In the summer of 1854 Jerome Dutton returned to Iowa, journeying by way of the isthmus of Panama.
In the late forties Jerome Dutton had acquired ownership of a four hundred acre farm bordering the Wapsipinicon river in Allen's Grove town- 'ship, Scott county, and here he now took up his chief abode, maintaining "bachelor's quarters" in a log cabin built by Asael Baldwin in 1840, being among the earliest habitations in the vicinity and surviving as a noteworthy landmark until its demolition in 1908. It is deserving of record in the inter- est of local history that the exact site of this cabin is covered by the eastern wing of the house now ( 1910) standing on this farm. Winding through the valley at the southwest corner of this farm and passing twelve or fifteen rods north of the cabin, ran the "Old Boone Trail." a pathway joining and follow- ing a still older system of Indian trails and opened long before the advent of the earliest pioneer by a nephew of Daniel Boone. who drove cattle along its devious course from St. Louis to the mines at Dubuque.
The brief entries of a diary kept by Jerome Dutton during his home in this cabin record the simple happenings of each day. his daily occupations, the visits of his father, brothers and neighbors and his return visits to them. It sets forth that "the Indians camped above the place" on July 9. 1855 : that in
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the fall of that year he took down the round logs of the cabin, squared them with an adze, and after "E. F. Owens (later Squire Owens of Olive town- ship) laid the corner stone for the house" on October 30th, replaced the logs of the reconstructed cabin : that he "bought a yoke of oxen of C. A. Pearsall for seventy-five dollars" on December 27th, that "Trux found Frenchman that was drowned" on June 7. 1856; that "a boy was drowned" on June 22d; that on June 29th he "heard that old man Warren was hung by a mob"; that on March 19, 1857, a "prairie fire lighted me home from the party"; that on August 3, 1858, he "got an appointment for justice of the peace for Allen's Grove township and joined Albern N. Raymond and Rebecca Ensinger in wedlock in the Pennsylvania House (in Davenport) at eight P. M."; that on October 21st he "qualified for supervisor (Scott county )"; that on December Ist he "went up almost to Wheatland" after signatures for a ferry license.
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