Cain, William H.

CAIN

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/28/2021 at 23:22:51

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.523

WILLIAM H. CAIN
Since 1851 W. H. Cain has been a resident of Warren County and through­out the years of his manhood he has been prominently identified with its development especially along agricultural lines. He was born in Meigs County, Ohio, on the 15th of October 1845, and was only four years of age when he accompanied his parents on their removal to Iowa, two years being spent at Ottumwa before they located in Warren County. Here his father followed both farming and carpentering and both he and his wife died in this County.
W. H. Cain grew to manhood upon a farm and acquired his education in the local schools. Although only sixteen years of age he joined the boys in blue, enlisting on the 8th of August, 1861, as a private in Company B, Tenth Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and his first engagement was at Charleston, Missouri. He was in thirty-one important battles, including some of the most hard-fought engagements of the war, and was severely wounded at Corinth, being confined in a hospital for three weeks. He then rejoined his regiment and remained at the front until hostilities ceased, being honorably discharged at Little Rock, Arkansas in August, 1865. After his return home he worked on a farm by the month for several years.
Mr. Cain married Lavena Myrick, who was born and reared in this County, being a daughter of Eli Myrick, whose sketch appears on another page of this volume. To them has been born one daughter, Edith, and by a former marriage Mrs. Cain has a son, James E. Sandy, who is now a farmer of Milestone, Canada.
Mr. and Mrs. Cain have a nice home in Hartford, where they also own four lots, and a good farm of sixty acres adjoining the village. Throughout his active business life he has engaged in agricultural pursuits and has met with well deserved success. He has been called upon to fill various local offices and is a staunch supporter of the Republican Party. He is a prominent member of O. P. Lewis Post, No. 169, G. A. R. [Grand Army of the Republic], of Hartford, of which he is the present commander, having served in that capacity for ten years, and both he and his wife are consistent and faithful members of the Presbyterian Church.