Wapello County IA Archives Biographies.....Norris, James Wellington 1815 - 1882
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 July 9, 2013, 9:38 pm

Source: See Below
Author: S. J. Clarke, Publisher

JAMES WELLINGTON NORRIS.

The history of newspaper publication in Ottumwa would be incomplete were there
failure to make prominent reference to James Wellington Norris, who was one of
the early editors and newspaper publishers of Wapello county and the publisher
of the first daily paper. He was born in Meredith, New Hampshire, August 13,
1815. His father, Samuel Sheriff Norris, also a native of the old Granite state,
was born in 1789 and died in May, 1861. He married Anna McKenzie Bean. They were
earnest Christian people, whose lives constituted an influencing force for moral
development in the communities in which they lived. Mr. Norris, a devoted
Christian man, aided in founding two churches in Canada, one in Bloomington,
Illinois, and a fourth in Ottumwa, Iowa. He labored with much success as an
agent of the Bible Society and as a Colporteur of the American Tract Society on
the frontier of Iowa. He was one of the original members of the First
Congregational church of Ottumwa. His two sons, James Wellington and George
Punchard Norris, and two daughters, Ann Nichols and Julia, came to Ottumwa with
him.

The second son, Captain George P. Norris, was born in Compton, Canada, May 15,
1830, and in 1845 arrived in Ottumwa, Iowa, in company with his parents. He
enlisted in Company C, of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry, as first lieutenant on the
3d of January, 1863, and was promoted to the rank of captain in 1865. He
participated in a number of hotly contested engagements and was mustered out at
Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1866. He married Roxcy Murray, and in their family were
six children. Captain Norris spent the greater part of his life in Minnesota and
Ottumwa, but passed away in Canton, Mississippi, May 30, 1899.

James Wellington Norris, the elder son of Samuel S. Norris, was a youth in his
teens when his parents removed with their family to Compton, Lower Canada. He
attended Hadley Academy and in the summer of 1833 went to the grammar school at
Peacham. In the winter of 1834 he took up the profession of teaching but in 1835
resumed his studies, marticulating in Marietta College, from which he was
graduated with the class of 1838. He then secured a position as private tutor in
Kentucky and while thus engaged devoted his leisure hours to the study of law,
so thoroughly qualifying for the profession that he was admitted to the bar in
1839, although he continued teaching at Bloomington, Illinois, until 1843. In
that year he removed to Chicago, and he published the first directory of that
city in 1843-4. In April of the same year he established the Chicago Journal in
connection with Robert L. Wilson and after two years began the publication of
directories again. He organized the first Rough and Ready Club and invited
Abraham Lincoln to address them, which he did. He was thus closely associated
with a number of important events that occurred during the early history of the
western metropolis.

On the 29th of March, 1849, Mr. Norris left Chicago with a mule team and arrived
at Ottumwa about the 1st of May. In December, 1855, he purchased the Courier and
ten years later established the Daily, which was the first daily published in
the county. During the period which antedated the war he was a strong advocate
of Abraham Lincoln and in the year 1861 Lincoln appointed Mr. Norris to the
position of postmaster of Ottumwa, in which capacity he served for five years to
the entire satisfaction of the general public. At the same time he continued the
publication of the Courier, but in 1866 sold the paper and in 1867 went to
Europe, this being at the time of the great world's exposition in Paris.

On the 27th of July, 1851, Mr. Norris was married to Miss Martha Rebecca
Spaulding, a sister of the Rev. B. A. Spaulding, one of the Iowa band of
Congregational ministers famous in church annals. Her parents were Sampson and
Susanna Spaulding, and she was born in Billerica, Massachusetts, on the 20th of
June, 1819. Through the columns of the press and through individual effort Mr.
Norris exerted a wide-felt influence on public affairs in Wapello county, doing
much to shape the public policy during the formative period in the history of
this section of the state. Mr. Norris passed away March 3, 1882, and his wife
survived until February 3, 1900.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:
HISTORY OF WAPELLO COUNTY IOWA
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME II
CHICAGO
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1914


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