USA > Iowa > Clinton County > Wolfe's history of Clinton County, Iowa, Volume 1 > Part 66
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LOUIS E. SCHMITT.
One of the best known and most successful of the younger attorneys of Clinton county is Louis E. Schmitt. a man who, in his trial of cases. his inter- course, argument, and competitions with the other members of the bar, treats them with the respect and kindness he expects them to observe toward him. The Golden Rule applies with force to the bar. The members are, per- haps, too sensitive, always ready to repel fancied aggressions, and some are frequently disposed to carry the traditional "chip on the shoulder" and pro- ject the war further than the occasion demands. In disposition and temper
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Mr. Schmitt is bland, approachable and sociable, liberal and accommodating, a natural man in a natural way, asserting himself and relying upon himself, and accomplishing his ends by his own methods and processes.
Mr. Schmitt was born in Pulaski township, Iowa county, Wisconsin, and is the son of Conrad and Marie Schmitt. The father was born April 17. 1842, in Germany, from which country he emigrated to America when a mere boy, and settled in Iowa county, Wisconsin. There he grew to maturity and was educated. In 1862 he enlisted in the Forty-second Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and at the close of the war he returned to Iowa county and became a farmer and insurance agent. He was very comfortably established there and a well known and influential citizen of his community, devoting most of his time to his insurance later in life. He is still engaged in this line of endeavor in Muscoda, Grant county, Wisconsin. His father held a prominent govern- ment position in Germany during nearly all of his life. He is a Republican in politics and a Presbyterian in his church relations. He served for many years as president of the school board in his community, and his greatest de- sire was that his children should receive a liberal education. He married Maria Stark, in 1866, a native of Germany, from which country she emigrated to America when a small girl with her parents, who settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This union resulted in the birth of nine 'children, six sons and three daughters, the sons all becoming professional men. The mother is also still living.
Louis E. Schmitt, of this review, was educated in the public schools of Iowa county, Wisconsin, and later spent two years at Stoughton Academy. He entered the University of Wisconsin and was graduated from the collegiate course with honors, in 1895. Then he took a post-graduate course in the Iowa State Normal. Although well equipped for a teacher, in which line of en- deavor he doubtless would have become eminent, he decided that the law held special charms for him and accordingly took up the study of the same in 1897, under Pascal & Armentrout, in Clinton, and he was admitted to the bar in May, 1900, having made rapid progress in the same. He at once opened an office and has enjoyed a very satisfactory clientele from the first, which is constantly and rapidly growing. for he has won a reputation for painstaking persistence, accuracy, a profound knowledge of the principles of jurisprudence and is an eloquent and forceful pleader, and, judging from his past excellent record, the future will doubtless shower greater honors upon him. Politi- cally, he is a Republican, and he very ably served as city solicitor for two years. In fraternal matters he is a Royal Arch Mason, belongs to the Eagles and the Modern Woodmen of America. He is a member of the Presbyterian church
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and a faithful supporter of the same. In April, 1905, he organized Company H. Fifty-third Regiment Iowa National Guard, and was commissioned its captain and served for nearly three years, resigning on account of business interests demanding all his time.
On August 9. 1902, Mr. Schmitt was married to Elizabeth Francis Davie, a lady of talent and culture, the daughter of an excellent Eastern family, her birth having occurred at Bolivar, New York, September 9, 1880. This union has been graced by the birth of two children, Gordon Walcott and Robert Louis.
JOHN H. TURNER.
It is a privilege of which few Americans can boast, and which should therefore be ranked correspondingly high, to trace one's ancestry to one who fought for his country in the war of the Revolution. Such a heritage is priceless and its value cannot be estimated. And with such example of patriotism and devotion as that furnished by the Revolutionary ancestor of Mr. Turner and those nearer in the line of descent, certainly we would expect to find Mr. Turner as he is, an honorable, upright. patriotic citizen and one who is highly interested in the common welfare.
John. H. Turner was born March 4, 1874. on the farm on which he now resides, the son of Joseph and Fannie (Dougherty) Turner, the former born in Pennsylvania, of Scottish descent, and the latter a native of Ireland. Dan- iel Turner, the great-grandfather of John H., served under George Washington for seven years in the Revolution and after the war was a government sur- veyor and purchased seventy-two thousand acres of land from the government in Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. He was the father of seven children, but John H. and his children are his only living descendants bearing the fam- ily name. Joseph Turner made a trip to California in 1849, and accumulated a store of gold, but which he had the misfortune to have stolen before his return. Later he made another trip. He was married at Le Clair and bought of Enoch Wood the farm where his son lives. This consisted of one hundred and sixty acres and here he lived until his death, in February, 1875. He was the father of five daughters and one son, but the latter is the only survivor of his children. He was a Republican in politics, and his wife was a member of the Presbyterian church. He has left behind him the memory of an honorable and useful citizen.
John H. Turner began his education in his home public school, attended
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the De Witt high school, and graduated in 1896 from the Clinton Business College. He spent one winter at Monmouth College, at Monmouth, Illinois. He then returned to the farm, where he has since lived, and has put up ex- cellent new buildings. He was formerly a stock raiser, breeding Polled Angus cattle and Chester White and Poland China hogs, but is now a general farmer and a stock feeder. For the past three years he has averaged feeding twenty carloads of cattle, sheep and hogs. The hogs are raised on the farm, the other stock purchased. He has his father's original one hundred and sixty acres.
Mr. Turner was married on October 23, 1901, to Hannah Haring, born in Pennsylvania, who came to this county with her parents. She has borne to him three children, John H., Willie J. and Jennie E. M. He is a Repub- lican in politics and a member of the United Presbyterian church, in which he is an elder. For three years he has been a school director.
Mr. Turner is a young man and has prospered much in his short, active career. He is a man of strong Christian character and a neighbor with whom it is a pleasure to associate.
HENRY W. DIERKS.
The Dierks family have long been prominent in the western part of Clin- ton county and have for many decades been regarded as among our leading agriculturists, at the same time maintaining a reputation for honesty and in- tegrity second to no other family in the county. A well known and pro- gressive member of this household is Henry W. Dierks, who was born on January 21, 1869, in Lincoln township, this county, on his father's farm. He is the son of Hans Dierke, an excellent citizen, who was born in Schleswig. Germany, on October 7. 1838, In that country was also born the paternal grandfather, John Dierks, born in 1810 and he lived to the age of eighty- four years and one day. The paternal grandmother was Katrina Lass, who was born in Germany in 1813. The grandfather of the subject was a farmer in Germany and in 1854 he emigrated to America, arriving in Chicago on July 3. 1854. About one hundred Germans came across the ocean on a small sailing vessel, the voyage requiring seven weeks. Upon their arrival in Chi- cago they were compelled to spend their first night in a lumber yard owing to the fact that there were no accommodations. That city was little more than a mud hole then. The subject's father was the oldest member in the family.
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Henry W.'s grandfather located in Hampshire township, Clinton county, Iowa, beginning with one hundred and sixty acres. The father of Henry W. Dierks helped break the prairie sod, using sometimes five or six yoke of oxen. Grandfather Dierks prospered here, adding to his farm from time to time until he finally became the owner of four hundred and forty acres, besides his original farm. Hans Dierks, the father, grew to maturity in Germany and attended school there and he received a fairly good education. When he reached Iowa he assisted his father and was his principal dependence on his large farm, and he remained on the farm until the breaking out of the Civil war. Hans Dierks proved his loyalty to his adopted country by enlisting in the second company out of Lyons, Company M, First Iowa Volunteer Cavalry. He was first with this regiment in Missouri. fighting the bush- whackers. He served very faithfully and received an honorable discharge at Davenport before the system of drafting began. After the war he returned home and began renting land and later bought eighty acres. By hard work and judicious management he forged ahead until he is now the owner of three hundred and seventy-five acres in Center, Lincoln and Hampshire townships. He has an excellent farm, well improved and well adapted for the raising of all kinds of staple crops, and he also raises large herds of cattle. He is a noted barley grower. Hans Dierks has placed a number of excellent build- ings on his home place in Lincoln township. He was road boss for a num- ber of years, as a Republican, but he is now independent in local politics. He is a member of the German Lutheran church, as are also all the members of his family. He was married in August, 1861, to Anna C. Tietjens, who was born in Germany, from which country she came to Clinton county, Iowa, in 1856 with her parents, her birth having occurred in 1844. She was the daughter of Henry Tietjens. To this union the following children were born : Emma, deceased: John. deceased: Mrs. Anna C. Ingwersen; Mrs. Amanda H. Ingwersen; Henry W., of this review; Mrs. Emma H. Jaeger. and Hans George.
The father. Hans Dierks, came to Clinton in 1896 and retired from active farming. At No. 1206 North Second street, in Ringwood, a suburb of Clin- ton, he built a beautiful and modern residence where he is now spending his declining years in peace and in the midst of plenty as the result of his former years of splendid endeavor.
Henry W. Dierks, of this review, attended the public schools in Lincoln township, and. being the oldest son. he remained on his father's farm and assisted with the general farm work. After his father's removal to Clinton in 1896, Henry W. took active charge of the home place and has since man-
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aged the same in a most satisfactory and successful manner, and has, in fact, conducted all the farms of his father in Lincoln township. He is regarded by all who have had occasion to study his methods as an up-to-date farmer of the modern and progressive school. He is in every way a fit representative of this, one of the oldest, most substantial and highly honored families in Clinton county.
Mr. Dierks has remained unmarried. He is deeply interested in his work and takes a delight in keeping every thing about him in first class condi- tion. He is a general farmer and stock man, always keeping the best grade of live stock and he is regarded as a most excellent judge of the same.
CHRIS MOESZINGER.
It is always pleasant and profitable to contemplate the career of a man who has been a success in life's affairs and won the honor and respect of his fellow citizens. Such is the record, briefly stated, of the late Chris Moes- zinger, a well-known and progressive gentleman, than whom a more whole- souled or popular man it would have been hard to have found in Clinton county in his day. He long maintained his home here and the community's interests he ever had at heart. for in every relation of life he proved true to every trust reposed in him and no citizen of the county was worthier of the high esteem which they enjoyed than Mr. Moeszinger.
Mr. Moeszinger was a native of Germany. having been born there on August 8, 1823, and there he grew to maturity and was educated. Believing that a young man of his energy and ambition could succeed well in the new republic across the seas, he set sail for our shores in 1843, and soon after arriving here took up his residence in Buffalo, New York. He lived in a number of different cities, locating in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1845, Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1846, Rock Island, Illinois, in 1854, and Lyons, Iowa, in 1855. He was engaged here in the foundry and machine business until 1874, when he retired. He understood his special line of endeavor. and built up an excellent business here, becoming well established, and he had a good home and a competency in his declining years.
Mr. Moeszinger was a man who took an abiding interest in public affairs and was a leader in Democratic politics. He served two terms as mayor of the city of Lyons, during which he did a great many things for the general upbuilding of the community and made a record of which his
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friends and constituents were justly proud. He was a member of the city council and the local school board for a number of years.
Mr. Moeszinger was married to Mrs. Anne C. Wilch in 1854. She was born in Germany, from which country she came to America when young, and, like her husband, was of an excellent family. To this union two chil- dren were born, Louis C. and Philip P. The former is with the Baldwin Bros. Hardware Company, of Clinton, and the latter is living in Sacra- mento, California.
The death of this excellent citizen, genteel gentleman, indulgent father, kind husband and generous neighbor occurred on September 29, 1907.
HENRY BECKER.
No farmer of Sharon township, Clinton county, is deserving to any greater degree the large success which has attended his efforts than Henry Becker, for he has worked long and hard and has been patient in waiting for the full fruition that must sooner or later reward such consecutive and earnest endeavor as his.
Mr. Becker was born in the township in which he is still a resident, on December 18, 1873, the son of Carl and Sophia (Kranz) Becker, both born in Germany, the father on June 18, 1820, and the mother on May 5, 1843. Carl Becker spent his boyhood in the fatherland and attended school there, being a young man when he emigrated to America, locating in Clinton county, Iowa, where he began teaming at Lyons. He got a start in this manner, having saved his earnings and later bought a farm near Baldwin, Iowa, and in 1872 he purchased a farm of one hundred and sixty acres in Sharon town- ship, which he developed into a good place and became very well situated. He prospered and later was able to add one hundred and sixty acres more to his original purchase. He retired in 1902 and moved to Lost Nation. Sharon township, where he and his wife lived, enjoying the fruits of their former years of labor. They were a highly respected and much admired elderly couple, having a host of friends in this township. They were Lutherans in their religious tendencies. Mr. Becker died on October 18, 1910, and was buried in the family lot in the Smithtown cemetery.
The following children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Carl Becker, named in order of birth: William, a carpenter at Lost Nation ; Albert and John are both deceased; Henry, of this review : Fred lives in South Dakota : Louis is a
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resident of Sharon township, this county; Ed lives in Jones county, Iowa; Theodore also lives in Jones county ; Herman, deceased; George lives at Lost Nation. Charles is a half brother of these children, being Mr. Becker's child by a former marriage.
Henry Becker grew to maturity on the home farm and attended school in Sharon township. After leaving school he remained on the homestead until he was nineteen years of age, then began life for himself, working by the month. After his marriage he rented land of his father, eighty acres the first year, then one hundred and sixty acres and finally three hundred and twenty acres. He proved himself to be a most excellent farmer in all its phases and soon had a good start and a competency laid by. In 1903 he bought one hundred and sixty acres of his father's farm and since then he has added forty acres more, on which he carries on general farming and raises stock, feeding a few cattle almost every year. He has kept his place well improved and the buildings neat and well repaired. He has been a most persistent worker and an able manager and is deserving of the success that he can today claim. He operated a threshing machine for the past fourteen seasons suc- cessively. becoming widely known as a thresher and his services in this con- nection are in great demand owing to his excellent work.
Mr. Becker is a Democrat and he has served very ably as township trustee and constable. He is a public spirited man, interested in the general good of his community in which he is a leader.
On October 21, 1896, Mr. Becker was married to Emma Powlishta, who was born in Jones county, Iowa, and is the daughter of Frank and Rosa Powlishta, natives of Bohemia, from which country they came to Jones county, Iowa, at an early date. This union has resulted in the birth of three children, Walter, Bertha and Arthur.
VIRTUS LUND.
Among the settlers who came to Lyons, Clinton county, Iowa, in the early fifties, were the Lund brothers, natives of Eckernforde, a seaport on the Baltic in Schleswig-Holstein, where their father, H. Lund, was a teacher in the public schools of the town for fifty-two years (1812 to 1864). The old homestead was in Angelor, where he was born as the son of a farmer; the farm has been in possession of the Lund family since 1684, always going to
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the oldest son. The mother of the Lund brothers was a daughter of Rev. Lur Muehlen, Knight of Dannebrog, head pastor in Eckernforde.
The oldest son, Virtus Lund, born September 23, 1832, having served an apprenticeship in a dry-goods store, emigrated to America in the summer of 1853. It took the old sailing ship "Herschel" sixty-three days to sail from Hamburg to New York, where they landed August 19, 1853. The late Christian Ohsan, of Lyons, was a fellow passenger on the same vessel, but though he and Virtus Lund lived in the same town for over fifty years, they only accidentally found out three years ago that they came to America in the same vessel. Virtus Lund went direct from New York to Zanesville, Ohio, where an uncle of his was a pastor of a German Lutheran church. In the spring of 1854 he accepted the offer of James Hazlett, a native of Zanes- ville, but in business in Lyons, Iowa, to come west and work for him. He had to come by way of Rock Island, found the hotels of Davenport overfilled and paid a dollar for the privilege of sleeping in a barber's chair the first night he spent in Iowa. He reached Lyons on a steamboat, on the 19th day of May, 1854. He clerked for Hazlett a year, then operated a little store on the corner of Pearl and Third streets, in partnership with C. D. Wohlenberg, which they continued successfully until the spring of 1857, when he moved to Mitchell county, Iowa, where he kept store in the city of Mitchell, with O. Schleiter and James Hazlett as partners. He returned to Lyons in 1859 and from that time until 1869 he was connected with Rice Brothers, first as employe and later as partner. From April. 1863. to November, 1865, he was in charge of a branch store in Sabula, where he was married August 31, 1864. to Sarah Amelia, oldest daughter of Dr. E. M. Westbrook. In November, 1865. he returned to Lyons and bought the house at No. 422 North Fifth street, where he has resided ever since. In February. 1869. he took his younger brother. John, in as partner and the firm of Lung Brothers did a successful business until 1881, when Virtus Lund bought his brother out and continued the busi- ness until the fall of 1889. In the meantime he was elected city treasurer of Lyons and served as such until in the fall of 1885, when he was elected county treasurer on the Democratic ticket, which office he held for three consecutive terms. He filled these positions of public trust in a manner that reflected much credit upon himself and to the entire satisfaction of all concerned, winning the highest praise from his constituents.
When the Citizens National Bank was organized in Lyons in 1891. Virtus Lund was appointed cashier, which position he held in a most creditable man- ner until in 1900. This institution was absorbed by the First National Bank of Lyons, since which time the subject has engaged very successfully in the
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insurance and real estate business. He has been a notary public and justice of the peace since 1902.
Mr. Lund's father died in 1866 and the four brothers, then living in America, decided to induce the mother to come to the United States under the care of Mr. Houseberg of Charles City, an old schoolmate of the Lund broth- ers, then visiting in Europe. She was then sixty-seven years of age, but was brought safely to Lyons, and at first was somewhat "home-sick," but under the loving care of her children, especially of Mrs. Amelia Lund, she became reconciled and lived for twenty-three years under Virtus Lund's roof, or until she was summoned to her rest, at the ripe old age of ninety years, dying in March, 1890. Mrs. Amelia Lund, after forty years of happy married life, was called to her reward in January, 1905. Of ten children born to this union only four survive : Virtus, Jr., lives in Lyons ; Charles and Mrs. H. E. Warner live in Chicago, and Fred, the youngest, is a student at Ames College.
The subject has passed his seventy-eighth year, but is still active in busi- ness, hale and hearty, having lived a life consistent with proper principles and in accordance with high ideals. He is president of the Oakland Cemetery Association, vice-president of the public library at Clinton and president of the Old Settlers Association. He has always taken a great interest in the general upbuilding of this locality and is held in the highest esteem by all who know him.
Herman Lund, brother of Virtus Lund, came to Lyons in 1855, and clerked for two years in that city and Sabula. He went to St. Joseph, Mis- souri, in 1857, then a hot bed of secession. When the Civil war began, he, with several of the German turners, went to Quincy, Illinois, and on April 20, 1861, he enlisted as an orderly sergeant of Company H, Sixteenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and served very faithfully and gallantly through the entire conflict, and was repeatedly promoted, being mustered out in August. 1865, with the rank of major. In the seventies he worked two years for Lund Brothers in Lyons, but returned to St. Joseph, Missouri, where his death occurred in November, 1909.
Justus Lund was born in 1837 and came to Lyons, Iowa, in 1855, work- ing at first on a farm, later in Clausen's flouring mill, now the Ed. Inwersen Manufacturing Company's plant. In 1857 he drove an ox team for Iverson. of Camanche, his employer being an old fellow townsman of the Lunds, they passing through Iowa and settling in the vicinity of Fort Calhoun, Nebraska. He returned to Lyons in 1859 and entered the employ of Rice Brothers. After a visit to the old home in 1862, he went in partnership with George Earl and J. M. Rice, in the summer of 1863, and bought the latter out in
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1865. The firm of Earl & Lund continued most successfully in their business operations, but in 1873 they sold their store and stock of goods to Lund Brothers, and George Earl went to California and Justus Lund invested in land. Later he conducted a clothing business with J. Denker. Selling out upon the death of the latter, he retired from active business and he lives in a comfortable home with his wife and daughters on North Sixth street, Lyons.
John Lund, who was born in 1842, accompanied his young wife to America in 1866, and he began working for Earl & Lund, continuing with them until 1867, when his brother, Virtus Lund, took him into partnership. In 1881 he and his family settled in Omaha, Nebraska, where his death oc- curred in 1900. His wife and his only daughter followed him to the mystic land within two years, and only two sons, John and Herman, remain, both residing in Omaha.
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