Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 497
NATHANIEL H. VANARDSDALE

Nathaniel H. VANARDSDALE of Reeder's Mills, Jefferson Twp., resident since February 1, 1866, will form the subject of this notice.

Mr. VANARDSDALE was born in Norris County, NJ, March 8, 1838, the son of Levi and Anna Eliza (HORTER) VANARSDALE. The father was a blacksmith who was born in 1800, and died in the county in which he was born, April 14, 1862. The mother died in the same county, July 27, 1867, aged sixty years. Their only child was Nathanial, our subject. He has a half brother, by his father's first wife, named Abner G, a resident of Binghamton, Broome County, NY.

When thirteen years of age, Nathaniel H. commenced learning the blacksmith trade of his father, with whom he worked until he was seventeen years old, when he was bound out one year to his half brother, to complete his trade, after which he worked for the Yellow Bird Omnibus Line, doing job work in New York for them for six years.

He then followed his trade, as a government blacksmith, for one year and eleven months, and then came by to Keokuk, Iowa, and crossed the State of Iowa by stage to Council Bluffs, arriving February 14, 1864, where he remained until February 1866, and then came to Harrison County, and built a shop at "Hard Scratch" (Reeder's Mills). The first fire was built in his forge February 4, 1866. He continued to work at the trade until October 1, 1873, when he moved to Logan and operated a shop until March 1, 1877, at which date he returned to Reeder’s Mills, and in 1879 rebuilt his shop, and is still wielding the sledge at that point.

He was united in marriage in Morris County, NJ, May 11, 1862, to Margaret SANFORD, a native of Sussex County, of the same State, born December 7, 1835.

She is the eldest child of a family of three sons and three daughters, of Garrison M. and Mary J. SANFORD.

Mr. and Mrs. VANARSDALE are the parents of 3 children: Mary Jane, born Oct 1, 1863; Nettie, December 10, 1870; and Hattie, February 21, 1870.

Politically, Mr. VANARSDALE believes in the principles of the Democratic party, and in religious matters he and his wife favor the teaching of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

When he came to Harrison County his earthly possessions consisted of $5 in money and a few household goods. But being in possession of a good trade, his oft-repeated blows upon the anvil have forged for himself and family a comfortable home in the “Kingdom of Harrison,” now one of Iowa’s banner counties.

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