Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 942
BENJAMIN F. MARKS

Benjamin F. MARKS, a highly respected farmer located on section 13, of Lincoln Township, has been a resident of Harrison County since 1865.

He was born January 3, 1835, and is a son of Jonathan N. and Adaline (PRIOR) MARKS, natives of Connecticut, who had six children in the following order: Edgar B., Merritt, Amelia, Benjamin F., Elnora H., and Isaac B.

Our subject, Benjamin F., left the High School when seventeen years of age, and clerked in a store for four years, and then went to Chicago, where he was a dry-goods clerk for six years. While there he had the opportunities to obtain lots at $100 each, which would be worth a fortune today, but they were so low and wet that he did not consider them worth $5 apiece. From Chicago he drifted to Texas, New Mexico and Florida. In 1862 he enlisted in the Eighteenth Wisconsin Infantry at Corinth, Miss. He wore the loyal blue for three years and two months, and received an honorable discharge in Washington in1865. He then went to Iowa, locating in Harrison County, where he has been ever since.

He was united in marriage New Year's Day, 1868, with Mary Jane JOHNSON, daughter of Nathan and Margaret JOHNSON, natives of Virginia, who had two children, of whom our subject's wife was the youngest. Her father was an old settler in this county, and served a number of terms as County Supervisor from Lincoln Township.

Mr. and Mrs. MARKS are the parents of eight children--Maggie E., born August 29, 1870; Marietta A., September 12, 1873; Harriet A., December 30, 1874; Katie E., March 30, 1876; Emma S., October 22, 1877; Harry B., September 19, 1879; James Wilson, November 26, 1884; and Edward E., August 13, 1886.

Mr. MARKS has held many of the local offices, and has been Township Clerk for fifteen years. Mrs. MARKS is a member of the Christian Church.

When our subject first came to the county, he worked in a sawmill on the Boyer River, in Harrison Township, the same being owned by A. K. GROW, and has since been washed away. After he had worked there between two and three years, he engaged in farming in Lincoln Township, which he still follows.

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