Mindret Wemple (1830-1900)

     Portrait from the Iowa Legislature Historical Database.

                                          

   A prominent 19th century resident of Iowa, the curiously named Mindret Wemple performed with valor on the Civil War battlefield and later became a medical practitioner in both Illinois and Iowa. Towards the end of his life, Wemple was honored by the citizens of his home county of Decatur by being elected to one term in the Iowa House of Representatives.

   A New Yorker by birth, Mindret Wemple was born in Monroe County on September 15, 1830, the son of Gerrett and Dorcus Irwin Wemple. His odd name is believed to be a corruption of the spelling of "Myndert Wemple" a Dutch-descended name held by a few New York citizens in the mid to late 18th century. Mr. Wemple received his schooling in his native county of Monroe and went on to study medicine at the Ohio Medical College in Cincinnati and did post-graduate studies at Jefferson College in Philadelphia.

   Mindret Wemple removed to Carroll County, Kentucky when he was still a young man, marrying here in 1853 to Ms. Lucy Butts (died 1867), who later gave birth to two sons, Frank Yates (born 1854)) and Elmer Hatch Wemple (born 1866). He also established a medical practice here for a short while, eventually relocating to Mt. Pulaski, Illinois in the late 1850s. After resettling in Illinois, Wemple set up his practice once again, and at the outset of the Civil War in 1861 was commissioned by then Illinois Governor Richard Yates as a Captain in Company H of the Fourth Illinois Cavalry. He was present at the Battle of Shiloh and was later promoted to Major. The Garden Grove Express of February 15, 1900, also details Wemple's bravery on the battlefield, noting that he was "brevetted colonel for meritorious conduct."

  After being mustered out of service in November 1864 Wemple returned to farming and practicing medicine, and in 1867 suffered personal tragedy with the death of his wife Lucy. He remarried in November 1869 in Morrow County, Ohio to Ms. Amanda Nye, a member of the prominent Nye family in that state. One of Amanda's ancestors was none other than Arius Nye (1792-1865) a member of the Ohio senate profiled here back in June of last year. Mindret and Amanda later became the parents of two children, Edith Claire (born 1876) and Irma Nye (born 1887).

   Throughout the 1870s and 80s, Wemple engaged in farming pursuits in addition to practicing medicine. He resided in Illinois during this period and in 1893 moved to Iowa, settling in Garden Grove in the county of Decatur. Within a few years of his resettlement, Wemple had established his name in the county and in the 1897 election year won a seat in the Iowa State House of Representatives. Taking his seat at the beginning of the new year, Wemple proved to be very busy during his one term in the legislature, serving on the house committees on Constitutional Amendments, Agriculture, Public Health, Horticulture, Pharmacy, Military, Mines and Mining, the Board of Public Charities, the Institute for the Feeble Minded, and the Soldiers and Orphan's Home.

  Mindret Wemple's term in the house concluded on January 7, 1900, and he died of an undisclosed illness a little less than a month later on February 6. His obituary in the Humeston New Era notes that he most likely "would have been reelected if his illness had not prevented it" but makes no mention of what malady he may have suffered from. Wemple was interred at the Garden Grove Cemetery in Decatur County and was survived by his wife Amanda, who died in Kissimmee, Florida in April 1935 at age 89. Strangely, she was not returned to Iowa for burial with her husband but was interred at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Kissimmee. 

From the Garden Grove Express February 15, 1900.

Treverious Glorian Price (1846-1922)

From Stone's History of Colorado, Volume III.

  This intriguingly named man is Treverious Glorian Price, an obscure resident of Iowa who made his name (politically speaking) in the Colorado Territory. Despite his prominence in Colorado political circles, little information could be found on Price, and the majority of the information herein was discovered in the third volume of Wilbur Fisk Stone's masterwork History of Colorado, published in 1918 and the History of Clayton County, Iowa, published in 1882. Price's unusual first name is also recorded as being spelled three different ways, including "Trevereous" and "Trevious". With all of these spelling variations floating around, one should note that Price's name is abbreviated by a good majority of period literature as "T.G. Price."
   Treverious G. Price was born on June 27, 1846, in the town of Jefferson in Clayton County, Iowa, the fourth-born son of Judge Eliphalet (1811-1880) and Mary Cottle Price. While Eliphalet Price himself had an odd name, he obviously believed his children were bound for great things and decided to bestow fascinating names upon each of them. Besides our subject Treverious Glorian there was Realto Exzeque (born 1840), Valmah Valentine (1842-1864), Avalo Jersey (1844-1871), Eliphalet Inthe (born 1851), and Alpine Wherin (born 1855)......a truly impressive brood of interestingly named offspring!
   T. G. Price attended school in Clayton County and spent the majority of his adolescence working on his father's farm. In 1862 he entered the Upper Iowa University and after one year of study left to enlist in Co. A of the 47th Iowa Infantry. He was later deployed to Mississippi, where he was "principally on garrison duty" in the town of Holly Springs. After being mustered out of service in 1865, Price returned to Clayton County and studied law for a time before finding employment with the Northern Pacific railroad, helping to construct telegraph lines in the Dakota territory. In 1873 he took on a job as a railway postal clerk/mail agent and served in this capacity until the end of the 1870s. In November 1873 Price married Ms. Mary Hawn (1843-1879), with whom he had one son, Avalo Price. Treverious and Mary were married for only six years before she died at age 36 in Elkader, Iowa in August 1879.
   In 1878 Price made an attempt at his first political office, running as a Republican for the position of the recorder for Clayton County. Although he was "defeated at the polls by a coalition of Democrats and Greenbackers", Price eventually won out, later being appointed as the Postmaster for Elkader in February 1881. He served in this post for an indeterminate length, and in 1887 Price left Clayton County and relocated to the Colorado Territory. He would eventually settle in the area that became Kit Carson County and resided here for the remainder of his life.
   Price built a frame house in the town of Burlington and thereafter began the raising of cattle on his property. It was also during this time that he was elected as judge of the newly established Kit Carson County. Price later was elected to the Colorado State House of Representatives in 1892, and served in the next two sessions of the legislature in 1893 and 1894, holding a seat on the house committees on the State Penitentiary, Revision and Constitution, Stock, the World's Fair, and chaired the committee on Fees and Salaries.
  "T.G." Price was returned to the state house in the 1896 election year and served another term in the legislature from 1897-98, being named to the committees on Elections and Appointments, Insurance and Banking, and Road and Bridges. Following this term, he won election as the Mayor of Burlington, Colorado, and would hold that post for two terms. Price also held the offices of President of the Kit Carson County Board of County Visitors, clerk of the district court, and was a notary public for that county from 1907-1911.  In addition to being a prominent public official in Kit Carson, Price was an active Mason, being a longstanding member of the Burlington Lodge #77. 
   The latter portion of Price's life is a total mystery, although it has been found that he died sometime in 1922 (via a Find-a-Grave listing) when he would have been around 75 years of age. He was later interred at the Riverside Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.

From the Davenport Democrat Leader, April 30, 1922.