Gearhart, Herley G.

GEARHART, REEDER, GREEN

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/23/2009 at 15:28:16

Gearhart, Herley G.

Among the honorable and influential citizens of Jasper County is Herley G. Gearhart, of Sherman Township, who has here maintained his home for many years, winning a definite success by means of the agricultural industry to which he has devoted his attention during the years of an active business life. His career has been without shadow of wrong or suspicion of evil and thus he has ever commanded the confidence and esteem of his fellow men.

Mr. Gearhart was born in Pennsylvania, October 30, 1852, the son of Jacob and Julia (Reeder) Gearhart, the father a native of France and the mother of New York, the former having emigrated to America with his parents when a mere boy and located in Pennsylvania, in which state his parents died. Julia Reeder's parents were natives of Ireland, from which country they immigrated to Pennsylvania. The father was a heater in the iron works in Pennsylvania for eighteen years. In 1857 the family came to Iowa and located in Jasper County, buying eighty acres in Sherman Township. This land they cleared, broke and developed into a good farm. Jacob Gearhart added to his original purchase until he owned a fine farm of about four hundred acres at the time of his death, in 1903. He was a successful farmer and lived a quiet, home life. His widow survived until 1907. They were the parents of seven children, five of whom are living.

Herley G. Gearhart was educated in the public schools of Jasper County and reared on the home farm, and he has devoted his life to agricultural pursuits, first renting land, then moved to Shelby County, this State, where he lived five or six years. Returning to Jasper County in 1893, he here bought one hundred and sixty acres in Sherman Township, which he has placed under high-grade improvements, and he has since purchased one hundred and sixty acres more. He has been very successful as a general farmer and stock raiser and has a pleasant home.

Politically, Mr. Gearhart is a Republican and he has held a number of the Township offices, always in a most acceptable manner. Fraternally, he belongs to the Blue Lodge of Masons.

Mr. Gearhart was married in 1873 to Cynthia Green, a native of Illinois, and the daughter of Harvey and Mary Green, old settlers there. To the subject and wife seven children have been born, namely: Charlotte, Arthur, Delia, Jacob, Mary, Morton and Earl. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912 Page 830.