PETER MADSEN.
Any vocation, whether humble or exalted, may produce a satisfactory measure of success if enterprise, industry and well-directed purpose guide the individual in his pursuit of success. In no case is this fact more apparent than in farming. It is a well authenticated fact that success is the result of well-applied energy, determination, perseverance and good judgment. When a course of action is once decided upon, these attributes are essential to success, and those who diligently seek her favors ever receive her blessing. Peter Madsen, the subject of this sketch, is one of the well-known and successful farmers of Hamlin township and his success has been achieved by traveling no royal road. Industry and good management have been the keynote to his success.
Peter Madsen was born on January 7, 1840, in Jylland, Denmark. He is the son of Mads and Sisse (Nelson) Madsen, also natives of Jylland, Denmark, where the father was a farm laborer.
Peter Madsen lived at home until 1862, at which time he had to join the army. He served two and one-half years in the war between Prussia and Austria, but was never wounded nor taken prisoner, though he saw some of the hardest fighting in this war. In 1870 Mr. Madsen came to the United States, landing at New York city, and after spending a short time in that city, he came directly to Atlantic, Cass county, Iowa. At that time, Atlantic just had one store, a hotel and a few houses. Mr. Madsen had fifty dollars in money when he arrived at Atlantic. He first got work on a farm where he remained for three months, when he got work on the section of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad. Mr. Madsen worked at this job at Atlantic until the spring and then went back to Wilton, where he helped to build a branch of the railroad down into the state of Missouri. In the spring of 1871, Mr. Madsen came to Atlantic again and purchased forty acres of land in Shelby county, paying ten dollars an acre for it, and here he lived for nine years. In the meantime, his family grew larger, so that in 1880 he purchased eighty acres in section 3 of Hamlin township, where he now lives. It was without buildings, although seventy acres of it had already been broken with the plow, and there were no roads nor no schools. Two years later, Mr. Madsen sold the township one acre of land, receiving twenty-five dollars for it, and after this there was a school near his house. Before that, one of the neighbors had given one room in his house for the purpose of conducting a school.
One year after Mr. Madsen came to the United States, his future wife, Johanna Conradene Johansen, came to this country. She was born on December 10, 1848, in Jylland. Denmark, and was the daughter of Lars and Alary Johansen. Peter Madsen and Johanna C. Johansen were married in Princeton, Missouri, October 7, 1871. She died in July, 1886, leaving eight children, Jens C., who is unmarried and lives in Hamlin township; Peterena Mary, deceased, who married Peter Paulsen and had two children. Conradene and Marie; Lawrence M., who married Marie Petersen and has six children, Dena, Anna, Peter, Edna, Laura and Jens; Cecelia, deceased, married Walter Jensen and had three children, Martha, Helena and Elsie; Johanna M., who is unmarried and is now a patient in the hospital at Clarinda, Iowa; Lora, who lives in Washington, married Chris Sorrensen and has three children, Mary, Gladys and Helena; Peter, who is unmarried and lives in Elkhorn where he follows the butcher's trade; and Martha, who married Jens Andersen and has three children, Freda, Leo and Alice. Lawrence M. is now living on the old home place and also tends forty acres which he owns near there. He was married on January 6, 1906.
Mr. Madsen has retired from active farming. He is a stockholder in the Elkhorn-Marne Telephone Company and is also a member of the West Hamlin Creamery Company, being one of the organizers of the latter. Peter Madsen is one of Hamlin township's first settlers and is, in truth, a pioneer of this section of the state.
Mr. Madsen is a Democrat and his son, Lawrence M., is also a Democrat. Mr. Madsen has held nearly all of the township offices, except assessor and clerk, and he has always taken an active part in local politics and his counsel is widely sought. The family are all members of the Danish Lutheran church.
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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. 477-479.
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