JOHN DURANT

DURANT, FERRIS, HUNTER, JENNE, WEED, PHILLIPS, WRIGHT, KENNEDY, TOMPKINS, KING

Posted By: Donna Moldt Walker (email)
Date: 2/20/2004 at 10:48:32

~ JOHN DURANT ~

This gentleman is fully entitled to the honor of being named a pioneer of Jackson County, as he came to this section of the country when the land was in much the same condition as the Indians had left it. The first years of his sojourn here were made up principally of hard labor and economy, with sacrifice and self-denial, but industry and perseverance in time worked out their own reward. He is now the owner of a fine farm 200 acres in extent, lying on sections 21 and 28, in Van Buren Township, and his home is considered one of the most inviting within its limits. Within its hospitable doors are welcomed both friend and stranger, who never fail to find pleasure and good cheer. The family of our subject consists of a most estimable wife and intelligent and beautiful children, the latter grown to mature years and well fitted to take their position in society as prominent and honored members. The elder ones have been well educated. Some of the boys are teaching and some attending college.

This branch of the Durant family traces its ancestry to England, where Samuel Durant, the father of our subject, was born twenty-five miles south of London, in Sussex County. Early in life he emigrated to the United States, landed in Philadelphia, and took up his abode in Erie County, New York, where he met and married Miss Alma Ferris. The name of Durant appears in the history of the Crusaders, and in France some of them suffered death at the stake on account of their heresy to the Catholic Church. There is a blank in the history of the family for several generations, and then we meet with them in the sixteenth century, when the great-great-grandfather of our subject went over from France and settled in the Southern part of England. From him descended Samuel Durant, who, with his immediate ancestors, belong to the Church of England. He crossed the Atlantic in 1819, and landed in the city of Philadelphia, where he followed his trade of carpentering, and later traveled about considerably over the Eastern States. While working as a journeyman in Cayuga County, N. Y., he made the acquaintance of his future wife, who had removed to that region with her parents after reaching womanhood.

For some time after their marriage, the parents of our subject lived in Cayuga County, N. Y., then removed to Erie County, and from there in 1829 to London, Canada. There the father, changing his occupation somewhat, engaged quite extensively as an architect and builder. In December, 1835, he went to the State of Michigan, halting at Ann Arbor for a few weeks. His next stopping place was at Batavia, now in Illinois, when he came to this county, crossing the Mississippi on the 12th of July, 1838. He settled in Van Buren Township, but in 1872, still having the Western fever, he pushed on into Butler County, Kansas, where his eventful career ended in 1883, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. The mother also died that same year, at the age nearly of eighty-one. Seven of their children lived to manhood and womanhood. They are named, respectively, John, our subject; James, Maria, Sarah, William, Columbia and Columbus (twins), the latter of whom died in infancy; Seth, also deceased; Jane and Benjamin. The second son, James, went to California in the year 1850, and died there; the eldest daughter, Maria, is the wife of William Hunter, of Harrison County, this State; Sarah, Mrs. Newton Jenne, is a resident of Otter Tail County, Minn.; William, during the late Civil War, enlisted in the 3d Minnesota Infantry, of which he was Color-Bearer, and which was assigned to the Army of the Tennessee; he served throughout the war, and was never wounded, although his health was undermined by his sufferings while held as a prisoner by the Rebels; he died Feb 22, 1870. Columbia married William Weed, and died at Sabula, this county, leaving six children; Jane married Rufus Phillips, and died at her home in Manchester, leaving three children; Benjamin removed to Kansas with his parents, was twice married, and is now deceased; he left one child by his first wife and eight children by the second.

The subject of this sketch was born May 31, 1823, on the shores of Cayuga Lake, in Cayuga County, N. Y. Although but fifteen months old at the time of the birth of his brother James, he remembers the advent of that individual into the family, and also many things which occurred later in Erie County and Canada, where he received the principal part of his education. This, however, was limited to the common schools, which were conducted mostly in log houses in New York, Canada and Iowa. He was a lad of fifteen years when he came to Iowa, and from the time he was old enough to handle a hammer, worked with his father as a carpenter and joiner. He began to turn a two-inch auger at the age of eight years, and has used this tool up to the present time.

At the time the family removed West this part of Iowa was included in Wisconsin Territory, and the seat of government was at Burlington. Mr. Durant remembers the face of the country as it then appeared - beautiful in its wildness and loneliness, the prairie lands covered with grass and wild flowers, Indians roaming at will from one point to another, and wild game in abundance. Two horsemen riding over the lowlands could scarcely see each other a rod apart, on account of a tall weed resembling the wild sunflower, which grew there luxuriantly. Occasionally a grand and awful prairie fire lightened up the still night, and to those who had not provided themselves against its dangers it was something most terrible to behold.

The Durant family suffered the usual hardships and privations of life on the frontier, intermingled with plenty of hard work. John, notwithstanding this, grew up a stout, hearty, handsome young man, following his trade of a carpenter and general mechanic, and in due time began to make preparation for a home of his own. His wedding with Miss Amanda Tompkins occurred at the home of the bride, in Van Buren Township, April 27, 1851. The young people soon after their marriage settled upon a tract of land which our subject purchased from the Government, and here they have lived and prospered, their property free from mortgage or other incumbrance. They began life together in a style corresponding to their means and surroundings, and labored hand in hand in the building up of their home. In the course of years there gathered around the fireside the faces of eleven bright children, the eldest of whom, a daughter, Mary, died in 1870. Eliza is the wife of Albert Hanyen, a well-to-do farmer of Barry County, Mich.; they have two children, Ray and Eddy, the latter being a musical prodigy. Alma married Mr. Henry Heberling, a railroad man, and they live in Marion, this State; they have two children, sons, Cassius and Ward. Albert married Miss Flora Wright, and remains at the homestead; Louis died in January, 1889, aged about twenty-nine years; George married Miss Alice Kennedy, and follows the occupation of a mechanic in Harrison County, this State; Thomas J., being studiously inclined, attends the college at Fayette, and expects to graduate in the class of 1891; William is also a student at the same institution. These boys have both taught school, and thus assisted in paying the expenses of their college course. Charles died in 1870, when ten months old, and May in 1877, when six days old; Horace attends the Preston High School and makes his home with his parents.

Mr. Durant is a man of large and liberal ideas, an extensive reader, quite familiar with and an admirer of such men as Duxley, Darwin, Spencer, Tyndale, Gibbon, Volney and Voltaire. Politically, he was first a Democrat, later a Whig, and upon the abandonment of this party, identified himself with the newly organized Republicans, casting his presidential vote for Gen. John C. Fremont, in 1856. He was a warm supporter of the Lincoln administration, and a great admirer of the martyred president. He has done what he could to encourage the establishment and maintenance of schools, and has held various local offices unsought. Several of his children belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Mrs. Durant was born April 27, 1851, in Richland County, Ohio, and is the daughter of Nathan M. and Eliza (King) Tompkins. Her father was born in Tompkins County, N. Y., which county was named in honor of one of his ancestors; the mother was born near Trenton, N. J. They emigrated to the Territory of Iowa in 1844, when Mrs. Durant was twelve years of age. The father secured a trace of land in Van Buren Township, this county, upon which he lived and labored until his death in 1858, at the age of fifty-three years. The mother survived her husband a period of thirty years, dying in 1888, at the age of seventy-seven. Their eight children were named, respectively, P. H., a half brother; Amanda, Louis, Mary, George, Margaret, Coleman and Abbie. Five of these are living.

("Portrait and Biographical Album of Jackson County, Iowa", originally published in 1889, by the Chapman Brothers, of Chicago, Illinois)