BIOGRAPHY: Bigelow, LaFayette
From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875

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Honorable LaFAYETTE BIGELOW, proprietor of the Bigelow house, McGregor 
was born and brought up in Chenangon County, New York, and moved to Iowa in 
I849 among the first settlers of McGregor. He was then a young married man, having 
married at Ithaca, New York in June 1840. Miss Lucinda Ford, and with his young 
wife set out to seek his fortune in a new country. 
He arrived at McGregor's Landing on the 18th day of June, 1849. At that time 
there were only two or three buildings in the place. He bought out a man by the 
name of Gould, then occupying a part of the McGregor House, and opened the first 
hotel in the place, which he continued to keep about fifteen months.
In 1851 be purchased a quarter section of land in Girard Township, now known as 
the Bigelow farm, and entered three hundred acres adjoining, which he improved and 
built a house upon, and occupied until 1864, when he removed to Chicago and 
engaged in the grocery business.
 	In December, 1864, Mrs. Bigelow died in Chicago, and the following year he 
sold out, and with his children, went on a visit to his father's in Tioga County, 
Pennsylvania, where he remained and took care of his parents until 1867.
	In January, 1867, he was married to his second wife, Mrs. Julia Swan, relict of the 
late M.C. Swan, of Blessburg, Pennsylvania, and a daughter of Honorable L.B. Smith.
	In August, 1867, he came with his wife to Elkader, Clayton County, and began life 
there by opening the Boardman House and commencing hotel keeping. In 1870 he 
purchased the house of H.D. Evans & Co., and carried it on successfully for six 
years, when he sold out to Wade & Day. Removing to McGregor in August, 1874, he 
purchased of the same firm the hotel known as the Straw House, now the Bigelow 
House, and refitting and furnishing entirely anew, opened it as a first-class hotel, 
which is now conducting to the satisfaction of the traveling public generally.
	As a landlord he is peculiarly adapted to the situation, sparing no pains to 
accommodate his guests, and being of that courteous and obliging disposition which 
pleases and wins customers. Both in public and private life he has won a high degree 
of confidence and esteem.
	He was elected to the Legislature on the first Republican ticket of the county, with 
Honorable Reuben Noble, in 1854, and re-elected in 1856, serving two consecutive 
terms as a member of the House. 
	His two and only children, by his first wife, are both living. His daughter, Stella, now 
Mrs. William G. Sears, resides in Milwaukee; his son, Lafayette, Jr., still lives with his 
father at McGregor.