LEMUEL DEAN TALCOTT
"From a sterling line of ancestry of
the old Buckeye state comes Lemuel Dean Talcott, a well
known citizen of Maynard, Fayette county, who was born
in Lake county, Ohio, November 19, 1842, the son of
Silas and Jane (Hammond) Talcott, the father a
native of Lake county, Ohio, and the mother of
Pennsylvania. Silas Talcott grew to maturity and was
educated in his native community. In 1848 he went to
Berrien county, Michigan, where he worked at the wagon
and cabinetmaker's trade until 1855, then went to
Delaware county, Iowa, and bought a farm, where the town
of Greeley now stands. The land was all wild there and
Mr. Talcott broke his farm with oxen, using six yoke to
a huge plow, improving the place and making a
comfortable home, where he lived until 1859. He was an
honest, hard working man. He had left the farm and was
living with his daughter in Maynard, Iowa, at the time
of his death, in 1888. His widow is still living with a
daughter in Maynard. Isaac Talcott took considerable
interest in political affairs and he ably served as
justice of the peace and postmaster. He was a
Republican, and religiously he held membership with the
Christian church. He and his wife were the parents of
four children, named as follows:
Linden, of
Delphos, Kansas; Lemuel Dean, of this review;
Harriett, wife of William Melven, of Maynard,
Iowa; Henry, who was employed in the detective
department of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad
Company, was killed on the railroad in 1891.
Lemuel D. Talcott was educated in the common schools in
Greeley, Iowa, and remained at home with his parents,
working on the farm until the breaking out of the Civil
War, when he showed his patriotism by enlisting in the
Union army, on September 19, 1861, in Company F, First
Missouri Engineering Corps, of the West, his enlistment
taking place at Dubuque, Iowa. He was sent to St. Louis
and to Vicksburg by steamboat for the purpose of
building bridges. On July 4th of that year he was sent
to Pittsburgh Landing, later to Corinth, Mississippi,
while in the Army of the West under Sherman and Grant,
and he served very faithfully for three years. After the
war he returned to Greeley, Iowa, where he remained for
two years, then came to Fayette county, Iowa, and bought
eighty acres of land in Harlan township, which he
improved and managed in a very successful manner, later
adding forty acres more to his holdings, the latter
tract laying in the vicinity of Maynard, on which he
lived until 1907, when he moved to Maynard and retired.
He quit farming on his original eighty in 1895. He was
very successful in his general operations as a farmer
and is now enjoying the comforts of life as a result of
his former years of activity.
Mr. Talcott was married on September 15, 1864, to Olive
Perry, of Hampshire, Massachusetts, the daughter
of Alden and Hannah (Young) Perry, the mother a
native of Worcester, Massachusetts, and the father of
Hampshire, that state. They grew to maturity there and
were educated and married in their native state, and
came to Greeley, Iowa, in 1859 and in that vicinity Mr.
Perry bought wild land, which he improved and in 1861 he
moved to Maynard, where he lived until his death, in
1874, his wife dying in the 1894. Before coming West
they maintained a hotel in Massachusetts. They were
members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Their family
consisted of three children: Marie
married Hiram
Mackey, of Fayette county;
Harrison,
who is now deceased, was in Company F, Twenty-seventh
Iowa Volunteer Infantry, in which he served for a period
of three years; he married Delia Jewett and they
lived in Maynard; Olivia, the youngest member of Mr.
Perry's family, is the wife of Mr. Talcott, and
to their union three children have been born, namely:
Nora married William Brownell, living at Lemon,
South Dakota, and they are the parents of eight
children: Fred, Harold, Dean, Neil, Fern, Will, Richard
and Patsy, the two latter are both deceased. Don H., the
second child of Mr. and Mrs. Talcott, is a farmer in
Harlan township; he married Josephine Meddlestedt
and they are the parents of three children, Francis and
Frank (twins) and Rudy, deceased. Myrtle, the youngest
child of Mr. and Mrs. Talcott, married Oscar Gilley,
of Black Hawk county, Iowa, and they have two children,
Floyd and May. Mr. Talcott has been both trustee and
school director and long active in Republican politics.
He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic,
Reynolds Post No. 47, and he has held all the offices of
the same, always taking an abiding interest in its
affairs. He belongs to Masonic Blue Lodge, No. 510, at
Maynard, Iowa, and he and his wife are members of the
Relief Corps, Mr. Talcott having been a member of the
soldier's relief committee for ten years. He is a man
whom all highly respect and admire for his useful life."
