ALBERT FREDERICK.
Albert Frederick is widely known in Audubon county. Iowa, and is one of the honored citizens of Greeley township. He has led a life of strenuous activity in agricultural affairs. His well-directed efforts in the practical affairs of life, his capable management of his business interests and his sound judgment have brought to him an exceptional measure of prosperity which demonstrates what may be accomplished by a man of energy and ambition, who is not afraid to work and who has the ambition to continue his labors in the face of disaster and discouragement. In all the relations of life, Albert Frederick has commanded the confidence and respect of those with whom he has been brought into contact. A biographical history of this locality would not be complete without a record of his career.
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Albert Frederick was born on August 28, 1859. in Howard county, Maryland. He is the son of Jacob and Mary M. (Shipley) Frederick, who were also natives of Howard county, Maryland. Jacob Frederick came to Audubon county, Iowa, in 1878. In his younger days, he was a blacksmith and later he took up the miller's trade. During the Civil War he acted as a spy for the Union army. He was also quite a large property owner in Baltimore, but was forced to sell out and move to Ohio shortly before the close of the war. He lived in Ohio only about eighteen months, where he conducted a butcher shop. When he came to Illinois in 1866, he purchased a farm and followed farming the remainder of his life.
The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad was not yet built when he came to Audubon county. He first bought a homestead three miles east of Audubon but later sold that and bought one hundred and sixty acres of land in Greeley township from the Rock Island Railroad Company, paying seven dollars an acre for one eighty-acre tract, and twelve dollars an acre for the other tract. He was a member of the Christian church as was his wife also, although in her younger days she had been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. They were the parents of seven children, of whom Albert, the subject of this sketch, was the third child.
Albert Frederick received a common-school education and lived at home until he was twenty years of age, when he commenced working out by the month, working two years. He received fifteen dollars a month for nine months during the year and during the other three months, worked for his board. In January, 1881, Mr. Frederick purchased eighty acres of land in Greeley township. In the fall of the same year he purchased eighty acres more, giving the same price for his land that his father had paid. The "Ridge" road, which runs through the land, was formerly an Indian trail and later used as a stage and mail route from Exira to Penora [sic Panora], Iowa.
On May 10, 1885, Albert Frederick was married in Greeley township, Audubon county, to Nellie M. Knox, of Greeley township. She was born in Exira township, Audubon county, and is the daughter of Xerxes and Nancy (Smith) Knox, natives of Ohio and Pennsylvania, respectively. Her father was a soldier in the Civil War, having enlisted in Company G, Third Regiment Iowa Volunteer Cavalry. He was taken prisoner and was confined in the great Confederate prison in Arkansas. He was married twice, his first marriage occurring before the war, and the second just after the war.
Mr. and Mrs. Albert Frederick have nine children, five sons and four daughters, namely: Clara B., born on May 4, 1886, married Ira Johnson, of Wessington Springs, South Dakota, and has two children, Ruth and Laverne and Thelma Arlene; Iva A., December 29, 1887, married Fred Brau, of Greeley township, and has three children, Florence E., Bernice B. and Milan H.; Maud A., July 24, 1891, married George Schwab, of Greeley township, and has three children, Lola M., Harold F. and Howard M.; Ruth E., November 20, 1894; Lee, December 10, 1896; Lloyd L., April 22, 1899; Lyman R., January 24, 1902, Earl K., March 8, 1905; and Marvin Dale, September 5, 1910.
Mr. Frederick makes a specialty of raising Hereford cattle most of which are registered. He feeds about two carloads of cattle and two carloads of hogs each year. He has added to his original farm and now owns three hundred and sixty acres of land in Greeley township. He is the second largest landholder in the township. Mr. Frederick also owns one hundred and sixty acres of land in Jerauld county, South Dakota. He is a stockholder in the C. Haffen Lumber Company, of Council Bluffs. It is an interesting fact that Mr. Frederick's father helped to lay out the roads in Greeley township.
Mr. Frederick is a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, the Ancient Order of United Workmen, the Modern Brotherhood of America and the National Reserve. Mr. and Mrs. Frederick are members of the Order of the Eastern Star. In politics, Mr. Frederick is a Democrat. He has served as township clerk for eight years, secretary of the school board for fourteen years and justice of the peace. The family are members of the Congregational church at Exira.
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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. 832-834.
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