Rev. Moses Polley was born in the town of Bowdoin, Lincoln County, Maine, on Feb. 14, 1816, and was a son of Ashel and Mary Polley, nee Stafford, likewise natives of Maine. His father in his early years led a sea-faring life, and afterward engaged in the lumber traffic and in farming. The parents died in their native State after a long and useful life. The subject of this memoir received his early education in his native State, and after leaving school engaged in milling on the Penobscot River. He was married on May 19, 1841, to Hannah C. Ireland, who was born in Penobscot County, Maine, Aug. 14, 1821. Five children have blessed this union-- Daniel W., who enlisted in the Union service in the Twenty-seventh Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and officiated with his regiment in the North, as guard to a paymaster while paying off Indians, after which he was sent to the South, and there contracted a disease from which he died April 7, 1865*, in Monona, Iowa; John F., a graduate of, and now a teacher in the Iowa State University, since which he has accepted the position of principal draughtsman in the Surveyor General's office, at Helena, Mont; Osbert, and two others deceased. Mr. Polley was ordained as a minister in the Christian church in 1840, and in the summer of 1842 was sent to Hampton Falls, N.H., in charge of the Christian church at that place. He preached in various localities in that State until 1857, when he came to Iowa. Prior to locating in Clayton County he preached in Fayette and Allamakee Counties, and in 1864 he moved to Monona, where he often preaches and still resides. He is a man of superior intellectual endownments, and
fine oratorical powers. He is widely known throughout the
country, and is called for far and near, to administer to
dying souls, and to perform the marriage ceremony. source: History of Clayton County, Iowa, 1882, p.
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