Isaac N. Salyers, 1861-1948

SALYERS PHILLIPS, LEEK, PERKINS

Posted By: Emmet County IAGenWeb Coordinator (email)
Date: 3/11/2011 at 14:54:19

Isaac N. Salyers, a prominent contractor of Estherville, has borne an important part in the upbuilding and development of Emmet county, where he has now made his home for a third of a century. He was born near Athens, Missouri, February 28, 1862, and is the fifth in order of birth in a family of ten children. He is of good old Irish and Yankee stock, though his parents, William and Elmira (Phillips) Salyers, were both natives of Ohio. At an early day they removed to Appanoose county, Iowa, where the father purchased land and engaged in farming for thirty-two years. He spent his last days at the home of a daughter living near Greenridge, Missouri, and died March 2, 1917, at the advanced age of eighty-seven years. He had six great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. During the Galveston flood his wife was crippled and remained an invalid the rest of her life, finally passing away in 1906. Her remains were interred at Windsor, Missouri.

At the usual age Isaac N. Salyers began his education in the district schools near his childhood home and continued his studies until seventeen years of age. He remained under the parental roof until twenty and for two years worked at the carpenter's trade in Keokuk, Iowa. From that city he came to Estherville and has since done an extensive business as a building contractor. His first contract was the Smithberg residence on South Sixth street and he has since, erected most of the important buildings of the town, including the Coon block, the Armory, the Elks club house, the Methodist Episcopal church, the West Side school, the Oransky building, the postoffice and the residences of F. E. Allen and George Zeeman besides about two hundred and fifty others. Although he is still engaged in business as a contractor he now handles automobile supplies and repairs as a side issue.

In 1881 Mr. Salyers married Miss Laura A. Leek, a daughter of Charles and Cynthia (Hull) Leek, who made their home near Keokuk, Iowa, where both died and were buried. Mr. And Mrs. Saylers have lost two children and have five living, namely: Clyde, who is married and living in Estherville; Mabel, now Mrs. R.N. Perkins, of Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Louis, Paul and Maurice, all at home.

The republican party finds in Mr. Saylers a stanch supporter of its principles and he holds membership in the Mystic Toilers of Des Moines and the Christian church. In business circles he occupies an enviable position owing to the confidence and trust reposed in him and the success that has crowned his efforts is certainly well deserved for he started out in life for himself empty handed and has gradually worked his way upward wholly by his own efforts. He is a man of keen insight and sound judgment as well as of reliable business methods and he always faithfully fulfills his part of any contract.

Source: History of Emmet County and Dickinson County Iowa: A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement, The Pioneer Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1917.

Interment in East Side cemetery
 

Emmet Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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