Annals of Iowa

Annals Index

Annals of Iowa

Unless otherwise noted, biographies submitted by Dick Barton.

Annals of Iowa: A historical quarterly. v. 1-12, 1863-74; New Series, v. 1-3, 1882-84; 3d series, v. 1- Apr. 1893-

Charles F. Saylor was born in Polk county, Iowa, on September 8, 1857; he died at Des Moines, Iowa, April 20, 1911. The parents of Mr. Saylor, who survive him, were among the earliest settlers of Polk county, their homestead being on Saylor prairie above Des Moines. He was educated in the public schools of the city of Des Moines and was a graduate of the Iowa State Agricultural College at Ames. He was a teacher in the Polk county and Des Moines public schools for a number of years and was elected county superintendent of public schools for Polk county, serving six years. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Agricultural college at Ames for a number of years. During this time Hon. James Wilson, now Secretary of Agriculture, was a member of the faculty. Immediately after President McKinley called Professor Wilson to be head of the Department of Agriculture, Mr. Saylor was made a special agent of the Department. He was assigned the duty of special investigation and report upon the sugar industry, and for more than ten years assiduously devoted his time and talent to the consideration of this great subject. His travels and investigations embraced every State in the Union in which the culture or manufacture of beet sugar or cane sugar is a factor. He visited the Sandwich Islands, Porto Rico and Cuba, where sugar production and commerce are a factor in the American trade. He collected exhaustive information from all States and colonies of other governments where sugar producing is a matter of any importance. His reports are the basis of text study in many agricultural courses. They are the foundation of much of the debate in Congress and of the popular literature of the present day on the sugar industry.

Thomas J. Saylor was born in Indianapolis, Ind., March 24, 1830; he died at his home near Saylorville, Iowa, October 5, 1912. His parents, Thomas and Mary Howard Saylor, who were natives respectively of Indiana and Ohio, removed to Iowa when he was six years of age. In those pioneer days educational advantages were few and his actual schooling was limited to a term in Valparaiso, Indiana, and two months in Van Buren county, Iowa. By much reading, travel and observation he became a well-educated man. During his boyhood he assisted his father at the garrison and familiarized himself with the languages of the Winnebago, Pottawattamie, Sac and Fox Indians, which enabled him to render valuable assistance as interpreter during the Indian troubles. In August, 1862, he enlisted in Company E, 23d Iowa Volunteer Infantry. He saw much active service and was present at the capture of Mobile, Alabama, in 1865. At the close of the war he returned to the old homestead where his wife and family were residing, and engaged in framing. One son, Charles F. Saylor, distinguished himself in the development of the beet sugar industry under Secretary Wilson of the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Saylor was at the time of his death accounted the oldest settler of Polk county and the only resident living upon land purchased from the Government.

JAMES L. SCOTT, a pioneer resident of the State, was born in Giles county, Tennessee , January 12, 1813 ; he died at Des Moines January 10, 1899 . Mr. Scott came to Iowa territory in 1837, locating a claim in Lee county. He soon afterward went to Galena , Illinois , and engaged in a successful lead mining business. In 1839 he returned to Iowa and settled in Jefferson county, where he entered 320 acres of land. He was elected the first sheriff of that county and officiated at the first government land sales. He removed to Des Moines in 1857, where in early days he was a member of the city council and took an active part in public affairs. Mr. Scott was a brother of the late Alexander Scott, one of the founders of Des Moines , whose great generosity in early days should not be forgotten. He donated to the State of Iowa nearly all of the grounds upon which the capitol now stands, and the land known as Governor's Square. He also gave $6,000 toward the erection of the old capitol building and gave to Des Moines its market square. He afterwards died in poverty, and although this brother had repeatedly petitioned the State legislature for a suitable monument to mark the neglected grave of Iowa 's benefactor, the request was overlooked.

KATE SHELLY was born in county Tipperary, Munster Province, Ireland, September 25, 1865; she died at Moingona, Boone county, Iowa, January 21, 1912. In 1866 her parents emigrated to America and to the home where Miss Shelly died. The father was killed in a railway accident several years later. On the night of July 6, 1881 , a freight train on the Chicago and Northwestern railroad was wrecked in a washout at Honey Creek, near the Shelly home. The sixteen year old girl on her own initiative improvised a lantern from parts of an ordinary lantern and a miner's lamp, breasted a drenching rain storm to the site of the wreck, and found the only surviving member of the crew, the engineer, clinging to a tree. Both knew of the impending arrival of an express train and of the only means of warning being at the station Moingona, a mile distant, across the Des Moines river . Her lantern failed her while at Honey Creek, and she made her way along the railway grade, and on her hands and knees across the four hundred foot bridge with the warning which saved the express train. The railway company presented her with a one hundred dollar honorarium, for some years employed her as its station agent at Moingona and continued its courteous attention throughout her life. The Nineteenth General Assembly voted her two hundred dollars in cash, a gold medal and its thanks. Her life was that of a modest, useful citizen.

CAPTAIN EDWARD M. SHEEHAN was born at Independence, Iowa, September 27, 1880, and died of pneumonia, in the base hospital at Camp Cody, Deming, New Mexico, January 12, 1918. He spent his boyhood in Independence, attended school at Seminary Notre Dame, Independence, and the Independence High School, attended the Medical Department of the State University of Iowa for two years and finished his medical course at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, in 1905. He was connected for a time with St. Joseph's Hospital at Denver, Colorado, later practiced medicine two years at Elkader, Iowa, also a short time at Lamont, but returned to his former home at Independence in 1909 and entered practice there. He began his military career by enlisting in Company E, Forty-ninth Iowa Infantry on February 6, 1900, and remained a member until it was mustered out May 10, 1902. On June 16, 1902, he enlisted in Company L of the Forty-ninth Iowa Infantry and was commissioned second lieutenant. On February 12, 1907, he was honorably discharged, owing to his removal from the home station. On July 11, 1907, he re-enlisted and was commissioned second lieutenant and appointed battalion quartermaster and commissary officer of the Fifty-third Iowa Infantry. August 1, 1913, he was transferred to the medical corps as first lieutenant. When relations with Mexico became strained in 1916 he closed his office, abandoning a good practice, and joined his regiment at Brownsville. Returning home that winter he resumed his practice until the spring of 1917 when he entered service again, and was promoted to captain. He was put in charge of the recruiting station at Fort Dodge, and also of the companies who were guarding bridges and other property in Iowa, at Boone, Fort Dodge, Madrid and Jefferson. In the fall of 1917 for a time he was on duty in the base hospital at Camp Dodge, Des Moines. In September, 1917, he went with his regiment to Camp Cody, being on duty there at the time of his death.

Brigadier-General and Brevet Major-General A. J. Smith died at St. Louis on January 30, 1897. He was born in Buck's county, Pennsylvania, April 21, 1815. Both his grandfather and father were distinguished soldiers, the first in the Revolutionary war under General Washington, and the latter in the war of 1812. A. J. Smith graduated at West Point in 1838, and his record fills nearly two pages of Gen. Cullum's "Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U. S. Military Academy." He fought in the Mexican and Indian wars and had made a very excellent record at the outbreak of the Rebellion. On the Red river expedition - having risen to the command of a Division - there were three Iowa regiments in his command, viz: the 14th, 27th and 32nd Infantry. He took a prominent part in the expedition, but was in no sense responsible for the disastrous results which attended it. General Banks, in fact, gave him credit for saving his army at the terrible battle of Pleasant Hill, of which Mr. A. J. Barkley has written so entertainingly in this number of The Annals. He was idolized by his soldiers, who had the fullest confidence in him. He instilled so much of his dare-devil spirit into his men - and possibly was not too particular about certain little peccadillos in camp life - that they came to be characterized as "Smith's guerrillas." This designation seemed rather to flatter the old man's vanity. Some of our Iowa regiments were in his command at the battle of Nashville and were posted upon the inside of a breastwork or fortification, when General Thomas rode along. He inquired, "General Smith, will your men stand behind that work?" "Can't tell you anything about it! But by Blank they'll stand if you put 'em outside of it!" General Thomas was entirely satisfied with "Smith's guerrillas," and rode on. General Smith continued in the service, participating in many battles, until the close of the war, and was afterwards appointed postmaster of St. Louis by General Grant, holding the office several years. This necessitated his resignation, but at the expiration of his civil service Congress placed him upon the retired list of the regular army with the rank of Colonel. His last years had been very quiet, and he was well-nigh forgotten at the time of his death, save by the soldiers whom he had led in so many battles and hard marches. His surviving men have none but proud and kind recollections of "Old A. J."

Arthur George Smith was born at Wayne, Henry County, Iowa, November 27, 1868, and died at Iowa City, November 5, 1916. He was educated in common school, spent some time at Howe's Academy, Mount Pleasant, and was graduated from the State University of Iowa with the degree of A. B. in 1891. The same year he accompanied Professor C. C. Nutting on a trip into northern Canada for specimens. In 1891, after graduate work at Cornell University, he received the degree of A. M., and in later years did post-graduate work at the University of Gottingen, Germany, and the University of Cambridge, England. He became instructor of mathematics at the State University of Iowa in 1894, in 1904 was made professor of mechanics and physics, in 1909 head of the department of mechanics, and in 1911 professor and head of the department of mathematics and astronomy. He was chairman of the Iowa board in control of athletics for many years and one of the chief factors in the building up of University athletics. He was the author of numerous magazine articles on mathematics and physical science subjects. He was a member of the National Geographic Society, St. Louis Academy of Science, and of Greek letter societies.

Smith, Arthur St. C., Jr., entered the Naval Academy from Cedar Rapids, September 6, 1893, and is at present a Lieutenant on the Active List, serving on the Cruiser Des Moines.

DAVID STEWART was born in Huntingdon county, Pa. , March 24, 1830 ; he died at North Liberty , Jackson county, Iowa , June 10, 1910 . He received a common school education and engaged with his father in the operation of a woolen mill at his native place, until 1852, when he began to read medicine in Pine Grove, Center county, Pa. , attending at the same time the Jefferson Medical College , Philadelphia . He later studied and received a degree at Ann Arbor , Mich. , in 1855. He began the practice at Colerain Forge , Pa. , but removed to Pontiac , Ill. , in 1857, thence to Jackson county, Iowa , in 1860. He served as captain of Company E, 28th Iowa Infantry, and was promoted to the rank of regimental surgeon. He served as army surgeon for one year, and retired on account of ill health, being mustered out in July, 1863. He was for over forty years one of the prominent practitioners in his county and was a leader in every form of activity. He was especially prominent in the councils of the Republican party, being elected by that party to the state Legislature, serving in the House of the 13th General Assembly. He was a candidate again in 1892 and was defeated.

WILLIAM B. STREET was born at Shawneetown , Illinois , July 12, 1821 ; he died at Ormond , Florida , March 17, 1899 . He was the son of General J. M. Street , the distinguished Indian Agent. While he was still a boy his father resided for a time at Prairie du Chien, later at Rock Island , and later still at Agency City , Wapello county. He saw Jefferson Davis as a lieutenant in the army, and personally knew Blackhawk, Keokuk and other distinguished Indian chiefs. Gen. Street died in 1840 and was buried at Agency City . His son engaged in merchandising for several years, having stores at Agency City , Oskaloosa and Pella , at the same time. He settled at Oskaloosa in 1854, and engaged in banking with the late Judge William H. Seevers. In the financial revulsion of 1857 their bank failed, leaving them badly in debt. From this time forward he was employed the most of his time on a salary, being an expert book-keeper. After 1890 he spent the most of his time at Ormond , Florida . Mr. Street wrote a biographical sketch of his father which may be found in Vol. II of The Annals, 3d Series, pp. 81-105.