Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1915
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 637
HENRY REEL

Uncle Henry REEL, as he always was known, was the founder of the town of Logan, and he named it in honor of that great American volunteer soldier who made his military mark in the Civil War as well as in the halls of Congress. Mr. REEL was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, in 1803, and in 1822, in company with his brother, John REEL, moved from Dayton, Ohio, to Putnam county, Indiana, that section of the Hoosier state being then an unbroken wilderness. These two brothers were natural-born millwrights, and erected numerous saw-and grist-mills in the Hoosier and Hawkeye states. After residing several years in Indiana, and becoming tired of what he regarded as the cramped-up condition of the then rapidly settling state, he concluded to go farther on west, finally settling where Logan now stands. He chose this place on account of its excellent mill-site and there, in the autumn of 1852, erected a log cabin. Soon he had his corn-cracker on the Boyer doing good business. He remained where he first set stakes and helped to build up the town and its industries.

Among the special traits of this old pioneer may be mentioned his unyielding integrity and uprightness, his stanch religious convictions and his loyalty to the government, offering on the altar of his country, as he did, three sons, who perished by reason of the South's rebellion. He was a noted pedestrian, preferring to walk than ride in any sort of a conveyance, and frequently walked to Council Bluffs, even when teams were going that way. Uncle Henry was a member of the Predestinarian Baptist church and erected a church of that denomination at Logan at his own expense. He held large landed, large milling and other interests, including the townsite of Logan, and at one time owned the only newspaper in the place. On March 5, 1890, after a long and eventful career, he quit the scenes of earth. Thus, one by one the scythe of Time is mowing down the rank and file of Harrison county's pioneers. Uncle Henry REEL was of the old-fashioned type of men, plain, simple in habits and good at heart. He loved to be a pioneer and to live the life of such men in a new and untried section of the country.

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