Fry, Abner

FRY, HISKEY, CAPLE, RUTTER, GIPSON, HANKINS, EASTERLY

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/12/2009 at 16:32:25

Abner Fry

There are persons in every community out of health, from a great many causes. One has indigestion, another rheumatism, another liver trouble, and others suffer from their kidneys. All are anxious to find relief, but do not know where or how to seek it. The mineral springs at Colfax, Jasper County, Iowa, offer a ready cure for all these ills. These springs are no experiment, but have been tested by thousands, who have found their curative and recuperative properties almost miraculous.

Abner Fry, proprietor of the Fry Son's Hotel and Mineral Springs at Colfax, is a man who has a great amount of magnetism in his makeup, and he has hundreds of testimonials from men and women whom he has almost restored to life by the use of electrical treatment and hand magnetism. Now with the tonic aid of the magnetic water of the mineral springs he feels that hardly a case of chronic rheumatism, paralysis, dropsy or dyspepsia need go away from his home uncured. The hotel is one of the best in the city. It is situated on a hillside nearly surrounded by forests, and there are many pastime sports arranged for in and out of doors. The table is provided with an abundance of well-cooked food, and be has comfortable rooms for at least one hundred persons. Doctor Fry is a whole souled, jolly person, and if any of his guests get the blues, he can relieve them speedily.

Our subject is a native of Richland County, Ohio, born May 21, 1837, and is one of eight children born to Daniel and Nancy (Hiskey) Fry, natives of Pennsylvania. The Fry family came to America from Germany at a period long antedating the Revolutionary War, and Grandfather Fry was a soldier in the War of 1812. The Hiskey family also originated in Germany, and its members were early settlers of the Keystone State. Daniel Fry was a tanner by occupation, and shortly after his marriage moved to Ohio, where be engaged in farming for many years. From that state he moved to Marion County, Iowa, took up timberland and began at once to clear and improve it. Later he moved to Monroe, Jasper County, where he resided until a short time before his death, when he came to his son Doctor Fry's, and died here in March 1885, when eighty-two years of age. His wife survived him three years, dying when in her eighty-third year.

Of the eight children born to this couple, four grew to mature years. Margaret, deceased, was the wife of N. Caple; Charlotte is deceased; Abner is our subject, and Hattie, deceased, was the wife of Jacob Rutter. Abner Fry, the original of this notice, received but a limited education in Red Rock, Iowa, and commenced life for himself when twenty years of age. He started out in life for himself with limited means, and for a number of years followed farming. Later he engaged in general merchandising in Monroe, Iowa, but finally merged that into the grocery business. Finding that he was not succeeding very well in this, he turned his attention to the real-estate business, in which he met with fair success. He engaged in the livestock business about the close of the war and continued this until 1874. From 1874 until 1875 he was employed by the Singer Sewing Machine Company to settle their business throughout the state, and during the latter part of 1875, he was employed by the celebrated Dr. Paul Caster, of Ottumwa, Iowa. Doctor Caster was the renowned magnetic healer who erected a large sanitarium in Ottumwa. With him Doctor Fry remained for five years, and after the first year he had entire control of the sanitarium until the death of Doctor Caster in 1881. The same year Doctor Fry came to Colfax with $1,100 in cash, and for some time was employed by Mr. Mason, of the Mason House, having control of the electric department.

Soon afterward Doctor Fry was employed by a Mr. Cole, and occupied a like position for some time. In the spring of 1882 he purchased the site of his present sanitarium, then consisting of two acres, and in June of that year he began to bore for mineral water, which he struck bountifully at the depth of three hundred and fifteen feet. During the spring of l883, he commenced to erect his present handsome hotel, and subsequently bought enough land to make a nice park of ten acres, he moved into his present property and carried on the hotel until August 1884, when he sold to Mr. Sterling. In June 1885, he purchased Mr. Sterling's interest in the hotel, and made many improvements in it.

Doctor Fry was married in the year 1858 to Miss Susan Rutter, a native of Ohio and a daughter of Andrew and Susan (Gipson) Rutter. Mr. Rutter was a farmer and moved to Iowa in 1849, settling near Eddyville. He and his wife both passed away in Monroe, Jasper County, Iowa. They reared a family of seven children, as follows: Lizzie, deceased, was the wife of Jacob Hankins; Jacob resides in Rockwell City, Iowa; James resides in Boulder, Colo.; John died in the army; David lives in Adams County, Iowa; Annie is the wife of S. L. Easterly, and Susan is the wife of our subject. To Doctor and Mrs. Fry have been born four children, one dying in infancy. Those living are I. H., a physician of Marshalltown; Daniel C. and Abbie. Daniel C. Fry is a partner with his father in the hotel. He is a member of the Ancient Free And Accepted Masons. In his political views the Doctor has been a life-long Republican. Portrait and Biographical Record, Jasper, Marshall and Grundy Counties, IA Page 165.