S. L. LORAH
Judge S. L. Lorah, of Lorah, has been a resident of Pymosa township since 1855. He was born in Berks county, Pennsylvania, in 1809. He removed with his parents to Franklin county of the same State, thence, when thirteen years of age, to Wayne county, Ohio. His father, John Lorah, was a farmer. At the age of seventeen years, Judge Lorah left home and served an apprenticeship to the trade of tanner and currier, which occupation he followed twelve years. In 1837 he was appointed clerk of the court of common pleas, of Wayne county, and served in that capacity fifteen years. In October, 1851, he was elected probate judge of the same county which office he held three years. In the fall of 1854 he came to Cass county and purchased and entered a large amount of land. He entered a part of section 14, Pymosa township and bought the balance of Dr. Samuel M. Ballard, of whom he also purchased one hundred and twenty acres in section 13. He owned at one time, about one thousand acres of land in Pymosa township. He was elected county judge in 1857, and served two years. In the fall of 1863, he was elected to the General Assembly of Iowa, and served one term (two years.) He was member of the first board of supervisors of Cass county, an office which he now (1884) holds. He has also held various township and school offices. Since coming to Cass county he has devoted the greater part of his time to agricultural pursuits. After the completion of the Audubon branch of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, Judge Lorah made application for the establishing of a station on section 14. His proposition was accepted and he proceeded to lay out the village which bears his name. Judge Lorah has been twice married, first, in 1830, to Tamar Stophlet, a native of Pennsylvania, who died one and a half years after marriage. In 1833 he was again married to Rachael Wilson, who was born in Pennsylvania, in 1813. She died in the autumn of 1879. He had by his first marriage, one son, David, who went to Australia when a young man, thence to Oregon where he died several years ago. By the second union there were seven children--Samuel I., a resident of Colorado, E. Jane, Tamar E., Rachael C. Sarah L., John W. and Charles E.
Politically, Judge Lorah has always been allied to the Democratic Party. Few men in Cass county are more widely known than Judge Lorah and he has ever been held in high esteem for his sterling character, and respected for his many excellent qualities of mind and heart.
Contributed by Lisa Varnes-Rex from "History of Cass County, Iowa. Together With Sketches of its Towns, Villages and Townships, Educational, Civil, Military and Political History: Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Old Settlers and Representative Citizens." Springfield, Ill.: Continental Historical Company, 1884, pg. 345-346.
