Biographical
Records of Calhoun County, Iowa
Chicago: S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1902
A - W
Unless noted, biographies submitted by Dick Barton.
ALFRED
W. ESHBAUGH
Alfred W. Eshbaugh,
one of the most practical and progressive agriculturists of Center township,
his home being on section 28, was born in Oregon, Ogle county, Illinois,
on the 12th of July, 1852, and is a son of Solomon J. and Sarah (Lilly)
Eshbaugh, who were natives of Pennsylvania and were farming people.
Our subject remained under the paternal roof until he attained his majority,
pursuing his studies in the district schools of the neighborhood until
twenty years of age, and attending the high school in Oregon one term.
He was also a student at Rock River Seminary, now Mount Morris College,
for a time, and engaged in teaching in the district schools of his native
county for thirteen terms with excellent success.
On the 4th of September,
1879, Mr. Eshbaugh was united in marriage to Miss Kate Ray, who was
born April 3, 1857, and they have become the parents of four children,
namely: Amy B., born August 27, 1884; Cora E., November 27, 1885; Paul
L., September 19, 1889; and Eula M., May l0, 1891. The three older children
are now attending school in Rockwell City.
Coming to Iowa in
the spring of 1880, Mr. Eshbaugh purchased an unimproved farm of one
hundred and sixty acres on section 28, Center township, Calhoun county,
and on the 1st of June, 1881, took up his residence thereon, it having
since been his home. Stock raising has always claimed a large share
of his attention, his specialties being short horn cattle, Shropshire
sheep, Poland China hogs and Hambletonian horses. He is a good judge
of stock and in this branch of his business he has been remarkably successful.
Both Mr. and Mrs.
Eshbaugh are members of the First Presbyterian church of Rockwell City,
and occupy an enviable position in the esteem of their fellow citizens.
Politically he is identified with the Republican party, and has been
called upon to fill a number of local offices of honor and trust, having
served as road supervisor five years, justice of the peace two years,
a member of the school board two years, and a member of the county board
of supervisors. His official duties have been discharged with a promptness
and fidelity worthy of the highest commendation, and he well deserves
the high regard in which he is uniformly held.
SANFORD L. KENT, who is engaged in general farming and stock raising, is a well-known representative of agricultural interests, and steadily has he advanced to a position among the affluent men of the community. He was born in Clinton county, New York; on the Saranac river, August 23, 1844. His father, Helmer B. Kent, was born in the same county in March, 1799, and is a representative of a family of English origin. He married Sarah Moore, who was born near Lake Champlain, in New York, about 1822,the marriage being celebrated about 1839. They became the parents of six children: Marietta, the wife of Alexander J. Buckless, a resident of Lowell, Massachusetts; Caroline, now deceased, and who was the wife of Wallace McKinny; Sanford L., the subject of this review; Henry, who is living in Lowell, Massachusetts; Susan, who became the wife of John Bigelow, a resident of Ellenberg, Center county, New York; and William H., who resides in Manson, Iowa. The father of this family was a blacksmith by trade, following that pursuit for forty years. He spent his entire life in the county of his nativity, passing away in 1879, while his wife died in March, 1880.
Sanford L. Kent acquired his early education in Clinton county, and in 1861 responded to the call for troops to aid in the suppression of the rebellious spirit of the south. He joined the Ninth Vermont Infantry, but on account of his youth was not sent out of the state. He was at that time hardly seventeen years of age. On the 28th of December, 1863, however, he once more enlisted, becoming a member of Company M, Fifteenth New York Cavalry, under command of Captain Seth J. Stevens and Colonel Root. The regiment was assigned to the army of the Potomac, becoming connected with Sheridan's cavalry in the Fifth Army Corps. Mr. Kent was on detached service most of the time, but participated in the engagements of Fishers Hill, Piedmont and Lynchburg. He acted as mail carrier between Green Spring Run and the camp at Burlington for two months. This was a very dangerous position and attended with many hardships. In the winter of 1864 and 1865 he acted as forage master near Winchester, Virginia. In July, 1864, he was promoted to the rank of corporal and on the 23rd of June, 1865, and was mustered out at Cloud Mills, Virginia. He was a faithful soldier, loyal to the cause which he espoused, and his efforts in behalf of his country were effective and and valuable. Returning to New York, Mr. Kent remained in the Empire state until April, 1869, when he removed to Douglas county, Kansas, to spend only a few weeks there, and in May came to Calhoun county, Iowa, securing a homestead in Sherman township. Here he has been continuously since and is familiar with pioneer history. In the early days he trapped muskrats for their hide and underwent all the hardships and privations of pioneer life. August 2, 1870, the house was entirely destroyed by a tornado. It was night and the family were all in the rooms on the second floor. They sustained a number of bruises, but none of them were seriously injured. During the cyclone of 1893 many trees upon the place were blown down, but very little damage otherwise was done. Mr. Kent owns altogether three hundred and twenty acres of valuable land, including the southeast quarter of section 26, Sherman township, upon which he is now living, and the northeast quarter of section 25. He raises a great deal of stock, having one hundred and twenty-five head of cattle upon his farm at the present time. He breeds Hereford catlte and expects in time to have a herd of full-blooded animals. He also makes a specialty of the raising of Poland China hogs, and the stock from his farm finds a ready sale on the market owing to its high grade. His land is all fenced and tilled and many excellent improvements have been placed upon his property, transforming it into a very desirable tract. For twenty years after he came to the county he conducted a threshing machine, and as one time he engaged in buying and selling cattle for shipment, but now raises all of the stock which he ships. In addition to his farm he owns city property in Manson and is today one of the most progressive and prosperous agriculturists of his community.
On the 27th of March, 1867, Mr. Kent was united in marriage to Frances Bishop, who was born April 4, 1848. Her father, Jefferson Bishop, who was a native of Essex county, New York, was born April 9, 1822, and his death occurred in 1879. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Francis Tomlinson, was born in Essex county, New York, in 1828, and departed this life on the 2nd of August, 1852. They were married in their native county and became the parents of three children, namely: Mrs. Kent; Alice, the wife of Mark Creaser, of Britton, South Dakota; and Mary, the widow of Henry Hyde, of Chicago. Eight children have blessed the marriage of our subject and his wife: Fred L., who was born June 25, 1868, and is living in Corvallis, Oregon; Will H., who was born September 20, 1872, and is principal of the schools in Millersburg, Illinois; Chauncey, born January 15, 1871, and died April 8, 1875; Ida, who was born August 15, 1874, and passed away on the 4th of April, 1875; Hervia, born January 31, 1877, and whose death occurred September 5, 1877; Leslie, whose birth occurred on the 22nd of August, 1878, and who is now residing in Calhoun county; Victor, born August 25, 1880, also a resident of Calhoun county, and Eugene, born on July 27, 1890, at home with his parents. The parents hold membership in the Methodist church at Manson, and Mr. Kent exercises his right of franchise in support of the men and measures of the Republican party. He has been a member of the board of county supervisors for six years and for one year served as its chairman. While serving on the board, he was instrumental in securing the erection of the new county house, the contract price being ninety-one hundred and sixty-one dollars, while the cost was ten thousand dollars. Mr. Kent has also been constable, trustee, road supervisor and school director, and in every position which he has been called upon to fill, he has proved his loyalty to the general good by the faithful performance of duty. He has attended many conventions of his party and is a leading and influential Republican of his community. His wife was the first woman to ride over the Illinois Central railroad from Fort Dodge to Manson, and both Mr. and Mrs. Kent are well-known pioneer people, who for many years have witnessed the growth and development of this section of the state. When our subject arrived in Calhoun county his cash capital consisted of only one hundred and twenty-nine dollars in money and in addition he had a few household effects. Today he stands among the prosperous farmers of this portion of the state and a record of the intervening years shows that his life has been one of marked activity, energy and perseverance. Realizing that there is no royal road to wealth, with persistent effort he undertook the task of acquiring a good home and a competence and has succeeded admirably in the work he set himself to do. His sound business judgment, supplementing his unfaltering industry, have enabled him to advance step by step until he occupies a prominent position among the prosperous and honored men of Calhoun county.
WILLIAM H. PHIFER
The subject of this sketch has spent almost his entire life in Iowa and has witnessed the greater part of its development and progress. Since 1892 he has made his home in Calhoun county, and is now successfully engaged in the operation of his fine farm of one hundred and sixty acres on section 36, Jackson township. He was born in Sangamon county, Illinois, on the 13th of January, 1850, and comes of a good old Virginian family, his paternal grandfather, William Phifer, having been a native of the Old Dominion. The latter spent a number of years in Kentucky, and from there removed to Illinois, becoming one of the first settlers of Sangamon county, where he opened up a farm and reared his family. Subsequently he removed to Iowa, and his last days were spent in Marion county, this state.
James Phifer, the father of our subject, was born in Kentucky, but was reared in Illinois, and there married Miss Sophia Ann Mickey, a native of Ohio, and a daughter of Robert Mickey, who had removed from that state of Illinois at an early day and settled in Sangamon county. There Mr. and Mrs. Phifer made their home until after the birth of three of their children, and in 1852 came to Iowa, becoming pioneers of Jasper county, where he developed a farm. On locating there he had to go forty or fifty miles to mill, and was forced to endure many of the hardships and privations of frontier life. In later years he sold his farm in that county and located on another five miles south of Mt. Pleasant, where his last days were spent. There he died in 1892, at the age of sixty-five years. His wife still survives him and continues to reside on the old home farm.
In the family of this worthy couple were nine children, three sons and six daughters, namely: Sarah, now the wife of L. Gundy, of Rush county, Missouri; William H., of this review; Martha, wife of William Bales, of Kansas; John H., a farmer of Calhoun county, who married a daughter of Nathan Bales; Mary, wife of Al Frame, of Nebraska; Alice, wife of Julius Hunting, of Henry county, Iowa; Ida, who is married and resides in the same county; Phebe, wife of Alfred Bales, of Kansas; and James P., of Henry county, Iowa.
William H. Phifer grew to manhood in Jasper county, Iowa, attending the district schools of his neighborhood and aiding in the work of the farm. Once during his boyhood he had the pleasure of accompanying his father on one of those long trips to mill and it was a great experience for the lad. He remained under the parental roof until he attained his majority, giving his father the benefit of his labors upon the farm, and then rented land in Jasper county and engaged in farming on his own account. Subsequently he owned two different farms in Marion county, Iowa, and on disposing of his property there he came to Calhoun county, in 1892, and bought one hundred and sixty acres of land where he now lives. It was a partially improved place, and to its further development and cultivation he has devoted his energies with marked success. He has remodeled the house, so that he now has a very pleasant residence, has built a large barn and has made many other useful and substantial improvements. He raises a good grade of stock and has prospered in all his undertakings since coming to this county.
In Marion county, December 20, 1871, Mr. Phifer was united in marriage to Miss Louisa Gossett, a native of Highland county, Ohio, and a daughter of Joseph and Louisa Gossett. after the death of her father her mother married again and removed to Marion county, Iowa, where Mrs. Phifer was reared. Our subject and his wife have two daughters. Addie, the older, is now the wife of J. W. Truex, a farmer of Calhoun county, and they have four children, William LeRoy, Myrtle Ethel and Harold. Myrtle, the younger daughter, is the wife of John J. Lasher, a carpenter of Glidden, Iowa, and they have one son, William Lawrence.
Mr. Phifer has always affiliated with the Republican party since casting his first presidential vote for General U. S. Grant in 1872. While a resident of Marion county he was elected and served seven years as school treasurer of Red Rock township, but has never cared for political honors. Both he and his wife are members of the Christian church of Lake City, and he also belongs to the Odd Fellows Lodge at that place.
DANIEL J. TOWNSEND, M. D.
There are in every community men of great force and exceptional ability, who by reason of their capacity for leadership become recognized as foremost citizens, and bear a most important part in the development and progress of the locality with which they are connected. Such a man is Dr. Townsend, who is prominently identified with the interests of Lohrville and surrounding country, having made his home here since the establishment of the town.
The Doctor was born in Bureau county, Illinois, December 9, 1856, and is a son of John and Sarah J. (Valentine) Townsend, now living at Gowrie, Iowa. The father was born in Vermont, January 18, 1826, and the mother in New York state, October 5, 1835. The former spent his early life in the Green Mountain state, and when he was twelve years of age his parents moved to Erie county, New York. He was married, May 15, 1855. In the spring of 1856 he went west and located at Pond Creek, Bureau county, Illinois. He purchased a piece of land in Manlius township, of the same county, from the government, at two dollars and a half per acre, where he lived until the fall of 1866, when he sold his Illinois possessions and came to Iowa. He rented a farm twelve miles south of Fort Dodge, near Tysons Mills, now known as Lehigh. One year later he entered a tract of river land on section 9, Sumner township, where he made his home for five years, and then purchased a farm near the village of Gowrie in the same county. He gave his time and attention to the improvement and cultivation of this place until his retirement from active labor, when he and his wife moved to the village where they now live. Although past the alloted span of life, they are still hale and hearty, and bid fair to live for many years yet, enjoying the esteem and respect of those who know them.
The father served in Company K, Fifty-seventh Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, in the war of the Rebellion. In his political views he has always been an ardent Republican, having cast his vote for Fremont in 1856, and has voted for every Republican candidate for president since that time. Four children were born to this family, the subject of our sketch being the oldest. The others were: George E., a physisian residing at Austin, Colorado; Emmett E., a contractor at Fort Dodge, Iowa; and Ellen E., who died at the age of thirty years, at Gowrie, Iowa.
Reared in Bureau county, Illinois, Dr. Townsend acquired his early education in its public schools, and after coming to Iowa he attended the public schools of Webster county. He earned his first money when fourteen years old, driving a breaking team consisting of five yoke of oxen hitched to a twenty-eighth-inch breaking plow, in Lost Grove township, Webster county, his compensation for this work being eight dollars per month. The winter he was eighteen years of age he began teaching school. His first school was in a district where another teacher had failed and the school was considered a hard one to handle, but he succeeded in controlling the incorrigibles so successfully, that the school board retained him at an advance in salary of ten dollars a month above the usual contract price, and at the end of the term the board re-employed him for the following year. He taught in all sixteen terms of school, including the principalship of the Dayton schools.
During the time he was teaching he began the study of medicine under the direction of O. E. Evans, M. D., of Gowrie, Iowa. To the efficiency of the instruction and good advice of Dr. Evans, Dr. Townsend gives great credit for his success in his chosen profession. He attended a course of lectures at the College of Physicians, at Keokuk, during 1879-80, and afterward attending at Chicago and graduating at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, at Des Moines, March 4, 1887. Since graduating he has taken three courses in clinical medicine and surgery. In the fall of 1887 he became a member of the Central District Medical Association, and in 1888 a member of the Iowa State Society. In 1890 he was a delegate from the State Medical Society to the American Medical Association, which met at Nashville, Tennessee; was a delegate a second time to the American Association, at Atlanta, Georgia, in 1896; and again a third time, in 1902, the American Association meeting that year being held at St. Paul, Minnesota. He was one of the delegates appointed by Governor Leslie M. Shaw to represent Iowa in the International Association, for the investigation of tuberculosis, at London, England, in July, in 1901.
On the 15 th of May, 1884, Dr. Townsend was married to Myra M. Hawthorne, a native of Upper Kent, Carlton county, New Brunswick, and the daughter of George H. Hawthorne and wife. Dr. and Mrs. Townsend have four children, all living. Their names and dates of birth are as follows: Blanche, December 8, 1885; Orville J., January 18, 1888; Irwin, February 3, 1895; and Dewitt, July 14, 1899.
Dr. Townsend has been identified with almost the entire growth and development of Lohrville; there was but one building, and that a farm house, on the farm which is now the site of a live, thrifty town, when he located here. On Thanksgiving day of 1881 he was one of a party of eight - all strangers - who met at Gowrie and were anxious to come to Lohrville. As there were no trains running they secured permission to use a handcar, on which they all crowded and worked their passage westward. This little party consisted of two physicians, two merchants, two harnessmakers, one lawyer and one blacksmith, all of whom located at Lohrville, except one of the harnessmakers, and four of them still make their homes here. They are Drs. Townsend and Craig and Attorneys Towers and J. M. Stephens. J. J. Flanigan erected the first building in Lohrville and occupied it as a saloon. It is now owned by Mrs. Quinn and is occupied as a restaurant by M. O. Wheatley. Enos Ralston soon after built the City Hotel and John Morrison built a saloon where the Wilson House now stands. The first fire in Lohrville was the burning of Morrison's saloon in the fall of 1882. The buildings erected the first fall and winter the town was in existence in addition to those mentioned were as follows: A hardware store and drug store, erected by L. W. Johnson; a general store, by O. M. Hollingshead; a meat market, by John Back; a general store, hardware store and hotel, by A. W. Safely; a general store, by Hopkins & Wilkinson; a restaurant, by J. H. Griffin; a drug store, by J. W. Allison; a general store, by Adams & Dryden; a livery, by A. O. Garlock; a saloon, by William Baldwin; and a bank, by S. G. Crawford & Company. One of the queer combinations that sometimes occur in the building up and organizing of business in new towns in the west was shown here during the winter of 1881-2, J. M. Stephens and J. J. Flanigan conducting a saloon and shoe store in the same room.
The town was incorporated during the winter of 1883 and S. G. Crawford was elected mayor. The following spring Dr. Townsend was elected as a member of the council, a position to which he was re-elected several terms. He was elected mayor in 1897 and again in 1898, and served until March, 1900. He was a member of the school board from 1890 to 1900, being president of the board for several years. He entered the campaign of 1899 as a candidate for state representative with J. C. Lowry, of Pomeroy, and R. A. Horton, of Manson, as candidates for nomination against him. About the middle of the campaign Mr. Horton withdrew and the contest was a spirited one from that time until the primaries, when the votes were counted and it was found that Dr. Townsend had three hundred and one more than Mr. Lowry, and consequently received the nomination, which in that strong Republican district meant election. In 1901 he was again a candidate for the same office and received the nomination of his party without contest, and was re-elected, thus serving in the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth general assemblies of the legislature, where he made a record for careful, conservative work, of which he may justly feel proud. As a Republican he has always taken a lively interest in promoting the welfare of the party, and his official duties have been creditably and satisfactorily discharged. He is a member of the Republican Grant club of Des Moines, Iowa.
Dr. Townsend also belongs to the following civic societies: Zerrubbabel Lodge, No. 240, A. F. & A. M.; Cypress Chapter, No. 99, R. A. M.; Rose Croix Commandery, No. 38, K. T.; Lohrville Lodge, No. 469, I. O. O. F. The last named lodge was organized at Lohrville, August 3, 1882, with the charter members as follows: D. J. Townsend, H. R. Howell, James Herring, B. F. Howell and Daniel Lowe. The Doctor is a public-spirited and progressive citizen and gives his support to all measures for the public good and welfare of the community in which he lives.
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