him one of the well-to-do and influential men of Story county. Soon after his arrival in Iowa he was followed by his mother and sister, who assisted him when opportunity permitted. A man of great industry and perseverance, he also possessed those characteristics which make it possible for a man, taking up his abode 'in a new and undeveloped country, to bravely meet the conditions and successfully overcome the hardships and privations which he is forced to endure on the frontier. He did his full share in the work of development and improvement and is numbered among the builders of Story county. He possessed sound business judgment and, moreover, was a man of well known probity, his honorable, upright life commanding the esteem and respect of all who knew him. He was reared in the Evangelical faith but after taking up his residence in Nevada united with the Methodist Episcopal church, in the faith of which he passed away on the 2d of July, 1907, having for several years survived his wife, her death occurring on the 31st of March, 1895.
Archibald Ray was about eight years of age when he came with his parents to Iowa and thus practically his entire life was spent within the boundaries of Story county. As a lad he acquired his education in the primitive log schoolhouse of pioneer days and with the other members of the family suffered much of the discomforts of pioneer life. He remained at home, assisting his father in the cultivation of the farm, until he attained man's estate, when he entered the business world on his own account. Wisely choosing as a life work the occupation to which he had been reared, he rented land from his father and was thus engaged at the time of his marriage in 1869. He continued as a renter for about four or five years thereafter and then purchased a tract of forty acres from John Funk, which became the nucleus of his later extensive possessions. To this he added from time to time as he prospered in his undertakings, and something of the success which attended his efforts is seen in the fact that at the time of his death he was the owner of four hundred and twenty acres of highly cultivated land. He possessed much of the spirit of industry and energy which characterized his father, his ambition prompting him to make a thorough study of agriculture. He cultivated the cereals best adapted to soil and climate, practiced rotation of crops and in addition to tilling the soil raised good stock. Keen business discernment and a capacity for wise management were also his, and as the years passed the results of his labors were seen in the acquirement of a competence which ranked him among the wealthiest and most substantial agriculturists of Indian Creek township. In the spring of 1901 he withdrew from active pursuits and removed to Maxwell, where he lived in quiet retirement until his demise.
It was on the 3d of February, 1869, that Mr. Ray was united in marriage to Miss Hilda Johnson, a daughter of Henry and Helen (House) Johnson, natives of England and New York respectively. Her father came to the United States in infancy, his parents settling near Ogdensburg in St. Lawrence county, New York. There Henry Johnson was reared and