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History of Story County, Iowa Vol 2 by William O. Payne, 1911

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Page 35 of 507

chusetts, and during the first year thereof he was married at South Rutland, New York, on January 16, 1859, to Adaline M. Brown. He took his bride to Lynn, where their only son, William O., was born May 7, 1860. The pastorate at Lynn closed in 1862 and after a year at Cambridgeport, attending lectures at Harvard, he removed with his family to Clinton, New York, where he became pastor of the Universalist parish and also taught in the Clinton Liberal Institute, which was then a flourishing school of the Universalist denomination. He remained for nine years at Clinton and in 1872 removed to NyackontheHudson, where he lived for two years. In 1874 the removal west was made, the destination being Mitchellville in Polk county, Iowa. At that place he had charge as principal of Mitchell Seminary, which had been established as the school for the Universalist denomination in this state and the main building of which has since become the nucleus of the State Industrial School for Girls. After a year at Mitchellville the family removed about thirty miles northward to Nevada.

The arrival at Nevada was in the fall of 1875. Mr. Payne had in the previous spring been elected principal of the public schools at this place and Mrs. Payne became an assistant in the high school. The time was when the more enterprising towns of this class in Iowa were beginning to organize regular high schools, and Nevada was just completing a fine new brick school building, suitable to its new and higher educational aspirations. Indeed the completion was so delayed that school did not open until the first week in November; but in time the building was completed and the school opened with much enthusiasm. Then for the first time was there in the school here a definite course of study at the completion of which diplomas of graduation would be given. The conditions were highly favorable for good work by teachers and pupils, and at the end of the second year, in June, 1877, the first class was graduated, numbering nine. Five years were spent by Mr. and Mrs. Payne in this work and in this time were established relations with young people who have here and elsewhere made their impress on affairs--relations which in a local sense have grown closer and closer with all the passing years.

In 1880 the Paynes retired from the school here and Mr. Payne went to Boone, where he gained his first initiation into newspaper work on the staff of the Boone Republican. This initiation lasted for two years and at the end of that time, in the summer of 1882, he returned to Nevada and bought the Nevada Representative, the original newspaper in Story county and one that has always been identified with the county.

Thus after only a brief intermission the residence of the Paynes in Nevada was resumed. Mrs. Payne at once joined with her husband in his newspaper work and a year later the only son returned from college and became connected with the work also. With the increased force the work gradually differentiated, and the senior Payne gave his attention chiefly to the business and to the outside interests of the paper. In this work he became widely acquainted over the county. For nearly thirty years this work

Page 35 of 507

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