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Albert H. Strong

Albert H. Strong, a resident of Fayette who has now retired from business life, is a native of Connecticut. He was born in Tolland County, April 12, 1811, and distinctly remembers seeing Gen. LaFayette on his second visit to America in 1825. His parents were Noah and Grace (Foote) Strong, both of whom were also natives of Connecticut, while the families on both sides have for many generations remote been residents of this country. His father was a farmer and lived to be about ninety-two years of age, while his wife had also attained to a ripe old age at her death.

In their family were nine children, of whom our subject was the eldest. Owing to this fact and that four or five girls came after him, he was called upon to do the chores and run the errands as well as perform his share of the labor in the field. His education went no farther than initiation into the mysteries of the three R's, but by personal effort he has made himself a well-informed man. On reaching mature years, he worked for some time in a dyeing house in Hartford, Conn., and in 1834, traveling by way of the Erie Canal to Buffalo and on to Detroit and by stage to White Pigeon, Mich., entered land in that locality and improved a farm. He enlisted to go to the Toledo war and was commissioned Captain of the militia of Michigan Territory.

On the 6th of January, 1837, Mr. Strong married Ann Coffinger, who was born April 28, 1818, in Auburn, N. Y. After a number of years residence east of the Mississippi, in July, 1854, they crossed the Father of Waters and made their way by wagon to Chickasaw County, Iowa, where Mr. Strong developed and improved a farm. In 1865, he came to Fayette City, and has since made this his home. His wife died on the 30th of December of that year. Their union was blessed with six children: Harriet, born October 6, 1837, became the wife of George W. Jenkins and died in Nebraska, January 10, 1864; George W., born February 5, 1839, served through the war in Company C, Thirty-eighth Iowa Infantry and now resides in Ward County, N. D.; Jennette, born June 2, 1841, married Joshua Hawkins and died in Paris, Mo., April 8, 1887; Albert G., born October 18, 1843, enlisted in Company B. Seventh Iowa Infantry in October, 1861, and died in the hospital at St. Louis, on the 15th of December following; Willard, born April 21, 1845, died March 2, 1858; Catherine G., born March 26, 1853, is the wife of Thomas V. Hunt, principal of the schools in Delhi, Delaware County, Iowa. On the 7th of January, 1867, Mr. Strong was joined in wedlock with Miss Laura S. Burch, who was born in London, Canada, July 5, 1827, and is a daughter of John and Lydia (Hogaboome) Burch, natives of Vermont and New York respectively. Both went with their parents to Canada, where they were married, removing thence to Illinois in 1840 and to this county in 1857. They located in Fayette, where Mr. Burch carried on the drug business. His death occurred at the age of sixty-five years and his wife was called to her final rest when sixty-eight years of age. Both were members of the Methodist Church and their family numbers eight children, of whom Mrs. Strong is fifth in order of birth.

Mr. and Mrs. Strong are also members of the Methodist Church. He cast his first vote for Andrew Jackson and continued to support the Democratic party until the time of the election of Polk, when he became an Abolitionist and voted for Birney and Hale. On the organization of the Republican party he joined its ranks and cast his ballot for Fremont, Lincoln and its other Presidential nominees until the rise of the Prohibition party, since which time he has advocated its principles. Though nearly eighty years of age, Mr. Strong is active in body and mind and there is no apparent reason why he may not live to be one hundred.