Sandy, Joseph E.

SANDY

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 7/2/2021 at 20:15:19

History of Warren County, Iowa; Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns & Etc., by Union Historical Company, 1879, p.696

SANDY, JOSEPH E., farmer and stock raiser; Sec. 33; Union Township, P. O. Sandyville; owns a fine farm of 500 acres of choice land, which is well improved and kept in a state of high cultivation. He was born June 22, 1836, in Owen county, Ind., where he was principally raised; he came to this county in 1852, and is one of the county's earliest settlers; he is a man of great energy and has endured many of the hardships of the pioneer; he is known by his neighbors only to be respected as a friend of sterling integrity; he has been an active business man all of his life; he is a member of the firm of Sandy Brothers, which is the heaviest stock shipping firm in the county. He was married to Miss Marietta Burgess, a native of Canada; they have a family of five children: Lizzie (now Mrs. John Trotter, of this county), Charles, Albert, India and Henry, all living.

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.521

JOSEPH E. SANDY
This well known and honored citizen of Union Township, now residing on section 33, is familiarly called Uncle Joe by numerous friends throughout the county. He is one of the early settlers, dating his residence here from 1853, and for many years he was actively identified with farming, but is now practically living retired although he still owns one hundred and sixty acres in Union Township and oversees its cultivation.
Like many of our best citizens, Mr. Sandy is a native of Indiana, born near Gosport, in Owen County, June 22, 1836, and is a son of Jeremiah and Elizabeth (Goss) Sandy, natives of Tennessee and North Carolina respectively. The father was one of the pioneers of Owen County, Indiana, there still being a great many Indians in that region when he located there, in fact, sixteen hundred red men encamped near his home the first winter. In 1848 he came to Iowa and entered land in Warren County, but did not move his family to this locality until 1853. He owned about three hundred and forty acres of land where the village of Sandyville is now situated and here he spent his remaining days. Throughout life he made farming his occupation, and in business affairs he prospered.
J. E. Sandy attended the common schools of his native state and was about seventeen years of age when the family removed to this county. On reaching manhood he was married in Sandyville to Miss Marietta Barges, who was born in Canada but was reared in Illinois and came to Iowa in 1854. They began their domestic life on a farm and on the 15th of April, 1865, Mr. Sandy purchased his present place on section 33, Union Township, which at that time was all wild land. He broke it with ox teams and a twenty-four inch breaking plow, and for several years engaged in breaking land for others, thus preparing five hundred acres for cultivation. His farm was first fenced with rails, it requiring eighteen hundred. He set out an orchard and made many other useful and valuable improvements, including the erection of a large residence and good outbuildings for the shelter of grain and stock. For some years he engaged in shipping cattle and hogs which he had fattened for market. Besides his farm of one hundred and sixty acres in this county, he owns a quarter section of land in North Dakota, which he has improved and now rents. There he has spent his summers for eight seasons.
Mr. Sandy lost his first wife, who died in this county, in June 1880. Unto them were born the following children: Charles, who died in 1888, at the age of twenty-four years; Elbert J., who died in 1884, at the age of twenty-two; Henry B., whose sketch follows this; Elizabeth, the wife of John Trotter, a farmer of Belmont Township, by whom she has six sons; and Julia F., the wife of J. H. Trimble, of Westhope, North Carolina, by whom she has five daughters and one son. Mr. Sandy was again married at Indianola in 1896 to Mrs. Margaret Darnell, a widow, who died in 1900, and he has since made his home with his son most of the time while looking after his farming interests.
The Republican Party has found in Mr. Sandy a staunch supporter of its principles since casting his first vote for Abraham Lincoln in 1860, and he has filled the offices of township trustee and school treasurer, serving in the latter capacity for eight years. He is an earnest and consistent member of the Union Christian Church, and is a charter member of Sandyville lodge, A. F. & A. M., of which he is past master, and the only one of the original members now living. He is connected with the Eastern Star, to which his wife also belonged, and he has filled all the offices in his lodge.