JOHN YOUNG,
president of the People's Savings Bank of Vinton, Benton county, Iowa,
has been identified with this county since 1855, having come here that
year with his brother, Thomas Young. Thomas went back east for their
parents, returned with them the following year, and all became
well-known citizens of Benton county, largely interested in farming and
stock raising and successful in whatever they undertook. At the time of
his death, in 1893, Thomas Young was the owner of no less than two
thousand, three hundred acres of land in Benton and Linn counties. He
left a large family, all of whom, with one exception, reside in Benton
county.
John Young, on his arrival in Iowa, entered three eighty-acre tracts of
land in Canton township, Benton county, paying for the same one dollar
and twenty-five cents per acre, and to his original purchase he
subsequently added until he is now the owner of eight hundred acres.
And here for many years, until 1893, he carried on farming and stock
raising. Since 1893 he has lived in Vinton, practically retired, and
since August, 1903, he has occupied his present modern and commodious
home, which he built that year and which is situated one block east of
the East school building. He also owns another residence near the East
school.
Mr. Young was one of the incorporators of the People's Savings Bank of
Vinton in 1900, and has been its president since January, 1901,
succeeding in that capacity Mr. Chadbourne, who was president from the
organization until his death, six months later; and for five years Mr.
Young devoted his active attention to the bank. For the past three
years, however, he has been practically retired from duty at the bank
as well as at the farm.
Mr. Young was born in Oneida county, New York, in January, 1837, a son
of C. T. and Catherine (Hall) Young. The family had moved from New York
to Indiana the year previous to their coming to Iowa, and it was from
La Porte county, that state, that Thomas Young brought his parents in
1856. The father was engaged in farming all his life. He died in Canton
township, Benton county, in 1886, at the ripe age of ninety years. The
mother died in 1876. They had an only daughter, who died some years
since in Indiana.
On August 9, 1858, Mr. Young married, in Benton county, Miss Christiann
Webb, who was born in a log cabin in Richland county, Ohio, and who
came with her mother and other members of the family to Iowa in 1854
and settled in Benton township, Benton county, her father, William
Webb, having died in Ohio in 1844. After residing in Benton county for
twenty-three years her mother went to Kansas and made her home with a
son until her death, which occurred in 1889, at an advanced age. Mrs.
Young had two brothers who came west from Ohio, one is now in Kansas
and the other in Oklahoma. A sister died in Kansas some years ago.
Three daughters and a son were born to Mr. and Mrs. Young, all in
Benton county, namely: Mary, born December 21, 1859, is the widow of A.
F. Dake, deceased, and has four sons and a daughter, now grown and
scattered; Annie M., born January 20, 1863, died at the age of
seventeen months; John Dempster, born December 8, 1868, resides on a
farm adjoining his father's. He married Miss Laura Narber, and has four
children; Minnie Bell, born November 14, 1870, is the wife of Lewis
Richart of Vinton, and has one child.
While not in any sense a politician, Mr. Young has always been a
staunch supporter of the Republican party, and at one time served as
county supervisor. He is a member of the Masonic Order.