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J. H. J. Stutt
Born May 3, 1867 |
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J. H. J. Stutt, one of the well known stockmen and farmers of Lovell township, was born in Wayne township, this county, May 3, 1867, and is a son of John and Mary (Harms) Stutt, both natives of Germany. John Stutt, however, came to this country in his young manhood, in 1861, and from the first closely identified himself with affairs here, for shortly after his arrival in the state of Illinois, he enlisted in the Union army. He served valiantly throughout the course of the Civil war and then at its close came to Jones county, Iowa, where he found work with John Jacobs, of Scotch Grove township. The next year, however, he returned to Germany to wed the woman he had courted before coming to this country, and when he crossed the ocean again he came immediately to Jones county, once more entering the employ of Mr. Jacobs. After one year's experience on the farm he located in Wayne Center, where he remained for two or three years, afterward buying a tract of land in Wayne township. That has been his home ever since and is his residence today. During the two score years and more that have passed, however, he has invested extensively in real estate, at one time owning three hundred and twenty acres. Some of this he has disposed of but he is still possessed of two hundred acres, and is still an active representative of the agricultural interests.
J. H. J. Stutt was reared at home under the careful guidance of his parents, attending the common schools, from which he received a good preparation for the responsibilities of life. At the age of twenty-two he began his business career as a farmer. He bought first one hundred and twenty acres of land west of Lambert, in Wayne township, on which he lived for about two years. Then he sold that tract, buying instead two hundred and forty acres at Langworthy, one hundred acres of which he sold the next year. There upon he rented one hundred, nineteen and a half acres, adjoining the one hundred and forty acres he still held, and after three years' satisfactory experience in its cultivation, added that tract to his possessions. Ever on the alert to profit from opportunity, his investments did not cease there nor his real-estate operations, for in 1902 he bought four hundred and eighty acres of land in South Dakota, which he traded in 1905 for his present farm in Lovell township. It embraces four hundred, eighteen and a half acres and was formerly known as the old Hosford place. To it Mr. Stutt removed January 10, 1906, and has since made it his home. He still owns in addition one hundred, nineteen and a half acres of his Wayne township farm, besides one hundred and fifty-four acres two miles north of Anamosa, having purchased it during the spring of 1909, and a tract of one hundred and sixty acres one mile west of Langworthy, all rich and arable lands. Although he has been most successful as a tiller of the soil, with a view to winning the largest returns from his vocation, he has embarked in other enterprises connected with the farm. Since he was twenty he has been engaged in threshing and now owns a modern traction engine of twenty-two horse-power and a gasoline engine of fifteen horse-power, both of which have proven not only a welcome source of revenue to him but also of great accommodation to men in his vicinity. Almost from the time that he began his life as an agriculturist he has been interested in buying and shipping stock, and as he has developed this branch of his business with characteristic energy and ability he has become well and widely known as one of the important stockmen of his section of the county. Endowed with a high degree of business acumen, industrious and progressive, these qualities have been the means of his success in his undertakings. In consequence he enjoys a handsome competence and the satisfaction that comes from the knowledge that his work is well accomplished.
In 1889 Mr. Stutt was united in marriage to Miss Catherine M. Zimmerman, of Wayne township, this county. Eight children were born to them, six of whom survive: Henry, Elizabeth, Clarence, Emil, George and Alva, all at home. Mrs. Stutt passed away May 1, 1908, being deeply mourned by the family who knew her love and care. On the 19th of October, 1909, Mr. Stutt married Catherine M. Valster, a native of Germany.
Politically Mr. Stutt has allied himself with the democratic party, but has evinced no desire to participate in local politics. He has given his religious allegiance, as did his parents before him, to the faith of the German Lutheran church, up to whose tenets he has endeavored to live.
Source: History of Jones County, Iowa, Past and Present, R. M. Corbitt, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, 1910, p. 301. |
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© Copyright 1997-2013, The Art Department, © Copyright 2014-2020, Richard Harrison.
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