Buck, Prof. S. J.

BUCK, CARY

Posted By: Gary Norris (email)
Date: 1/9/2013 at 08:21:46

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

BUCK, Prof. S.J.—Grinnell Twp—pg 888-9. Prof. S.J. Buck, of Iowa College is one of the best known, if not the very best known, of any educational man in the county, having been connected with the institution almost all the time since the location of the college in this county and having served the county in the capacity of County Superintendent and labored in many difficult capacities among the people of this county and adjoining counties. He was born in Herkimer county, New York, on the 4th of July, 1835, but while he was very young his parents removed to Ohio and settled in Trumbull county where young Buck was brought up and received a common school education in the schools of the county and then entered an academy and received an academic education. In the year 1854 he entered Oberlin College and took the regular course and graduated in the year 1858. In the year 1862 he graduated from the theological course in the same school. Between the two courses at the college he was engaged in teaching. He was principal of an academy in Buzetta, Trumbull county. Also principal of a high school at West Liberty in Logan county. After his graduation in 1862 he was principal of an academy at Orwell in Ashtabula county one year and in 1863 was ordained a minister of the gospel in the Congregational Church. He continued to teach and had charge of a church for the remaining part of the year and then resigned his duties as a teacher and took charge of another church and devoted his entire time to the ministry while he remained in that country. In 1864 he was invited to this place to take charge of the preparatory department of Iowa College, which invitation he accepted. He at once took a prominent position not only as a teacher but as a citizen. He was at once elected captain of a company of home guards and did valuable service in suppressing the "Sugar Creek Rebellion." He was elected County Superintendent in 1866, and re-elected in 1868, and did much for the pubic schools of this county. He resigned his office as County Superintendent, however, at the end of the third year to take charge of the Congregational Church in Chester township which he served for two years. He served the Congregational Church at Gilman seven years and the Congregational Church at Toledo, in Tama county, two years. He was elected professor of mathematics in Iowa College in 1869 which position he has ever since filled with ability. In 1871 he was elected President of the Iowa State Teachers’ Association and presided over that body at its session in Council Bluffs. He has been employed in the normal institutes of this and other counties in this State either as instructor or as lecturer every year since the Institute was a part of our school system. He was married, in 1859, to Miss Jane Cary, a lady class-mate and a graduate from Oberlin of the class of 1858. She is a lady of refinement and taste and devotes herself to the care of her house and her family. By this union they have three children: Miss Edith C. (a young lady of fine mind and ability, now, 1880, a member of the junior class in Iowa College), Samuel C. (a bright lad of fourteen years is now a member of the excellent high school of which Mr. A.Z. Fru is superintendent and Miss Southard is the principal), Irving J. (now eleven and a member of the graded school). Professor Buck is a man of superior ability in his profession and it is only his love for the Institute which he has been so long connected with that keeps him here; having been invited three different times since he has been here to other positions some of which are more lucrative than the one occupied here.