MONTGOMERY FRASEUR
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Montgomery Fraseur and Mrs. Montgomery Fraseur

Montgomery Fraseur is one of the pioneer settlers of Cedar county. Upon the walls of his memory hang many pictures of early days; pictures of a broad open prairie covered with the native grasses and wild flowers in the summer months and presenting the appearance of one glittering and unbroken sheet of snow through the winter seasons; pictures of early pioneer homes, little cabins built upon a tract of land whereon a few plowed acres showed that the work of civilization was begun. The homes were lighted by candles, the farm work was done with machinery very crude as compared to that in use at the present time and the life of the pioneer was one of earnest, persistent toil from early morning until nightfall. Mr. Fraseur tells many interesting incidents of the days when Cedar county was on the frontier and of his boyhood and youth here.

A native of Clermont county, Ohio, he was born February 12, 1827, and there resided until 1837, when he came to Cedar county, Iowa. His parents were Benjamin and Sarah (Stroup) Fraseur, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of Ohio. They were married in the Buckeye state and became the parents of the following children: William, who died in Denver, Colorado; Jacob, who passed away in Oregon; George, who died in Tipton; Mrs. Barbara Hunter, deceased; Montgomery, of this review; James, who passed away in Nevada; Jackson, who was in Nevada when last they heard from him; and Eliza, the wife of Henry Shank, of Tipton. After losing his first wife Mr. Fraseur married Phoebe Huffman and they had two children: Frank, a resident of Boone, Iowa; and Mrs. Cassie Hull, also of that place.

As the family traveled westward from Ohio in 1837 they made a short stop eight miles below Lafayette, Indiana, and then continued on the journey with four yoke of oxen and one wagon. They were four weeks in making the trip for it was the spring of the year and the roads were in poor condition. They located two miles west of the present site of Tipton on a tract of raw prairie land, from which one could ride for miles without coming to a fence or habitation to impede his progress. The family lived in a tent until the log house was built, and thus amid the wild environment of pioneer life they began the development of a farm. Their first visitors were Indians who were friendly but begged for flour. The father preempted one hundred and sixty acres of land and when it came into market entered it from the government.

Montgomery Fraseur made his home upon that place and aided in the work of early improvement and development until the spring of 1849, when he went to California, following the trail with a company of forty wagons that crossed the Missouri and proceeded over the sand plains and the mountains to their destination. One of the number died of cholera soon after crossing the Missouri river. After six months of wearisome travel they arrived at their destination and Mr. Fraseur spent two winters in the gold mines. He then purchased a ranch and engaged in the raising of cattle, having a tract of land three miles wide and about twelve miles long which had formerly been a Spanish claim. In the winter of 1853 he returned to the Mississippi valley by way of the isthmus route to New York, thence westward to Chicago, by stage to Rock Island and by horseback from Davenport to his destination. His mother died in 1852, while he was in California.

After reaching home Mr. Fraseur purchased four hundred acres of land four miles west of Tipton for twenty-four hundred dollars. At once he began its development and for several years continued its cultivation, making his home thereon until he removed to Tipton about twenty-six years ago. Here he has resided continuously since. A part of the old homestead is now owned by his son, while the remainder has been sold. On taking up his abode in Tipton Mr. Fraseur built his present good home at the went end of Fifth street, having here twelve lots and twenty-nine acres of land which is used for pasture. He is a director of the Cedar County State Bank, with which he has thus been associated for many years.

In 1854 Mr. Fraseur was married to Miss Sarah Reeder, who was born in Clermont county, Ohio, August 28, 1835. She was only five years of age when her mother died and her father passed away soon afterward. She was a daughter of William and Nancy Reeder, and having been left an orphan she came to Iowa with an aunt in 1852. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Fraseur have been born ten children: Charles, now a resident of Missouri; Almira, the wife of J. W. Morton, of Kansas; Mattie, the wife of Isaac Wertz, living about four miles from Tipton; Fremont, a farmer whose name is also about four miles from Tipton; Fred, living in the county seat; Carrie, the wife of George Escher, living two miles north of Tipton; Emma, of Chicago; Mrs. May Hibbard, a widow whose home is in Seattle, Washington; Homer, who died at the age of thirteen years; and Hattie, who is the widow of William Brew and lives with her father.

Jacob Fraseur, a brother of Montgomery Fraseur, went to California by the overland route about 1852. The same year their father crossed the plains, the son making the trip with horses and the father with oxen. Jacob had his horses stolen one night while on the way by Indians but he recovered them together with some silver money that had been taken. They were twenty miles away when he found them.

Mr. Fraseur of this review visited Chicago in 1853 when it was little more than a mud hole with a few plank sidewalks. When the family first came to Cedar county the father hauled wheat to Chicago and there purchased two stoves and two barrels of salt, for Chicago was the nearest market at which he could obtain these commodities. Mr. Fraseur hauled wheat to Muscatine, where he has sold it for twenty-five cents per bushel and dressed pork for two dollars and a half per hundred. He has lived to witness great changes since those times, for today every Iowa farm is at most but a few miles distant from a railroad.

Prices have greatly advanced until the farmer today receives a goodly return for his labor and, moreover, his work is not nearly so arduous as it was many years ago, for much of it is done by machinery where formerly it was done by hand. It seems hardly possible that it is within the memory of a living man when Indians inhabited this district and yet Mr. Fraseur remembers seeing the red men here for some time after the arrival of the family. But pioneer conditions have long since given away before advancing civilization; the red men's hunting grounds have been transformed into highly cultivated farms, wild game has been replaced by high grade stock, the little crossroads villages have been converted into thriving towns and cities and Tipton is situated in the center of a rich agricultural district, the county taking its place among the best and most productive counties of the state.