FELTON, Zachariah (1848-1923)

FELTON

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 5/14/2020 at 13:50:32

Zachariah T. Felton
(November 7, 1848 – September 10, 1923)

Z. T. Felton Dead
Pioneer of New Virginia Answers Last Call
Z. T. Felton, one of the oldest residents of Virginia Township, and one of the best known of the older generation in Warren County, died at his home in New Virginia, Monday night at the age of 75 years, following a protracted illness. Nearly everyone who has taken any active part in republican politics in Warren County in the last fifty years has known of “Zach” Felton as he was known among his friends, from one corner of the county to the other. He was one of that all too scarce school of old-time politicians who looked upon the affairs of government as something in which it was the part of the man to take an interest, not from the expectation of personal gain for the desire for glory, but from the conviction of personal intuition that it is the citizen’s duty to work at the administration of his government in time of peace as it is his duty to fight for it in war. He enjoyed politics, and had enough of the sense of humor, appreciation of the weaknesses and foibles of humanity, enough of zest in the game that he did not grow disheartened and declare that all politics is debased simply because he could not have his own way.
So much for the activity with which his name was most intimately connected in the county at large. In his home community he was much more than a leading figure in local politics. He was a leader in nearly everything that was for the betterment of Virginia Township and New Virginia. To name the men who made a kind of headquarters, when in town, at Felton’s store, would be to name the men who have made the southwest part of Warren County. For 68 years this man had lived on the same corner in the town of New Virginia, to which community he came with his parents from West Virginia when but a mere lad. He established the produce, feed and coal business now known as Z. T. Felton & Son, which has come to be not only a dominating local enterprise in its field, but is handling a large wholesale trade as well. The feed and coal business is now managed by his son, H. E. Felton, republican chairman of Warren County, and the produce business is managed by his son, John. Another son, A. A. Felton, lives at Newton. The funeral will be held Wednesday morning at ten o’clock in the Methodist Church in New Virginia. [copied from a scrapbook of newspaper clippings at the Warren County Historical Society Library, Indianola, Iowa]