SAMUEL BEERS.
The proprietor of "Forest Home Farm," in Greeley township, this county, Samuel Beers, is a native son of Audubon county and is one of the substantial and progressive men who have done so much to establish the present excellent conditions of living in this section of the proud state of Iowa.
Samuel Beers was born on a farm on the site of what later became the old town of Hamlin, in Hamlin township, Audubon county, Iowa, March 24, 1859. the son of Bradley and Hannah G. (Eles) Beers, natives of New York state, who came to this county from Delaware county, that state, and who spent the rest of their lives here, the former dying in March, 1878, and the latter on October 23, 1902.
Bradley Beers, who in his day was one of the best-known and most influential residents of Hamlin township, came to Audubon county about the first of the year 1856 and bought three hundred and twenty acres of virgin land in Hamlin township, where the town of Hamlin later sprang up, giving for the same one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. After erecting a house and a barn here, Mr. Beers returned to New York and brought back with him to their new home on the prairie, his wife and their child, Frank, the two other children, Samuel and Clara, the latter of whom married Edward Young, being born after the parents arrived here. On account of the distance from his home to a school house, Samuel Beers did not have an opportunity of attending school until he was ten years of age, after which he attended two or three terms of district school and one or two terms at Exira. His father dying when Samuel was but nineteen years of age. much of the responsibility of keeping up the farm was thrown upon the latter, who, upon his marriage, brought his wife to the home farm, which his father had purchased in Greeley township about three years before his death, and where his mother spent her last days.
On September 11, 1881. in the town of Exira, this county, Samuel Beers was united in marriage with Ora D. Herrick, who was born in Exira on October 28, 1863, the daughter of Urbane and Charlotte (Spurling) Herrick, natives of Wisconsin, who came to Audubon county in 1853 and settled on a farm where the town of Exira now stands. Urbane Herrick donated one acre of land to the town of Exira for a school building, one acre to the first minister who arrived in the place for parsonage grounds and also donated a tract of land for cemetery purposes. By his first marriage Urbane Herrick had four children, Scott, Ora D., Lorinda and Rose. Upon the death of the mother of these children, Mr. Herrick married Kezia Smith, by whom he had three children, Roby, Stella and Maggie.
To Samuel and Ora D. (Herrick) Beers two children were born, Homer L., born on October 4, 1885, who married Margaret May, a former school teacher, and who has one child, a daughter, Bernice May, born on August 11, 1912, and Ruth E., who was born on October 16, 1891, who married Glenn Scott and has one child, a son, Arnold Beers, born on February 21, 1915. Mr. and Mrs. Beers are members of the Evangelical church and are among the founders of that church in their neighborhood. They are active in local good works and are held in the highest esteem by all who know them.
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Transcribed from History of Audubon County, Iowa Its People, Industries and Institutions With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Many of the Old Families, by H. F. Andrews, editor, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Company, 1915, pp. 444-445.
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