Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 294
JAMES E. KEMMISH

James E. KEMMISH, a resident of section 14, of Union Township, accompanied his parents to Harrison County, from Council Bluffs, in 1865. He was born at Portsmouth, England, January 16, 1852, and emigrated with his parents to America January 16, 1855. They landed at New Orleans, took a steamboat up the Missouri River to Keokuk, Iowa, from which point they took their departure from civilized life, and with ox-teams, journeyed toward Salt Lake City, their objective point. Our subject's father was a basketmaker and followed this for a livelihood. At the end of three years they moved to the town of Goshen, ninety miles south of Salt Lake, where he worked at his trade and bought wheat of the Mormons and then selling it to the United States soldiers, (Mormons as a rule, would not sell wheat to be used by the soldiers.) Our subject's father was anxious to get out of that country and would have been in that terrible encounter known as the Mountain Meadow Massacre, had he been able to get flour to make the trip with. He remained at Goshen until the spring of 1859, when he managed to escape, by telling the Mormons that he was going to open up a farm.

The first stop was at Provo Valley, where they halted and did enough cooking to last them two weeks; getting ready for their trip across the plains, which at that time was no pleasure ride, as it was to last about four months. They came by the way of St. Joseph, Mo., to Fremont County, Iowa, where they remained three years, then moved to Mills County, and in the autumn of 1862 to Pottawattamie Country, settling five miles east of Council Bluffs. A year later they moved to Council Bluffs and ran what was known as the "Farmer's Inn." They remained there three months, and then came to Harrison County in 1865.

Our subject considered himself his own man when twenty years of age, but remained at home working for his father, until twenty-five, during which time he had accumulated some little property. His father gave him forty acres of land for three years' work, and he in a short time added forty acres more, and has cultivated as high as sixty acres of corn alone, and has not unfrequently harvested as high as fifty bushels of corn per acre.

This man of industry has from time to time added to his possessions, until now he has three hundred acres of highly-improved land, two hundred and thirty acres of which he cultivates, while the remainder is in meadow and pasture land. In order to carry on this extensive farm, Mr. KEMMISH usually keeps eighteen head of horses. In speaking of his early farming, he relates how that his first plow was a cast-iron one and never was known to scour a rod, all the time he used it.

In addition to his farm property he owns the Hilburn House at Persia, which was built by C. H. ALLE, in 1888.

Our subject was united in marriage February 25, 1877, to Leona LYONS, a native of Illinois, born October 10, 1860; she is the daughter of Andrew and Matilda (PECKENPAUGH) LYONS, and is the oldest of two children. Mr. and Mrs. KEMMISH have been blessed with six children: Eldora, and Leona died in infancy, Cora, William J., Fred and Jesse.

Politically, our subject is a supporter of the Republican party.

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