Jennings, W. E.

JENNINGS, STARKWEATHER, BALDWIN, GREEN, DOTSON, ROWE, TUCKER

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 9/1/2009 at 07:30:32

Jennings, W. E.

Mound Prairie Township has no more progressive farmer or Jasper County no more honored citizen than W. E. Jennings, who, like many of our enterprising men, hails from the old Empire state, his birth having occurred in Ontario County, New York, September 5, 1863, the son of Charles and Mary R. (Starkweather) Jennings. The paternal grandparents were New Englanders and they spent their lives in their native country, as did also the maternal grandparents. The father of the subject was born in western New York and the mother in Vermont and they were married there. Charles Jennings was a carriage-maker by trade. He brought his family to Iowa in 1871, arriving in Jasper County on January 11th of that year, and they located on a farm of about one hundred acres just southeast of Colfax. Mr. Jennings here became the owner of one hundred and eighty acres and he lived here until his death, on July 16, 1894. Politically, he was a Republican, but he never aspired to public office. Before leaving New York he was a justice of the peace. His family consisted of two children, W. E., of this review, and John Charles Fremont, who died in December 1900. The mother was a member of the Presbyterian Church. Her death occurred on January 25, 1907. The father was reared a Quaker, from which faith he never departed.

W. E. Jennings was educated in the common schools of Colfax and he spent five months in Hazel Dell Academy at Newton. He was reared on the home farm and after he quit school he began the management of the home place, building a house near that of his father. In 1890 he moved to the two-hundred-acre farm he had purchased east of his home, in Mound Prairie Township, and here he has carried on general farming and stock raising in a manner that has resulted in much definite success. He has a rich and well-improved farm and a good home. He also runs a light dairy business, disposing of his products at Colfax.

Politically, he is a Republican and he is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. He has never aspired to public office.

On September 14, 1892, Mr. Jennings was united in marriage with Mary E. Baldwin, who was born at Ira, this County, August 1, 1866, the daughter of Mirtlow and Sarah Jane (Green) Jennings, the father born in New York and the mother in Illinois. Mirtlow Baldwin came to Iowa in the fall of 1855, and Sarah Jane Green came to this locality in 1858 with her widowed mother, Mary (Dotson) Green. The latter's family of five children were furnished a home by their uncle, Charles Dotson, and here the mother reared them.

The maternal grandfather was Harvey Green. The mother had been married first to Willis Rowe, who was killed during the Civil War, and on 0ctober 5, 1865, she married Mirtlow Baldwin. He led a quiet life on the farm, but finally moved to Newton where he spent the last sixteen years of his life, and died there on January 1, 1909, and there his widow still resides. They had two children, Mary E., wife of Mr. Jennings, and Eugene H., who lives at Fara (Farrar?), near Mingo, Iowa. The paternal grandparents, Newton and Sarah Jane (Tucker) Baldwin, were natives of New York, from which state they came to Jasper County, Iowa, in 1855. They finally moved away and the grandfather died in Wisconsin, and the grandmother in Montana.

Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Jennings, namely: Harvey E., a graduate of the high school at Colfax; Hugh B., who died in infancy, and Hazel. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912 Page 876.