McKenzie, Daniel (1845-aft 1910)

MCKENZIE

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 11/4/2018 at 15:29:12

Daniel McKenzie

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.234, Silver Creek Twp.)
A. and D. McKenzie, farmers, P. O. Carson. Messrs. McKenzie are natives of Prince Edward's Island, Queens County. A. Mc. was born in 1845, and D. Mc. in 1849. Mr. D. Mc. came to the United States May 22, 1869, coming to Massachusetts, and thence to Iowa July 27, 1869. Mr. A. Mc. came direct to Iowa January 15, 1870. Both have been here ever since, and have been in Pottawattamie County, the first two years in Macedonia Township, and then to Silver Creek Township. January 18, 1874, they bought their present farm, it being raw prairie, paying $10.25 per acre, buying 240 acres, nearly the whole being in cultivation at present. Their principal business is raising corn and feeding stock. Mr. A. McKenzie was married January 28, 1879, in Pottawattamie County, to Miss Rhoad Ann Jones, born in Indiana. They have one child, a boy. The McKenzie brothers received their education in Prince Edward's Island. They are Scotch descent, their parents coming from Scotland; both parents are dead now. They are Republican in politics. Mr. A. Mc. has always followed farming, but Mr. D. is a shoe-maker by trade, having served five years as an apprentice, but since coming here has followed farming all the time. Most all that they now have they have made since coming to Pottawattamie County, and have made it by farming. Mr. A. Mc. was at work for three years running the mail from Cape Traverse to Cape Tormentine, across the Strais of Northumberland. In winter, they haev to carry the mail, from about the 10th of December till the 10th of May, across the ice. The mail would be put into a boat, and the men would put straps around their shoulders and draw the boat after them, where there was ice, and then, if they went through, they could catch on the boat, and use that, if there was water. Often, when the ice was good, they could make it across, the distance of nine miles, in three hours, but sometimes it would take them three days, waiting, when the sea was rough and the ice would be breaking up. Once, after they had crossed in three hours one way, and started back immediately, the ice broke up on the return and tehy were floated back and forth tilla bout 12 o'clock at night, and then landed about nine miles from home; he has seen the ice pile up thirty or forty feet above the water and as much below the water. When the ice begins to break up, they can hear it for as much as ten miles.