MCDOWELL, James 1832

MCDOWELL, BALDWIN, WOODWARD, LIVINGSTON

Posted By: K. Kittleson
Date: 5/24/2012 at 00:45:44

JAMES MCDOWELL, a well known and highly respected, retired farmer of Black Hawk County, who has been a resident of Waterloo since April 2, 1882, was born in the North of Ireland, within seven miles of Londonderry, on January 17, 1832, and is a son of John McDowell.

The subject of this sketch had one sister and four brothers, and four of the family lived to old age. He has one brother, Thomas, who resides in Osceola County, Iowa. In 1856, James McDowell came to America, landing at New York. He traveled to Rockford, Illinois, by rail, and remained there until 1863. In the fall of 1864, he settled on his farm in Orange township, Black Hawk county, Iowa. Purchasing his land for $5.25 and $6.25 per acre. He erected a small frame house in which he lived, boarding around with his neighbors, until his marriage on May 2, 1867, to Lovinie E. Baldwin.

Mrs. McDowell was born in Pennsylvania and is a daughter of Warren and Lucy (Woodward) Baldwin, natives of Vermont. In 1854 they came to Black Hawk County, Iowa; they made the trip from Pennsylvania in a covered emigrant wagon, and after weeks of journeying settled on a farm two miles from where Hudson now stands. During the ñrst winter, 16 relatives lived together in one log house. Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin reared eight children to maturity, and all married and had children of their own. All survive except one.

Mrs. McDowell’s ancestors carne to America in very early days the “Mayflower” bringing one of them. Her maternal grandfather, with his six brothers, took part in the Revolutionary War. She was 15 years old when she came to Black Hawk County, and can well recall the hardships and pleasures of pioneer life. Her father hauled his lumber and supplies all the way from Dubuque, that being then the nearest trading point.

Mr. and Mrs. McDowell have reared a family of four children, all of Whom were given ex-
cellent educational advantages. After graduating from the Waterloo High School, they attended institutions of a still higher grade. They are as follows: Effie E., who married George Marshall, of Waterloo, Iowa, and has one daughter, Elizabeth E.; John Warren, bearing his grandfather’s name, who married Lucy Livingston, lives in Osceola County, and has two sons, -- James Leroy and Glenn W.; Elizabeth E., a graduate of Waterloo High School, the Iowa State Normal School, at Cedar Falls, and a student at Cornell College. . . .

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