Hess, J. P.

HESS

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 9/8/2008 at 13:53:47

J. P. Hess

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.146, Lewis Twp.)
J. P. Hess, farmer, P. O. Council Bluffs, was born April 30, 1851, and raised in Lancaster County, Penn., and remained there till April, 1879; then came to Grundy County, Iowa, and first settled in Holland, but not liking it there, he came on West, and after looking through Nebraska and the western part of Iowa, he bought his present place, and came to it in the fall of 1879. When first buying, he got only eighty acres and paid $22.50 per acre. he has since added another eighty to his farm. His farming is quite general now, but Mr. hess bought it more for fruit and vegetable farm, and has already many grapevines and different fruit trees, and he finds his farm well adapted to fruit, it being high and well protected by timber on the north, so frost does not strike him so early or so late as most other places. Mr. Hess was raised on a farm, and farming has been his business most of his life. He is a son of Rev J. R. Hess, who is still farming in Lancaster, Penn. His mother is also still living. Mr. Hess has five brothers; all are farmers, and live in Lancaster County. He was married, spring of 1872, to Miss Susan Konigmacher, who was also born in Pennsylvania, in Lancaster County, within two miles of Mr. Hess' birthplace. Mr. Hess has a family record which dates back to 1712, when Samuel Hess came from Switzerland to America, and settled in Pennsylvania, and land that was ddded to some of the original members of the family still remains in the same name. Other members of the Hess family have deeds given by William Penn. Mr. Hess' wife's ancestry in America dates back to about the same time, and have figured largely in the history of Lancaster County, Penn. Mr. Hess has three boys - John Jacob (born December 3, 1873), Eddie A. (born March 26, 1875), Adam K. (born February 12, 1881). He is a Republican in politics, and has always been. He received his education in the common schools of his native county. The Hess family is of the religious denomination called Mennonites. They were originally a branch of the Waldenses, of Switzerland, afterward Proselytes of the church of Simon Menno, a reformer, who left the Catholic Church about the time of Luther. They left the old country on account of religious persecutions. When Mr. Hess came here, there was no school in the Carterville School District, but he and Mr. Rich went before the School Board of Garner Township, and through their aid the schoolhouse was put in repair and opened for that district, which includes parts of Lewis and part of Garner. Mr. Hess' children are of the eighth generation in America.