JOHN S. DRYBREAD, grain dealer and farmer, residing at Greeley, Delaware county, is an early settler of Elk township, that
county, and enterprising, prosperous citizen, whose personal history will be
read with interest by many of his old friends into whose hands this volume
will fall. Mr. Drvbread is a native of Ohio and is a descendant of two of the early-settled
families of the Buckeye State. He is of German and Welsh descent, his
father's family coming originally
from Germany by way of
Pennsylvania, and his
mother's family from Wales, also by way of Pennsylvania. His father, George Drybread,
was born in Pennsylvania, as was
also his mother, whose maiden name was Eliza Jones. These were both taken to Ohio when they were young by their parents, George and
Susan Drybread, and William and Sarah Jones; settling
in Butler county, where the children
grew up, met and were married. Our subject's father never resided out of that
county after marrying, dying there at
the age of thirty-three. He was a plain, substantial farmer and
enjoyed the esteem and confidence of those who knew him. He left surviving him, besides his widow,
five children. The mother, after the
death of the father, moved with the children to Berrien county,
Mich., where she afterwards lived, dying there at the age
of seventy in 1881. Her parents died in
St. Joseph county, Ind., whither they moved from Ohio, both living to advanced ages. Our subject's
paternal grandparents died in Butler county, Ohio, where they settled on
moving from Pennsylvania. The five
children of George and Eliza Drybread grew up in Berrien
county, Mich., and from there took their several ways in life. All of them became grown, married and had
families. The youngest, George, died in Berrien
county, Mich., in 1851.
The remaining four came to Iowa, becoming citizens of Delaware county, where two of them died and two still live. The
eldest, William J., a farmer of Elk township, died at his home in 1872, his sensibly felt
by the community in which he resided. Henry, for some years a grain dealer at Greeley, Elk township, died at his home in that place in 1881.
Sarah, the only sister, is now the wife of Henry Miller, a farmer residing at Greeley.
John S., the second in the
order of birth of the five children here named, and the one of whom it is
designed to make especial mention in this article, was born in Morgan township,
Butler county, Ohio, February 12, 1823. His boyhood was spent in his native place, and his
mother moving to Berrien county, Mich., when he was a lad about sixteen years old, his
youth was passed in that county. He grew up on the farm and became inured to
the labors of farm life, having the monotony of these labors relieved by the
sports and pleasures also of that life. For the place and time in which he grew
up he received a fair common-school education, going to the old-fashioned
district schools held, as was the custom of those times, in the log
school-houses and presided over by some "down-east Yankee" who
"taught the young idea how to shoot," while the rustic possessor of
it taught himself how to shoot paper wads at his fellows in kindred iniquity,
and perform other tricks calculated to relieve the mental strain under which he
was liable to fall had he literally followed the master's repeated injunction
to mind his books. Thus growing up, receiving at least the rudiments of a good
English education, and having these well laid in habits of industry and
morality, our subject came to the estate of manhood. Like a dutiful son he
remained with his widowed mother until he attained his majority and gave her
the benefits of his labors up to that time.
In 1845, December 7th, he married, and then opened a new chapter in his
life. Feeling the importance of the step
he had taken, he settled down at once to farming for himself, and he industriously
pursued his calling in that county for nine years. Deciding on a change in his location at the
end of this time he came to Iowa in the spring of 1854, and purchasing two
hundred and forty acres of land, lying a mile and a half east of what is now
known as Greeley, in Elk township, Delaware county, he settled on it, and,
resuming farming, was for over thirty years so engaged on that place. Mr. Drybread's early
experiences as a Delaware
county farmer were such as most of the early settlers of the county went
through with, and such as have been recounted in a general way in the reminiscences
of old citizens contained in this volume.
There was toil and sport, plenty and want, hardships and pleasures, successes
and reverses, seasons of hope and seasons of despair, through all of which he
passed, and out of which, like all of those who labored earnestly, lived in
hope and managed well, he came triumphantly being now at least one of the
well-to-do men of his township, and
bearing the proud consciousness that
he has done as much as any other man of
his community towards building up that community in its material, social,
educational and moral aspects.
Mr. Drybread left
his farm in 1886 and moved to the town of Greeley, where he engaged in the mercantile and grain
business, and is so, in grain only, engaged at this time. He still retains his farm, however, and
owns in addition to the two hundred and forty acres constituting his original
purchase, one hundred and thirty acres which he has since bought. He has
brought all of this to a good state of cultivation and it yields him annually a
fair return for the time and labor expended on it. Let it be added that what
Mr. Drybread has accomplished since settling in
Delaware county, represents not alone his own labors, but his labors largely
augmented by those also of a faithful wife, who has stood by his side and
shared all his toils, and who happily yet abides with him. Mrs. Drybread, like her husband, comes of pioneer ancestry, and
she knows much from personal experience and early observation of the primitive
ways and means of getting on in the world, as practiced by the settlers of a
country. At the time of her marriage she was residing in Berrien county, Mich.,
where her girlhood had been spent, it being an early date for that locality
when her parents moved there. Her maiden name was Mary J. Wilson, and she was
the daughter of Harrison and Rebecca (Landen) Wilson.
She was born in Preble county, Ohio, in 1828. Mr. and Mrs. Drybread
have had born to them six children, only two of whom are now living, these
being the two youngest. The eldest child, a daughter, Alice, died at the age of
six years; Florence died in infancy; Harrison died, aged five; Henry and John both
grown, and the former now married, reside at Hartley, in O'Brien county, this state,
in the lumber business.
Mr. Drybread
has never taken much interest in partisan politics. He has held a number of
local offices which he has been induced to accept from a sense of duty as a
citizen, and the duties of which he has discharged with a conscientious regard
to the obligation which they imposed. He affiliates with the republicans in
partisan matters. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, belonging to the
blue lodge and chapter, at Greeley,
and to the commandery, at Manchester. He and his estimable wife are both members of the Universalist church.
Henry, the eldest son,
married Miss Effie L. Redden, of Delaware county. Iowa, May 8, 1881.
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