Page 569

 

T. C. BUCHANAN

 

T. C. Buchanan, now a resident of Clearfield, is one of the prominent and successful agriculturists and stockmen of Taylor county, owning four hundred and eighty acres of well improved and valuable farming property on sections 20, 21, 28 and 29, Grant township.  The period of his residence in this county now covers almost four decades, for he took up his abode within its borders in the year 1870.

 

Mr. Buchanan was born on the 13th of March, 1848, in Washington county, Pennsylvania, where he was reared and educated.  After attaining his majority he left the old home farm and in 1870 came to Taylor county, Iowa, purchasing a tract of one hundred and twenty acres in Grant township.  A small portion of the land had been broken and a partially constructed dwelling stood on the place.  Mr. Buchanan set resolutely to work and in due time had developed a good farming property and also erected the necessary buildings, hauling his lumber from Cromwell.  As the years passed by and his financial resources increased, owing to his well directed labor and capable management, he gradually extended the boundaries of is place by additional purchase until it now comprises four hundred and eighty acres of rich and arable land.  In 1903, he bought a farm of thirty-four acres adjoining the corporation limits of Clearfield, on which he made his home until the fall of 1909, when he sold the place and secured a home in Clearfield, which he remodeled and improved, it being his present residence.  In addition to raising the cereals best adapted to soil and climate he makes a specialty of raising and feeding hogs and cattle, shipping from ten to twelve carloads of stock annually.  The prosperity which he now enjoys is all the more creditable by reason of the fact that it has come as the direct result of his unremitting industry and perseverance, for he started out in life on his own account empty-handed.  At the present time he owns more than five hundred acres of land in three well improved farms and is widely recognized as one of the most substantial and esteemed citizens of his community.

 

On the 11th of January, 1877, in Taylor county, Mr. Buchanan was united in marriage to Miss Dora Darlington, a native of Cedar county, Iowa, by whom he has five children.  Hugh resides on the old home place and carries on farming and stock-raising in partnership with his father.  He was joined in wedlock, at Gravity, this county, to Miss Maud Brooker, who was born and reared in Taylor county.  Their union has been blessed with two children, Roy and (page 570) Helen.  Lois, Edna, Edith and Anna, the other children of Mr. and Mrs. T. C. Buchanan, are all yet under the parental roof.

 

Where national questions and issues are involved Mr. Buchanan gives his political allegiance to the democratic party but at local elections casts an independent ballot, supporting the candidate whom he believe best qualified for the office in question.  He has voted for every presidential nominee of the democracy since casting his first ballot for S. J. Tilden in 1872.  He has capably served his fellow townsmen in the position of road overseer and likewise acted as school director for a number of years, the cause of education ever finding in him a stalwart champion.  He joined the Masonic fraternity at Conway and is now a Master Mason, belonging to Clearfield Lodge, in which he has served in an official capacity for a number of years.  His wife and daughters are devoted members of the Methodist Episcopal church and he contributed liberally toward the erection of the Greenwood church.  He is numbered among the valued citizens of Taylor county, having for almost forty years contributed to its agricultural development, while at all times his influence and aid are given on the side of general progress and improvement.