George K. Steele

STEELE, ROBINSON, WILLIAMSON

Posted By: Karen DaPra (email)
Date: 11/13/2002 at 02:51:30

From "HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY," Vol. I, page 738.
Brant & Fuller, 1890.

GEORGE K. STEELE

George K. Steele, a well-known citizen of Moundsville, was born in
VanBuren county, Iowa, January 9, 1843, the son of William and Sarah
A. (Robinson) Steele, the former of whom was a native of Kentucky and
the latter of Ohio. The parents settled in their western home in
1838, where the father engaged in mercantile business, and became a
prominent man, a county officer for several years and a distinguished
Odd Fellow. He died in 1851, aged forty-three years, and his wife, a
devout member of the Methodist church and a daughter of Rev. James
Robinson, a minister of that denomination in Kentucky and Indiana,
died in 1888, aged seventy-six. At the age of eighteen years George
K. Steele enlisted in Company E, second Iowa volunteer infantry, in
May, 1861, and after serving one year re-enlisted in Company K,
Fifteenth Iowa, and was in that command until the battle of Shiloh,
when he was detailed at Gen. Grant's headquarters to take charge of
the government mail from the west. After eighteen months' service in
this capacity he was appointed second lieutenant in the Ninth
Louisiana colored regiment, and stationed at Water Proof, above
Natchez. He served there nine months and then resigned and received
the appointment of mail messenger between Memphis and Little Rock,
via the river, and continued in that capacity until 1866. Since that
date he has been engaged in the show business as agent, with one
company, by whom his enterprise and active business qualities are
highly appreciated. During the past fourteen years Mr. Steele has
been a resident of Moundsville, where he is esteemed as a worthy and
progressive citizen, and is socially highly regarded. He was married
in 1878 to Nannie, daughter of Theodore Williamson, of Tyler county,
W.Va.