Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 566
SILAS S. BONER

Silas S. BONER, living at Missouri Valley, came to Harrison County in the spring of 1877, and located at Missouri Valley, and ever since that date has taken an active part in the business interests of Harrison County. He was born on the 15th of February, 1820, in Northumberland County, Pa. The parents were Sebastian and Abigal (SIMINSON) BONER. The former was a native of New Jersey, and the Grandfather BONER was in the War of 1812, as was also his son, the father of our subject, he being stationed at Black Rock, N. Y., for some time. The family consisted of two sons and four daughters, our subject being the third child. Four of the children are still living. The brother is a resident of Michigan; one sister, the widow of Samuel SNYDER, living at Kansas City; and the other sister the widow of C. FOLMER of Pennsylvania. Both the father and mother are deceased. The father died at the age of ninety years, and both he and his companion were buried at a little hamlet six miles east of Sunbury, Pa., called SNYDER Town. Our subject attended the common school of the Keystone State for two winters, and had very limited opportunities for obtaining an education. The school which he attended only taught the three "R's"--reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic--so that the most information he obtained was by actual contact with the world. At the age of fourteen he began working on the Pennsylvania Canal, and soon after engaged in a store, where he continued about twenty-five years; and came to Iowa in 1851, locating at Mt. Rose, just above Keokuk, where he remained eight years engaged in mercantile business, and the next two years engaged with a man at Farmington, Van Buren County, where he remained ten years. He was a merchant at Farmington in 1872, and went to Keokuk where he bought out two hardware stores, and ran a wholesale and retail hardware store; for a short time prior to his coming to this county, was engaged in the lumber business. Our subject and his son-in-law, Fred SIMS, are running a farm of sixteen hundred and forty acres, seven hundred and forty acres of which they own. They are extensive dealers in stock, and feed several hundred head each winter.

Mr. BONER was united in marriage October 30, 1841, at Paxinos, Northumberland County, Pa., to Mary DICUS, a native of Schuylkill County, Pa. Her father died when she was a small child, and her mother died afterwards at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. BONER are the parents of four children--Christie, wife of Fred SIMS, of Missouri Valley; Alice, at home; Clara, wife of H. C. CAMP, of Omaha, Neb., who are the parents of one daughter--Mary, born in 1876; Frances, wife of P. E. ROBINSON, contracting agent for the Blue Line and Canada Southern, located at Omaha, Neb.

Politically, our subject is identified with the Republican party. He has ever sought to be a man of uprightness and integrity, and may well be termed a self-made man. During all of his extended busines life he has never been sued nor had the ordinary difficulties which fall to the business man. When we remember how few there are who live a wedded life long enough to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary, those who are so favored have reason to be doubly thankful.

The following appeared in the Missouri Valley Times, October 31, 1891, and is very appropriate in this connection:--"Fifty years ago yesterday a young man in Northumberland County, Pa., about three o'clock in the afternoon took his best girl and walked out into the country about two miles to the home of one of his friends who was a justice of the peace, and there the young couple were married, and started out upon the sea of life hand in hand to do battle with the world. The young man was S. S. BONER, and the young lady was Miss Mary DICUS, and after the ceremony was performed Mr. BONER gave the justice of the peace a two dollar bill for the marriage fee, all the money he had. For fifty years this worthy couple have enjoyed the pleasures and sorrows of this life together, and now on the fiftieth anniversary of their marriage they feel that they have lived a well-spent life, and are going down the hill of time together, with a competency of this world's goods, and surrounded y their children and grandchildren. The baby of the family, Mrs. P. E. ROBINSON, gave a supper to her parents, Mr. and Mrs. BONER, in honor of the golden anniversary of their marriage at which the parents and all their children sat down together, there never having been a death in the family in all those fifty years of married life. Mr. BONER is hale and hearty on his golden wedding day, and says, if he has his way about it he will live to celebrate half a dozen more golden weddings."

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