Whitney, Newton

WHITNEY, DILLON, LOVE

Posted By: Marilyn Norris Holmes (email)
Date: 11/30/2012 at 10:41:45

1880 History of Poweshiek County Iowa

DEEP RIVER TOWNSHIP

Page 749-50

WHITNEY, NEWTON--P.O. Deep River. Lives in the village of Dresden. He was born in Poultney, Rutland county, Vermont, the 26th of September, 1822, and was raised a tanner and currier, but afterward followed shoemaking and farming alternately for a number of years. In 1849 he traveled to California, spending six months in making the journey, when he engaged in mining operations with good success for about six months. He also sold goods both among the miners and in San Francisco for about nine months. After living about eighteen months in California, sixty-five days of which were spent on the Pacific Ocean, he left, and after considerable other traveling, returned home in the spring of 1852. The next fall he made a trip to this State and bought 135 acres of land from William Whitlock, and entered forty acres more adjoining from the government. Leaving his land in the care of his agent, D.C. Baker, he returned East, where he remained until the winter of 1855-6, when, in company with his brother Myron, he immigrated to Iowa. The two brothers commenced business as merchants in Dresden, and built the first business house in the township, which still stands, a monument of their pioneer experience and enterprise. In the fall of 1858, their co-partnership was dissolved, Newton buying and running the business alone until the following spring, when his brother returned from a visit East and bought out the entire establishment. Newton has followed farming ever since. He married, September 26, 1857, Miss Catharine Dillon, whose father had shortly before emigrated from Claresville, Ohio, and settled in Deep River township of this county. By this lady he had five children, one only of whom is still living: Elmetta E. (born November 23, 1858, and died the 24th of September, 1867), Franklin E. (born September 12, 1860), Eletha N. and Elena, twins (born June 2, 1864, and died--Elena, January 23, 1871, and Eletha, January 28, 1871) and John (born June 8, 1868, and died January 19, 1871). The three deaths last mentioned were occasioned by scarlet fever, and that of Elmetta resulted from the spontaneous combustion of coal oil contained in a tin can which the child was at that time handling. Her clothes caught fire, and being badly burnt from head to foot before assistance could reach her, she suffered intense agony for about twenty-eight hours, when she expired. Mr. Whitney's first wife died on the 10th of July, 1870, and he again married on the 21st of March, 1872, choosing for his second wife, Miss Margaret Love of Malvern, Ohio. The result of this union has been one child, Ion (born April 5, 1874). Mr. Whitney deals quite largely in hogs and other stock, and besides his present very pleasant home, he owns three town lots, sixty aces of good and well cultivated land in Deep River township, and forty acres in Polk county, near Des Moines.