Solomon BEAR

BEAR, KIEFER, WALKER, DEWLEY OR DULY

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 1/13/2009 at 02:47:40

from Biography & Historical Record of Ringgold County, Iowa

Lewis Publishing Company of Chicago, 1887, Pp. 252-53

SOLOMON BEAR

Solomon BEAR, farmer, section 16, is one of the old pioneers of Monroe Township, who has been identified with the interests of the county nearly thirty years. He was born in [Brothersvalley Township] Somerset County, Pennsylvania, near the Allegheny Mountains, August 16, 1832. His parents, Lewis and Mary KEIFER) BEAR, were natives of the same county, the former of German ancestry. They were the paretns of fourteen children, Solomon being the eldest. When he was six years of age his parents removed to Westmoreland County, where he was reared on a farm, attending school only a few months. In 1854 he came to Linn County, Iowa, where he resided eighteen months, then returned to Pennsylvania, and later to Wells County, Indiana. In the fall of 1857 he returned to Iowa and spent the winter in Cedar Rapids. The year following he located upon his present farm, which was then in its rimitive state. It was school land, and he paid $4.50 per acre. The farm contains 120 acres of well-cultivated and improved land, a large portion being rich bottom land. Lott's Creek waters the farm and renders it one of the best stock farms in the township. He has an orchard of three acres, a large amount of willow, osage, and honey locust hedge, one of the best native groves in the township consisting of six acres, mostly maple, a comfortable house, and out-buidlings of all kinds for both stock and grain. He is engaged in stock-raising and feeding.

When he first came to Ringgold County, provisions were scarece and high, corn was $1.50 a bushel and flour $9 per hundred pounds.

December 5, 1860, Mr. BEAR was married to Miss Sarah E. WALKER, a native of Iowa, daughter of Henderson WALKER, an old pioneer of Decatur County.They had one son, Winfield Scott, who is fitting himself for a profession. Mrs. BEAR died in January, 1871, and in February, 1872, he was married to Amanda Elvina DEWLEY, a Harrison County, Missouri. They are the parents of five children - Dolly Ann, Nellie, Mary, Agnes, Franklin.

Mr. BEAR is a member of the Odd Fellows order, Mount Ayr Lodge, No. 169, and politically is a Republican. He is one of the pioneers of the old type, plain and outspoken, genial and hospitable in dispostion, and is one of the leading men in his township where he has so long resided. Postoffice, Blackmore.

NOTE: Solomon "Sol" BEAR died at the age of 81 years on October 25, 1913, and was interred at Bear Cemetery in Ringgold County, Iowa. BEAR Cemetery is located on Solomon's farm and was established by him in 1864. The first interment in BEAR Cemetery was Solomon and Sarah E. (WALKER) BEAR's one-year-old son Lincoln, born September 1863, and died October 9, 1864.

SOURCES:
Biography & Historical Record of Ringgold County, Iowa, Pp. 252-253, 1887.
WPA Graves Survey

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, January of 2009