Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 855
JOHN S. GOSS

John S. GOSS, (retired), living at Missouri Valley, came to Pottawattamie County, in 1851, and located just over the line from Harrison County. Here he lived for twenty years and then moved to Missouri Valley, where he has made his home ever since. He was born August 3, 1833, at Whitehall, Greene County, IL. He is a son of Sherman and Elizabeth (WATTS) GOSS. The father came from Knoxville, Tennessee, and was of French-Irish extraction, while the mother was of Irish parentage, but reared in Statesville, NC. The family were very early settlers in Illinois, the father having been in the Blackhawk Indian War. He was a carpenter by trade, but after coming to Iowa, followed farming. The family consisted of six sons and two daughters, our subject being the second child. Four of the children are now living, our subject and H.W.A. GOSS, of Missouri Valley; Hugh W., of Council Bluffs, and J.C., who resides in California. Mortimer W., enlisted in 1862 in Company E., Twenty-third Iowa Infantry, and was killed in the battle of Anderson Hill, near Port Gibson, on the morning of May 1, 1863, and was buried where he fell.

The father died August 29, 1855, and is buried in Branson's Cemetery, near Loveland. The mother died April 24, 1881, and was buried beside her husband.

Our subject was married June 1, 1856, at Loveland, Iowa, to Mary S. COPELAND , who came with her parents from Putnam County, IN, to Pottawattamie County, in the autumn of 1852. Her father's name is Thomas Newton COPELAND, who still resides in Rockford Township, Pottawatamie County. In the COPELAND family there were nine children. Of the number, Mrs. GOSS has one brother living, three deceased, and three sisters living and one deceased.

Mr. GOSS enlisted as a soldier in the Union army, during the Civil War, on April 15, 1862, in Company H, Seventeenth Iowa Infantry, and was assigned to the Western Army. He was first sent to St. Louis, and from there to Corinth, Mississippi, but on account of ill health, was sent North, and discharged the following December, for disability.

After returning home from the army, Mr. GOSS was sick for many months, but finally got so he could labor about half the time. On August 13, 1867, he commenced to build a flat-boat, upon which to run lumber and wood down the Missouri River on to Omaha. He ran on the river until 1871, when he sold out and moved to Missouri Valley. In 1876, he sold out his furniture business. His has been a varied experience. In 1867 he went on the Upper Missouri as carpenter on steamer "Gen.Mead," and the fall of that year obtained his license as a first class pilot on steamboats from Omaha to Cow Island, Montana, also on the Yellowstone. Since then he has secured license as Master Pilot for the Mississippi River and tributaries, and has been on the rivers more or less ever since. Two years of the time running on boats for the Government between Sioux City and Kansas City.

Since living in Missouri Valley, he was engaged in the furniture and undertaking business, also was in the insurance business. He belongs to Beldon Post No. 59, Grand Army of the Republic, and is also a member of the Subordinate and Encampment Degrees of the Odd Fellows Order. He and his wife are active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Missouri Valley, of which he is one of the Trustees, and was also Trustee of the Loveland Methodist Church, where he erected a church edifice in 1891.

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