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Last updated: 22 Jul 2021 ms

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Surnames beginning with the letter F

FANNING, NICHOLAS

SEWELL S. FARWELL was born in Ohio, April 26, 1834, came to Iowa in 1852 and made his home in Jones County. When the Civil War began he entered the military service and was commissioned captain of Company H, of the Thirty-first Iowa Volunteer Infantry and before the close of the war was promoted to major. He participated in the battles of Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post, siege of Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Kenesaw Mountain, Atlanta, Jonesboro and Sherman's March to the Sea. In 1865 he was elected on the Republican ticket to represent Jones County in the State Senate, serving four years. In 1869 he was appointed by President Grant Assessor of Internal Revenue for the Second District of Iowa for the term of four years. In February, 1875, he was appointed Collector of Internal Revenue, serving six years, in the same district. In 1880 he was nominated by the Republicans for Representative in Congress and was elected, serving one term.

JOSEPH D. FEGAN is one of the pioneers of Iowa, having lived in the State since 1849. He was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, July 26, 1831, and had but few educational advantages, learning the tailor's trade when fourteen years of age. In 1849 he came West, and stopped at Fairfield, Jefferson County, Iowa. In 1850 he removed to Princeton, Scott County, and later settled in Clinton County. In 1862 Mr. Fegan enlisted as a private in Company I, Twenty-sixth Iowa Volunteers and was promoted to sergeant-major, participating in twenty-one engagements and several sieges, He was in the battles of Arkansas Post, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Ringgold, Resaca, Kenesaw Mountain and in the sieges of Vicksburg, Atlanta and Savannah and the march to the sea. Mr. Fegan was promoted to first lieutenant and adjutant of the regiment in 1863, and later became captain of company B, of the regiment. He was commissioned by President Lincoln Assistant Adjutant-General in the regular army. He was chairman of the Commission appointed by Governor Jackson to locate and mark the position of Iowa troops engaged in the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge and was also one of the commissioners appointed by Governor Shaw to locate and mark the lines of Iowa troops at the siege of Vicksburg. Captain Fegan was formerly a Democrat but since the Civil War has affiliated with the Republicans.

ANDREW J. FELT, pioneer journalist, was born at Victor, Ontario County, New York, December 27, 1833. He was educated at Hamilton Academy, later studying law, and came to Iowa in 1855 before being admitted to the bar. Mr. Felt located in Clayton County and the following year became associate editor of the North Iowa Times of McGregor. He was admitted to the bar in Chickasaw County and established the Cedar Valley News at Bradford, attending to law business and editing his paper. In 1860 he renewed his editorial connection with the North Iowa Times until the Civil War began when he enlisted in Company B, Seventh Iowa Volunteers. At the Battle of Belmont, he was taken prisoner, remaining in captivity for a year, when he was exchanged and joined his regiment at Corinth. After returning from the army Mr. Felt established the Public Record at West Union, and in 1867 the Nashua Post which he conducted until 1874 when he purchased an interest in the Waterloo Courier. He was originally a Democrat but became a Republican during the war period. He was a delegate to the National Republican Convention at Chicago which, in 1868, nominated General Grant for President and was chosen one of the secretaries. Later he removed to Kansas where he became prominent in public affairs and was elected Lieutenant-Governor of the State.

FENGLER, GEORGE
     George Fengler was born on April 9, 1841 in Breslau, a town founded by German immigrants and now located in Poland. His family immigrated to the United States in 1849 and moved to Iowa in 1850. It was there that he met Alice M. Curtis. Alice was born on January 13, 1845, in Bellevue, Iowa, and on August 21, 1861, they were married in Dubuque "on application of said Fengler and satisfactory proof by the written consent of the mother of Alice." A daughter, Melvina, was born the following year.
     Confederate cannon had fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, war followed, and thousands of men, both North and South died. On July 9, 1862, Governor Sam Kirkwood received a telegram asking him to raise five regiments as part of the President’s call for another 300,000 three-year men. If the state’s quota wasn’t raised by August 15th, it "would be made up by draft" but a draft was never needed.
     George Fengler was a twenty-one-year-old farmer when he enlisted on August 21st and the next day, at Camp Franklin on Eagle Point in Dubuque, he was mustered into Company A. On September 9th, when all ten companies were of sufficient strength, they were mustered in as the 21st Regiment of Iowa’s Volunteer Infantry. On the 16th, crowded on board the sidewheel steamer Henry Clay and two barges tied alongside, they started down the Mississippi. They spent the night of the 17th on Rock Island, resumed their trip about noon on the 18th , debarked at Montrose due to low water levels, traveled by train to Montrose, boarded the Hawkeye State and reached St. Louis on the 20th . After a morning inspection on the 21st , they traveled by train to Rolla where they engaged in training until the 18th of October when they started the first of their many long marches.
     Bimonthly company muster rolls were taken on the last day of the period and George was marked "present" on rolls taken on October 31st at Salem and December 31st at Houston after being detailed on November 22d to a Pioneer Corps. In corps usually composed of soldiers temporarily released from regular duty, pioneers cleared roads, erected bridges, loaded and unloaded boats and supply wagons, built breastworks and dug trenches and other structures, sometimes working alone and sometimes with civilians, mostly negroes, who were hired or impressed for similar work. George continued "present" on February 28, 1863, at Iron Mountain, Missouri, and was with the regiment in April when they were transported downstream from Ste. Genevieve to Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, where General Grant was assembling a large three-corps army to capture Vicksburg. In a corps led by General John McClernand, they moved slowly south along muddy roads, across bayous and through swamps west of the river.
     Grant hoped to cross the river to Grand Gulf but, when it proved to be too well defended, he took the advice of a former slave who said there was a good crossing not much farther downstream. On April 30, 1863, they crossed from Disharoon’s Plantation to the Bruinsburg Landing in Mississippi where the 21st Infantry was designated as the point regiment for the entire 30,000-man army. Starting inland in late afternoon, they continued in darkness until fired on by Confederate pickets about midnight. A brief exchange of gunfire followed before men rested and the next day George participated with his regiment in the Battle of Port Gibson. With three men having received fatal wounds and another fourteen having wounds that were less serious, men were allowed to rest, bury the dead and care for the wounded while other regiments took the lead and engaged in battle at Raymond. On the 16th they were present during the Battle of Champion Hill when they were held out of action by General McClernand and forced to listen as men in other regiments were being killed. In a postwar address, George Crooke recalled that "those who stood there that day will surely never forget the bands of humiliation and shame which bound them to the spot, while listening to the awful crashes of musketry and thunders of cannon close by."
     Having been held out of action on the 16th, they were rotated to the front on the 17th and, with the 23rd Iowa, led a successful assault on Confederates entrenched near the railroad bridge over the Big Black River. In this three-minute assault they had seven killed in action, eighteen who would soon die from mortal wounds and another forty with less severe wounds. Among them was Colonel Sam Merrill who was severely wounded and fell on the field while leading his men who praised their leader as having "true grit." From the Big Black they moved to Vicksburg where George continued with the regiment during an assault on May 22nd and for the duration of the ensuing siege that ended with the city’s surrender on the Fourth of July, 1863.
     During much of the siege Confederates led by General Joe Johnson had lurked behind the Union lines although causing few problems. As soon as Vicksburg surrendered, Grant ordered Sherman to lead a force against Johnston. George and others able for duty were with him as they left on the 5 th and pursued Johnston all the way to Jackson. There, during a brief siege, George was wounded in the left wrist and on the 17th was sent to St. Louis where he was admitted to the New House of Refuge General Hospital.
     By the end of October, he had returned and in November was with the regiment when they were transported across the Gulf for six months’ service along the coast of Texas with George being promoted from Private to 6th Corporal. After leaving Texas in April, 1864, George was present on June 30th at Terrebonne Station and August 31st at Morganza, both in Louisiana, on October 31st on the White River of Arkansas, and on December 31st at Memphis although for much of the month he, like many others, was treated for "bilious diarrhea," an illness that caused the death of at least sixty-four of his comrades. In the spring of 1865, he was present during the campaign to capture the city of Mobile, Alabama, before returning to Louisiana. In June, those who had enlisted as recruits after the original organization of the regiment were transferred to a 34th/38th Consolidated regiment for further service, thirty-seven men in Company A who had enlisted early were discharged and others in the company, including George Fengler, were transferred to Company F. On July 15th, those still present were mustered out at Baton Rouge and on the 16th, on board the Lady Gay, they started north. They were discharged from the military on July 24th at Clinton.
     George returned to Dubuque where he and Alice had ten more children - George Adolph known as "Richard" (1866), Edwin (1868), Olive (1869), George Albert (1874), Alice (1875), Oscar (1877), Octavia (1878), Leopold (1881), Randolph (1883) and Orrin (1889).
     In 1862 George had been mustered into service on Eagle Point in Dubuque. After the war he established the Eagle Point Lime Works with kilns producing lime that was shipped east to Wisconsin, north to Minnesota, all over Iowa and as far west as the Dakotas. He joined the G.A.R., served as U.S. Surveyor of Customs, represented the Fifth Ward on the city council, and in 1872 attended the regiment’s first reunion, a two-day event that started on September 16th , ten years to the day from when they had left for war. In 1883 the city council granted a twenty-five-year license to George and several others to operate an Eagle Point Ferry to Wisconsin.
     Business was good but George, like many other veterans, applied for an invalid pension with support from two of his comrades, Lovatus Fuller and Albert Curtis, both of Company A, who confirmed his wound. He was examined by Dr. William Watson whose affidavit said the wound "causes some inconvenience" but the physical disability was minor and no pension was granted. George applied again in 1874 with Archibald Stuart, a former member of Company G, as his attorney. A $2.00 monthly pension was granted and, in 1884, George applied for an increase saying he "cannot hold anything by his left hand as he has no control of the nerves, that he cannot milk his cows, or drive his horses, and that his team ran away with him by reason of the inability of his left arm." The pension was increased, but his health was failing. By 1899 he was diagnosed with cancer and needed constant attention. On April 28, 1900, at fifty-nine years of age, he died at his home, 1059 Garfield Street.
     George’s will left everything to his wife and soon after his death Alice applied for a widow’s pension and a pension for Orrin who was only eleven years old, but proving she needed support proved difficult. George had acquired a lot of property for his Eagle Point business, their home and elsewhere in the county. Affidavits were filed by George’s comrades and by the county’s Recorder and Treasurer. A Pension Bureau Special Examiner was appointed and depositions were taken of Alice and her son, Edwin, living at 854 Rhomberg Avenue and now running the Lime Works. Eventually the Bureau was convinced that, although Alice now owned many properties, they were heavily mortgaged and the $4,500 proceeds of George’s insurance policy had been used to pay debts. On July 9, 1901, a certificate was issued providing an $8.00 monthly pension for Alice and $2.00 for Orrin, an amount he would receive until his sixteenth birthday.
     Alice was seventy-four years old when she died on November 30, 1919. She and George are buried in the city’s Linwood Cemetery.
~Compiled & submitted by Carl Ingwalson, July 2021

JAMES P. FLICK was born at Bakerstown, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, August 28, 1845. When he was seven years of age his parents removed to Iowa, making their home in Wapello County. In 1857 they became residents of Taylor County which has since been Mr. Flick's home. He enlisted in the Fourth Iowa Infantry in April, 1862, and served in the Civil War as a private soldier. Studying law after his return he was admitted to the bar. He was elected on the Republican ticket to the House of the Seventeenth General Assembly and was District Attorney for six years. In 1888 he was elected to Congress in the Eighth District and reelected in 1890, serving four years.

GEORGE D. FULLERTON

George D[augherty]. FULLERTON, one of the active and enterprising farmers of Tingley Township, residing on section 8, is a native of Indiana, born in Monroe County, near Bloomington, November 5, 1845, a son of John and Mary FULLERTON, his father being a native of Tennessee. His mother, whose maiden name was DAUGHERTY, was twice married, marrying for her first husband a man named ROBERTS. She was a native of Kentucky. The parents were among the early settlers of Indiana. They had a family of seven sons of whom five are yet living, our subject being the fifth child born to them.

When he was eight years old his parents moved to Monroe County, Iowa, and settled on a farm near Albia, where they still make their home, the father being now seventy-six years of age, and the mother in her eightieth year.

George D. FULLERTON was reared to manhood on a farm in Monroe County, Iowa, receiving a common-school education in the schools of the district. He enlisted in the late [Civil] war, at the age of eighteen years, a member of the Third Iowa Battery. He was in the service about two years, most of the time being on garrison duty, and was musterd out at Davenport, Iowa, in November, 1865.

After his discharge he returned to his home in Monroe County, and was engaged in farming with his father for two years. He was then married, in [October 24] 1867, to Miss Martha E[llen]. McGAW of Monroe Couty, who was born and reared in Coshocton County, Ohio, a daughter of John McGAW. Mrs. FULLERTON was left an orphan when she was four years old, and her father when she was eleven years, after which she lived at the home of her uncle. Mr. and Mrs. FULLERTON have five children - Carl C., John, Burt, Inez and Dwight.

After his marriage Mr. FULLERTON rented a farm on which he lived till 1870, when he came to Ringgold County, locating on his present farm, where he has 160 acres of choice land under good cultivation, and has since been successfully engaged in raising grain and stock.

Mr. FULLERTON has held the office of trustee of Tingley Township for six years. Both he and his wife are worthy members of the United Presbyterian church, of which he is trustee. he has also been acting as superintendent of the Sabbath-school.

NOTE: John FULLERTON, son of Thomas H. (1786-1866) and Nancy (WOODY) (1786-1865), was born in Murphy, Tennessee, on June 29, 1813, and died at Albia, Monroe County, Iowa, on June 10, 1892. John was married in Pulaski County, Kentucky on November 5, 1835 to Mary Jane DAUGHERTY, born in Kentucky to George DAUGHERTY on April 14, 1809, and died October 10, 1894, Albia, Iowa. John and Mary were the parents of seven sons: Henderson (1836-1902), Thomas (1839-1862), Robert (1842-1861), George D., Henry Perry (1847-1918), Oscar (1850-1932), and Edwin H. (1854-?). Mary's son from her first marriage was William ROBERTS, born 1831.

George D. FULLERTON enlisted in Monroe County, Iowa, as a Private on January 13, 1854, and was assigned to the 3rd Iowa Light Artillery Battery. He was promoted to Full 11th Corporal on September 5, 1865, and mustered out of service October 23, 1865, Davenport, Iowa.

Martha Ellen (McGAW) FULLERTON was born in Ohio on February 14, 1847, the daughter of James McGAW (1805-?) and Matilda (ELDER) McGAW (1807-1857). George and Martha moved to California by 1900. George D. FULLERTON died at the age of 76 years on October 18, 1921, Fowler, Fresno County, California. George and Martha were the parents of five children:

1) Carl C. FULLERTON, born 24 Oct 1869, Tingley IA

2) John McGaw FULLERTON, born 01 May 1873, Tingley IA married 30 Oct 1902, San Fransisco CA Mary Jessie McDILL (1868, IL - 1936, CA) Child: Glen Askren FULLERTON, born 14 Sep 1908, CA; died 08 Oct 1999, CA

3) Inez FULELRTON, born 31 Oct 1876, Tingley IA

4) Bert FULLERTON, Apr 1879, Tingley IA

5) James "Dwight" FULLERTON, born 14 Jun 1882, Tingley IA

~Sources:
Biography & Historical Record of Ringgold County, p. 389, 1887.
American Civil War Soldier Database, ancestry.com
WPA Graves Survey
http://iagenweb.org/ringgold/biographical/ring_bio-fullertongeorged.html
from Biography & Historical Record of Ringgold County, Iowa Lewis Publishing Company of Chicago, 1887, p. 389

~Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, March of 2009

G. W. FUNK Industry and perseverance have been dominant qualities in the career of George W. Funk, who comes of sturdy pioneer stock, and through the force of his own powers has overcome the obstacles which have barred his path to success. He is now numbered among the largest land holders of Cherokee county and for fifty-seven years has resided within its borders, contributing toward the development of the fertile land and fine ranches of the great empire of the west. He was born June 13, 1842, in Pennsylvania, and his parents, John L. and Elizabeth Funk, were also natives of the Keystone state. They migrated to Iowa in 1850 and established their home in Henry county, in which they lived for three years. They spent a similar period in Iowa City and then moved to Hardin county, in which the father engaged in the practice of medicine for many years. He was well versed in the science of his profession and as one of the pioneer physicians of that district he rendered valuable service to his fellowmen. His sympathetic nature, genial manner and kind heart won him a secure place in the affections of all to whom he ministered and his demise was deeply regretted. he had preceded his wife to the home beyond and both were buried in the Hazel Green cemetery. To their union were born eight children, two of whom survive. Mr. Funk was a boy of eight when the family came to Iowa, in which he was educated, and in 1861, when a young man of nineteen, enlisted in the Fourteenth Regiment of Volunteer Infantry. He was later transferred to the western army, becoming a member of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry, and for three years faithfully served the Union. Although he participated in much hard fighting he never received a injury and was honorably mustered out at Sioux City, Iowa. He returned to Hardin county, where he engaged in farming until 1868, when he took up a homestead of eighty acres in Cherokee county. He also preempted an eighty-acre claim and his first building was a frame house, fourteen by sixteen feet in dimensions. he closely studied soil and climatic conditions in relation to the production of crops and as agriculture progressed as a science he advanced with it. His well directed labors were rewarded by abundant harvests and he was also a successful stock raiser, specializing in high-grade cattle. He still owns eight hundred and forty acres of valuable farm lands in the county but since 1910 has lived retired in Cherokee, having amassed a substantial sum, and has erected two attractive homes, thus adding to the improvement and ornamentation of the town. In 1878 Mr. Funk married Miss Alice A. Parks, who became the mother of three children, but Arthur A., an agriculturist, is the only one now living. Mr. Funk's second union was with Miss Catherine Parks, a sister of his first wife, who is deceased. He is an adherent of the republican party and during his term of service of the township board was instrumental in securing many needed improvements. He has two grandchildren and relates to them many interesting accounts of his experiences in the early days when this was a wild and undeveloped region, far removed from the advantages of civilization. he rejoices in what has been accomplished and approaches the evening of life with a contented mind and tranquil spirit, knowing that he has done his best, shirking no responsibility and faithfully performing every duty.

~Source: NORTHWESTERN IOWA ITS HISTORY AND TRADITION VOLUME III 1804-1926

Last Updated: July 2021