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from Past and Present of Mahaska County, Iowa by Manoah Hedge The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. 1906
William F. Harper is one of Iowa's native sons, who has made a creditable record both for success and an honorable life. He was born in Mahaska county, August 9, 1851 and is a son of Jacob Harper, who is mentioned above. His education was acquired in the district schools and in Oskaloosa College, where he pursued a business course that well qualified him for life's practical and responsible duties. He lived with his parents until four years after his marriage, and during that time assisted in the labor of the home farm. On the 1st of July, 1874, he wedded Miss Elizabeth McGlasson, who was born in Mahaska county, November 14, 1858, a daughter of Joseph and Sarah (Redman) McGlasson. The father was born in Kentucky in 1807, and became one of the early settlers of Mahaska county, locating a short distance south of Oskaloosa near the old Harper home. Later he sold his land to coal operators and retired from active business life. He died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Harper, when eighty-nine years of age, while his wife, who was born in Illinois in 1819, passed away September 14, 1903, at the age of eighty-four years. Four years after his marriage, William Harper removed to an eighty-acre farm belonging to his father south of the Excelsior Coal Works. For eighteen months he engaged in clerking in the store owned by the coal company. About twenty-four years ago his father, having sold his home in that locality, removed to Prairie township, and William Harper in connection with his father purchased two hundred acres of improved land, upon which the son now resides. He has added one hundred and twenty acres to this farm and has remodeled the house, expending twelve hundred and fifty dollars in repairing it, until he now has a very attractive and comfortable home. He also built a large barn on the opposite side of the road. He was formerly a cattle-feeder, but in later years has given his attention to the raising of horses and mules and he ownes a good stallion of the imported Englishshire breed, which he purchased from the firm of Burgess & Son, of Wewona, Illinois. He has fifty-four head of horses and mules on his farm and finds this branch of business very profitable, for he breeds only high grade stock. He is a very prosperous farmer, whose business methods are practical, and are attended with gratifying results. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Harper have been born two children: Estella G., born October 4, 1876, is now the wife of Aaron S. Jarrard, of Prairie township, and has four children. Ada Grace, born April 13, 1887, is the wife of Jesse Rice, who resides upon a part of her father's farm, and they have one child. Mr. Harper has always been a republican, casting his first vote for Rutherford B. Hayes, and supporting each presidential candidate of the party since that time. He has served as trustee of his township, also as township assessor for nine years and is now, and has been for fifteen years, treasurer of his school district. He and his wife are faithful members and active workers in the Methodist Episcopal church at Taintor, and are also connected with the Holiness Band in New Sharon. They are held in highest esteem by neighbors and friends, and Mr. Harper is recognized as a man of genuine worth, of conscientious motives and upright principles, thoroughly reliable at all times.
Past and Present of Mahaska County, Iowa
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy