Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 847
HENRY REEL

Henry REEL (deceased), better known to the people of Logan as "Uncle Henry REEL," was the founder of the town of Logan, and named the same in honor of one of the chieftains of the Civil War -- General John A. LOGAN.
Mr. REEL departed this life March 5, 1890. No more truly praiseworthy name can be mentioned in connection with the history of Logan than the one heading this sketch. He was of the old-fashioned back woods stripe of pioneers. He loved the life of a frontiersmen, and wanted to be numbered with this class throughout his days. But advanced civilized life and progress got ahead of him when he came to Harrison County, at least not many years later. Mr. REEL was born March 16, 1803, in Montgomery County, Virginia.

In 1822, he in company with his brother John REEL, removed from Dayton, Ohio, to Putname County, Indiana,which section was then a wilderness indeed.

There the two brothers erected the first saw and grist mill in the community, doing the most of the millwright work from wood fashioned by their own hands. They had to go on foot to Lawrenceburg, on the Ohio River, a distance of one hundred and thirty-five miles, to market. They usually had an axe strapped to their backs, for the purpose of building camp-fires and contructing rude "floats" or rafts, by which they were enabled to cross streams too deep and angry to wade. But when the iron rails of the first railway penetrated the forests of his farm land, "Uncle Henry" could no longer endure his Indiana home, hence emigrated West, and finally settled where Logan now stands. He procured the lands hereabouts, together with a mill site where the Roller Mills are now situated. He came in the autumn of 1852 and built his log cabin, and not many months after had a sawmill and "corn cracker" in operation. The space allotted to any one man's sketch is all to short to embrace the many deeds of pioneer hardships and genuine manhhod which went toward making up this man's eventful life. His later history is woven in and records with that of the city of Logan and the county of Harrison.

Among the special features of this old pioneer's life, may be mentioned his unyielding integrity and uprightness; his religious convictions; his loyalty to the Union of States, offering on the altar of his country as he did, three sons, who perished by reason of the Rebellion.

He was a life-long walker, always preferring to walk, ather than to ride in any sort of conveyance. Not unfrequently would he walk from Logan to Council Bluffs, when teams were all along the way. He was a member of the Predestinarian Baptist Church, and erected a church building at Logan for that denomination, at his own expense. He held large landed interests, milling interests, town site interests, and at one time owned the only newspaper at Logan. At the time of his death the remnant of his family consisted of his wife and one daughter, Mrs. William BRAYTON, of Logan. Mr. REEL's first wife was Catherine STARR, who bore him seven children.

Thus one by one the scythe of time mows from the face of earth her children, and they sink to sleep in the bosom of that mother earth whose embrace shall at last envelop all mankind.

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