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biography from Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
JOHN FUNSTON resides on section 22, in Black Oak Township, where he settled in 1858. He is a native of Columbia County, Pa his birth taking place Jan. 24, 1819, and is the son of Jesse and Sarah (Templeton) Funston, both natives of the above-named county. In 1839 the family removed to St. Joseph County, Ind., where the father died at the advanced age of eighty-one years, and the mother at the age of sixty-six. There were eleven children in the family, one of whom died in infancy; ten attained their majority, and seven are still living, of whom the subject of our sketch is the eldest. John Funston grew to manhood in his native county, performing the arduous work incident to farm life, and receiving only a common-school education. He removed with his parents, at the age of twenty years, to St. Joseph County, Ind., and continued his work on the farm until November, 1851, when he went to California, making the journey by way of New York City and the Isthmus of Panama. He followed mining about fourteen months, and then became the Superintendent of a water company, and in 1856 purchased a tollbridge, which proved a most profitable speculation, but as that country was over-run by ruffians and thieves at that time, and a man was always in danger of his life, he sold out in 1858, and returned home by the same route he pursued in going. Soon after reaching home he concluded to make a western trip, with a view of inspecting the country, and arriving in this county purchased 240 acres of land in Black Oak Township, for which he paid $12 per acre. Mr. Funston returned to Indiana in November, 1858, and the following March was married to Lovisa S. Lowry, a daughter of James and Mary Lowry, all natives of the State of Delaware. Two weeks after their marriage they came to Iowa and located on their present home. Mr. and Mrs. Funston have had but one child, a daughter, Mary A., who died in infancy. Politically Mr. Funston is a Republican, and has served as Justice of the Peace several terms. His father was an old-line Whig. Mr. Funston's landed possessions amount to 415 acres of splendid land, which by the labor of his hands has been brought to a high state of cultivation, and all of its improvements are of the better class. In the year 1876 he concluded he had enough of this world's goods to enable him to pass his remaining days in comparative ease, and since that date he has leased his land. Mr. Funston has always been a very prudent man in the management of his affairs, and it has been his invariable rule never to go into debt, and to pay cash for everything he had occasion to buy, and from this rule he has never varied but on one occasion, whenhe borrowed $100, and that only for a few days. It is a very pleasant thing to contemplate-a life of ease with a competence back of it -and if any people on earth are entitled to this desirable condition of things it is certainly those who have endured the hardships and privations of pioneer life. John Funston is a man who enjoys the esteem of everyone, and is fully deserving of the high regard in which he is held. His whole career has been an admirable one, and is worthy the contemplation and imitation of the young men of today. Religiously he is connected with tbe Christian Church.
Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy