OLNEY, Arthur R.

OLNEY, AMES, WITBECK, PHILUPS, MAY, SUGG, VAN CAMP

Posted By: Nettie Mae
Date: 1/18/2003 at 13:10:28

Source: The 1901 Biographical Record of Clinton Co., Iowa, Illustrated published: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1901.

ARTHUR R. OLNEY.

Prominent among the successful and enterprising business men of Clinton, Iowa, is numbered the senior member of the well-known corporation of Olney & McDaid, wholesale druggist of that city. He is a worthy representative of an old and honored New England family, being able to trace his ancestry back to Thomas Olney, who was born in Hertford, Hertfordshire, England, in 1600, and in 1835 came to the new world on the vessel Planter, landing at Salem, Massachusetts. A year later he was appointed surveyor of Jeffry Creek, now Manchester, near Salem, and was made a free man the same year. He became one of the followers of Roger Williams, and when they were excluded from the Massachusetts colony he visited Narragansett bay with Williams while seeking a location. They finally decided to locate on the west bank of the See Konk river, where with eleven others they formed a new settlement, purchasing the land from the Indians. This was the site of the present city of Providence. In 1638 Mr. Olney was chosen treasurer of the town, and in 1655 was chosen a judge of the justice court with Roger Williams and Thomas Harris. His name also appears among the grantees of the royal Charter of Charles II in 1663. He was one of the founders of the Baptist church in the colonies and was active in its ministry. He was buried on North Main street, a short distance south of the state house at Springfield, Massachusetts. He had died in 1682.

Arthur R. Olney, of this review, is of the ninth generation in direct descent from Thomas Olney. He was born in Girard, Branch county, Michigan, August 11, 1846, an is a son of Daniel T. and Adelia (Ames) Olney, the former a native of Saratoga, New York, the latter of Vermont. The mother was a descendant of William Ames, who was born in Somersetshire, England, in 1605, and on coming to America located in Braintree, Massachusetts, where he died in 1654. It was prior to 1641 that he emigrated to this country, in company with his brother John. The parents of our subject were married in Michigan in 1843, their respective families being pioneers of that state. In 1848 they removed to Illinois and settled in Belvidere, where Daniel T. Olney spent the remainder of his life, dying there in 1898. He was a capitalist and also did a private banking business. He also did considerable legal work, although he was not a practicing attorney. His widow is still a resident of Belvidere. In their family were three children. Marietta, wife of John L. Witbeck, of Belvidere; Arthur R., our subject; and Clara, wife of Rev. J. P. Philups, also of Belvidere.

Mr. Olney, whose name introduces this sketch, was educated in the public schools of Belvidere, Illinois, and when twenty years of age began his business career as clerk in a bank at that place which position he held one year. The following year he was bookkeeper in a dry-goods store in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and then spent one year in Chicago at the same occupation. In 1869 he came to Clinton, Iowa, and after serving as bookkeeper in a saddlery hardware establishment for one year he embarked in the retail drug business. Since 1880, however, he has conducted a wholesale drug house, at first as a member of the firm of Olney & McMahon, which shortly afterward was succeeded by the present firm. The firm was incorporated in 1891 with a paid-up capital of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Mr. Olney being its president. In 1892 they erected a fine modern pressed-brick block, 113-117 Fifth avenue, occupying four floors, fifty by one hundred and forty feet together with a warehouse extending back to Sixth avenue. The building was erected from their own plans exclusively for their trade, and is one of the model drug houses of the west. They have seven men on the road and are doing a large and increasing business, besides giving employment at the store to twenty-three people. The Fish Brothers’ Manufacturing company is also one of the large and growing concerns of the city, giving employment to one hundred and twenty-five persons, and they distributed about ten thousand wagons yearly. Mr. Olney is president of the company. Mr. Olney was also one of the organizers and is now president of the Clinton Industrial Improvement Company; has been a director of the Merchants’ National Bank since its organization. He is a man of excellent business and executive ability, whose sound judgment, unflagging enterprise and capable management have brought to him a well-merited success, and he now occupies an enviable position among the representative business men of his adopted city.

On the 10th of January, 1872, Mr. Olney was united in marriage with Miss Ella May, a sister of Calvin D. May, in whose sketch appears a history of the family. By this union were born two children: Florence, wife of Dr. Herbert R. Sugg, of Clinton; and Lilian, wife of Samuel G. Van Camp, of Indianapolis, Indiana. Socially, the family are prominent. Mr. Olney attends and supports the Presbyterian church, of which the family are members.