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Jasper County, Iowa
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Gershom Vance Living in section 2, Palo Alto Township,
adjoining Newton Township, is Gershom Vance.
There is not a finer or nobler character in all of Jasper County than
this old man, now rounding into his seventy-fifth year.
A man to whom the word friendship means everything that the term implies,
he is a man in truth, a friend in need
and a friend indeed, a man whom any one may feel proud to call friend.
Steadfast and loyal in his friendships, although they have oftentimes
entailed sacrifice on his part, kindly in his judgments and charitable withal,
the world is a better place because Gershom Vance has lived in it.
Although well advanced in years, he is hardy and active and still retains
much of the buoyancy and enthusiasm of youth, and has a wonderfully retentive
memory. He springs from a hardy
race, his mother living to the ripe old age of ninety-two years; his father's
people were also long-lived and hardy. He does not now wear glasses and he can crack a hickory nut
with his teeth. His grandfather,
Robert Vance, was a captain in the War of 1812.
By birth an Englishman, he came to this country in his early manhood and
located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Here he engaged in the coal business and was one of a company who first
developed the second vein of coal. He
married an Irish lassie and to them were born four sons:
Andrew, John, William and Samuel. Andrew
was a prosperous dry goods merchant in Pittsburgh and a large land owner; John
and Samuel were prosperous farmers near Pittsburgh and William, the third son,
who was the father of the subject, came west in the early pioneer days and
located where Muscatine now stands. When
a boy he learned the cooper trade and followed that business until he came west.
He married Rachel Vanata, of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, daughter of
James and Elizabeth Vanata. She was one of twelve children and was born in 1813.
To them were born eight children, six being born in Pennsylvania.
In 1836 the family came west, induced thereto by the representations of a
brother of Mrs. Vance, John Vanata, who had come to the west about two years
previous. He left home
at the age of fifteen years, and
enlisted as a soldier at Pittsburgh, the company being sent to the frontier.
They went to Cincinnati, took a boat up the Mississippi and landed at
Oquawka, at a blockhouse there. When the Vance
family came west they built a log house twenty-four feet long and sixteen feet
wide, with a partition across the middle, and here the family lived for a good
many years with John Vanata, who, with William Vance, carried on trade with the
Indians, trading beads for valuable furs, etc. They also had a wood yard, and
part of the time worked on one side of the great Mississippi, and part of the
time on the other. They had built a
temporary shack on the Illinois side of the river for shelter, and here it was,
being detained longer than they had reckoned on, that Gershom, the subject of
our sketch, was born, on November 4, 1836, at what is now Andalusia, Rock Island
County, Illinois, and being a stranger in a strange land, they called him
Gershom. He was the seventh child
in the order of birth, those who preceded him being as follows: Andrew, who
lived and farmed in Mercer County, Illinois, and died there in his eightieth
year, was born in 1820. In 1851 he went to California to seek for gold, going
overland by teams. Being well impressed with the country, he remained there until 1871, when he returned to Mercer County, Illinois; James, born in 1822, lived and farmed in Mercer County, Illinois, dying at the age of seventy-eight; Eliza, born in 1824, died at the age of thirty-two. She was the wife of Anthony Nash, a farmer of Davis County, Illinois; Robert, now in his eighty-fifth year, is living in Oklahoma. For many years he carried on farming in Davis County, Iowa. He also went to California to seek his fortune in the year 1850, going by water via New York, but returned in 1853; Mary, born 1829, was married to a man by the name of Hudson, and departed this life at the age of eighty, in Mercer County, Illinois; Catherine, born 1832, became the wife of Frank Fryant, a farmer of Mercer County, Illinois; Gershom, the subject of this review; Sarah Ellen died in infancy. The mother of
the subject died December 12, 1805, and his father died in 1865, at the age of
seventy-four. For the last five
years of his life William Vance walked in darkness, having lost the sight of
both eyes. Gershom Vance received
his early educational training in the country schools, three terms in Davis
County, in a log cabin school house in Soap Creek Township, and at the age of
eighteen he started forth to do for himself, going with a party who were doing
government surveying in what is now Plymouth, Woodbury, Monona and Cherokee
counties in the western part of Iowa. They were away on the trip three months,
and on his return he went to Mercer County, Illinois, and hired out on farms by
the month, attending the country schools in the winter months and thus continued
for four years. On June 30, 1863,
he was united in marriage with Emma Kiddoo, daughter of James and Margaret
(Steel) Kiddoo, both natives of Pennsylvania, the mother being born near
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 8, 1844. She was the
fourth child born in a family of eleven, six of whom besides Mrs. Vance survive,
their names as follows: John, Howard and Martha, all living in Kansas; Richard,
in St. Paul; Amos, living in Arkansas; and Harvey. The Kiddoo family came west and located in
Mercer County, Illinois, in the year 1848, and in 1864 they removed to Jasper
County, Iowa, settling near Baxter. Here,
in the same year, the mother died, at the age of forty-four. In 1867 the father
went to Johnson County, Missouri, and became the owner of a large tract of land.
He also owned a flour mill at Warrensburg in Johnson County, dying there
in 1889, at the age of seventy-four. After
his marriage the subject brought his wife to Jasper County, and purchased forty
acres of land, where the Parsons creamery is located, paying nine hundred
dollars for the tract. A short time
later he sold this land to an advantage and purchased eighty acres in
Independence Township, for eighteen hundred dollars, ten days later selling the
same for twenty-one hundred dollars.
For several years he speculated in land, buying and selling farms.
He has been the owner of many nice farms in different Townships in Jasper
County. At the present time he is
living on a farm of sixty-five acres in Palo Alto Township, close to Newton.
He was formerly a heavy stock raiser. To
Mr. and Mrs. Vance have been born nine children: James, born April 4, 1864,
living on a farm in Palo Alto Township; Margaret Eliza, born July 9, 1865,
married Elsworth Ashley, lives in Palo Alto Township; Olive K., born
March 26, 1868, married T. E. Deacon, now deceased, lived in Union County, Iowa;
Arminta, born March 26, 1870, died at the age of eight; William, born October
18, 1872, died at the age of six; Florence Bell, born in July 1874, died at the
age of four; all three little ones died in one week of diphtheria; Eva, born
July 31, 1880, married E. M.
Herron, lives in Newton Township; Harvey Earl, born in October 1883, lives in
Kellogg Township; Paul Raymond, born September 7, 1885, now employed as special
agent in the census department, at Washington, D. C. He is a graduate of the Newton high school, also of Monmouth
College, and of Yale. Mr. Vance is independent in politics, having been a Prohibitionist for a number of years. He is a member of the United Presbyterian Church at Newton, as is also Mrs. Vance. Mr. Vance and the author of this work were boyhood friends. He is a hale and healthy old man, and at the age of seventy retains much of his youthful vigor. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa, Gen. James B. Weaver, Editor-In-Chief, B.F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912, p. 916. |
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