Lincoln McCaskey

MCCASKEY

Posted By: County Coordinator (email)
Date: 4/15/2010 at 13:29:19

Lincoln McCaskey, owning and operating a well improved farm of eighty acres on section 20, Yell township, has been a resident of Boone county throughout practically his entire life for more than a half century. His birth occurred in Indiana on Apirl 1, 1861, his parents being Harrison and Elsie (Ritter) McCaksey, the former a native of Ohio and that latter of Pennsylvania. They came to this county in 1863, the father purchasing and improving a farm in Yell township which he operated throughout the remainder of his active business career. The last few years of his life were spent in honorable retirement at Ogden, where he passed away in September 1900. His demise was the occasion of deep and widespread regret in the community which had been his home for thirty-seven years. His widow, who is seventy-six years of age, still makes her home in Ogden, where she is well known and highly esteemed.
Lincoln McCaskey, who was but two years old when brought to Boone county by is parents, attended the district schools in the acquirement of an education and remained at home until he had attained his majority. When twenty-one years of age he began the cultivation of a rented tract of land but at the end of two years bought property of his own, purchasing 80 acres on section 20, Yell township, which he improved and which he has operated continuously to the present time. His undertakings as an agriculturist have been attended with gratifying success, the well tilled fields annually paying tribute to his care and labor in bounteous harvests.
On March 25, 1884, Mr McCaskey was joined in wedlock to Miss Mary J Pugsley, a daughter of Wyman and Margaret (Reading) Pugsley, the former a native of New York and the latter of Germany. Mr Pugsley removed to Minnesota in an early day and in 1865 enlisted for service in the Civil war as a member of the First Minnesota Regiment, remaing in with that command for six moths or until the cessation of hostilites between tje North and the South. After returning to Minnesota he followed farming in that state for a short time and then came to Boone county, Iowa purhasing the property which is now in possession of our subject. Subsequently he bought another tract of land and continued its cultivation thorugh the remainder of his life with the exception of a year spent in Kansas and another year or two in New York. His demise occurred in this county on August 20, 1902, when he had attained the age of sixty-seven years. Mrs Pugsley, who survives her husband, is seventy-seven years of age and still resides on the old home place. Mr and Mrs McCaskey have five children, namely, Bessie, Devillo, Maude, Wilma and Gertrude. All are still under the parental roof.
Mr McCaskey gives his political allegiance to the republican party and is now holding office of assessor in Yell township. He has, moreover, promoted the intersts of the cause of education as a school diretor. Having spent practically his entire life within Boone county's borders, he has become widely acquainted here, while his genial dispostion has made for him a circle of warm friends which is almost coextensive with the circle of his acquaintances. He possesses, moreover, those sterling traits of character which in every land and clime win confidence, respet and good will, and by the consensus of public opinion he is accorded a prominent place among tje valued citizens of this community.

1914 Boone County History Book