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A. R. LOOMIS. An importance attaches to the life and an
interest to the personality of A. R. Loomis not met with in the
personal histories of many of the old settlers of Delaware
county. This importance and this interest do not grow out of his
environments so much as out of the individuality of the man. An
heir to no fortune, action of no family of influence, a graduate
of no school, he yet reckons his wealth among the hundreds of
thousands, he occupies a position of honorable distinction,
socially and otherwise, and he is the peer, in sound sense,
discriminating judgment and correct business methods, of any
college bred man not only of his community, but of his state.
Mr. Loomis has been a resident of Iowa for nearly forty years,
during which time he has had business interests in many
localities of the state and business connections with many of
Iowa’s foremost men, to most of whom he is well known, and to
whom, we may add, the pen picture here given of him as one of
Delaware county’s pioneer citizens, will form an interesting and
valuable souvenir.
A. R. Loomis was born in
the town of Milton, Chittenden county, Vt., on the twenty-eight
day of June, 1823. He is the younger of two sons born to Reuben
and Rhoda (Johnson) Loomis, both natives also of Vermont. He
comes of New England ancestry, being a descendant of that plain,
sturdy, thrifty stock by which the northeast Atlantic coast
states were mainly settled, and which has made that sterile
region blossom with the best fruits of an advanced civilization.
To that stock Mr. Loomis owes the simple debt of heredity. He
received from it as his birth portion the germs of that
character, the development and perfection of which his own
labors have wrought. The fostering care and tender solicitude of
a father he never knew. That parent died before the subject of
this notice was born. It is true his earlier years were watched
over by a kind and prudent mother, and all that a mother’s love
and affection could do for a son was done for him; but in that
large knowledge of the world which comes from actual contact
with men in the practical affairs of life, she had never been
drilled, and she could in the nature of the case render her son
but little assistance. It was all she could do to give him the
rudiments of an ordinary English education, and had she lived
elsewhere than in New England she probably could not have done
that. Young Loomis started out while still a lad to make his own
fortunes in the world, beginning the race of life, he says, “as
a yankee peddler.” He traveled for years in his own and
adjoining states, supplying the country folks and villagers far
and near with such commodities as he had for sale. By industry,
thrift and economy, he gradually accumulated some money, and in
1851, having decided to give up his business as a peddler for
one of a more settled nature, he immigrated West and settled in
De Kalb county, Ill. There he purchased a large farm and for two
years and a half devoted himself to farming. That was a
comparatively early date for that locality, but having seen
something of the West, and knowing the advantages it offered to
young men of energy and determination, he made up his mind to
push on towards the frontier and cast his lot with the rising
fortunes of those sturdy settlers who were then peopling the
prairies of the trans-Mississippi. He came to Iowa, locating in
Delaware county, July 8, 1853. He brought with him a number of
Mexican land warrants and he laid these in the county in
different localities, taking up several hundred acres. He made
his first permanent settlement near the old Quaker mill, about
two miles north of the present town of Manchester, on the
Maquoketa river, there opening a small store and beginning
traffic with the settlers of that locality. After the expiration
of about a year, a strong feeling spread throughout the
community that something of a town should and would be built
where Manchester now is. Mr. Loomis added strength to this
feeling by at once moving on to the new town site and erecting
the first dwelling that was put up in the place, and starting
one of the first store buildings. He engaged in the mercantile
business in the new town as soon as he could be accommodated
with suitable buildings, and he was engaged from that on for
several years in selling goods, first alone, then with H. M. &
E. B. Congar, and still later, alone again. The country being
new, and settling up rapidly, trade was prosperous, competition
not so close, and profits better than now, so that each
succeeding year marked a steady rise in Mr. Loomis’ fortunes.
But with that energetic, aggressive disposition that has
characterized his whole business career, he did not confine his
attention exclusively to his mercantile interests. He has been
from the beginning, a heavy investor in real estate,
particularly in Iowa lands. In addition to the lands he took up
under warrants, he made extensive purchases of government lands,
paying the ruling price then of $1.25 per acre. Many of these
purchases he held as permanent investments, and, by reason of
his landed interests so acquired, he is now probably the
heaviest real estate owner in Delaware county. He owns several
thousand acres lying around Manchester, all in a good state of
cultivation, and, under his careful supervision, yielding him
annually handsome returns, Mr. Loomis has also been extensively
interested in real estate in southern California, particularly
in the city of Los Angeles, where he operated from 1874 to 1885
on a considerable scale, and where he made a large amount of
money by his judicious investments. He has been interested for a
number of years also in banking, being in fact the pioneer
banker, as he was the pioneer merchant of his town. He assisted
in organizing the First National Bank of Dubuque more than
twenty years ago, taking $25,000 stock in it, and becoming a
member of its board of directors, a position he has since held.
He held an interest at an early date in the Delaware County
State Bank; he, how ever, has disposed of that; but he has been
engaged in lending money for more than twenty-five years in
Manchester, and he has had, at two different times, private
banks in that place. The present First National Bank, which was
organized in February, 1890, and of which he is president, is
the heir and successor to his local banking interests in and
about Manchester. He assisted also a few years ago in organizing
the First National Bank at Dell Rapids, Dak., and is a
stockholder in that institution now. With these manifold and
diversified interests, each of an engrossing nature, it is
needless to add that Mr. Loomis’ life has been an active, not to
say laborious, one. He is in fact a hard worker, and he is now,
as he has always been, devoted strictly to business. He has
never aspired to public position, and with one single exception,
has never filled public office. He was the first mayor of
Manchester, having been elected to that position in 1866 on the
organization of the town, and reelected in 1867. It is proper to
mention, however, that Mr. Loomis has been foremost as a citizen
in encouraging enterprises and developing the best interests of
his town and county, and to the teaching of a sound doctrine he
has added the great weight of his example, living and being more
as an industrious, useful citizen, than he has ever by precept
enjoined on others to be. A man of remarkable vitality, he has
passed all the years of a long life engrossed in the work which
his busy brain and hands have found for him to do, and he still,
at the advanced age of sixty-seven, prosecutes with unflagging
interest, these same pursuits. Rising at five o’clock in the
morning, he sets about the duties of the day with the regularity
of clockwork, and follows them up oftentimes to the late hours
of the evening. To everything within his reach he gives his own
personal attention. Possessing a mind in which the constructive
are happily blended with the analytical powers, he projects
plans and lays out work for others and then sees that his
directions are followed to the minutest details. His brain is a
per feet repository of practical knowledge. He knows the
quality, value and selling price of every marketable commodity
from a pound of butter to the bank stock of the latest made
national bank, and he rarely ever forgets anything. His
judgment of men is almost unerring, and his ability to divine
the practical turn which events will take in a given case
amounts almost to prescience. One of his most marked
characteristics is what may be called his mental litheness. As
an operator with capital he is like a trained athlete; when
foiled at one point with consummate tact and skill he rallies
his energies and attacks a weaker place, and, by dint of
perseverance and natural alertness, he succeeds where hundreds
of others would give up in sheer disgust and despair. Mr. Loomis
having been trained in the practical affairs of life, is plain
in manner, pointed in conversation, short and direct in his
business methods and matter of fact in all things. Fortunate by
circumstances he has been blessed with the ability to see and
the energy and determination to avail himself of his
opportunities, and what he is and what he has, he owes mainly to
these qualities.
In his domestic relations he
has been as happy as he has been prosperous in business. He
married while still a resident of his native state, taking to
wife, on December 23, 1845, Miss Phedora H. Parmalee, a daughter
of Rufus Parmalee, of Colchester. Vt., his wife being a native
of that place, and, like himself, a descendant of New England
ancestry, coming on the Cushman side of her house from the
Mayflower pilgrims. She, whom he took to share his fortunes, now
near forty-five years ago, still abides with him, having borne
him during all these years the companionship he sought with her
hand. Five children have blessed their union, all of whom
reached maturity and four of whom are now living. The children
are: Mrs. Etna Hoyt, wife of Hiram Hoyt, of Manchester; Lora A.,
wife of S. C. Hubbell, of Los Angeles, Cal.; Alma L.; now
deceased, formerly wife of Dr. H. G. Brainerd, of Los Angeles,
Cal.; Jennie P., wife of M. F. LeRoy, of Manchester, a sketch of
whom appears in this volume, and Loring R., the last named being
the only son. To these the father has given the benefit of the
best schools in reach, the eldest daughter having been educated
at Musicvales, Conn., the second and third daughters, at
Grinnell, Iowa, and the son at Ann Arbor, Mich.
Mr. Loomis has a pleasant
home and his life therein is ideally perfect, simple,
unostentatious and garnished with those home loves and fireside
friendships which form alike the chief pleasure and highest
reward of the man of correct taste and well ordered life. |
