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JOSHUA LANDIS was born in Fayette county, Pa., July 18,
1820. He is a son of Jacob and Rachel (Gosnell) Landis, natives of Maryland. They settled in Fayette county, Pa., in
colonial days when the Indians yet inhabited that country.
Jacob was a miller by trade and for years owned and run a mill
in Fayette county, Pa. In 1841 he and his family came to
Delaware county, Iowa, and settled on government land two and
one half miles east of Colesburg in Colony township, Delaware
county. He still resides on the same place. He has reached his
ninety-second year. He has followed farming since coming to
Iowa. His wife died in 1877 well advanced in years. Our
subject's paternal grandparents were of German descent and came
from the vicinity of Baltimore, Md., and died in Fayette county,
Pa. The maternal grandparents were of Irish extraction, and died
in Fayette county, Pa. Our subject's parents had four children,
he being the eldest. He was raised in Fayette county, Pa., and
received a common school education. He worked in a mill with
his father in Pennsylvania learning the miller's trade. He came
to Iowa in 1844 and sought such employment as he could find for
several years. There were only four families living in what is
now Colony township, Delaware county, when he settled there. He
helped build a mill at Dyersville, in an early day. He
afterwards run a mill at Colesburg the first season it run. He
lived in the vicinity of Colesburg until 1888 and then came to
Greeley where he has since been running a feed mill. He went
through all the struggles of a pioneer life and knows what
hardships of that kind of a life are.
May 29, 1851, he married Miss
Lydia Shaw, of Jeffersville, Clayton county Iowa. She was born
in Illinois, February 16, 1834, and is a daughter of Samuel and
Nancy (Becker) Shaw, natives of New York State, and of English
and German descent. They were married in New York State, and
moved from there to Illinois, and in 1837 came to Dubuque
county, Iowa, and settled on Maquoketa river when the Indians
were there, and about 1850 moved to Turkey river, in Clayton
county, Iowa, where both died; the father at the age of
fifty-three, and the mother at the age of fifty-seven. He was a
mechanic, following chair an wheel-making most of his life. They
had eleven children, Mrs. Landis being the fourth child.
Our subject and wife have had
five children born to them, as follows: Melissa J., wife
of Henry Ray, farmer and mechanic, of Clayton county Iowa;
Nancy, wife of Nathan Griffith of Greeley; Abraham, a carpenter,
in Greeley; Jacob, residing at Colesburg; Isaac R., of Dakota. |
