Transcribed from

The United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men.

Iowa Volume
Chicago and New York:
American Biographical Publishing Company

1878

 

Hartley Bracewell, Corydon

     One of the early settlers and best business men of Wayne county, Iowa, is Hartley Bracewell, banker, of Corydon.  He made the first entry of land in Warren township, in the southwestern part of the county, eleven miles from the county seat, when there was not a house between his lands and Corydon.  There were then but few voters in the county, and he has lived to watch its settlement and growth for twenty-four years, he himself having been one of the leaders in improving the county.
     Mr. Bracewell is a native of Yorkshire, England; was a son of John and Mary Starkie Bracewell, and dates his birth on the 3d of March, 1822.  The Bracewells were originally from Scotland; moved to West Riding, Yorkshire, two or three centuries ago, and became a numerous family, the town of Bracewell being named for them.
     The youth of Hartley was spent on his father's farm.  His opportunities for study were limited, yet he succeeded in obtaining a fair business education by attending a night school; and on coming to this country in 1849 he taught a district school six months in Green county, Illinois.  He then worked on a farm one season in the same county, and thus procured the funds for purchasing forty acres of land, to which he added a little later forty acres more; farmed in Illinois four years, and in June, 1854, came to Wayne county, entering lands and locating as before indicated.  The land office was then at Chariton, Lucas county, and when he asked the proper officer to open his map of Wayne County, Warren township showed a clean white page, not an entry having been made.  Mr. Bracewell, who had previously entered eighty acres of woodland in Jefferson township, now entered one hundred and sixty acres of prairie, improved it, and remained on it till 1869, when he moved into Corydon.  Here he was a merchant for four years, a miller three, and for the last two has been cashier of the Wayne County Bank, in which he is a stockholder.  He owns other property in Corydon, and three well improved farms in the county; has been an eminently successful business man, and has a splendid reputation.
     Mr. Bracewell was elected to the general assembly in 1859, and reelected in 1861, serving in the regular sessions of 1860 and 1862, and the extra sessions of 1861 and 1862.  He held various township offices before becoming a member of the legislature, and has also been president of the school board of Corydon, being an active and very useful citizen.  He has been a life-long democrat.
     A member of the Methodist Episcopal church since early manhood, and a local preacher more than thirty years, his life has always been above reproach.  He is kind-hearted and obliging, and a good friend to the suffering and needy.
     In July, 1844, Miss Margaret Broughton, of Yorkshire, England, became the wife of Mr. Bracewell; they have one son, Broughton Bracewell, a farmer in Wayne county.  Mrs. Bracewell has been a ture helpmeet of her husband, and is a worthy christian mother.



Francis M. Everett, M. D., Corydon
    
Francis M. Everett, the leading surgeon in Wayne county, Iowa, and a gentleman of thorough professional polish, is a native of Mason county, Virginia, where he was born, on the 14th of October, 1840.  His father, Warren D. Everett, a native of New York state, was a physician, who removed to Iowa in 1848, and died at Corydon on the 7th of October, 1864.  The maiden name of Francis' mother was Partha J. Morris.  This branch of the Everett family are remotely related to Alexander H. and Edward Everett.  In the infancy of the subject of this sketch the family moved to Monitor county, Missouri, and five or six years later to Knoxville, Marion county, Iowa.
     Francis received an academic education in the preparatory department of the Iowa Central University at Pella; commenced reading medicine with his father at Peoria, Wayne county, in 1860; attended lectures at Keokuk, and graduated in 1863, practicing in Corydon since that date.  During this period he attended two more courses of lectures at Keokuk, and during the latter course, held four years ago, he was assistant demonstrator of anatomy.  It is almost needless to say that the opportunities thus enjoyed at Keokuk have been of incalculable benefit to him, and given him a high and wide reputation, especially in surgery, which he makes a specialty.  His rides extend all over Wayne county, and into the adjoining counties of Decatur, Lucas and Appanoose, in this state, and into Putnam county, Missouri, the line of which state is twelve miles from Corydon.  His acquaintance is very extensive, and he is much respected both as a professional man and private citizen.
     Dr Everett has been on the local school board at different times - the only civil office which he would accept, he giving his time exclusively to the study and practice of medicine and surgery.  The secret of his success lies in his untiring industry.  He is as diligent in his studies as was Dr. Richard Rush.
     Politically, the doctor is a democrat; religiously, a Baptist.  He is a deacon on the Corydon church, and the purity of his life has never been questioned.  He venerates the christian as well as the medical profession.
     He is a Master Mason, but devotes very little time to the order.
    On the 21st of October, 1861, Miss Fidelia C. Barlow, of Wayne county, Iowa, was joined in wedlock with Dr. Everett, and they have had five children, four of them yet living, and all are being educated in the Corydon graded school.
     Dr. Everett has quite a taste for agriculture and horticulture, and has a plesant homestead of one hundred and fifty acres adjoining the town on the south, with a fine orchard.  He has a competency, and while comfortable himself likes to make other people so.


Robert F. Parsons, M. D., Allerton
     Robert Fernale Parsons, twenty-four years a medical practitioner in Iowa, is a native of the Granite State, being born in Effingham, Strafford county, on the 13th of April, 1821.  His parents were Charles Moody and Martha Fernale Parsons, both of English descent.  The Parsons family were early settlers in Maine.  The maternal grandfather of Robert was in the continental army, and his paternal grandfather was a sailor, and comanded a privateer in the second struggle with the mother country.
     Charles M. Parsons immigrated from New Hampshire to Maine about 1828, and was a cabinet-maker at Waterville; went from there to Richmond, in the same state; followed the sea four years, and then removed to Bangor, the son, during this period, attending district schools.
     In 1836 the family came as far west as Painesville, Ohio, where the subject of this notice attended an academy for about two years.  In 1841 Robert moved to Coshocton county, and the next year commenced the study of medicine with Dr. E. Mast, of Rochester, in that county, subsequently attending lectures in the medical department of Western Reserve College in Cleveland; commenced paractice in 1848 at Rochester, Coshocton county; followed the profession there and in Independence, Richland county, until 1854, when he removed to Iowa and located at Brighton, Washington county.  There he was in practice for twenty-two years.  Washington county was sparsely settled at the time Dr. Parsons located there, and his rides extended over a radius of fifteen or twenty miles.  During this long period at Brighton his labors were very trying to his physical system, and in 1876, with health partially impaired, he removed to Allerton and started the drug business, intending to go out of the country practice.  This he has done, but has a fair practice, all that he could desire, in the city of Allerton.  He has a pleasant homestead of six acres, selected two years ago, on the western line of the city, and is preparing to raise all kinds of small fruits.  He is making it an Eden of beauty.
     Dr. Parsons was originally a whig; gave enthusiastic support to Mr. Lincoln, both by vote and voice, during the civil war, but latterly has affiliated with the democratic party.
     He is very liberal in his religious views.  He is a member of the blue lodge in the Masonic fraternity.
     In March, 1849, he was united in marriage with Miss Lucinda Draper, of Rochester, Ohio, and they have had eight children, only five of them living.  All are single except Alice, the eldest daughter, who is the wife of O. H. Wood, of Albia, Iowa.  Albert E., the eldest son, is a graduate of the literary and law department of the Iowa State University, and an attorney in Allerton.  The other three, Ellen T., Fred and Ernest are being educated at home.


Hon. Lloyd Selby, Corydon
    
One of the most successful business men and prominent citizens of Wayne county, Iowa, is Lloyd Selby, a merchant in Corydon since 1856.  He was born in Licking county, Ohio, on the 26th of November, 1833, and comes from an old Maryland family.  His father, John Selby, a mechanic in his younger years, is living with his son in Corydon, and is now in his eightieth year.  The mother of Lloyd was Clarinda Herrick, whose father died in Janesville, Wisconsin, a few years ago, aged ninity-three years.
     Lloyd had a very ordinary common-school education.  At fourteen he was employed in a store at Johnstown, and he was made the commercial business his life-work.  When of age he left Licking county, came to Corydon, Iowa, and has here been in trade twenty-two years.  He has carried on farming and stock-raising by proxy while merchandising, and is no doubt the best business man in this vicinity.  He has three well improved farms in Wayne county, others in the states of Missouri and Kansas, and is a heavy stockholder in the Wayne County Bank, located at Corydon, which is the county seat.  He has been its president since its organization in 1875.  He has one of the best homesteads in the county, one-fourth of a mile east of the city limits, and is a hospitable, christian gentleman.
     Mr. Selby was elected state senator in 1873, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Hon M. Read, and served in the fifteenth general assembly, doing good work on four or five committees.  He has been quite active at times in the Corydon school board, and has held other local offices, being a practical, energetic and serviceable citizen, ready for any work that will advance the interests of the town or county.
     He is a Royal Arch Mason; a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and a man or pure and noble qualities of character.
     In January, 1862, he was joined in wedlock with Mrs. M. L. Miller, daughter of James May of Pennsylvania, and they have two children.

 

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