Biographies | 1896 Bios
Benjamin Delany
Mr. Delany was born in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, April 14, 1825, son of Jonathan and Elizabeth (Callen) Delany, both natives of Pennsylvania, the father born in 1798. The Callens, Mr. Delany's grandparents, were Irish, and Mrs. Delany was born near Philadelphia. She is still living and has attained the ripe old age of ninety-three years. Jonathan Delany died in Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, at the age of seventy-five. He was by occupation a farmer, his religion was that of the Baptist Church, and his political views were those advocated by the Democratic party. This worthy couple were the parents of five children: Benjamin, Samuel C., Mary, Nathan, and John.
Benjamin Delany was reared in his native State, received a common-school education and learned the trade of shoemaker, which trade he followed for a number of years. In 1848 he came West to Illinois and located at Freeport, Stephenson county, where he worked at the trade of stone-mason and also as a teamster until 1855, and in the winter of that year came over into Iowa, crossing the Mississippi river on the ice. That winter was memorable for its severity. The following year he worked for Mr. Benjamin Lavan, making brick. In the meantime, on his first arrival here, he took claim to a tract of Government land, 160 acres in extent. The second year he settled on a farm west of where he now lives and continued to reside on it until 1864, when he came to his present place in Baker township, this farm comprising eighty acres of rich bottom land, as fine soil as there is to be found anywhere in Iowa. Among its improvements we note a comfortable residence, good barn and nice orchard, and it is well watered by springs and creek and also has a good well. Its location is five miles and a half west of Guthrie Center.
While in Illinois, in 1854, Mr. Delany wedded Miss Louisa S. May, a native of Canada, who died June 14, 1857, leaving an only child, Mary, who is now the wife of Lewis Winebrenner, of Baker township. March 10, 1859, Mr. Delany married for his second wife Miss Malinda Simmons, daughter of Reuben Simmons, one of the pioneer settlers of this county. She died March 13, 1888, leaving two children, namely: Erwin L., who owns a farm of eighty acres in this county; and Alma S., wife of John Cliperton, of Greene county, Iowa. Mrs. Delany was a member of the Free Methodist Church, of which Mr. Delany also is a member, he having been identified with it for a quarter of a century and having served as Steward and Trustee.
A Memorial and Biographical Record of Iowa, Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company 1896, pg. 742.