J. B. MCGREW
The grocery business is well represented in Anita by J. B. McGrew and L. M. Bosley. They both carry a large stock of groceries, which would do credit to places of much greater population.
J. B. McGrew, grocer, was born in Jefferson county, Ohio, December 9, 1829. His parents were Jacob B. and Martha (Davis) McGrew, natives of Montgomery County, where they were married in 1818, and two children were born to them. From Pennsylvania they removed to Jefferson county, Ohio, where eleven more children were born. Jefferson Ccounty was then a wilderness. There they took up land, and made a farm. They were Quakers, and lived and died in that faith. Jacob B. McGrew was an old line Whig, and took an active interest in the underground railroad, assisting many a poor colored man to gain his liberty. He went to Canada to assist in opening schools for the colored race, in which laudable enterprise he was aided by his son J. B. In the spring of 1848 he removed to Knox county, and in 1859 to Marshall county, Iowa, where he spent the remainder of his life. His death occurred September 27, 1871. His wife died in Legrand, February 26, 1865. The subject of this sketch was reared in the wilderness, receiving his early education in the pioneer schools of his native county. He was a school mate and personal friend of William Windom. In the spring of 1858 he was married to Harriet Loofbourow, a daughter of John W. Loofbourow. Eight children were born to them, five of whom are living--Frank P., Mary E., James L., Nellie G. and C. Arthur. In 1858 he came to Iowa, entered a farm in Marshall county, and engaged in farming. In 1869 he came to Cass county, and embarked in mercantile business in Atlantic, which he continued five years, and then engaged in shipping stock. He remained in Atlantic until 1879, when he purchased a farm in Grant township, this county. In April, 1884, he commenced the grocery business in Anita, where he is at present engaged in trade. He carries a stock valued at twenty-five hundred dollars. Mr. McGrew came to the State in limited circumstances, but by industry and wise management has acquired a large property, and to-day ranks among the well-to-do business men of the county. He is politically a Republican, and his first vote was cast for John P. Hale, the Free-soil candidate for the presidency. Mrs. McGrew is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
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. 696-697.
