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Jasper County, Iowa
Historical and Genealogical Data Exchange
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Lanham
T. Sylvester It
is found very often in this country of ours that the captain of industry, the
statesmen, in short, the so-called leaders of men, possess no higher ability
than thousands of other citizens. They
have simply taken better advantage of their circumstances than their fellows.
And this truth runs through every occupation.
The farmer who rises above his fellow farmers does so by taking advantage of conditions which others over looker fail to grasp.
Lanham T. Sylvester, of Linn Grove Township, Jasper County, has always
been classed with the best and thriftiest of the locality in point of skill in
farming and stock raising. Mr. Sylvester was born in Logan County, Illinois, October 9, 1848, and
he is the son of Dixon and Ann (Johnson) Sylvester, both natives of Delaware,
the father born in 1808 and the mother in 1813, and they grew up and were
married in that state. In 1845 they immigrated to Logan County, Illinois, and
bought eighty acres and there they remained until 1852 when they came overland
in two wagons to Jasper County, Iowa. They
had been very successful in Illinois, for when they came to that state from
Delaware they brought their earthly effects in a one-horse cart.
He first bought sixty acres in Linn Grove Township, which was timbered
land, also, two hundred acres of prairie land.
Here he prospered and at one time owned three hundred and twenty acres.
He was a member of the Christian Church.
His family consisted of the following children:
Mary Elizabeth, William Henry, Henrietta, Celina, Charles Hamilton,
Lanham T., of this review, Joseph B., Emanda M., Dixon N., Silas Marian and
Emma. Lanham
T. Sylvester, of this review, attended the Township schools and he has lived on
the farm that his father entered from the government, since he was four years
old, buying the home place after the father's death, and he is now the owner of
four hundred acres of productive and well-improved land on which he is carrying
on general farming and stock raising on an extensive scale. He built a large,
well-arranged and attractive house in 1892 and he also has a number of large,
convenient barns and such outbuildings in general, as his needs require.
He still has the deed to the original eighty acres which his father
entered and which he now owns, the instrument bearing the signature of President
Franklin Pierce. Mr. Sylvester is a Democrat, but he has never sought public office.
He was reared in the Christian Church and from that belief he has never
departed. Mr. Sylvester was married on November 9, 1889, to Rosa Gardner, who was born in Illinois, December 4, 1861, the daughter of John J. and Hannah Gardner. The Gardner family moved from North Carolina to Union County, Indiana, in 1818, when that country was a wilderness. Mrs. Sylvester's parents went to Illinois in early life and remained some time, later returning to Indiana, when their daughter Rosa was six months of age, locating in Union County, Indiana:' Mrs. Sylvester came to Iowa in 1874 and to Jasper County in 1882 as a school teacher, and, liking the country, she located here. One child has been born to Mr. and Mrs. Sylvester, Leslie, whose date of birth was September 24, 1896. The Past and Present of Jasper County, Gen.
James B. Weaver, Editor-In-Chief, 1912 B.F. Bowen Co., Indianapolis, IN, 1052. |
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