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from Past and Present of Mahaska County, Iowa by Manoah Hedge The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. 1906
S. V. Reynolds is serving for the second term as mayor of New Sharon and in his administration is displaying the same spirit of reform and progress and of apposition to misrule in public affairs that has been manifested. by such well known political reformers as Folk, of Missouri, Lafollett, of Wisconsin, Fagin, the mayor of Jersey City, and others. His business interests are those of a real-estate dealer and attorney-at-law and in his profession he has won distinction, while in his land operations he has met with very gratifying success. Mr. Reynolds is a native son of Iowa, his birth having occurred in Poweshiek county, on the 21st of July, 1867. His parents were Alford and Marian (McDonald) Reynolds. The father who was born in Tennessee, March 29, 1823, was a son of Joseph Reynolds, a native of England and a farmer by occupation. Alford Reynolds was reared upon a farm in Tennessee to the age of eleven years, when, in company with his parents, he removed to Indiana, where he was married in 1844. He came to Iowa in 1846, accompanied by his wife and one child. They located in Keokuk county and two years later removed to Poweshiek county, where he died in 1895, although in the meantime he spent some years in Mahaska county, being a minister of the Christian church at Peoria, where he preached from 1880 until 1889. He became identified with that denomination as a preacher at the age of twenty-two years and throughout his entire life continued in the active work of the ministry and also carried on farming. Following the period of his residence in Mahaska county he returned to Poweshiek county and was instrumental in building the West Liberty church, doing all of the carpenter work himself and raising the funds to meet other expenses in connection therewith. Mr. Reynolds of this review still aids in support of the church, which is about three and a half miles east of Searsboro. Rev. Alford Reynolds was married to Miss Marian McDonald, who was born in Kentucky, February 24, 1823, a daughter of Henry and Ann (Hopkins) McDonald, the former of Irish and the latter of Scotch descent. Her father served as a soldier in the war of 1812 and was wounded at the battle of the Thames, while serving with a Kentucky regiment under Colonel Dudley. Mr. Reynolds of this review is the youngest in a family of ten children. His father was a very able man and a great debater and took a most active and helpful part in establishing the Christian church upon the western frontier of Iowa. His energy and upright life won him the respect, confidence and good will of all with whom he was associated and he passed away March 12, 1895, at the age of seventy-two years, his memory remaining as a blessed benediction to all who knew him. S. V. Reynolds spent his boyhood days upon the home farm and after attending. the district schools spent one year as a student in Oskaloosa College and one year in Penn College. He taught school for thirty-three terms in Mahaska county, after which he devoted one year to the real-estate business. Later he became a student in Iowa College of Law, a department of Drake University at Des Moines, from which he was graduated on the 17th of May, 1899, having completed a regular two years course in five months. Locating at New Sharon on the 6th of June. 1899, he opened an office for the practice of law and for the real- estate business and has since devoted his attention to operating in land and to his profession. During the first year of his connection with business interests here he sold land to the value of three hundred thousand dollars. He has since been in partnership with L H. Sherman in the real-estate business under the firm style of Sherman & Reynolds, engaged in buying and selling lands in Canada, Minnesota and North Dakota and they also handle from twelve to fourteen hundred acres of land in Mahaska county each year. At one time they had twenty-eight hundred acres in this county. Mr. Reynolds has also made substantial advancement at the bar and in 1905 formed a partnership with J. C. Heitsman in order that he might have some one share his business cares, which were growing too arduous. Their law library is worth three thousand dollars and is one of the best in this part of the state and they have a large and distinctively representative clientage, being retained as counsel for the defense or prosecution in almost every important case that comes up in the district. Mr. Reynolds was married August 11, 1889, to Miss Emma McCutchen, who was born October 16, 1869, in Richland township, Mahaska county, and is a daughter of Jonathan and Maria McCutchen, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of New York. Her father came to Iowa in 1856, locating in Oskaloosa, where he engaged in merchandising, while later he conducted a mercantile enterprise in Peoria, while his last years were devoted to farming. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds have been born two children: Clemmie Marian, born March 28, 1893; and Cato S., April 11, 1900. Mr. Reynolds has long been recognized as a leader in democracy in this district and was the candidate on the party ticket for representative in 1895. He ran far ahead of his ticket although he was defeated, and in 1900 he was candidate for county attorney. In 1904 he was elected on the citizens' ticket as mayor of New Sharon and was re-elected in 1906. Too much can not be said in praise of his public service. The affairs of the city had been managed in an incompetent manner and when he took charge he brought to his duties not only good business capacity and enterprise but also a spirit of loyalty and an opposition to anything like misrule in public affairs. He has placed the city upon a business administration and has instituted many modern reforms and improvements. During his incumbency the, electric light plant has been instituted and all of the income of the office has been turned over to the city, there being no graft in connection with the management of the affairs now. In 1906 there were three hundred and thirty votes cast and Mr. Reyolds received a majority of forty-one, thus running ninety votes ahead of his ticket. He was the only one on the ticket elected. Mr. Reynolds is a strong man, strong in his capability and force, strong in his honor and good name, strong in his allegiance to all that he believes to be right in public or private life. He has done much for New Sharon and is justly accounted, without invidious distinction, the foremost citizen of the town.
Past and Present of Mahaska County, Iowa
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy