Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 941
BATES BRANSON

Bates BRANSON, of St John's Township, will form the subject of this notice. It was in the autumn of 1855, that he pre-empted eighty-six acres of his present farm. He made some improvements that season and lived with Isaac Cox, who land adjoined him, that winter. The following spring, he worked for him until May 15th. The balance of the summer he worked in Pottawattamie County, and in October, went back to Indiana, where he remained during the winter, and the following spring going to Coffee County, Kan., remained two weeks in that locality and then returned to Harrison County, Iowa, where he worked on a farm by the month for two years, receiving what was then high wages - $20 per month. In the fall of 1858 he again visited his old home in the Hoosier State, and in the spring of 1860, brought his parents to Harrison County.

Our subject was born in Clay County, Ind., November 6, 1835, and is the son of Jonathan and Malinda (MOORE) BRANSON. The father was a native of Tennessee, while the mother was born in Kentucky. Our subject received his education at the subscription schools in Indiana, and remained at home with his parents until he came to Harrison County, in 1855. He accompanied Evan and John S. Moreland, as far as Guthrie County, Iowa, and from there to Harrison County, with his two uncles, Ephraim MOORE and Henry MAINS. They only remained a short time leaving our subject in the country alone. At that date everything was new, wild flowers bedecked the prairies and the forests were filled with wild game and rank undergrowth of vegetation. A herd of deer or elk, might have been seen on almost any hill side, while the groves were alive with wild turkeys. The blue-joint, on the Missouri bottom, was higher than a man's head, and surged to and fro, against the passing wind, like the waves of an ocean. The whole appearance of Harrison County, at that date was that of one green, glad solitude.

Our subject was united in marriage October 25, 1859, with Mary Ann EVANS, in Clay County, Ind., in the house in which he was born, his father having sold the homestead to William EVANS, the father of our subject's wife � so they were both married "at home."

Mary Ann EVANS (BRANSON), was born January 11, 1834, the daughter of William and Sarah (PHILLIPS) EVANS, and was the oldest of a family of ten children. Our subject and his wife are the parents of six children � Jennette, born September 6, 1860; now the wife of Oscar KIRKENDALL, of Logan, Iowa; Sarah Estella, born October 29, 1863, and died November 5, 1870; William T., born June 25, 1866, and married Joicy Gibson, September 29, 1889 and lives on, and helps operate the home-farm. Luella, born April 11, 1868, married John P. Martin of Missouri Valley; Carrie V. born March 11, 1875, died August 25, 1876; John Thomas, born April 23, 1877, and died January 28, 1879.

Our subject's mother died in Clay County, Ind., in the spring of 1855, after which the father again married and moved to Harrison County, Iowa, and died in Pottawattamie County in 1881. The stepmother is still living in Pottawattamie County, at the advanced age of eighty-one years. Mrs. BRANSON's mother died September 14, 1877, aged sixty-seven years; her father died April 11, 1891, aged seventy-nine years.

To give the reader a more detailed account of Mr. BRANSON's father's family it should be stated that our subject was the third child of a family of ten children, the names were as follows � William H. a resident of St John's Township; Manervia, deceased, Bates, our subject; Daniel, of Fremont County, Iowa, Samantha (single) of Pottawattamie County; Jane, Mrs. Isaac SKELTON Sr. of Pottawattamie County, Milley, Mrs. Perry REEL residing in the same county, Elizabeth, deceased, Nancy, Mrs. Isaac SKELTON Jr. and Isaiah deceased.

Return to 1891 Biographical B Surnames Index

Back to 1891 Biographies Index