DePUE, Benjamin F.

DEPUE, CHUPE, COOK, ELLIS

Posted By: Administrator
Date: 12/27/2001 at 18:40:28

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. 373-374) BENJAMIN F. DEPUE. Prominent among the representative citizens and eminent and influential men of Deep Creek Township, we find the subject of this biographical sketch, who now resides on section 11, where he owns 160 acres of land. This is well improved and highly cultivated, and he has been successfully engaged at his chosen vocation for about twenty years. Mr. DePue is of French ancestry, and was born in the Province of Ontario, Aug. 24, 1844. He came with his mother to Illinois from Canada in 1849, and was at that time five years of age. His father died in Ontario when Benjamin was but three years of age. The former was a native of New York State, but was married in Canada after he went to that country. When a young man he was an extremely hard worker and was engaged in iron-making among the collieries of Ontario.
On her arrival in Illinois with her children, Mrs. DePue settled in Lake County, and five years later removed to Sterling, Jackson Co., Iowa, where she lived for a time with all her children, consisting of four sons and two daughters. While in that county she was united in marriage with Jacob Chupe. Later she went to Indiana, and subsequently returned to Lake County, Ill., where she died in 1859. Her husband departed this life in Wisconsin, in 1882.
Our subject remained with his mother until he reached the age of fourteen, when he started out in the world to battle alone. He was possessed of logical common sense and an independence of character that buoyed him up and helped him over the hard places in life, and with a large amount of cheerfulness, which has since developed into a fund of unfailing wit, he won his way. He was engaged with a farmer, which labor he pursued for some time.
Mr. DePue was married in Deep Creek Township, March 26, 1864, to Miss Emma Cook, daughter of B. T. and Matilda (Ellis) Cook. Mrs. DePue’s father, who is a farmer, now lives retired, in Deep Creek Township, where he owns a large farm on section 2. Mrs. DePue was born in Lake County, Ill., Dec. 28, 1848. She was only five years of age when her father, in 1853, went over the prairies of that State and came to the rich soil of this county. They crossed the country overland in a wagon. This township was then new, and their home was first situated on the unbroken prairie, but is now considered one of the handsomest and most finely located in the county. Mrs. DePue lived in the home of her father until her marriage, and received a good education in the district schools and seminary at Mount Vernon, Linn Co., Iowa. She is the mother of five children, namely: Francis M., Ambrose F., Matilda H., Elsie L. and Chancy A.After the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. DePue they settled on a portion of his present farm, at first consisting of forty acres, which he has increased three times since he first came to the place in 1863, one year before his marriage.
Mrs. DePue is a live, earnest member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which she has labored since girlhood. Her religion is a lovely outgrowth of those beauties shown in the life of Christ Jesus. In politics Mr. DePue is a Republican, and he is always spoken of among his neighbors as a man of exceeding drollery, providing a fund of joviality for those with whom he converses. He always produces a witticism with a quiet gravity of manner which convulses the hearer. He is a kind-hearted husband and father, a first-class citizen, and one whom the community regards as a noble example of industry and enterprise.