Iowa

Biography of Col. Homer F. Fellows

In these days of money-making, when life is a constant struggle between right and wrong, it is a pleasure to lay before an intelligent reader the unsullied record of an honorable man. To the youthful it will be a useful lesson, an incentive to honest industry. Col. Homer F. Fellows is acknowledged by all to be one of Springfield’s most public-spirited and honorable citizens. He has been largely identified with the public enterprises of that city, is a promoter of its improvements and the real founder of one of the largest mechanical industries in this part of the State. He … Read more

Biography of Henry J. Hinkle

HENRY J. HINKLE. No better proof of the advancement of Sparta in the last few years can be shown than the dimensions which the hardware trade has assumed. Among those prominently engaged in that line of business in the county is Henry J. Hinkle, who is a gentleman of standing and repute, his business being the outgrowth of his own energy and push. Mr. Hinkle was born in Fremont County, Iowa, March 8, 1856, and is a son of William and Alvira (Winstow) Hinkle. The elder Hinkle was a native of the Keystone State and of German descent. The father … Read more

Biography of B. V. Morris

He whose name heads this sketch, B. V. Morris, is not only a gentleman in every sense of the word, but as a business man is shrewd, practical and far-seeing, well qualified to discharge the necessary duties of life and well adapted to the active life he has led. He was born October 4, 1848, a son of Isaiah and Mary A. (Vaughn) Morris, both of whom were born in the Buckeye State, the former being a native of Columbiana County, and a son of Abraham and Mary (Heisler) Morris. Abraham Morris was born in New Jersey, in which State the … Read more

Biography of J. L. Raines

J. L. Raines.  The bankers of Kansas paid a significant honor to J. L. Raines in 1916 when they elected him president for the year of the Kansas State Bankers Association. Mr. Raines is a country banker, president of the Bank of Perry, and while most of his financial service had been rendered in connection with that institution his range of vision and judgment had not been confined by the limits of his experience. Mr. Raines took the lead in establishing and organizing the Bank of Perry in 1890, his principal associate being W. H. Huddleston, of Oskaloosa. It was … Read more

Biography of John Russell Stewart

John Russell Stewart. As a citizen who for many years was closely identified with journalism and local affairs in Champaign County, the people of this section feel a corresponding interest in the personality and career of John Russell Stewart. As supervising editor of this publication, the publishers feel that this interest should be gratified by the inclusion of a brief personal biography. He was born on his father’s farm in Butler County, Pennsylvania, November 6, 1840, a son of William and Eliza Jane (Gibson) Stewart, who were both of direct Scotch-Irish descent. Mr. Stewart received his education in the local … Read more

Biography of William F. Hill

William F. Hill is the dean of the newspaper profession in Pottawatomie County. The Becorder had been published consecutively at Westmoreland for thirty-two years, and Mr. Hill had been proprietor and publisher of the paper for more than a quarter of a century. When he first came to Kansas it was in the role of a teacher, and he was at one time principal of schools in Havensville, and Westmoreland of Pottawatomie County. He is of English ancestry, and his forebears came to Virginia in Colonial times. His grandfather, John R. Hill, was born in Ohio and spent his life … Read more

Biography of Samuel H. Waddle

Samuel H. Waddle is now the oldest original settler in his locality of Saline County. He went there more than fifty years ago. He knew Central Kansas when it was an almost unlimited stretch of prairie. The buffalo and the Indians were still here and the frontier civilization was a straggling line of homestead shacks and habitations, putting up a bold front against the domain of the wilderness. He suffered those privations due to searcity of crops, isolation from large towns and settlements, and he experienced the prairie fires, the long continued drought, the grasshoppers and every other plague and … Read more

Biography of James M. Meek

James M. Meek is one of the veteran stock farmers and dealers of Nemaha County, and is now living retired at Centralia. Mr. Meek is widely known over this section of Kansas, especially through his terms of service in the Legislature and the Senate, in which he proved a capable representative of his constituency and did much to promote the wholesome business and civic interests of his state. Mr. Meek was born in Union County, Ohio, September 28, 1852, grew up in Northwest Missouri, and had been a resident of Kansas over thirty-five years. His ancestors were English people who … Read more

Biography of F. C. Amsbary

F. C. Amsbary, superintendent and manager of the Champaign Waterworks, has been superintending waterworks plants in different parts of the country for upwards of thirty years. It has in fact been his regular profession, though some of his younger years were devoted to railroading. Mr. Amsbary has numerous connections that identify him with the substantial interests of his home city. A native of Illinois, he was born at Pekin, January 24, 1863, a son of William Wallace and Harriet E. (Harlow) Amsbary, both of whom are natives of New York State. William W. Amsbary moved to Champaign in 1907, and … Read more

Dakota Indians

Dakota Indians. The earliest known home of this tribe was on and near the Mississippi in southern Minnesota, northwestern Wisconsin, and neighboring parts of Iowa. In 1825, after they had spread somewhat farther west, Long (1791) gives their boundaries thus: They were bounded by a curved line extending east of north from Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi, so as to include all the eastern tributaries of the Mississippi, to the first branch of Chippewa River; thence by a line running west of north to Spirit Lake; thence westwardly to Crow Wing River, Minn., and up that stream to its head; thence westwardly to Red River and down that stream to Pembina; thence southwestwardly to the eastern bank of the Missouri near the Mandan villages; thence down the Missouri to a point probably not far from Soldiers River; thence east of north to Prairie du Chien. At a later time they occupied less territory toward the east but extended much farther westward between the Yellowstone and Platte Rivers.

Biography of Rev. Ernest Moehl

Rev. Ernest Moehl. The wealth of Champaign County does not consist alone in broad lands and money and other material things, but in its people of sterling worth and integrity of character. Among those who have devoted themselves to the molding of character and the improvement of spiritual conditions is Rev. Ernest Moehl, pastor of the German Evangelical Church of Flatville. Rev. Mr. Moehl was born in Hersfeld, near Cassel, Germany, a son of John and Dorothy (Auding) Moehl. His father was a teacher in the old country. The family consisted of ten children, seven sons and three daughters, Ernest … Read more

Biography of John Wesley Stipes

John Wesley Stipes. In the spring of 1917, after the declaration of war was made and preparations were hurried to convert and organize this nation for war, the United States Government made known its purpose for the selection of a location for an aviation field in Illinois and preferably convenient to the State University. A committee of half a dozen men were called together by President James of the University, and of this committee J. W. Stipes, of Champaign, was elected chairman. This committee gave careful study to the problems involved and after looking over many locations selected four possible … Read more

Biography of Hon. Jackson L. Morrow

HON. JACKSON L. MORROW.- It is not so uncommon a thing in this land of a great future for a man to lay out a town or build a city; but there is, we believe, but one man in the state who may be called the maker of a county, and whose name is perpetuated in its designation: that man is Jackson L. Morrow, of Heppner, Oregon, whose sketch is here presented. This honor was worthily bestowed upon him at the instance and almost insistence of his neighbors, in recognition of his privations and labors in settling up the region, … Read more

Biography of Lee Moorhouse

LEE MOORHOUSE. – It was some years before the Inland Empire realized its own wealth. The hills were formerly accounted worthless. Mr. Moorhouse was among the first to dissipate that notion. The Prospect Hill farm, of four thousand acres, eighteen miles west of Pendleton, of which he was superintendent, during his incumbency of four years, produced two hundred and fifty thousand bushels of wheat. The Moorhouses were from Iowa, Lee having been born there in 1850. They came to Oregon in 1861, locating in Umatilla county, near the present site of Pendleton, and when the country was so sparsely settled … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Dr. Henry A. Smith

DR. HENRY A. SMITH. – Doctor Smith was born in Wooster, Ohio, April 11, 1830, and is the son of Nicholas and Abagail (Teaff) Smith. His father, who was a Baptist minister, died when he wa but nine years of age, and left his mother a widow with eleven children, Henry being the youngest son. When he was about sixteen years old he moved with his mother and one sister to Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Soon afterwards he entered Alleghany College, Pennsylvania, and studied medicine. In the spring of 1852, in company with his mother and one sister, he started west … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Matthias Spurgeon

MATTHIAS SPURGEON. – This pioneer of Clarke County is a native of Iowa, having been born in Cedar County in 1838. In his childhood he was bereft of his parents, and found a home in the family of an uncle, Mr. George Spurgeon. With this relative he came to Oregon while but a boy of fourteen, and found a home in the household of Mr. William H. Dillon. Soon after becoming of age, he spent two years in the mountains and gorges of Idaho prospecting for gold, meeting, however, with but little success. Returning to Clarke county he took up … Read more

Biography of F. M. Naught

F.M. NAUGHT. – Mr. Naught, whose life experience contains many incidents of unique interest, was born in Illinois in 1838, and removed as a child to Texas, and in 1846 to Iowa. In 1853 he crossed the plains to Oregon and located in Polk county. Upon the outbreak of the Indian war in 1856, he joined Captain F.M.P. Goff’s Company K, Washington Territory Volunteers, and came east of the cascades. In July of that year, a part of Captain Goff’s company quartered at Fort Henrietta was summoned to the relief of Major Leighton’s command, which was surrounded on the John … Read more

Biography of Hon. Hiram D. Morgan

HON. HIRAM D. MORGAN. – This gentleman, whose portrait appears in this history, and who is so well known up and down the Sound, has had a varied pioneer life since 1853. He is a native of Ohio, having been born at Mount Ayre in 1822. During his boyhood, his parents moved to Marion and other portions of the state; and in the course of his development he learned the carpenter’s trade, which has ever been a great reliance to him. In 1846 he came out to Oskaloosa, Iowa, and in 1853 became one of the Davis party to cross … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Hiram W. Oliver

HIRAM W. OLIVER. – Mr. Oliver is a native of Indiana, and was born in 1827. He is the son of a farmer. In 1849 he moved to Illinois, farming until the fall of 1853, when he changed his residence to Iowa. In 1864 he crossed the plains to the Pacific coast, and located a claim in the Grande Ronde valley, Oregon, at the north end of the broad, timbered flat northwest of Summerville, and purchased a sawmill there which he is still operating. He manufactures a large quantity of excellent lumber, and also conducts large farming operations. He married … Read more

Biography of Peter Hedrick Nelson

Peter Hedrick Nelson. For fully half a century Mr. Nelson has known Champaign County. The development of its resources and the transformation of its lands from raw prairie into beautiful farms have taken place before his own eyes. In that development he has shared as an individual, has made a name for himself as a substantial and public-spirited citizen, and has acquired those things an ambitious man most desires financial independence, the rearing and training of children to lives of usefulness and honor, a good name and many friends. For many years he and his good wife worked side by … Read more