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biography from Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
JOHN B. HOOPES, a well-known and highly esteemed citizen of Oskaloosa, was born in Chester County, Pa., Feb. 16, 1809. When a child his parents removed to York County, near Harrisburg, and there he lived and worked upon the farm until he reacbed the age of seventeen years. He was then apprenticed to a tanner for three years, for which he was to receive his board and clothes, three months' schooling during his apprenticeship, and at the end of the time a suit of clothes valued at $30, or $30 in cash, as he might elect. He worked several years as a journeyman tanner, and in 1833, at Carlisle, Cumberland Co.; Pa., was married to Miss Barbara Greider, who was born in Lancaster County, Pa., in 1815. In the spring of 1834 our subject and wife removed to Dayton, Ohio, where he was foreman for a number of years for Samuel McPherson, an extensive tanner in that vicinity. In the year 1844 he purchased a tract of land near Lima, Ohio, which he successfully cultivated for several years, when he sold at a good advance over the original cost, and removed with his family to Dubuque County, Iowa, where he purchased a farm of 400 acres near the town of Cascade. This he cultivated until about the year 1865, when he came to Oskaloosa, where he has since resided. Mr. and Mrs. Hoopes were the parents of ten children, nine of whom are living: Andrew, a farmer in Mahaska County; Ann, wife of Jacob Whiteman, of Mahaska County, now deceased; John M., a banker of Dallas Centre, Iowa; Marion, a resident of Denver, Co.; Jacob, a dry-goods merchant in Kansas; Lydia, wife of R. G. Gilson, Florida; Swain, a merchant in this State; Daniel, who lives in Mahaska County; Lottie, wife of J. C. Steadman of this county; Ezra, a merchant at Avoca, Iowa. Mrs. Hoopes died in 1879, and Oct. 18, 1883, he was married to S. R. Teple, a native of Indiana. Politically Mr. Hoopes is an enthusiastic Republican, but not an office-seeker. Mr. Hoopes' early religious training was received in the Friends' Society, but he afterward joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. As a citizen, he is a man to whom the the word good applies in the superlative degree. He takes an active interest in public matters and in matters relating to the moral health of the city, and as a representative citizen of this county the publishers of this Album take pleasure in presenting his portrait.
Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy