Maring, Jacob

MARING, POWELL, PINEGAR, ANDERSON, ALSBAUGH, HOLTEN, PARKER, PERRY, PETERSON

Posted By: Debbie Nash (email)
Date: 3/29/2004 at 22:46:11

JACOB MARING
MARING, POWELL, PINEGAR, ANDERSON, ALSBAUGH, HOLTEN, PARKER, PERRY, PETERSON

“Jacob Maring, who has for many years been identified with the agricultural pursuits of Des Moines township, is now living retired upon the farm which his father acquired from the government more than a half century ago. He was born in Belmont county, Ohio, on the 16th of April, 1839, and is a son of Robert and Narcasa (Powell) Maring, natives of Ohio but of German extraction. During the early boyhood of our subject they moved to Keokuk county, later to Van Buren county and finally came to Jefferson. Des Moines township was but sparsely settled at that period and Mr. Maring entered one hundred and sixty acres of government land upon which he settled with his family. By means of diligence and thrift Mr. Maring brought his place into a high state of development, and here he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives. Mrs. Maring died in the spring of 1855, while her husband survived until June, 1863.

The boyhood and youth of Jacob Maring were not unlike those of other lads of the pioneer period. He attended the district schools in the acquirement of his education at such times as his assistance was not required in the work of the farm. At the breaking out of the Civil war he and his wife were living at Chillicothe, Iowa, where on the 22d of July, 1862, he enlisted as a private and went to the front in Company K, Eighteenth Iowa Volunteer Infantry. He saw considerable active service, participating in a number of battles and skirmishes, among them those of Springfield, Missouri, Moscow and Poison Springs. He was mustered out at the end of three years at Little Rock, Arkansas, receiving his discharge at Davenport. Upon his return home he farmed as a renter at Chillicothe for some time, afterward purchasing the interest of the other heirs in his father’s farm, upon which he has now resided over thirty years. Mr. Maring retired from the active work of the fields about four years ago, and is now renting all of his land with the exception of a small tract, that he retains for a garden.

On the 8th of April, 1857, Mr. Maring was united in marriage to Miss Angeline Pinegar, a daughter of Peter and Annie (Anderson) Pinegar. The father was born and reared in North Carolina and the mother a native of Kentucky, having been born in the vicinity of Lexington, of German extraction. Mr. Pinegar came to Iowa with his family in 1854, settling on some land in Des Moines township, this county. There they lived for some time but he was a resident of Wapello county, at the time of his demise, while his wife died in Clarke county, Iowa. Mrs. Maring is one of those women who had to do both a man’s and woman’s work while her husband was at the front during the war. She chopped wood and husked the corn planted by her husband before enlisting, and at times found it most difficult to provide herself and babies with food and clothing. She maintains that the men in the service exhibited no more courage nor suffered greater hardships than were endured oftentimes by their families at home. She had two brothers in the war, John A. Pinegar, a member of the Seventh Iowa Volunteer Cavalry, who is now residing near Chillicothe, this state, and her youngest brother, Peter J., who was a member of Mr. Maring’s company, at the present time a resident of Osceola, Clarke county. She also had two younger sisters, Martha and Lydia, both deceased. The family of Mr. and Mrs. Maring numbers six. Annie Jane, the eldest, married Dave Alsbaugh of Fairfield, Iowa. John M., a cement worker of Ottumwa, married Emma Holten of Mapleton, Illinois, and they have five children: Joseph, Jacob, Luke, May and John. George Francis, a farmer of Des Moines township, this county, married Leona Parker and they have five children: Carl, Joseph, Wesley, Howard and Bertha. William, a huckster and poultryman of Kansas City, Kansas, married, and has three children: Margaret, Roy and Clarence. Theodore, a farmer near Ottumwa, Iowa, married Maggie Perry and they have four children: Paul, Helen, Margaret and Evans. Cordelia, wife of Charles Peterson, a farmer in the vicinity of Birmingham, Iowa, has one son, Paul. Mr. and Mrs. Maring have lost three children: Bertha, Marcus De Lafayette and a son, who died in infancy.

Mr. Maring is a stanch republican in his political views, but has never been an office seeker. He attends the Free Methodist church of Eldon, of which his wife is an earnest and devoted member. He is one of the enterprising men of the community, whose agricultural pursuits awarded him a fair measure of success, his farm being one of the valuable properties of the township.”
From the “History of Jefferson County, Iowa” – 1912, Volume II, Pages 262-264.