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PETER SHUTTS, who died in 1905, at the age of ninety-three years, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. LaRue, in Big Grove township, he came to Benton county in 1858 and there spent the remainder of his life. He was born in Otsego county, New York, August 26, 1811, a son of Simon Shutts, who was also a native of New York, where he lived and died. Simon Shutts was a farmer and was of Dutch descent.
Peter Shutts was reared in his native town, and followed farming all his life. In 1858 he removed to Iowa and purchased a farm in Big Grove township, where he lived many years. He retired and lived on his farm except two years spent in Vinton. Mr. Shutts was a stanch Republican, although he never held public office. He was well known in the community, and was universally liked and respected.
Peter Shutts married, in New York, Orpha A. Rose, also a native of New York, who died in 1861, on the old home farm, leaving four children, namely: Mrs. Mary E. Coppoc, of Holt county, Nebraska; Mrs. LaRue, of Big Grove township; Lewis E., and Harvey L., a travelling man, now living in northwestern Iowa. Mr. Shutts married (second) Mrs. Crumet, also now deceased.
Lewis E., the older of the two sons of Peter Shutts, was born October 19, 1847, in Potter county, Pennsylvania, the family home for some twenty years. He was ten years of age at the time the family located in Benton county, and there received his education in the public schools. He has since followed farming and stock raising, and owns two hundred acres of land, which he has himself improved; his home is on section 33 of Big Grove township, where he has lived since his marriage in 1876, with the exception of two years when he lived retired in Vinton. He now carries on his farm, with the assistance of his son.
In 1862 L. E. Shutts enlisted in Company G, Thirteenth Iowa Regiment, under Colonel Shane, and served about two years. He was in the Seventeenth Army Corps, in the Western Army, and was wounded, spending five months in a hospital at Chattanooga, Tennessee. Upon his return he resumed farming, and has met with good success for he is an ambitious, enterprising farmer. Mr. Shutts is a member of P. M. Coder Post No. 98, Grand Army of the Republic, of Vinton, in which he has filled several offices. His wife is a member of the Baptist church.
In April, 1876, L. E. Shutts married Catherine Smith, born in Canada, in 1854, but reared in Maine; she is a daughter of William and Naomi (Elliott) Smith, the former a native of England and the latter of Maine. William Smith died in Maine before 1860, having been engaged there in railroad construction, and his widow afterward married Isaac Jacobs, who brought the family to Muscatine, Iowa; later they located in Big Grove township, Benton county, where both died. William Smith and his wife had one son, J. W., of Cedar Rapids, and besides Mrs. Shutts, one other daughter, Mrs. George Fry, of Marengo, Iowa. Mrs. Shutts received her later education in Iowa, where she attended the public schools. Mr. Shutts and his wife have three children, namely: James E., Mabel and Ray, the last named living at home. James is a pharmacist and lives in the state of Washington; he married Orella Courrier and they have one son, James Lewis. Mabel is the wife of L. E. Healy, of Waterloo, Iowa, where he is employed at the Litchfield Manufacturing Plant.
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