Reece, Nehemiah R.

REECE, SMITH

Posted By: Gary Norris (email)
Date: 1/7/2013 at 07:46:35

The History of Poweshiek County, Iowa
Des Moines: Union Hist. Co., 1880.

REECE, NEHEMIAH R.—Deep River Twp—pg 742. Section 32, P.O. Tilton. His great-grandfather on his mother’s side was born in England. His grandfather Reece was born in Pennsylvania and raised by a step-father. Two of his uncles went to North Carolina before the Revolutionary War. Nehemiah was born in Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, September 16, 1830. Worked on his father’s farm until of age, when after one year and six months he landed in Iowa, settling in Cedar county, June 1, 1853. In the fall of 1859 he returned to Pennsylvania, where he remained but one year, when he returned to Cedar county, Iowa. In 1863 he moved to Putman county, Illinois, where he farmed for two years, when he again returned to Cedar county, Iowa, and remained there five years, when he bought his present place, and moved to Prairie township, Keokuk county, where he remained one year while he improved his farm here. Mr. Reece married in Pennsylvania, October 21, 1852, Miss Malinda Smith, of Columbia county, Pennsylvania, who was born January 12, 1833. She was raised a farmer’s daughter, and her parents were born in this country. Eight children have blessed their union: Philip B. (who was born December 29, 1853; died October 8, 1854), Daniel D. (born January 12, 1856), Mary Emma (born February 1, 1859), John W. (born November 6, 1861), Robert S. (born July 6, 1864), Clara A. (born June 26, 1867), Luella (born May 8, 1870) and Lydia H. (born March 11, 1873, in Keokuk county, Iowa). Mr. R. owns eighty acres of good land, and his wife eighty acres more adjoining. For the last eleven years he has run a threshing machine with good success, and still does a good business in that line.