CHAPTER XLII.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF COL. A. B. SMEDLEY.

OUTLINE OF A USEFUL CAREER.

Colonel A. B. Smedley, the present Master of the State Grange of Iowa, whose portrait is given on page 379, was born in Jefferson County, New York, in 1825. During his boyhood, he was constantly employed in such practical duties of the farm as usually falls to the lot of boys so reared. Later he studied mechanics, and became a master machinist.

In 1849 Mr. Smedley emigrated to Wisconsin, where he remained until the breaking out of the war. In 1862 he entered the United States service, showing the same zeal and fidelity that have always been his chief characteristics.

At the close of the war, in 1865, he retired from the service, and in 1868 removed to his present home at Cresco, Howard County, Iowa, where he actively engaged in horticulture, making a specialty of the raising of fruit, a pursuit in which he was always an enthusiast.

In whatever sphere of activity and usefulness this earnest and able man has moved, he never failed to gain the good will and fellowship of those who learned to know him intimately. Always a reformer, earnestly laboring for the advancement of the industrial masses, in all movements for the elevation and improvement of the workingmen of the country, these classes have constantly found in him a firm and true friend, whose counsel was always tempered with calm judgment, which easily sifted the false from the real.

AS A PATRON OF HUSBANDRY.

In the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, therefore, it is not strange that he easily saw the means for carrying out his favorite idea, namely, a citizenship in which the laboring men of the country should be so educated and enlightened that corruption or wrong-doing should be all but impossible. His own Subordinate Grange was among the first and most successful in the State; and to his careful study of the work in hand, and his firm and temperate discipline and counsel, is due much of the credit for the wonderful growth and success of the Order in Iowa.

At the third annual session of the State Grange, a vacancy occurring in that body, Colonel Smedley was almost unanimously elected as Master. At the fourth annual session, when the regular election was held, the members of the State Grange showed their appreciation of his earnest zeal and ability by giving him two hundred and thirtyseven out of two hundred and sixty-eight votes on the first ballot, and thereafter making his election unanimous.

Colonel Smedley is said to have given the unwritten work and the laws and usages of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry more careful study than almost any other individual in the country. Bringing to the task a full and abiding faith in the integrity and usefulness of the Order as a means of ameliorating the condition of his fellows, he has labored in that organization with indefatigable industry and conspicuous ability, to the end that no legitimate means should remain unemployed to render success certain. As evidence that the efforts of himself and his co-laborers have not been in vain, and as incentive to the faithful spirits now holding the "tug oar" in other States, Iowa may justly and proudly point to her muster-roll of Granges, numbering nearly a quarter of the entire list of the United States.

CHAPTER XLIII.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DUDLEY W. ADAMS.

YOUTH AND EMIGRATION WESTWARD.

The subject of this sketch was born at Winchester, Mass., on the 30th of November, 1831. Like many of the now prominent men of the nation, he passed his childhood and grew up to man's estate in a section where farming means the tillage of a soil never rich, and whose natural productions are rather rocks and stones than rank herbage and generous crops. But if the soil of the New England States is not celebrated for its agricultural wealth, the constant labor necessary to gain daily bread has taught her sons lessons of persistent industry and self-reliance that are simply invaluable.

It is not those reared in the lap of luxury, and who take to their studies as a fashionable dandy does to dress, as a mere superficial adornment, that furnish the country her statesmen or her master minds in trade and finance. On the contrary, it is those who thirst for knowledge; who incessantly employ the brain, whether at labor or actual study; who train their mind habitually, in working out ideas, to grasp, connectedly, whatever subject may present itself. Many of the brightest names and strongest characters in American history were self-made men; and such, if imbued with sympathy for their fellows, and a willingness to labor for their well-being, are the real noblemen of nature,

Sooner or later, in the revolution of the wheel of time, this class come to the front, and are truly appreciated.

When young Adams was four years of age, his father died, and he was thus left to the care of one of the most self-sacrificing of mothers, who spared no pains to lead the young mind in the paths of honor, probity, and religion. His time, until sixteen years of age, was spent as that of many New England boys is, in assisting in the work of a rocky farm, attending the district school and church, and engaging in the innocent frolics incident to such life. In time the district school was exchanged for the village academy, and to this early training is undoubtedly due the practical workings, later in life, of a mind always studious and eager for knowledge, and fostered and directed by the judicious care of a devoted mother. From the age of seventeen until his majority, he continued to work steadily on the farm during the summer months, teaching school in the winter, and pursuing his studies in the spring and au

tumn.

His majority attained, Mr. Adams found that incessant labor and study had seriously affected his constitution; he was threatened, in fact, with that dire scourge of New England, consumption.

Carefully weighing the chances between an early death if he remained in his native hills, and the possibility of regaining his health in some other locality, he quickly decided to emigrate to the then Eldorado, the West, and at once made his way into north-eastern Iowa. Here, in 1852, he located on a tract of wild land, which, under his skillful hand, was soon transformed into an excellent farm, on which he has ever since resided. That the choice of a location was sagaciously made, has since been fully demonstrated. The flourishing village of Waukon has since grown up around it.

SERVICES IN BEHALF OF AGRICULTURE.

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SERVICES IN BEIIALF OF AGRICULTURE.

While working hard to improve his farm, Mr. Adams never lost sight of the necessity of organization for the promotion of agriculture. At the age of twenty-two he was elected President of the Allamakee County Agricultural Society, one of the youngest incumbents on record in connection with such an office; and since that time he has been connected almost constantly with the Society in some capacity, either as Secretary, member of the Executive Committee, or other responsible position.

Mr. Adams was never a believer in the dogma that fruit could not be successfully grown in the West. After the terrible winter of 1856, he still had faith in the ultimate success of fruit culture. In spite of the discouragements of climate, and the still more discouraging advice of friends, he gave much of his time and energies to this engaging pursuit. It is not strange, therefore, that Mr. Adams now looks back with some pride to his efforts in this direction, as one of the useful labors of his life.

At the age of thirty-six, Mr. Adams was chosen Secretary of the Iowa Horticultural Society, in a manner highly complimentary to himself, although other business prevented his attendance at that session of the Society. This position he held until the winter of 1872-3, when his other official duties made it necessary that he should decline a re-election. That the office was worthily bestowed and honorably gained is evidenced by the fact that, in 1871, Mr. Adams exhibited at the Iowa State Fair one hundred varieties of apples of hist own growth, of such uniform beauty and excellence as to receive the highest award of the Society. This was in the same year that his State received so high commendations at the exhibition before the American Pomological Society.