Freeman, Daniel

FREEMAN

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 8/4/2008 at 16:20:48

Daniel Freeman

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.67, Belknap Twp.)
Daniel Freeman, retired merchant, Oakland, was born in St. Louis, Mo., April 26, 1818; his father, Daniel Freeman, was born in New Hampshire in 1780, and came West to St. Louis, Mo., in 1800, when that place was a small village. There he built a hotel called the "Green Tree," where he had the honor of entertaining La Fayette, when that noted soldier and statesman visited the United States; he died near St. Louis in 1839. Mr. Freeman remembers St. Louis, as it was in the days of its crooked streets and old-fashioned houses, when the few steamboats then on the river fired cannon to denote their approach to the city. Mr. Freeman received a good education for those days, and lived at home till his father's death, when he was married, and farmed for three years in Illinois, opposite St. Louis; thence went to Rockford, Winnebago County, , where he remained five years, and then went to Rock County, Wis. In the latter place, Mr. Freeman lost his wife, Mary Waller, whom he married in Madison County, Ill.; she was born in Kentucky in 1818, and was the daughter of Richard and Nancy (Ellis) Waller; he is a native of Maryland, and she of Georgia. From Rock County, Wis., Mr. Freeman moved to La Fayette County, where he farmed for about twenty-five years. Six years after the death of his first wife, Mr. Freeman married Elizabeth Swindlow, born in England in 1834. In 1876, Mr. Freeman came to Big Grove, Pottawattamie County, engaged for two years in the mercantile business, and then sold out to his son-in-law, G. L. Whitehead. Since selling out, Mr. Freeman has lived in retirement from active business pursuits, though he still has some business interests. Mr. Freeman has five sons by his first wife, viz.: James Wilson, William Henry, Daniel Boone, Levi Ellis and Benjamin Franklin; they are all married and doing well. By his second wife, Mr. Freeman has had five children - Don Alonzo, Nancy Emily (deceased), Elizabeth Murray (now wife of L. G. Whitehead), Elmer Ellsworth and Charles Frederick. Mr. Freeman is a strong Republican.