HEBARD, Alfred

HEBARD, CHAMBERS

Posted By: Debbie Clough Gerischer
Date: 11/9/2008 at 20:32:41

ALFRED HEBARD was born in Windham, Connecticut, May 10, 1811. He graduated at Yale College in 1832 and became a civil engineer. After a few years of teaching he came to the west and settled on a farm near Burlington, then in Wisconsin Territory, in 1837. In 1842 he served on a commission appointed by Governor Chambers to adjust the claims of traders amounting to $250,000, against the Sac and Fox Indians. Mr. Hebard built the first ridge on the military road opened from Burlington to the Indian Agency on the Des Moines River. He was elected to the Territorial Legislature in 1840 and was twice reelected, serving in Third, Fourth and Sixth Legislative Assemblies, taking a prominent part in framing laws for the new Territory of Iowa. In 1846 he was elected to the First General Assembly of the State, serving at the regular and extra sessions. In 1856 Mr. Hebard made a survey for the Burlington Missouri Railroad from river to river. While on the survey he selected and purchased a large tract of land in Montgomery County where the town of Red Oak was afterwards laid out. He made his home on a fine farm near the town. During the Civil War Mr. Hebard was employed by the Government in building railroad bridges in the south as the Union armies advanced. He was a life-long Democrat and died September 21, 1896.