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JONATHAN URMY. As a respected citizen of this county, a successful farmer and a gentleman of sterling worth and integrity, we take pleasure in giving a few facts connected with the past life of the subject of this notice, who is resident on section 15, Monroe Township. He was born in Washington County, Ind., Nov. 8, 1838, and is a son of Jacob and Mary (Phillips) Urmy, the former a native of Lexington, Ky. The parents were married in the latter State and soon afterward emigrated to Indiana, locating in the heavy timber of Washington County. Here the father cleared a farm and was engaged in its improvement and cultivation for some time, and in 1840 disposed of his property and removed to Jackson County, Ind. There he again took a wild track of land, and again entered upon the laborious task of clearing and improving another farm. He continued to reside upon it with his family until 1853, when he moved to this State, locating in Linn County. In the spring of the following year he moved to this county and took up residence on section 15, Monroe Township, where for the third time in his life, he entered upon the tasks of improving and making a farm from the wild, uncultivated land.Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Urmy were the parents of nine children — five sons and four daughters, of whom the following are yet living: Our subject; Susanna married George W. Young, who is deceased, and she is living in Allen County, Kans.; John W. is a resident of Missouri; William lives in Dysart, Tama Co., Iowa; Ann M. became the wife of Rev. Solomon Cross, and they are living in this county; and Jacob is a resident of Dysart. The parents were members of the Christian Church from early life. They were respected and honored for their straight forward and honest dealings and their kindness of heart, and no word of censure for an act of theirs was ever heard. The father passed to eternal rest Jan. 17, 1862, and his good wife Jan. 16, 1871.
The subject of the notice was brought up a farmer's boy, and received a common-school education. He came to this county with his parents in 1854, and has been closely identified with its agricultural development for upward of thirty years. He was married here, June 12, 1860, to Miss Harriet Turner, born in DeKalb County, Ill., in 1839. The issue of their union has been eight children, all living. They are Charles W.; Nellie A., wife of Frank Slarbaum; Arthur W., Harvey, Aggie, Frederick, Bell and Cleveland. Mr. Urmy has been identified with the county of Benton for over thirty-two years, and has lived to see the wild and uncultivated prairies brought to the highest state of agricultural development and transformed into beautiful and productive farms, with splendid residences and improvements upon them. On first locating here his nearest market was Cedar Rapids, and what they used in those early days they procured in Dubuque. Vinton was but a collection of a few log cabins, and our subject hardly imagined that it would become the thriving little city that it is today.
In politics our subject is a Democrat, with which party his father affiliated. He has held several local offices, and religiously he and his wife are members of the Christian Church, and he was Elder of a congregation of that denomination for many years. Our subject, by energy and economy, coupled with good judgment and active cooperation of his good helpmeet, has been enabled to add to his original acreage until at this writing he is the proprietor of 400 acres of good farm land in Monroe Township, which is valued at $40 per acre. He had a brother in the late Civil War, a member of the 9th Iowa Cavalry, who died at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, from disease contracted while in the army.
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. 351.
Transcribed by: Sue Soden. Submitted to the Benton County IAGenWeb Project on April 19th, 2007. Copyright © 2007 The IAGenWeb Project.
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