Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 747
EDWARD HOUGHTON

Edward HOUGHTON ranks among the early settlers of Harrison County, having been here two years prior to the organization of the county, the date of his coming being June, 1851, when he was in the pride his young manhood, but upon whose face and form time has left her inevitable marks. A man who has been a resident of this goodly county for a period of forty years, most naturally finds a place among the sketches of representative men.

Concerning his earlier career it may be stated that he was born in the state of New York, July 3, 1831, and is a son of Eli and Deborah (DWENELL) HOUGHTON. The father was a farmer, which avocation he followed in the Empire State until about 1840, when he emigrated to Illinois, which was the wild prairie land of the West. After eleven years, and in the autumn of 1851, he removed to Minnesota, where he spent the remainder of his days, sinking into that dreamless sleep know as death, December 21, 1865, aged sixty-eight years. His good wife, the mother of our subject, died in Illinois in 1842.

Our subject remained in Minnesota until his coming to this county in 1851. He was united in marriage April 8, 1856, to Mary A. ELLISON, a native of Missouri, born August 28, 1838. Their home has been blessed by four children---Isaac Eli, James C., Mary R. and Nellie. Nellie and James are deceased. Eli is married and lives at Portsmouth, Shelby County, where he is engaged in the grain and agricultural implement business.

Mary married George SHREEVES, and they are residents of Harrison County, on section 15 of Cass Township.

When Mr. HOUGHTON came to the county there was no one living in Cass Township except John and Lewis BARNEY, Bryant and William JOLLY and Uriah HAWKINS, and the first assessment Mr. HOUGHTON says was made by a man named GREENE, who at the same time collected the taxes.

The first four years of our subject's residence in Harrison County he lived with his brother-in-law, Samuel FULLER, who came to the county during the month of April, 1851, taking a claim of about seventy acres of timber land on section 17, in what is now known as Six-mile Grove. In October, 1855, these two gentlemen went to Wright County, Minn., FULLER dying in Minnesota in 1876. Mr. HOUGHTON returned to Harrison County, having been absent less than two months, and settled on the site of his present home, which is section 16, of Cass Township, where he purchased one hundred and twenty acres of land to which he has added, until he now has four hundred and eighteen acres. Of this two hundred and thirty-five acres are under the plow, while the remainder is in excellent timber and pasture land.

Success has marked the honest industry of this pioneer who came to the county (which was then scarcely within the pale of civilized life,) possessing only the magnificent sum of fifty cents, and a pair of hands not afraid to work. While living with his brother-in-law he managed to get hold of some calves, and to enter a hundred and twenty acres of land, but having to borrow money of Judge Stephen KING, with which to purchase a yoke of oxen for a breaking team, with which he broke six acres of his own land, and fifteen of an eighty-acre tract which he and FULLER owned together. After returning from Minnesota, he bought another yoke of oxen and commenced opening up a home in what was then the wilds of Harrison County, which was then within the limits of the "far West." In the spring of 1856, he erected a log house 16x18 feet, under the roof of which he lived for fourteen years, then built his present commodious farm house, the main part of which is 16x26 feet, two stories in height, together with an addition 16x36, and one story high.

Politically, our subject affiliates with the Republican party, and during his residence in this county has held the offices of member of Board of Supervisors four years, and Township Trustee and School Treasurer for a period of over twenty-five years.

Mr. and Mrs. HOUGHTON are professors of religion and believers in the faith and teachings of the Latter Day Saints Church.

To the younger man of today, this brief story of one man's life, with its co-incident toil and changes gone through with, by a youth reared amid the culture and beautiful surroundings of a farm home within the Empire State, on down through the attending hardships, found in opening up a country upon which the Red Man of the forests had but just bid a long farewell to, and subsequent labors in putting a large tract of land into a perfect state of cultivation, should teach a lasting moral which is this: That in this country, and with our form of government, under ordinary circumstances, a crown of success, both socially and financially, awaits the young man who starts in life with the determination to win by hard work and honesty.

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