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WILLIAM H. HANNA, a former representative from Benton county, was born on the old home farm owned by his father, May 10, 1859. His father, Alexander Hanna, is given mention at length elsewhere in this work. William Hanna was educated in the public schools and remained on the home farm until twenty-two years of age, when he began working on his own account in Big Grove township, Benton county, operating the home farm four years, and then went to live on the seven hundred and twenty acre farm where he still resides. Here he has met with excellent success, and besides general farming raises a large number of hogs, also buys and feeds cattle for the market; he feeds all the grain he is able to raise on the farm, and buys from five to fifteen bushels of grain for feeding.
Besides his agricultural interests Mr. Hanna is identified with the following business enterprises: director of the Peoples Savings Bank of Vinton; Greeley State Bank, of Greeley, Nebraska; Farmers' Savings Bank, of Garrison; and the Benton County Telephone Company. In these he is a director. He is connected with the Benton county branch of the Corn Belt Meat Producers' Association, and is president of the Benton County Agricultural Society, to which office he was elected in 1908; he has been a member of the latter organization for twenty-two years.
Since attaining his majority Mr. Hanna has been actively interested in public affairs, and is a strong adherent of the Republican party. In 1906 he was elected as representative to the Iowa state legislature, and served as a member of the Thirty-second general assembly; he refused renomination on account of family and business affairs. He is an enterprising and public-spirited citizen and well-known in the community.
Mr. Hanna married Rachel M., daughter of Isaac and Martha (Voorhies) Bergen, born also in Big Grove township. Isaac Bergen died in November, 1905, at the age of seventy-seven years, and his wife died in February, 1905, at the age of seventy-two. He was born in Shelbyville, Kentucky, September 3, 1828. He came to Benton county in 1859, and at the time he crossed the Mississippi was just twenty-one years old. He started in as a farmer in Benton county a poor man, and at the time of his death owned some nine hundred and sixty acres in Big Grove township. His wife, Martha Voorhies, was born in Johnson county, Indiana, March 25, 1831. Isaac Bergen removed to Johnson county with his parents when three years of age, where he lived until locating in Benton county, Iowa. Mrs. Hanna is their only child who now resides in this county; she attended Tilford Academy and Cornell College. Mr. Hanna and his wife have two daughters, Roberta and Rosanna Belle, both living at home. He and his wife are members of the Presbyterian church of Garrison, of which he has been an elder some twenty years.
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