Guthrie County >> 1884 IndexHistory of
Guthrie and Adair Counties, Iowa
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Guthrie County Press Lewis Apple -- Editor Vedette The editor and proprietor of the leading paper of Guthrie county, and a man well known by the press of this state as a strong writer and successful newspaper man, was born in Elk county, Pennsylvania, April 16, 1843. When a child, the family settled in Winneshiek county, Iowa, where he was reared and educated. In 1854 he entered the office of the Pioneer, where he worked at the printers trade one year. He then worked in the office of the Free Press. In 1858 that paper was moved to Fayette, Iowa, and in the winter of 1860-1 was moved to La Grange, Indiana. "Lew" followed the fortunes of that paper until the war broke out, and in 1861 (April) he enlisted in Company A, 21st Indiana regiment, from which he was discharged for disability May, 1862. He re-enlisted in December, 1863, in Company B, 12th Indiana cavalry, serving until mustered out of service at Nashville, Tennessee, in July, 1865. He then came north, and located in Kendallville, Indiana, where he worked on the Standard until 1868. He then came to Panora, and bought out the interest of W. G. Cambridge in the Vedette, which he has made one of the best local papers in the state. He was united in marriage November 3, 1868, with Miss Hattie Bixter, a native of Indiana. They have one child--Beaumont. Mr. A. was mayor of Panora in 1882-3. He is a member of the Independent order of Odd Fellows, A.F. and A.M., and of the G.A.R. Charles Ashton, editor of the Guthrian, was born June 2,1823, in the small village of Heighington, Lincolnshire, England. His parents emigrating to this country in 1832, settled in Richland county, Ohio, in his tenth year on a farm, and Charles was kept at such work as was incident to farm life in that region in that day, and pursued the farmer's calling until he was twenty-nine years of age, teaching a three or four months' term of school in four of the winter seasons. His opportunities for school advantages after reaching his ninth year were of the most meager cast. A very lowly log school-house, in which grammar was procluded from being taught, was his college privilege. Webster's spelling-book, Emerson's readers, Pike's, Smiley's and Ray's earliest arithmetical publications, the Western Calculator, and Olney's Geography and Atlas being the only textbooks; and with the copybook and the old quill pen embracing the entire curriculum, Algebra, grammar, philosophy, physiology, and the other staples now embraced in our common schools being an unknown thing in the old log-cabin school-house where our editorial subject gathered his smattering of the king's English. In June, 1845, he married Miss Mary Haverfield, and settled in Hardin county, Ohio, in an immense woodland swaly country to chop out a farm. At that sort of honest industry in that realm of darkness and hard work our editorial friend enjoyed life about as well as he would have enjoyed confinement in the penitentiary. In 1847 he was licensed as an exhorter in the M. E. Church. Some time afterward he was licensed as a local preacher. In 1846 he was a black abolitionist, and voted the old liberty ticket. He voted as a matter of course for Fremont in 1856, and has been too perverse ever since to vote anything else but a straight republican ticket. In 1856 he met with a large loss of property by fire. In 1860 he began the work of traveling preacher. In 1861 he met with a severe accident, that crippled him for life. In 1870 he was transferred from the Central Ohio to the Des Moines annual conference, M. E. Church, and came West and was stationed three years at Guthrie Center, then at Dexter two years, then at Harlan two years, and then at Carlisle two years. Since then he has resided in Guthrie Center, and when the Guthrian has not been running him he has been running it. He is now over sixty-one years of age, and is good for many years yet; would like to see another railroad come to Guthrie Center, and some manufacturing enterprises be built up in the place; big coal veins discovered. His children are--Francis M.,Jane E., now the wife of L. M. Clippinger; James H., William M., Henry, Hibbard K., Mary F., wife of C. A. Williams; Emma L. and John C. He has lost two children -- Edwin died in boyhood, and Martha E. at age of eighteen. Mr. Ashton wields a keen, sarcastic pen, and is perfectly fearless in his remarks, taking over the side of what he concieves the right, and battling manfully for the principles involved. He has made himself a power in the newspaper world and in the political life of the county. William M. Ashton was born in Hardin county, Ohio, April 16, 1852. On the 7th of May, 1866, he began work at the printing trade in the office of the Lima, Ohio, Gazette, continuing there for about fifteen months, then returning home. In September, 1870, being then but nineteen years old, he, in company with a younger brother, Henry Ashton, seventeen years of age, started on an overland trip in a one-horse open buggy from Lafayette, Allen county, Ohio, to Guthrie Center, Iowa, whither the family was then moving. The boys completed the trip on the twenty-fifth day after starting, having laid over four days on the route. On the 1st of January, 1877, our subject leased the Casey Clarion, then being published at Casey, with which he was connected until the spring of 1878, when he sold the lease and shortly after removed to Guthrie Center, and about the 1st of July of that year acquired an interest in the Guthrian, with which he has since been actively connected. October 17, 1878, he was united in marriage, in Guthrie Center, with Maria A., daughter of Wm. J. and Ellen McLuen (nee Marg). He has been township clerk since November, 1881, having been appointed to fill vacancy and elected in 1882. In 1879, W. P. Cowman purchased the interest of Mr. North [in the Casey Vindicator], and in 1881, M. Cowman bought out Mr. Shrader and it is now run by the Cowman brothers, and is a neat little sheet, well edited and newsy... Mr. Cowman, editor of the Casey Vindicator, is a native of Rockbridge county, Virginia, having been born in 1834. When an infant, his parents moved to Ohio. He came to Marion country, Iowa, in 1849, where he taught school for some three or four years. In the year 1853 he was elected justice of the peace and a member of the board of supervisors. In 1862 he enlisted in the 18th Iowa infantry, and after the war returned to Jasper county, and at Monroe. In 1874, he published the Des Moines Valley Herald, and one year later bought the Prairie City Echo. In 1876 he established the drug business, but soon sold out to Dr. Miller. He then came to Casey, and bought a half interest in the Casey Vindicator, and in August, 1880, he purchased A. J. Shrader's interest, and since that time has been the editor of our little city paper. Ham Kautzman was born September 30, 1847, in Logan county, Ohio, and moved to Guthrie county, Iowa in 1856, arriving at Panora on the 16th day of June. Commenced his career as a printer in 1862, in the Guthrie County Ledger office, then edited by V. M. Lahman. Some time afterward he became a publisher of the Ledger, in company with Joseph Dyson and Hon. D. M. Harris, the latter having the editorial management. Some months after he disposed of his interest, and engaged in the pursuit of learning harness and saddle making. From this his experience was varied, as were his meanderings, as a journeyman, until 1871, when he engaged as foremen on the Guthrie Vedette, which position he occupied until September, 1873. He than engaged in agriculture until the following spring, when he, in company with Henry Hess, purchased the Guthrie County Journal, published at Guthrie Center, from Luther Motz, and took editorial charge in the latter part of February. In May, F. A. Mannn purchased Mr. Hess' interest, and the new firm, Kautzman and Mann, enlarged the paper, changed the name to that of Beacon Light, the senior partner being the founder of the name, and also changed it from an independent paper to an anti-monopoly paper politically, and first issue appeared May 20, 1874. ...In March, 1875, F. A. Mann became sole proprietor [of the Beacon Light], purchasing the interest of his partner, and the journal assumed the position of neutrality, so far as politics were concerned. F. A. Mann was born At Mount Pleasant, Hamilton county, Ohio, August 17, 1839. This village is the original of Alice Cary's delightful "Clover Nook." Mr. Mann received his education at Farmer's college, Ohio, and came to Iowa in 1856, settling in Davis county. In 1862 he removed to Guthrie county and entered upon the newspaper business. He has since left the county and is residing in Florida. In May, 1877, E. H. Kimball purchased the Beacon Light and at once improved the quality of that journal, and changed the name to that of The Guthrian. William P. Moulton is a prominent and esteemed citizen of Stuart. He was born December 16, 1838, in Essex county, Massachusetts, and is the son of William and Mary A. (Porter) Moulton. He was there reared and educated, and realizing the advantages of having a trade, learned that of a shoemaker, in the place of his birth. In 1865 he came West, and worked six months at his trade in Milwaukee. From there he went to Chicago, working there one year; thence to Racine, Wisconsin, where he remained till 1869, when he was engaged in the organizing of trade societies in the Northwest. In January, 1870, he located in Stuart, where he was the first shoemaker. In 1876 he commenced editorial work on the Locomotive, following this up for two years, and since that time he has been prominently identified with the newspaper business of Stuart. May 19, 1879, he, in connection with J.E. Thode, purchased the Locomotive, and his writings have gone far toward making the paper a success. He was appointed postmaster of Stuart in January, 1882, which position he still acceptably fills. He was justice of the peace from 1871 to 1879, township assessor one term, and school trustee three years. He was married in 1862 to Miss Rebecca S. Dudley, a native of Massachusetts. They have had seven children, four of whom are now living. Their names are Nettie L., Benjamin C., Ruth A., and Myron D. Mr. Moulton is a member of I.O.O.F., a charter member of Stuart lodge and encampment; has been district deputy for two terms, and grand representative, and has held all the local offices in both orders. Charles R. Wright was born in Belmont county, Ohio, October 23, 1843, and is the son of John and Elizabeth (Brown) Wright. Charles R. served an apprenticeship as a printer in St. Clairsville, Ohio, where he finished his trade. He followed this for a livelihood until the time of his death, working in many of the principal cities of the Union, both East and West, having been employed in the leading offices of Iowa cities, such as Davenport, Burlington and Des Moines. He enlisted in the service of the United States government in the late war in 1861, in company A, 25th Ohio infantry, and was discharged in September, 1864. He re-enlisted in the 75th Ohio infantry, and was made sergeant major. He served three years and six months in his country's cause, after which time he came West, and for fourteen years past has been publishing newspapers in Dallas, Guthrie and Adair counties, having in this time edited the Dallas county News, the Stuart Register, the Dexter Herald, the Fountannelle Observer, and the Bagley Banner. He came to Bagley in October,1881, and was amoung the first to pitch his tent, and with a small hand-press commenced the publication of the Banner, which he afterward enlarged to seven-column sheet. He here received the appointment of postmaster, and was appointed agent for the Milwaukee land company and made president of the township school-board. He was notary public and justice of the peace, all of which he attended to in the best interests of his constituents and the public generally. His wife's maiden name was Jennie B. Shaffer. She was married in 1862, to M. M. Mestor, of Fulton, Illinois, and being left alone in the world with one daughter three years old, she came to Nevada, Story county, Iowa, where she was married to Mr. Wright in 1875. Jennie B. Wright is the daughter of Dr. S. M. and Elizabeth Shaffer, who were born in Sunbury, Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, where Mrs. Wright was also born. Since the death of her husband she has been appointed postmistress, and still continues the publication of the Banner. Her daughter, Lida, has the agency for the land company and is deputy postmistress. |