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Jasper County, Iowa
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William A. Loomis William
A. Loomis is a prominent and successful agriculturist of Newton Township, Jasper
County, was born in Portage County, Ohio, about thirty miles from Cleveland and
four miles from Ravenna, the date of his birth being September 15, 1830.
He was the eldest in a family of two sons and three daughters born to the
union of William H. and Cynthia (Loomis) Loomis, who although bearing the same
name were not related, unless it was many generations back. Tradition
tells us that the Loomis family was of English extraction, and that, not long
after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, three brothers, Job, Joel find
Alexander, left their native land for the New World, and arriving in this
country made settlement at Saybrook, Conn.
From that place the family dispersed throughout Massachusetts and into
other New England states. Job
removed to Ohio, Joel to New York, and Alexander remained on the home farm.
It is probable that the father and mother of our subject were descendants
of different branches of this family. William
Loomis, the father of our subject, was born at Northampton, Mass., May 10, 1809,
and was the youngest of seven children comprising the family of Amos Loomis.
Our subject's great-grandfather, Nathaniel Loomis, was born in Connecticut
and served in the French and Indian War,
where he was captured by the Indians at Ft. Henry.
With an Indian on each side of him he was being led away, perchance to
death, or at least to a long captivity, when he, being a man of powerful
physique seized a favorable opportunity when his captors were off their guard.
When that moment came, with almost superhuman strength, he hurled the Indians
from him and made a dash for life and liberty.
Before they had regained their
self-possession he made his way to some large rocks and hid himself in a
projecting cliff. Soon he heard the Indians on the rocks above him. They made diligent
search, but failed to find his hiding place, he could hear them converse in
their native language and could understand what they were saying, and this is
the substance of their conversation; "The
strength he exhibited, the speed with which lie ran and the way he has vanished
from our sight, prove that be is not a white man at all, but the devil."
With that remark they left the place, evidently fearing that he would appear to
them again. Thus he was enabled to
make his escape. In
1818, when our subject's father was nine years of ago, his parents
immigrated to Ohio and settled in Portage County, where Grandfather Loomis died
some three years later. In
1838, when our subject was eight years old, his parents removed to Henry
County, Ohio, where his father remained until his death, in December 1867.
Cynthia, our subject's mother, was the daughter of Capt. Daniel Loomis, the
youngest of four brothers, all of whom were born in Connecticut and all but
himself served in the Revolutionary War. Early
in life Captain Loom is went to New York State and settled on the Delaware
River, where he was engaged in the lumber business.
He rafted large quantities of lumber down the river and frequently had
charge of the raft in person, from which circumstance he became known as Captain
Loomis. It
was on the banks of the Delaware that the mother of our subject was born May 1,
1810. About 1820 her father removed to Wayne County, Ohio, where he and his wife
died. Afterward she lived with an aunt, Mrs. Christina Andrews, the
wife of Deacon Andrews, in what is now Kent, Portage County, Ohio. Deacon
Andrews was a man of more than ordinary education and was a prominent member of
the Presbyterian Church, in which frequently officiated as a preacher.
His son, John (the cousin of our subject's mother), was a prominent
minister in the Presbyterian Church. Lorin, another son of Deacon Andrews, was
also a Presbyterian minister, and in 1830 he went to the Sandwich Islands as a
missionary, spending his entire life in mission work there. With
Mrs. Andrews, our subject's mother made her home in girlhood and until her
marriage, at the age of nineteen years, her husband, William H. Loomis, being
one year her senior. She died in
Newton, Iowa, in January 1872,and her remains were taken back to Ohio and buried
by the side of her husband. A
brother of our subject was a Methodist preacher and served as Chaplain of his
regiment in the late war, dying some years afterward from the effects of his
army life. Upon his father's
farm, our subject grew to manhood, receiving a fair education and acquiring a
thorough knowledge of every department of agriculture. At
the age of eighteen years we find Mr. Loomis a teacher in a country school.
Three years later he entered Heidelberg College, at Tiffin, Ohio, where
he took a foul-years' course, graduating from the scientific department.
At forward he taught school for about three years in Ohio, sad in April
1850, came to Iowa, where he followed the profession of a teacher in Polk County
for one year. In April 1860, the gold fever took possession of him, and he
with others fitted up two yoke of oxen and started for the Rocky Mountains to
make his fortune in gold mining. Like
many others, his expectations were cot fully realized. After aiding in opening up several mines that did not prove
profitable, he embarked in the lumber business, in which he continued for a
time. Later he again opened up a
mine, the latter returning fair profits. After
having spent seven years in the mountains and accumulating a snug fortune, Mr.
Loomis retuned to Iowa, in 1867, and in September of the same year he married
Miss Annie Penman, who was of Scotch ancestry and was born in Pennsylvania.
After his marriage he returned to the mountains, and one year later again came
east. In January 1869, he located in Newton, Iowa, soon afterward settled on the
farm that he had purchased while en route from the mountains eastward in 1867.
Here he has since been extensively engaged in farming and stock raising,
which he has met with success, being now one of the most prominent
agriculturists of the county. The
union of Mr. and Mrs. Loomis resulted in the birth of three children. Mary M. is
the wife of S. C. Moffitt, and lives three mikes west of her father's farm;
Lizzie was killed at the age of fourteen years, by a train, which struck her
when she was crossing the railroad track; Kattie is a teacher in the public
schools of Newton Township. Both daughters were educated in Hazel Dell Academy,
Newton, and are accomplished young ladies.
Mr. Loomis belongs to a family possessing old-line Whig proclivities, and
in himself a strong Republican. He
and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church. Portrait and Biographical Record, Jasper, Marshall and Grundy Counties, IA, Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, IL, 1894, p. 146. |
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