Alexander B. Ireland, M. D., Camanche

ALEXANDER BAIRD IRELAND, for twenty-five years a practicing physician in Camanche, is a native of Tennessee, and was born at Sevierville, Sevier county, on the 12th of March, 1818. His parents were Thomas L. and Hannah Wood Ireland. The Irelands were from Maryland. His mother was the daughter of the Rev. Richard Wood, a Baptist clergyman prominent in Tennessee forty or fifty years ago. In 1836 Thomas L. Ireland moved with his family to Schuyler county, Illinois, and two years later to Tazewell county. He was a farmer, and his son followed that business until eighteen years of age, when he commenced teaching, following that profession five years. During this time he studied medicine more or less; finished these studies at Jacksonville, Illinois, and there graduated from Illinois College in 1846.

Dr. Ireland settled in Andrew, Jackson county, Iowa, and with the exception of one year (1850) spent in California, practiced there until June, 1852, when he settled in Camanche. Here he has attended very closely to his profession, in which he has a high standing in the vicinity. He is a member of the Clinton County Medical Society, the Iowa State Medical Society, and the American Medical Association, and is one of the reading, thinking, progressive men in medical knowledge.

In 1857, when Camanche became a city, Dr. Ireland was elected mayor, and again in 1859. He was a member of the county board of supervisors one year, and of the upper house of the general assembly from 1870 to 1874. While a state senator he was chairman of the committee on state universities and normal schools, and was on the committees on charitable institutions, congressional districts, and one or two others. He made a judicious legislator.

Dr. Ireland is a Royal Arch Mason, and belongs to the encampment of the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows.

In politics, he was a democrat until 1861, since which time he has been a firm republican.

He is a member of the Baptist church.

On the 8th of July, 1854, he married Miss Mary E. Cady, of New Berlin, New York. They have had five children, and have lost one of them. She died on the 9th of May, 1873. She was a devoted christian woman and a true mother.

The eldest child living, Jennie, is the wife of Le Roy Heilman, of Camanche. The other three children, Fannie A., Mary Antonette and Lewis A., are living at home. Dr. Ireland is looking well to the education of his children. He has an excellent mind, and is also very much polished in manners.

Source:

The United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men. Iowa Volume.

Chicago and New York: American Biographical Publishing Company, 1878