Severance Family

SEVERANCE, KIMBALL, WRISLEY, ROBSON

Posted By: Tammy (email)
Date: 1/28/2015 at 07:23:33

Severance Family Has Anniversary

1956 marks the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Severance family in Grundy county. The Severances were originally from Ipswich, England.

John Severance married in England to Abigail Kimball in 1634 sailed in the ship "Elizabeth" on that date for New England. We find them in Boston in 1637, but soon after in Salisbury, Mass. among the first settlers there, while the country was yet a vast wilderness.

Pliney Severance of the 6th generation (whose father was Joseph Severance) was born in Greenfield, Mass. January 24, 1796 and married Sophia Wrisley, January 1, 1822, later moving to Grundy county, from Montague, Mass. in the spring of 1856. There were eight children, Henry, Edwin, George, Sabra Sophia, Ellen Maria, Mary, Charles and Fred, who served three years in the First Iowa Cavalry during the war of the Rebellion.

Luther Severance, a cousin, also of the 6th generation, was appointed by General Taylor after his election to the Presidency as Minister to the Hawaiian Islands. For three years he was the diplomatic representative of the United States to Hawaii working very closely with King Kamehameha and his cabinet. June 11 is observed each year in Hawaii the official holiday for Kamehameha Day.

Henry Severance, the older of the 5 boys and 3 girls, came West in 1855 and decided on the location and made arrangements for the family to come here the following spring. He owned the farm now occupied by the Ben VanDeest family north of Grundy Center. George located at Hudson, Edwin in Minnesota, Fred and Charles on the Severance farm north of town where the girls, Charles and Fred, and their mother lived for a good many years. Sophia Severance taught school and was the first postmaster in Grundy Center. There were only four houses in Grundy when they came here. One of the houses had a canvas roof, but after a hail storm there was not much left. The Severance house originally stood on East Main Street where the Mobile Oil Station is now. It now stands west of the Canning Factory and is occupied by Mr. Venenga. The family came by ox team from Cedar Rapids and the family still have the original yokes.

Charles married Elisabeth Robson. They had three children, Gertrude, Bertha and Frank. Bertha died in 1912, Charles in 1904, on the farm north of town now farmed by Judson Severance, son of Frank Severance of the 8th generation. James Judson, son of Judson Severance, is of the 10th generation.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Severance made a trip to Montague, Mass. several years ago, looking over the original home of the Severance family.

The grandparents and great-grandparents and the great-aunt Sophia Severance, are buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Grundy Center.

--The Grundy Register (Grundy Center, Iowa), 18 October 1956, pg 2