John M. Wallace

JOHN M. WALLACE, a successful and enterprising farmer and stock-raiser, residing on section 36, Green Bay Township, was born January 8, 1833, in Ross County, Ohio. His parents, John and Jane (McCune) Wallace, had a family of six children – Sarah, Caroline, Mary, Elizabeth, John and Ellen. John M. was two years old when his parents removed with their family to Jasper County, Indiana, where the father died some six years later. After the father’s death the mother and her children settled in Cumberland, Pennsylvania. John M. Wallace was reared to maturity on a farm, receiving his education at the common schools. At the age of eighteen years he went to Clarke County, Ohio, remaining there three years, when he went to Knox County, Illinois. In August, 1862, he enlisted in Company E., Eighty-third Illinois Infantry. He was at Fort Donelson, Fort Henry, Clarksville, and in the campaign from Nashville to Florence, Alabama. He was honorably discharged at Nashville, Tennessee, June 26, 1865, and mustered out of the service at Chicago, Illinois when he returned to Knox County, Illinois. He remained there till the fall of 1868, when he came to Clarke County, Iowa, locating in Green Bay Township, on the farm where he still resides. He has brought his land from a wild state into a well-improved farm, has erected a substantial residence, which is comfortably furnished throughout, and has good barns and out-buildings for the accommodation of his stock. His farm now contains 225 acres of choice land, under the best of cultivation, and he is numbered among the representative men of his township, where he has made his home for so many years. Mr. Wallace was married October 19, 1865, to Mrs. Priscilla (Westfall) Hall, of Knox County, Illinois, and to this union have been born five children – Frank C., John E., Jenny M., Harvey E. and Frederick E. (twins). Mrs. Wallace has two children by her first marriage – George W. and Ella S. In politics Mr. Wallace is a Republican. He has served efficiently as township trustee for two or three terms.

SOURCE: Biographical and Historical Record of Clarke County, Iowa, Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1886 p. 338-9