Lafe Belden

Lafe Belden, superintendent of the County Farm, in which connection he is making a most creditable record, was born upon a farm in Floyd county, near Rudd, Iowa, April 22, 1862, and was brought to Butler county in his infancy by his parents, Gardner and Jane (Durgin) Belden, who settled in Clarksville. Both the father and mother were natives of Pennsylvania but were married in Ohio. Soon afterward they removed to Minnesota, where the father engaged in business as a teamster, freighter and mail carrier in the early days when Minnesota was a frontier state. He was employed in that capacity not only in the northwest but also in the southwest and became familiar with all the middle section of the county. Eventually he took up his abode in Clarksville, where for many years he followed the blacksmith's trade, his death occurring in 1905, when he had reached the venerable age of eighty-six years. His wife still resides in Clarksville, at the age of eighty-five, and is very active for a woman of her years. Their family nmnbered three children: Joseph, of Hampton; Lafe ; and Emma, the wife of Jasper King, of Allison.

Lafe Belden spent the days of his boyhood and youth in his parents home in Clarksville and at the age of twenty years went to Colorado, where he was employed a part of the time on the railroad and a part of the time in a smelter at Pueblo. He spent four years in the west, returning in 1886.

It was in December, 1890, that Mr. Belden was united in marriage to Miss Ella Wells, who was born in Waverly, Iowa, and died in Clarksville June 2, 1913, at the age of forty-five years. Following his marriage Mr. Belden entered the hotel business at Steamboat Rock and later conducted a hotel at Allison. Subsequently he conducted a similar business at Greene and then returned to Allison, after which he was appointed to his present position as superintendent of the County Farm on the 1st of March, 1909. He has now creditably filled the office for four years and the record is one which commends him to the confidence and good-will of the public, for he is capable and conscientious in the
discharge of his duties.

In politics Mr. Belden is a republican but not an active party worker, taking only a citizen's interest in the questions and issues of the day. Fraternally he is a Mason, belonging to Butler Lodge, No. 94, A. F. & A. M., of Clarksville. Mr. and Mrs. Belden have had no children of their own but have reared an adopted son, Cecil Mellinger, the child of Mrs. Belden 's half-brother. He is now nineteen years of age and has lived with them since six months old. Mr. Belden is a free-hearted man, genial in disposition, kindly in spirit and very popular, his many attractive social qualities winning him high regard wherever he is known.