H. Wilmer Stowe

STOWE, COURSON, BIGG, BRIGNAL, PARLING, MUSSAY, CARLEY, MORSE, BATES, THOMPSON, RICHARDS, BLAGDEN, WHITE, BURLING, KIRCHNER

Posted By: Debbie Clough Gerischer
Date: 12/28/2009 at 10:53:13

H. WILMER STOWE, prominent member of the Fort Dodge bar, is a native of Iowa and has enjoyed a steadily increasing prestige in his profession during the quarter of a century since he graduated from law school.

He was born at Postville, Iowa, April 14, 1879, son of Herman Augustus and Mary M. (Courson) Stowe. On his father's side he descended from an old English family, the Stowe family going to England from Normandy with William the Conquerer.

John Stowe, who first came to America, came over in one of the Winthrop companies, settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and took the Freeman's Oath on September 3, 1634. He was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, which was instituted in 1638. He was a great-grandson of Thomas Stowe, tallow candler, who dwelt in St. Michael's Parish, Cornhill, London. Thomas Stowe died in 1526, and his will is recorded in the Bishop of London's Register. His son Thomas Stowe, Jr., died in 1559 and was buried in St. Michael's, Cornhill. His will is not to be found, but his widow, Margaret, left a will bearing date June 29, 1568. His son, John Stowe, was the famous chronicler of the Kings of England and surveyor of the City of London;
a painstaking and voluminous writer. He died on April 5, 1605 in the eightieth year of his age and was buried under the eastern end of the north aisle of the old church of St. Andrew Undershaft, St. Mary Axe, London, which had long been his parish church. It was his son, John Stowe, who was born in County Kent, England, and who settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1634,
became the first grammar teacher there, and was a select man of the town.

The wife of (Roxbury) John Stowe was Elizabeth Bigg, a daughter of John and Rachel Bigg, of Maidstone, Kent County, England, an ancient family. They had a son, Nathaniel, who was born in England in 1621, lived at Concord, Massachusetts, and died on May 30, 1684. Nathaniel and his wife, Martha Brignal, had a son Ebenezer, born June 28, 1668. Ebenezer married Abagail Parling on May 2, 1700. Their son Amos was born April 15, 1718, and married
Mary Mussay on April 29, 1746. He died July 1, 1798.

Amos Stowe, Jr., son of Amos and Mary (Mussay) Stowe, was born at Concord, Massachusetts, November 29, 1750, and married Sarah Carley, and who died October 16, 1829. He was a Revolution, serving as a private in Capt. Asahel Wheeler's company, Col. John Robinson's regiment, as well as performing other service during the Revolutionary war. See Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the War of the Revolution, Vol. 15, page 147. He was buried at
East Haverhill, New Hampshire. This Revolutionary soldier was the great-great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch.

Joseph Stowe, son of Amos Stowe, Jr., the great-grandfather of H. Wilmore Stowe, was born at Haverhill, New Hampshire, October 7, 1795, and married Matilda Morse in 1819. He went to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, in 1843, and died in Wisconsin, on December 28, 1876.

Joseph Milo Stowe, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was the son of Joseph Stowe and Matilda (Morse) Stowe. He was born November 8, 1827, and married Laura Bates, a daughter of Elias Bates, a soldier of the War
of 1812. Joseph M. Stowe enlisted in the Union army in 1862, and served until the close of the war. His son Herman Augustus Stowe, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born August 20, 1846, near Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. He served in Company D, First Wisconsin Cavalry, from the time of his enlistment as a boy of seventeen, on December 7, 1863, down to the time that he was mustered out on the 19th of July, 1865. During his service he participated in many engagements, including the capture of Jefferson Davis, President of the Southern Confederacy.

He finished his education at Lawrence University at Appleton, Wisconsin, and for many years enjoyed high rank as an Iowa attorney. He began the practice of his profession at Postville, Iowa, in 1872, and from that time
until 1883 he was engaged in practice with F. S. Burling, of Postville. Later he was on the legal staff of the Plano Manufacturing Company, and in 1886 he moved to Fort Dodge, Iowa, where he engaged in the practice of his profession for many years. He died at Fort Dodge, Iowa, on October 27, 1919, and his widow still resides in that city.

Mary M. (Courson) Stowe, the mother of H. Wilmer Stowe, was born at Tidioute, Pennsylvania, on September 29, 1851, and moved to Clayton County, Iowa a short distance from Postville, in 1854. She attended school at Upper Iowa University, Fayette, Iowa, and was married, September 28, 1874, to H. A. Stowe. Her father was Samuel M. Courson, who descended from old Colonial stock, and her mother was Esther (Thompson) Courson, whose parents had immgrated to Pennsylvania from Belfast, Ireland; their children, however, all being born in this country, she having been born October 30, 1820, while her husband, Samuel M. Courson, was born April 8, 1818, in Warren County, Pennsylvania.

H. A. Stowe and Mary Courson Stowe were the parents of three children: Mrs. Esther S. Richards, (holding National D. A. R. No. 250800), wife of Charles A. Richards, a Methodist minister at Pomeroy, Iowa; H. Wilmer Stowe, the subject of this sketch; and Miss Allene Stowe, a teacher at Fort Dodge, Iowa. The parents were always active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and were Republicans in politics. H. Wilmer Stowe attended school at Fort Dodge, graduating from the high school in 1896. He later entered Northwestern University, graduating from the College of Liberal Arts, with the B. S. degree, in 1903, and receiving his LL. B. from Northwestern University Law School in 1905. In the fall of
1905 he was admitted to the Iowa bar and began practicing at Fort Dodge.

On August 8, 1906, Mr. Stowe married Miss Beulah Blagden. She was born at Kirkland, Illinois, on September 6, 1884, moving to Sycamore, Illinois, with her parents while a small child. She attended the Sycamore schools, graduating from the Sycamore High School and she also attended the College of Liberal Arts of Northwestern University. Her father, Dr. A. D. Blagden, born March 24, 1851, at Genoa, Illinois, and who attended the University of Illinois and graduated from Bennett Medical College, was engaged in the practice of medicine until his death on April 2, 1926, at Sycamore, Illinois. Her mother, Addie B. (White) Blagden, who was born November 5, 1859, at Sycamore, Illinois, married A. D. Blagden on September 1, 1881, and who attended school at Northwestern University, and who descended from James White, a soldier of the Revolution, is still living. Mrs. Stowe passed away on April 2, 1923. She was a very earnest worker and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was active in Eastern Star work and in the Daughters of the American Revolution, her national D.A.R. number being 164078. To their marriage were born seven children: Wilmer B., born June 10, 1907, a student in the Law School of Northwestern University; Ronald L., born October 29, 1909, a student in the School of Commerce of Northwestern University; Helen V., born July 31, 1911, a sophomore in the Fort Dodge Junior College; Blanche A., born July 15, 1913, and Douglas R., born September 4, 1915, both in Fort Dodge High School; Mary Louise, born December 31, 1917, and Beulah B., born March 28, 1923, both being students in the grades.

Mr. Stowe practiced law alone until the fall of 1924, when he formed a partnership with Jacob Kirchner, of Fort Dodge, Iowa, under the firm name of Stowe & Kirchner, of which firm he is still the senior member. His time and abilities have been fully taken up with a general law practice. His law firm represents not only a large private clientele, but represents as well transportation companies, insurance companies, banks and many other corporate interests.

He has never held public office except for a period of three years when he was police judge of Fort Dodge. He has at all times taken an active interest in politics, which interest has been derived largely from his sense of duty and his belief that a good citizen should do his part in community affairs. He is one of the recognized Republican leaders of politics in his
county and congressional district, and has for many years past been a regular delegate to the various district and state conventions. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church; he is a York Rite Mason, and belongs to various other fraternal organizations and patriotic societies, including the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, and the Iowa and National societies
of the Sons of the American Revolution, National S. A. R. number being 44631; and is at the present time secretary of his local bar association.

~source:
A Narrative History of The People of Iowa
with
SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN
EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY, BUSINESS, ETC.
by
EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M.
Curator of the Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa
Volume IV
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc.
Chicago and New York
1931

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