CHRISTIAN,
George Melville, United States marshal for the Southern
District in Iowa, for many years a resident of Grinnell,
is one of the best known republican leaders in the
state. He has had an influential part in shaping the
affairs of the republican party of the state for many
years.
Mr. Christian is a native of
Illinois, born in Chicago June 19, 1847, in the house
that stood where the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific
station now stands, at Van Buren and La Salle streets.
His parents were David William Christian, who was born
in Albany, N. Y., in 1813, and served four years in the
Fifty-first Illinois Infantry during the war, and Lucy
Anna Patrick, who was a native of Ware, Mass. His father
was a cabinet maker and carpenter and his ancestors were
Manxmen. His mother's ancestors were
English.
Young Christian attended
public school in Chicago and later Bryant &
Stratton's Commercial college in Davenport, Iowa, in
1866. Having his own way to make in the world be did not
attend school after he was 12 years old, except in the
Commercial college, and had no other college education.
He first came to Iowa in 1865 as a telegraph operator,
but did not remain permanently. He finally settled in
Grinnell in the spring of 1870, where he continued to
reside.
Mr. Christian has had an
active business life. He began to earn money when he was
a young boy by folding papers for the Press and Tribune
in Chicago, owned by the famous "Long John" Wentworth.
His first steady job was acting as messenger boy for
Stephen A. Douglas while that famous democrat was
president of the United States fair in Chicago in 1860.
In 1861 he became a news agent on the Rock Island road
from Chicago to Kellogg, then the western terminus of
the line. In 1866 he went to work for H. F. Royce,
afterward general superintendent of the Rock Island,
then engaged in general merchandise and lumber business
in Pond Creek, 111., and station agent of the Rock
Island at that point. He taught Mr. Christian the art of
telegraphy, so that he soon became an expert operator
and was employed at Triskelia and Morris, 111., and
later in Superintendent Kimball's office at
Davenport.
In 1868 he owned and managed a restaurant at 174
South Clark street, Chicago. Mr. Christian's
ability as a telegraph operator and his knowledge of the
railroad business secured him a position as station
agent on the Rock Island at Grinnell, in 1870, and after
being there a few months he entered into partnership
with Hiram Johnson and purchased the Grinnell House,
which he conducted until 1877. In the spring of that
year he purchased the leading hotel in Grinnell, known
as the Chapin House, which he conducted until 1890 and
still owns. For three years, from 1885 till 1888, he
leased and operated the Hotel Colfax, the large summer
resort hotel at the big spring a mile east of the town
of Colfax.
In 1889, Mr. Christian was appointed assist-ant
superintendent of the railway mail service by Gen. J. S.
Clarkson, who was then first assistant
postmaster-general. He held this
position for fifteen months and on July 1, 1890, was
appointed post-office inspector by the
postmaster-general, John Wanamaker. His record for
efficiency in this position was such that he was
re-appointed year after year notwithstanding changes in
administration, and held the place until he resigned,
March 1, 1898, and accepted his present appointment at
the hands of President McKinley upon the recommendation
of the Iowa delegation in congress. During his term as
post office inspector, Mr. Christian was connected with
some of the most famous cases in the department and was
regarded as one of the most valuable inspectors in the
service. He
has always been a republican and has never voted any
other ticket. He was five times alderman, and twice
mayor in Grinnell. For a number of years he was chairman
of the republican county committee and a member of the
republican state committee from the Sixth district
serving as chairman of the finance committee. In 1888 he
was a delegate to the republican national convention in
Chicago and was chairman of the finance committee of the
Iowa delegation. He had charge of the organization of
the Allison campaign for the presidential nomination in
that convention. He has been a delegate to nearly every
republican state convention for twelve
years.
Mr. Christian was only 14
years of age when the war broke out He tried several
times to enlist, but was refused on account of his age.
He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, is a Knight
Templar and is a charter member of the Franklyn club at
Grinnell. He is a member of the Congregational
church.
Mr. Christian was married in 1869
to Miss Margaret M. Rowse, of Davenport Iowa. They have four
children living, viz: Geo. H., born April
9, 1873; Jessie Isabel, born October 27, 1876; Alma,
born July 1, 1878, and Margaret, born February 11,
1880.
COLE, Rossetter Gleason,director of the
musical department at Iowa college, Grinnell, and
vice-president of the National Association of Music
Teachers, is among the best teachers and composers of
music in the west, and has spared no effort or expense
to perfect himself in the art. His father, Henry Walcott
Cole, also a musician, was born July 7, 1820, in
Sherburne, Chenango county, N. Y. He was a son of Amos
Cole (1759-1852), a farmer; a grandson of Thomas Cole
(1735-1827); great grandson of John Cole, Jr., born in
1705, who married a sister of Benjamin Franklin; and
great-great-grandson of John Cole, Sr., who was born in
England in 1670. The family is noted for its
longevity.
Thomas died at the age of 92, and his wife a few
weeks later, aged 90, they having been married over
seventy years. Amos lived one year longer than his
father, dying at the extreme age of 93. In 1850 Henry W.
Cole came to Ohio, settling at Iberia, Morrow county,
where he owned a large warehouse, and for several years
taught theoretical and instrumental music in Iberia
college. He located on a farm in Oakland county, Mich.,
in 1863, where he died April 6, 1872. He was a man of
high culture, and contributed extensively to the county
and state press, and was a vigorous opponent of slavery.
In 1850 he married Mary Charlotte Osgood Gleason, who
was born September 26, 1826, in Georgetown, Madison
county, N. Y. She was a daughter of Rossetter Gleason, a
teacher and one of the early prominent educators of
Madison county. He was an able mathematician, and served
for many years as county surveyor. Her mother, Mary
Whitney Locke, was a direct descendant of John Locke,
the English philosopher, and two sisters of her mother's
father married Gen. Israel Putnam and Eli Whitney,
inventor of the cotton gin.
Prof. Rossetter G. Cole was
born February 5, 1866, at Clyde, Oakland county, Mich.,
and was the youngest of six children. He was only 6
years old when his father died, and two years later his
mother moved from the farm to Ann Arbor, determined to
give her children the best educational advantages, in
spite of limited means. By courage, thrift and energy,
she succeeded in putting all her children through the
high school and her four sons through the university.
Rossetter did not attend school until he was 9 years
old, receiving his earliest instruction from his mother,
whose skillful supervision laid the foundation for his
good habits of study. He graduated
from the Latin course of the Ann Arbor high school in
1884, and in the following fall entered the University
of Michigan, graduating in 1888 with the degree of
bachelor of philosophy. While in college, he was an
enthusiastic member of the Phi Kappa Psi
fraternity.
From his earliest years
Professor Cole had a great love for music. He grew up in
an atmosphere of it, for his brothers and sisters all
played and sang well. He learned these things himself
very young, and at the age of 6 composed several
instrumental pieces. A fragment of one, "A Storm at
Sea," still exists. Nothing was done, however, to
develop this creative instinct until during his high
school course, when he took lessons in harmony under
Francis L. York, and in 1884 began the study of the pipe
organ with the same gentleman. While attending the
university he helped organize, and was for four years
director of, the university glee club, which gained a
splendid reputation throughout the west and
northwest.
While taking all the required work for the degree
of bachelor of philosophy, he laid a broad foundation
for his studies in the different branches of theoretical
music and composition by electing all the courses
offered under Prof. Calvin B. Cady, then professor of
music in the university. For his
graduating thesis he composed a logical cantata, "The
Passing of Summer," which was given the honor of a
public performance on the evening before commencement,
with full orchestra, solos and a large chorus, the first
instance of the kind in the university's history.
The year after graduating
Professor Cole taught branches of English in the Ann
Arbor high school, and in 1889 accepted a position as
instructor in Latin and German in the Aurora, Illinois,
high school. In 1890 he went to Berlin, where for two
years he studied music under such masters as Heinrich
van Eycken, Gustav Kogel and Wilhelm Middelschulte, now
of Chicago. At the suggestion of van Eycken he took the
examination for admission to the Royal Master School of
Composition, the highest school of its kind in Germany,
and a part of the Royal Academy of Arts. Though the
number of students at any one time is limited to
twenty-four, he gained entrance over many competitors,
being the sixth American ever admitted. The scholarship
thus won entitled him to three years of free instruction
under the greatest masters, but at the end of his second
year in Berlin under Max Bruch, he had to return home on
account of short funds. He obtained the
position of musical director at Ripon college, in
Wisconsin, where he remained two years, in 1894
accepting his present position. He has done much to
build up the department of music at Iowa college and it
now includes six teachers and about 130 students. In
addition, he has organized and conducted a college glee
club of eighteen voices and an orchestra of thirty
pieces. These organizations have won much applause in
their annual tours. In 1894
Professor Cole became a member of the New York
Manuscript society, an organization of composers, aiming
toward the advancement of American music, in whose
public concerts his compositions are frequently heard.
For two years he has been honorary corresponding
secretary from Iowa. At the St Louis meeting of the
music teachers' national association, in July, 1895, he
read a paper on " The Relation of Music to Education, "
and at the New York meeting in June, 1897, a paper of
his was read on "The Best College Treatment of Harmony."
He was chosen vice-president of the association for Iowa
in February, 1897. He has contributed to various
periodicals, and his many musical compositions have been
accepted by leading publishers In 1893 he was
commissioned by Mr. William L. Tomlins to write five
children's songs for the Worlds' fair children's chorus
of 1,200 voices. In December, 1897, he was elected to
active membership in the Manuscript society of
Chicago.
The professor was married August 6,
1896, at Ann Arbor, to Miss Fannie Louise Gwinner, who
had been associated with him in musical work in Ripon
college and later in Iowa college. She is a gifted
musician, and has gained much praise as the translator
of Marx's "Introduction to the Interpretation of
Beethoven."
CRAVATH,
Samuel Austin, of Grinnell, is a native of Pennsylvania,
born at Conneaut, Crawford county, September 27, 1836.
His father, James Cravath, was a native of New York,
who, after his marriage, settled on a farm in western
Pennsylvania, where he died at an early age, leaving
three sons. The mother, Emily Davis Cravath, also of New
York, was a woman of fine musical attainments, and a
singer of considerable local prominence. The name
Cravath is of uncertain origin. The Cravaths of this
country trace their origin to an ancestor who settled in
Boston, Mass., in 1679, and who probably came from near
Bristol, Eng. The name has been found in south central
Europe as well as in England. Grandmother Bingham
Cravath was a daughter of Colonel Bingham, from whom
Binghamton, N. Y., was named. He was an officer of the
revolutionary war, who lived to be 104 years of age. The
immediate ancestors of the family were New England
people from northern Connecticut. They moved to western
New York, and were all prosperous farmers of good
education.
The boyhood days of S. A.
Cravath were spent on a farm near Oberlin, Ohio, and in
a thrifty Yankee community in Gainesville, Wyoming
county, N. Y. In 1852 he entered the preparatory
department of Oberlin college and continued his studies
in connection with that institution until August, 1858,
when he graduated, taking the degree of bachelor of
arts. On account of his standing as a classical student,
he was selected to teach Latin and Greek, in the
institution in connection with the pursuit of his other
studies. He also spent the three months of winter
vacation teaching, either in common schools or schools
of higher grade, in order to secure the means to
complete his college course. Honors and prizes were not
allowed in Oberlin college in those years. Immediately
after graduating, he assumed the principalship of
Madison seminary, at Madison, Ohio, in which position he
remained three years, serving also as one of the county
examiners of teachers. During the years 1862 and 1863,
he superintended the public schools of Marion, Ohio,
studying medicine meanwhile. In the winter of 1863-4, he
took a course of lectures in Starling Medical college,
at Columbus, Ohio. In the spring of 1864 he completed a
course of lectures at the Cincinnati College of Medicine
and Surgery, and received the degree of M. D. He began
the practice of medicine in the city of Springfield,
Ohio, but moved to Mitchell, Mitchell county, Iowa, in
October, 1865, and continued in the practice there until
1872.
He established the Mitchell
County News, now called the Osage News, in 1869, and
edited it for two years, in connection with his
practice.
Soon after he took charge of the paper, a county
convention put in nomination a candidate for county
superintendent of schools, who had little qualification
for the place. The News nominated, and by its support
secured the election of, the first woman to hold the
office of county superintendent of schools in Iowa, Miss
Julia C.
Addington. Finding his double work too great a
burden, Dr. Cravath sold the News in 1871; but a few
months of freedom convinced him that he could not easily
lay aside newspaper work, and he decided to return to it
in a larger field. January 11, 1872, he bought a half
interest in the Grinnell Herald, of J. M. Chamberlain,
and soon after secured the whole plant. With the
exception of a brief partnership with Col. S. F. Cooper,
he continued as sole proprietor until 1879, when he sold
a half interest to Albert Shaw, now editor of the
American monthly Review of Reviews. After a partnership
of three years, Mr. Shaw received an appointment on the
editorial staff of the Minneapolis Tribune, and Dr. Cravath bought
back his interest and was sole editor and proprietor
until 1890, when he sold a half interest to Hon. W. G.
Ray. This
partnership continued until August, 1894, when on
account of his health, he decided to retire from the
business and sold all his interest in the plant to
Ronald McDonald, who was for ten years night editor of
the New York Times.
During the twenty-three years
of Dr. Cravath's connection with the Herald, it grew
from a very meagerly furnished country printing office,
occupying a single room, to a well equipped
establishment with five printing presses and the
complete machinery of a publishing house, including a
bindery, and occupying both stories of a brick building
of its own, built with elevator power and other modern
conveniences. In 1878, the Herald was changed from a
weekly to a semi-weekly paper, and has been issued in
that form until the present time. It has always been
republican in politics and conservative but positive in
its utterances.
The whole establishment went up in flames in a
fire which consumed the core of Grinnell, June 12, 1889.
Within sixty days, it was rebuilt in a better and more
substantial manner. During his residence in Grinnell,
Dr. Cravath has held several positions of responsibility
and trust. He was secretary of the school board for
fifteen years, served several years as a director and
president of the Grinnell Building, Loan and Savings
association; has been one of the directors of the First
National bank of Grinnell for more than a decade; also
director and second vice-president of the Merchants
National bank of Grinnell, president of the Grinnell
Savings bank, and one of the trustees of Iowa
college.
During the presidency of
Benjamin Harrison, he was appointed postmaster of
Grinnell, and held the office four years. With these
exceptions, and one term as school director, he has kept
aloof from public office and
candidacy.
S. A. Cravath became a member of
the Congregational church when a young man, under the
ministry of Charles G. Finney, who was
president of the college and pastor of the only church
in Oberlin at that time. He was married in Philadelphia,
July 11, 1860, to Mary Raley, of Hanoverton, Columbiana
county, Ohio, Dr. Albert Barnes officiating. Mary Raley
was a Quaker, of Pennsylvania ancestry, who was
graduated at Oberlin in 1858, with the degree of A. B.
She was later a teacher of some years experience. Since
her residence in Grinnell she has been, from 1880 to
1895, a deaconess in the Congregational church. The
children were Emily, Rose Mary, and James Raley, of whom
only the son survives. He graduated from Iowa college in
1892, and occupied the position of electrical editor of
the Street Railway Review of Chicago for four years. Dr.
and Mrs. Cravath also reared a niece of Mrs. Cravath,
(Ella B.) who was left motherless in
infancy.
FRANCIS, Bruce, superintendent of the
Montezuma public schools, is of German descent
Washington Francis, his father, came to Iowa when a boy,
in the early 50's, from Darke county, Ohio. He spent
several years in the Colorado mining regions, and also
engaged in teaming on the plains. Returning to Iowa
during the rebellion, he married Catherine Newman, and
began the improvement of the farm in Madison county,
where he still lives. Catherine Newman
Francis removed with her parents from Indiana to Guthrie
county, Iowa, when very young. Later, when the family
moved to Nevada, she remained with an uncle, and in 1863
was married to Washington
Francis.
Bruce Francis was born in
Madison county, near Dexter, February 20, 1865. He attended the
district school regularly until 12 years old, and
afterwards worked on the farm during the busy season,
and went to school in the winter until he was 19. At
that time his teachers were usually mature men or women
who were paid extra wages by subscription, and the
schools were crowded during the winter with young men
and women past school age. One morning while on his way
to school he was met by a neighbor who jokingly asked
him to go to Winterset. He accepted the invitation
without any hesitation, and, upon arriving there, and
finding a teachers' examination going on, he decided to
remain and take part; when he returned his eighteen
miles on foot he was the proud possessor of a teacher's
certificate.
He was not successful that season in securing a
school, but the next summer a neighbor, being
disappointed in securing a teacher, tendered him the
place, which he retained for five terms. After spending
sometime at the Dexter Normal school he decided to
attend the State Normal school, and entering, in 1888,
he was permitted to graduate with the third year class
in 1890, having taught in the meantime one term in the
village of Hudson. After completing the course, he
taught one year at Sheffield, and the next year was
elected principal of the Dexter schools. At the end of
three years' work at Dexter he was granted a teacher's
life diploma by the state board of examiners. Desiring
to make further preparation, the following year he
entered the State university, and was graduated after
one year's study there in June, 1896.
Mr. Francis married Miss Ella
Flater, a graduate of the State Normal school, in 1892.
They have three children: Dorothy, Helen and Harold. Mr.
Francis made his own way through school, and his
experiences have given him the greatest faith in the
possibilities of young men of
determination.
LEWIS, Judge W. R., of Montezuma, is a man of
very genial and affable manners, and one of the leading
lawyers of the state. He is of Welsh and German descent,
and was born in Muskingum county. Ohio, October 12,
1835. In 1849 he removed with his parents to Coshocton
county, Ohio. In 1856 he went to central Illinois,
remaining in Peoria, Marshall and Stark counties for
about one year, teaching in the winter and working at
the carpenter trade during the summer. In April, 1857,
he removed to Poweshiek county, Iowa, which has since
been, and is now, his home. Utilizing the evenings and
time not employed otherwise, he had substantially fitted
himself for admission to the bar before coming to
Montezuma, but chose not to be admitted until he thought
it possible to make the practice of law his only
business.
He worked at his trade and
taught school until 1861, when he was elected
superintendent of county schools. He resigned in 1862 to
take the position of clerk of
courts.
In 1865 he was married to
Miss Mary E.
Cutts, a sister of the brilliant lawyer and
congressman, M. E. Cutts, of Oskaloosa. Their married
life was a singularly happy and devoted one until her
death, which occurred in 1893. They had no children. He
was admitted to the bar in December, 1866. In 1867-8 he was
a member of the board of supervisors, and was elected
judge of the circuit court in 1880. He held this office
six years and until the court was abolished. In the
scramble which followed Judge Lewis was not
re-nominated, but his work on the bench had been so
satisfactory, and he was such a general favorite with
all with whom he had come in contact, that in response
to the almost unanimous wish of his constituents, he
permitted his name to be used as an independent
candidate, and was elected by a sweeping majority. There
was a prevailing belief that his defeat in the
convention was due to unfair means, and this contributed
to his success. He retired from the bench in 1890 and
resumed the practice of law in
Montezuma.
He is a man of great legal
ability, and while on the bench was a warm friend of the
young practitioner. He never permitted a young lawyer to
sacrifice his client's interests if a word or suggestion
from the court could help him. His decisions were rarely
reversed. No district or circuit judge has a better
record in the supreme court than Judge Lewis. So
unerring were his views, especially in equity cases,
that the attorneys in his court learned it was next to
useless to appeal, as he was nearly always sustained. He
was slow in deciding, but his work never had to be done
a second time. As special counsel for the county in the
famous cases against the Rowes and against the bondsmen
of the defaulting treasurer, he earned new
laurels.
In the fall of 1897 Judge Lewis was
nominated by acclamation for the state senate by the
Twelfth senatorial district, composed of Poweshiek and
Keokuk counties, and was elected.
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WILCOX, Vinton S.,
practicing physician of Malcom, was born in Homer, Ohio,
October 11, 1848. His parents were natives of
Pennsylvania, being brought up at Wilkesbarre. Dr.
Wilcox came to Iowa in 1855 and attended the common
schools of the state. He afterwards taught for a number
of terms, and in 1868 he entered the collegiate
department of the Iowa State university. In 1871 he
began the study of medicine in the office of Drs. Shrader &
Price. During the time that he remained with them, which
was for a period of three years, he took a graded course
in the medical department of the Iowa State university,
under the supervision of Professor Shrader, and
graduated March 4, 1874. The following May he removed to
Malcom, where he has remained ever since, following the
practice of his profession, in which he has been
eminently successful, and enjoys the confidence of the
people of Malcom and vicinity.
