Dayton, William

DAYTON, SHARP, KIGHT

Posted By: mjv (email)
Date: 10/7/2020 at 15:05:30

William Dayton, of Cedar Township, residing on section 19, was born in Hampshire County, Va., in 1816, and is a son of Caleb and Hannah (Sharp) Dayton, the former a native of Maryland, and of English descent, and the latter of Virginia, and of French descent. Her grandfather, Jesse Sharp, served seven years in the Revolutionary War, and lived to be one hundred and one years of age. Her grandmother died at the age of ninety-nine years. Her father lived to be seventy-seven years of age, and her mother eighty-nine years.

The subject of this sketch was reared in Maryland on the north bank of the Potomac River, where the town of Keyser now stands. He came to this county in 1852, and settled on section 19, Cedar Township, where he still lives. On coming here he entered eighty acres of wild land, improved the same, and has now one of the neatest farms in Cedar Township. He was married, Oct. 25, 1838, to Miss Theodosia Kight, a native of Hampshire County, Va., born in 1818. To them ten children have been born: William Jefferson, a farmer residing in Seventy-Six Township; Sarah L., the wife of William B. Tatman, of Delta, Iowa; Hannah Ellen, the wife of William Sowash, of Franklin Township; Mordecai Tipton, now of Lime Creek Township; S.H., now living on the home farm; Nancy Jane died when fourteen years old, and John K. at the age of thirty-three; George W. is now residing in Kansas City, Mo.; Martha Ann is the wife of John Grush, of Cedar Township.

Politically Mr. Dayton is a Democrat, and religiously a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. When he came to Washington County he had a wife and six children but did not have a dollar after entering his land, but has since been fairly prosperous. He has lived to see the country well developed and thickly settled, with churches and school-houses in abundance, and to see his children all well and settled in life. Few men enjoy the respect of friends and neighbors to a higher degree than William Dayton.

Source: Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington County, Iowa (1887). Excerpt from Biographical Sketch of William Dayton, pages 226-227.