O. P. ESSLEY

ESSLEY

Posted By: Jake Tornholm (email)
Date: 4/21/2020 at 20:12:02

O. P. ESSLEY, one of Grant township's well-known and popular citizens, came to this county in 1874, where he has since resided. He was born in the Hawkeye State, in Washington county, December 21, 1846, a son of John and Jane (Mickey) Essley; the former was born near Muncie, Indiana, and the latter in Pennsylvania. The parents were married in Washington county, Iowa. The father was married previous to this in Indiana, of which State he was a pioneer. Our subject was nine years of age when his father died, and the mother was afterward married, and now lives in Washington county, Iowa.

O. P. Essley was reared on a farm in Mercer county, Illinois, by relatives, and received his education in the common schools. During the great Rebellion he enlisted, in October, 1864, in the one Hundred and Twenty-fourth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Company G, and participated in the battle of Mobile, Alabama. He was honorably discharged at the close of the war, and returned to Mercer county, where he engaged in the more peaceful pursuits of agriculture. In 1874 he came to Grant township, Adams county, where he bought eighty acres of wild land, to which he has since added until he now owns 200 acres of Adams county's best soil, well improved. He has a good cottage, an orchard, groves, sheds, cribs, yards and feed lots.

Mr. Essley was married February 27, 1873, to Averilla Pratt, who was born, reared and educated in Mercer county, a daughter of John and Mary (Furgeson) Pratt, the former a native of Pennsylvania, Fayette county, and the latter in Mercer county, where the father died, in 1889, at the age of 73 years. Mr. and Mrs. Essley have four children - Jennie, Mary, Ruth and Martin C. Politically Mr. Essley is a Republican. He is a member of the G. A. R., Lenox Post, and also of the Presbyterian Church, in which he is a trustee. Mrs. Essley and daughter Jennie are members of the same church.