Cushing, Enoch

CUSHING

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 9/2/2008 at 17:24:42

Enoch Cushing

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.134, Knox Twp.)
Enoch Cushing, farmer, P. O. Avoca, born in Tamworth, N. H., about fourteen miles from the White Mountains, in 1829; lived there until twenty-one years old; educated in the common schools; raised on a farm, and lived in different places in New Hampshire until 1862, when he moved to Massachusetts; he worked at farming, carpentering - in fact, all kinds of work - and for fourteen years was employed in a show manufactory employing 6,000 hands. In Massachusetts, he raised vegetables for the Boston market; after five year4s at this business, went into the dairy business for one year, and, in December, 1868, he came to this county; settled at what is known as New Boston, living therer for one year, owning a dozen horses and a saw-mill. Moving to Avoca, he was the first carpenter, and did the first work in this line which was done in the town; stayed there one year, sold out to Abel Harris and moved onto his present farm. When he came to this county, he had only $200; bought eighty acres of land from the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company in 1869; made a small payment on it; built a house on it in 1870; moved onto it; had only one horse; no farming tools; only made a payment of $100, with a wife and six small children depending on his efforts, but since that time has paid for the original eighty acres, bought and paid for 160 acres more, so that the farm now consists of 240 acres of fine land, with a good barn and dwelling house erected thereon, the dwelling costing $1,600. The farm is well stocked and improved. This has all been done by farming. He married, in 1849, Miss Charlotte Bugel, of Barrington, N. H. They have six children - three sons and three daughters, all living at home. Subject is politically a Greenbacker.