USA > Iowa > Clinton County > Wolfe's history of Clinton County, Iowa, Volume 1 > Part 68
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One of Mr. Lamb's greatest achievements was the founding of the Peo- ples Trust & Savings Bank, of Clinton, in 1892, and it was to his influence that the institution in less than three years had deposits of more than three million dollars and took rank with the more important financial organizations in the middle west. He was the moving spirit in the organization of the Iowa Packing & Provision Company, of Clinton, and was heavily interested in other ventures that paid, and still are paying, ever-increasing dividends. Besides the People's Trust & Savings Bank, to which he gave much of his time, he was interested in the City National Bank, of Clinton; the Clinton National Bank.
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of Clinton ; the Lumberman's Bank, of Shell Lake, Wisconsin; the Merchants National Bank, of Clinton, and the Clinton Savings Bank. He was president of the Clinton Gas Light & Coke Company, vice-president of the Mississippi River Logging Company and a director in the Shell Lake Lumber Company, of Shell Lake, Wisconsin. He was interested in sixteen lumber mills on the upper Mississippi river. He held the office of vice-president of the Mississippi River Lumber Company. the Chippewa Logging Company and the Crescent railroad, of Shell Lake, Wisconsin, and was a director in the Chippewa Lum- ber & Boom Company, of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin; the White River Lum- ber Company, of Mason, Wisconsin, and the Barronett Lumber Company, of Barronett, Wisconsin. In addition to these varied enterprises, Mr. Lamb had extended mining interests at Deadwood, notably in what are known as the Bonanza mine and the Buxton, which were great producers and dividend payers.
Masonry attracted much of the attention of Mr. Lamb, and he was given signal recognition in the order, to which he was admitted in 1870. He was a member of Keystone Chapter No. 32, Royal Arch, and of Holy Cross Commandery No. 10, Knights Templar, of Clinton, Iowa. He was made a Scottish-rite Mason and for six years was master of Kadosh and was prior for many years. He was a member of the Royal Order of Scotland (Scot- tish Rite) and was admitted to the El Kahir Shrine, at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was a member of Clinton Council, in York-rite Masonry and also of the Knights of Pythias. He was an exalted ruler of the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks, and for many years was president of the Wapsipinicon Club, of Clinton.
Mr. Lamb married Henriette Sabina Smith, who was a native of Perry county, Ohio, at Clinton, Iowa, October 11, 1865. To the couple were born five children, three of whom are living: Emma Rena, widow of Marvin J. Gates ; Garrett Eugene, and Clara Augusta, wife of Russell B. McCoy. Burt Lafayette died January 30, 1898, and James Dwight was drowned May 5, 1905.
Feeling that his constitution was being undermined by business cares, Mr. Lamb started, in January, 1901, for California to seek rest during the winter months. The train on which he was a passenger was wrecked near Rock Springs, Wyoming, January 16th, and Mr. Lamb was so seriously in- jured that he never recovered, passing away at Coronado, California, April 23, 1901. The remains were brought to Clinton and buried in the family maus- oleum at Springdale cemetery.
Mr. Lamb's life was full of effort for others, and no mean proportion of
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the wealth he gathered was devoted to the poor of Clinton. His genial ways and careful observance of the rights of others made him beloved not only by those who immediately surrounded him, but by the thousands to whom he was less familiarly known. He attended the First Presbyterian church and was for many years one of its trustees, contributing liberally to all its causes.
THOMAS EVAN HAUKE.
In no department of county government is absolute honesty and freedom from graft more essential than in the supervisor's office. On these men de- pends the administration of the county's finances, and there are the greatest opportunities for, on the one hand, private gain at the public expense, and on the other, the conservation of the county's money and saving to the people. It is well for the people of Clinton county that they are represented in the supervisors' office by such men as Mr. Hauke, whose honesty is absolutely above suspicion and whose devotion to the public interests is so marked and so well known.
Thomas Evan Hauke was born in Lincoln township, Clinton county, Iowa, on November 28, 1867, the son of George and Martha (Polhaumus) Hauke. George Hauke was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and was one of the early settlers of Clinton county, a respected man of strong influ- ence in his community. He was a Republican. He died in 1900, his wife in 1904:
Thomas E. Hauke was reared on the farm, and received his education in the common schools and the college at Fulton, Illinois. He spent his time in work on the farm until 1889, when he went to work for the Chicago Daily News as a route agent, and remained with them two years. He then returned to the farm, and has since made farming his occupation, now owning one hun- dred and eighty acres of excellent land in Lincoln township, one and a half miles from the Clinton city limits, which he has made by careful tillage and good management to yield him a competence. In 1904 the Republicans nominated Mr. Hauke for county supervisor, and he was re-elected in 1906, 1908 and 1910 (the last time by a substantial majority), having served to the present date eight years. His service in this office has been satisfactory to every friend of good government. Mr. Hauke was elected president of the State Supervisors' Association of Iowa in 1908 and declined re-elec- tion again in 1909.
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In his fraternal relations Mr. Hauke is a thirty-second degree Mason, and a member of the Elks, the Turners, the Modern Woodmen of America, the Woodmen of the World, and the Odd Fellows, taking an active part in the work of all.
In May, 1901, Mr. Hauke was married to Ida Woodruff, a native of Clinton, who was born on June 10, 1872. She is a lady of many accomplish- ments. Mr. Hauke has many friends who esteem him for his true worth. A successful farmer and business man, and an efficient public servant, he has made himself known to the people of his county as a man of more than common ability and ordinary character.
F. H. ROCK.
Mention is here made of one of the prominent farmers of Berlin town- ship, a man of German descent, who has exemplified in his life and actions the qualities which have made the sons of his race successful everywhere, in every situation of life. No race is better fitted to cope with the obstacles which are met in the course of life than are the Germans. Many of them have settled on Clinton county's farms, and among the names of those who have gained more than common success stands that of Mr. Rock.
F. H. Rock was born in Waldeck, Germany, September 27, 1842, the son of Ludwig and Fredericka (Bick) Rock, both of whom spent their lives in Germany. The subject received his education in the German schools, and followed farming there. In 1866 he came to America, and worked for two years on a farm in Scott county, near Davenport. He then came to Clinton county and rented a farm in Berlin township, and in 1871 bought one hun- dred and sixty acres in Welton township, where he is now living. This was then unimproved prairie, without buildings, and he has improved the soil, erected excellent buildings, added one hundred and twenty acres and brought the farm to its present high condition. Stock raising has occupied much of his attention and his Shorthorn cattle and Duroc Jersey hogs are hard to excel.
Mr. Rock was married in 1869 to Louise Rock, who was born in his native village and who came from Germany to Davenport in 1867. She has borne to him five children, Louise, William, Louis, Christina and Fritz. The family are members of the Lutheran church. Mr. Rock is a Democrat on national issues, but votes independently on local questions. He has never aspired to office, but has given his attention to his farm and his family, being
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MR AND MRS. F. II. ROCK
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a man who takes much pleasure in home life. Together with material pros- · perity, he has gained during his residence in Berlin township many friends who esteem him for the many strong qualities of mind and heart which he possesses.
GEORGE CRAMPTON SMITH.
No business man in Clinton, Iowa, is regarded with higher favor than George Crampton Smith, who, while looking to his own interests, does not neglect to discharge his duties in fostering the upbuilding of the community in general, having, through a long life of strenuous and commendable en- deavor, done as much if not more than any other man for the good of the city of Clinton, and as a result of his public-spirit, his integrity, industry and kindness he is held in highest esteem by all classes and is deserving of conspicuous mention on the pages of history, if for no other reason than because of his development of the Clinton Paper Company, one of the strongest and most prosperous houses of the kind in Iowa.
Mr. Smith was born in Lincolnshire, England, March 5, 1831, the son of William C. and Mary Smith. The father was a farmer in England and he came to America in 1852 and settled eight miles west of Clinton, Iowa, on eighty acres of land; here he established a very comfortable home and continued farming here until his death in 1895: Politically, he was a Repub- lican and in religious matters an Episcopalian. He and Mary Smith were married in England in 1829. Her death occurred at an advanced age in 1898.
George C. Smith was educated in England and accompanied his parents to America in an old sailing-vessel, the voyage requiring twenty-eight days. He purchased eighty acres alongside that of his father, but he never farmed this land. He followed stationary engineering for a period of forty years and was an expert in this line of endeavor. He is now nearly eighty years of age, but is still visiting the offices of the Clinton Paper Company, of which he is president and treasurer and with which he has been connected since about 1864. They are manufacturers and jobbers of straw, rag and red express paper. It is to him that the city of Clinton owes its reputation for having one of the most successful and steadily operated paper mills in the United States.
Knowing something of the manufacture of paper and recognizing a great future for the Mississippi valley. Mr. Smith organized a company and
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erected a small paper mill on the site now occupied by the Clinton Paper Company mills at Nineteenth avenue and Fifth street. This company, with somewhere between ten and twenty stockholders, was incorporated in 1864, but the stockholders gradually dropped out until this company is what might be called an incorporated private institution, with George C. Smith as presi- dent and treasurer; V. C. Smith, vice-president, and William M. Smith, secretary and manager, the latter gentleman having been the active daily director of this company's destiny for several years past. These mills have been rebuilt by the Smiths and newly equipped until the plant of today is one of the model paper manufacturing institutions of the country. having a capacity of twenty thousand pounds daily and running to its full capacity night and day the year round. Probably no other paper mill in the United States runs so steadily, and it is equipped with the best of modern machinery, supplied with the best of raw materials-including pure water from its own artesian well-and operated by expert paper makers. The product is natu- rally of so high a class that the Clinton Paper Company experiences no trou- ble in placing it on the market, so that the mills are kept very busy to supply the demand. A few years ago, in addition to their immense ware- houses at the mills, this company opened an up-town warehouse and in 1909 the company built one of the handsomest two-story and basement wholesale structures in the city, on Sixth avenue. It has a total floor space of twenty- one thousand square feet, and this is completely stocked with wrapping paper, bags, woodenware, galvanized ironware, butchers' supplies. specialties and cordage. Six men travel out of this house, covering Iowa and Illinois, in which states a very extensive trade is carried on, and this house is uni- versally recognized as one of the largest and strongest houses financially in the state. Mail orders alone come to this firm rapidly enough to keep the mills busy to their full capacity all the time, and carload shipments go from them to all the principal cities of the western half of the United States. in- cluding Chicago. St. Louis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Omaha, St. Joseph and many others. The Clinton Paper Company supplies by contract all the plants of Swift & Company and the Cudahy Packing Company west of Chi- cago and many of the smaller packers in the same territory, the Swift and Cudahy people alone requiring some two thousand tons of rag ham-wrapping paper annually. It is a noticeable fact that the trade papers pay many com- pliments to the solid, progressive and yet modest nature of the Clinton Paper Company's management.
During the past fifteen years, the period during which this company's jobbing business proper has been in operation, it has been systematically meet-
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ing the strongest competition from Chicago and all other competing points, and each year has grown stronger with the local and general trade, until today there is no house in the west more popular. It is probable that the people of Clinton do not fully appreciate this large and rapidly growing institution.
George C. Smith was married in 1862 to Cecelia Hosford, of Clinton, and her death occurred in 1864. In 1867 he was married to Sarah Carll, of Waterloo, where her family have long been prominent. Seven children graced this union, six of whom are living, namely: Herbert is superintend- ent of the mills at Clinton ; Georgia A. is the wife of F. Langford, of South America; Verne is superintendent of the local paper mills; Artemus lives in California; Lulu is the wife of O. E. Hill, of Clinton; William is secretary of the Clinton Paper Company. These children received excellent educa- tions and were given every chance.
George C. Smith is a Congregationalist and a member of the Independ- ent Order of Odd Fellows. He is a sociable gentleman and is held in the highest regard by all who know him. His achievements represent the results of honest endeavor along lines where mature judgment has opened the way. He possesses a weight of character, a native sagacity, a discriminating judg- ment and a fidelity of purpose that command the respect of all with whom he has been associated. He takes first rank among the prominent men of this locality and was long a leader in financial. business, education, social and civic affairs.
WILLIAM EUGENE RUSSELL.
Now in the buoyancy, mature judgment and experience of his middle years, clear and keen in body and mind, with no dark lines written on the pages of his life, William Eugene Russell, well-known attorney of Clinton, is moving along the highway of professional success with many years of activity and usefulness before him. Having always been duly appreciative of what is exalted and noble in man, he hates baseness and deceit, his sense, his individualism and his honor spurning them. He is affable. genial and sympathetic, yet a man of force, energy, tact and acumen. As he is in the heyday of life, with his abilities susceptible of higher growth, his path leads up the inclines to summits yet unclimbed.
Mr. Russell's career is an interesting one, and it proves what a man of courage and determination, coupled with good common sense and the exer- cise of sound judgment, can accomplish when his energies are rightly applied.
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He was born on August 13, 1855, in Bethany, West Virginia, and is the son of Samuel P. and Susan (Shepard) Russell. The father was born in the north of Ireland in 1813, and there he grew to maturity and was educated, emigrating to America in 1831, locating in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he remained some time, then went to South Carolina, later to Bethany, West Virginia, where he engaged in the dry goods business. In 1856 he followed the tide of emigration westward to the state of Illinois, where he engaged in farming. He later came on to Iowa and established a restaurant at Sabula, then came to Clinton county where he engaged in farming until he retired, and lived a quiet life until his death, in 1903, at the advanced age of ninety years. He was a man of great energy and was successful in whatever he un- dertook. He was a Republican in politics and was a faithful member of the old Campbellite church, a man of integrity and honor, unswerving in his zeal for the right in all walks of life, and he was held in the highest respect by all who knew him.
Samuel P. Russell was married before leaving West Virginia, his wife surviving until January 9, 1883, dying in her sixty-third year. To this union seven children were born, three of whom are living, namely: Eliza, wife of Isaac Fovargue, of Clinton; Virginia is making her home with her brother, the subject ; William E., of this review.
William E. Russell was educated in the common schools and he worked on a farm until he was twenty-one years of age, when he began railroading for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company, taking charge of a gang of laborers. Later he operated a steam threshing-machine in the wheat fields of the North, with which he was very successful. Having always been an ambitious lad and believing that the law held particular attractions for him, Mr. Russell, in 1881, took up the study of the same and soon made rapid progress under W. C. Grove. in Lyons, and he was duly admitted to the bar in 1883. since which time he has been successfully engaged in practice in the city of Clinton, having long ago taken a place in the front rank of Clinton county attorneys, figuring prominently in the local courts and gaining a reputation for an able, conscientious, painstaking and earnest legal adviser and trial lawyer, ever enjoying the respect of his professional brethren and the esteem of a wide circle of clients and friends.
Politically. Mr. Russell is a Republican, and he served very acceptably as the last city attorney of Lyons before that town was annexed to Clinton. He was also city auditor of Clinton for three terms, from 1898 to 1904, and for the past five years he has been justice of the peace. In all offices of public trust he has been found most faithful in the discharge of his every duty.
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Fraternally, he is a member of the Knights of the Maccabees, the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Mr. Russell was married on September 28, 1884, to Elmira Brand, of Lyons, Iowa, but a native of Illinois, having been born there on October 13, 1861. Six children have been born to this union, named as follows: Wayne and Glenn R., both of Clinton; Lyle P. lives in North Dakota; Edna L. will graduate from the Clinton high school in 1912, and Edith V. from the same school in 1914; Adelaide is also attending school.
C. V. BARR.
While country life has some drawbacks, due mostly to isolation, these are being rapidly removed now by the increasing number of good roads and by the use of the telephone, so that today the farmer who lives within a reason- able distance of a small town or city is no more cut off from his neighbors than is the suburban city dweller. The farmer has also many advantages. He is independent and master of his own time; he lives in the pure air; his table supplies are many of them furnished fresh from his farm; he lives close to nature, and his occupation is becoming more and more profitable. The at- tractiveness of farm life is becoming more and more marked with each year of invention.
C. V. Barr was born in De Witt, Clinton county, Iowa. His parents were John L. and Sarah (Barr) Barr, both natives of Pennsylvania, who came to this township before the Civil war and located here. His father was a law- yer and practiced in De Witt. In 1861 he enlisted in the Union army as a private and served the entire war, seeing much action and earning an enviable record as a soldier. Shortly after the war he died. He was a member of the Presbyterian church. As a man of strong and forceful character, he is well remembered by those who knew him.
C. V. Barr attended the common schools, and when the time came to select an occupation for himself, he chose farming, which vocation he has since followed. He now owns two hundred acres of excellent land, which he has improved with high class buildings. This farm was purchased in 1903. While his farming is general in character, he makes something of a specialty of breeding fine carriage horses and has produced some splendid specimens of these.
In August, 1895, Mr. Barr was married to Julia Paul, of Clinton, Iowa,
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a native of De Witt, daughter of Rev. D. H. Paul, a pioneer minister of the Baptist church, who later in life became a farmer of the township. They are the parents of two interesting children, twins, both in school, Clarence J. and Florence May. Mr. Barr is a Republican.
Mr. Barr has been uniformly successful in his farming operations and has found them profitable. He is a man whose many amiable traits of dispo- sition have made friends for him.
Rev. D. H. Paul came here in an early day and was one of the pioneer ministers. He then purchased land in De Witt township and gave up his calling and followed farming the rest of his life. Mrs. Barr is a lady of rare refinement and fine education. She was one of the most successful teachers in Clinton county. Mr. and Mrs. Barr have one of the most beautiful farm homes in the county and are wholesouled people whom it is a pleasure to meet there.
CHARLES F. CURTIS.
The lumber interests had the most to do with the building up of the city of Clinton. A few names are prominently connected with that industry, but the saw-mill kings have finished their work at Clinton, their interests are now more or less scattered and the one big lumber industry which remains at Clin- ton and which was not driven away by the failing of the Wisconsin forests is the enormous sash, door, and blind factory, founded by the gentleman whose name heads this article.
Charles F. Curtis was born on April 3, 1846, in Oxford, Chenango county, New York, the son of John S. and Elizabeth (Carpenter) Curtis, both natives of New York and of English ancestry. John S. Curtis was born on March 31, 1818, his wife on March 30, 1822. They moved to a farm in Ogle county, Illinois, near Rochelle, in 1856, and lived there until 1868, when they removed to Clinton, Iowa, where Mrs. Curtis died in 1890 and Mr. Curtis in 1891. Mr. Curtis was a Republican in politics and a member of the Baptist church. He was a man of strong and forceful character.
Charles F. Curtis attended the common schools of Ogle county, and the Rochelle high school for one winter. He then entered Eastman's Commercial College of Chicago, from which he graduated in May, 1866, and in June, 1866, came to Clinton, Iowa, and went into a grocery store with W. G. Hem- ingway as partner. They carried on this business until December of the same year, when they bought the interests of Clawson and Thornburg, in a small
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sash, door and planing factory located at Seventh and Front streets, then oper- ated by Clawson, Thornburg & Smith, the new firm beginning as Smith, Hemingway & Curtis. In the spring of 1867 George M. Curtis, a brother of Charles F., bought out the interest of Mr. Smith, and in October of the same year the brothers bought the share of Mr. Hemingway, the firm name being now changed to G. M. Curtis & Brother. At this time but three men were employed, a superintendent, engineer and planing room man, and the principal business was the dressing of lumber, In 1868 J. E. Carpenter, an uncle of the brothers, was taken into the firm and the name Curtis Brothers & Com- pany, since used, was then adopted. On January 1. 1869, they bought out the business of C. H. Toll, located at Thirteenth avenue and Second street, and moved to that location, where they have since remained. At that time about fifty men and boys were employed, and the capacity of the establishment was seventy-five doors and two hundred windows per day.
In 1881, C. S. Curtis, a brother, Fowler Stone and S. M. Yale were taken into the firm and a branch factory started at Wausau, Wisconsin, which has about the same capacity as the parent establishment. In 1882 a sales warehouse at Minneapolis, under the management of S. M. Yale, was organ- ized under the name of the Adams Horr Company, and in 1890 the Minneapo- lis and Wausau branches were organized as the Curtis & Yale Company. The factory at Clinton, with sheds, now covers a space of three hundred by two hundred and seventy-five feet, the offices and warehouse covers eighty by three hundred feet. with a three-story and basement building. Three hundred and seventy-five men are employed, and one thousand doors, two thousand and five hundred windows and other mill work in proportion, turned out every day. The Wausau factory is of similar capacity, and the output of both has been greatly increased lately by the use of improved machinery, both having for many years employed a large force of men. The Minneapolis house is sup- plied from Wausau. The company operates three branch jobbing houses, with small factories attached, each employing about a hundred men; these are the Curtis Sash & Door Company, at Sioux City, the Curtis, Towle & Paine Com- pany, at Lincoln, Nebraska, and the Curtis & Gartside Company, at Oklahoma City, each supplied from the main factories. The supply of lumber for the factories was formerly obtained from Wisconsin and Michigan, but now comes from a mill in California, in which the brothers are stockholders. The products of these factories are shipped to nearly every state.
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