- GEORGE WEST, of Brodhead, Green county, is a retired farmer,
who has passed the psalmist's
- limit of life to find much peace and pleasure on the father's
side. He is among the older settlers of the county, and has led
a long and useful life.
- Mr. WEST was born in Erie county, N.Y., Jan. 7, 1818, and
is a son of John and Avis (BOWEN)
- WEST, natives of Scipio, Cayuga County, N.Y., and Vermont,
respectively. Ten children were born to his parents, seven of
whom are now living: George, Susan, wife of Richard SHERMAN,
of Erie county, N.Y.; Thomas, of the same county; Elizabeth,
widow of Nelson PARKE, of DeKalb county, Ill.; John and Jonathan,
twins, on the old place; and Avis, wife of James HILL, of Erie
county, N.Y. The father was a farmer and died in Erie county,
N.Y., when almost eighty years of age. His wife lived to be eighty-seven
years old. They were Quakers, and the people of the highest character.
His father was George WEST, a farmer, and of Irish descent, who
was born in New York, and was the father of eight children, and
who died when eighty-four years old. The father of Mrs. Avis
WEST was Jennings BOWEN, a native of New York, and of Scotch
descent. He was a farmer, and the sire of a numerous family.
He reached a good old age.
- George WEST passed the first twenty years of his life on
the paternal estate in Erie county, where
- he attended the common school, and received an impulse in
the right direction from the teaching and the example of his
parents that has never left him. He came West in 1838, and located
south of Monroe near the State line. In 1842 he made a claim
of sixty acres in Stephenson county, Illinois. This he fenced,
and on it built a log cabin, but he did not hold it very long,
having an opportunity to sell it at a sharp advance. He then
entered three "eighties" in the town of Sylvester,
Green county, which he still owns. Mr. WEST has owned at different
times about one thousand acres of Green county real estate. In
more recent years he has sold quite liberally, and has helped
each of his children to a start in life, but still owns a valuable
farm of two hundred seventy acres. This he rented in 1874, and
moved into Brodhead, where he has since lived.
- Mr. WEST crossed the Plains in 1850, with a team and covered
wagon, spending four months and
- four days on the trip, and spent a year in the gold mines.
He built the first house in Nevada City, seventy miles form Sacramento,
where he expected to make his home. He had three little children,
and his wife prevailed upon him not to take them to the far West.
He returned by the Isthmus of Panama, and reached home by way
of the Lakes.
- Mr. WEST and Miss Susan WINCHELL were married in 1839. They
were the parents of twelve
- children, Samuel, Louisa, Avis, George Franklin, Clarissa,
Mary, Alice, Ida, Nelson, and three who died in infancy. Samuel
is running the home farm; he married Miss Kate REED, and is the
father of four children, George, Mattie, Nettie and Bertha. George
died in early childhood, as did Louisa. Avis (deceased) married
John WATT, of Hampton, Iowa; they had six children, Winchell,
Gertie, Kate, Elizabeth, Arthur and Trelore. Clarissa married
James VANCE, and has one son, Frank K., who is now assistant
cashier in the bank at Brodhead. James VANCE died, and Clarissa
married George TRUESDELL, and by this union has two living sons,
Harris and Jay. Mr. TRUESDELL died and his widow married John
WATT, of Hampton, Iowa. Mary married John VANCE, and is the mother
of ten living children, Alice, Jessie, Nettie, Samuel, George,
Zoe, Zell, Kate, Glenn, and Mary. Alice married Frank NORTHCRAFT,
and lives in Brodhead; she is the mother of two children, Grace
and Myron. Ida married Harry SMITH, and has her home in Chicago;
they have one daughter, Flossie. Nelson died when nineteen years
old.
- Mrs. Susan WEST, the first wife of Mr. WEST, died Oct. 15,
1893, leaving behind her tender
- memories as a wife and mother. She was a member of the Baptist
Church. Mr. WEST and Mrs. Eliza Jane DECKER were married Sept.
30, 1894. She was the widow of Nicholas DECKER, and the daughter
of Henry and Rachel WALTERS. Mrs. WEST became the mother of two
children in her first marriage, Emmarilla and George Henry. The
daughter died at the age of thirteen years. George Henry married
Sallie MITCHELL, and is the father of one son, George Clayton.
Mrs. Sallie (MITCHELL) DECKER died, and George married his second
wife, Miss Ida L. BYRNE; they live two miles from Juda, and have
two children, Valliere Gwendolin and Howard Sterling. Mrs. WEST
is a Baptist, but her husband clings to his ancestral faith,
and firmly holds to the tenets of the Quaker order. He was a
Whig and for many years has voted the Republican ticket. He owns
a nice home in the north part of the town, and is highly respected
by all who know him.
- Mrs. WEST's father was a native of Germany, and came to America
when nine years old, and
- grew up in Ohio. He died in Kansas about 1871, when sixty-six
years old, and his wife, a native of Pennsylvania, died in 1863,
at the age of forty-nine. They had eight children, six of whom
are now living, Eliza, the wife of George WEST; Sarah Ann, the
wife of George ATKINSON; Adeline, the wife of L. W. LORD; Hester,
wife of C. A. FRANCISCO; John and Archibald Walters. The parents
came to Decatur township in 1846, and in 1861 went to Kansas,
where they died.
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin,"
(c)1901 Union Publishing; pp. 341-342.
-
- Courtesy of Carol.
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