Article from "Portrait and Biographical Album Washington County," 1887, p. 570.

DANIEL MICKEY, farmer and stock-raiser, and dealer in stock at Ainsworth, Iowa, resides on section 15, where he owns 465 acres of land, all under a high state of cultivation. He was born in Richland County, Ohio, Nov. 22, 1827, and is the son of Robert and Mary (Piper) Mickey, both of whom are natives of Pennsylvania, the former being of Irish descent and the latter of German. They both died in Ohio, the mother in 1852, at the age of fifty-five, and the father in 1857, at the age of sixty- five. They reared a family of thirteen children, eight of whom are yet living.

At the age of seventeen Daniel commenced to learn the blacksmith trade, worked two years, and in May, 1846, enlisted in the Mexican War, serving fourteen months. He was on the Rio Grande and was in the battles of Monterey and Buena Visa. On the close of the war he returned to his home in Ohio, worked at his trade for a time and also upon a farm, and then went to California, where he remained two years, engaged in mining. Again returning to Ohio, he remained one years, and in 1853 came to Iowa and located on his present farm in Oregon Township, purchasing 400 acres of wild land, on which there was no improvement save a small log cabin. He at once commenced the improvement of the farm, and soon had it under a high state of cultivation. In 1867 he erected his present neat and commodious residence at a cost of $3,000; the barn and out-buildings being erected at such times as the necessity of the case demanded. All his land is under good fence, mostly hedge. Mr. Mickey was married in Ohio, in 1853, to Lovinia, a daughter of Henry and Permelia (Slocum) Keith. She was born in Richland County, Ohio, in 1834. By this union there were eleven children, six of whom are living: Almedia is the wife of S. H. Blair, of Columbus Junction, they having two children, Claude and Daniel H.; Charley L. married Eva Nelson; Clement C. is at home; Grace C. is the wife of Henry Adams, of North Bend, Neb.; Daniel W. and Walter are at home. The deceased are Alice C., Samuel S., Benjamin F. and an infant. Mr. and Mrs. Mickey are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Politically, he is a Democrat, and has held the office of Township Assessor and other minor offices. He has never been an office-seeker, nor ever at any time desired one.

Daniel Mickey is truly a self-made man; starting in life without means he has, by hard labor, economy and good management, acquired a reasonable competency, and is classed among the solid influential citizens of Washington County. He has now been a resident of Washington County for a little more than a third of a century, and few men are better known or more highly respected. When he came to the county it was comparatively new, the settlements being mostly confined to the prairies. He has lived to see every acres of available land under cultivation, to see elegant farm residences and fine barns erected upon almost every quarter, to see railroads, telegraph and telephone wires traverse every part of the county, as well as the fair State of Iowa. In the march of improvement he has borne his part, and has done much in developing the resources of Washington County. A plain, unassuming man, he is kind and warm-hearted, hospitable and generous to all.

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An erroneous account published and later corrected as the pursuers, not the thieves.

Newspaper article from the "Burlington Hawk-Eye," Thursday, January 15, 1874.