Carroll County IAGenWeb

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY IOWA

A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement

VOLUME II ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1912

Transcribed by Sharon Elijah June 26, 2020

Captain Oliver Horton

Among Carroll county’s distinguished veterans of the Civil war must be numbered Captain Oliver Horton, who has also been prominently identified with the political life of the county. He was born at Bedford, Pennsylvania, on the 12th of October, 1829. His father was also a native of the Keystone state but descended from the Hortons of Long Island, New York, while the mother, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Hamilton, was of Irish extraction. The father was for many years identified with the agricultural interests of Pennsylvania, but he also engaged in the hotel business.

Oliver Horton was reared on the family homestead and in the acquirement of his education attended the district schools. Early trained to assist in the work of the fields, when he laid aside his text-books he worked as a farm hand in the vicinity of his home until he was eighteen. In 1847 he apprenticed himself to the iron worker’s trade, continuing to follow that occupation for about fifteen years. When the call came for more troops in 1862 he responded and enlisted as a private in the One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers. Amenable to military discipline, he early showed himself to be a leader and was promoted from first sergeant to second lieutenant, then to first lieutenant and was finally made captain, with which rank he was mustered out. He saw a great deal of active service, participating in all of the engagements of Sickle’s Sixth Corps, to which his regiment belonged. After the close of hostilities he came to Iowa, in October, 1865, and settled in Jackson county. In the spring of 1869 he located on a farm south of Carrollton in Carroll county and in 1876 purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land on section 20, Richland township, where he has ever since resided. In connection with the cultivation of his fields which are almost entirely planted to corn and oats, Captain Horton raises hogs and some cattle. He is one of the successful and substantial agriculturists of the township, and the owner of a well improved and highly cultivated farm.

In 1859 Captain Horton and Miss Louisa Grove were united in marriage, and by this union there have been born six sons and five daughters: Joseph G., Andrew J., William H., James A., Robert A., George E. and Elizabeth, who died in childhood; Lucinda, who died in infancy; Mary Jane, the wife of H. J. Coppock, living in Le Mars, Iowa; Iola W., at home; and Anna L., the wife of Lawrence Zenner, of Wentworth, South Dakota.

In matters of religion the family were reared in the faith of the United Brethren church, in which the parent s hold membership, and fraternally Captain Horton is affiliated with Glidden Lodge, No. 93, I.O.O.F., in which he has passed through all of the chairs, and he has taken the degrees of the Grand Lodge. His political allegiance he has always given to the democratic party, and represented his district in both the twenty-second and twenty-third sessions of the state legislature. He has always taken a prominent and helpful interest in political affairs and for six years was a member of the board of supervisors, while he also has the distinction of having been secretary of the school board of Richland township for twenty-four successive years. That he is a man who can be depended upon to safeguard the interest of the people, ever proving loyal to his trust, and faithfully and conscientiously fulfilling his duties as he sees them, is attested by the long period of his public service.

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