Moss, Joseph

MOSS

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 10/30/2008 at 13:28:58

Joseph Moss

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.227, Rockford Twp.)
Joseph Moss, agricultural implements, Loveland, was born in Greene County, Ind., in 1834, son of Aquilla Moss. His parents are both dead. He was educated in Indiana and was married in Putnam County, of the same State, to Miss Mary Jane Jones, March 30, 1854, and the next year came Wst, settling in Harrison County, where he lived two years and then sold out and came to this county and bought land, but sold out and went back to Indiana, where he remained four years and then came back in the fall of 1864, and has been here ever since, buying a place about two and a half miles south of Loveland. Was appointed Deputy Sheriff, and served four years under George Doughty, and then came back to Rockford Township and has lived in the township ever since, but as he has two farms and property in Loveland his time has not been given to either. In the two farms he has 380 acres, about 200 acres being in cultivation, forty in timber and teh remainder in grass land. In 1878, he moved into Loveland and went into the grocery business for two years, and also was in his present business of agricultural implements. After two years, he sold his stock of groceries, and since has been giving his time to the implement business and to the carrying on of his farms. When he got to this State first, it was with a wagon and team and 30 cents in money. The first winter in Iowa was his hard winter, for he had no money, but worked at anything he could get to do. Shocked corn in the snow, bare handed, for John S. Goss, and got $1 per day. Game of all kinds was plenty and that furnished them meat. Paid $9 per hundred for flour. Pork 9 cents per pound. In the next spring he went to work his father-in-law's farm and made his start that way, for part of the corn he raised he sold for $3 per bushel. With this he entered land, improved and sold, and kept this up for some time, buying and selling. He has been a Democrat all his life, and has held offices of some kind for over twenty years, is now a Justice of the Peace. He was at one time engaged in buying and shipping stock and trading of all kinds, but for four years he has not been engaged in any very active business. he and wife are both very active members of the Baptist Church. They have had ten children, four married, four at home and two are deceased.