Fry, Perry

FRY

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/29/2021 at 00:13:57

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.807

PERRY FRY
With the farming and stock-raising interests of Allen Township, Perry Fry has now been closely identified for almost forty years, his home being on section 9, where he owns and operates a good farm of one hundred acres. This farm, the home place, originally consisted of one hundred and forty acres, but forty of these he has given to his son, who is working it.
He was born on the 6th of June, 1849, in Morgan County, Indiana, and is a son of Joseph Fry, whose birth occurred in the same county in 1815, his paternal grandfather, William F. Fry, being one of the pioneers of that region, where in the midst of the wilderness he hewed out a farm. He was of German parentage. Joseph Fry was a boat builder by trade and he also engaged in boating on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, being thus engaged when he lost his life in 1851. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Susan Wall, was also born and reared in Indiana. Perry is the youngest of their five sons, the others being: William F., a veteran of the Civil war, who was engaged in farming in Indiana for some years but is now a resident of Lucas County, Iowa; George W., who enlisted in the Twenty-first Indiana Heavy Artillery during the rebellion and was killed at Baton Rouge, Louisiana; John S., who was a member of the Thirty-third Indiana Volunteer Infantry and is now a resident of Martinsville, Indiana; and F. M., who served throughout the war as a member of the Twenty-first Indiana Volunteer Infantry and now makes his home near Carlisle in Polk County, Iowa. It will thus be seen that the family was well represented in the Union army during the dark days of the rebellion and one of the brothers laid down his life on the altar of his country.
During his boyhood and youth Perry Fry attended the common and graded schools of his native county and was a young man of twenty-years when he left Indiana and came to Iowa, locating in Warren County, where he first engaged in farming upon rented land. On the 22d of June, 1870, he married Miss Emeline Stumbo, who belonged to one of the honored pioneer families of this county, and for about five years thereafter he operated the Stumbo farm. He then purchased his present place, consisting of one hundred and forty acres on section 9, Allen Township, and to its further improvement and cultivation he has since devoted his energies with good results. He built a good two-story residence, two barns and has set out shade and ornamental trees and thus converting the place into one of the most attractive farms of the locality. He also bought an adjoining forty acres on section 7. He has given con­siderable attention to the raising of high-grade stock, making a specialty of pure blooded shorthorn cattle and Poland China hogs, and standard bred draft horses. He fattens considerable stock for market, feeding about a carload of cattle and one carload of hogs annually.
Mr. Fry has one son, W. C. Fry, who married Gelene Baldwin, a native of Mahaska County, Iowa, and a daughter of Sylvester Baldwin, of Carlisle, and they have a daughter, Audra. In his political views our subject is a Repub­lican and he has served as a delegate to conventions of his party. He has always taken an active and commendable interest in public affairs, serving as township trustee and a member of the school board for some years, and he has ever given an earnest support to all measures which he believes calculated to advance the public welfare.