Biographical Souvenir of Delaware and Buchanan Counties Iowa
Chicago: F.A. Battey & Company. 1890
Reprinted by Higginson Book Company


A. H. TRASK.    An early settler of Independence, Buchanan county, and a man who has long been identified with the leading business interests of that place is A. H. Trask, a brief biography of whom is here inserted.

Like so many others of the first settlers of Buchanan county, whose personal histories appear in this volume, Mr. Trask traces his ancestry on this continent to one of the New England states, his family being an offshoot of that sturdy, thrifty, intelligent, patriotic stock, on which fell the brunt of the battles for American independence and which furnished the inspiration as well as the practical means for working out many of the great political, social and industrial problems which sprang into existence with the birth of this republic.

His   father, Sampson Trask, was a native of Connecticut, born in 1784. He moved in an early day to Madison county, N. Y., and in 1809 to Onondaga county,  N. Y.,  and thence  in  1816 to Chautauqua county, N. Y., and finally in 1842,   to   Rock  county,   Wis., dying in Janesville that county in 1847, aged sixty-three.    Mr. Trask's mother, who bore the maiden name of  Zubia Hall, was a native of Massachusetts, born in 1785.    She was a daughter of Gashum Hall.    She died in Rock county, Wis., in 1845, aged sixty. There was eleven children in the family, to which the subject of this notice belongs, only three of whom are now living.   The full  list  is as
follows:  Eliza (deceased), Julia  (deceased),   Sophronia (deceased), Harriet   (deceased),  Caroline, Jane  (deceased),  Emily   (deceased),  Samuel (deceased, he having been killed in the Mexican war),   Zubia (deceased), A. H. (the subject of this notice), Marvin W.   The last named was born in Onondaga county, N. Y.,  March  12, 1814.     He moved to Buchanan county, Iowa, in 1870, and has since resided in that county.    He married Rachael Nyce in February, 1839, and has had the following children William, now deceased,
Elizabeth, Frank and Marvin W., Jr.

Mr. Trask's parents past all their years in industrial pursuits and lived lives of usefulness and sobriety, leaving a far richer heritage to their children in the unsullied reputation which they bore for honesty, integrity and the many domestic virtues for which they were distinguished, than in the amount of worldly goods which they left to be parcelled out to their descendants.

Their son, the subject of this notice, was born while they were living in Chautaqua county, N. Y., the event occurring November 3, 1826. He was thirteen years old when his parents moved to Rock county, Wis. His boyhood was spent in New York State, his youth in Wisconsin. His father being a brick-maker by trade, young Trask's first employment was on the brick yards about home, but this sort of employment not being to his taste he quit it, and, under promise from his father hat he should receive his liberty as soon as he mastered the special knowledge necessary to pursue some useful calling, he elected the trade of a cabinet-maker, and taking a place in the shop of an older brother, he sat about in a vigorous manner to make himself master of that trade. He was then thirteen years old. His education in the schools had been completed and as what he had received had been obtained between the ages of eight and thirteen, it need hardly be stated that his mental equipment, at that time, was limited enough. But, faith, we are taught, will remove mountains, and we know, from practical experience, that an abundance of energy and determination, coupled with correct principles
and an abiding confidence in the future, will often accomplish things as apparently impossible of accomplishment as the removing of mountains by faith. Our subject, unconscious of the wealth locked up in the books to which no key was given him at that time, and ignorant, like most boys of his age, of the great world lying beyond the small sphere in which he performed his daily tasks, had nothing left him to do but to bend his
energies to the mastery of his trade, and this he did in a thoroughly loyal manner. When he had finished and received his credentials as a competent mechanic, he continued at his trade, working as a journeyman in Hock county until June 13, 1847. Then, having attained his twenty-first year, he stepped into the full current of the world, left friends, home and kindred, and in company with two comrades, Eli D. Phelps and  Hammond, turned his face towards the land of promise, the great alluring West, coming in the year above mentioned, to Iowa, and taking up his residence at Independence, Buchanan county. At that date, Buchanan county presented to the newly arrived settler a degree of freshness, which, in all soberness and reverence, might have been called "breezy." The present city of Independence then consisted of one log house of meager dimensions and primitive construction, while the outlying country was practically unsettled, the buffalo, bear, deer and other wild animals remaining still in undisturbed possession. Society was then in a formative state and while there were no rough or vicious elements to mar the peace and happiness of those here, still to the young man reared amidst the pleasures and social advantages of the East, the contrast was strong enough and the outlook for
" fun," at least, decidedly unpropitious. It was not for "fun," however, that the subject of this sketch came West, although, when occasion offered, he was capable of enjoying as large a share of that as any one. He came West to do what the great farmer-editor advised all young men to come West for: "to grow up with the country," albeit that solid piece of advice had not then been penned by the venerable Greeley. But, coming to stay, Mr. Trask was not long in looking up something to do, and there being but little need, at that time, for as advanced an artisan as a cabinet-maker in Independence, he found his first employment at rough carpenter work. His first job was assisting in putting in the dam across the Wapsipinnicon river where the Independence mill now stands. Mr. Trask and his associates who did that work did an honest job, for the same timbers are now standing that they put there more than forty years ago.   Seventy-five cents a day were the wages paid for that work, at least that is what the subject of this notice received for his labor.

In the fall of 1847, Mr. Trask and Eli D. Phelps took a contract to carry the mail back and forth between Quasqueton, Buchanan county, and Dubuque. They fitted up a two horse wagon and took the road between these two points, and engaged in carrying the mails and freighting on a small scale for about two years. Selling out his interest in the business in 1849, Mr. Trask purchased another wagon and team, and going to St. Paul, Minn., engaged in hauling goods, provisions and the like there. He remained in that place, however, only a few months, when returning to Independence in the spring of 1850 he fell a victim to the "gold fever," and then opened a chapter in his life which was as full of strange and interesting experiences as often fall to the lot of man. Doubtless there are numbers of old "49-ers " still living who have had the same experiences, but there are not many men who have such experiences now-a-days. He joined a company in May, 1850, which was going to "cross the plains" and after the necessary preparation started out on the long journey. The trip was full of incident, thrilling experiences and hairbreadth escapes, and was not without the hardships and suffering which such a trip at that time implied. It was made safely, however, so far at least as our subject was concerned, and he reached the "diggings" on the Pacific slope in September following the date of his setting out.

Arrived in the "land of promise" he soon began to look around for something to do, and this he was not long in finding. He tried mining at first, but not "striking it rich" at that, he soon took to freighting and followed this successfully during most of the time he remained there. He freighted some with teams and some with pack mules, depending upon locality and the time of year. He remained in California a little over three years, during
which time he was in the country all about Sacramento, Shasta, Eureka and Trinity, as well as the less well known mining camps still further towards the interior. Tiring of the "diggings" he took passage December 31, 1853, at San Francisco on the steamer "Brother Jonathan" from which he was transferred at San Juan Del to the steamer "Northern Light " and sailed for New York. The way by which he returned to the States was what was then known as the "Nicaraugua route," the time required to make the trip from San Francisco to New York being about twenty-five days.    Arriving at New York, Mr. Trask returned at once to Independence, where he again engaged in freighting between   that   point   and Dubuque, following this something like a year and a half.  He then, in 1855, started a small livery stable in Independence, and livery, feed, sale and exchange in horse-flesh has been his chief business since. He is the pioneer liveryman of his town and he probably knows as much of the "ins and outs" and "ups and downs" of the   business   as any man in northeast Iowa.    He has made a success of it, having realized a fair competence out of the business, and yet he pursues it with as much zeal as in former years, when his whole success in life depended upon the efforts he  then made.    Mr.   Trask  also owns four hundred acres of splendid land in Buchanan county, which  he has in a good state of cultivation and the farming of which he personally superintends.    He is a practical farmer as well as a horseman, having
been engaged in agricultural pursuits in Buchanan county for the last thirty-five years, beginning as a renter. He has also been connected with a number of the leading business enterprises of Independence, in all of which he has taken an active interest and borne his full share in their promotion.    One of the most solid institutions with which he is connected is the Peoples' National   Bank, which  he assisted in organizing and of which he has been a director since the date of its organization.

In 1861 Mr. Trask married Miss Austa Fry, of Independence, by whom he had one child, a son, Charles G., born August 13. 1864. He had the great misfortune to lose his wife twelve years later, she dying November 11,
1873. He married again in 1875, taking to wife Mrs. Althea Candee, then also of Independence. This lady had one child by her former marriage, a daughter, Bertha, who, with the son already mentioned, constitute all the
family Mr. and Mrs. Trask have.

While Mr. Trask has never taken any particular interest in partisan politics, he has not neglected his duties as a citizen by staying away from the polls and avoiding the discussion of public questions. He is a man of fixed principles and is ready, when occasion demands, to give expression to these in a way suitable to the occasion. In former years he was a whig and gave an earnest support to the old whig ticket, but with the disappearance
of that party from the political arena, and the formation of the great republican party, he cast his political fortunes with the latter organization, to the teachings and principles of which he has since maintained a steady allegiance. He is a stanch prohibitionist and believing, as he does, in maintaining the purity of the home and the cultivation of the fireside virtues, he has always given an earnest, zealous support to all great moral questions  which have come before the people for discussion, regardless of their political bearings. He is not
only one of the oldest settlers of Independence, but is one of that city's most solid and best representative citizens.

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