Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 815
WILLIAM T. RAYMOND

William T. RAYMOND, a Justice of the Peace, residing at Missouri Valley, came to Harrison County in 1855, and located about two miles and a half northwest of Magnolia, where he purchased a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, and located one hundred and twenty acres on his father's land warrant. Here our subject remained on the farm and in the hotel business, at Magnolia, until he removed to his farm in St. John's Township, in 1872. He spent the year 1871, in Missouri Valley, and in March 1889, removed there to live permanently.

He was born in Branford, New Haven County, Conn., about ten miles east of New Haven. His parents were Lucius T., and Hannah (ROBINSON) RAYMOND, of English ancestry, who trace their lineage back to the "Mayflower." Our subject was born March 21, 1823, and is the second of a family of four children. His father was a carpenter by trade, and was in a New York regiment, that served in the War of 1812. He came to Harrison County, in 1857, and died in 1873, while his good wife, the mother of our subject, passed from the scenes of earth in June, 1863. Our subject's early education was received in the common schools of Connecticut and he attended an academy for three months, which was all of the schoolroom education he ever enjoyed. He served an apprenticeship at shoemaking, but the last ten years that he lived in his native State he was in one of the largest hotels in New Haven, known as the Tontine Hotel.

In 1854, we find our subject in Chicago, where he chanced to meet a friend, who with him drove from Davenport to Council Bluffs, making the journey in six days. He was married at the Astor House, New York City, October 10, 1848, to Mary A. CARRINGTON, who died December 25, 1849, as did also an infant child. For his second wife our subject married Sarah L. PATCH, a native of Loraine County, Ohio, her people coming to the Western Reserve in Ohio, at a very early day. Her father was born in Massachusetts, and her mother in New York. By Mr. RAYMOND's second marriage, two sons and one daughter were born, the latter dying when one year of age. The sons are Miles W., who resides in Atchison, Kan., in the employ of the Hartford Accident Insurance Company, and Mason Hobart, the other son, in the employ of the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley Railroad Company, at Missouri Valley. The father of Mrs. RAYMOND died in Harrison County, and his remains were deposited in the cemetery, at Magnolia. A singular co-incidence in this family history is the fact that our subject's mother and his wife's mother, were both named Hannah ROBINSON.

Politically, our subject is a Democrat "to the backbone," and he called the first Democratic convention in Harrison County, in 1857. It may here be remarked that his great-grandfather, Mason Hobart, was in the Revolutionary War. In the way of civic societies, Mr. RAYMOND is a member of Missouri Valley Lodge, No. 232, of A. F. & A. M., having joined that order in Connecticut in 1851, being a member of Hiram Lodge, No. 1, at New Haven. At one time he was connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

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