NIELS P. HOEGH.
Difficult as it is to explain individual and personal successes in life, nevertheless it would appear that large successes are very closely related to large personal worth. During the twenty-year period from 1865 to 1885, hundreds of industrious and ambitious young Danes came to America to seek their fortune in a new land. In fact, many hundreds of them eventually settled in Audubon county, Iowa. It is a tribute to the enterprise of these splendid young emigrants that very few have failed to make good in the new world. Yet the exceptional success which has accompanied the efforts of perhaps a half dozen men in Audubon county arouses our curiosity and accentuates our interest in the peculiar qualifications which these few men possess at the outset and which were responsible for the larger measure of prosperity which they have enjoyed in their adopted country. Niels P. Hoegh, in one respect at least, is not different from the hundreds of his fellow countrymen who have settled in Audubon county, since his success was founded upon agriculture. Perhaps he was possessed of a superior quality of managerial ability. Perhaps he possessed greater foresight than many of the young men who came here with him. In any event his success has been large, measured not only by the wealth and capital he has accumulated, but by the conspicuous position he has taken in the civic and political life of this section.
Niels P. Hoegh, who is president of the Brayton Savings Bank, of Brayton, Iowa, the Farmers Bank at Elkhorn, Iowa, and the Farmers Savings bank of Atlantic, Iowa, and the Brayton Lumber Company, besides owning two thousand acres of land in Audubon and Cass counties, was born on September 12, 1847, in Denmark, and is the son of Jorgen P. and Anna Katherine Hoegh, both natives of that country. The former, a carpenter by trade, followed this occupation in his native land, and when he came to America lived retired with his children, of whom there were six, as follow: Peter, who is still in Denmark; Jorgen, deceased; Mettie Marie, who lives near Davenport; Anna Marie, who is deceased; Niels P., and a daughter who died in infancy.
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Many young men enjoy exceptional success in life because of the good start they received from an inheritance or gift at the beginning of their career, but this is not the case with Niels P. Hoegh, whose splendid fortune is the consequence of his own personal efforts. He had no better educational advantages than hundreds of his countrymen who came to America, and who have been less successful than he. He did, however, receive a practical common school education, and after leaving school worked out as a farm hand in his native land. Wages are very much less in Denmark than in this country, and for Mr. Hoegh's last year's labors in that country he received only thirty dollars.
After locating near Davenport, Iowa, he was compelled to look for work for five weeks, and his first job was cleaning a cellar, for which he was paid seventy-five cents. From this time he was always busy and for the most part always able to find something to do. After working near Davenport for three years as a farm hand, he spent one year working for the railroads, afterwards went to Colorado, where he worked in a silver mine for three years. Upon returning to Davenport, he remained there a short time, and then removed, about 1875, to Audubon, and was married, and located on a farm which he had purchased. This farm of fifty-three acres was the nucleus of the two thousand acres of land he has since acquired. This large estate has been built up from year to year, a little land added here and a little there. Seven hundred acres of the two thousand acres which Mr. Hoegh owns is covered with timber. Mr. Hoegh's fortune has been built around the first fifty-three acres he owned, but before that it was founded on one hundred dollars in gold, which he brought with him to America, which he exchanged for one hundred and thirty-eight dollars in greenbacks in 1868.
On June 10, 1875, Niels P. Hoegh was married to Mary Katherine Knoss, the daughter of Christian Knoss. Eight children were born to this marriage, as follow: George, died on May 17, 1915, married Anna Hoogensen and had four children, Evelyn, Raymond, Harvey and Mildred; William, married Anna Johnson and had three children, Theodore, Harry and Leo; Annie, married Hans R. Hansen and had four children, Edwin, Dagma, Wilbur and Gradis; Walter, married Bertha Hansen and had one child, Adel; Arthur N., married Hannah Walters and had one child, Erma; Benjamin, married Emma Clauson; Katrina, married Walter Hansen; Edward lives at home.
Mrs. Hoegh and her parents were natives of Denmark, and located at Davenport, Iowa, in pioneer times. After the death of her father, her mother came to Audubon county and lived in her home.
Niels P. Hoegh has never divided his energies and perhaps that is the explanation for his success. A member of the Danish Lutheran church, he and his wife and family have done their part in behalf of this church, and the Hoeghs are people of strong religious inclinations. But Mr. Hoegh has never permitted his attention to be diverted by politics, and although an ardent Republican, the only office he has ever held is that of county supervisor, which he held for nine years. In this office he made a commendable record, and one which was a credit to himself and to the people of Audubon county. Naturally he gave to the office the same business-like attention that he has always given to his own private affairs.
As suggested in the beginning of this sketch, it is probable that Niels P. Hoegh's success is founded upon his own personal worth as much as upon anything else; upon his cordial relations with the public; upon his honorable and fair dealing in the business affairs of life. Men have learned to believe in him, and as they have believed in him he has been able not only to bestow favors upon his business associates, but likewise he himself has been able to profit by these relations. He is a very worthy man, and a good citizen of this great county.
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Transcribed from History of Audubon County, Iowa Its People, Industries and Institutions With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Many of the Old Families, by H. F. Andrews, editor, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Company, 1915, pp. 736-738.
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