La TOURETTE, Montgomery - 1912 Bio (1846-1930)

LA TOURETTE, SHERRY, HEATH, CLINE, CARVER, DEAN, SKINNER, REYNOLDS, HODGEN, DIXON, ERICKSON

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 9/20/2007 at 21:25:29

History of Jefferson County, Iowa -- A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement, Vol II
Published 1912, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago
Pages 99-101

Montgomery La TOURETTE, who operates a farm of one hundred and fifty-four acres in Locust Grove township, is one of the more recent acquisitions among the residents of Jefferson county having lived here little more than half a dozen years. He is descended from an old Huguenot family and traced his lineage back to the Count and Countess de La TOURETTE who lived in splendor in an old chateau in La Vendee at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The count learning that his name was on the list of the proscribed ones and that it would fare sorely with him if he attempted to escape was forced to use much ingenuity to devise a plan whereby he might secure his safety. Accordingly he invited all the neighboring gentry to a levee at his chateau and when the gayety was at its height he and the countess made their escape, under cover of the night, going on foot to the sea where a vessel bound for Charleston lay at anchor. On this they embarked, taking with them only the family jewels and a Huguenot Bible, and in 1693 landed at Staten Island, New York. Montgomery La TOURETTE was born in Tippecanoe county, Indiana, November 15, 1846. The grandfather, John La TOURETTE, a weaver by occupation, was a native of New York state where he lived until middle life when he came west and settled in Ohio and later in Indiana. His death occurred near Covington, Fountain county, Indiana. The father, Garrett La TOURETTE, was a native of Germantown, Ohio, where he was reared, and when grown to manhood became a steam engineer. He was united in marriage to Margaret Ann SHERRY, who was of Irish descent and was born in Indiana. They were the parents of three children: Montgomery, the subject of this biography; Henry, a carpenter in Benton county, Iowa; and Sarah, deceased, who was the wife of John HEATH. In 1851 the father, Garrett La TOURETTE, died near La Fayette, Indiana, and three years later, in 1854, his widow and the children came with relatives to Iowa, making their home in Benton county. There Mrs. La TOURETTE entered upon a second marriage, the union being with William CLINE, a farmer, by whom she had one child, Albert CLINE who is engaged in agriculture at Guthrie, Oklahoma.

Mongtomery La TOURETTE attended school in Benton county, Iowa, and afterwards assisted with the work of tilling the fields on the home place. He then bought a farm adjoining his mother's and developed this devoting himself especially to the raising of grain which he shipped in large quantities to the local market. In 1895 he sold out this farm and bought another in Van Buren county, Iowa, which he operated until 1902, situated east of Birmingham. He then removed his family to Jefferson county, Iowa, and established his home on the old Daniel Warner farm in Center township, remaining there until March 1, 1911, when he bought the tract of land on which he lives at the present time, one hundred and fifty-four acres in Locust Grove township. Here he is engaged in the various lines of general farming and also raises a good grade of stock, feeding grain and hay which he raises. The farm includes fifteen acres of timber land of considerable value.

For his helpmate Mr. La TOURETTE chose Miss Sarah E. CARVER to whom he was married on June 12, 1879. On her mother's side she was descended from an old colonial family, the great-grandmother having been a native of Virginia where the DEANs where of much importance in the early part of the nineteenth century. They were planters and large property owners employing many slaves on their land freeing them, however, long before the Civil war broke out. The grandfather of Mrs. La TOURETTE, James CARVER, was born in America of English parents and came from Pennsylvania to Franklin county, Ohio where he was engaged in tilling the soil. Her father, Thomas CARVER, was a farmer in Franklin county, Ohio, who came to Iowa as one of the pioneer settlers of Linn county. He enlisted in Company I, Twentieth Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and served two years when he was taken ill with typhoid fever and passed away in the spring of 1864, at New Orleans. Mrs. La TOURETTE's mother was Elizabeth A. DEAN before her marriage. A native of Ohio, she was married in Linn county, Iowa, and now lives with her granddaughter, Leta CARVER, in Benton county, Iowa. There were four children in the CARVER family: Sarah, now Mrs. La TOURETTE; John Franklin, who died in infancy; Tabitha Jane, the wife of E. H. SKINNER of Birmingham, Iowa, whom she married when a widow, a former marriage having taken place with George REYNOLDS of Wapello county, who died in 1904; and Thomas A., an editor at Conception Junction, Missouri, whose present wife is a Mrs. HODGEN, his former wife, who was Ella DIXON, having died twenty-four years ago.

Mr. and Mrs. La TOURETTE are the parents of four children: Schuyler, a farmer at Canby, Oregon, who is married to Lena ERICKSON, a daughter of Charles ERICKSON, and has one child, Dwight; Clifford C., who lives at home with his parents; Fred, who is a farmer in North Dakota; and Mary, a pupil in the Fairfield high school. Mr. La TOURETTE and his family are members of the Methodist Episcopal church of Fairfield, and he is connected with the Masonic order having joined the Benton City Lodge, No. 181, A. F. & A. M., at Shellsburg, while his daughter Mary belongs to the Rebecca Lodge of Batavia. In politics his sympathies are with the democratic party and the principles for which it stands, but at elections he is not fettered by blind partisanship, preferring to exercise his own judgment in regard to the candidate whom he chooses to support with his vote. Large in his views and unopinionated, Mr. La TOURETTE stands for the type of citizenship of which our body politics is in crying need -- the open-minded man who can think for himself and has the moral stamina to abide by his convictions.

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I have no relation to the person(s) mentioned.