DANIEL ARTIST.
Daniel Artist is one of the earliest settlers in Greeley township, this county. He settled here in 1877 when there were but two houses between his farm in section 25, of Greeley township, and Exira. In those early days he was compelled to ship the lumber for the small house he built on his farm from Rock Island to Adair and haul it by wagon from Adair to the farm. Mr. Artist's first house was sixteen by twenty-four feet and had only two rooms downstairs and a small room upstairs. Mr. Artist gave four years of his life to the service of his country during the Civil War and today is regarded as one of the most substantial citizens of Audubon county.
Daniel Artist was born in Connelsville, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, in 1838, the son of Isaac and Marguerite (Smitzen) Artist, who died when their son, Daniel, was a small lad. He received but a limited education and in 1858, when he was twenty years old, went to Rock Island county, Illinois, where he lived on a farm until the breaking out of the Civil War.
On August 1, 1861, Daniel Artist enlisted in R. H. Graham's company of volunteer cavalry and went to Ft. Leavenworth to go in Jim Lane's command and was sent to Lexington. At the battle of Lexington, Missouri,
on September 20, 1861, he was taken prisoner and, after taking an oath not to fight against the state of Missouri or the Confederate states, he was sent home. An interesting circumstance in connection with the battle of Lexington is here narrated. A soldier having been wounded and having asked for water, the lieutenant in active command of the company, asked for a volunteer to procure some water for the suffering man. It was almost certain death to undertake to get the water in the face of the enemy's trenches. However, Daniel Artist was a willing volunteer and was successful, not only in getting water for his comrade, but in escaping back to his
own line, amid a rain of bullets, the land being plowed up all round him by the leaden missiles. On August 12, 1862, Mr. Artist re-enlisted under Capt. Gabriel Armstrong in Company G, One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Regiment,
Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and served until July 12, 1865, receiving his discharge at Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Though he served throughout the entire war, he was not engaged in many hard battles, the siege of Vicksburg being the crowning incident of his military career. After the fall of Vicksburg, most of his service was performed in Arkansas, where he was engaged in fighting guerillas. At the close of the war Mr. Artist returned
to Illinois and resumed farming, remaining there until 1877, when he came to Iowa and settled on the farm in section 25 of Greeley township, where he has since lived.
On October 31, 1867, Daniel Artist was married, in Rock Island county, Illinois, to Sarah A. Morgan, who was born on February 10, 1847, in Wales, the daughter of Llewellyn and Sarah (Williams) Morgan, the former of whom was a miner and stonemason by trade. He came to the United States in 1842, but returned to his native land, was married, and in 1848, came back to this country, bringing with him his family. They first settled in Pennsylvania, but later migrated to Illinois, where the father lived until his death. The mother then came to Audubon county, where she spent the rest of her life.
To Daniel and Sarah A. (Morgan) Artist eleven children have been born, as follow: Ida, who married William Newman and has four children, Mary, Clyde, Floyd and Lola; Sadie, who married Charles Marean and has one daughter, Mildred; George, who married Ella Flynn and has two children, Martha and Esther; Mary Irene (deceased) was the wife of Charles Marean and had one child, Earl, who is deceased; John, who married Mamie Goochey and has four children, Homer, Hugh, Helen and Margery; Clyde, deceased; Elmer, who has a homestead in Montana; Anne, who became the wife of Elmer Fogg; Clara, who married Dayton West; Madge, who is the wife of Wilbur Couts, and Robert, who lives at home.
Mr. Artist is a member of Morton post, Grand Army of the Republic, at Exira and is a Republican in politics. He has served as school director and as justice of the peace in Greeley township and gave satisfactory service in both positions. The Artist family are members of the Bowman Chapel Methodist Episcopal church.
A veteran of our great Civil War and a hard working, industrious and enterprising citizen in the time' of peace, affable and kindly in all of the relations of life, Daniel Artist is well entitled to the respect and admiration of the people of this county. Having saved from his earnings during the productive period of life, he is now blessed with a competence which he can enjoy during his declining years..
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Contributed by Cheryl Siebrass, April, 2016, from History of Audubon County, Iowa Its People, Industries and Institutions With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Many of the Old Families, by H. F. Andrews, editor, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Company, 1915, pp. 590-592.
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