JAMES T. McFEE

MCFEE

Posted By: Jake Tornholm (email)
Date: 4/21/2020 at 12:10:50

JAMES T. McFEE, proprietor of the Belle Isle Farm, is a dealer and importer of Clyde, Shire and Hackney horses, and also Shropshire sheep. He is one of the well known and popular stock men of the Blue Grass country, having been in the business fourteen years. His Shire horse,
Charon, received the sweepstakes at Corning; his Clyde horse, New Moon, received the first prize of its class; and his Hackney horse, Nestor, received first premiums wherever he has been shown. Mr. McFee goes to England and Scotland, where he buys the best horses to be found in those countries. At Belle Isle can be found the finest imported horses in southwestern Iowa.
He has also a number of imported Shropshire sheep, which are second to none in the West. Mr. McFee is a good judge of stock, a successful business man, and honorable and just in all his dealings.

He came to this country March 17, 1871, where he has since resided and made his home. He was born in Peterborough county, Canada, March 28, 1844, a son of Hugh McFee a native of Roxburghshire, Scotland. The latter was a son of James and Mary (Forsyth) McFee, natives of the same place. Hugh McFee was married to Margaret Tully, a native of Scotland, and they had
seven children, five sons and two daughters. They lost one son by death. James T., the subject of this sketch, is their eldest child and was reared on a farm, and received a common-school education. In 1871 he came to this county and settled on 160 acres of wild land, which he has since made his home. He now owns 560 acres in Grant township, Adams county, and eighty acres in Union county. He has two barns, one 52 x 64 feet, and the other 48 x 50 feet, both of which are well arranged for horses and cattle. He feeds 200 head of cattle, besides keeping a
large number of stock of various kinds.

Mr. McFee was married in Peterborough county, July 12, 1868, to Miss Prudence Kidd, a native of the same county, and daughter of Robert and Elizabeth (Johns) Kidd, the former of Scotch descent, born at Perth, Canada, and the latter of English. They were married in Canada, and were the parents of eleven children, three sons and three daughters still living, of whom Mrs.
McFee was the third child. Her parents still live in Peterborough county; her father is in his seventy-third year, and the mother in her sixty-ninth. Mr. and Mrs. McFee have six children, four sons and two daughters, namely: David, born March 25, 1870, in Canada, is now attending school at Des Moines, Iowa; James, born October 8, 1871; Lillie Rosetta born March 80, 1873; Ella E., born September 26, 1878, died October 14, 1881; Nellie Elizabeth, born October 25, 1884; Robert Hugh, born July 24, 1886; and William Ellsworth, born March 15, 1890. Mr.
McFee is a Republican politically; has served six years as Supervisor, and five years as chairman of the board, and also held the same position when the courthouse was built.