Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 580
JOHN A. TRAVER

John A TRAVER, an attorney at law, at Dunlap, Iowa, is a native of the Hoosier State, born March 6, 1848, at LaPorte, Ind. He is the son of John R. and Mary (DREW) TRAVER, of English and Scotch extraction. The mother died in Indiana in 1858, and in 1853 our subject came to Pottawattamie County with his father, locating at Wheeler's Grove, where he made it his home until 1878. He died December 9, 1880.

Our subject was reared on his father's farm until he was fifteen years of age, and October 6, 1863, he enlisted as a member of Company M, Ninth Iowa Calvary, and was discharged February 12, 1866, after which he returned to the farm, remained a short time, and then attended Tabor College for two years. He then taught school for two years in Pottawattamie County, and entered the law office of Hale & Stone, of Glenwood, Iowa, and was admitted to the bar in April, 1873. The following autumn he returned to his old home, in LaPorte, Ind., where he practiced law until 1878, and returned to Iowa. In 1880 he located at Dunlap, and in 1882 was admitted to the practice of his profession in the supreme court. He now has a lucrative practice in Harrison, Shelby, Crawford and Monona Counties.

Politically, he is a stalwart Republican, a strong party worker, and was one of the two men in Dunlap who was counted a "stalwart" in the Garfield-Conklin fight in 1880.

He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, Shields Post, No. 83, also of Red Oak Lodge, No. 57, of the A.F. & A.M.

He is a single man, and is the only bachelor in the family lineage, for two hundred years.

Concerning his father, it should be said that he was a pioneer at Wheeler's Grove, where he entered Government land. The family experienced all the hardships coincident to pioneer life.

Our subject received his education principally after he was twenty years of age. His war record is one to be proud of. Going to the front as he did, when a boy of but fifteen years of age, he possessed all the courage of a man of mature years, and was never found wanting when duty called. The foe had no terror for him, and it is said by those who were in his company, that he was a brave one among the brave. Upon his return from the service, it seemed like one had come back from the dead, as his friends had long before mourned him as among the departed.

He had an especial reverence for his father, owing to the fact perhaps that he had to take the part of both father and mother, as the latter was deceased early in his life. His father possessed unusual business ability, having lost and retrieved several fortunes, the losses coming from a combination of circumtances over which he had no control.

Return to 1891 Biographical T Surnames Index

Back to 1891 Biographies Index