Woodmansee, Lorenzo D. (1833-1917)

WOODMANSEE

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 8/2/2008 at 18:23:53

Lorenzo D. Woodmansee
Mar 21, 1833 - Oct 11, 1917

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p107, Grove Twp.)
L. D. Woodmansee, merchant, Wheeler's Grove, born in New Jersey March 21, 1833; he emigrated with his father's family to Ohio in 1843, and remained there till 1858, then emigrated to Illinois, and settled in Logan County, where he followed farming till coming to Iowa in 1864, when he settled in Pottawattamie County, three miles north of Macedonia. He owned a portion of the land now occupied by the town of Carson in Pottawattamie County; from there he went into the mercantile business in old Macedonia in 1866, but continued in charge of a farm of 160 acres south of Macedonia; this business was continued for three years, when he sold out, and bought a gristmill on East Nishnabotna River, in Montgomery County, Iowa. He continued in the milling business one year, then traded for a farm in Pottawattamie County, near Wheeler's Grove, on Farm Creek. He remained on that farm till 1875, and then opened the mercantile business at Wheeler's Grove, where he conducts mercantile, stock and agricultural business; he owns 567 acres adjoining the town of Wheeler's Grove. His father, John Woodmansee, was born in New Jersey in 1804; he emigrated to Shelby County, Ohio, in 1843; has always been a farmer, and still lives on the farm on which he first settled; his mother, Narriet (Platt) Woodmansee, was born in New Jersey about 1813. She is the mother of seven children, of whom six are living, three being in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. Mr. Woodmansee has been Township Clerk, and is now Justice of the Peace. Mr. Woodmansee married Mary Niswanger, of Shelby County, Ohio, February 7, 1858; she was born April 18, 1836; her father, Samuel Niswanger, was born in Green County, Ohio, in 1806; her mother, Nancy Scarf, was born in Greene County, Ohio, and died in 1842. Mr. and Mrs. Woodmansee have three children - Hattie Alice, Laura E. and Edith S., whose ages are respectively twenty-three, twenty-two and fourteen. Mr. Woodmansee is a staunch Republican.