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Marshall County
>> 1912 Index
Past and
Present of Marshall County, Iowa
by Judge William Battin. 2 vols.
Indianapolis, Ind.: B. F. Bowen, 1912.
G
William H. Gilbert
It is fitting that in this work be recorded at least a brief resume of the career of
William H. Gilbert, the popular and successful president of the Central Iowa Business
College, who has for many years been one of the influential citizens of Marshall county,
and through whose loyal efforts the city of Marshalltown and surrounding locality have
reaped lasting benefits, for his exceptional capacity in managing this school has been
such as to benefit the general public in no small degree. A man of broad education,
forceful individuality and marked initiative power, he has been well equipped for
leadership, while his probity of character and his genial personality have gained for him
universal esteem.
Mr. Gilbert was born on August 21, 1877, at Elgin, Illinois. He is the son of Albert
and Ida (Padelford) Gilbert. His father was born near Bridgeport, Connecticut, September
4, 1851, and his mother at Elgin, Illinois, December 18, 1853. His father came to Elgin
when a young man and engaged successfully for many years in the general merchandise
business. He still makes his home in that city, but is now living retired. His parents are
well known and highly respected by a host of warm friends about Elgin.
William H. Gilbert is a self-made young man of high ideals for work and character, and
he has been fitted for his present position by the best of training and most varied
business experiences. He received his primary training in the public schools of his native
city, and he is a graduate of the commercial and shorthand departments of the Elgin
Academy, and also from the four year scientific course of the Lake Forest Academy. He
taught in the latter school two years. After acting in the capacity of private
stenographer and clerk for the superintendents of two large Chicago corporations for six
years, he was appointed western manager for Powers, Higley & Company, Chicago, having
sixty men and three stenographers in his employ. He left this position to specialize for
two years in English, law, and School of Commerce work in the University of Wisconsin. At
the completion of his university training, he was called to the position of manager of the
Marshalltown school by its former owner, and after a successful management of the same he
purchased it in 1903, changing its name to the Central Iowa Business College.
As proprietor, Mr. Gilbert has broadened and systematized the courses, modernized the
equipment, raised the requirements for graduation, and so increased the efficienty of its
graduates that every one is employed at a large salary. Mr. Gilbert's whole heart is in
his work of training young people for high-grade commercial work, and he studies the
students of each department individually, that he may be better able to assist them, and
to advise business firms in the judicious selection of their office help.
Mr. Gilbert is ex-president of the Central Commercial Teachers' Association, which
includes all the business colleges between Lake Michigan and the Rocky Mountains and while
in that capacity he did much in furthering this laudable educational work.
For pastime as well as profit, Mr. Gilbert devotes considerable attention to breeding
Chinese, Ringneck, Golden, Reeves and Lady Amherst pheasants, also Columbian Wyandotte
chickens and Buff Cochin bantams. The state of Iowa, as well as many large breeders,
eagerly seek eggs and stock from his pheasantry.
Politically the Professor is a Republican. He is a member of the Baptist church and
superintendent of the Sunday school.
On August 8, 1906, Mr. Gilbert was united in marriage with Betty V. Cole, of Chatfield,
Minnesota.
Sylvester Goshon
Greencastle township, Marshall county, can boast of few more painstaking farmers
or better citizens than Sylvester Goshon, who has spent his entire life in his
home community, and, being of an industrious, honest people, he has succeeded,
whereas it is at least doubtful if he had reaped the same measure of success had
he tried his fortune in some distant state, for here he has grown up amid
familiar conditions and customs and he knows the soil, the various phases of
seed time and harvest, climatic conditions, etc. all of which and much more he
would have had to master in any other locality. To stay at home is often
best. Mr. Goshon ws born on the farm he now occupies on July 21, 1860.
He is the son of John and Sarah (Lutes) Goshon, the former born on October 25,
1823, in Pennsylvania, and the latter in Ohio in 1833. They grew up and
were married in the East and came to Marshall county, Iowa, in 1856. Being
among the first settlers, they started life in their community amid primitive
conditions, being deprived of many of the luxuries of life, as are all
frontiersmen; but being hardworking and a good manager, Mr. Goshon accumulated
property rapidly, becoming very comfortably established and one of the
substantial men of his community, owning four hundred and forty acres of
valuable land, which he worked to advantage, and here his death occurred in
1879. His widow survives at the age of seventy-seven years, now living in
Marshalltown. Their family consisted of five chiuldren, all living.
In politics, John Goshon was a Republican and he and his family were members of
the Methodist Episcopal church. Mrs. Goshon still being a devoted member
of the same.
Sylvester Goshon was reared on the farm and when a small
boy assisted with the general work about the place, so that when he became a man
farming was quite in his line and he has made it his life work. He
received his education in the public schools, which he attended during the
winter months for several years. He now works the homestead, as in fact,
he has done all his life. The place consists of one hundred and twenty acres and
has been well kept and carefully cultivated. He keeps some good stock of various kinds. He is a stockholder in the Farmers' Elevator at Ferguson.
In politics he is a Republican and he belongs to the Christian church. He
is unmarried.
Mr. Goshon's uncle, John Lutes, who was a pioneer of
Marshall County, died in Marshalltown, in December, 1910, at the age of eighty
years. He was formerly very actively engaged in agricultural pursuits.
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