JACOB MANGOLD, farmer and live stock raiser, was
born in Switzerland November
11, 1832,
and is a son of Jacob and Anna (Wirtz) Mangold, both natives of Basil, a canton of the gallant
little republic. Jacob Mangold, Sr., was the owner of
a small farm and followed agriculture from boyhood until his death, in 1850,
at fifty years of age. His widow, with seven of her children, came to America in 1854, and now resides with a
daughter at Hannibal, Mo., aged eighty-five years. Jacob and Anna Mangold were parents of ten children, viz.—Jacob and John,
who died in infancy; Barbara, who was born in 1830, was married to Henry Ehler, now one of the members of the board of supervisors
of this county, and died in 1889; Jacob, the fourth child and the second of his
name in this family of ten; Elizabeth, who was married to Henry Doaring of Central City, Marion county, Ill., but who, with
her husband, is now deceased; Mary A., widow of Joseph Hilby,
of Hannibal, Mo.; John A., deceased; Rosina, deceased
wife of Peter Riger, of Delaware county; an infant
that died when but six months of age, and Carolina, wife of William Kranckrite, a farmer of Minnesota.
Jacob Mangold, our subject, was reared on his father's farm and
remained in his native land until twenty-one years of age, when he left the
only free country of Europe, excepting San Marino, for the great republic of
the Western continent Landing here, he first sought St. Louis, Mo., as a home,
but soon left that city, and for a year passed his time at Central City and
Highland, Ill. In the spring of 1854 he came to Iowa, and settled on the
farm on which he now lives, buying his land from the government at one dollar per
acre, and here he has since lived following farming, inhaling an air as pure as
that of his native hills and enjoying a freedom, politically, far in excess of that
which for centuries his ancestors had achieved and maintained among the Alpine mountains.
Trained to habits of industry and the earful attention to the cultivation of
every available spot discoverable in a mountainous country, it was to him a compartively easy task, in his imagination, to break up the
virgin soil
of the raw prairie of Iowa, stretched out on an almost level plain, but he
found the task to be somewhat difficult. Nevertheless he found it to be not so
difficult as that he had experienced in conquering the meager soil of the rocky
land from which he came, and in a few years after coming to Iowa he reached,
through his own exertions, a state of prosperity that he never could have
accomplished in his own country, in the same length of time. His homestead in
Delaware county, on sections 32 and 33, consists of four hundred and forty
acres, nicely improved with a most comfortable residence and all necessary
modern barns and other out-buildings, erected by himself since his taking
possession of the grass-covered prairie on which he settled on coining to
Iowa, and his farm is also embellished with lovely groves of trees, both
ornamental and available for useful purposes. In addition to his homestead he
owns a total of eight hundred and fifty-eight acres lying in this county, Linn county and Winnebago county, most of which is good farming land.
What compliment, or commendation, can apply to a man, who, beginning-life with
nothing and having but three hundred dollars when he settled in Iowa, and yet has acquired a fortune like
this, be adequate to his deserts? It is a task simply of supererrogation.
The present
fine dwelling of Mr. Mangold was erected in 1866, in
which year he married Miss Francisca Marshall, of Delaware county.
This lady is a daughter of John and Catherine Marshall, and was born in Bavaria, May 4, 1848. Her father now lives in this
county, but has had the misfortune to lose his wife. To Mr. and Mrs. Mangold have been born ten children, as follows—Louisa, who
died at the age of eight months; Caroline, at home, aged twenty-one; Johnnie,
aged nineteen; Carl, aged seventeen; Edward, aged fourteen; Jennie twelve;
William, nine; Henry, five; Arthur, three; Louis, one year old.
Mr. Mangold is raising stock in large numbers, and has at
present between one hundred and fifty head of cattle, from twenty to
twenty-five horses, and one hundred hogs, all of the
best breed.
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