William Kennison Wood (1823-1917)

WOOD, KENNISON, KENISON, CORY, INGERSOL, INGERSOLL, PIZER, HULL, HOBBS, ADDIS, SUMMERS, GRIFFITH, DAVIS

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 7/13/2015 at 19:30:38

From Nevada Representative March 27, 1917 (front page)

LINKS IN LIFE OF STRONG MAN

W. K. WOOD

The death of Hon. William K. Wood, which occurred at his home just south of Iowa Center a little after eight o'clock on the evening of Wednesday, March 21, 1917, removes a man who stood in a class by himself among the pioneers and representative citizens of the county. He came to Story county, then a young man with a family before the land in this county was open to entry, and he squatted upon a piece that was attractive, held it until it was open to entry, entered it and continued to occupy it for a full period of sixty-five years to a month, from the time when he squatted until the time when he died also thereon. Between times he had been about all that a man of strong character, sound principles and iron constitution could be asked or expected to be. He aided his neighbors, suffered privations, overcame difficulties, built up a competence, reared a family, filled local offices, was honored with spond. How he stood it all is the mystery which all late-comers have to puzzle over when they hear the tales of those who settled in and overcame the wilderness, but through he was not a big man, he was a wiry one, and his length of years is evidence that the experience did not ruin his health. But it is the way of such matters that some people lie down and die under such stress, while with others it is a momentary matter any adverse effects from which are soon thrown off, and it suggests the saving concerning the Pilgrim Fathers who landed on Plymouth Rock drenched with the surf to camp in the snow on a winter's day, that half of them died the first winter and the other half survived for an average of forty years. W. K. Wood was the sort to go through that sort of experience and then to live to bury the second half. As we said before, he was in a class by himself.

Mr Wood was the fourth of nine children of John G. and Anna (Kennison) Wood, who was born respectively in Kentucky and Virginia, met and married in Ohio, lived in that state and in Indiana until 1854, when they followed younger members of the family to Iowa Center, where they spent their declining years. W. K. was born in Logan county, Ohio, April 19, 1823, and died as stated at Iowa Center, Iowa, March 21, 1917 aged 93 years, 11 months and 2 days. He grew up in Ohio and Indiana and enjoyed the advantages of such schools as there were. He was married first in Indiana in 1847, migrated to Iowa in 1849, arriving at Cory's Grove on June 22 of that year, prospected in succeeding years to the north and east, and finally located near Iowa Center in March of 1852, although the dates are slightly confused and his settlement may have been a year earlier. Anyhow he settled and squatted and fought his battle with the wilderness. He voted at representative office, enjoyed universal esteem, lived placidly through a much drawn-out old age and finally has been gathered to his fathers at an age to which it is given to very few men to attain. He came to Story county to chop logs for a cabin in the wilderness, made the pioneer's successful struggle for homestead and lived to see the wilderness develop into one of the richest counties anywhere an the homestead to become worth more per acre than was the total value of any quarter section in the county when he came here.

Mr. Wood has been the source perhaps of more pioneer stories of the county than we know of as having come from any other source, and they have always borne the stamp of verity, although appearing as wonderful as the yarns of the Arabian Nights when put opposite the facts and conditions of the community as the present generation knows them. His original settlement in Iowa was a Cory's Grove in Elkhart township of Polk county. Mr. Wood's first wife having been a member of the Cory family, and for reasons that were doubtless good then he picked out for his permanent location a spot over in Story county, not many miles away indeed, but nevertheless separated from his first location by both the Skunk river and Indian creek. And after his removal from Cory's Grove that locality yet remained for considerable time the only place there was to go anywhere and every time he went he had to cross both and those streams both going and coming. He crossed those streams with oxen that were willing enough to go toward their former pasture but not in the opposite direction, with horses that would get scared and snarl themselves up in the harness, with strangers in distress who gave him a dollar for seeing them through the impassable Slough of De- [sic] the first election held in Story county and he helped to organize the county in 1853. He was up to Nevada when the commissioners came here to pick out the location for the county seat, and he bought, platted and laid out the original town, the same appearing yet on the plats as "Wood's Addition. He helped at the raising or rolling of the logs for T. E. Alderman's cabin, which was the beginning of Nevada as a town, and he was around when , as the story goes, old Squire Robinson presiding in justice court at the preliminary examination, sentenced the first murderer in the county to be hung.

But, though he could stand all the experiences of those pioneer times and conditions it was different with the women. Life was hard and they broke under it. Mr. Wood was four times married and it was the wife who came to him after the pioneer struggle was won that has been his helpmate for more than forty years and who now survives him. He was married first in Kosciusko county, Indiana, October 7, 1847, to Melinda Cory, who bore him three sons, came with him to Iowa and died here March 29, 1862. The sons were Cory, Curtis A. and James H., of whom Cory died as a young man, and already married, in 1873, and James H. in Chicago a few weeks ago, while Curtis A., who was elected sheriff of Story county in 1887 and 1889, is actively engaged in the live stock commission business in Chicago. His second wife was Louisa Ingersol, who died February 3, 1870, leaving him one daughter, Carrie, who is now Mrs. Edwin Pizer of Nevada. He married third, on December 3, 1870, Mrs. Julia Hobbs*, who died May 8, 1874, leaving him a daughter, Queen, who is now Mrs. Edwin Summers of Oregon City, Oregon. His fourth and last marriage was with Mrs. Sarah Griffith Davis, who survives him.

From the times when the Republican party was organized until he ceased to be generally active, Mr. Wood was active in Republican politics. He habitually came up as a delegate to Republican county conventions and exerted as he could a moderating influence to keep the party out of trouble and its lines taut. So it came about naturally that when the party in the county had been torn in two by the ruction of 1867 there was a turning toward him in 1869 as the candidate who could pul and hold things together and he elected as the county's representative in the general assembly. The ruction was not healed then nor for many years later; but he was easily elected then and reelected two years later, although the party went to pieces again and lost its candidate once more at the first election after he retired. And the record is typical of the man. He was hard headed and fair-spirited, had a profound instinct of common sense, sought little of preferment for himself but cheerfully seconded the worthy ambitions of others and hewed close to the line of upholding the results of the civil war. He was a man to tie to, and when the Republican party of Story county got into one of its very few tangles, it tied to him.

Mr. Wood lived so far beyond the years of his real activity, that his obituary has the tone of ancient history. So far as we can recall he was the last survivor in Story county the original subscribers to the Representative who have been faithful to the paper through all the years, and the only person that we know of who can claim place with him in this regard is Harvey Dye, who went to Dakota in the middle '80's. His fidelity to lots of good things that are of more account and typical also of the staying quality that perhaps above anyu other was the most marked element of his character. Pioneering is a life that fixes itself upon the habits of many men, and it tis an old story that pioneers come int and settle one locality, and when the settlement becomes general move on to new fields for pioneering. But W. K. Wood pioneered just once-- He came her to help make a country and he remained to make it and to enjoy it. And he saw fruits of his labors such as it is given to few men to see.

W. O. P.

* The third wife of W. K. Wood was Julia (Addis) Hull, not Hobbs.