Progressive Men of Iowa
1899

EVANS, James McFarland, of Salem, is one of the best-known physicians of southeastern Iowa. His ancestors were mostly Scotch and Irish. His father, Abel M. Evans, was the son of Joseph Evans, of Welsh descent, and Sarah McFarland, daughter of Judge William McFarland, whose father, Daniel McFarland, came from Scotland to America about 1750, settling for a time in New England, and then permanently in Washington county, Pa., where he had much to do with the development of the country. During the revolutionary war he held a commission in the army. He died in 1817, aged 87, leaving a valuable estate, which is still in the possession of his descendant, Abel Evans, the doctor's father, who was born in 1819. He was married March 15, 1888, to Elizabeth Weir, who was born in 1821, and whose father, Adam Weir, was the son of William Weir, who came to this country from Scotland in 1750 and settled in Franklin county, Pa. The Weir family, which belonged to the parish of " Lesmahagow " in Scotland, was at one time very prominent in that country, it being recorded that, in 1695, two members of the family, James and John Weir, owned a castle and grounds, known as "Glenare, " which remained standing until 1857. Others of the family were clergymen, soldiers, and members of parliament. They were quite conspicuous during the war of the covenant in Scotland, which raged during the sixteenth century, bravely contending for liberty of worship. 

Dr. J. M. Evans was born September 19, 1841, in Washington county, Pa., and was the younger of two sons, his brother Samuel dying June 30, 1864, from the effects of wounds received in the battle of Cold Harbor, Va. Dr. Evans' mother died when he was but 2 weeks old, and he was brought up by other relatives. His early education was obtained in the common schools of Pennsylvania, which were well up to the average of that day. At 16 he entered Waynesburg college, in Greene county, Pa., but at the end of three years left school without completing the course, in order to enlist in the army. He joined the Eighth regiment of Pennsylvania Reserves, Volunteer infantry, as a private in Company K, May 1, 1861. In the second battle of Bull Run he received a severe wound in the left shoulder and was discharged from service on account of this disability February 13, 1863, at Baltimore, Md. He came to Iowa May 28, 1865, and began the study of medicine with Dr. L. E.  Goodell, a broad-minded man and one of the most successful physicians of the state.  After a year and a half spent in study under this man's direction, Dr. Evans attended lectures at the Western Medical college in Cleveland, Ohio. He began the practice of medicine at Pilot Grove, Lee county, Iowa, in 1868, removing October 15, 1872, to West Point, in the same county, and on March 2, 1880, he located at Salem, Henry county, his present home. Thus he has practiced for about thirty years over the same field, all these removals having been within a radius of twenty miles. Though he has amassed a comfortable fortune, and owns one of the best medical libraries in the state, the doctor still continues to practice, preferring a life of activity to one of retirement.  Dr. Evans is a member of Salem Lodge No. 17, A. F. & A. M, and is also a member of the G. A. R. In politics he is a republican, and in religion he adheres to the faith of his ancestors, and is a Presbyterian.

The doctor was married December 3, 1868, to Miss Helene Lusk. Their family now includes three daughters: Victorine, born in 1869, now Mrs. C. H. Cook, of Omaha; Winona, born in 1871, and Helen McFarland, born in 1873. His wife died at Salem, Iowa, May 2, 1897. Winona was married in 1897; is now Mrs. Harry Reeves, and lives at Keokuk.

MARSH, Charles Franklin, of Mt.  Pleasant, is among the best known physicians and army surgeons of southeastern Iowa. He is a son of the late Dr. William Stockman Marsh, who was born January 23, 1817, on Nantucket Island, Mass., and died at Mt. Pleasant, March 1, 1896. He had followed his profession all his life, and he prescribed for patients within a few days of his death. The eldest son of a poorly paid itinerant minister, he had to help support the family, and hence his early educational advantages were quite limited. But with a determined purpose he spent his evenings in study, thus mastering the rudiments of the art. He afterwards studied with his brother-in-law, Dr.  Freeman Knowles, later one of the professors of the medical department of the State university. He also attended lectures at the old McDowell college in St. Louis, and in 1854 graduated in medicine at Keokuk.  He was married February 9, 1841, to Abigail Simpson Knowles, daughter of Capt.  Amasa Knowles, at Hampden, Me. The Knowles family were early settlers at Plymouth, Mass., and trace their ancestors back to the days of Queen Elizabeth. Immediately after his marriage Dr. Marsh started west with his wife, stopping first at Macomb, 111., and in 1842 located at Lowell, Henry county, Iowa, removing in 1845 to West Point, Lee county, and in 1855 to Mt.  Pleasant, where he remained until his death, in 1896. Mrs. Marsh died in 1892.  Dr. William Marsh was commissioned surgeon of the Twenty-fifth Iowa infantry, September 16, 1862, but was forced by broken health to resign February 7, 1863.  While serving at Young's Point, La., he became so prostrated that he was obliged to crawl on his hands and knees while attending the sick and wounded. 

Dr. C. F. Marsh was born January 6, 1842, at Macomb, 111., and was the oldest of five children. He comes from a long line of New England ancestors. His great-grandfather, John Marsh, was a government agent to the Penobscot Indians, and his grandfather, William Marsh, was connected with the East Maine Methodist conference for over forty years. His grandmother, Susan Spooner Stockman, was born May 22, 1793. She was married to William Marsh, May 21, 1815, and died May 26, 1861. Her parents were Jacob and Susan (Spooner) Stockman. Her grandfather, Charles Spooner, was the son of Wing Spooner, who served as a captain of the militia during the revolution. This family descended from William Spooner, who came to the Plymouth settlement early in 1637 from Leyden, Holland, but originally from England. 

Dr. Marsh began his education in the private school of P. P. Root, at West Point, Iowa, and in 1860 graduated from the Iowa Wesleyan university with the degree of B. S. He immediately began the study of medicine in the State university, the medical department being then located at Keokuk. He was made assistant physician of Estes House hospital, at Keokuk, Iowa, just after the battle of Pittsburg Landing, in 1862, when but 20 years old, and was appointed hospital steward of the Twenty-fifth Iowa infantry in September, 1862. The following February he was promoted to the position of assistant surgeon of the regiment. He served as a surgeon during the entire remainder of the war, helping to establish a general hospital at Vicksburg, in conjunction with Surgeon Alexander Shaw, of the Fourth Iowa, under orders of General Grant; also at Rome, Ga., with Surgeon G. F. French, superintendent of hospitals for the army of the Tennessee, and again at Atlanta. He was appointed surgeon of the Twenty-fifth Iowa, November 15, 1864, and was the youngest officer with the rank of full surgeon in Sherman's army.  He was with the army at Young's Point, La., Vicksburg and Chattanooga; at the battles of Lookout Mountain, Mission Ridge and Ringgold, at Woodville and Huntsville, Ala., Rome, Ga., Atlanta and Savannah, and accompanied his regiment on the famous march to the sea, and went with the army to Washington.

The doctor has followed his profession with gratifying success since the close of the war, making Mt. Pleasant his home most of the time. He graduated in 1869 from the medical department of the Michigan university, at Ann Arbor. He is a member of the Iowa State Medical society, the Des Moines Valley Medical association, and that of Pensacola, Fla. He was a delegate to the National Medical association in 1893, and a member of the board of surgeons for examination of pensioners at Mt. Pleasant, in 1874-5-6, and at various times since, including President Harrison's administration. He was for years a member of the board of insane commissioners for Henry county, and physical examiner for various life insurance companies.

Dr. Marsh has always been a republican, casting his first vote for Abraham Lincoln, in 1864. He is a member of the G. A. R., and the K. A. E. O., and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. He was married May 12, 1870, to Mrs. Louise Mather Crawford, at Chicago. They have three children: Frank C., born March 16, 1871; Frederick William, September 10, 1873, and Laura Helen, December 4, 1875.

VAN ALLEN, George C., a prominent business man of Mt. Pleasant, Henry county, was born July 6, 1830, on the north shore of Pillar Point, Jefferson county, N. Y., and was the oldest child of Cornelius Van Allen and Lory Ann Ackerman, his wife.

The family consisted of eleven children, nine of whom are still living. Besides the subject of this sketch they are: Martin, a Chicago real estate man living in Ravenswood: Sarah H. White, of Carthage, N Y., widow of Gen. D. B. White; Lory Ann Hoover, of Chicago, 111., widow of George Hoover; Catherine Grinnell, of May Fair, Cook county, 111., widow of G. G. Grinnell; Mrs. C. M. Beckford, of Hampton, Va., widow of Selwyn E. Beckford; Cornelius A., real estate, of Effingham, 111 ; William, surveyor, of Ukiah, Cal., and Florence O. Baulch, wife of J. J. Baulch, of St. Louis, Mo. In 1831 the family moved to a farm of their own near by, over looking Black River bay. Across the bay could easily be seen Madison barracks, where General Grant was once quartered, and the village of Sackett's Harbor, famous in one of the early battles of the war of 1812, in May, 1813.

Upon this farm the boy grew to manhood, attending the country schools, working at the forge and in the ship yards, and at times engaged in hauling heavy timbers out of the forest into the shipyards. Living so many years near the water he grew to love it, for it afforded him pleasure as a boy and helped to earn his living as a man, in the early days before railways took the place of boats. In this vicinity Mr. Van Allen taught in the public schools, and later attended Falley seminary in Fulton, N. Y. From there he went to the Old Wesleyan university in Middletown, Conn., where he was a member of a secret society organized by a few congenial fellows, including William and Andrew Roe. O. W. Powers, Mr. Bailey, and David J. Brewer. The latter, then one of the most modest of young men, is now a judge of the supreme court of the United States. Mr.  Van Allen remained there a little less than two years, when he was obliged to return home, carrying with him gentle memories of the kindness of student friends, especially Brooks. Fellows, and Bishop. He had good standing in his classes in school, but the teachers did not deeply influence him, for he was a close student and reached his own conclusions, taking but little on the authority of teachers alone.

After some weeks recuperation at home at Pillar Point, he took what little money he had and started west by way of the great lakes. The trip was a delightful one, and gave him broader ideas of the size of the world than he had ever obtained from books. Detroit and Milwaukee were beautiful cities at that time, but Chicago was a dirty little village, although full of hustling men, broken sidewalks, and muddy streets, with a disordered levee and railway yards. Mr. Van Allen went to Dubuque, expecting to secure employment at surveying, but finding nothing in this line, an old friend, George Rogers, secured him a place in the business office of the Dubuque Herald as bookkeeper. The Herald was then published by J. B. Dorr, afterward colonel of the Eighth Iowa cavalry. In the spring the young surveyor secured a place with Webb and Higby, surveyors, and afterward with Charles Smith, local engineer of the Dubuque & Pacific railway. In July his brother Martin secured for him a still better position in the land department of the Illinois Central railroad. At first he traveled for the company in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. January 1, 1857, he was promoted and sent to Effingham, 200 miles south of Chicago, on the Illinois Central, to sell the company's lands. His sales by the first of October amounted to 13,000 acres. One could hardly see a dozen houses in an hour's ride on the cars, except a few at the scattered stations.

During this season of prosperity Mr. Van Allen was married, August 6, 1857, in Scriba, N. Y. to Miss Jennie M. Wright, who had been a classmate in Fulton. She was a cultured lady of domestic tastes, and Mr. Van Allen always regarded the event of their marriage as the beginning of a very happy part of his life.  In October, 1857, the great financial crash came, destroying or badly crippling all the business of the country. Land sales stopped, payments failed, enterprising people who had started out to make new homes fell back to their old domiciles to begin life anew or die of disappointment. Mr. Van Allen lost about $6,000 in this panic and had to begin over again, falling back on his knowledge of surveying to support his family. In his spare moments he read law, and in the fall of 1859 went to Watertown, N. Y., and spent two years in the office of Judge F. W. Hubbard, then lately from the bench of the New York court of appeals. During the following two years he studied part of the time in the Albany Law school, and at the April, 1861, term of the supreme court he was admitted to the degree of counsellor at law in the state of New York. He soon after returned to Chicago and then to Kenosha, but the war was on and there was no business for him, so he spent a few months in the office of Judge Pettitt. He was elected to the superintendence of the high school in Plover, Wis., that fall, remaining till July, 1862, when he went to Burlington, and engaged in the survey of the Burlington & Missouri River railroad from Ottumwa to Chariton. At the close of the season he located in Mt. Pleasant, where he engaged in compiling records for the examination of titles. Here he has ever since remained, closely confined to one of the most laborious, and by no means least important, branches of the law. He suffered another backset in 1883, when his office was destroyed by fire, at a loss of $2,000. But he soon recovered from the shock and began to re-write his books.

His wife died January 27, 1891, and he was again married, October 26, 1893, to Miss Anna L. Watters. One son, Alfred M. Van Allen, was born October 3, 1869.  He was educated in the Iowa Wesleyan university, graduated from the state university law school in June, 1894, and is now engaged in the successful practice of his profession in Mt. Pleasant.

Mr. Van Allen had always been a republican, and a quiet but efficient worker for others when offices were to be filled, but never seeking any office for himself. He was brought up a Methodist, but on removing to Mt. Pleasant united with the Presbyterian church, to which his wife belonged.  He is a man who thinks for himself, decides for himself, and acts for himself, and is one of the most public spirited and highly respected men in his community.