K. W. MACOMBER
The Eighth General Assembly met at Des Moines, January 8, 1860, and also in extra session May 15, 1861. At this time Cass county was associated with Pottawattamie, Harrison, Shelby, Audubon and Guthrie, in a senatorial district, and was represented by W. H. M. Pusey, of Council Bluffs. The representative district composed of the counties of Union, Adair, Adams and Cass, was represented by K. W. Macomber, of Cass county.
K. W. Macomber was born in Franklin county, Massachusetts, March 13, 1813, his parents being Ebenezer and Sallie (Jewell) Macomber. His father was a native of Taunton, Massachusetts, and his mother of Connecticut. She was a relative of Governor Jewell. He grew to manhood in Massachusetts, and was educated at the Shelburn Falls Academy. Mr. Macomber and his brother afterwards conducted the Academy, in 1839 and 1840. After retiring from the Academy, he went to Springfield, Massachusetts. There he remained two years, and then went to Northampton, and engaged in the manufacture and sale of silk. He made that his business for eight years, and then went to Boston, where he remained until coming to Iowa, which was in July, 1855. He located near the present site of Atlantic, and there, in connection with his brother-in-law, L. L. Alexander, improved and cultivated a farm. He held the office of assessor of Cass county in the years 1857 and 1858, and in 1859 was elected as representative to the General Assembly from the district of which Cass county was a part. He served one term of two years, and the extra session of 1861, held for the purpose of arranging for Iowa's part in the war. He was married in Massachusetts, December 12, 1839, to Miss Martha Alexander. They have four children--Belle L., Henry Kirk, John K., and Frank J. Their child, George A., died in California in 1881, aged thirty.
Contributed by Lisa Varnes-Rex from "History of Cass County, Iowa. Together With Sketches of its Towns, Villages and Townships, Educational, Civil, Military and Political History: Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Old Settlers and Representative Citizens." Springfield, Ill.: Continental Historical Company, 1884, pg. 344-345.
