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JESSE C. FRENCH was born in Johnstown, Licking county, Ohio,
November 17, 1832. He is a son of John and Sarah (Clark) French.
John French was born in Washington county, Pa., as was also his
wife. In that county they were married and afterwards moved to
Licking county, Ohio, about the year 1830, lived there until
1847, moving thence to Jones county, Iowa, where the father died
March 3, 1874, aged seventy nine, and where the mother still
resides, being now in her ninetieth year. John French was a
farmer all his life, but in moderate circumstances. He was a
member of the Baptist church almost all his life and his wife
continues a communicant of that church.
The Frenche's were of Welch
origin, the Clarks of German. Our subject’s grandparents
crossed the Alleghany mountains at an early day, coming from New
Jersey, and settled in what was then the open Indian country.
The maternal grandparents died in Pennsylvania, and the
paternal grandparents in Ohio. They belonged to the hardy class
of pioneers which felled the forests, laid out the commonwealth
and built the cities which have since become the glory of the
American republic. Arthur Clark served in the War of 1812, and
thus helped save, by the valor of their arms, the country which
by their industry they made to blossom with the best fruits of
an advanced civilization.
John and Sarah French had
ten children: Bethuel and Aaron, twins, both of whom are famous
and now living in Clay county, Iowa; Joseph, now a farmer in
Jones county, Iowa; Malinda, who died at the age of fourteen;
Elijah, now a farmer in Jones county, Iowa; and Nancy, who died
at the age of three; Jesse C., our subject; Eliza A., now the
wife of Wilson Jenkins, a farmer residing in Dixon county,
Nebr.; Joanna, wife of Eli Wilson, a farmer living in Jackson
county, Iowa, and Isaac N., a farmer residing in Jones county,
Iowa.
The subject of this notice
was reared on a farm in Licking county, Ohio, to the age of
fifteen. His parents then moving to Jones county, Iowa, his
youth was spent in that county. He received an ordinary common
school education. After growing up he learned the carpenter’s
trade and followed it for some years. In 1855, he bought a farm
in Fillmore county, Minn., on which he resided and to which he
gave his attention for some time, but subsequently sold it and
purchased another one in Jones county, Iowa, which he held as an
investment. He was engaged as a wagon maker at Monticello, Iowa,
for two years, when he traded his town property there for a good
farm in Jones county, on to which he moved and resided for
twelve years. He then traded this farm for another in Delaware
county, on which he lived for three years. Selling that place,
he purchased three hundred and twenty acres in Milo township,
Delaware county, to which he moved and on which he has resided,
with the exception of three years, since. He was a resident of
Manchester for three years after moving to Delaware county,
having gone there for the benefit of the schools of that place.
Mr. French owns a very
desirable farm where he now lives, most of it being under
cultivation and well improved. He is erecting on it a splendid
residence, which, when completed, will add much to its value.
This farm and all that Mr. French has represents his own labor,
as he began life when a young man with nothing except two
willing hands. He. subsequently, received a small amount from
his father’s estate, but he made his start in life unaided and
alone. He is a man who has added to the solid wealth of his
county by the labor of his hands. His present dwelling is the
fifth one he has erected since he has had a family.
Mr. French married October
11, 1860, taking to wife Miss Laura Emaline Mudge, then of Jones
county, Iowa, but a native of Rutland county, Vt., born July 25,
1837. Her parents were natives of Vermont. They moved from there
to New York and thence to Clinton county, Iowa, early in the
“fifties” and still later to Jones county, where the father
died. The mother died in St. Joseph, Mo., December, 1886.
Mr. and Mrs. French have had
seven children, by name and in the order of their ages as
follows: Elmer D., now a farmer in Sioux county, Iowa; he
married Belle Dalglish, of Delaware county, Iowa, and by this
marriage has two children: Blanche and an infant not named. Mr.
and Mrs. French’s second child was Loyal N., who died in
infancy; Charles H., their next, is a farmer residing in Sioux
county, Iowa; Alice M. is the wife of Byron Lawton, a farmer
living in Eden, S. Dak.; Ida M. is the wife of Oliver Thomas a
farmer of Hazel Green township, Delaware; she has one child,
Loie. Effle L. is a teacher in Jones county, Iowa, and Herbert
A. is a farmer, living at home with his parents.
Mr. French has held the
usual number of local offices, and, being a progressive, wide
awake man, has taken much interest in everything relating to the
administration of the civil affairs of his township, and in all
those matters of a more general nature, in which all good
citizens are expected to take an active part. In politics he is
a democrat, having cast his first presidential vote for Buchanan
in 1856, and has steadily adhered to the teachings of his party
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