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biography from Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
CHARLES PHELPS, of Richland Township, dates his residence in this county back to the year 1848. He was born in Champaign County, Ohio, July 27, 1831, and is a son of Sylvester and Maria (Lathrop) Phelps, natives of Connecticut (see biography elsewhere in this book), who came to Iowa in the fall of 1848, bringing the subject of our sketch with them, and he has since been a resident of Richland Township. Prior to coming to this State he had received an excellent common-school education in Ohio. In 1856, in partnership with Lauren Osborn and Albert Phelps, he built what is known as the Johnston sawmill, located on Buck Creek, in this township. The machinery of this mill was purchased in Columbiana County, Ohio, shipped by steamboat to Burlington, and thence transported by team to its destination. Mr. Phelps continued his connection with the firm for about three years. March 11, 1858, Mr. Phelps was married to Eveline Martin, born in West Virginia, Nov. 11, 1839, and a daughter of M. J. and Sophia Martin, who located in this county in the fall of 1855, and to them eight children have been born; Emma A. is the wife of Robert Savage, of Sherman County, Neb.; Edna S. is the wife of Joseph Hanway, of Elk County, Kan.; Lida M. is the wife of John Castre, residing in Kansas; William H., Julia C., Lyman L., Robert 0. and Neta May are at home. Shortly after his marriage Mr. Phelps dissolved his connection with the sawmill and settled upon his present farm, a portion of which, eighty acres, he had received from his father's estate. Politically Mr. Phelps has been a Republican since the organization of the party, and is a man of much influence in political circles in the county, and has for many years served his people in the official capacity of Justice of the Peace. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity. His home farm consists of 320 acres, forty of which are timber, and the remainder of 280 acres is in a most excellent state of cultivation, with the best class of buildings and improvements, and admirably adapted to his business, which is that of stock-farming. Charles Phelps is a leader among men, and this because he has within himself the qualities that stamp him as a superior man in many respects. High-minded, honorable and upright, of the strictest integrity, he merits and receives the fullest confidence and highest esteem of and extended circle of friends and acquaintances.
Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy