Leonard W. Decker

BETTS, SPENCER, WOLEY, BURELL, ABBOTT, BUCKLIN, REYNOLDS

Posted By: Donna Moldt Walker (email)
Date: 3/3/2004 at 08:37:58

The name of Decker is indissolubly interwoven with the annals of Maquoketa as that of a father and son who have been priminent factors in promoting its growth and financial prosperity, and its present representative is the subject of this sketch. He is a man of wealth and influence, and stands among the foremost citizens of this city whose brains and money have been instrumental in its upbuilding. He is the owner of the Decker House, which is probably the finest hotel for a city of the size of Maquoketa in the United States. It is a handsome, commodious building, of a fine style of architecture, W.W. Tucker, the New York architect, having designed and superintended the erection of the structure.

Mr. Decker is a native of the city of Troy, Rensselaer County, N.Y. His father, James Decker, was born in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., July 24, 1808. His father was likewise a native of New York. He was a farmer and spent his last years in the home of his daughter, Mrs. Smith, near Delmar, Iowa. When he was but thirteen years old he worked on the Champlain Canal, receiving for wages $8 a month. The following winter he worked for his board for the privilege of attending school, and soon after that he went to New York City, where he obtained emplyment in a store. He proved himself faithful and efficient, and when he was eighteen years old, he had saved money enough to establish himself in the mercantile business on his own account. He was successful from the start, and at the age of twenty was carrying stock to the amount of $100,000. His business was largely wholesale, and G. W. and N. C. Pratt, of New York City were associated with him for a time. There were no railways then to facilitate the transportation of goods, and there being but a few miles of canal in existence, his traveling salesmen made their rounds with wagons, carrying the goods with them, and in the winter seasons people came from the far western counties with teams to lay in their yearly supplies. Mr. Decker bought the interest of his partners and carried on the business alone until about 1845. He had attended very closely to his business, overseeing all its vast details personally as far as possible, and his health giving way under such a strain, he felt obliged to change both his business and location. So he sold out to his brother, and going to Denmark, Lewis Co., N.Y., invested money in three farms, and busied himself in looking after his landed interests, and in loaning money. He resided there a few years, and then went to Watertown, in Jefferson County, the same State, and built a beautiful residence, which he made his home, with the exception of three years, from that time until death closed his earthly career Feb. 1, 1881. It was early in the fifties that he first visited Iowa and became interested in real-estate in Maquoketa, he, with shrewd judgment, foreseeing that from its situation and other advantages it was bound to become an important city, and from that time he spent a part of each year here. About 1857 he erected a frame building which served as a hotel many years, and in 1876 he built the present Decker House, at a cost of upwards of $60,000.

March 20, 1828, not yet twenty years of age, Mr. Decker took a serious step in life that had an important bearing upon his future happiness, whereby he secured a loving and companionable wife, who sympathized with him in his aims. He was then united in marriage to Miss Azubah A. Betts. Of their happy union five children were born, of whom the following is recorded: Emily A. married H.P. Spencer, M.D., of Watertown, N.Y.; James H., born Oct. 18, 1831, died in Watertown, N.Y., Oct. 16, 1867, leaving a wife and two children; Marcellus W., born Nov. 25, 1835, died Feb. 21, 1836; Eugenia V. married E. R. Woley, of Troy, N.Y.; and Leonard W.

Mrs. Decker was born in the town of Brunswick, Rensselaer Co., N.Y., June 10, 1810. Her father, Nathan Betts, was born in Connecticut, in the town of Norwalk, and his father, of the same name, was also born in Connecticut. His father, Burell Betts, Mrs. Decker's great-grandfather, was a native of the same New England State, and was a son of John and Hannah (Burell) Betts. His mother's father, John Burell, was a native of England, and owned a large estate there, called Hewel or Huwell Hempstead, which is still owned by the heirs, and is still unsettled. John Burell started with his family to America early in the eighteenth century, and the ship in which they sailed was wrecked, and his daughter, Hannah, was the only member of the family saved. She was born March 30, 1687, and died Nov. 7, 1751. She it was who was the wife of John Betts, great-great-great-grandfather of our subject.

The grandfather of our subject moved from Connecticut to Rensselaer County, N.Y., and was one of the earliest settlers of that county. His removal to that place before the time of steamers, was made in a sloop conveying household goods, farm implements, stock, etc., by the way of Long Island Sound and the Hudson River. He settled in the town of Brunswick, and building a large frame house opened it to the public, and it was known far and wide as Betts' Tavern. People coming from long distances to market with teams had large sheds for the accommodation of their teams, and were themselves given good cheer inside the hospitable inn. He managed the hotel many years, and then sold out, and buying two farms near by, was a resident of that place until death. The maiden name of his wife, grandmother of our subject, was Azubah Abbott. She was a native of Connecticut, and died on the old homestead in New York. Mrs. Decker's father was young when his parents moved to New York. He assisted his father in the management of his hotel, and after marriage settled on a farm in Brunswick, of which town he was a resident until his death. The maiden name of Mrs. Decker's mother was Hannah Bucklin. She was born in Brunswick, and spent her last years with a daughter in Troy. Her father, Sylvanus Bucklin, was a native of Vermont, and a pioneer of Brunswick, where he was a large land owner. He cleared a farm from the wilderness, and there passed the remainder of his life. Since the death of her husband Mrs. Decker has made her home with our subject, her only remaining son. She is enjoying a serene old age, surrounded by all the comforts that filial love can devise, and all the luxuries that wealth can buy.

Leonard W. Decker, the subject of this sketch, was given all the advantages to be derived from a liberal education by kind and indulgent parents. He obtained his early education in the city schools of Troy, and subsequently attended Denmark Academy, where he pursued an excellent course of study, and he was then a student in the Genesee Model School in Lima, Livingston Co., N.Y. After leaving school he was for a time engaged in the mercantile business. A few years before his father's death he was called home to assist him in the management of his property, being given power of attorney to transact business for him in New York and Iowa. In 1885, in consideration of the large interests that he has in this State, Mr. Decker came here to live, and has since made his home in the Decker House.

He was married in October, 1862, to Miss Mary H. Reynolds. She is a native of New York City, and is a daughter of James and Lucy Reynolds. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Decker: Leonora Victoria, Ada Azubah, and James Leonard. The son, who was born Jan. 5, 1876, died March 29, 1876. The daughters have been finely educated at Oberlin, and at St. Catherine's Hall, Davenport, Iowa. Mr. Decker seems to have inherited from his honored father, in a large measure, the wisdom, talent, and executive ability that enabled him to build up a large fortune, and he has handled his father's large estate and the property that he has himself accumulated, with the utmost skill and discretion so as to increase it. He is a man of large enterprise and public spirit, who has made the highest interests of his adopted city his own, and has sought to promote them in various ways.

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