James T. Bulman
L - Mill Matilda (Hartley) Bulman
R - J.T. Bulman, father, son and grandson
James T. Bulman needs no introduction to the readers of a
history of Allamakee county, for his name has long been an
honored one in this section of Iowa, to which his father came as
a pioneer and where he himself has through his industry, honesty
and success won a high place among the promoters of its
agricultural development. He is at present operating a fine farm
in Union City township and gives a great deal of his time and
attention to its further cultivation. He was born in Allamakee
county, October 6, 1857; and is a son of Thomas Bulman, whose
birth occurred in Thetford, Cambridgeshire, England, on the 6th
of April 1828. The father spent his boyhood and youth in that
country and there worked as a farm hand and at railroading. One
the 6th of October, 1848, he married Miss Phoebe Stocks, also a
native of Cambridgeshire, and on the 31st of the same month they
sailed for America on the W. V. Kent, a sailing vessel, which
arrived at New Orleans on the 9th of December, it requiring five
weeks and four days to make the voyage. After remaining in that
city for a short time they went to Evansville, Indiana, in the
spring of 1849 and there Mr. Bulman served an apprenticeship as a
bricklayer and plasterer, at which occupations he worked until
October 6, 1854, when he started for Iowa, driving overland by
team and arriving in Union city township, Allamakee county, on
the last day of October. There Mr. Bulman entered land and at
once began the construction of a log cabin. He continued to live
upon that farm until his retirement from active business life in
1888. He had in the meantime accumulated eight hundred acres and
this property he sold in the year to his two sons, James and
Thomas, and took up his home in Waukon, where he now resides,
having reached the age of eighty-five. His wife passed away in
1892. He and his wife became the parents of the following
children: Mary, the deceased wife of William Cummings; Mrs. Alice
Green, the widow of L. M. Green, of Montana; Emma, who married
Alfred Beardmore; James T., of this Review; Thomas S. who resides
in Pawnee county, Oklahoma; Carrie, the wife of Benjamin Hartley,
of Allamakee county; Jason C., who resides in Waterloo township;
Walter W., an attorney of Chariton, Iowa; Anna P., who married
William Rayburn, of Portland, Oregon; John, who has passed away;
Samuel, who died in infancy, and Phoebe, who is also deceased.
James T. Bulman spent his childhood upon his father's farm,
attending district school, and when not engaged with his books,
assisting with the cultivation of the homestead and becoming in
this way before he had attained his majority a practical and able
agriculturist. He began his independent career by renting a
portion of the home farm and this he continued to develop until
after his father’s retirement, when he purchased three
hundred and sixty acres, which he still owns. Upon it he has made
substantial improvements, erecting the necessary barns and
outbuildings and installing modern machinery, and he has by his
well directed and practical labors made the farm a productive and
profitable property, evidencing everywhere the care and skill of
an able agriculturist. Mr. Bulman has six hundred and forty acres
of Canada land. He is a stockholder in the First National Bank of
Waukon and is well known as a resourceful, far-sighted and
progressive business man.
In 1880 Mr. Bulman was united in marriage to Mill Matilda
Hartley, a native of Allamakee county and a daughter of Francis
and Hephzibah Hartley, who were born and married in England and
who came to America in a sailing ship, being seven weeks at sea.
They landed in New York and, making their way inland, settled in
Wisconsin and came to Iowa in the early ‘50’s, living
in Allamakee county until their deaths. Of the large family of
children born to their union five survive besides the wife of the
subject of this review: John W., who lives in Allamakee county;
Susan, who married Henry Allpress, of Nebraska, Alice E., the
wife of Thomas Henderson, of California; James W., of Lansing,
Iowa; and Francis, who lives in Los Angeles.
Mr. and Mrs. Bulman became the parents of seven children; Frank
T., new serving as county treasurer of Allamakee county; Ethel
and Mabel, who died in infancy; Nellie, who married Robert
Weymiller, of Allamakee county; and Leonard J., Alfred C. And A.
J., who live at home. The family are members of the Presbyterian
church.
Mr. Bulman is connected fraternally with the Masonic lodge, the
Modern Brotherhood of America and the Modern Woodmen of America.
He is a republican in his political views and has served in
various important official positions, including those of township
trustee and sheriff of Allamakee county.
He is interested in all that pertains to the general progress and
growth of his native community, being at all times a progressive
and public-spirited citizen, and in his business life he has
illustrated the value of integrity and industry, having won his
prosperity through intense and will directed energy.
-source: Past & Present of Allamakee County; by
Ellery M. Hancock; S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.; 1913
-transcribed by Diana Diedrich
Return to 1913 biographies index