1890 Buchanan and Delaware Counties pgs. 586-591
WILLIAM H. CONNELL, a representative farmer of
Delaware township, Delaware county, is a native of Leeds, Yorkshire, England,
and comes of old English stock, his ancestors having resided in Yorkshire as
far back as any records or family tradition give an account of them. His father
was the Rev. John Connell, born March 25,1804, in Yorkshire, being one of seven children of
Benjamin and Tamar (Burnley), Connell. John Connell married Elizabeth
Dixon, March 25, 1825; entered the ministry of the Methodist church about the
same date; immigrated to America in 1832, and settled at Waterloo, Seneca
county, N. Y., where he resided for some years engaged in ministerial labors;
moving in 1844 to Walsingham, Norfolk county, Canada,
and thence, in 1857, to Parkersburg, Butler county, Iowa, and ten years later
to Lawrence county, Mo.; returning in 1880 to Parkersburg, where he spent the
remainder of his life, dying near that place while on a visit to
relatives, March 16,1889. He spent almost his entire life actively engaged in
the ministry of the church, and was a powerful means in the hands of his Master
in the spread of the truths of the gospel. He first joined the primitive Methodist
church, and was licensed to preach by its authority; but after coming to
America, in 1843, he was active in the secession movement, out of which came
the Weslyan Methodist Church of America, being one of
the delegates that attended the Utica convention and took part in the
organization of the present Weslyan Methodist Church
of America; and when the first conference of that denomination was held at
Syracuse, he was one of the twenty-three ministers who were ordained by the
Revs. Orange Scott, Luther Lee and L. C. Matlock to preach
under the authority of the new organization. He was an itinerant minister
and carried the tidings of salvation to suffering men and women in widely
scattered regions, performing his labors amid great hardships and privations,
and often at the risk of his own life and health. He was a pioneer preacher in
all the localities where he served, and the duties which were imposed upon him
by reason of his position and relation to his church were throughout life of a most
exacting nature. Among the people of Parkersburg and vicinity, this state, he
is most pleasently remembered, many of whom among the
older citizens have sat under the sound of his voice and listened to him
expound the truths of the scriptures, receiving enlightenment from his
expositions and spiritual strength from his counsel and encouraging words. He
organized the first Methodist Episcopal church in Beaver Valley circuit, and labored zealously for
many years for its success. Parkersburg is now a part of it. He carried
with him, to that beautiful land toward which he had so long pointed the bright
and shining way, the genuine esteem, the sincere love and affection of all who
knew him, or knew of his valuable services in behalf of his fellow-men and the
cause of Christianity.
Our
subject's mother, Elizabeth (Dixon) Connell, was a daughter of John
and Susan (Dyson) Dixon, natives of Yorkshire, England, where they always resided, and
where, after long lives of activity and usefulness they died. The father was a
minister of the Wesleyan Methodist church, a zealous worker in his church as
well as in the cause of Christianity. Our subject's mother followed the
fortunes of her husband to America, and bore him a faithful and
affectionate companionship through all his labors and the changing scenes of
his career up to the time of her death, which occurred January
7, 1864.
The Rev. John and Elizabeth Connell were the parents of ten children, four of
whom are now living, and six deceased, four of the deceased ones dying in
infancy. The eldest child, a daughter, Susan, is now the wife of William
Wright, a farmer residing in Parkersburg, Butler county, Iowa. William H., the subject of this
notice, is the next. Benjamin, a farmer residing near Seattle, in the newly made State of Washington, is the third. The fourth is Elizabeth
B., wife of Stephen J. Oliver, a farmer residing near Attica, Harper county,
Kans. The two deceased ones who reached
any age were John, who died at the age of two years on the passage to America in 1832, and James, who died at the
age of twelve at Walsingham, Ontario, Canada.
William H.,
with whose personal history the remainder of this notice will be taken up with,
was born November
29, 1832.
He was, therefore, only a child when his parents came to America. He was reared
partly in
Waterloo, Seneca county,
N. Y., and partly in Walsingham, Norfolk county, Province of Ontario, Canada. He grew up on the farm and received
a fair English education. He came to Iowa with his parents in 1857 and
located at Parkersburg, Butler county. He was then a comparatively young man,
and had saved some money from his labor, having at that time about $160
in cash, which he, immediately on locating, invested in
public lands, buying forty acres, on part of which the present
town of Parkersburg now stands. After
a short residence there he
went to Alden, in Hardin county, this state, where he remained for about two
years. Returning then to Parkersburg, he settled on his farm and
resided there, engaged in agricultural pursuits till 1868, when he traded his
farm for one in Delaware county, being the
southeast, quarter of section 13, Delaware township, to which he moved and
where he has since resided. He has added to his original holding by
purchase until he now owns
two hundred and twenty-nine acres lying on the north line of Delaware and on the south line
of Clayton counties. He has been actively engaged during all
these years in farming and stock-raising, and it is but fair to say that
he has attained to more than ordinary success.
Mr. Connell has been identified with the best interests of
the several localities where he has resided
since coming to Iowa, always taking an active part in everything
looking to the advancement of the
material, social, educational and religious welfare of his community.
While residing in Butler
county he held the
offices of assessor and trustee of his township, and while a resident of Parkersburg, Butler county, was engaged during the
winters of several years in teaching in the local schools of the place.
Connecting himself with the Wesleyan Methodist church at the age of eleven, and
going from that to the Methodist Episcopal church shortly afterwards,
and from that to the Second Adventist church, in 1858, of which he has
since remained a member, he may be said to have
spent his entire life from the age of discretion in the
service of the church, taking a leading part as a lay member, and
giving to the doctrines and principles of those organizations, to which he has
belonged, much earnest consideration as well as a practical support in their
broader views and more catholic purposes. There is probably no man in the
limits of Delaware county who has done as much for the
Sunday-schools of that county, and indeed for the Sunday-schools' interest
of northeast Iowa, as Mr. Connell. Regarding the Sunday-school as the
cradle of the church and the church as the ark of safety for society, he has
labored zealously in founding new schools over the county, and in maintaining
an efficient organization where they have already been started. He has held a
number of official positions in connection with the Sunday-schools and
churches, the duties of which he has discharged with fidelity. He is the
present secretary of the North Iowa Second Adventist Conference. Mr. Connell is
an enthusiastic prohibitionist and has given a large share of his labors to the
suppression of the vice of intemperance.
March 20,
1853, our subject married Miss Ruth Siprell, of Walsingham, Ontario, Canada, this lady having been born in
Oxford, that province, October, 19, 1833, being a daughter of William and
Caroline (Gray) Siprell, natives of New Brunswick and
Nova Scotia, respectively. One child was born to this union, a son- John S.,
who was born in Walsingham, March
8, 1854.
Mr. Connell had the misfortune to lose his wife in November, 1854. He married
again January 28, 1857, taking as his second wife Miss Clarinda
Alden, then of Alden, Hardin county, Iowa. This lady was born in Conway,
Mass., May 5, 1834, and was a daughter of Henry and Hannah
(Richmond) Alden, both natives of Massachusetts, the father being a descendant
of John Alden, one of the pilgrims who came over in the Mayflower. The parents
came to Iowa in 1855 and settled in Hardin county,
the town and township of Alden in that county being named for him.
The father and mother both died there in the home of their adoption. The fruit of
Mr. Connell's second marriage was four children-Henry A., Oscar E., Susan D.
and Clara, all of whom are now deceased. Henry A. and Clara died in infancy.
Oscar E. was born in Parkersburg, Iowa, in 1859, became grown, married Mattie J. Miller, of
Delaware county,
and died in the same county in 1889. Susan D. was born in Parkersburg in 1861, became the wife of Dwight
Bushnell, of Delaware county,
and died in 1885. Mr. Connell lost his second wife March 7,
1866. He
married again September 9, 1866, taking to wife Miss Harriet E.
Alden, a sister of his former companion; the last wife being
a native of Conway, Mass., born March 20,
1844. This
union has resulted in the birth of six children-Grace E., born October 28,
1868, and died January 22, 1889; Amy B., born April 3, 1871; Bertha S., born
July 15, 1873; Ray W., born January 24, 1876; Willie A., born August 30, 1878,
and Myrtle L., born January 4, 1885.
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