Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 911
JERRY MOTZ

Jerry MOTZ, one of the pioneers of 1853, now residing on section 13, of Clay Township, first settled in Magnolia Township, where he purchased a claim of one hundred and sixty acres of land which he entered that fall. There was no house upon the place and only twelve acres of breaking. He erected a hewed log house sixteen feet square, and made other improvements. He remained there until the spring of 1862, when he sold and moved to Taylor Township, purchasing a quarter of section 176, and two hundred and forty acres in section 8 and 15 of Clay Township. He traded his farm in Magnolia Township for the wild land in Taylor and Clay Townships. He built a double log house 16X32 feet on his land in Taylor Township, where he broke fifty acres and remained until the spring of 1865, then sold that place and bought the place he now occupies; which consisted of two hundred acres upon which there was a hewed log house 18x24 feet, in which he lived until November 1866, when he erected his present residence which is a frame structure 16x26 feet and an ell 14x16 feet, which was one of the first frame houses erected on the Missouri Bottoms, in this part of the county. This building was constructed with the old hewed frame style of architecture; the posts being eight inches square. He also erected a barn 36x60, with eighteen-foot posts. Of his two hundred acre home-farm, about one hundred and forty acres are under cultivation, while the balance is in timber and pasture land. His whole landed estate amounts to three hundred and seventy acres.

When he came to the county, Council Bluffs was his nearest trading point, and post-office. The first school house built north of Boyer River was on the Cutler land in Magnolia Township, and was built by John Thompson and Jerry MOTZ, (our subject) in about 1854.

Mr. MOTZ was born in Center County, Pa., March 3, 1827. He is the son of George and Rachel (HARPER) MOTZ, both natives of Pennsylvania. When our subject was ten years of age his parents moved from the Keystone state, to Hamilton County, Ind., and after living there for two years the parents both died, after which our subject had to shift for himself. He worked on a farm three years for one man, and then returned to his birth place in Pennsylvania, where he remained six months and then came back to Indiana and remained until 1853; and then came to Harrison County, Iowa.

He was united in marriage, in Timpton County, Ind., Christmas Day 1851, with Miss Delcina CAYWOOD, the daughter of Oracio and Zilla CAYWOOD. Our subject and his wife are the parents of eleven children, born as follows; John M., September 18, 1853; Adelia, May 4, 1855; George W., October 3, 1856; Zillah, January 21, 1858; Orrilla, April 15, 1859; Mary E., February 16, 1861; William C., December 22, 1862; Francis, August 2, 1865; Eliza J., December 17, 1868; Linnie, February 4, 1871; Jacob L., August 27, 1873.

Orrilla, died in September 1860; Adelia, June 1867; Zillah, February 1884; Linnie, October 1887; Eliza J., October 1889, and Francis, April 1890.

Delcina (CAYWOOD) MOTZ, was born in Kentucky April 30, 1833, and in the autumn of that year her parents moved to Hendricks County, Ind., and from there to Tipton County, where she remained until married. William and Francis, children of our subject, both graduated at Vinton Iowa College for the Blind, the form graduating in June 1889, and the latter in June 1887.

Mr. MOTZ is a member of the Masonic order, having joined in Indiana, in 1848, and was a Charter member of Magnolia Lodge No. 127.

Politically, he affiliates with the Democratic party, and his wife is a consistent member of the Christian Church.

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