BIOGRAPHY: Filkins, J. W.
From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875

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J.W. FILKINS was born November 20, 1823, at Nassau, Rensselaer County, 
New York. His Ancestors removed from Holland in 1623, and settles on the 
Hudson River, in New York, near which they have since resided. He 
received a good common school education, and at sixteen entered the 
Nassau Academy, where he remained two years, thus completing his 
academic education at eighteen years of age. Soon after leaving school 
in the Spring of 1842, the family removed to Wisconsin and located on a 
farm near Janesville, where the subject of this sketch remained some 
four years, teaching and reading law most of the time. In the early 
Spring of 1846 he entered the law office of Honorable Edward V. White, 
at Janesville, and then pursued his legal studies for about fifteen 
months, when he was admitted to the practice law by the Territorial 
Supreme Court of Wisconsin. About this time his father died, and as his 
oldest son his attention was immediately required in carrying on  the 
farm and settling the estate. He was occupied in this some two years, 
when, settling the farm,  he removed to Iowa in March, 1850, locating on 
a tract of wild land in what is now Iowa Township, Benton County. He 
farmed some, but devoted the greater portion of his time for several 
years to surveying, being in the employment of the general Government in 
Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. He  was also quite extensively engaged in 
real estate transactions and land speculations. In  1855 he was
solicited to become a candidate for recorder and treasurer, to which 
office he was elected, and faithfully served the county for two terms, 
during which time he resided in Vinton. In 1861 he located on a large 
and valuable tract of land immediately west of Belle Plaine, and has 
since devoted himself almost exclusively to the management of his 
farming interests. 
     Mr. Filkins has been a life long Democrat from principle, but for 
several years has taken but little interest in politics, wisely deciding 
that they are not usually conductive to happiness and peace of mind. 
From his boyhood he has been an extensive and careful reader, and has 
collected from time to time one of the most extensive  miscellaneous 
private libraries in the state, over two thousand volumes of which he 
lost in the fire which consumed his residence a few years since. 
     He was married in 1858 to Miss M.A. Kupid, and their home has been 
blessed by the birth of four children, all living.