Mr John McComb Has A Sturdy Life History
Some Interesting Early Expsriences, How He Got His Start in Life—Is a Civil War Veteran
(By Merze Marvin) In every city there are two classes of prominent citizens. First there are just the plain "prominent citizens," sturdy men who have forged their way to the front and held their own in the business, social and economic fields. Then there are those who are "prominent citizens" plus some special phase. These are the ones who have done something extraordinary, for which they are remembered and pointed out. For instance, John McComb is known as "the man who gave the chautauqua grounds." A week ago he was just John McComb, prominent citizen, but when the identity of the mysterious public benefactor was made known, he took a flying leap into the middle of the prominent citizen-plus class, and as such he will be recorded in the annals of Shenandoah.
As a matter of fact, John McComb has been doing extraordinary things all his life, but he is a plain, unassuming man who goes about his business quietly, entirely free from all that bravado with which so many citizens advertise their doings and so we have only just begun to realize what manner of man John McComb is. He is a self-made man, who came into the west to seek his fortune and by his own sturdy, thrifty efforts has accumulated an estate of substantial proportions. The story of his boyhood struggles, experiences of youth, his start in life, his war time service and the building up of his home and his fortune here at Shenandoah are told below.
Little John was born April 30, 1837, on a farm in Allegheney county, state of New York, and spent the first three years of his life there. Then the McComb family moved to Rockford, Ill., where they purchased a farm. The youthful John romped and played and worked as farm boys do until withi the coming of young manhood ambition prompted him to go forth into the world. When he was eighteen, with two other boys, he went to Galena, Ill., and secured employment on a steam boat. The father gave him $65 to start out with. They went to Prairie du Chein, Wis. After that John McComb served on a mail packet which made two trips a week to St. Paul and back. The boat was called the Ocean Wave. Captain Scott had charge of the vessel. McComb drew the munificent salary of $35 a month.
Tiring of this after a while he returned home. He had just ten cents in his pocket but said he had had a dandy time.
A sister of John McComb lived in California, Mo., and when he was twenty he came there to live for a couple of years. He worked for a man named William Tood, in the merchandise business. It was there he first met his wife, whose maiden name was Mary Marguerite Valoy. She moved to Atchison, Kan., and in the spring of 1860 wrote for her lover to come. The trip to Atchison exhausted his entire worldly resources but not his energy and ambition. John and Mary were married on May 27, 1860, though he had to borrow the money to pay the preacher who married them. Next day the bridegroom went to work at one dollar a day. It would take a young couple of considerable courage to attempt that in this generation.
An account of how Mr. and Mrs. McComb started housekeeping would be interesting to the young people of today. The bedstead was home-made. In lieu of springs it had ropes strung back and forth from wooden pins in each end. There was a straw tick and a feather bed presented by Mr. McComb's mother. The bride brought two handmade pillows. The stove was second hand. The kitchen cabinet was a dry goods box with shelves and a calico curtain for a door. The china closet consisted of nails driven in the side of the house, from which tin plates, tin cups and cans were suspended. The chairs were home-made from split wood. The table top was of old cherry, badly split, and the legs were manufactured from boards. "I could not afford to buy my wife dresses like those at the Elks' ball," said John McComb, "but we were happier without them; yes we were as happy as two clams in a box or two oysters in one shell."
In the fall of 1860 McComb returned to his father's home in Illinois, arriving Aug. 7, and worked on the farm for a couple .of years.
On Aug. 7, just two years later, he enlisted in the Seventy-fourth Illinois infantry. He saw active service in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. He served in the army until 1865, the entire period of the war.
After the close of the war McComb Sr. purchased a farm near Red Oak. Jno. McComb had 3 horses, which he traded for a small patch of land but got homesick and returned to Illinois. This time he went to work in a stone quarry and this is where John McComb's star began to rise. He bought a team of mules on time and began to cut and haul stone on shares on the first day of April. That summer he cleared $1100.
In the fall he came back to Iowa and traded the team of mules for a piece of land between Elliott and Red Oak. He lived there until '69 and then purchased land near Manti from Uncle George Myers, father of John Myers of Shenandoah. Ever since then he has lived in Shenandoah and vicinity. He has been frugal, thrifty, shrewd and has made a success of his many business interests and investments. He has owned business blocks, farms and town property, all of them a monument to his keen business shrewdness and his admirable frugality. He built the opera house which bears his name and managed it for nineteen years.
During the years that John McComb has lived in this vicinity his life has been as an open book. To the older residents nothing could be said of him which they do not already know. He has not had the thrilling experiences and accidents and hair breadth escapes that have marked the career of Elias Smith but he has moved forward in the even tenor of his way, living honestly and prospering. His faithful wife, the partner of his joys and sorrows for more than fifty years, left him for the better land not many months past. Two daughters, all of his family, reside in Shenandoah.
The most distinguishing incident in the life of John McComb is the one that brought him so favorably and prominently before the people of Shenandoah—his gift to the city of a Chautauqua park, one that will be of surpassing beauty in the years to come, dedicated to learning and to the uplift of all the people. This gift will make the name of John McComb honored so long as Shenandoah shall endure, a monument that will live in the hearts of the people long after marble shafts shall have crumbled to dust.
Such an act as this of John McComb cannot be too highly commended and it should be an example to other men of wealth to do something for the good of all the people. There are several citizens of Shenandoah whom we might name, whose dependent families are abundantly provided for and who could give to Shenandoah something of great value. We need a Y. M. C. A. building, an auditorium, a hospital, a fine hotel building and then an endowment for our college would be a magnificent thing for Shenandoah.
John McComb has set the pace in doing things for Shenandoah. Who will be the next.
[Sentinel Post, Shenandoah, Iowa, Feb 23, 1912]