History of Carroll, (Carroll County) Iowa United States of America

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Biographies:

Francis M. Davenport, of Carroll, was one of a large family of children born to Joseph Davenport and Rebecca Coverston Davenport, in their home in Ohio, of which state both his parents were natives. His birthplace was Gallia county, Ohio, and his natal day May 1, 1840.

Both of his parents were of large families, nearly all of whom lived to a ripe old age. The family came to Iowa in 1847 and settled in Mahaska county, near Oskaloosa, where his father died in 1884, at the age of 70 years. His mother died in 1892. at the age of 76. Mr. Davenport was a pupil in the country district schools until he was 19 years of age, when he entered college and completed the classical course in the Iowa Wesleyan university, at Mount Pleasant. He was graduated in 1864, after which he studied law one year in the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor. Returning to Iowa he spent eight months in the law office of Seevers & Cutts, of Oskaloosa, and was admitted to the bar October 20, 1869. He then began the practice of his profession in Oskaloosa. The firm with which he studied law was composed of Judge W. H. Seevers, who was subsequently a member of the supreme court of Iowa for thirteen years; and of M. E. Cutts, who for five years was attorney general of Iowa, and at the time of his death a member of congress.

Mr. Davenport early learned the good lesson of independent self-support and earned by his own efforts all the money he had. He was very successful in his practice in Oskaloosa for a period of eighteen years, retiring from 1887 to 1892. He was city solicitor in Oskaloosa for a term of two years, declining a second term. He is a loyal democrat, and has been chosen at various times to represent his party on their ticket, but democratic victories were few in the county, and although Mr. Davenport always ran ahead of his ticket and was deserving and popular and a strong man in his party, he was not elected to office. The contest of 1880 is well remembered in Mahaska county, where Mr. Davenport was the democratic candidate for circuit judge in the Sixth judicial circuit. He received twenty-two votes more in his home county than the combined vote of the democratic and greenback candidates for president of the United States; and in the county where his opponent lived he ran 157 votes ahead of his ticket. In 1892 he became a resident of Carroll, and resumed his law practice.

In 1896 he was a candidate for county attorney of Carroll county, but was counted out by the judges of election and the board of canvassers. He contested the election and a court of contest, organized under the statutes, tried the case and declared him elected by twenty-seven majority. But on appeal to the higher courts he was defeated upon a technicality, the higher courts refusing to count the ballots.

In 1898 he was chosen one of the democratic candidates for district judge of the Sixteenth judicial district This district is composed of Carroll, Crawford, Calhoun, Greene, Ida and Sac counties. The district having a large republican majority he was again defeated, though he ran far ahead of his ticket, not only in his home county, but in the entire district.

Mr. Davenport is one of the leading lawyers in his part of the state and is so recognized by the legal profession and the public generally. He is one of the referees in bankruptcy under the federal bankruptcy act of 1898, holding his appointment from the federal court for the southern district of Iowa. In his new home, he is loved and respected, as he was in his former one, as a man of honor and integrity, loyal to his friends and a good citizen.

On May 1, 1870, Mr. Davenport was married at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, to Miss Martha M. Griffith. They have one son, Warren, born August 17, 1874. Mr. Davenport is, and has been for over forty years, a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and besides being a member of the bar, is not a member of any other organization, fraternal or otherwise.

SOURCE: Biographies and Portraits of the Progressive Men of Iowa published by Conway and Shaw, Des Moines: 1899.

Carroll county and the city of Carroll has a very popular and influential daily and weekly newspaper, known as the Sentinel, edited by Messrs. Powers & Colclo.

John L. Powers, the senior editor, was born on a farm near Woodville, Sandusky county, Ohio, March 21, 1863. He is a son of Charles Powers, merchant and farmer, born in Columbia county, N. Y., in 1819, who moved to Perrysburg, Ohio, in 1836, casting his first vote there in 1840 for Martin Van Buren; went to Woodville the same year to engage in mercantile pursuits, adding farming in 1854. He was always a democrat, and was appointed postmaster at Woodville by President Pierce, and held that office until elected to the legislature by the democratic party in 1859. He served in the lower house during the stirring session just preceding the war, and when James A. Garfield, Jacob D. Cox, and others afterwards famous, were in the senate. He went south after the battle of Shiloh to look after the Sandusky county soldier boys who were in that battle, returning north on the hospital boat, where he served as nurse to the wounded soldiers. He removed from Woodville to Perrysburg in 1869, where he died in 1871, leaving some property gained by industry and frugality. His wife, Lydia Ann Banks, was born at St. Johns, Ontario, in 1829, and was also a pioneer of the Black Swamp country. She married Mr. Powers in 1847, and is the mother of eight children, Helen A., George P., Julia N., Charles A., James Freeland, Edward Adorns, John L. and William Howard. All are living but Julia, who died in infancy. Mrs. Powers is now living with her youngest son at Pawtucket, R. I. She is of a long-lived family; her maternal grandmother lived to be 95 years old, and her mother is now living, hale and hearty, at the age of 88. She was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln, February 12, 1809.

Mr. Powers received a common school education, but he has learned more from following the reading habit and keeping his eyes and ears open as he went through the printing offices in which he was employed. He started to learn the printer's trade March 15, 1875, just before he was 12 years old, in the office of the Buckeye Granger, in Perrysburg, Ohio, at $2 a week. Three years there and two in the Bee office in Toledo fitted him to travel, so he took to the road and worked in various Ohio offices, among them the Cleveland Leader, Herald and Plaindealer. He held cases on the latter paper when the office was still fresh with the fragrance of the gentle humor of Artemus Ward, who, years before, had delighted with his wit the Plaindealer's entire office force, as well as the readers of that paper.

Mr. Powers came to Iowa at the age of 19 to take cases on the Marshalltown Times - Republican, afterward being employed in the job department. He returned to Ohio in 1883 and took a position in the mail type room of Nasby's Toledo Blade, remaining there only a few months, when he returned to Iowa, and in the winter of 1883-4, with others, founded the Marshall County News, of which 'Old Grizzly' Chapin was the editor. In the summer of 1884 he sold out, and took a position as foreman on the Statesman. He remained there nearly five years, when he went to Carroll and purchased of Mike Miller a half interest in the Carroll Sentinel. This partnership continued until January, 1891, when Mr. Miller sold his interest to C. C. Colclo, and the present firm of Powers & Colclo has since controlled that paper.

Mr. Powers says he was born a democrat and expects to die one. He has generally voted for his party's nominees, but in 1884 voted for that great statesman, James G. Blaine. He has been a delegate to several state conventions of the democratic party, and to various congressional, judicial and other minor conventions. He was appointed postmaster at Carroll by President Cleveland, and took charge of that office in May, 1893, holding it until October, 1897. He is a member of the Masonic and Knights of Pythias lodges, serving in several of the official positions of the latter, and also as secretary of the former during 1898. He was secretary of the Enterprise club, an association of local business men, is vice-president of the Boos Shoulder Brace association, a local manufacturing corporation, and always takes an active part in the promotion of all the interests of his city.

He joined the Presbyterian church when a boy, but now usually attends the Episcopal church, of which his wife is a member.

He was married October 14, 1885, to Miss Luella A. Osman, of Marshalltown. They have four children, Charles Osman, Gretchen, Frederick Dodge, and John Leslie, Jr.

SOURCE: Biographies and Portraits of the Progressive Men of Iowa published by Conway and Shaw, Des Moines: 1899.