HENRY SHANK

View Portrait of Mr. & Mrs. Henry Shank

Since October, 1852, Henry Shank has been a resident of Cedar county and now makes his home in the city of Tipton, where he is practically living retired. He was actively identified with the early development of this region and always bore his part in the work of progress and advancement. He is a native of Ohio, born in Holmes county, August 20, 1833, and is a son of Tobias and Eliza Shank, natives of Pennsylvania and Virginia respectively, though they were married in Ohio and continued to make their home in that state until their deaths. Throughout the greater part of his life the father followed farming. He died at the age of sixty-five years of typhoid fever, both he and his oldest daughter passing away at the same time. The mother of our subject reached the extreme old age of one hundred, one and a half years and never married again. Mrs. Shank returned home on a visit when she had reached the century mark and at that time she was still able to do housework and would go alone to the spring for a bucket of water. Her memory was exceptionally good and she appeared much younger. Daniel Shank, our subject’s paternal grandfather, was a native of Germany and on coming to the new world in early life settled in Pennsylvania, where he engaged in farming and also served as a local preacher in the Dunkard church.

Tobias and Eliza Shank were the parents of seven children, namely: Henry, whose name introduces this sketch; Sarah, who died at the age of twenty years; George, who died in Oregon at the age of sixty-five years; Griffith, a resident of Holmes county, Ohio; Mrs. Margaret Ellen Teeters, of Holmes county; Mrs. Mary Ann Mack, also of that county; and David, deceased.

Henry Shank spent the first nineteen years of his life in this native state and then came to Cedar county, Iowa, arriving here in October, 1852. Here he has made his home continuously since and with the exception of four years has devoted his home continuously since and with the exception of four years has devoted his time and attention to agricultural pursuits. From 1859 to 1863, however, he was engaged in gold mining in California, having made the trip overland with ox-teams, returning by way of the Isthmus of Panama and New York. Mr. Shank came to this county with William Wiggins, for whom he drove a team, and after reaching this locality continued to work for that gentleman for one year for the sum of a hundred and eighteen dollars. At the end of that time he and Thomas Sigfoos, who had come from Ohio with them, rented Mr. Wiggins’s farm which they operated the following year. In 1855 Mr. Shank married and commenced farming on rented land. As time passed he prospered in his undertakings and in 1876 purchased one hundred and sixty acres of his present farm and a few years later added to this an eighty-acre tract, all of which he improved by the erection of good and substantial buildings and placed the land under a high state of cultivation. This property is located on section 7, Red Oak township, and he continued its operation until May, 1892, when he retired from active farming and removed to Tipton. He has since sold one hundred and sixty acres to his son-in-law, but still retains eighty acres. He also has one hundred and sixty acres in Hamilton county, Kansas.

On the 8th of February, 1855, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Shank and Miss Eliza Fraseur, who was born in Cedar county, October 19, 1837, and is a daughter of Benjamin Fraseur, of whom extended mention is made in the sketch of Montgomery Fraseur on another page of this volume. Five children blessed this union, all born in Cedar county, namely: Austin, who died in infancy; Charles, who is living near White Lake, South Dakota; Emma, the wife of John Parks, of Linn township; Bessie, the wife of Charles Woods, of Red Oak township; and Edward, whose home is near Brookings, South Dakota. Mr. and Mrs. Shank have traveled extensively throughout the west, spending some time on the Pacific coast, and he has visited almost every state in the northern part of the Union. He can relate many interesting incidents of the early days in Cedar county and in the work of development and improvement he ever bore his part. In May, 1853, he accompanied a party of seven who came from Ohio to look for land in this region. They went from Red Oak to Lost Grove and on to Bee Grove and Mason Grove by horseback, but the party concluded that they had not seen any land worth a dollar and a quarter per acre. Mr. Shank said that he would not take all the land that he had seen as a gift and agree to live upon it the rest of his life, but he has continued to reside in Cedar county, however, and has lived to witness the transformation of this county into some of the best and most productive farms of the state. Both he and his wife were active members of the United Brethren church while living in Red Oak township and are today people of the highest respectability, widely and favorable known through the county, with a host of warm, personal friends.