HON. LAFAYETTE YOUNG.
HON. LAFAYETTE YOUNG, publisher and editor of the Daily Iowa Capital, Des Moines, Iowa, is a gentleman well known all over the State and is eminently deserving of biographical honors in this work.
He was born in Monroe county, Iowa, May 10, 1848, and the first eleven years of his life was spent on a farm and in attendance at the country schools. In 1859 he removed with his parents to Albia, the county seat, and in January of the following year he became an apprentice to the trade of printer in an office owned by his brother. From that time until the present, a period of thirty-five years, he has been engaged in some work connected with printing. In 1866 he came to Des Moines and entered the employ of Mills & Company, a job printing firm. In 1868-9 he worked at his trade in St. Louis, During the year 1870 he was city editor of the Iowa State Register. In January, 1871, he removed to the new town of Atlantic, Cass county, which had shortly before been selected as the county seat, and there he established a weekly paper called the Telegraph, which he edited for nearly twenty years. During all this time he took an active part in political matters, being an enthusiastic supporter of the Republican party and frequently making political speeches. In 1873, when only twenty-five years of age, he was chosen State Senator, for a term of four years, for the district composed of the counties of Cass, Adair, Adams and Union. He was the First native of the State ever elected to the office of State Senator. In 1877 he was re-elected, representing Cass, Madison and Adair counties. At the end of this term he was not a candidate for re-election, but in 1885 he was again brought out as a candidate for Senator, this time to represent the district composed of Cass, Adair and Adams counties, and was elected. In 1889 he was unanimously renominated in the district composed of Cass and Shelby counties, but was defeated at the polls, the State going Democratic for the first time in forty years. In March, 1890, Mr. Young removed to Des Moines and purchased the Daily Iowa Capital, then a struggling, unsuccessful newspaper, which has since been made a pronounced success and has grown to be one of the great newspapers of the State. In 1893, in compliance with the earnest solicitation of his many friends, he made a campaign of one week for the Republican nomination for Governor, and in the race came out second to Mr. Jackson, who was nominated. The General Assembly of Iowa, in January, 1894, by an almost unanimous vote, elected Mr. Young State Binder for a term of two years, which office he now holds. In the various positions which he has held, his service has ever been characterized by strict fidelity, and as a news paper man and citizen his life has ever been so conducted that he has won and maintained the confidence and respect of all.
Mr. Young was married in 1870 to Josephine Bolton, of Jones county, Iowa, and they have three children, a daughter and two sons, the youngest being seventeen years of age (1895.)
From A Memorial and Biographical Record of Iowa, Volume I, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1896, pp. 548-549. Transcribed July, 2015 by Cheryl Siebrass.
