FRANK E. DUVALL.
Coming to this county in 1886 with a draft for six hundred dollars, a team of horses and a wagon, Frank E. Duvall, at that time a young man just past his majority, went to work with the determination to establish a home on the prairie of Greeley township, and now owns four hundred and eighty acres of as good land as lies in Audubon county, all of which is in an excellent state of cultivation and on which he has a house in which there is running water and all the conveniences of a city home with barns and outbuildings to match, making one of the best managed and most highly developed farms in the county, his industry furnishing a fine example for the rising generation of this county.
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Frank E. Duvall, was born in Washington county, Iowa, July 5, 1864, the son of Jefferson and Mary (Brown) Duvall, natives of Union county, Ohio, the former of whom was a son of Horace Duvall, a native of France and a soldier of the War of 1812. who for many years thereafter drew a pension from a grateful government for his faithful service in that struggle with England. Upon Horace Duvall's death his widow was left in the care of her son, Jefferson, who was one of the first settlers in Washington county, this state. He drove through from Ohio with his wife and mother, arriving at his destination in the bleak November with three dollars in cash and a yoke of oxen. The former he gave for three bushels of wheat and the latter he traded for forty acres of virgin land, on which he made his home and where he and his wife spent the remainder of their lives. Jefferson Duvall and his wife were among the leaders among the pioneers of that section of the state. They were earnest members of the Methodist church and were prominent in the activities of the "underground railroad'' of slavery days. Jefferson Duvall lived a clean, upright life and enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most level-headed men in that part of the state. He was an ardent Republican and took an active part in the political affairs of Washington county, his counsel and advice being accepted without question by the party leaders of that time and place. He and his wife were the parents of ten children : William, Reeves, Horace W., A. I., Mrs. Clea Crahil, Mrs. Emma Rushling, Frank E., Mrs. Kate Gray, Edward and one who died in infancy.
Frank E. Duvall received but little schooling in his youth, Ray's Arithmetic being his principal text-book, his boyhood being spent herding cattle on the boundless prairies. He remained at home until he was nearly twenty-two years of age, at which time he came to Audubon county, being attracted by word of the wonderful fertility of the soil in this section. He had a draft for six hundred dollars and a team of horses and a wagon. He bought eighty acres of virgin land in section 3 of Greeley township, paying six hundred dollars for the same. On this farm he built a small house, fourteen by twenty-two, eight feet in height, which by the time the plastering was finished, cost him about two hundred dollars. He later bought an eighty-acre tract adjoining, on which there had been erected a one-room house, which he moved over and attached to his house, thus giving him three rooms, and this he called "home, sweet home" until 1909, in which year he built his present handsome and commodious home of eleven rooms, with furnace, hot and cold water, bath and all the conveniences of a city home. His barns and grain cribs are on a similar scale. He has crib room for about twenty thousand bushels of corn and has modern feeding sheds with concrete floors. He feeds about fifteen car loads of cattle and about five hundred and fifty head of hogs annually, having added to his original eighty-acre range until he now possesses a fine farm of four hundred and eighty acres, well improved and up to the highest standard of cultivation.
On November 21, 1889, Frank E. Duvall was united in marriage to Anna Maurer, daughter of Anthony and Mary (Cribbs) Maurer, prominent residents of this county, a biographical sketch of whom is presented elsewhere in this volume. To this union six children were born, five of whom are still living: Nellie, born on June 13, 1893, who married Carl Wilson and has four children, Vernon, Ruby, Wilma and Buena; Olive, born on September 24, 1900; Clark, born on July 30, 1904; Millie, born on April 15, 1906; Martha, born on September 15, 1910, and Arvie, who died when two years of age.
Mr. Duvall is a Republican and gives a good citizen's attention to the political affairs of the county, and has filled minor offices of trust and responsibility with credit to himself and satisfaction to the people of his township. He is an excellent citizen and fine neighbor and enjoys the full confidence and respect of all who know him, he and his wife being held in the highest regard by all.
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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. 512-514.
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