Fenn, P. E.

FENN, LANGDON, NICHOLS, STONE

Posted By: Volunteer Transcribers
Date: 2/17/2003 at 02:18:07

PORTRAIT & BIOGRAPHICAL ALBUM OF CLINTON COUNTY, IOWA 1886 (CHAPMAN BROS.) 
Containing full page portraits & biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county. (Also available on FHL film 1036331 Item 9) 
P. E. FENN, an honest, industrious farmer of Camanche Township, is a native of Plymouth, Litchfield Co., Conn., who was born Feb. 21, 1835. His parents were Alfred and Sophronia (Langdon) Fenn, natives of New England. In 1857, Alfred Fenn left his native State for a home in the undeveloped territory west of the Mississippi, and terminated his journey at Clinton, this county, accompanied by his wife and children. In the neighborhood of that city he at once engaged in farming, and was thus occupied until his death, which occurred on the old homestead that is now owned by our subject. His wife is yet living and resides with her son. The father was a clockmaker by trade, at which he worked for thirty-five years. They had a family of four children, only two of whom are now living. He was much respected, and possessed the happy faculty of making friends in all communities in which he lived. In politics he was a stanch Republican.

P. E. was educated in the schools of his native State, and was by trade a machinist; prior to his removal to this State, he labored for a time in a cotton factory. At twenty years of age he worked for a while in the Manning Reaper Works, in Rockford, Ill., after which he went to Amboy and labored in the railroad shops for four months. We next hear of him in the neighborhood of Camanche, this county, where for two years he farmed and for one summer worked at making brick. Not meeting with the financial success he anticipated, he went to Chicago and entered the employ of the McCormick Reaper Works, with which he remained four years. On leaving Chicago, in 1866, he returned to Camanche Township, and locating on his farm entered upon the general routine of a farmer’s life, and has thus been occupied until the present time.

Mr. Fenn was married, Jul 6, 1863, to Miss Decalana Nichols, daughter of Daniel and Emily (Stone) Nichols, natives of Essex County, N. Y., who was born Feb. 6, 1843. Her parents moved to Clinton County in 1853.and purchased a farm about a mile northwest of the Fenn homestead. It was there that her father died, Jun 16, 1881; her mother died about 1873. Mr. Fenn and wife of this notice have had born to then three children—Helen Frances, Fred L. and Giles. Fred L., is learning the drug business at Clinton, and the other children are living at home. All the children have had the advantage of a good primary education. Fred attended the college at Fulton, Ill., and the daughter is at present a student in the Young Ladies’ Seminary, at Mount Carroll. The home farm of our subject comprises eighty acres, which lies on section 29, Camanche Township, and on which he settled when he first came to the county. Mrs. Fenn has been a member of the Baptist Church for several years, and much enjoyment is to be found within their household.