Nisewanger, Jacob

NISEWANGER

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 11/3/2008 at 13:39:38

Jacob Nisewanger

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.235, Silver Creek Twp.)
Jacob Nisewanger, farmer, P. O. Macedonia, was born in Shelby County, Ohio, in 1831. In 1857, he moved to Illinois, and settled in Logan County, and he remained there for six years, and then returned to OHio, and remained at home with his father for two years, and then went back to Logan County, Ill., where he stayed for one season, and then came to Iowa. In the fall of 1861, before going to Ohio, he was married, near Lincoln, Ill., to Miss Sarah J. Woods. She was born in Ohio. In the fall of 1864, he came to Mills County, and the next year came to Pottawattamie County, and has been in Silver Creek Township ever since, and is perhaps the oldest settler in the township now. In 1867, he came to his present farm. The nearest settlement to him was over four miles. The first eighty acres of land he got he traded for without ever seeing it. His farm now consists of 160 acres, well improved. He has just completed a large two-story residence, and has a bearing orchard and forest groves, etc. His farming is mixed, raising grain, also stock. He has nine children, six boys and three girls, and one son dead; he is Democratic in politics. His father, William Nisewanger, lived on the old homestead in Shelby County, Ohio, till his death, in February, 1880. Mr. Nisewanger's mother died only a few days before his father. Mr. N.'s ancestors were Germans, but his father was born in Maryland; he was educated in the common schools of Ohio, going to a log schoolhouse, with a big fire-place, and sat on puncheon seats.