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RUSH R. HANFORD, of section 32, Taylor township, is living practically retired on his fine farm which has been his home for more than forty years. In the business of farming, though he began at the bottom, he has been more than ordinarily successful, and the same may be said of his career as a citizen, since he has performed the duties of man to man and to country both faithfully and well.
He has lived in Benton county from the pioneer times, and his associations date back almost as far as those of any other living resident. He came into the county in January, 1854, and for three years lived in Vinton, where he was engaged in teaming and also clerked awhile in the Jones & Bristol Hotel. In 1857 he bought a quarter section on section 32, and improved this and lived on it until after the war, when he sold this farm and bought the eighty acres which has ever since been his home. For the past ten years he has leased the land, and has not actively engaged in farming.
Mr. Hanford was born on a farm at the town of Walton, Delaware county, New York, in April, 1833, and was reared to manhood there and in Lycoming county, Pennsylvania. All his adult career has been spent in Benton county. In 1862 he enlisted in Company G, Thirteenth Iowa Infantry, under Colonel Shane, and was not mustered out till June, 1865. He was wounded while moving upon Atlanta a few days before the surrender of that city, but was never incapacitated, though in the severe service about Vicksburg, Atlanta and the march to the sea. He is a member of P. M. Coder Post No. 98, G. A. R. His politics has always been Republican. In township affairs he has been a useful factor for years. He has held the offices of township clerk and assessor, and for twenty-five years was secretary of the township school board.
Mr. Hanford's parents were Seely and Laura (Loomis) Hanford. The Hanford family have lived in America from before the Revolution, coming originally from England. The mother was born in Delaware county, New York, and died there during the thirties. Seely Hanford was born in Connecticut, when young moved to New York, and about 1840 to Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, where he died February 9, 1856, aged sixty-two. He was a farmer nearly all his active life. Of his children, another son besides Rush R. came to Vinton. This was W. W. Hanford, who located here in 1854, married, and was at one time proprietor and publisher of the Vinton Eagle. He died at Vinton in 1877. Another brother is M. L. Hanford, who now resides near Buffalo, New York. A sister died in New York in 1894.
Mr. Rush R. Hanford married, at Vinton, December 18, 1861, Miss Edna E. Chapin. She was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and died in 1895, aged fifty years. There are two children of their marriage: Arthur S. is president and general manager of the Hanford Produce Company of Sioux City, his father being also interested in this business. He married Miss Skemp, who was born in England and later lived in Dubuque, Iowa. She is the mother of two children, Edna M. and Arthur S., Jr. Warren D., the second son, has lived in New York city since 1895, being in the brokerage business, dealing chiefly in butter and eggs. He married Miss Sherman, a native of Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Hanford of this review has been a member of the Vinton Presbyterian church for over fifty years.
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