A MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF IOWA
SAMUEL MILLS HIGHTOWER
SAMUEL MILLS HIGHTOWER, one of the representative farmers and highly respected citizens of Madison township, Madison county, Iowa, dates his birth in Jefferson county, East Tennessee, November 10, 1838.
John Hightower, his father, was born either in Tennessee or one of the Carolinas—it is not known which--and was by occupation a Grandfather Allen Hightower was a native of South Carolina. The mother of our subject, use Rachel Mills, was born in east Tennessee, daughter of Samuel Mills, of Carolina, and a member of a Quaker family. It was in east Tennessee that John and Rachel Hightower were married. They continued to reside there until 1843, when they moved to Henry county, Iowa, where they made settlement and where he died shortly afterward. She subsequently became the wife of Stephen Hockett, and in 1865 they moved from Henry to Dallas county, where she is still living, now in her eighty-first year. She is the mother of two sons and one daughter. The daughter, Elizabeth, is deceased, and the son, Joseph, is a resident of Dallas county.
Samuel M., the eldest of these three, was five years old at the time the family removed to Henry county, Iowa, and in the district schools of the latter county he received his education. At about the age of eighteen years he began working out by the month, and was employed in this way until the time of his marriage, in 1863. After that event he settled on a farm in Henry county, continued there two years, and in 1865 became a resident of Madison county, where he has ever since re sided. His farm here comprises 160 acres, its location being on section 7 of Madison town ship. While he is engaged in general farming, he makes a specialty of feeding stock and frequently makes shipments to distant markets, and at times he has also bought and sold stock.
Mr. Hightower was married in Henry county, Iowa, January 29, 1863, to Elizabeth Smith, a native of Ohio, reared partly in that State and partly in Henry county, Iowa. They are the parents of three daughters and one son, viz.: Clara, wife of S. E. Thompson, of Earlham, Iowa; Leona, wife of T. Williams, a farmer, of Madison county; Alice, at home; and Clyde, also at home and assisting in the farm work.
Mr. Hightower is Republican in his political views, and has been ever since he cast his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln. He was a Justice of the Peace for a number of years, and at this writing is serving as Township Trustee. He and his family are members of the Friends’ Church.
From A Memorial and Biographical Record of Iowa, Volume I, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1896, pp. 443. Transcribed July, 2015 by Conni McDaniel Hall.