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biography from Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
J. D. SHAUL, of Cedar Township, is a farmer and breeder of fine stock, residing on section 5. He was born in Herkimer County, N. Y., May 26, 1841, and is the son of David S. and Catherine (Hoke) Shaul. John Shaul, father of David S. and grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was taken prisoner by the Indians twelve miles from Ft. Plains, Montgomery Co., N. Y., together with two of his brothers, one older and one younger than himself, in the year 1779, and remained among the Indians for five years. The boys were aged respectively, sixteen, fourteen and eleven years. David S. and Catherine Shaul were born in Montgomery County, N. Y., and are both now deceased; the former died in New York, June 21, 1878, and the latter at Saratoga Springs. During their lives they followed the occupation of farming and dairying. The subject of this sketch, J. D. Shaul, removed from New York to Detroit, Mich., in 1872, remaining there three years, and thence came to the city of Oskaloosa, near which he resided for six years, during which time he visited the Black Hills in Dakota, and upon his return purchased a farm in Cedar Township, where he now resides. Feb. 13, 1878, he was married to Miss Dosha Thornburg, a daughter of Thomas and Nancy (Moorman) Thornburg. By this union there were two children: Mary, born May 16, 1879, died May 16, 1880; J. Y., born Sept. 8, 1881. Mr. and Mrs. Shaul are members of the Society of Friends. Politically his affiliations are with the Republican party. Mr. Shaul owns 160 acres of fine land, all in good cultivation and well improved, with a good house, barn and other out-buildings, and everything about the place is in first-class repair. There are also upon the farm two good orchards of bearing apple trees, second to none in their yield and in the quality of fruit. In addition to his general farming, he makes a specialty of the breeding of Short-horn cattle, and has a very nice herd of these animals, representing some of the best families in America, and has also turned his attention to the breeding of first-class Poland-China hogs, and of these has some very fine specimens, eligible to record, and from the best recorded families in this and other States. Mr. Shaul is an excellent manager, a thorough-going, systematic farmer and stock-raiser, and has made a success of both branches of his business. He is a man of good ability, a reader and thinker, a close observer of events, and in all the relations of life most honorable and upright, and is greatly esteemed by his friends and acquaintances.
Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy