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Progressive Men of
Iowa
1899
 ELLIOTT, Thomas Knox,
cashier of the Commercial State bank, of Essex, Page county,
was born September 13, 1863, in Warren county, 111. His
father, Thomas Cochran Elliott, was a farmer, and one of the
early settlers of Warren county. His mother, Mary Louise
Laird, was a native of Ohio. Alexander McCandless Elliott, the
grandfather of Thomas K., came from Belfast, Ireland, and
settled at an early date in Pennsylvania. Prom there he
removed to Guernsey county, Ohio, and from that point to
Warren county, 111., where he died May 13, 1868.
Thomas K. attended country
school until after removing to Lenox, Iowa. In the fall of
1880 he returned to Warren county, III., and attended Monmouth
college three years, in the meantime staying out one year and
teaching country school in Adams county, Iowa. While in
college he was a member of the Eccretean Literary society, and
was the first member of the freshman class to ever have been
elected president of this society. He came to Malvern, Iowa,
in September, 1884, and accepted a clerkship in the post
office with O. H. Snyder, postmaster, where he entered his
business career, and from a friendship which sprang up with L.
Bently, then cashier of the First National bank at Malvern,
Iowa, was recommended to B. M. Webster for a position in his
bank in 1885. He entered upon the same April 20, 1885, where
he has been continuously since, except one year, July, 1890,
to July, 1891, when he went to Lenox, Iowa, and assisted H.
Crittenden in opening a bank at that point Mr. Elliott
continued to act as assistant cashier of the Commercial bank
at Essex until April, 1895, when he effected a reorganization
of the bank, secured a charter as a state bank and became
cashier of the new institution. Since taking charge he
has so successfully conducted affairs that the business of the
bank has almost doubled. Mr. Elliott, in November, 1897,
formed a partnership with H. C. Binns, of Red Oak, and his
son, C. R. Binns,
of Essex, and bought the business of the Farmers Exchange
bank, of Stanton, Iowa, which business is now conducted with
H. Binns as president, T. K. Elliott as
vice-president, and C. R. Binns as
cashier.
Mr. Elliott is a strong republican, but
has never held a political office, or even been a candidate
for one, but is at present treasurer of the independent school
district of Essex, and has been connected with the schools for
many years as secretary and treasurer. He belongs to Mountain
Lodge 360 A. F. & A. M., Essex, and has held important
offices in same; is also a member of Montgomery Chapter No.
51, at Red Oak, and also of the Knights of Pythias lodge,
Essex. He is a member of the Presbyterian church, in which he
is an elder. Mr. Elliott was married October 25, 1888, to
Lillian A. Ralston. They have had two children: Thomas
Charles, born October 28, 1889, who died August 7, 1891, and
Annis Lillian, born February 1, 1893.
 LEWIS, HON. Lester
Warren, of Clarinda, has served in both branches of the
general assembly. In both the house and the senate he was
chosen to the responsible petition of chairman of the
committee on appropriations, and it is a matter of history
that no state warrants were stamped "un-paid for want of funds
" during the following biennial periods. He was identified
with all measures for the more economical administration of
county and state government, and was particularly active and
influential in the passage of the bill for a more strict
accounting and examination of banks under state control. He
distinguished himself while a member of the house by his
determined efforts to secure legislation favorable to the
miners and laboring men of the state.
He was born at Maple Park, 111.,
Augusts, 1860. His father, Seth Lewis, was a lumberman and
banker, a successful man who was the soul of honor in all
business affairs.
His mother, Celina Woodworth Lewis, was educated at the
Warrenville academy, a suburban school in Chicago, in the
early history of that city. Two brothers, John and James
Lewis, came from England during the first settlement of New
England, and located at Barnstable, Mass. James Lewis was the
great great-great grandfather of the senator, whose young
son, Lester, belongs to the ninth generation of Lewis's in
America. The paternal ancestors for almost two centuries back
have been fanners, and one or another has occupied the old
homestead at Suffield, Conn., where the father of Hon. L. W.
Lewis was born. Mr. Lewis' father was one of the pioneer
settlers of Illinois, having located at Aurora when that
country was very new.
The mother was a native of New York. She had three brothers
in the union army, one of whom, John M. Woodsworth, was a
surgeon on the staff of Gen. John A. Logan, and afterwards
became the first supervising surgeon-general of the marine
hospitals of the United States.
Young Lewis was educated in the
common schools of Marengo, 111., the Chicago high schools and
the Wheaton college, graduating from the latter in 1882. The
college was a non-sectarian but Christian institution, strict
in discipline, and few sports were indulged in, hard,
conscientious study being required of all students. Mathematics and
language were the specialties offered by the college, and in
these, as well as the other studies in the curriculum, Mr.
Lewis excelled throughout the course. He came to Iowa, July 4,
1882, without a dollar, and went to work in his father's
lumber yard in Seymour, Wayne county. In 1883 and 1884 he was
teacher of the grammar room of the Seymour schools and at the
same time kept the books for his father. The wages thus earned
were carefully saved, and in May, 1884, he purchased a
second-hand outfit and launched the Seymour Press, which he
published until January, 1895, none of the time, however,
making it his principal occupation. Later he became assistant
cashier of the Farmers and Drovers bank, at Seymour and on
January 1, 1886, secured an interest in the bank and was
elected its cashier. This position he filled until 1895, when
he severed his connection with the bank to become
vice-president of the Page County bank, of Clarinda, Iowa, of
which Hon. Charles Linderman is president and J. N. Miller,
cashier.
In 1887 he was elected to the house
of the Twenty-second General Assembly, from Wayne county, and
in 1889 was re-elected by a well-pleased constituency; in 1891
the same county, with Lucas county, elected him a member of
the senate, and at each election he received an increased
majority. He is a member of no society or club, but has been an
active worker of the Presbyterian church since his college
days. He was married to Miss Nellie E. Hills, September 13,
1882. She graduated from the same college and in the same
class with him. They have five children-Eva, Olive, Florence,
Lester and Marion Lewis.
 PUTMAN, Tilford Lynn, the leading physician of
Shenandoah, is one of Iowa's thoroughly competent and
up-to-date surgeons, and he possesses one of the finest
medical libraries and set of surgical instru-ments and
apparatus in the state.
He Is the son of Green Marion Putman, a farmer of
moderate circumstances, who was always popular in the
community where he lived, for his generous and sociable
disposition. He was one of fourteen children, and was the son
of Elija Putman and Elizabeth Duff. Elija Putman was a native
of Kentucky, but in an early day located in Fulton county,
111., and in 1845 removed to Davis county, Iowa. G. M. Putman
was born April 12, 1835, and died September 12, 1896, aged 61
years. Dr. Putman's mother was formerly Elizabeth Kelsey, an
unusually bright woman, of a quiet, religious nature. She was the daughter
of Joseph Kelsey and Rebecca Stevens, who removed from
Greencastle, Ind., to Princeton, Mercer county, Mo., where the
father died in 1867, aged 65 years, and the mother in 1870, at
the age of 66. Mrs. Putman died February 1, 1899, of heart
disease.
Dr. T. L. Putman was born on
February 8, 1859, at Princeton, Mercer county, Mo. He was reared on a
farm and obtained his early education at the district school,
which he was permitted to attend during the winter, and then
continued his studies the rest of the year alone, poring over
his books at night by the light of a tallow candle, and
reviewing them in his mind the following day while at work in
the field. The school he attended was one of the best of its
kind, and after completing it and attending the teachers'
institute he was able to secure a teacher's certificate, and
for two years taught a district school in Iowa, which was
followed by two years of similar work in Illinois, where he
received the highest sal-ary paid any country teacher in
Fulton county.
In 1883 he entered Rush Medical
department of Lake Forest university, graduating February 17,
1885, with great credit to himself, being one of six out of a
class of 163 to be placed upon the honor list. A month after
graduation, on March 19, 1885, he located in Iowa, at
Riverton, where for six years he conducted a drug store and
practiced medicine, removing to his present location in 1891.
Since leaving college he has three times graduated in surgery,
and in September, 1885, passed the state examinations and
became a registered pharmacist. Since entering the medical
profession Dr. Putman has always enjoyed a good practice, and
is now very well established. He has been especially
successful in the line of surgery, possessing a steady nerve,
having been well trained under the direction of the intrepid
Dr. Moses Gunn. He is now special surgeon for a number of
accident insurance companies, and is medical examiner for all
the leading life insurance companies of the United States at
Shenandoah. He is also physician and lecturer to the Western
Normal college at that place. Dr. Putman has always
been a staunch republican and a firm believer in the
principles of that party, but has never accepted office. He is
a member of the Iowa State Medical society, the Southwestern
Iowa Medical society and American Medical association. He has
been a member of the Methodist church since 1884, and is a
prominent worker in that organization, having charge at
present of a large class of young ladies in the Sunday
school.
The doctor was married March 25, 1886, to
Miss Jessie D. McKean, of Columbus, Neb., formerly of East
Palestine, Ohio.
They have one child, a boy, Jesse Lynn, who was born
December 16, 1886, who is a bright, happy lad and a favorite
in school and society. The doctor's wife is a lady of culture
and moves in the highest social circle. The doctor is
possessed of a happy social disposition, kind, gentle and
loved by all his patients, and has the esteem and favor of the
foremost men of his profession in the
state.
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