O.C. Morrison Tells Of Early Typesetter

MORRISON, CLAYPOOLE, CROMWELL

Posted By: Gloria Dodds (email)
Date: 10/31/2002 at 03:16:25

Page One Hundred Forty-Six The Keosauqua Republican Thursday, August 15, 1935 80 year Anniversary 1855-1935

O.C. Morrison Tells Of Early Typesetter

We are in recipt of an interesting letter from O.C. Morrison, one of the leading physicians of
Carol, Iowa. Mr. Morrison was born and reared in
the vicinity of Pittsburg, Iowa. His letter follows:
I am safe in saying that some members of our family and perhaps several of them have been continuous subscribers to your paper during the entire eighty years.
The Ottumwa Courier carried a statement in the obituary of Mr. James Claypoole, who worked on that paper for many years, that he set the first type that printed the first Keosauqua Republican in August of 1855. Mr. James Claypoole was my grandmother's youngest brother and a descendant of Dr. John Claypoole, who was the first Grand Master in Iowa and whose ancestors played a very prominent role in the Revolutionary war and one of the John Claypoole ancestors married Betsy Ross as her third husband. Another of that family in the ancestors married the daughter of Cromwell. I have the family lineage on the Claypoole side. James Claypoole had worked in Keokuk on the Gate City newspaper before coming to Keosauqua. He was well known by Mr. Landis and John Rowley.
I thought perhaps this information might be of interest to you as an historic fact. We have been
subscribers for more than forty years in our own family.