JOSEPH ALEXANDER HARLAN

CONAWAY, DAVIS, OSBORN, NOSLER, DENNY, SPEAR, SHEAFE, CRILEY, GLEW, HILLS, LYONS

Posted By: Tim S. Dupy (email)
Date: 8/25/2002 at 19:06:21

JOSEPH ALEXANDER HARLAN

Sixty-three years have come and gone since Joseph Alexander Harlan became a resident of Wapello County. He is now living retried in Ottumwa, enjoying a well-earned rest, but for many years, he was closely associated with agricultural interests in this section of the state and also engaged in the breeding of shorthorn cattle. He is now nearing the seventy-ninth milestone of life's journey, his birth having occurred in Union county, Indiana, November 24, 1835. His parents were Aaron and Lucetta (Conaway) Harlan. The father, native of Tennessee, born in 1805, was but five years of age, when in 1810 he accompanied his father, George Harlan, to Indiana, where the latter died in 1813. The son had the usual experiences of the pioneer settler in a heavily timbered country. Having arrived at years of maturity he wedded Lucetta Conaway, who was born in North Carolina, in 1805, and in her girlhood days was taken by her parents to Indiana. They were married in Union county and there resided until 1851, when they drove across the country to Wapello County. There were two families who made the trip. They had two teams and Joseph A. Harlan drove a team for his neighbors. After reaching his destination, he bought a farm four miles north of Ottumwa on the Kirkville road and there continued to engage in general agricultural pursuits until the third of April 1863, when death claimed him. He was also a local preacher in the Christian church, and his life was an influencing factor for good in the community in which he made his home. His widow resided on the farm as long as she was able and then removed to Ottumwa, where she passed away January 3, 1876. They had a family of nine sons and three daughters, and of this number, nine reached years of maturity. The only ones now living are: Joseph A., of this review; James S., of St. Louis, and Elizabeth, the wife of E.B. Davis, of Ottumwa.

Joseph A. Harlan spent the first sixteen years of his life in his native county and then accompanied his parents on their removal to Wapello County, where he has lived since September 1851. For an extended period, therefore, he has been a witness of the growth, progress and development of this section of the state. He turned his attention to farming and his life of arduous and unremitting toil until he reached the age of fifty-five years, when he put aside the more strenuous work of the farm and removed to Ottumwa. He took charge of a farm belonging to his father when but seventeen years of age, and as the years passed, he not only carefully cultivated his fields, but also engaged in the breeding of shorthorn cattle for ten years. He is now the owner of a number of dwellings in the city and from his property derives a good annual income.

On November 4th, 1855, Mr. Harlan was united in marriage in Wapello county by Judge Silas Osborn to Miss Bellona Nosler, who was born in Putnam county, Indiana, July 17, 1839, a daughter of Christian and Martha (Denny) Nosler, the father a native of Tennessee and the mother of Mercer county, Kentucky. They brought their family from Indiana to Iowa in 1843 and were afterward residents of Wapello County. The father entered land about four miles north of the present site of the city, although the town had not been established, and he became one of the pioneer agriculturists of the district. He converted wild prairie into rich and productive fields, and upon the farm, which he developed, both he and his wife spent their remaining days. They were the parents of four daughters and two sons: James H., who was mortally wounded at the

JOSEPH HARLAN DAVIS
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Battle of Shiloh and died two weeks later in Keokuk; Mrs. Harlan; Elmira, who is the widow of Joseph Davis of Faith, South Dakota; Mary Evans, deceased; Eudora, the wife of H.C. Nosler of Ottumwa; and George F., of New Orleans.
Mr. and Mrs. Harlan had ten children: Charles F., who died in 1894, leaving a widow and two children; Addie, who is the widow of A.S. Spear and lives in this county; Julian George, a resident of Atlanta, Georgia; Carl S., who makes his home in Oakland, California; Martha, the wife of Dr. E.A. Sheafe, of Ottumwa, Iowa; Estella, the wife of John R. Criley of Decatur, Illinois; T.K., of Ottumwa; Mary, the wife of Benjamin Glew of Creston, Iowa; Bertha, the wife of H.L. Hills of Des Moines, and one who died in infancy. There are also thirty grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Mr. Harlan lacked twenty days of being old enough to vote at the time when Fremont was the candidate of the Republican Party. He afterward supported that party for many years and is now identified with the progressive movement. For forty years, he has been a member of the Christian church and has ever endeavored to faithfully follow the golden rule. He and his wife tell many interesting tales of pioneer life, for they resided in this county at a period when they made practically everything they had and raised everything which they ate, and when the Indians were still in the county. When Mr. Harlan drove from Indiana to this state, a distance of five hundred miles, they crossed but one railroad track and that at Indianapolis. Mrs. Harlan remembers when there was only one little store in Ottumwa, conducted by Mr. Lyons. Her girlhood was spent in a log cabin upon the prairies and the first school, which she attended, was held in a log building having an immense fireplace in one end of the room. Her father, however, although in limited circumstances at the time of his arrival, became a man of considerable means before his death. Both Mr. and Mrs. Harlan can well remember when the greater part of the dwellings were log cabins, when much of the land was still unclaimed and uncultivated, and when Ottumwa gave no promise of ever becoming the thriving, progressive and populous city that it is today.

Published in the History of Wapello County, Iowa, Volume II, S.J. Clarke, Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1914, Pages 486-491