Iowa History Project
Harlan, Edgar Rubey.
A Narrative History of the People of Iowa.
Vol III. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1931
p. 57
CHARLES W. CHAPMAN is a native Iowan, son of
one of the pioneers of Dubuque, and the greater part of his business career has
been spent in Waterloo, in the lumber business.
He was born June 14, 1862, at Dubuque. His grandfather,
William H. Chapman, was born in the City of Enniskillen, located partly on the
river that connects the upper and lower Erne in County Fermanagh, Ireland. He
was of Scotch ancestry. on coming to the United States he located in Pittsburgh,
and was in the tobacco trade there the rest of his active life. He married Mary
Dunlap, who was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, of Scotch-Irish ancestry. She
died at Pittsburgh. They reared a family of sons named Thomas, John James,
William S., Joseph, Robert and Charles. Charles entered the Union army in the
Civil war as captain of Company K, Sixty-third Pennsylvania Infantry, and was
killed in a skirmish near Alexandria, Virginia.
The father of Charles W. Chapman was born at Pittsburgh, June
14, 1831, grew up and there received his early education and in 1856 came to
Iowa, locating at Dubuque and clerked in the old Julien hotel there until 1859.
Dubuque was then one of the front doors of Iowa, most of the country to the west
being sparsely settled and the greater part still owned by the Government and
for sale at $1.25 an acre. Dubuque was a depot for great quantities of supplies
that were sent into the back country by wagon. In 1859 Mr. Chapman became ticket
agent for the Illinois Central Railroad, recently completed to Dubuque. He
served in that capacity until 1876, when he resigned to become division freight
agent of the Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad at Dubuque. Later he went to
Fairport, Ohio, as manager of the Fairport Warehouse & Elevator Company of
the Baltimore & Ohio Company and lived there until his death in 1912. He
married Catherine Cassidy, who was born in Baltimore, daughter of James and
Edith (Porter) Cassidy, natives of the North of Ireland and of Scotch ancestry.
Her parents on coming to the United States lived for a time in Baltimore, then
in Pittsburgh, where her father held the office of clerk of court for many
years, and both died there, her mother when upwards of ninety years of age.
Catherine Cassidy was one of four children. The others were Edward T., Edith
Anne, and William H. Catherine Cassidy Chapman died in Ohio at the age of
sixty-seven. Her children were Edith P., Charles W., Henry James, May D.,
Joseph, Edward T., and Oliver.
Charles W. Chapman attended public school in Dubuque, and
after graduating from high school worked in a lumber office and in that way
learned the details of the business which he has followed ever since.
His home has been at Waterloo since 1901. He started in
the lumber business there on a small scale and has kept his enterprise growing
and increasing to meet the demands of one of the larger and more progressive
cities of Iowa. Mr. Chapman is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and his
father was also a Mason and at one time grand master of the Grand Lodge of Iowa.
Mr. Chapman and family are members of Grace Methodist Episcopal Church.
He married, in 1889, Neva Powers, who was born at Cedar
Falls, Iowa, daughter of Joseph P. and Jennie (Hammill) Powell. They have had
four children, James H, Joseph P., Marion and Charles W. James H., in the lumber
business at Waterloo, married Gwynette Sampson, of Waterloo, and they have three
children, Charles, Margaret and Jean. The second son, Joseph P., married Lela
Stone and has two children, Joseph and Lucy. Marion is the wife of Jackson
McCoy, and their three children are Robert, Louise and Jane.
Charles attended Amherst College three years and went to
France in May, 1917, immediately after America joined in the war, served with
the French army in the LaFayette Escadrille until December, 1917, and was then
transferred to the United States army, being attached to the Ninety-fourth
Squadron, and lost his life in battle May 3, 1918. He is buried in the La
Fayette Memorial at St. Cloud Park, Paris. He was only twenty-three years old
when he fell in battle.
p. 241
REV. JEREMIAH F. COSTELLO as a Catholic
priest has done all his work in Iowa, where he is pleasantly remembered in
several communities. He is now pastor of Saint Patrick's Church in Council
Bluffs.
Father Costello was born in County Kerry, Ireland, October
21, 1883, seventh among the ten children of Thomas and Mary (O'Connor) Costello.
Both parents were born in Ireland and his mother is still living in that
country. His father, and Irish farmer and contractor, in prosperous
circumstances, died in 1914, the day the great World War started. Of the
children six came to the United States; Rev. William M., president of Root
College of Jacksonville, Illinois; John J., a fire marshal at Chicago; Mrs.
Bradley, wife of a clothing merchant at Hickman, Kentucky; Marie, wife of Daniel
Martin, a hotel man at Carlinville, Illinois; Jeremiah F.; and Michael, a priest
at Granite City, Illinois.
Jeremiah F. Costello was educated in Saint Michael's College
at Listowel, Ireland, and finished his preparation for the priesthood in the All
Hallows Seminary. He was ordained in 1910 and a first assignment of duty came
from Bishop Davis of Davenport, who appointed him assistant at Saint Francis
Church at Council Bluffs, where he remained until 1914. He was then appointed
the first pastor of Mondamin in Harrison County, Iowa, remained there three and
a half years, and from March 1, 1918, to October, 1927, was priest at Audubon,
where his pastorate was marked by the building of a church and parochial
residence. In 1927 he became pastor of Saint Patrick's Church at Council Bluffs,
and has become a leader of a fine congregation, made up of 150 families. The
parish has as substantial church, priest's residence, and is a growing religious
community. Father Costello during the World war was a four-minute speaker. He is
a fourth degree Knight of Columbus.
p. 70
HARRY F. CARLON is manager of the Carlon
Construction Company, a business that was established by his father, the late
George H. Carlon, at Oskaloosa nearly half a century ago. This is one of
the largest firms of its kind in the Middle West, and was a pioneer in the use
of cement in the building industry.
The Carlon family came to America from the North of
Ireland. There were four brothers of the name who crossed the Atlantic to
America in Colonial times. One of these brothers was a soldier in the
Revolutionary war. The ancestor of the Oskaloosa family was Robert Carlon.
Little is known of his brothers and their descendants. Robert Carlon settled in
Pennsylvania. His son, B.F. Carlon, was born in that state and married Zenebia
White, a native of Pennsylvania and of Scotch ancestry. She died when her son,
George H. Carlon, was four years of age, and B.F. Carlon subsequently moved with
his family to Monmouth in Western Illinois, where he married Elizabeth Stubbs.
B.F. Carlon was a mechanic and builder, and that has been a traditional
occupation of members of the family for three generations or more. B.F. Carlon
died in 1902, at the age of seventy years.
George H. Carlon was born in Mercer County,
Pennsylvania, July 20, 1850, and was reared in Monmouth, Illinois, where he
attended public schools. He learned the trades of machinist and engineer, and
did some building work at Monmouth and later at Bloomington, Nebraska. It was in
1881 that he established his home at Oskaloosa and entered upon the business of
a building contractor. In 1884 he began the manufacture of paving and building
cement, at a time when comparatively little use was made of the material, which
his now so universally a factor on all kinds of building construction. It was
the enterprise of George H. Carlon, started in Oskaloosa in 1881, that proved
the foundation of the present Carlon Construction Company, which for many years
has been more than a local organization, its activities extending well over the
West.
The first work in his line of business which George H.
Carlon did at Oskaloosa was assisting in the construction of the present county
courthouse. He remained a figure in the commercial and civic life of Oskaloosa
for nearly half a century, always willing to exert himself in behalf of some
movement for the general welfare of his home city. For a period of fifteen years
he was a member of the Oskaloosa school board and he gave freely of his time and
money to social, civic, educational and church matters. He was from 1887 an
active member of the Oskaloosa Methodist Episcopal Church and served on the
building committee when the new Central Church was erected. He was a member of
the Masonic bodies, including the Lodge, Knights Templar Commandery, Shrine and
Eastern Star, and the Knights of Pythias.
George H. Carlon died April 8, 1927, at the age of
seventy-seven years. He married, March 17, 1874, Miss Arrah Margaret Sweger,
daughter of Samuel Sweger. Her father was a contractor and builder at Kirkwood,
Illinois, and sided January 30, 1906, at the age of eighty-two years. George H.
Carlon and wife had a family of six children; Charles H., who is married and
lives at Saint Louis, where he is a manager of the branch office of the Carlon
Construction Company; Harry F.; Minnie, who died at the age of thirteen; Trixie,
who died when four years old; Bessie F., the wife of Arthur E. Smith, of a
pioneer family of Oskaloosa, and they reside in Canada; and Nina R.; wife of
Blair Haun, a druggist of Des Moines.
Harry F. Carlon was born at Oskaloosa January 2, 1880,
and since early manhood has been regarded as one of the most progressive
business men of his native city, exemplifying his father's worthy
characteristics in his generous support of civic, educational and religious
movements. He attended public schools at Oskaloosa, graduate from high school in
1897, and has given thirty years to the business founded by his father. When he
entered the firm the name was changed from George H. Carlon & Son to the
Carlon Construction Company. He is now manager of the home office at Oskaloosa,
and gives a general supervision to the work of the firm in many cities and other
localities throughout the Middle West.
Mr. Carlon is a veteran of the Spanish-American war. He
enlisted in Company F of the Fifty-first Regiment of Iowa Infantry, which was
mustered into the Federal service as the Fifty-first Iowa Volunteers. In
October, 1898, he accompanied his regiment to the Philippines, and returned home
in November, 1899. He spent ten months in the Philippines, and altogether was
with the colors for twenty-two months.
Mr. Carlon at the present time is president of the
Oskaloosa school board. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary
Club, is affiliated with Tri-Luminar Lodge No. 18, A. F. and A. M., and other
Masonic bodies, including the Shrine, and is a member of the Knights of Pythias.
He is a member of the Iowa State Historical Society and is a trustee of the
First Congregational Church, of which his family are members. He is also serving
on the Board of Trustees of the Y. M. C. A. Mrs. Carlon shares with him his
interest in church and educational affairs.
Mr. Carlon married Lulu May Evans, daughter of Benjamin
and Delilah (Cox) Evans. Her people were early settlers of Oskaloosa, where her
father was a coal operator. Mr. and Mrs. Carlon have two sons, George Benjamin,
born in 1910, a graduate of the Oskaloosa High School, now attending Grinnell
College; and Robert Franklin, born in 1912, attending high school.