Joseph Comp

COMP, HOENESS, JOHNSON

Posted By: Judy Wight Branson (email)
Date: 8/8/2004 at 19:31:44

Joseph Comp is a retired farmer now living in Winterset but is still the owner of valuable property which affords him a generous annual income. He was born in Wayne county, Ohio, March 12, 1842, while his parents were from Pennsylvania and his grandparents were natives of Germany. Joseph Comp spent his boyhood days under the parental roof and attended the district schools. He left home at the age of twenty-one, making his way to Mercer county, Illinois where he had an older brother living. There he attended school for one winter and he also worked at the carpenter's trade with his brother, being thus engaged until October, 1864, when, feeling that his duty to his country was paramount to all else, he enlisted as a member of Company I, Thirty-sixth Illinois Volunteer infantry, with which he served until the close of the war. He was one of the troops recruited to fill out an old regiment and was honorably discharged in October 1865, being mustered out at New Orleans. He participated in the battle of Franklin on the 30th of November, 1864, that of Nashville on the 15th and 16th of December, and in various skirmishes. He escaped without being wounded or taken prisoner and returned to his home with a creditable military record.

When the war was over Mr. Comp again made his way to Mercer county Illinois, and once more worked with his brother at the carpenter's trade. Later he returned to Ohio, where he engaged in cultivating his father's farm until 1869. He then came to Madison county and purchased eighty acres of wild prairie land in Douglas township. With characteristic energy he began to develop and improve that property and continuously followed farming for more than forty-one years. He paid fifteen dollars per acre for his original purchase, later bought sixty acres for twenty dollars per acre and still later one hundred and sixty acres at thirty dollars per acre. He is today the owner of three hundred acres worth one hundred and fifty dollars per acre. Year after year he carefully tilled the soil, employing modern farming methods in the improvement of his place. He was thus engaged until 1910, when he turned the farm over to his sons, and retiring from business life, took up his abode in Winterset, where he now has leisure for the enjoyment of those things which are to him a matter of interest and recreation. On the 2d of October, 1866, Mr. Comp was united in marriage in Wayne county, Ohio, to Miss Savilla Johnson, a native of Wayne county, born November 13, 1843, and to them have been born six children: Ora, who died at the age of eighteen years; George William, a resident farmer of Jackson township; Walter J., who is upon the home farm; Ira D., also a farmer of this county; Mabel, the wife of Samuel Hoeness, who carries on general farming in Jackson township; and Franklin W., who is also upon the home farm.

Mr. Comp belongs to Pitzer Post, No. 55, G. A. R., of Winterset, and greatly enjoys meeting with his old army comrades and recounting the incidents of military life in the south. He and his wife are members of the Methodist church and their lives have been lived in accordance with its teachings. Mr. Comp has now passed the seventy-third milestone on life's journey and he deserves the rest which has come to him, for it is the merited outcome and reward of persistent, earnest and honorable labor.

Taken from the book, “The History of Madison County, Iowa, 1915”