Edmund Elijah is now practically living retired in Clarence. Cedar county embraces some of the finest farm land in this state and Mr. Elijah is fortunate in possessing a goodly share of this valuable property, for in addition to the old homestead in Dayton township he owns other well improved farms. Since 1863 he has lived in this locality, arriving here when a youth of fourteen years.
His birth occurred in Delaware county, New York, April 19, 1849. His father, Edmund Elijah, Sr., was reared and married in Delaware county, the lady of his choice being Miss Jane Samuels, who was also born and reared in New York. He was a wheelwright by trade and operated a gristmill, while his sons carried on the home farm. He always continued a resident of the Empire state, dying there in 1856. His widow survived him and removed to Illinois in 1857 with her family and to Iowa in the spring of 1863. Here she continued to reside throughout her remaining days, passing away in May, 1907.
Edmund Elijah, Jr., spent the entire period of his minority in his mother’s home, remaining with her until twenty-one years of age. He then purchased a farm, upon which a house had been built, and for three seasons thereafter he boarded with his tenants. At length he made arrangements for having a home of his own by his marriage in Cedar county, on the 1st of March, 1874, to Miss Mary Kent, a native of this county, born near Clarence. Her father was ex-Senator J. M. Kent, one of the early settlers who arrived in 1852 and afterward became well known as a prosperous farmer and representative citizen. He served for two terms in the state senate and was active in support of much valuable legislation. He was married in Ohio to Miss Mary Ferguson, a native of Ohio, and his death occurred in 1896, while his wife passed away in 1888.
Mr. and Mrs. Elijah began their domestic life on a farm in Massillon township and the following year removed to Dayton township, where he devoted his energies to the cultivation of his fields, commencing with one hundred and twenty acres of land. Later he purchased two hundred acres and afterward added another tract of forty acres and for twenty-nine years carried on farming on that place, during which period he erected good buildings. He then rented the place and bought fifteen acres where he now resides, within the corporate limits of Clarence, and eighty acres outside the village limits. On this property he erected a large neat residence. In 1900 he purchased one hundred and twenty acres in Dayton township, so that altogether he now owns four hundred and fifty-five acres of farm land and ten acres of timber land in Cedar county. He has improved three different farms and his is a notable record of a self-made man, for he started out in life empty-handed. His labor and industry have constituted the basis of his success, and his wife has always proved to him an able assistant through her careful and economical management of household affairs.
Unto Mr. and Mrs. Elijah have been born six children who are yet living: Arthur, who is married and now resides in Montana; Earl, a graduate of Cornell College of Iowa of the class of 1909 and now professor of science in Madelia, Minnesota; Mae, a graduate of the Clarence high school; Nellie and Ella, at home and Anna, a student in the Cornell Conservatory and also well known as a teacher of music. They also lost a son, Allen, who died August 22, 1903, after attaining his majority.
Mr. Elijah was formerly a republican in his political views but for a long period has voted the prohibition ticket, being a stanch advocate of the cause of temperance. He is a member of the Wesleyan Methodist church, to which his wife also belongs, and their conformity to its teachings has commended them to the confidence and high respect of all with whom they have come in contact. Mr. Elijah has taken an active part in the development and upbuilding of the county, for during the forty-seven years of his residence here he has helped to improve four different farms, his labors being not only a source of individual profit but also of general prosperity.
