Terry, Henry A. (1826-1909)

TERRY

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 4/4/2008 at 23:02:33

Henry A. Terry
July 12, 1826 - Feb 14, 1909

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.92, Crescent Twp.)
H. A. Terry, nurseryman, Crescent City, has been a resident of Pottawattamie County since 1847; he was among the first white settlers of the county, and has remained a resident of it during the greater portion of the time since he first strayed so far from the old settled country of the East and became a resident of the frontier. He is a native of Cortland County, N. Y., where he was born in 1826. When he was ten years of age, his people removed to Oakland County, Mich. He remained there until his seventeenth year, and then went to Knox County, Ill., where he resided until 1846. In 1848, he was married to Miss Rachel T. Sinine, widow of M. Sinine; six children were born to them, of whom Henry S. was the first white child born in Crescent Township. Mr. Terry's second marriage, after the death of his first wife, was to Esther J., daughter of S. M. and Eliza J. Hough. Three children have been born of this marriage. When Mr. Terry first came to Pottawattamie County, he engaged in the seed business, he being for many years the first and only seed merchant on the Missouri River. He combined with his seed trade the sales of small fruit nursery stock. In the fall of 1855, he began the nursery business, and his sales began in 1856; since that time, he has been steadily engaged in the business. For the first twenty years, his sales were all made at the nursery. He then established local agents, and now he is doing an exclusive wholesale business. Fifty acres of his farm of 120 acres are devoted exclusively to nursery. His is the oldest and most thoroughly posted dealer in his line in the county. In 1855, when the firest agricultural society in the county was organized, he was elected Secretary. Politically, he is a Democrat, and as a citizen and honorable, upright member of the community, Mr. Terry stands without superior in Crescent Township.

(From the 1891 Biographical History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, p.472)
HENRY A. TERRY, nurseryman near Crescent City, was born in Cortland County, New York, July 12, 1826, a son of Otis and Cynthia (RUGGLES) Terry, natives of Worcester, Massachusetts, and of Irish and Scotch origin. They were reared in their native county and married in 1816. A few years later, they removed to New York, in which state they resided in several places - in Otsego, Cortland, and Broome counties. Mr. Terry was generally a farmer, but at times he devoted his attention chiefly to vegetable gardening. In 1836 he moved to Oakland County, Michigan, and next to Livingston County, same state, purchased a farm and resided upon it until 1844, and then moved to Knox County, Illinois, and lived there some two years. In 1846 he moved to Decatur County, Iowa, in 1848, to Pottawattamie County in 1853 or 1854, to Utah, where he died in December 1887 at the advanced age of ninety three years. In that Territory, he raised a great variety of fruit,! on a fine large fruit farm about twelve miles from Salt Lake City. He was a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, as was also his wife, who died in Decatur County, Iowa, in 1847 at the age of fifty three years. Three of their five children are still living, viz.: Otis L. and Charles A., who reside in Utah, the latter a minister of the Church of Latter Day Saints; Henry A. was the third in order of birth; and Oris M. and Edwin D. are deceased.
Henry A. was reared to farm life and attained his knowledge of the business world by observation. He left his parents at Nauvoo, at the age of twenty years, striking out in the world for himself. He followed farming at Garden Grove, this state, until 1847; taught school in the winter of 1846-47, and thus earned the first money he could call his own. In the fall of the latter year, he came to Pottawattamie County and located in Honey Creek, at what is now Rockford Township, and taught school during the ensuing winter. In September 1848, he married, and the next spring he moved to Crescent City and engaged in mercantile business, in the first store in the town and the second in the county. After running that about three years, he sold it and went to New Haven, Connecticut, for two years. Then he came to Council Bluffs, at that time called Kanesville, and engaged in the seed and grain business in company with J. E. Johnson, and remained in th! at relation until 1857. Moving then to Crescent City, he continued in the same business until 1860 when he sold out, having commenced the nursery business in 1856 and establishing one of the first nurseries and now the oldest one in the county. In nursery and orchard, he has 100 acres. He takes great pride in his vocation, making discoveries, etc., being one of the state experimental station directors. Of the home place, there are 140 acres and in pasture some sixty acres. When he purchased that place it was entirely wild prairie.
On national questions, he is a Democrat. Has held various township offices; been trustee for sixteen years and Township Treasurer for the Board of Education. In September 1848, he married Rachel T. SIRRINE, who had come to the county that year. She was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1824, and died July 12, 1873. Her parents were Eliphaz and Amarilla (SANFORD) GILLETT. By this marriage there were six children, as follows: Henry S., now the oldest resident native of this township, being born here September 2, 1849; Mary C., deceased, wife of John P. Williams of South Omaha, she was born December 26, 1852 and died October 1886; Rachel A., born April 8, 1860, now the wife of William Nusum near Woodbine, Harrison County; Charles T., born August 29, 1862, died March 3, 1864; Fannie M., born March 8, 1865, is now Mrs. Christian Markesan of Council Bluffs; and Adelaide, born March 6, 1868, and died the next day.
For his present wife, Mr. Terry married October 15, 1873, Esther J. Hough, who was born November 5, 1844, in Montrose, Lee County, Iowa, daughter of S. M. and Eliza J. (Allen) HOUGH, and by this union there have also been six children, as follows: Florence B., born July 18, 1874; Grace I., February 17, 1876; Clara M., March 29, 1878 and died July 15, 1879; Myrtle C., born June 13, 1880 and died March 20, 1885; Howard A., born September 28, 1882; Otis M., born May 14, 1885, and died September 7, 1886.

(Source: Peonies, The Manual of the American Peony Society, edited by James Boyd; published 1928 by the American Peony Society. Page 300
Terry, H.A., was born in Cortland County, New York, July 12, 1826. When he was ten years of age he went with his parents to Michigan and seven years later to Illinois. He spent his young manhood there and in states on west. He combined the sale of small fruit and nursery stock with the seed business and in 1855 established a nursery at Crescent, Iowa, specializing in peonies. "Father Terry," as he was called during the latter part of his life, was for many years the only seed merchant in the Missouri River Territory. He died February 14, 1909, at the age of eighty-three.