1890 Delaware and Buchanan Counties IA History pgs

1890 Delaware and Buchanan Counties IA History pgs. 630-633

STEPHEN J. EDMUNDS. At his pleasant country home in Delaware township, four miles east and north of Manchester, resides Stephen J. Edmunds, one of Delaware county's most intelligent farmers and most highly respected citizens, a brief biography of whom is here given.
Like most of the people of this county, Mr. Edmunds traces his ancestry to the early settled families of the Eastern States. His father, James
Edmunds, was a native of the town of Kent, Litchfield county, Conn., and came, as family tradition has it, of New England stock as far back as anything is now known of his antecedents. He was born in 1799, went to western New York when a young man, stopping in Oswego county, where he afterwards married a young lady, then of Dutchess county, N. Y., Miss Elizabeth Cutler, settled and began farming, and there resided till the spring of 1854, when he moved with his family to Delaware county, Iowa, where he ever afterwards lived, dying here at the home of his son, Stephen J., on the twenty-first day of July, 1884, then in his eighty-fifth year.

Mr. Edmunds' mother was a native of Dutchess county, N. Y., and was born in 1803. She died too in this county, at the residence of her son, August 20, 1879. The elder Edmunds was a farmer throughout life, an industrious and fairly successful one. He was of an exceedingly active disposition in his earlier years and an enterprising and public-spirited citizen. He filled a number of local offices in Oswego county, N. Y., where he lived many years, and was a strong factor in local politics. He was a life-long democrat and was well versed in the history and traditions of his party as well as in the general history of his country. He did not possess a controversial spirit, but he was able, when occasion demanded, to defend his views with force and understanding. He never aspired to any public positions further than he felt able to render himself useful to his fellow-citizens. His conduct both in public and private life was such as should characterize every man of wisdom and integrity. Elizabeth Cutler Edmunds was a woman who bore herself well in all the varied relations of life, possessing many of the best qualities of her sex and meeting her responsibilities as wife, mother, friend and neighbor with faithful exactitude.

These, James and Elizabeth (Cutler) Edmunds, were the parents of four children of whom the subject of this notice is the youngest. The eldest, Henry L., is a farmer residing in Delaware township, this county, and a sketch of him will be found in its appropriate place in this work. The third child, George R., was for some years a resident of Fayette county, his state, and died at his home in that county, on the twentieth day of September, 1880. The only daughter, Sarah Ann, now wife of L. C. Dudley, resides in Manchester, this county.

Stephen J. Edmunds, with whom the remainder of this article will be concerned, was born in Oswego county, N.Y., May 29, 1838. Fortunate in
having parents who appreciated the advantages which a good education gives its possessor, he received in youth a fair common-school training, being reared on the farm, and dividing his time in his boyhood days between his duties as a farm boy, and his attendance at the local district schools. Later on, coming to this state, he took an academic course at the Upper Iowa University at Fayette, Iowa. He settled to farming pursuits in this county on reaching his majority, and he has been steadily engaged in farming since. As might have been expected, he received some assistance from his father at the beginning of his career, but the most of what he now has, represents his own industry and management, aided in later years by his family. Mr. Edmunds owns a farm of four hundred acres in Delaware township, all of which is under cultivation and yields well. His place is furnished with a superior class of buildings, and the neatness and order in which everything is there found, tells the stranger of the thrift and good management that prevail on his premises. His residence crowning a gently sloping eminence, surrounded by spacious, well-kept grounds, ornamented with an artificial grove of native and transplanted trees and shrubbery, forms a pleasant sight to the eye, and is strongly suggestive to the passer-by of the quiet, clean and healthful home life of its owner.

Mr. Edmunds has been twice married, having had the great misfortune to lose his first wife, after more than ten years of wedded life, during which time she shared with him most of his early struggles. He married first, April 4, 1862, his choice falling on a neighbor girl, Miss Phoebe Ann Coon, daughter of Amos F. Coon, an old and honored citizen of Delaware county, a sketch of whom appears in this volume. The facts concerning the daughter's antecedents can be had by reference to that sketch. Mrs. Edmunds died February 1, 1875. She was the mother of seven children, all but one of whom survive her. The eldest, a daughter, Ella M., who was born March 1, 1863, died March 30, 1865. The others are -Charles F., born September 6, 1864; Vinton A., born January 12, 1867; Mabel, born June 1, 1868; Wheeler C. born February 1, 1870; Olin S., born August 2,1871, and Warren, born March 6, 1873.Mr. Edmunds was married the second time to Miss Belle M. Ross, then of Jones county, Iowa, but a native of Winfield, Herkimer county, N. Y., where she was born March 29, 1846. To this union has been born one child-Stephen B., born December 2, 1877.

Mrs. Belle (Ross) Edmunds is a daughter of Jonathan B. Ross, who was born in the town of Litchfield, Herkimer county, N. Y., in 1811, and died in Jones county, Iowa, in 1886. Her mother, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Ann Kinne, was a native of the same place, and was born March 18, 1818. She died in Jones county, this state, July 25, 1864. Mrs. Edmunds is one of fourteen children. The eldest, Abbie D., is the wife of W. H. Hickman and resides in the state Kansas. Jeremiah K, lives at Needles Cal. Chloe A., wife of Shelton Hickman resides in Jones county, Iowa. John B. lives at El Cajon, Cal. Olive A., wife of Lewis Wood, resides at LaCrosse, Wis. Martha E. is the widow of Seth W. Flint and resides in Linn county, Iowa. James D. died at the age of three. Oliver B. lives in Spencer, Clayton county, Iowa. Mary C. became the wife of Alfred White, and died, at about the age of twenty-five, in California. Julia I. die at the age of six. Ella L, wife of William Cowan, lives at Washton, Iowa. Alfred E. lives at LaCrosse, Wis., and Fred J. lives at Needles, Cal.

It need hardly be added in closing the sketch that Mr. Edmunds has taken great interest in the affairs of his township. The time has not been since he became a citizen of it that he has not held some position in connection with the administration of its civil affairs, and foremost in the promotion of its best interests, whether those interests were connected with civic office or not. He was township trustee for a number of years. He was president of the board of his school district for ten years, and secretary for four years longer. He is now and has been for three years past president of the Delaware County agricultural society, an association in behalf of which he has expended much time and energy seeking to encourage the farming and stock interests of his county and to better the condition of the farming community generally.

For his labors in this direction, as well as for those of a more general kind, Mr. Edmunds has been universally commended by the citizens of his county, and their approval, it is proper to add, he has well merited. A man of intelligence and discriminating judgment relating to all the interests of farmers, indefatigable for the success of any cause which he espouses, possessing strong systematic business methods, and of as kind and accommodating disposition as any man could be, he has deserved to succeed in his public labors as well as in his private ones; and the people of Delaware county have as much reason to congratulate themselves upon the possession of such a citizen, as they have to congratulate him upon the success he has achieved whether for them or himself.