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Progressive Men of
Iowa
1899
Progressive Men Index
ADKINS, John
Vertner, the subject of this sketch, like most of those in middle life in
our western country, did not come from wealthy parents. On the contrary he
was born in a log cabin, near Plymouth, in Schuyler county, III. Again,
like most of them, he has made for himself a place in the business world
that has grown up around him, and all of us, where he can command the best
that is going in the way of living and education for his children. He is well situated in business circles,
and commands the respect and confidence of his acquaintances.
He was born
November 15, 1851, as stated above, and now lives at Paullina, Iowa. His
father was a native of Connecticut, and consequently a Yankee, as we rate
Yankees, but was also a sturdy Scotchman, being descended from ancestors,
who came from Scotland in an early day. He was born December 5, 1824, at
Litchfield, Conn., and died June 5, 1897, at Newton, Iowa. His mother's
maiden name was Lydia Ann Vertner and she was of German descent.
Mr. Adkins was educated in the
district schools of Illinois and this, with a wide field of reading,
constituted the bulk of his educational qualifications, so he cannot boast
of a college education. He settled in Iowa in March, 1865, at Prairie
City, and worked in a general store for twelve years. He went to Paullina, O'Brien
county, in October, 1883, going into business with his brother in the
general merchandise business; sold out in 1886, in the month of July; went
into the Bank of Paullina as book-keeper August 1, 1886, which position he
held until July, 1892, when he took the edition of cashier, which he now
holds, he has always voted the republican ticket but never held any
office, or sought one.
He is a
member of the Masonic fraternity, being admitted to membership at Prairie
City in 1873, Blue Lodge; is also a member of the Hawarden chapter,
Crusade Commandery of Cherokee, and El Kahir Shrine of Cedar Rapids. He
has never belonged to any church organization, but favors the work being
done by all churches. He was
married to Miss A. B. White, daughter of Rev. J. C. White. They have two
children, Harry C., aged 18, attending school at Drake university, and
Leigh W., aged 11.
 ALLEN, Milton
Henry, of Sheldon, is one of the best-known and most widely employed
lawyers of O'Brien county, as well as of northern Iowa generally. He has
been brought up in a law office, as it were, for his father, Charles T.
Allen, is also a prominent lawyer. He is one of the very early settlers of
northeastern Iowa, having come to Winneshiek county from Henry county,
111., in 1856. He served during the war as captain of Company K,
Thirty-fourth Iowa Infantry volunteers. Mr. Allen's mother was formerly
Carrie Smith, a native of New York state.
Milt. H.
Allen, as he is commonly called, was born February 11, 1859, at
Decorah. His earliest
instruction was received in the public schools of that town, and was
continued at Spencer, in Clay county, whither he moved with his parents in
1871. Five years later the family moved to O'Brien county, settling at
Sheldon, where Mr. Allen began reading law in 1877 in the office of
Barrett & Allen, the members of the firm being O. M. Barrett,
afterwards state senator, and C. T. Allen, the father of Milton. He was chiefly occupied by his
studies for the next few years, though at one time he stopped to accept a
position as brakeman on the old Sioux City & St. Paul railway. He was
admitted to the bar in the district court of O'Brien county, May 9, 1881,
and immediately began practicing in his hometown. He removed to Sanborn in
1884, and, after enjoying a good business there for nine years, returned
to Sheldon, November, 1, 1893, where he still resides.
One of the
most important cases he has tried was in February, 1891, on a question of
habeas corpus, in which he succeeded in releasing John Telford from the
penitentiary at Sioux Falls, S. D., where he had served two of a
fifteen-years' sentence for robbery. The point raised was the uncertainty
of the statute under which the sentence was pronounced. Since that time
Mr. Allen has been employed in nearly all the important cases in O'Brien
and adjoining counties, making a specialty of railroad, corporation and
criminal law. He has been the
local attorney for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad company
since 1889 and of the Chicago, St.
Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha since 1895. In politics Mr. Allen was a
democrat all his life until 1896, when he bolted the Chicago free silver
platform and joined the republican forces, making campaign speeches all
over northwestern Iowa for McKinley and sound money. He is a member of the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, belonging to the Sioux Falls
Lodge No. 262. He is not a member of any church.
 HALL, Elmer
Elsworth, is a native of the state of Iowa, having been born at Nashua,
Chickasaw county, February 6, 1865. His father, Jacob D. Hall, was a
native of the state of New York and one of the early settlers of this
state, having moved to Nashua in 1856 and built the first frame house in
the town. He was a carpenter and worked at his trade for a number of
years, and with the savings of his labor purchased and improved a small
farm, on which he lived until 1878, when he moved to Dickinson county and
purchased a half section farm near Milford, which he still owns. He
retired a few years since and now lives in Milford. He married Anna M.
Brooks.
Young Hall
attended the country schools quite regularly until he was 10 years old,
but after that time could attend only the winter terms, having to work on
the farm during the remainder of the year. When about 21 he attended the
village school one winter, and worked for his board, after which he
commenced teaching country schools, but being ambitious, he was not
satisfied with the salary, so quit teaching and sought his fortune at
railroading in North Dakota, when the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba
railroad was being built west.
He returned
to this state in the fall of 1887, when he was offered, and accepted, a
position as bookkeeper in the Commercial Savings bank of Milford at a
small salary, but by close attention to business his salary was increased
and he was advanced and elected assistant cashier in 1889. He held this
position until May, 1891, when he was tendered the position of cashier of
the Security State bank of Hartley, which he accepted. During the "panic"
year of 1893 he reorganized the bank into the First National bank of
Hartley, of which he is now the cashier and manager. It has a large and
growing business. He is also vice-president and director of the Milford
Savings bank and owns a number of farms in the vicinity of Hartley.
Mr. Hall was
married to Miss Ella Inman, of Milford, October 12, 1892. They have one
child, Carl Inman Hall. He has four brothers, two of whom are bank
cashiers. Mr. Hall is a republican, first, last and all the time, and a
leader in his party, but has held no important public office. He is a
member of the Masonic Lodge at Hartley, of the Royal Arch at Sanborn and
the Knights Templars at Cherokee.
 HALL, Percy Wavil, mayor of the city of Sheldon, and one of the
prominent young business men of that city, is a young man of unusual
energy and business ability, and has the brightest of prospects for a
successful future. At present he is one of the youngest mayors in Iowa.
His father, Rev. Roscoe G. Hall, was a Baptist minister and was ranked
among the most influential and powerful of the clergy in Illinois, where
he spent most of his active life. He died in 1877, aged 42 years. Mr. Hall's mother, formerly Elizabeth
Pratt, is the daughter of Doctor Pratt, a prominent physician of Lockport,
N. Y. She is still living, at the age of 63 years. Mr. Hall's ancestors,
on his father's side, came from England in a very early day and settled in
Massachusetts. His grandfather was a farmer; his great-grandfather served
in the Maine legislature, and fought in the war of 1812, while his great
great-grandfather was in the revolution.
P. W. Hall
was born March 24, 1868, at Greenville, 111. He graduated from the Ottawa
high school in 1887, and, during the same year, came to Iowa and located
at Sheldon, his present home. He was first employed as shipping clerk and
book-keeper in a flour mill, where he remained two years, and then secured
a position as clerk in the Union bank of Sheldon. Here he gave excellent
satisfaction and was promoted to the position of assistant cashier March
1, 1898, he organized the Security Savings bank of Sheldon and has since
been its cashier.
In politics
Mr. Hall is a strong republican. He was chosen city clerk of Sheldon in
1894, and, after serving two years, was elected mayor of the city, which
position he is still holding. He adheres in religion to the faith of his
parents, and is a member of the Baptist church. He is a member of the
Masonic fraternity, and is a very active and enthusiastic worker in that
order.
Mr. Hall was
married March 24, 1893, to Miss Lucie Wilcox, of Huron, S. D., who is the
daughter of a physician. They have had one child, who, however, died in
infancy.
 McKEEVER, A. J., of Sheldon, O'Brien county, is a product of
Ireland, the little green isle that has furnished so large a quota of the
men who have been foremost in preserving and developing this great land of
the free. His parents, Michael and Rose (O'Kane) McKeever, were farmers,
and despite the despicable system of landlordism prevailing in Ireland,
were in moderate financial circumstances when they came to the United
States in 1860.
The youth of
Mr. A. J. McKeever was spent on a farm in Dubuque county, where his
parents resided until 1884, when he removed to O'Brien county. In 1888 he
engaged in the grocery business at Sheldon, in partnership with Mr.
Theodore Geiger, and after one year's prosperous business Mr. McKeever
bought out the interest of his partner and continued the business alone.
In his youth he learned well the lessons of prudence, frugality and
industry, so valuable to men everywhere in business, and these qualities
enabled him to increase his stock and extend his business until now he
owns and occupies the handsomest business block in that city. He is the
embodiment of a first-class businessman; strictly honorable in his
dealings, courteous to all, and genial and companionable to a high degree.
He makes a friend of everyone with whom he comes in contact.
Coming direct to Iowa from Ireland in 1860, he
begun with pioneer life, and has lived to see the wild prairie upon which
he first came for a home transformed into a grand agricultural paradise,
all settled up with good citizens and industrious farmers, and has
accumulated for himself a goodly portion of this world's wealth to make
himself comfortable in old age. Religiously, like the greater share of his
nationality, he is a Catholic, and is faithful in his labors for, and self
sacrificing in his devotion to, his church. In politics he is a democrat,
but one of that kind who has the greatest consideration for the views of
those opposed to him.
 PIPER, Frank Talcot, of Sheldon, is among the successful men
whose lives have been spent in Iowa journalism. He was born in Maquoketa,
Jackson county, Iowa, July 19, 1856, but removed to Green Springs, Ohio,
with his parents when but a child. There, when a little boy, he watched
the soldiers march away to fight for the union, lamenting the fact the
while that he was not old enough to go with them.
In 1868
the family returned to Iowa, locating on a homestead near Newell, Buena
Vista county. In 1870 he began an apprenticeship in the office of the
Newell Times, under John T. Long. Later he was employed on the Sentinel at
Le Mars; then on the Times and Leader at Cherokee, and in 1873 located
at Sheldon, where he has been engaged ever since in the publication of
the Mail. The early education of Mr. Piper, like that of many
another successful professional man, was limited in its advantages, and had to
be secured largely by home study. He attended the common schools a few
terms only, but studied with determination, and when, subsequently, he
entered McClain's academy at Iowa City, found no trouble in keeping abreast of
his class. He remained there but two terms, however, being compelled at
the end of that time to go to work to meet the necessities of his purse,
and all future schooling was in the broad and engrossing field of
journalism. Beginning as an employee in the Mail office, on the munificent salary
of $2 per week and board-the board consisted of such toothsome dishes as
were prepared by his employer, who kept bachelor's hall and did his own
cooking, at his homestead a mile or so from the town-he plodded on
perseveringly, and ultimately became the editor and proprietor of the
paper, which, under his management, has prospered in every way. He has
never taken a partner, preferring to bear all the burdens of the business
for the pleasure of enjoying the undivided profits
thereof.
In politics
Mr. Piper is a republican, and was postmaster of Sheldon for four years,
under Harrison's administration.
He was an alternate from the Eleventh congressional district in the
Chicago convention which nominated James G. Blaine for the presidency. He
is a Mason, an Odd Fellow and a Knight of Pythias, but belongs to no
religious sect.
July 2,
1876, he was married to Miss Eva Bronson, of Sheldon. They have had two
children: Arvilla Elizabeth and Roscoe Bronson Piper. The first was taken
away by death at the age of 10; the second, who is now about 17 years of
age, has taken a preparatory course of two years at Battle Creek, Mich.,
but is at present in the high school at Sheldon.
In 1895 Mr.
Piper was a candidate for the nomination for state senator in the
Forty-ninth district, comprising Sioux, O'Brien, Lyon and Osceola
counties, but as each county had a candidate the result was a deadlock,
which lasted two days. On the
1,635th ballot Mr. Piper withdrew his name and threw his support to Henry
Hospers, of Sioux county, resulting in the nomination of that
gentleman.
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