William P. Pollard was born in Dorchester, Grafton County, N.H., Sept. 4, 1823. His father, David Pollard, was born in 1776, and was among the first to settle in the forests of New Hampshire. He was a blacksmith by trade, and manufactured knives and forks, etc., by hand. His wife, Sarah Pollard, nee Gale, was a native of New Hampshire. They had a family of eighteen children, of whom fourteen lived to be adults. William lived on his father's farm until his fifteenth year, when the latter became insolvent, and he and his brothers supported the family, buying a farm, which they paid for on time. When seventeen years old he began to work on the Northern New Hampshire Railroad, and engaged in overseeing different roads in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, and helped lay the first rails out of Burlington, N. H. In 1854 he came West, arriving in Clayton County May 6 of that year. He resided in Lodomillo Township until 1870, then removed to Linn County, Ia.; returning to Lodomillo Township two seasons later. He was married in New York in 1852, to Diana Walton, who was born in Ithica, that State. They have had four children--Ada, Walter, Lyle A. and Edna D. Mr. Pollard owns a finely cultivated farm on section 32, and is one of the enterprising farmers of the county. In politics he is a Republican, and is a member of the Temple of Honor, and Good Templar's societies. He has held various offices of trust, and has been Justice of the Peace for the past twenty years. source: History of Clayton
County, Iowa, 1882, p. 900-901 |