Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 579
ALONZO GRAHAM HARD

Alonzo Graham HARD, (retired), who has spent about half of his life in Western Iowa, will form the subject of this biographical memoir. He was born in Shoreham, Vt., May 6, 1826, and is a son of Orestes and Laura (BENEDICT) HARD. The father was a tanner and currier, and later in life taught school and farmed some. The HARD family were of English ancestry, but have been in this country for many generations. The father of our subject, was in the War of 1812, and was the father of six sons and four daughters, our subject being the seventh child, and one of two now living, Alonzo and a younger brother, James D., a resident of Edwards County, Kan., being the only survivors. The family removed from Vermont to Lockport, N.Y., and from there to Jackson County, Ohio, where the mother died at the age of sixty-four years. The father afterward removed to New Jersey, where he spent the remainder of his days, dying at the age of seventy-four years. Our subject's uncle, Ezra HARD, lived to be one hundred and eight years old, and it will thus be seen that our subject descended from long-lived ancestors.

Our subject received his education in Lockport, N.Y., and also attended school for a time after removing to Ohio. At the early age of eleven years, Mr. HARD began learning the printer's trade at Chillicothe, Ohio. After serving his apprenticeship, he attended school again and later on took charge of an office in Jackson, Ohio, and established a Democratic newspaper business in Poweshiek County, Iowa, and had charge of the first newspaper established in Harrison County, known as the Harrison County Flag. He remained in Magnolia from 1857 to 1871, lived in Logan one year, and in 1872 removed to Missouri Valley. He served as County Clerk and Auditor in 1865-66. Among other newspapers he has edited in Iowa, may be named the Logan Courier.

Our subject was united in marriage December 3, 1846, when not quite twenty-one years of age, in Jackson County, Ohio, to Mary DONALD, a native of Ross County, Ohio. Her father was English, while her mother was born in Ireland, but reared in America; they are both deceased. Her father was buried in Cincinnati, and her mother in Illinois. Mrs. HARD has one brother living in Florida, an orange grower.

The home of Mr. and Mrs. HARD has been blessed by the birth of four children: Laura J., wife of William FRAZIER, residing at Arnold, Custer County, Neb.; Beta M., wife of A. K. RILEY, living in Omaha, where he is practicing at law; Mary R., wife of J. B. MCCURLEY, residing at Logan; William E., (deceased), died of diphtheria, when four years old.

Politically, Mr. HARD was a Democrat for years, but when the Republican party was organized in 1856, he joined that party, and has been a stanch supporter of it ever since. Mr. and Mrs. HARD were members of the Congregational Church for twenty years, but upon coming to Missouri Valley, not finding the church of their choice, became members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. At one time our subject belonged to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mr. and Mrs. HARD, though getting along in years, are a well preserved couple, and their declining years bid fair to be the happiest of their lives.

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