GEORGE F LAING, b 30 Jun 1837

LAING, GRAHAM, FONGER

Posted By: Donna Moldt Walker (email)
Date: 6/15/2004 at 08:21:57

There are comparatively few of the substantial people of Iowa Township who are not personally acquainted with Mr. Laing, one of the most successful farmers and stock-raisers within its limits. He is a jovial, good-tempered, large-hearted man, who has always been willing "to live and let live" and who has been uniformly prosperous in his agricultural and business operations. He is the owner of two valuable farms which have been brought to a thorough state of cultivation, and are supplied with modern buildings. Upon that which he occupies, and which is pleasantly located on section 21, is a fine frame house and barn, together with all the other necessary buildings, fruit and shade trees, running water, live-stock and farm machinery, indeed all the appliances of the modern county homestead. His other farm has a handsome brick residence, with a large barn, and is likewise complete in every respect as a rural residence, and for the general purposes of agriculture.

During the early settlement of Jackson County there came to this region a very good representation from the Dominion of Canada, and among them was the subject of this sketch who was born near the city of Hamilton, at the head of Lake Ontario, Upper Canada June 30, 1837. He is the son of David and Elizabeth Laing, natives of Canada, who came to the West about 1855. The father is still living, and a resident of Iowa Township; the mother is deceased. The parental household included six children, four of whom are living.

The book learning of our subject was obtained chiefly in the common schools, and upon approaching manhood he occupied himself at farming until the fall of 1859. Then, a young man of twenty-two years, ambitious of adventure and filled with the desire to see something more of the world, he started overland for California in the spring of 1859, and drove an ox team from Iowa City to the gold mines of Shasta County, occupying about six months in making the trip. He was thereafter engaged in hunting for the yellow ore until the fall of 1864, when he set out on his return to the haunts of civilization via the Panama route. The trip from San Francisco to New York occupied twenty-one days. Later he took up his abode in Iowa Township, this county, where he secured the first forty acres of land, and also engaged in getting out wood for steamboats along the river above Sabula.

Prior to leaving for California our subject was married Jan. 8, 1859, to Miss Eleanor Graham. This lady was born April 3, 1838, in Canada, and is the daughter of Henry F. and Agnes Graham who were natives of Canada, spending the latter part of their lives, however, in Iowa Township. Henry Graham was one of the earliest settlers of Iowa Township, having located here in 1852. Mr. and Mrs. Laing are the parents of one child only, a son, George W., who was born Jan. 24, 1860, and is now engaged in real-estate and banking in Bridgewater, Dak. Mr. Laing, although not a member of any Church believes in the establishment and maintenance of religious institutions, and gives liberally to the support of the Gospel. His home farm comprises 200 acres of prime land, and he makes a specialty of graded Short-horn cattle and Poland-China swine. In political matters he gives his support to the Republican party, and has held the offices of Assessor and Constable, while at present he is one of the Township Trustees.

David Laing, the father of our subject, is a native of the same place as his son, the vicinity of Hamilton, Canada West, and was born Dec. 2, 1806. His father, William Laing, was a native of New Jersey, and served as a soldier in the War of 1812. David Laing was by trade a plasterer and brick-mason, which business he was engaged in for a period of twenty-five years. He came to Iowa Township, this county, from the Dominion in the fall of 1855, settling on section 27, where the year following he built a substantial stone house which he still occupies. His excellent wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Fonger, died at the homestead in the winter of 1865. Of the six children born to them four are living, namely: George F. our subject, William, Catherine and David.

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