John Herbert Frazer is a well-known representative of farming interests in Burr Oak township, Mitchell county, his home being on section 9. He was born October 12, 1866, in the township where he still resides, his parents being William and Helen (Gilbert) Frazer, the former a native of New York, while the latter was born in Vermont.
They removed westward to Iowa in 1855, establishing their home in Burr Oak township, Mitchell county, where the father took up the occupation of farming. This was then largely a wild frontier region in which the work of progress and improvement seemed scarcely begun.
Much of the land was still unclaimed and uncultivated and an arduous task confronted the settlers in their effort to convert the raw prairie into productive fields.
John Herbert Frazer was reared upon the old homestead farm which his father developed. He pursued his early education in the district schools and afterward spent two winters as a student in the Cedar Valley Seminary at Osage. From early boyhood he worked in the fields and continued to farm at home until he attained his majority. He then rented his uncle's farm near Osage and lived upon that property for four years.
He afterward turned his attention to merchandising, establishing a grocery store in Osage, which he conducted for two years, but on the expiration of that period he returned to farm life and bought forty acres of land on section 9, Burr Oak township. He also has twenty-three acres on section 9. Later he invested in one hundred and forty-three acres on section 4 of the same township and has since given his attention to general farming and stock raising with good success, his business affairs being wisely and carefully managed.
In his political views Mr. Frazer is a democrat but has never been an aspirant for office. He attends the Congregational church and his aid and influence are always given on the side of progress and improvement for the benefit of the community as well as for the individual.
From: History of Mitchell and Worth Counties, Iowa, 1918, Vol. II; Page 271
Transcribed by Gordon Felland, Jan. 2004