CAPT. WILLIAM H. INGHAM

A Narrative History of The People of Iowa
Volume V: Page 11-13

William H. Ingham was born at Ingham’s Mills, Herkimer County, New York, November 27, 1827, and at the time of his death, in 1914, at the age of eighty-seven, was the oldest living pioneer of Kossuth County. Kossuth County was his home and the center of his activities for over sixty years. During that time he was no silent witness to the drama of unfolding and progression that changed a region of wild prairies and woods into a landscape of fenced fields, growing crops, attractive farmsteads, highways and railroads, school houses and churches, villages and cities. It was the broad vision of the practical business man that brought him to Iowa, and while he did his part as an individual homesteader, his part was even more notable in directing the tide of settlement and influencing groups and colonies of sturdy homemakers to this part of North Central Iowa.
 

The Inghams came from England as early New England colonists. Samuel Ingham was one of five brothers who moved from Connecticut to Herkimer County, New York. Samuel Ingham was killed by being thrown from a horse when in his twenty-fourth year. He left two sons, William and Harvey. Harvey Ingham was born January 11, 1797. During his youth he learned the business of wool carding and cloth finishing and then built a factory in the town of Ingham’s Mills. Later he owned and operated a saw mill and flour mill. His home was at Ingham’s Mills until his death, at the age of eighty-seven. He was a devout Baptist, which has been the religious affiliation of the family for many generations. Harvey Ingham married, February 26, 1818, Sarah S. Schuler, and they were the parents of Capt. William H. Ingham.
 

The latter attended public school at Ingham’s Mills until he was ten, and was then sent to a private boarding school conducted by Elder Beach, a graduate of Yale College. He began the study of Greek and higher mathematics and after two years entered the Little Falls Academy. At the age of seventeen his school days were over. Captain Ingham was always interested in intellectual things, possessed a fine mind and a sober judgment, but his disposition was eminently practical and his talents early sought satisfaction in the field of business. He and his brother Warren R., were associated for some years in the firm of W. H & W. H. Ingham as lime burners and manufacturers of cheese boxes. They built up a business whose annual output was valued at from $60,000 to $70,000. Later they established an oil mill, and the high quality of their linseed oil gained a reputation throughout Central New York.
 

William H. Ingham in the spring of 1849 answered the call to the West. In the early summer of that year, having arranged his business affairs in the East, he was leisurely traveling about the Mississippi Valley, enjoying the opportunities for the use of rod and gun and at the same time appraising with judicious eye the country and estimating the future possibilities. In April, 1851, he located at Cedar Rapids, where he set up in business as a land locator and surveyor, representing the banking house of Green & Weir. In 1854, he went West on a Government survey to Nebraska. While there he met the famous chief, Logan Fontanelle of the Omaha’s, who described to him the conditions of land in Nebraska, Kansas and the Upper Missouri River Valley. When he passed the town site of Omaha he found not a single improvement. His journey also took him to the “Winter Quarters” of the Mormons near Council Bluffs. On the return trip to Clear Lake he did not see a single permanent settlement. Four families had located by Clear Lake and one at Mason City. The presence of many large game animals on the waters of the Des Moines River indicated that this region would be ideal for stock raising. He also noted some groves of fine oak and black walnut timber, but on reaching Fort Dodge learned that the timber tracts had all been entered.
 

From Fort Dodge he and his companion, D. E. Stine, came to Kossuth County, stopping with Judge Asa C. Call, one of the founders of Algona. Here they were told of a fine grove of unclaimed timber on Black Cat Creek, and after looking it over carefully Mr. Stine claimed the property by writing on a blazing: “This grove is claimed on the 25th day of November, 1854, by D. E. Stine of Cedar Rapids.” Mr. Stine’s wife being unwilling to accompany him into this unbroken and unsettled region, he abandoned the claim, and Captain Ingham promptly made arrangements to secure it instead. In March, 1855, he and A. L. Seeley had a cabin erected on the tract. This was the first white habitation built in that part of Kossuth County. The following year four other excellent families were settled in the same locality and Mr. Ingham divided up the grove and sold out his claim. During the winter of 1857 he and A. L. Seeley, Charles E. Putnam and Thomas C. Covel lived on land he had acquired in sections 17 and 20. It was a winter made memorable by cold and frequent storms, and on account of the heavy snows nearly all the large game was destroyed before the coming of spring. Only one elk was ever seen in that locality after that and its antlers for many years adorned the county courtroom at Algona. On this tract Captain Ingham and his associates put up a frame house, the first dwelling in the county with green blinds. On this farm was grown a field of corn in 1859, awarded the county prize for its yield of 164 bushels to the acre from seventeen acres. In 1859 the first threshing by machine in Kossuth County was done on this farm.
Captain Ingham while living on this place helped organize Company A, of what was known ass the Northern Border Brigade, to defend the section of the state against the Sioux Indians after the New Ulm massacre in Minnesota. He served as captain of the company from July 7, 1862, until December 30, 1863.
 

In 1865 he sold his farm to Daniel Rice and moved to Algona. With the close of the war settlers came in rapidly and his time was fully taken up in helping them locate homestead claims. With the settlement of the county came an increasing demand for eastern exchange. Fort Dodge was the nearest point at which that demand could be satisfied, and accordingly Mr. Ingham opened an account with Austin Corbin & Company of New York City. He drew that first draft on January 11, 1857, for one hundred dollars, taken by James L. Paine. This pioneer banking service was at first conducted by him with a desk in a window of the old courthouse. Later a small building was erected on State Street. On January 1, 1870, Captain Ingham and Lewis H. Smith began the first commercial banking business in Central Northern Iowa, under the firm name of Ingham & Smith. Shortly afterwards they erected the building long occupied by the Kossuth County State Bank. That private bank was the first financial institution in the county. In the latter part of 1872 another bank was started at Algona, by E. C. Buffum and associates, who, however, subsequently joined Ingham & Smith in organizing the Kossuth County State Bank. For nearly forty years Captain Ingham was president of the Kossuth County State Bank. Two other men closely associated with him in the bank during these years were Joseph W. Wadsworth and H. E. Rist.
 

Following the panic of 1873 and the grasshopper scourge this bank extended its service by making arrangement with Austin, Corbin & Company of New York to supple loans on real estate, a service that enabled many homesteaders and farmers in Kossuth and adjoining counties to tide over the disaster caused by the loss of two successive crops. This was the beginning of the real estate loan business in Central and Northern Iowa.
 

Throughout his active contact with business affairs in Iowa Captain Ingham was in very close touch with the land owners and farmers, at first as an individual homesteader, locator of lands, and later in the broader service of conducting a bank through which hundreds of thousand of dollars were supplied in loans on Iowa real estate and farm land.
 

Captain Ingham was never a seeker for public office. For twenty-five years he served on the school board of Algona. He began his voting as a Whig and was one of the original Republicans in Iowa. He was a member of the Algona Lodge of Masons and was a liberal supporter of religious and educational undertakings. His personal membership was with the Congregational Church.
 

He married Miss Caroline A. Rice, whose father; Thomas A. Rice was one of the founders of Fairfield Academy, Fairfield, New York. Her brother Lieut. A. Clark Rice joined the Union army in 1861 and lost his life as a soldier September 22, 1862. Her brother Charles E. Rice was for over forty years one of the prominent judges at Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, being presiding judge of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. To the marriage of Captain and Mrs. Ingham were born eight children, the oldest being Harvey Ingham, of Des Moines, who was born September 8, 1858. The other children were: Anna Caroline, born August 15, 1860, died at Chicago Easter morning, 1895; Mary Harriet, born April 2, 1862, was married, August 4, 1887, to Charles M. Doxsee; Helen Vienna, born March 14, 1864, was married August 27, 1890, to Charles W. Russell; Charles Symner, born August 18, 1866, died September 4, 1867; George William, born March 1, 1868, married Emma Reed; Cornelia, born May 10, 1870, became the wife of William J. McChesney; Thomas Frederick, born August 28, 1872, died at Omaha. The mother of these children passed away July 11, 1912, about two years before her husband. .