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Jasper County, Iowa
Historical and Genealogical Data Exchange
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Barrett
E. Moore Prominently
connected with the business history of Jasper County, the career of Barrett E.
Moore, president of the Dowden Manufacturing Company and vice-president of the
First National Bank of Prairie City, is eminently worthy of permanent record.
Great fortunes have been accumulated by others through various methods, but few
lives in this section of Iowa furnish a better example of the wise application
of sound business principles and safe conservatism as does his. The story of his
success is not long nor does it contain any exciting chapters, but in it lies a
valuable secret of the prosperity which it records. His business and private
life are replete with interest and incentive, no matter how lacking in dramatic
incident; the record of an industrious life whose every action has been actuated
by a laudable ambition and controlled by proper ideals, consistent with itself
and its possibilities in every particular. In fact, it would be hard to find a
better example of what may be accomplished by duty fully performed or what
obstacles may be surmounted through energy and tact-than that afforded by the
life history of this progressive man of affairs. Mr.
Moore is the scion of a sterling old family of eastern Iowa, and he was born at
Attalissa, Muscatine County, Iowa, June l, 1862, the son of S. S. and Ellen
(Worrell) Moore, both natives of Ohio. The father was a shoemaker by trade and
in 1849 or 1850 he left Ohio with his family and came to Iowa, making the long
overland journey in an old-fashioned wagon, falling in with the almost
continuous train of emigrants to the middle and far west during that formative
period of our country's history. He settled near the town of Attalissa,
Muscatine County, and farmed there for a time, then went into the grocery
business at that place, continuing the same for five years, when he moved to
Brooklyn, Iowa, where he entered the same business, handling farming implements
additionally, with a partner under the firm name of Overman & Moore.
Six years later he sold out and moved to Mitchellville, where he went
into the lumber and grain business, building the first grain elevator there.
He continued in that line of endeavor there with his usual success for
over seventeen years, but, selling out in 1886, he came to Prairie City to make
his future home, and here he led a retired life until his death, in June 1894,
at the advanced age of eighty-two years; his widow, who survived until 1909,
also reached that age. After her husband's death she made her home with the son,
Barrett E. of this review, he being the youngest of a family of seven children,
four of whom reached maturity, the other three being Martha A., widow of J. R.
Gill, he having formerly been a well known grain dealer of Prairie City, in
partnership with the subject, and his death occurred in 1908, leaving a wife and
several children; Priscilla married Benjamin Cope, a well known farmer of Polk
County, and they also have several children; William H., who is a retired
business man of Prairie City, is married and has a family. Barrett
E. Moore attended the Mitchellville Seminary at Mitchellville, later going to
Kansas City, Missouri, where he remained less than a year, then came to Prairie
City, Iowa, where he secured employment in Vandermast's general store, clerking
for him for five years, giving a high grade service all the while and
incidentally becoming thoroughly familiar with the ins and outs of
merchandising. His next venture was in the grain business with Gill & Son,
and after three years he bought the interest of J. R. Gill and the firm became
Gill & Moore, and he continued in the same for a period of seventeen years,
building up a large and ever-growing business and becoming widely known as one
of the leading grain men of central Iowa. Observing
better opportunities in the banking world, he sold out his grain interests in
1908 and identified himself with the First National Bank of Prairie City,
assuming the duties of vice-president, which position he still fills in a manner
that reflects much credit upon himself and to the entire satisfaction of the
stockholders and all others concerned, his influence having done much in
establishing the growing prestige of that safe and sound institution, which had
developed at a steady pace. Besides his interest in the bank, Mr. Moore is a large
stockholder in the Dowden Manufacturing Company, with which he has been
connected since its organization in 1888. It
is capitalized for forty thousand dollars, but its surplus and working capital
is eighty thousand dollars, and it has a large, modernly equipped plant, in
which only skilled artisans are employed and where every department is managed
under a superb system, and the much-sought products of the plant are constantly
invading new territory. The
domestic life of Mr. Moore began in September 1894, when he was united in
marriage with Carrie Bollhoefer, of Newton, this County, the accomplished and
refined daughter of A. C. Bollhoefer and wife, very early settlers of Jasper
County and long prominent and highly esteemed in local circles. Mrs. Moore has
one brother and four sisters living, namely: Mary, who lives in Newton; Lou,
Minnie and Emma live in Newton; Edward lives in Colfax, Jasper County. To
Mr. and Mrs. Moore two children have been born, Merle M., now fourteen years of
age, and Florence E., who died when six years old. Mrs. Moore is a member of the
Methodist Episcopal church of Newton. Fraternally,
Mr. Moore belongs to the Masonic order, Preston Lodge No. 218 and to the Knights
of Pythias, Jasper Lodge No. 63, being treasurer of both lodges.
Politically, he is a "standpat" Republican, but, being
engrossed with personal affairs, he has never cared for political leadership or
the honors of public office; however, always deeply interested in whatever tends
to the public welfare and ready to lend a helping hand in forwarding any
movement having for its object the up building of the section in which he lives. The
career of Mr. Moore illustrates most happily for the purpose of this work the
fact that if a young man possesses the proper attributes of mind and heart, he
can, unaided, attain to a position of unmistakable precedence and gain for
himself an honored position among the men who are the foremost factors in
shaping the destinies of communities, his life proving that the only true
success in this world is that which is accomplished by personal effort and
consecutive industry, by honesty and a straightforward, unassuming attitude
toward those with whom he comes into contact. The Past and Present of Jasper County, Gen. James B. Weaver, Editor-In-Chief, 1912 B.F. Bowen Co., Indianapolis, IN, p. 551. |
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