Jasper County >> 1894 Index
Grundy County
Marshall County

Portrait and Biographical Records of Jasper, Marshall and Grundy Counties, Iowa
Chicago: Biographical Pub. Co., 1894.

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Unless noted, biographies submitted by Dick Barton.

JOEL MACRILL.
 
To a person who closely applies himself to any occupation which he has chosen as his vocation in life there can come only good results, success and a high place in the esteem of those among whom he has made his home.  And Mr. Macrill is no exception to the rule, for it has only been by industry and strict attention to agricultural pursuits that he has attained the position he now occupies.  He owns one hundred and seventy-four acres of good productive land, and is engaged in general farming and stock-raising.  His pleasant residence is a home indeed, and at once a monument and reward of patient continuance in well-doing, hard toil and sober living. It is situated in Vienna Township, Marshall County, and his postoffice address is Marshalltown.  Mr. Macrill was born in Richland County, Ohio, September 7, 1824, to the marriage of John and Mattie (Heifner) Macrill.
 
The patents moved to Lincoln County, Ohio, about 1830, and from there to Lawrence County, Ill., where the father died about 1839.  After his death the family moved to the old homestead in Ashland County, Ohio, and there the mother made her home until 1861, when she came west, and resided with our subject in Marshall County until her death.  She was a native of Huntingdon County, Pa., and an excellent woman.  Our subject was bout six years old when his parents moved to Lincoln County, Ohio, and was still quite young when they removed to Lawrence County, Ill.  In 1854 he came to Marshall County, Iowa, where he entered one hundred and seventy-four acres, upon which he has resided since.
 
Joel Macrill was married in July, 1851, to Miss Sarah Ann Richey, in Ashland County, Ill., and a large family of children was given them.  John F., now forty years of age and single, resides at home; David W., aged thirty-eight, married Miss Flora Randolph, in March, 1878, and resides in Keith County, Neb., where he took up a homestead in 1885; Addie May, born in Marshall County, Iowa, in 1864, is single and at home; Edwin L., thirty-one years of age, is married and resides in Cherokee County, Kan.; Emma Jane married Jonas Johnson, a farmer, and is now living in Hamilton County, Iowa; Mary Alice, aged twenty-five, married John Thomas, and is residing in Marion Township, this county; Alva T., aged twenty-three, is at home with her parents, and Anna E., eighteen years of age, is also at home.
 
Our subject was but a boy when his father died, and the responsibility of taking care of the family fell on his shoulders.  On that account he was not as thoroughly educated as he might have been.  He was the eldest of the six children.  John, who is sixty years of age, resides with our subject; David, fifty years of age, makes his home in this state; Nancy, now fifty-eight years of age, married Joseph Reynolds, a farmer of Whiteside County, Ill.; Sarah, who is single, is fifty-six years of age and resides in Marshall County; Martha L., who is forty years old, married Charles Boon, and lives in Whiteside County, Ill.  Mr. Macrill is not interested in politics.  He is a Methodist in belief and has been identified with that church for forty years.  He is one of the county's most worthy citizens.

William Meissner

In this volume, dedicated to pioneers of the county, the full meed of praise and respect should be given to the gentleman whose name introduces these paragraphs, who was, in fact, one of the pioneers of Grundy county, having located here many years before even a railroad put in its appearance.

William Meissner was born in the city of Muhlhausen, in Thuringia, Germany, a son of Carl August and Amelia Fredericke (Roebling) Meissner, both of whom were born and reared there. His paternal grandfather was a trustee of the city revenue, while his maternal grandfather was a retail merchant. All of the family held to the Evangelical Lutheran faith.

Carl August Meissner started out early in life for himself, and from a small beginning soon became a prominent business man, and was the first to start the manufacture of American cotton goods in his section of the country. Owing to the unsettled feeling following the Revolution of 1848, however, he sold out and removed with his family to this country, following the example of thousands of others. Out subject, William, who was one of seven children in the parental family, with others had preceded him here, and they located on a farm near New York, at which point the father made headquarters for the family, most of whom had gone into business.

When our subject was eighteen years of age he showed evidence of having incipient consumption, and by medical advice he started out to try farming. After a few years spent among the stumps and stones of pretty Staten Island, he heard of the fine prairies in the northwest which were waiting for the settlers, and of the richness of their soil, which to him then sounded like a fairy tale. At that time large portions of Iowa land were thrown on the market, and his uncle, John Roebling, a well known engineer, became interested in these lands through an assistant engineer who was working for him. This assistant, Alex Gower, who was born at Gower's Ferry, Iowa, so interested Mr. Roebling in this part of the country by his enthusiastic descriptions of his native state that he had him look up the best lands for entering at that time, and as a result, in the year 1855, he entered a splendid tract of prairie land in the eastern part of the county, in what is now Black Hawk and Grant Townships, some of which lands extend far back into Black Hawk County.  The land fever had been infectious. Some of Mr. Roebling's friends, Mr. Knox, a lawyer in Pittsburgh, and Doctor Nurich, of New York, also secured several thousand acres in this vicinity, some of which land is even to-day held at high figures. Many other parties also took up these lands in a speculative way, and soon, with all of the choice land withdrawn from the market, many would-be settlers would have been debarred, and thus our subject became a prey to the land fever and borrowed $1,000, with which he entered eight hundred acres of land in sections 31 and 32 of Grant Township. He also accepted the proposition of Mr. Roebling to open a portion of his land with a stock farm in view.

In the fall of 1855, in company with his brother Frederick and Alex Gower, he first set foot on Grundy County soil. His brother entered for himself and a friend two sections southwest of Grundy Centre, which he later sold to Mr. Boies, and it now forms part of the Governor's farm.  Mr. Gower received from Mr. Roebling commissions for effecting entries of some eight hundred acres now known as the Rugg Farm. On their trip west they passed three or four log cabins after they left Waterloo, and found two more close together in the timber, the habitations of Mr. Freels and William Cramer, truly hospitable pioneers, who, with their families and a few more were the only settlers for many miles around on the creek. The country, however, was delightful, and our subject returned in the spring of 1856 for good, inducing E. H. Beckman, who was then in Illinois, to come along with him, and he proved one of the best men the county ever had. Mr. Roebling, unlike other land speculators, intended opening and improving a large portion of the eland himself, but heavy cost, combined with the distance to market, soon caused him to give this up. The next year Mr. Meissner started out entirely on his own accord, and with less than a dozen settlers in the two townships, remained there for nearly ten years. Those on the Government stage route were considered the best located, while the grand stretch of fine prairie immediately north and northwest seemed to offer no inducement to settlers, and for nearly ten years hardly a team passed his house. Any attempt at settling the neighboring country beyond, as undertaken by one or two, was ridiculed. During this time a few of the pioneers left, but a few welcome new-comers took their places. For years the nearest market was Waterloo, and there a few loads of produce would drug the market. At the time the settlers were obliged to pay as high as $8 cash in gold for a barrel of salt and other things were high in proportion.

A county seat was finally established, and the county was organized and a court house built, but all the people were so engaged with their own labor that politics did not cut any figure. When the county judgeship was abolished, Mr. Meissner served as Supervisor from his town for several years because no one else would go. In the meantime things had changed there, as the war had broken out and drawn upon the population of the thinly settled country as everywhere else, and no influx could be looked for in the near future. Here were the settlers with a world of beautiful land around them in the hands of speculators, acting as a most effective drawback on progress. The former's labor increasing values under exorbitant conditions, left for them their pains and costs. The latter were reaping the profits. Mr. Roebling was willing to sell at reasonable figures, some other speculators likewise, who like some of the settlers found themselves land poor.

In 1858 our subject made a trip to Germany, and while there married Miss Elfride Beckman. While in the old Country he wrote, had printed, and to some extent circulated, a descriptive pamphlet of Iowa, dwelling more especially upon his immediate district. Though there was no apparent gain from this at the time, a few years later a gentleman, popular all over Germany, Gustave Struve, Hecker's compatriot in Baden in 1848, and for many years an exile from his country, who spent his time in the United States, and whose history of the United States is favorably known, obtained one of Mr. Meissner's pamphlets and corresponded with him with a view of locating an industrial Germany immigration on Mr. Roebling's and Doctor Nurich' lands. Mr. Struve re-published the pamphlet, together with the large correspondence, giving detailed information in regard to the country. He wrote Mr. Meissner that he had distributed them by the thousands all over Germany and was receiving many letters of inquiry regarding the same. After having expended over $500 in publishing the same, together with a publishing firm in Coburg, and not having received one bona fide application, they gave up the project, but good seed was sown. By the time of the close of the war, however, a railroad was projected, which accomplished in one season more than had been done otherwise in years. Many changes of land were made from large holders and became the property of actual settlers. It was not until 1876, however, that the first railroad entered this section of the country, while another road, which was projected in Waterloo in 1855, and which was the most vital to this locality, was not completed until twenty-nine years later, when the splendid road-bed along the Black Hawk bore the first trains in 1884. Many of the old settlers had become land poor before that time, and others had departed and new- comers moved in, many of whom outstripped those who did the pioneer work in the country. Schoolhouses and churches have sprung up now, new organizations have been effected, and the new generation have profited much by the benefit of the labor of those who preceded them. The prairies of Grundy County have become the finest agricultural district in the state, and the hard times spoken of elsewhere are not felt in this locality.

Of the many fine farms in this county, Cloverdale Farm, the property of Mr. Meissner, stands pre-eminently as one of the finest and most cherished of the old homesteads there. Many farmers have retired with ample competency, and most of them have removed to town. Others, like Mr. Meissner, have cherished the old homestead, which they have maintained for headquarters for the younger generations. Among his many friends and relatives here our subject has decided to spend his remaining years in the enjoyment of the competency which he has well earned by his many years of faithful and efficient work for the upbuilding of the community.

ALEXANDER M. MILLER, who makes his home on section 1, Timber Creek Township, Marshall County, is one of the public-spirited citizens of this community.  He is one of the respected early settlers of the county, having been engaged in cultivating his present farm since 1865.  the farm owned by Mr. Miller comprises two hundred acres, all of which is under cultivation, with the exception of twenty acres of timber land.  In 1867 he erected a residence at a cost of $3,000, and in 1876 built a substantial barn, 42x50 feet in dimensions, at an expense of $1,600.  Soon after he became the owner of this farm, Mr. Miller set out an orchard of bout one hundred trees.  He is engaged in mixed farming, but his attention is principally devoted to raising and feeding cattle, of which he ships from one to three carloads per annum.

Alexander M. Miller, Sr., who was born in 1800 in Vermont, was, in turn, a son of one Alexander who came from Scotland, settling in Ryegate, Vt.  Our subject's mother, Jane (Caldwell) Miller, was also born in the Green Mountain state.  She was born in the year 1806, and was the daughter of James Caldwell, a native of Scotland.  She died in 1875, but our subject's father survived until 1890.  They were the parents of nine children, of whom six grew to maturity, and only three are now living:  Martha J.,  Mrs. John Gilfillain, of Barnett, Vt.;  our subject;  and Archibald A., whose home is in Lunenburgh, Vt.  One son, Thomas J., served in the Civil War, and was a Color-Bearer.  He was killed on Green Brier Ridge by sharpshooters.  Alexander Miller, Sr., was a supporter of the Democratic party, and was for some years Justice of the Peace.  Both he and his wife were active workers in the Reformed Presbyterian Church, in which the former was a Deacon.

The subject of this brief record was born March 31, 1832, in Ryegate, Vt., and was reared to farm life, receiving common-school advantages.  In 1850 he started for California, going by the way of the Isthmus of Panama, and after a four weeks' journey landed at the mines, in which he worked for nearly five years.  He left for home in October, 1855, and found that on the whole he had been quite successful, as he had cleared $1,400 above his expenses.  For the following ten years he carried on the homestead farm.  In 1863, he was drafted into the army for service, but paid an exemption fee of $300.  Since his nineteenth year his hearing has been impaired, and in one ear he is entirely deaf.

It was in the year 1865 that Mr. Miller came to the west.  He was married in 1856 to Miss Sarah J., daughter of Robert and Mary (Brock) Gilkerson, both natives of Vermont.  The former was born in 1806, and the latter in 1812.  The father is still living, and is passing his declining days at the home of our subject.  Mrs. Miller is one of three children, and the only surviving member of the family.  She was born January 6, 1837, at Barnett, Vt., where she received a common-school education.  By her marriage she became the mother of seven children, five of whom are living.  Robert Bruce married Clara Walters, by whom he has two children.  Portus wedded Miss Lillie Oviatt, and has four children.  Mary J. is a graduate of the Kindergarten College of Chicago, and is at present Principal of  school in that city; she is secretary of the Kindergarten Club at Chicago, and was a delegate to the Woman's Congress at the World's Columbian Exposition.  Sarah Louise is a student at the Kindergarten College in Chicago; and Martha Mabel is the youngest of the family.  They have all been given exceptional educational advantages, thus qualifying them for the battle of life.

Our subject and his wife are members of the United Presbyterian Church, and for thirty years past the former has been an Elder.  For a like period of time he has been a teacher in the Sunday-school, and has also served as Superintendent.  In this school district he has been Director for fifteen years, and was one of the organizers of the district. For many years he has been Justice of the Peace, and has been called upon to fill other township offices.  In politics he was until of late years a Republican, but is now a Prohibitionist.  Mr. Miller is Treasurer of the Marshall County Temperance Alliance, and has frequently been a delegate to conventions.  In 1872 he started the Marshall County Mutual Fire Insurance Company, of which he was the First President, and acted as such for ten years.  He has since been Secretary, and has the business management upon his shoulders.  This company is composed of six or seven hundred farmers, and has a capital stock of $800,000.  Our subject is also agent for the Iowa Cyclone Insurance Company and for the Hail Insurance Company.

E W. Mitchell, Justice of the Peace at Newton, was born in Hanover, N.H., June 13, 1826. His father, Jacob Mitchell, was of Scotch ancestry, and was a jeweler by trade. The mother of our subject, Amarilla (Wright) Mitchell, came from good old Puritan stock, and was the sister of John S. Wright, the wealthy Boston merchant. When our subject was but two years old, the parents removed to the Empire State, and located on a farm in Livingston County, some six miles south of Geneseo. When he was ten years of age, he went to Geneseo, where his mother had a brother who was a merchant. Being naturally of an industrious disposition, he assisted his uncle in the store and attended school. After this he spent five years in the dry-goods store of W. W. Bond, of Geneseo, N. Y., where he worked for his board and clothes, keeping the books and almost taking charge of the whole business. The last year he received $150 for his services. After leaving the store he went from city to city, going as far west as Detroit, and disposing of bankrupt stocks of goods.

Our subject if the youngest of four brothers, one of whom, H. F., had gone west and made considerable money as a land speculator, and at that time was a farmer living near Canton, Ill. He and our subject formed a partnership under the firm name of H. F. & E. W. Mitchell, and engaged in the mercantile, grain and pork-packing business in Canton, Ill., his brother furnishing the capital. This partnership continued for five years, when our subject sold out his interest and went into the general merchandising and pork-packing business at Farmington, Ill., with A. D. and H. Reed, under the firm name of A. D. Reed & Co., it being one of the largest packing and mercantile firms in the west, but he only remained one year. He again sold his interest to his partner, and he and his brother once more entered into partnership, building a business house at the corner of Third and Brady Streets, in Davenport, Iowa, and engaged in the dry-goods business, but after two years sold out to his brother.

In 1856, our subject came to Newton, and was in the mercantile trade for about a year and a half, when he again sold out, and since that time has been in public positions. He filled the office of Constable and City Marshal for several years, Justice of the Peace twelve years, and served two terms in the City Council. During this time he was Government Internal Revenue Assessor of the county. April 26, 1867, he was appointed Government Inspector of the Fourth Iowa District, holding this position until the revenue law on tobacco, snuff and cigars was repealed, when he was appointed Deputy Sheriff of Jasper County. This position he held for some years, and about the year 1878 engaged in the book and stationery business with his son under the firm name of J. J. Mitchell & Co. In this he continued until 1888. In 1890 he was again elected Justice of the Peace, and re-elected in 1892, he still fills the position. Politically, he has been a Republican ever since the party was organized.

Mr. Mitchell was united in marriage October 18, 1848, in Canton, Ill., to Miss Margaret F. Freeman, of that place. Of this union there were nine children, two of whom died in infancy, Laura Deborah, born in Canton, Ill., and Herbert Hamilton, born at Newton, Iowa. The eldest son, Rev. James J. or J. J. (as he is familiarly called), was born at Canton, Ill. He removed with his parents to Newton and received most of this education in Pella and at Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa. He was studying to be a Congregational minister, but his health failed and for a time he engaged in business with his father. In the fall of 1885 he became an ordained Congregational minister and was pastor of the Wittenburg church. He is now pastor of the Congregational Church at Chester Centre, where he is located with his family. He is one of the great workers in the Iowa Chautauqua Assembly; he was its first President, and is now the Superintendent of Instruction and one of the Board of Trustees, and is justly called the Father of the Assembly.

Charles F. was born in Canton, Ill., and removed with his parents to Newton. When he was grown he became a harness-maker. He worked at his trade most of his life, and carried on the harness business successfully for several years at oxford, Iowa. He then came to Newton and worked in the book and stationery store of his father and brother. He made a good clerk and was liked by all who knew him. He died from the effects of injuries caused by an accident that occurred at the depot at Newton in the year 1885, at the age of thirty-two years.

Carroll F. was born at Davenport, Iowa. As soon as he was old enough he went into a drug store and learned the business. He worked at the drug business at Grinnell for more than ten years. Then he studied law under Judge Winslow, and was admitted to the Bar at Newton. After a short time he left law and became a commercial traveler. He traveled first for a Des Moines house, then for a New York firm, and later for a Chicago house. While traveling for the latter he made his home in Minneapolis, Minn. At length he left the road and engaged in business in the city, but in the summer of 1893 he sold the business he was engaged in and accepted a position in a large drug store in San Francisco, where he is now located with is family. Willis M., Mary E., Arthur L. and Gertrude F. were born at Newton. Willis M. is an artist of note, and is now located at Minneapolis. He did the artistic work in the Congregational Church at Newton, which is considered to be one of the finest pieces of fresco work in the state.

Mary E. is a graduate of the high school at Newton, and for a while studied music in the conservatory at Grinnell, and is now residing at home with her parents. She gives music lessons on the piano and organ. Arthur Lynn was a natural artist and become as expert in his art; he was working in a studio when he was taken sick, at Denver, Colo., where he died January 21, 1891. His body was brought home and interred in the Newton cemetery.

Gertrude F. was graduated at the high school at Newton, after which she taught country schools several years, and then attended the State Normal School at Cedar Falls, and by her untiring zeal completed the high school course in two years, and graduated with honor in 1890. In the fall she accepted a position in the Des Moines schools, which she held until in January, 1893, when she accepted a position in the schools of Minneapolis, and is considered one of the best educators in Minnesota. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell have a family of more than ordinary ability, of which they may be justly proud. They are members of the Congregational Church.