BIOGRAPHY: Caleb H. Booth
From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875

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General CALEB H. BOOTH, of Dubuque , was born on Christmas Eve, 
1814, in Delaware County Pennsylvania. Till the age of twelve, at which 
time his father died, he lived on a farm in his native county. He was then 
sent to school at a fine classical institution in Burlington, New Jersey, 
where, under the tuition of the celebrated Quaker mathematician, John 
Gummere, he studied mathematics, Latin and French, and made a 
specialty of preparing himself for an engineer. 
 
At seventeen he had an offer of a position as engineer on the Camden 
and Amboy Railroad, but, much to his regret, he was no at liberty to 
accept it on account of his father's instructions to his guardian to have 
him study a profession. The one chosen was that of the law, and he 
became a law student in the office of Samuel Edwards, Esq., in Chester 
Pennsylvania, where he studied three years, and on the 3d day of May, 
1836, was admitted to the bar. His certificate of admission, which the 
General has still in his possession, is signed by John Edwards, 
Prothonotary  a term for clerk of the court which, we believe, is used only 
in Pennsylvania. 
 
Soon after being admitted he determined to remove to Dubuque, then in 
Michigan Territory, and in company with P. H. Engle, well known as a 
distinguished lawyer and judge, first in Dubuque and afterwards in St. 
Louis, he arrived on the 3d day of July, 1836, just one day before the act 
of Congress establishing the new Territory if Wisconsin took effect. 
 
General Booth brought the first steam engine to Dubuque, and erected a 
steam saw mill on the lot known and the Booth and Shine lot, and went 
into the lumber business. He also engaged in the mercantile business in 
the firm of Booth, Townsend & Co., and in 1838 engaged in mining in 
company with William Carter, the firm being Booth & Carter. They have 
continued business without interruption to the present time. About fifteen 
years ago Mr. R. O. Chaney became a partner in the business, and the 
firm has since been Booth, Carter & Co. 
 
In 1839 General Booth was elected to the Legislature, and has served 
during the first session in Iowa City. 
 
In 1841 he was elected the first Mayor of Dubuque, and has served in 
the council several times since. 
 
In February, 1849, he was appointed by President Polk Surveyor 
General of the land district embraced in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, 
with the office at Dubuque, and was highly qualified by his early 
education to fill it with credit and satisfaction to all concerned. So 
satisfactory, indeed, was his administration of its duties, that he 
remained in it under President Taylor, although of the opposite school of 
politics, and not withstanding General Taylor was solicited to remove 
him. General Taylor had adopted a lenient and truly statesmanlike policy 
towards capable and honest men holding under previous appointments, 
which was not to remove them if they had not used their influence 
against his election; and finding that General Booth had been neutral 
during the campaign, he had a good ground of justification for retaining 
him in opposition to the partisan solicitations for his removal. General 
Booth discharged the duties of his office with rare judgment and fidelity, 
employing none as surveyors whom he did not know to be well qualified. 
He was superseded under Mr. Fillmore's administration by the 
appointment of George B. Sargeant, of Davenport, to the office of 
Surveyor General, between whom and General Booth a friendship was 
formed and continued for many years, growing out of the generous and 
kindly spirit with which the latter received the former when he came to 
Dubuque to take charge of his office. Mr. Sargeant, in gratitude for such 
kindly treatment, gave General Booth his choice of lands to survey and 
a contract in Wisconsin, in which he was engaged during the balance of 
that season. 
 
In 1851 General Booth engaged in partnership with William J. Barney in 
buying and selling land warrants and locating lands in various parts of 
the country, which, during the rapid period of land speculation, grew into 
an enormous business. In 1853 the firm was merged into Cook, 
Sargeant, Barney & Co., whose operation were the most extensive in the 
state till the crash of 1857, which ruined their prospects, as it did those of 
thousands of others in the West. They did not get out of the business 
soon enough to save themselves. 
 
In 1856 General Booth, with others, invested largely in the Dubuque and 
Pacific Railroad Stock. In 1857 General Booth was elected treasurer of 
the company and one of the directors. From that time to the present he 
has been continuously connected with the railroads in various ways. 
 
No man in Dubuque, or perhaps Iowa, has made and lost more money 
than General Booth. He has been a man of great versatility, adapting 
himself easily to changes, and hence few men have followed so many 
different occupations. He has been lumberman, merchant, pork packer, 
miller, banker, land dealer, miner, railroad officer, surveyor general and 
shot manufacturer, besides the offices he has held and the public 
services he has performed. He built the first flouring mill ever erected in 
Dubuque, the Dubuque City Mill, in 1848, and interest in which he still 
owns. For five years he gave his own personal attention exclusively to 
mining, going into the mines himself and supervising their operation. In 
1843 he struck one of the largest lodes ever opened in Dubuque, from 
which 7,000,000 pounds of lead were taken. 
 
In 1856 he was one of the state commissioners to establish the State 
Bank of Iowa, which institution owes its origin and establishment to him 
and his associates. He was one of the originators and has been the 
operator of the method of shot making by the substitution of a mining 
shaft for the ordinary shot-tower. 
 
In the Fall of 1872 General Booth was elected a member of the 
fourteenth General Assembly on the Republican ticket, he having voted 
that ticket since the war, though previous to that a Democrat in political 
faith. 
 
General Booth was married in 1838 to Miss Henrietta Eyre, a native of 
the same town in Pennsylvania, where he was born, and has raised two 
children. Both the General and Mrs. Booth are members of the Episcopal 
Church, of which church (St. John's in Dubuque) he is Senior Warden.