J. H. Kerns

KERNS, BISBEE

Posted By: Diane (email)
Date: 3/6/2002 at 21:31:52

J. H. Kerns, an early settler in the township, was born in Schenectady county, New York, June 1, 1831. In 1843 his parents moved to McHenry county, Illinois, where he received his education in the district school. At the age of twenty-one he removed to Elgin, and was there employed in a livery stable three years. In October, 1855, he came west, and through the winter engaged in a livery stable at Cedar Falls. In the spring, with a team, he took the engineer of the Dubuque & Pacific Railroad the length of the State, on the proposed route to Sioux City. At that time there was but four houses and one tent there. On his return he engaged with the Western Stage Co. to drive on the route between Dubuque and Ft. Dodge. He continued with them six years.
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In 1862, he went to Wisconsin to visit his mother, and there enlisted on the 5th of September, 1862, in the Thirty-first Wisconsin, Company B. They joined Sherman at Marietta, Georgia, and were present at the Siege of Atlanta. He was taken sick at Stone Mountain, Georgia, and sent to the hospital at Jeffersonville, Indiana. He re-joined the army at Fayetteville, N. C., and was with the regiment until the close of the war, and was honorably discharged, July 6, 1865.
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He returned to Iowa and engaged in farming in Grundy and Osceola counties until 1876, when he moved to Aplington, where, in September, 1882, he bought the Quinn Hotel property, his present home. He married in 1862, Miss Julia Bisbee, of York State. They have two children – Mary C. and Ella M.
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Source: History of Butler and Bremer Counties, Iowa
Union Publishing Co., Springfield, IL, 1883
Page 641
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