1890 Buchanan and Delaware Counties History pgs. 603-605

JOB ODELL was born seven miles from Nashville, in Davidson county, Tenn., December 16,1811. He is the eldest child and only son of Gabriel and Nancy (Sullivan) Odell, both of whom were natives of Virginia, born in the latter part of the last century and taken to Tennessee by their parents, who settled on the Cumberland a few years after the starting of Robertson's colony, where Nashville now stands. Both families came from Virginia and were representatives of that sturdy pioneer stock which beat the savage foes of civilization back to the trans-Mississippi country felled the forests, founded the cities and laid the corner stone of the splendid commonwealths which have since grown out of the colonies planted by such men as Sevier, Robertson, Shelby and others along the great rivers of the Southwest. Gabriel Odell, after growing to maturity in Davidson county, Tenn., married Nancy Sullivan of that county, she being a daughter of Thomas Sullivan, and moved about 1813 to a point near the present town of Brookville, Ind., where he resided about three years, moving thence to the vicinity of Richmond, Ind., where he lived till 1829. He then moved to Elkhart county, Ind., and a year later to Cass county, Mich., settling near Edwardsburg. There he and his wife both died at advanced ages. He was a farmer all his life, but was largely dominated by the spirit of the pioneer and his career was somewhat of that irregular kind characteristic of the unsettled frontiersman. He had three children, one son and two daughters, the son, Job, being the subject of this notice, and the daughters, Sinai and Sallie, being both now deceased.

Job Odell was reared in Indiana, growing up on a farm in the localities already designated as the places of his parents' residence when he was a boy. His surroundings in youth were better calculated to give strength to those sturdier traits of character which had distinguished his ancestors than they were to foster a sublimated spirit of refinement which seems to be the mark of this age. The tasks set before lads of his time were to learn how to wield the ax, to swing a jumping coulter-plow, to hunt the cattle far away in the forests among the ranges, to go to mill and to do the hundred and one little things around home which are now comprised in that compendious word "chores," the signification of which the average boy of this day does not need to be told. As might be guessed, the education which fell to the lot of young Odell was little enough. His school training was restricted to the usual three months' term during winter, and the scope of his studies did not extend beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic, with a little grammar and geography thrown in to add polish to what might otherwise seem to lack finish as a common-school course. Amidst surroundings of a primitive kind, engaged at employments of the sort here designated and trained to the habits of industry and general usefulness which marked the life of the farm boy sixty years ago, our subject passed his youthful days, doubtless having as much pleasure, and that of a more innocent kind, as the average boy enjoys at this time. In 1830 he married, and, following in the footsteps of his worthy ancestors, settled down to farming in Cass county, Mich., whither he moved that year. He resided in that county, engaged in agricultural pursuits until 1850, when, following the promptings of the spirit of adventure born in him, and longing for the freedom of the forests and the plains, he came to Iowa and settled in Elk township, Delaware county. That was a comparatively early date for the locality where he cast his lot, and he was among the pioneers of his community. He bought forty acres of land in Elk township and entered a hundred more of government land and again assumed the calling of farming, which he has followed successfully since. A little later, in 1852, he, in connection with a neighbor, John Martindale, began the erection of a much needed grist-mill in Elk township, which was the first mill built in that locality and one that they conducted successfully for twelve years. Mr. Odell began at an early date to take an interest in the public affairs of his locality, and he maintains this interest also up to the present time. He has held many township and school offices, discharging their duties creditably to himself and acceptably to his neighbors. His efforts in politics have never extended beyond his township, but in that limit he was especially in earlier years a political factor of recognized importance. He cast his first presidential vote for Martin Van Buren, from which it is needless to say that he was in those years a democrat. He affiliated actively with the democratic party up to the time of its rejection of and violent opposition to the Missouri compromise measure, when he went over to the wings and subsequently joined the republicans. For several years past he has taken much interest in labor matters and has given his support to the union labor ticket, when that party has had a ticket in the field. Mr. Odell has always favored prohibition and has been outspoken in his opposition to the liquor traffic. He believes in schools and churches, and maintains that the purity of the body politic depends upon the purity of the home, and that two of the most powerful aids to the cultivation of virtue and intelligence in the young, and the preservation of good home influences, are our common schools and our public places of worship.

Marrying in 1830, Mr. Odell soon became the head of a family and he has reared and fitted for lives of usefulness a number of children, all of whom it is pleasant to know are giving a large meaning to the scriptural injunction, "Honor thy father and thy mother," by their industrious, upright lives. Mr. Odell has been twice married, marrying first in 1830. His first wife bore the maiden name of Mary Jones. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1810, and died in Cass county, Mich., in 1842. Six children were the result of this union, as follows- Franklin, who is now a farmer residing in California; John S., deceased; Cyrus, a carpenter in Cass county, Mich.; and three infants that died unnamed. Mr. Odell married in Cass county, Mich., a few years after his first wife's death, his second wife being Miss Mary Nichol, then of that county, but a native of Butler county, Ohio, born in 1819. This lady died April 8, 1889, leaving surviving her, besides her husband, six children, one having already preceded her to the world beyond. The eldest of these children is Gabriel H., who is the present sheriff of Delaware county, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this volume; the second is Abigail, now the wife of A. B. Smith, of Nebraska; the next, William, is a farmer residing in Delaware county; Nancy is the wife of Frank N. Taylor, of Missouri; Corbly M. is a farmer of Delaware county; Isaac is a farmer still residing with his father, and John is deceased.

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