HENRY TEMPLE,
ATLANTIC.

One of the settlers in Iowa in its infancy as a state, and a man of much prominence in Cass county, in Henry Temple, who has held a variety of offices, and was faithful in the discharge of his duties in all of them. He is a native of Franklin county, Massachusetts; was the son of Benjamin and Rebena Christie Temple, and was born in the town if Heath, near the Vermont line, on the 20th of August, 1816. His grandsires on both sides of the family came over in General Burgoynes army; were taken prisoners and never returned to England. Both died in Heath. Benjamin Temple was in the second war with Great Britain, and was stationed at Boston harbor.

Henry, thrown on his own resources, went to Hatfield, Hampshire county, when twelve years old, and engaged in farming until nineteen, when in 1835, with five dollars in his pocket, he reached Marietta, Ohio, and attended the academic department of the college there most of the time for four years, teaching two winters in the interim and doing some farm labor, thus furnishing himself with the means for schooling.

In the spring of 1840 Mr. Temple immigrated to southern Iowa, settling at first at Fairfield, Jefferson county, where he read law with Judge Cyrus Olney, and was admitted to the bar in 18The following year he removed to Mahaska county, and after working on a farm one season opened a law office in Oskaloosa, the county seat, and was in practice there until the autumn of 1858, when he removed to Lewis, at that time the seat of justice of Cass county. There he remained until 1869, when he settled in Atlantic, the present county seat, still continuing his practice and standing well, especially as a court lawyer, and very high as a citizen.

When in Mahaska county Mr. Temple was treasurer during one term, and justice of the peace ten or eleven years. At Lewis he was postmaster for four years, also, while living there, county judge one term; deputy provost-marshal for Cass and Adair counties during the civil war, and county recorder from 1864 to 1870. A truer man has never held an official position in the county. He has always had the unlimited confidence of the people.

Judge Temple was a whig until the party disbanded. He aided in state convention to form the republican party, to which he firmly adheres. He has been one of its leaders in Cass county for years, and still occasionally takes the stump.

Judge Temple has been a member of the Congregational church for thirty-five years, and lives consistently with his christian profession.

He is a blue lodge member of the Masonic fraternity.

On the 18th of January, 1846, he was joined in the bonds of matrimony with Miss Anne E. Wright, of Oskaloosa, and they have had ten children, nine yet living. Mary R. is the wife of Romie Lawrence, of Atlantic, and Jennie is the wife of William Calvey, of Exira, Audubon county. The other children are unmarried.

Judge Temple has seen Cass county grow up from one thousand eight hundred inhabitants to twelve thousand or fourteen thousand, and is one of the public-spirited men who have aided in making it what it is, one of the leading counties in agricultural wealth and enterprise in this part of the state.

From "The United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men. Iowa Volume." Chicago and New York: American Biographical Publishing Company, 1878, pp. 585-586.