Welcome to
Jasper County, Iowa
Historical and Genealogical Data Exchange
|
|
|
|
Stephen J. Sparks Mr.
Stephen J. Sparks was born in Morgan County, Illinois, August 28, 1833, the son
of T. M. and Sarah (Gesford) Sparks, both natives of Adair County, Kentucky,
having been born about forty miles from Louisville.
They went to Illinois about 1830, when young, there married and took up
farming which they followed there, among the early settlers, until about 1836,
when they removed to near the Black Hawk settlement in Lee County, Iowa, being
pioneers of this state; they lived in that locality for eleven years, then moved
to Jasper County about 1846 or 1847 and they established their permanent home by
entering the land where Lynnville Junction now stands, the elder Sparks entering
about eighteen hundred acres of land in Linn Grove Township. Stephen J. Sparks
was the second man to own this land, buying it from his father. Part of this T.
M. Sparks broke, cultivated and became one of the leading early farmers here,
living on this place until old age, when he moved to the village of Lynnville,
where his death occurred about 1891; his first wife having died about four years
previously, he remarried. He was a
man of unusual physical strength and endurance, his average weight having been
two hundred and forty pounds. He
was a fine type of the hardy and brave frontiersman.
His family consisted of twelve children.
He was prominent in local affairs for years. Stephen
J. Sparks received what education he could in the pioneer schools of Lee County,
Iowa, and he grew up on the home farm, having been fourteen years of age when he
accompanied his parents to Jasper County. He
knew the meaning of hard work early in life and broke much wild land for his
father and others on the prairies here, breaking in all about two thousand
acres. In the early days he
was a great rail-splitter and woodcutter and he attributes his long life and
good health to constant exercise in the open, his theory being that hard
physical work never hurts anybody. When
a boy he followed teaming for five years, hauling goods from remote points.
He recalls the fact that when the family first moved to Iowa they lived
near the scene of the famous Mormon murder, within a mile, in fact, of the home
of Miller and Liza, the father of the subject having built the house in which
they were killed. When
twenty-one years of age Stephen J. Sparks started in life for himself, his
father having given him forty acres of land, valued at one hundred and
twenty-five dollars. This he traded for seventy acres, building a hewed log house
on the latter, got married and started to developing his little farm, his first
wife being Martha Loton, and their wedding occurred in 1859; her death occurred
in 1861, leaving two children, Amanda, who is still living, and Martha, who died
in 1862. Mr.
Sparks is one of the honored veterans of the great Union Army, having enlisted
on August 22, i862, at Camp Polk, Iowa City, in Company D, Fortieth Iowa
Volunteer Infantry, under Capt. Felix Cozad, as drummer, and he served with much
credit for a period of three months as drummer and as a private for nine months,
being discharged at Paducah, Kentucky, on account of disability.
He was with the troops that held Columbus, Kentucky, which was at one
time considered by some to be the keynote of the rebellion. Returning
to Jasper County after his army experience, Mr. Sparks herded cattle for two
years on the prairies. He
recalls that at that time deer, wolves, wild turkey and other game was
plentiful. He took up farming
again, broke his land, added to it and bought two hundred and forty acres from
his father. It was his custom to improve part of his land at a time and sell it,
continuing thus for a number of years and thereby prospered.
At one time he owned the land where the town of Lynnville now stands, and
when the spur of the Iowa Central Railroad was built to that town, about 1866,
it came through his land. Mr. Sparks graded the tracks there, built the first
stockyards at Lynnville Junction also put down the first platform there.
For a period of twenty-five years he bought and shipped live stock on an
extensive scale, to Chicago, averaging one hundred car loads annually for a
period of ten years, during which time he became known as one of the leading
stock men in central Iowa, and in this enterprise he was most successful,
accumulating a competency much in excess of that of the average person.
About 1907 he retired from active life and moved to Lynnville, where he
has a beautiful and well-furnished home and here he is spending his declining
days. He owns one hundred and forty
acres of land one and one-half miles east of the village, right on the County
line. He has two and a half acres
surrounding his town property. On
December 26, 1863, Mr. Sparks was united in marriage with Mrs. Rebecca Wolf, nee
Gile, a native of Boone County, Indiana, the daughter of Samuel and Eliza Gile,
who moved to Jasper County, Iowa, when their daughter, Rebecca, was eleven years
of age, Mr. Gile being a farmer and pioneer preacher in the Christian church,
and he did much good here in the early days. His death occurred about 1883, his
widow surviving until about 1891. They
were the parents of nine children, five of whom are living.
The father died in Kansas and the mother in Missouri; they had come to
Indiana from the East, and were everywhere known as splendid characters.
The wife of Mr. Sparks was the mother of two children by Mr. Wolf,
namely: Calvin, who died in infancy, and Eliza, who is living in the state of
Washington. Mr. and Mrs. Sparks
have traversed the highway of life together for a period of forty-eight years.
Six children have been born to them, namely: Sarah, wife of Charles
Monroe, who is treasurer of Mahaska County, Iowa; William P., who lives in
Grinnell, Iowa; Perry M. lives on his father's farm; Laura M. is the wife of Al
Hawkett, a carpenter of Grinnell; Clara Belle, who died when three years of age,
was the first person buried in Greenwood cemetery; Jasper S. lives on a claim
thirty-five miles east of Sturgis, South Dakota. Mr.
Sparks joined the Masons at Camp Polk, Iowa City, in 1862, but was not permitted
to take his degree until he returned from the army; he belongs to Lebanon Lodge
at Lynnville. He is also a member
of the Grand Army of the Republic at Lynnville.
In politics he stands for the best interests of the country regardless of
party. He served twenty-two years
as road supervisor and twenty years as school director, his long service in
these positions being sufficient evidence of his high standing in his home
community and of the confidence reposed in him by his neighbors and
acquaintances. He has done much in
furthering local matters in every way. Among
other commendable acts was the giving of one thousand dollars to aid the
building of the local Christian church, of which he and his estimable wife are
worthy members. They have reared their children in a most wholesome atmosphere
and they are fine characters, none of the sons using tobacco or liquor. In
1906 Mr. Sparks was awarded prizes for being the oldest living settler in Iowa,
having lived within the borders of this commonwealth for a period of
seventy-five years to August 26, 1911. This
is indeed an honored distinction, and he is duly grateful that heaven has thus
lengthened out his life. He was also awarded the prize for being the oldest
soldier at the old settlers reunion. Moderation has always been his shibboleth
and he has avoided excesses of all kinds, and been careful of not only his
actions but his thoughts also, believing that, to a great extent, as a man
thinketh so is he. Mr.
Sparks is a second cousin of the famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone, many of
whose sterling qualities he seems to have inherited, one being his love of the
open country, God’s great out-of-doors, and although he is now seventy-eight
years of age, he is still a great walker. It
is indeed most interesting to hear him recall reminiscences of the early days,
ye goode old tymes, for he properly belongs to a generation whose customs and
manners were different from ours, in fact, when most everything was different,
and, shall we say, better? No
doubt, he will tell you so, and who is prepared to gainsay him? Among other
things in his adventurous and picturesque career may be mentioned the fact that
he lived among the Mormons in Illinois and Iowa for twelve years, during which
time he had ample opportunity to study their modes of life and peculiar
characteristics, and he was a participant in the Mormon War at Nauvoo, Illinois.
He is indeed one of Iowa's grand old men whom it is a pleasure and privilege to
know. He was an Indian trader of some extent and taught four different languages or dialects of the different Indian tribes and stood guard with an Indian at Columbus, Kentucky, during the war. Mr. Spark's address is Post Office Box 40, Lynnville, Iowa. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa, Gen. James B. Weaver, Editor-In-Chief, B.F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912, p. 868. |
|
|
