Pelham, Henry

PELHAM, STRATTON, GIBSON, DAWSON, DANN, CLEMENT

Posted By: Volunteer Transcribers
Date: 1/28/2003 at 19:22:59

HENRY PELHAM. 

Henry Pelham, one of the most influential and popular citizens of Eden township, is successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits on section 20, where he owns a fine farm of three hundred and eighty acres pleasantly located within a mile and a half of Malone. He was born at the headwaters of the Delaware river in Middletown, Delaware county, New York, December 18, 1837, and is of English descent, his paternal great-grandfather, Henry Pelham, being a native of England. On coming to this country the latter settled on land which now forms a part of the city of New York. While protecting his rights and property during the Revolutionary war, he was killed by the British soldiers, who fired seven bullets into his body. The grandfather, Henry Pelham, married Margaret Gray, a descendant of the Pilgrim fathers, opened up a farm in Green county, New York, and there his family of eight children were left orphans by his death January 23, 1843.

Cyrenus Pelham, the father of our subject was born in that county, under the shadow of the Catskills, in 1806, died February 2, 1890, aged eighty-three years, eight months and fifteen days, and was one of a family of eight children, four sons and four daughters, all of whom, with one exception, became heads of families and lived to be over eighty years of age, while some of the number reached the advanced age of ninety years. During his early life he saw the first steamboat on the Hudson river. He became a millwright by trade and followed that occupation in the east for some years. In Delaware county, New York, he married Miss Melinda Stratton, a native of that county. He came to Lyons and Clinton, Iowa, in 1855, the year in which Clinton was laid out. In 1857 he bought land in Eden township, Clinton county, Iowa, which he fenced, broke and improved, making his home here until called to his final rest in 1890, at the age of eighty-three years. His wife had died in 1875, at the age of sixty-five. Our subject now owns the old homestead.

Henry Pelham of this review was a young man of seventeen years when he came with his parents to this county in the spring of 1855, and he aided his father in carrying on the home farm until locating upon his present farm. At that time he owned only sixty acres, to which he added from time to time as he found opportunity until he now has three hundred and eighty acres, which constitutes one of the best and most desirable farms of its size in Eden township, being well improved and under a high state of cultivation.

In this county Mr. Pelham was married, October 19, 1873, to Mrs. Margaret Gibson, a native of Lincolnshire, England, and a daughter of Thomas Dawson, who on coming to America with his family first settled in Canada, and later came to Clinton county, Iowa. Mrs. Pelham first wedded Merritt Gibson, a farmer, who died in this county, leaving two children; Eva M., now the wife of John W. Dann, of Low Moor; and Nettie, wife of Thomas Clement, of Malone, Eden township. The children born to our subject and his wife are Cornelius H., who is married and follows farming in this county; and Jay W., Rolla E. and Bruce L., all at home.

Since attaining his majority Mr. Pelham has always supported the Republican party and its principles, and cast his first presidential ballot for Abraham Lincoln in 1860. He has taken quite an active and prominent part in local politics, and has filled the offices of justice of the peace eight years and township clerk two years in a most creditable and satisfactory manner. He has also efficiently served as a member of the school board twenty-five years, and secretary of the same for some years, during which time two new school-houses have been erected. He attends the Baptist church, and is held in the highest esteem by neighbors and many friends. His good wife died July 17, 1901, at the age of fifty-two years and ten months, and was buried in Cherry Wood cemetery, near Malone. She was a kind wife and loving mother and had many friends.
Source: The 1901 Biographical Record of Clinton Co., Iowa, Illustrated published: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1901.