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JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

The following paragraphs have reference to a man who has long been identified with the progress and advancement of this favored section of the Hawkeye state, and who has attained gratifying success in connection with the development of its resources, having for some time devoted his attention especially to the creamery business. He is a native of Williamson, Wayne county, New York, where his birth occurred November 23, 1845. He is the son of Cullen B. And Catherine (Brockway) Adams, who farmed in Williamson, New York. In 1878 they came to West Union, Iowa, and lived retired, having laid by a competency for their old age by their earlier years of activity. They were good and useful citizens and enjoyed the respect of all whom they met.

John Q. Adams was educated in the common schools and Sodus Academy. In the spring of 1868 he came to Richland, now Bethel township, Fayette county, Iowa, and worked by the month at farming for about six years and taught school for a few terms, then engaged in farming for himself. He has been quite successful at it, so that he is now the owner of one of the best farms in Bethel township, consisting of two hundred and eighty acres, which has been placed under a high state of cultivation and improvements and is among the most valuable land in the county. On it stand an attractive and comfortable dwelling and outbuildings, and general farming is carried on in a most successful manner.

John Q. Adams was married in the spring of 1886 to Amelia H. Wedgwood, of Osage, Iowa, and one child was born to this union, named Catha. Mrs. Adams was called to her rest in 1891 and their only child died in 1893. Mr. Adams retired from active farming in 1894. He was again married, on June 23, 1903, to Mrs. Sarah M. (Jamison) Shaw, who was born in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, in 1849, and came with her parents to Auburn, Fayette county, Iowa, in 1852. Thence they moved to a farm in Union township, where most of her early life was spent. She attended school in West Union and at the Upper Iowa University at Fayette and has been prominent in church and social circles in West Union, where she moved in 1882 with her mother after the death of her father in 1881. In 1891 she married Lawrence Shaw, who was then deputy sheriff of Fayette county and who died the same year. Her marriage to Mr. Adams made him a resident of West Union, where they occupy the homestead, her mother having died in 1903.

Mr. Adams is inclined to literature and has done a great deal of miscellaneous reading, being well versed in English literature, and he has won a local reputation as an able and lucid writer, especially of verse, which he has contributed to the home papers. They show careful thought and excellent workmanship, and that Mr. Adams has an eye for beauty and an ear for harmony.

In 1901 Mr. Adams assisted in organizing the Hawkeye Creamery Association, of which he was made secretary, having had two year’s experience as secretary of the Bethel Creamery Association, and he still holds the former position, the abundant success that has attended the efforts of the association being due in no small measure to his close attention to his duties and his minute knowledge of the creamery business.

Mr. and Mrs. Adams are members of the Presbyterian church, and politically Mr. Adams is independent. He has long taken considerable interest in local political affairs, and has very acceptably served as township clerk and treasurer of the school funds of Bethel township. He is well known and popular throughout the county, owing to his public spirit, his hospitality, industry and genuine worth, being a worthy son of a worthy sire.

~transcribed by Kathy Moore