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IRA
P. ADAMS is one of Manchester's first merchants. He has
resided here more than a third of a century, during all of which
time he has been actively engaged in business. In this record of
the first settlers of Delaware county,
his history finds an appropriate place. Mr. Adams is a native of
Vermont, as were also his parents. He was born in Essex
county.
His father and mother were born in Windsor
county. His father, Trumbull Adams,
is still living, being a resident of Manchester. The mother, who
bore the maiden name of Cynthia Tarbell,
died in 1849. The father came West
first in November, 1855, settling in Dubuque county, this state.
After making a trip or two back and forth between this state and
New York, he came in April, 1869, to Delaware
county, settling in Prairie township,
where, and in the town of Manchester, he has since resided. He
has spent all his years in the peaceful pursuit of agriculture,
having led the active, industrious and useful life common to his
calling. He is now past his eighty fifth year, having been born
on April 13, 1805. Mr. Adams' mother was born July 10, 1809. She
was an industrious, frugal housewife, and, like most of her sex,
very domestic in her tastes and greatly devoted to her family,
illustrating in her daily life and conversation those many
virtues of her sex which make the name of wife and mother so
sacred.
The
issue of the marriage of Trumbull and Cynthia Adams was three
sons, all of whom are now living, the eldest being Ira P., the
subject of this biographical notice the second, Walter T., his
partner in business, being also a resident of Manchester and the
youngest, Lucius W., now living in
Mitchell, Dak.
Ira P. Adams was born January 1, 1832. He was
reared in Essex and Windsor counties, Vt., growing up on the
farm and receiving a good common-school training dividing his
time between his farm labor and the school-room. At the age of
twenty he started out in the world to make his way, going in
1850 to Troy, N. Y., when he purchased a wagon, loaded it with
tin ware and notions, and started out as a Yankee peddler. He
plied his trade in industriously for six years, traveling
extensively, and supplying the country folk and villages, far
and near, with such commodities as he carried in his line. By
industry, perseverance and economy he saved money from his
earnings, and was enabled, at the end of six years so spent, to
look out for other fields for the employment of his energies and
capital. He fell in with the strong tide of emigration then
steadily making for the great West,
and came to Iowa taking up his residence on the present site of
Manchester, in June 17, 1857. The town was called
Burrington, afterward assumed the
name it now bears, and as a commercial center it existed more at
that date in contemplation, than it did in reality. There were
two or three general stores, a frame hotel, a mill dam and a
dozen dwelling houses; and this constituted the sum total of the
future metropolis. Mr. Adams cast his fortunes with the new town
and resolutely went to work to add his contribution to the
common wealth of the place. He opened a small hardware store in
connection with Ira U. Butler, under the firm name of Adams &
Butler, it being the first hardware establishment of the town.
At the same date he built a grain elevator and engaged in
handling grain, this also being the first elevator in the new
town and the first in the county. The country was new, trade was
good, and his affairs in consequence prospered steadily from the
beginning. He did a thriving business in hardware and grain, up
to 1866. At that date he sold his interest in the elevator and
has since been engaged solely in handling hardware. Mr. Adams
has given his entire attention to business all his life, and in
that line has devoted his time and energies to his own personal
affairs. In so doing, he has given new point and practical force
to the sound advice of the old Quaker: " Stick to thy business,
my son, and they business will stick to thee." Starting out now
near thirty years ago, with the meager earnings of a few years
as a farm hand, he has steadily and industriously followed the
one purpose of his life, and that being to develop himself and
his interests along the way, blazed as it were by nature for
him. Conscious as well of what he is not as of what he is, he
has plied his utmost sense to labors of diligence, and in so
doing has bettered his own condition and the condition of those
around him, finding in this his chief pleasure as well as his
highest reward. Of necessity, he has been called upon to fill
some positions of a local kind in connection with the
administration of the affairs of his town and vicinity. He has
served on the school board and town council, bringing to the
discharge of his duties in these capacities, the same zeal and
fidelity that he has displayed in his attentions to his own
personal matters. Possessing a clear judgment, a conservative
disposition and habits of the strictest economy, he is alike
officer says the weight of a strong personal example.
Mr. Adams was a single man when he came to this county. He
married January 5, 1858, taking to share his fortunes through
life Miss Gracie Eastabrook, a
native of New York, she having been born in Essex
county, that state, November 5, 1830.
After having borne him for more than twenty-two years the
cherished companionship he sought with her hand, she passed to
the unknown land, departing this life in July, 1880. She was the
mother of twelve children, eight of whom are now living, these
being three sons and five daughters, by name and in the order of
their ages as follows: Alfred P., Orison T., Elmer P., Clara,
Mary, Sarah, Grace and Bessie. Mrs. Adams was a zealous member
of the Methodist church, and her life blossomed with the best
fruits of the faith she professed. Mr. Adams has since
remarried, taking to wife Miss Lucy Snyder, of this county, but
a native of the State of New York.
It has been stated that Mr. Adams never aspired to public life.
He is not, however, without political convictions. He affiliates
with the republican party, and is a
stanch supporter of its doctrines and possesses a good range of
information respecting its accomplishments, its teachings and
traditions. He belongs also to the Methodist church, and is
active in the furtherance of the cause of his church and in
promoting the good of his fellow men, regardless of religious
beliefs. |
