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1907 Past and Present Biographies

S. N. Vanhorn

S. N. Vanhorn is a representative of the farming interests of Greene county, his home being situated on section 24, Franklin township. He dates his residence in the county from 1854, or for a period of more than half a century, and thus has intimate knowledge of the history of this section of the state in all of its varied phases which have marked its progress and development. A native of Muscatine county, Iowa, he was born November 26, 1846, his parents being Rensselaer and Mary E. Vanhorn. The father was a native of New York, his birth having occurred in Otsego county, that state, on the 28th of May, 1818. He afterward went to Vanderburg county, Indiana, in 1820 with his parents, and upon the western frontier was reared, experiencing the hardships and privations of pioneer life. Having attained years of maturity, he was married on the 20th of June, 1839, to Miss Mary E. Franklin, and after four years spent in Indiana subsequent to their marriage they removed to Muscatine county, Iowa, in 1843, and to Greene county in 1854. For some years they lived in this part of the state, after which they became residents of Solomon City, Kansas, where Rensselaer Vanhorn passed away in 1904.

S. N. Vanhorn pursued his education in the public schools of Muscatine and of Greene counties. No event of special importance occurred to vary the routine of farm life for him in his boyhood days. He worked in the fields from the time of early spring planting until crops were harvested in the late autumn and continued at home until twenty-two years of age, when he started out in business on his own account. He now owns and cultivates ninety acres of land in Franklin and Washington townships. He has brought his farm under a high state of cultivation and is known as one of the representative agriculturists of his community.

In 1895 Mr. Vanhorn was united in marriage to Miss Nancy M. Smith. In politics he is independent, nor has he sought to figure prominently in public life. On the contrary he has preferred to give undivided time and attention to his business affairs and his life has been well spent in the active performance of his daily duties. Fifty-three years have come and gone since he arrived in this county. Those visiting the county today and noting the splendid condition of its farms and the spirit of thrift and enterprise which pervades its towns and villages can scarcely realize that it is within the memory of people living here today when all this district was an unbroken prairie covered with an untrodden sheet of snow through the winter months and covered in the summer season with the native prairie grasses. It is always an arduous task to develop new land and especially was this so four or five decades ago when the farm machinery was very crude as compared with that in use at the present time. As the years passed, however, time and man wrought a marked change in the condition of the country and Mr. Vanhorn is among those who have borne their full share in the agricultural development of this section of the state.

Transcribed from "Past and Present of Greene County, Iowa Together With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Prominent and Leading Citizens and Illustrious Dead,"
by E. B. Stillman assisted by an Advisory Board consisting of Paul E. Stillman, Gillum S. Toliver,
Benjamin F. Osborn, Mahlon Head, P. A. Smith and Lee B. Kinsey, Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1907.

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