Guthrie County >> 1884 Index

History of Guthrie and Adair Counties, Iowa
Springfield, Ill: Continental Hist. Co., 1884.

Guthrie County Early Settlers
Transcribed by Bobbi Pohl

Joseph W. Cummins

, one of the prominent men of Gurhrie, and the second permanent settler in the county, is a native of Sangamon county, Illinois, and was born on the 28th of June, 1828. He is the son of William and Catherine (Cox) Cummins; his father is a native of Kentucky, and his mother of Virginia. Joseph's great grandfather was a native of Northern Ireland, and emigrated to America before the colonial revolution, and took a part in the struggle for independence, siding with the colonists. After the revolution he settled in Pennsylvania with his family, and where John Cummins, the grandfather of Joseph, was born, John was with Anthony Wayne, in his raid on the Indians, and served through the war of 1812. He then removed to Kentucky, where William Cummins was born, on the 17th of January, 1801. In 1818, in company with his father, he moved to Sangamon county, Illinois. While William was yet unmarried, he bought with his father some wild land of the government and settled upon it. He was then married, and ere long they were blessed with a son, Joseph, who appears as the subject of our sketch. Willam was a private in Captain Abe Lincoln's company during the Black Hawk war; he moved with his family to Wapello county, Iowa, in 1848, where he remained till 1868, when he came to Guthrie county, where he died on the 25th of February, 1873. Joseph Cummins came to Guthrie county in August, 1849, and settled on section 36, town 79, range 30, and bought 240 acres of land, where he built a small cabin in which he lived from 1850 to 1854, and then sold to S. Mount. He then moved his family upon section 3 while he was cultivating the land and building a dwelling house south of what is known as the Brown farm. He then sold his land and moved on section 2, where he still resides. Joseph was married on August 12, 1849, to Miss Sarah Kunkle, of Pennsylvania, who died on the 2d of January, 1856, leaving two children to mourn her loss, whose names are William B. and Arminda A. He was married again in 1857, to Mary Frazier, a native of Illinois, and by whom he has had four children, Arthur F., Walter A., Lincoln C. and Ella S. Mrs. Cummins died in September, 1870, and October 8, 1871, he was united again in marriage to Mrs. Emma Hollingsworth, of Earlham, Iowa, by whom he has had two children, who died in infancy. Mr. Cummins was a whig in politics, and the county being democratic, but still he was elected sheriff of Guthrie county, and held the position for three terms. He assisted to organize the republican party in 1856, and did faithful work for that party up to 1873, but since that time has acted independently, voting in 1876 for Peter Cooper, and 1880 for J. B. Weaver. He was the deputy for the county during the time of the Grange excitement. Mr. C. is a member of no church, but is in belief a Methodist. He is a member of the I. O. O. F. and of the Masonic fraternity. He was in the army for a short term of service as second lieutenant, in company C, of the Forty-sixth Iowa Infantry, and at the expiration of his term of service was honorably discharged. Mr. Cummins is known throughout the county as an honest and upright citizen, and is esteemed by all who know him. He has ever been a strong temperance man, voting for the prohibitory law of 1855, adopted in Iowa, also for the constitutional amendment. He has alway favored universal suffrage regardles of sex, and was the first man to introduce a resolution of that kind in a state convention in Iowa, in the anti-monopoly convention of 1875.

Benjamin Kunkle was a Pennsylvanian by birth, having been born in Perry county, in that state,on the 12th of March, 1806. He was the son of Jacob and Elizabeth (Snyder) Kunkle, both of whom were members of old Pennsylvania families of German descent. On the 1st of October, 1831, Mr. Kunkle was united in marriage with Miss Barbara Elmon, Rev. Mr. Ungspaugh, a Lutheran clergyman, performing the ceremony. While in the state where he was born, Mr. Kunkle followed the trade of a blacksmith, at which he was an adept. In 1837 he removed to Champaign county, Ohio, where he still continued his calling for some nine years. In 1847 he made a further removal to Bonaparte, Van Buren county, Iowa, where after a short time spent at the forge, he quit and took up the profession of farmer, coming to Guthrie county in search of a farm, The first crop he had was corn, about twelve acres, and a small patch of potatoes, all of which yielded well. On the 12th of September, 1849, was born unto him a daughter, whom they called Melinda Jane, and was the first white child born in the county. Mr. Kunkle remained on the farm he thus settled until April, 1882, when he sold out to Holly Miller and went to reside in Bayard where he still is living. He has four children living, the eldest, John, who married Lucinda Williams, lives near Dale City, in this county; Jacob, married to Martha A. Carter, lives in Osage county, Kansas; Henry, who with his wife, nee Elizabeth Rearick, lives still in Jackson township, and Melinda Jane, above spoken of, now the wife of George W. Mount, of Bayard. Several of Mr. Kunkle's children died in childhood; William, another son, enlisted at the beginning of the civil war in company I., Twenty-ninth Iowa Infantry, and died at Memphis, in March, 1863, aged twenty-three years. Sarah A., a daughter, was married to Joseph Cummins, but departed this life on 1st of January, 1853.