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WILLIAM M. ST. CLAIR, farmer, residing on section 27, Cedar Township, was born in Indiana County, Pa., March 18, 1833. He is a son of Hugh and Margaret (Mack) St. Clair. He left home when twenty years of age, and went to Crawford County, Pa., where he learned the carpenter's trade, at which he worked until 1857. At that time the great Northwest was attracting the attention of many of those who were of a migratory turn of mind, and Mr. St. Clair may be classed among the number, and as a consequence he turned his face toward Iowa and came to Vinton, where he continued to work at his trade. In 1858 he went to Kansas and spent one year, and from there to De Kalb County, Mo., in the spring of 1859, still continuing to work at his trade. In February, 1861, the war feeling being bitter, he left Missouri, returning to Iowa, and bought a farm and raised his first crop in 1862; in the meantime as opportunity offered he worked at his trade. In August, of that year, he gave up his farming and trade, feeling that his country needed his aid in another direction, enlisted in Co. D, 28th Vol. Inf., and served until Dec. 19, 1863, when he was discharged for physical disability, resulting from a gunshot wound received in the left thigh at the battle of Champion Hills, May 16, 1863. On his return from the army, he again engaged in farming, and has continued that occupation ever since.
Mr. St. Clair was married in Vinton, Jan. 12, 1865, to Miss Mary E. Kirkpatrick, daughter of W. F. and Lydia (McVey) Kirkpatrick. She was born in Adams County, Ohio, and came to Iowa in the spring of 1855, with her parents, who located at Vinton in the fall of the same year. Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair are members of the United Presbyterian Church. In politics he is a Republican. Mr. St. Clair has a fine farm of 100 acres, upon which he has made a number of improvements, and makes a specialty of Short-horn cattle, Norman horses and Poland-China hogs.
Source Citation: "1887 Benton County, Iowa Biographies" [database online] Benton County IAGenWeb Project. <http://iagenweb.org/benton/>
Original data: "Portrait and Biographical Album of Benton County, Iowa." Chicago: Chapman Brothers, 1887, p. 303-304.
Transcribed by: Sue Soden. Submitted to the Benton County IAGenWeb Project on February 12th, 2009. Copyright © 2009 The IAGenWeb Project.
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