BIOGRAPHY: Young, James F.
From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875

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JAMES F. YOUNG was born in Johnson County, Indiana, April 26, 1825. His 
father Joseph Young, now eighty-five years of age, and a resident of 
Vinton, Iowa, was one of the earliest settlers of that county, having 
removed to the state from North Carolina when he was about nineteen 
years of age. Mr. Young's early education was received on a farm, at the 
primitive country school, and completed at the Franklin Seminary, at 
Franklin, Indiana, which he attended for about two years after he was 
fifteen. 
     In the Fall of 1849 he removed to Benton County, Iowa, and has 
since made it his home, having spent the year previous in Linn County, 
the same state. His first undertaking was to enter land, and commence 
improving a farm some six miles south of Vinton, in one of the most 
choice portions of the county. Here he brought his young bride, having 
been married that same Fall, in Johnson County, Indiana, to Miss Mary 
Bergen, and lived for some time with his nearest neighbor some six miles 
away. He carried on an extensive farming business here for some seven 
years, when he removed to Vinton and commenced the erection of his 
present stream flouring mill in the Spring of 1856. This grist mill, 
which was the first one in Benton County, and the largest and most 
complete one west of the Mississippi, except the Overman's Mill at Cedar 
Falls, built the same season, was completed in the Fall of 1857, at a 
cost of over $12,000. It was a large brick building, three stories high, 
with a basement, containing three run of stones and as complete and 
perfect machinery as could then be manufactured. He has since added the 
various modern improvements in the manufacture of flour,  and a sawmill 
containing an up and down and a circular saw. Since opening this mill in 
1857, he has always done an extensive flouring business, formerly 
shipping to Chicago and St. Louis, but of late years the reputation of 
his flour has been such that the home demand has been greater than he 
could supply. He has also, during the same period, been extensively 
engaged in buying and shipping grain, and was the only one carrying on 
that business prior to the completion of the railroad to Vinton. Since 
the arrival of the road, he has built a large elevator and done his full 
share of business. 
     His first wife died in the Fall of 1855, and he was married again 
some two years later. He now has four children living, having lost one 
in the Fall of 1874.