Buxton, William (1828-1918)

BUXTON

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/28/2021 at 23:21:42

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.377

WILLIAM BUXTON
(May 16, 1828 - March 5, 1918)

Few men in Warren County are more prominent or more widely known than William Buxton, of Indianola. He has been an important factor in busi­ness circles and his prosperity is well deserved, as in him are embraced the characteristics of an unbending integrity, unabating energy and industry that never flags. He is not only one of the leading business men of the county but is also one of the honored pioneers, having made his home here since the winter of 1852.
Mr. Buxton was born in Derbyshire, England, on the 16th of May 1828, a son of John Buxton, and comes of a long line of English ancestry, the family dating back to King William III, when they are first mentioned in the Dooms­day Book. He was reared and educated in his native land, being a young man when he emigrated to the new world. After spending one year in Indiana, he came to Iowa in the winter of 1852, as previously stated, making the trip on horseback. His destination was Warren County and he located on Scotch Ridge, buying a slightly improved tract of land near Carlisle, on which a log cabin had been erected and a few acres broken. Besides this property of three hundred and fifty acres, he entered two hundred acres of government land in Clark County, Illinois, as he passed through that district. As the years passed he added to his home farm until he had five hundred acres of land, replaced the log cabin by a good frame residence and made many other useful and valuable improvements.
For over forty years Mr. Buxton continued to actively engage in agricul­tural pursuits and in 1893 removed to Indianola, being since identified with the business interests of this city. He was one of the organizers of the Warren County Bank and has served as one of its directors from the very beginning, becoming president in 1883. For several years he has also dealt extensively in farm lands and now owns about fourteen hundred acres in this and Lucas Counties. He owned and operated the woolen mills at Palmyra for three years, and was a member of the company that built and conducted the flouring mill at Carlisle. He has erected some of the best business houses of Indianola and also a number of fine residences, thus materially aiding in the upbuilding and development of the city. He gave two blocks for a park and money and land to the value of fifty thousand dollars to Simpson College and in many other ways has contributed to the prosperity and improvement of his adopted city and County.
Mr. Buxton was married in Scotch Ridge in Allen Township, Warren County, to Miss Betsy Branhall, a native of Ohio and a daughter of John Branhall, who brought his family to this state about 1848. Mrs. Buxton died in Indianola in 1901. There were five children born of that union, namely : Elizabeth, the wife of M. J. Kittleman, of Berwyn, Illinois; Helen, the wife of W. L. Cooper, of Des Moines; William, Jr., who is a successful farmer and business man, being president of the Carlisle Bank; Mrs. C. B. Little, of Berwyn; and Clara, the wife of Robert B. Nicholson, of Des Moines, a son of Robert Nicholson, of Carlisle, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. Mr. Buxton was again married in February 1902, his second union being with Mrs. Frances (Cheesman) Carpenter, widow of Professor Carpenter, who was connected with Simpson College. By her first marriage she has three daughters.
Being a strong opponent of slavery, Mr. Buxton joined the free soil party on becoming an American citizen and has been identified with the Republican Party since its organization, voting for all of its presidential nominees since supporting Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Both he and his wife take an active interest in church work as members of the Methodist Episcopal denomination and for twenty-three years he served as superintendent of the Sunday school at Carlisle and has since been a teacher in Indianola. For the past six years he and his wife have spent the winters in California, and he has made three trips to Europe, visiting his old home in England and most of the large cities on the continent. Although eighty years of age he is still actively interested in business affairs and his life has ever been a busy and a useful one. He came to this country almost empty-handed and the success that he has achieved is but the merited reward of his own industry and good management. He is public spirited, giving his cooperation to every movement which tends to pro­mote the moral, intellectual and material welfare of the community.