Bump, Benjamin L.

BUMP, WHITLOCK, ROBERTS

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/27/2009 at 11:52:35

Bump, Benjamin L.

One of the most evident things to the thoughtful farmer is the fact that life at no stage is a bed of roses. There are thorns, and many of them, along the path of farming life, and the lucky ones are they who are pierced by the fewest and avoid the most. It will probably not be disputed that all persons should keep in view the important duty of removing the thorns, when practicable, from the paths of those less fortunate. After a time this important duty becomes a pleasure and all are mutually benefited. Benjamin L. Bump, one of the worthy native sons of Jasper County and one of her most progressive young farmers, believes, as he was taught by sterling parents, that "To live and let live is the best policy," consequently, while laboring to advance his individual interests, he does not lose sight of his obligations to the community at large. He is the creditable scion of a prominent pioneer family of Lynn Grove Township where he still maintains his home, which has ever advocated honest emulation and fair competition, willing to march side by side with their fellow creatures, taking his chances with the rest, giving them their dues and taking their own. Thus the locality of which these volumes treat has been greatly benefited in the days of its up building, in fact, from the pioneer epoch to the present, by their loyalty and public spirit.

Benjamin L. Bump was born in this township, as above intimated, on November 10, 1871, and he is the son of Josiah P. and Narcissa (Whitlock) Bump, the father born in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, December 26, 1819, and he was eight years old when he moved with his parents from there to Chautauqua County, New York, in 1827. There the family home remained until 1835 when they moved to Lake County, Ohio, and four years later, in 1839, Josiah Bump took up his residence in Will County, Illinois. In 1840, having played the pioneer in several sections, he sought a milder climate and moved to the state of Louisiana, and after a sojourn of two years in the far Southland he returned to Ohio and settled in Meigs County, where he and Narcissa Whitlock were married on June 8, 1845. His desire to try his fate in a new country again drove him forth in 1854 and he brought his wife to Jasper County, Iowa, where they established their home and spent the rest of their lives. They found here a wild, unfenced, thinly settled prairie, but they did not have to wait many years until they saw all this transformed into as rich a farming and stock-raising country as the Middle West afforded. Mr. Bump entered about three hundred and twenty acres from the government, in Lynn Grove Township, and this he broke, placed under a high state of improvement and cultivation in due course of time and became one of the substantial and leading citizens of the southeastern part of the County. In connection with general farming and stock raising on a large scale he turned his attention to horticulture, and put out a number of large orchards of excellent varieties, planting at one time five hundred apple trees, besides cherries and plums. He became widely known through his fine fruit trees. In 1854 he was using a branch of a cottonwood tree in driving cattle, and upon returning home inadvertently placed the broken end of the branch in a hole of an old stump, where it began to sprout, and, Mrs. Bump watering the same for a while, it grew rapidly and made a giant tree measuring in 1878 ten feet in circumference and now sixteen feet. It is near the original log house, just in the rear of the present home of the family. When he came here he began life in the humble manner of all or most all first settlers and for some time lived in a plain log house, but being a man of unusual foresight, tact, common sense and industry he prospered and in due course of time erected a commodious frame dwelling and suitable barns and outbuildings. Having accumulated a competency he spent the latter years of his life in retirement, his death occurring in February 1909, having reached an advanced age, his wife preceding him to the grave on April 27, 1901. Politically, he was a Democrat, and while he took a lively interest in local public affairs, especially as affecting material progress, he was not a seeker after political honors. He was a man of exemplary character and enjoyed a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. As an evidence of the wonderful advance in land values in Iowa, it is noted that while in 1878 his farm valuation was placed at five thousand dollars, it is now eighty-two thousand dollars.

Benjamin L. Bump, the immediate subject of this review, grew up on the home farm and when of proper age he made himself useful in his father's fields, and he received his education in the Wormlay Schools in Newton, Iowa. Upon entering his life work he quite naturally took up farming, assuming charge of the home place, which he continued to manage successfully until his father's death. He purchased of his father the fine farm on which he now lives. It consists of one hundred and sixty acres. This he has kept exceptionally well tilled and well improved, carrying on general farming and stock raising in a manner that has brought liberal rewards and he is in every respect a worthy son of a worthy sire. He has no desire to be a politician or a leader of men. Fraternally, he belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and also to the Homesteaders.

Mr. Bump was married in 1899 to Emma Roberts, a native of Christian County, Illinois, and the daughter of William F. and Emma Roberts, an excellent old family, who came to Iowa when the daughter Emma was five years of age. Here they maintained their home for a period of thirty years, becoming well established, but Mr. Roberts finally moved to New Mexico, where his death occurred in the spring of 1911. He was twice married, his first wife, mother of Mrs. Bump, dying when the latter was a child. The wife of the subject grew to womanhood and was educated in the New Sharon Schools, Iowa. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Bump, named as follows: Alwilda, Cecil, Anslem, Irene, Dorothy and Alice. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912 Page 1256.