Adair County Iowa
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| Adair County Iowa |
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Hugh B. Farquhar is the efficient mayor of Orient and in all his public service is actuated by a spirit of loyalty to the community and a desire for public progress. In his business connections he is well known as a stock buyer. He was born in Decatur county, iowa, on the 26th of September, 1858, a son of Robert and Frances (Brown) Farquhar. The father, a native of County Tyrone, Ireland, was born May 2, 1826, while the mother was a native of Huron county, Ohio. In 1849, when twenty-three years of age, Robert Farquhar came to the United States and for six years was a resident of New York, but in 1855 left that state and came to Iowa, settling in Decatur county. He was there married, at Garden Grove, in 1856, and turned his attention to farming, which he continued to carry on in Decatur county until 1868, when he came to Adair county, settling on section 1, Union township, having traded his Decatur county property for the Adair county farm. In 1889 he sold this land to his son Hugh B.and removed to Winterset, Madison county, where his remaining days were passed, his death there occurring August 5, 1911, when he was in the eighty-sixth year of his age. The mother survives and yet makes her home in Winterset, in the eighty-first year of her age. Parental care and discipliine and educational training fitted Hugh B. Farquhar for the practical and responsible duties of life. After attending the district schools he continued his education in the Garden Grove high school and in the Macksburg schools under Professor C. G. Snelling. He early became familiar with the best methods of tilling the soil and caring for the crops and after reaching manhood began farming on his own account. In 1881 he purchased eighty acreas of land in Madison county and lived upon that place until he removed to southern Kansas for the benefit of his health, his lungs having become affected. He spent two years in that state and then returned to Adair county, where he purchsed his father’s farm, remaining thereon until 1898, when he took up his abode in Orient. He subsequently sold his farm and purchsed the Sprague farm adjoining Orient. In 1901, in company with J. S. Carlyle and N. O. Gorman, he engaged in the grain business and later he bought out his partners and for some years conducted the business alone. In 1907 he sold his property and has since given his attention to buying and shipping stock, conducting the business along substantial lines, his sound judgment and sagacity winning for him substantial and growing success. In addition to his other interests he is a stockholder in the Orient Savings Bank. Mr. Farquhar was married in 1882 to Miss Catherine Hamm, a daughter of George Hamm, deceased, who was a farmer of Madison county, Iowa. To Mr. and Mrs. Farquhar have been born four children, of whom three survive: Ralph B., cashier of the Orient Savings Bank; Lisle H., a resident of Santa Ana, California; and Kenneth R., at home. Mr. Farquhar is an exemplary representative of the Masonic fraternity, belonging to Cypress Lodge, No. 539, F. & A. M. His wife is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and both are highly esteemed for their many sterling traits of character. In his political views Mr. Farquhar is a republican and for seven years was president of the board of education, his active championship of the public schools resuljting in great benefit along that line. In 1914 he was elected mayor of Orient, which position he is now filling and he is giving to the city a businesslike and public-spirited administration, in which he has brought about reforms and introduced various needed improvements. He stands for progress in municipal affairs as well as along business lines and he does not hesitate to put forth the effort which will bring about community advancement.
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