CHARLES SHAFFER, b. 15 April 1830

SHAFFER, LAMBORN, BAXTER, ELLINGHAUSEN, HARRINGTON, WRIGHT

Posted By: Donna Moldt Walker (email)
Date: 11/13/2004 at 12:37:47

This name represents one of the most popular and prosperous citizens of Washington Township. He came to this region poor in purse but now occupies a high position socially and financially, to which he has attained by the exercise of his excellent judgment, his industry and economy. He possesses the faculty of management in a marked degree, which is always a necessary qualification for success. His property embraces 160 acres of valuable land, lying on sections 15 and 22, the residence being on section 15. He has given his children good educational advantages, and in other respects signalized himself as a progressive and liberal-minded citizen, a reader and thinker, willing to contribute his full share in making the world wiser and better.

Nathaniel Shaffer, the father of our subject, was a native of New York State, and married Miss Sarah Lamborn, who was born in Huntingdom County, Pa., The parents, in their youth, emigrated to Columbiana County, Ohio, where they were married and lived afterward, the father pursuing the trade of a hatter. He died at the age of forty-four years, and the mother in 1856, came to the West and made her home in Washington Township, this county, until 1879. She then removed to the home of her daughter, in Cass County, where she is still living, and is hale and hearty, although eighty-eight years old.

The parental household of our subject included eleven children, eight of whom are living. Charles, our subject, the third son was born April 15, 1830, in Columbiana County, Ohio, where he was reared and received a limited education. When a boy of eleven years he went to work in a woolen factory, and four years later he was thrown entirely upon his own resources by the death of his father. At the age of seventeen he left the factory and was variously occupied until his marriage, at the age of twenty-three. His bride, Miss Harriet Baxter, a native of Monongahela City, Pa., was left an orphan when a child, and was reared by her Grandmother Baxter in Columbiana County, Ohio. She was about eighteen years old at the time of her marriage, and the young couple remained residents of the Buckeye State probably eighteen months thereafter. They then started for the West, going by rail to Galena, Ill., and from there to this county on a sled with their child, arriving here in March, 1855.

In 1856 the mother of Mr. Shaffer came to this county, and they all settled on a farm near the banks of the Mississippi. Mr. Shaffer came to this county with a capital of $10, and became the tenant of Charles Harrington, who in addition to a piece of land furnished him with a team and seed - corn and wheat. The country was only partially settled up and there was plenty of deer, wild turkeys and other game. Mr. Shaffer made his first purchase of land in 1870, when there was upon it only a log-cabin fourteen feet square. The story of the toils and difficulties of the years which follwed has been illustrated in the lives of many other of the pioneers who are represented in this work. The farm of Mr. Shaffer has been brought to its present condition only by the exercise of incessant toil and the outlay of thousands of dollars. The Shaffer family now occupy one of the finest dwellings in Washington Township, and are unquestionably surrounded by all the comforts and many of the luxuries of life. Mr. Shaffer met with an accident in 1875, being caught in the tumbling rod of a threshing-machine, from which he suffered amputation of his left leg, which has been substituted with a wooden one.

Children to the number of twelve, in due time gathered around the hearthstone of Mr. and Mrs. Shaffer. Their eldest daughter, Martha, is now the wife of F. Ellinghausen, and they have three children - George, Louis and Walter; they live in Montana. Edward, also a resident of Montana, owns a silver mine there; George married Miss Elizabeth Harrington, and remains at the homestead; his wife died in 1887, leaving his with two little daughters - Luella M., and Hattie Belle; he at one time visited Montana, and then explored the Red River Valley, finding his wife in that region. Della became the wife of Vernon Harrington, and died in the Red River Valley, Minn., leaving three children - Alma, Charles, and Eugene; William is operating a ranch in Montana; Margaret is the wife of William Wright, a farmer and miller of Iowa Township, this county, and they have one child - Elson; Nathaniel took kindly to his books and was graduated from the State Normal School in Valparaiso, Ind.; he is likewise in Montana; Charles also attended the above-named institution, and with Libbie, Harry, and Nettie remain at home with their parents. The tenth child, Hattie, died when a month old.

Mrs. Shaffer departed this life at the homestead on the 21st of September, 1886, at the age of fifty-three years. Besides the family above-mentioned Mr. Shaffer has living with him his three motherless grandchildren, whom he is bringing up as his own, and intends to give them a first-class education. He has been President of the School Board in his district, and a Director for the past five years. He has also served as Township Trustee and as District Supervisor for several years. He is a member of the Congregational Church; is public-spirited and liberal-minded, and assisted materially in the building of the Congregational Church edifice at Green Island. He is one of those men forming the bone and sinew of every well-regulated community, and has made a record which his children will look upon with pride in coming years.

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