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Subject: Bio of Wilbur F. Busby
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 07:18:03 EDT

A Narrative History
of
The People of Iowa
with
SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN
EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY,
BUSINESS, ETC.
by
EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M.
Curator of the
Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa
Volume IV
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc.
Chicago and New York
1931

WILBUR F. BUSBY has been a resident of Iowa since he was a child of about
two years, is a scion of a family that here made settlement sixty years ago,
here he was reared and educated, and in his independent career he has here given
good account for himself in connection with farm enterprise, as a teacher in
the public schools, as a reliable ad progressive business man, as bank
cashier, and finally as postmaster of the City of Creston, judicial center of
Union County, the office of which he became the incumbent on the 8th of March,
1928, and in which he is giving a characteristically loyal and progressive
administration. He has been a resident of Union County somewhat more than forty
years.
Mr. Busby was born at Fairmont, Vermillion County, Illinois, on the 21st of
June, 1867, and is a son of Dudley F. and Elizabeth T (Walker) Busby, the
former of whom was born at Pendleton, Indiana, where their marriage was
solemnized, and the latter of whom was born near Wheeling, West Virginia. From his
native state Dudley F. Busby moved to Illinois, and there he was a farmer in
Vermilion County until his removal to Iowa. He arrived with his family in the
Hawkeye State September 15, 1869, and purchased land in Adair County, where he
continued his activities as a progressive agriculturist and stock-grower
during a period of thirteen years. He then removed to Iowa Falls, Hardin County,
where he lived for two years, the removing to Dexter, Iowa, where for three
years he was engaged as a grain buyer. In 1888 he removed to Union County,
living retired in Creston at the time of his death in 1912 at the age of eighty
years, his wife likewise having died in that city in 1925, at age of
ninety-two years. Of the eight children seven are living, and of the number the
subject of this review is the only son. Dudley F. Busby was an active member of
the Methodist Episcopal Church more than sixty years, and his wife likewise
was a zealous member. He organized the first church of this denomination in
Adair County, and he and James Hammer paid the salary of its pastor two years.
The service of this church has been effectively continued during the long
intervening years and the organization now has an attractive and modern church
edifice. Mr. Busby was a stalwart Republican and was affiliated with the
Masonic fraternity. He trice volunteered for service as a soldier of the Union in
the Civil warm but minor physical disqualifications caused him to be rejected
on each of these occasions. He was known and valued as one of the most
progressive citizens of Adair County, Iowa, in the early das, and was there a
leader in popular sentiment and action. His father, John Busby, was born in
Virginia, of Colonial ancestry, and became a pioneer of Indiana, where he made
settlement about the year 1825, and where he reclaimed a farm from the virgin
forest. John Busby removed, in 1863, from Indiana to Illinois, where he
purchased a large farm near Danville, and in the early '70s he came to Iowa, where he
passed the remainder of his life, he having died in 1881 and his remains
being interred in the cemetery at Winterset, Madison County. He organized a
regiment for service in the Mexican war, but the command was not called to the
stage of conflict, he having been made colonel of the regiment. Four of his
sons were gallant soldiers of the Union in the Civil war. Harper Walker,
maternal grandfather of the present postmaster of Creston, is supposed to have been
born in Virginia and was of Scotch lineage, his American ancestors having
come from the North of Ireland. Mr. Walker eventually made settlement in the
northern part of Missouri, and there he remained until his death. The maiden
name of the paternal grandmother of the subject of this review was Phoebe
Boggess, and she was a native of Pennsylvania. Catherine (McNeer) Walker, the
maternal grandmother, was a native of Virginia.

Wilbur F. Busby passed the period of his childhood and early youth on his
father's pioneer youth on his father's pioneer farm in Adair County, and after
attending the rural district school he was a student one year in the high
school at Iowa Falls and two years in the high school at Dexter. He was not yet
twenty-one years of age when he came to Union County, in 1888, and here he
purchased eighty acres of land and engaged in farm enterprise in an independent
way. He made this investment largely on credit, and the first check he ever
wrote was for the $1,000 that he paid as the balance due on the purchase
price of his land. In the meanwhile Mr. Busby supplemented his income by
teaching in the rural schools during winter terms, in the '90s, when his services
were not in so insistent requisition on his farm.

Mr. Busby was twenty-six years of age when, in 1893, he was united in
marriage to Miss Flora M. Pearce, who was born and reared at Creston, a daughter of
Joshus C. and Frances (Scott) Pearce, the former of whom was a pioneer
settler at Creston, who served as a soldier of the Union in the Civil war and who
is now a patriarchal citizen of Denver, Colorado. The death of Mrs. Busby
occurred July 4, 1895, and she is survived by no children. After the death of
his first wife Mr. Busby was united in marriage, on April 5, 1905, to Mrs.
Nellie C. (McKibben) Coffeen, who was born in Winnebago, Minnesota, and who had
one son by her first marriage, this son, David A. Coffeen, being the Des
Moines city passenger agent for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. Mr.
and Mrs. Busby have no children. Both are zealous members of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in their home city, and he is serving as a member of its board
of trustees, besides which he was for three years superintendent of its
Sunday School.

Mr. Busby is a stalwart in the local ranks of the Republican party and has
been influential in civic affairs in Union County, where he has maintained his
home at Creston since retiring from his farm, in February, 1910. During the
first year of his residence at Creston, he gave his attention to the buying
and shipping of horses, and in February, 1911, he here became assistant
cashier of the Farmers & Merchants Bank, the year 1916 having marked his
advancement to the office of cashier of the institution and his services in that
capacity having continued until he was appointed postmaster of the city, on the 8th
of March, 1928.

In the Masonic fraternity Mr. Busby served as master of Creston Lodge, A. F.
and A. M., in 1926-27, and his affiliations have been extended to other York
Rite bodies and also to the Scottish Rite. He has passed the various
official chairs in the different bodies of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,
including those of both Encampment and Canton, and he is affiliated also with
the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, is a charter member of the local
camp of the Improved Order of Red Men, and has further affiliation with the
Modern Woodmen of America, the Loyal Order of Moose and the Brotherhood of
American Yeomen. He was a four-minute speaker and otherwise active in patriotic
service in his country in the World war period. The father of Mrs. Busby,
John McKibben, was a soldier of the Union in the Civil war, as were seven of
his brothers, and all of these eight brothers were members of Company I,
Second Minnesota Cavalry. All but one of the number survived the conflict and all
were in service during virtually the entire period of the war. Mrs. Busby's
maternal great-great-grandfather, John Schmidt, was a Revolutionary soldier
and a native of New York State. Mrs. Busby's mother and step-father, Mr. and
Mrs. J. C. Andreas, removed from Creston, Iowa, to Santa Cruz, California, in
1905, where they lived retired, Mr. Andreas passing away in 1918 and Mrs.
Andreas survived until 1929.



Debbie Clough Gerischer
gerischer.rootsweb.com/

Iowa History Site
iagenweb.org/history/index.htm

Scott County
celticcousins.net/scott/index.htm

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