Rufus Bullard

BULLARD, COX, KEYSER, FRENCH

Posted By: Deborah Gilbert (email)
Date: 9/3/2016 at 11:17:52

Book: Maxwell 1883-1983

Rufus Bullard, his wife Ida Cox, and son, Rufus, Jr. (R.B.) moved to Maxwell in 1899 from Cambridge, Iowa. Rufus, a printer by trade, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Dan C. Bullard, a shoemaker of English descent, was born in Massachusetts. Dan's wife, Elizabeth Keyser was Pennsylvania Dutch. She was six feet two inches tall and purportedly the smallest in a family of seven girls and six boys. Rufus grew up in Niles, Michigan and was a foreman in a printing shop in Chicago at the time of the Chicago fire.

In 1882 Rufus brought his family to Cambridge, Iowa which he selected because a main north-south railroad and a main east-west railroad intersected there and he believed it would become a large metropolis. He opened a hardware store and taught himself to be a tinsmith.

When they moved to Maxwell, Iowa they lived in the first house built in town. The house was built by John O. French, Maxwell's first lumberman.

Ida Cox Bullard was born in South Bend, Indiana and was of Scotch, Welsh and Irish ancestry. She was noted for her fancy work and beautiful hats.