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Shelby County |
Home 1915 History Index |
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Shelby County |
Home 1915 History Index |
CHAPTER VII -- EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS IN SHELBY COUNTY (CONT'D)THE ENGLISH ELEMENT AMONG THE PIONEERS.The English element among the pioneer settlers of Shelby county was never very large, but is was influential. It was composed of strong individuals, hard-headed, courageous, serious-minded men, typical Anglo-Saxons, who adapted themselves to their environment and quickly made a place for themselves in the economic and social life of their time. These hardy men did not fight out their destinies banded together in groups, settlements or clans. Perhaps the nearest approach to an English settlement was that at Leland’s Grove, where, in the sixties, Henry Halliday, Richard Leytham and his son, Thomas, William Askwith, Thomas Bell, William Handy, Joseph Seddon and R. S. Shackleton settled together as pioneers of Cass township. These men belonged to the Latter-day Saints church, the religious bonds of which probably determined the fact of their residing in the same locality. This, however, was the only English group in Shelby county. Of this group Henry Halliday became a member of the board of supervisors and Thomas Leytham sheriff of the county. Among the natives of England, Jonas W. Chatburn, of Harlan, deserves to be remembered for his extremely useful life, not only as the pioneer miller of the county, but as a stalwart citizen standing for the best things of life for his community, a man of serious convictions, of high ideals and of undoubted courage. As a member of the county board of supervisors, county coroner, and as mayor of Harlan, he measured up to the full standard of official usefulness. He believed in higher education, sent his children to college. In January, 1873, he went to England, under a commission from Governor Carpenter, of Iowa, constituting him emigration agent for Iowa in England. He induced many Englishmen to come to Iowa and to Shelby county, in particular. While in England, he wrote this paragraph for The Shelby County Record: “While in the city of Manchester, I passed the monument of Richard Cobden, another of America’s firm friends, who, during the late unpleasantness, was hand in hand with Bright in every move to put a stop to the supply of the material of war from England. When the question of raising the blockage was being debated in Parliament, he arose in his place and said that England had better feed the operatives of Lancashire every day for five years on turtle soup than raise the American blockade; as now, we are only suffering for the want of cotton, but then we would be suffering for cotton and bread also. I stood and looked at the monument and thought of the time when we were boys together, working in the same works, operatives for the same master. I felt a pardonable thrill of pride at the honorable life commemorated by the stone before me, and when I reflected that the friend of my boyhood’s days had been a firm friend to America in the hour of trouble, I dropped a tear to his memory.” The first settler in the vicinity of the town of Shelby was an Englishman, James Hawkins, a sailor in his youth. He was a veteran of both the Mexican and Civil Wars. He entered his land in Shelby township in 1855, and built a log cabin in 1865. His career was full of adventure. It was said that he had visited every port of both South and North America. John Burwell, another Englishman, settled in Shelby township in 1879. One of the very earliest settlers of Fairview township, giving his name to a prominent grove of that township, was William Howlett, and Englishman, coming there in 1862. His son William, also of English birth, came to the grove in 1858. Two sturdy Englishmen of ability and pluck began life in Shelby county on the prairies of Jefferson township, William Constable, who settled there in 1870, and John Potter (father of T. H. Potter of Harlan), who became a resident of the township in 1875. Mr. Potter now resides in Irwin. Francis Plumb and Valentine Plumb, brothers, were English pioneers of Lincoln township, beginning life there in 1875, and 1870, respectively. They improved and developed fine farms in this township, and are now both residents of Harlan. James Harvey also settled early in Lincoln. In 1870 another Englishman destined to make a large place for himself in the business circles of Shelby county, N. Booth, settled in Harlan township. For many years he was very prominent in the Republican politics of the county. He founded the business now conducted as the Booth Implement Company. He was a member of the Harlan Latter-Day Saints church, and took much interest in its welfare. His sons, Charles D., David and Nathaniel, are well known in Shelby county. In 1880 Thomas Barrett, of English birth, took up his residence on the rolling prairies of Polk township where he yet resides on the fine farm he developed by hard work. H. A. Dickinson was an English pioneer of Harlan township. In 1870 William Roberts, of English nativity, became a resident of Harlan township. Benjamin Roberts settled the same year in the same township. In 1882 Joseph Boardman, another Englishman, settled in Cass township. The English element in Greeley township was represented by Edmund Penniston, who settled there in 1873. This family has done much to develop the north part of the county, and the second generation is still at it. The Bank of Defiance is managed by the Penniston family, largely, and they enjoy the confidence of the community to a large degree. Robert Ford, an Englishman, settled in Grove township in 1871. He later resided in Earling, where he was a blacksmith. His son Thomas became auditor of Shelby county. Daniel Howarth was another Grove pioneer. An English pioneer of Washington township was James Adamson. Two Englishmen who pioneered in Monroe township were Robert Porter, who came there in 1876, and William Johnson, who settled in that township in 1877. Arthur Pryor, of Shelby township, a member of the board of supervisors of Shelby county, is a native of England. M. H. Porter was an Englishman who early settled in Clay township. Of course there were many other men of English birth, but these names will serve to emphasize the place of the Anglo-Saxon in the development of the county.
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