Welty, Ephraim

WELTY

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 7/3/2021 at 11:49:04

History of Warren County, Iowa; Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns & Etc., by Union Historical Company, 1879, p.743

WELTY, EPHRAIM, physician and surgeon, Linn Township, Norwalk; is a native of Hocking county, Ohio; born July 7, 1840, and lived there till 1876, when he came to his present location in this county; he received his early education in his native county, and his medical education in his native State; he was married in the year 1868 to Miss Ellen Branstitter, a native of Allen county, Ohio; they have one son, born in Allen county, Ohio, Nov. 23, 1869; he enlisted in the late war, August 17, 1862, in Co. G, 114th Ohio Infantry, and was discharged on account of disability, November, 6, 1863; was in Sherman's defeat, at Chickasaw Bluffs, Miss., Dec. 28, 1862.

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.427

EPHRAIM WELTY
Dr. Ephraim Welty, a prominent physician of Norwalk, Iowa where he has been successfully engaged in practice for many years, was born on a farm in Perry County, Ohio, July 7, 1840, and is a son of Christian Welty, a native of Fairfield County, that state. His paternal grandfather was John Welty, who was born in Pennsylvania and belonged to an old colonial family. In early manhood Christian Welty married Salome Blosser, who was also a native of Fairfield County, Ohio, and was a representative of an old Virginia family. Of the thirteen children born of this union, twelve grew to maturity, and those still living are Mary P., wife of Charles Lott; Rebecca, wife of Newton Hoover; Amanda, wife of Albert Polling; Jefferson and Christian T., both farmers; and Ephraim, of this review. The father, who was a farmer by occupation, died at the ripe old age of eighty-five years, and the mother was eighty-two years of age at the time of her death. Both were faithful members of the Methodist Episcopal church, and in politics, Mr. Welty was first a Whig and later a Republican. He was a staunch Union man during the Civil War, and when Morgan was on his raid through Ohio, he spent one day in pursuit of him.
Dr. Welty was reared on the home farm and acquired his early education in the country schools of the neighborhood. During the dark days of the rebellion he entered the service as a member of Company G, One Hundred and Fourteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, under Captain E. Brown, and was mustered in on the 17th of August 1862. He was unfortunately wounded in the left shoulder during his first engagement, December 28, 1862, at Chickasaw Bluffs, Mississippi, by a shell, and was in the hospital at Memphis, Tennessee, until November 6, 1863, when he returned home. In the fall of 1865 he commenced the study of medicine, and later engaged in the practice of his chosen profession in Hocking County, Ohio for five years. It was in 1876 that he came to Iowa and opened an office in Norwalk, where he is still located, enjoying a large and successful practice.
On the 1st of August 1867, Dr. Welty married Miss Rebecca Ellen Branstitter, who was also a native of Ohio, and a daughter of John Branstitter, a farmer by occupation. They have two children, John E. and La Vert. The parents are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and are people of prominence in Norwalk, which town has now been their home for almost a third of a century. The Doctor is also connected with James Bell Post, G.A.R. [Grand Army of the Republic], and affiliates with the Masonic and Odd Fellows societies. The Republican Party finds in him a staunch supporter of its principles and as a public-spirited and progressive citizen he never withholds his aid from any enterprise which he believes will prove of public benefit.