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
