Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 779
EPHRAIM STRAUSS

Ephraim STRAUSS, who came to Harrison County in July, 1861 (that being the first year of the Civil War), is now a resident of section 20, of Cass Township, to which place he moved in 1864. The first two or three years he was in the county wild game was exceedingly plentiful, and he having a tatse in that direction, spent part of his time in hunting, through which occupation he made a livelihood. He narrates to the writer that he possessed only $5 in money, an old linch-pin wagon and a yoke of oxen. In the fall of 1863 he filed a claim, by which he was enabled to homestead his present place. For ten years he lived in a prairie palace, which may better be described by the use of the word "digout," Now that those early days have passed by, and people are in better circumstances, it may be said that our subject was somewhat of a mechanic, and used his mechanical genius in the erection of a superior style of dug-out -- laying up sod for a part of it, and employing pucneon for the interior of the walls, which provided him with a residence at once warm, cozy and strong, though perhaps not beautiful.

Our subject was born in York County, Pa., on the site of the present town of Wellsville, April 7, 1828. He is the son of Adam and Rebecca (MORTHLAND) STRAUSS. The father was of German extraction and was a good old-fashioned tanner by trade, who doubtless served a seven-year apprenticeship, in order to fit him for the art of leather-making. At an advanced age he came to Harrison County, and January 23 died at John Strauss', and the mother died in Ohio two years later.

When our subject was sixteen years old he commenced to battle life for himself, having worked four years previous to this time in the tanyard grinding bark, as this was before the days of "patent tans." He tired of this laborious work and went to Shermantown, Cumberland County, Pa., to learn the wheelwright trade. He had saved up a small sum of money from his work in the tannery, and his father made a bargain for him to work two years and a half, furnish his own clothes and received $20 therefor, but on account of his boss having borrowed $1 of him and failing to pay the same, he quit short of his time.

He then commenced working in a wagon-shop in the country near Harrisburg, where he worked a year, and then went to Dauphin and worked two years, after which we find him in a boat-yard, and in order to get his wages from the wagon-maker boarded with him. After a year and a half he ran on a canal for a time, and was at one time engaged in the Pennsylvania car-shops, which he left in the fall of 1855, and went to Lafayette County, Wis., where he worked at house-carpentering for two seasons, and then dropped over to Grant County, Wis., and went into a wagon-shop. In the spring of 1858 he formed a partnership and started a wagon-shop in Beetown, Wis., but sold his interest within a year, believing that there was more money hidden away in, and about Pike's Peak, awaiting his arrival, than there was in the wagon business, he forsook that trade and fitted out for an expedition, taking in company with him his brother-in-law, named Quimby. They started with one yoke of oxen, one yoke of cows, one span of horses and two wagons; and upon their arrival at Winterset, Iowa, they concluded to go to Texas. They consequently started for St. Joseph, when their plans were again changed, Quimby going to Texas, and Strauss sold out his stuff and went to St. Louis by boat, and we soon find him working on a farm in Missouri, but next working at the carpenter's trade at Iron Hill, which he followed until May 8, 1961, when he started on a journey which finally brought him to Harrison County, Iowa.

He was united in marriage, August 24, 1852, to Mary A. HOFFMAN, a native of the Keystone State, born September 23, 1834, and the daughter of Daniel and Anna (COLEMAN) HOFFMAN, who was the fifth child of a family of eight children. Her father was a caibnet-maker and died in Pennsylvania, in 1870, aged seventy-five years. The mother died at Dallas, Tex., in 1997, aged seventy-eight years.

Our subject and his wife are the parents of eight children -- Charles A., born December 1, 1853; Emma R., July 11, 1856; William C., January 8, 1861; Harry E., born October 19, 1863, died November 5, 1863; Ella J., born January 21, 1865; Anna M., born January 25, 1868, died September 14, 1869; George N., born October 23, 1871; Arlon V., January 20 1886.

Politically Mr. STRAUSS is identified with the Republican party. The above sketch is but a brief outline of an eventful life of a man who has seen much of the world, and over whose pathway the ill-winds of adversity have not unfrequently swept by, but who has lived a life of integrity, believing that a fair name was better than untold wealth.

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