Wapello County IA Archives Biographies.....Tower, Charles R. 1868 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 July 5, 2013, 3:20 pm

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

CHARLES R. TOWER.

In the year 1909 Charles R. Tower became one of the organizers of the
Tower-Majors Candy Company and since that time the business has increased
four-fold, becoming one of the important productive industries of Ottumwa. Their
establishment is known as "The House of Chocolates" and is popular with the
public because of the excellence of their product and the reliable business
methods of the members of the firm, of which Mr. Tower is secretary and treasurer.

He is one of Ottumwa's native sons, born October 3, 1868, and is a
representative of an old New England family. His grandfather, Oramel Tower, was
born in Randolph, Massachusetts, March 8, 1799, and in 1839 came to Iowa, while
this state was still a part of the territory of Wisconsin. He settled at
Farmington, Van Buren county, and became closely identified with the pioneer
development of that section of the state. Thirteen years later, or in 1852, he
removed to Ottumwa and watched the development of the tiny hamlet into a
thriving and prosperous city, in which he made his home until his death in 1884.
His son, Daniel Webster Tower, was born at at Farmington, Iowa, January 26,
1841, and after serving through the Civil war came to Ottumwa in 1865. He
enlisted at Keokuk, Iowa, on May 27, 1861, as a member of Company F, Second Iowa
Infantry, for ninety days. At the end of that time, when he received his
discharge papers, he immediately reenlisted, joining Company B, Seventeenth Iowa
Infantry, with which he served until the close of hostilities, receiving his
final discharge on the 5th of May, 1865, at which time he was serving as second
lieutenant, to which rank he had been promoted on the 7th of February, 1863. It
was Lieutenant "Web" Tower who when exchanged from Cahawba Prison in Alabama and
sent north on account of sickness, carried home in his wooden leg the original
copy of the song "When Sherman Marched Down to the Sea." This was published in
the north and thousands of copies were sent south to the boys at the front,
where it was sung at the camp fires from the Mississippi river to the Atlantic
ocean. The original copy, which was carried north by Lieutenant Tower, is now in
the Historical building at Des Moines. In Ottumwa he entered the grocery
business in connection with his father, Oramel Tower, where the Ennis building
now stands. After some years' connection with commercial interests in Ottumwa,
D. W. Tower was elected county recorder and by reelection was continued in that
office for three terms. He afterward became bookkeeper in the office of the
First National Bank and remained in that connection until his death in 1885. In
early manhood he married Laura Agnes Rowley, who was born at Crown Point,
Indiana, in 1846, and she, too, has passed away. They had a family of three
children, of whom one died in infancy, the others being: Charles R., of this
review; and Mabel, the wife of James M. Majors, of Ottumwa.

Charles R. Tower entered the public schools of Ottumwa and passed through
consecutive grades to the high school. On putting aside his text-books he went
to Kansas City, where he engaged in clerking in a shoe store for five years. On
the expiration of that period he returned to Ottumwa and traveled for J. H.
Merrill & Company for twenty years, his long connection with that house
indicating his loyalty and thorough reliability. He had the entire confidence of
those whom he served and they were loath to part with him when he resigned in
order to engage in business on his own account. It was in 1909 that he became
associated with George B. Simmons and James M. Majors in organizing the
Tower-Majors Candy Company, of which Mr. Simmons is the president, Mr. Majors
vice president and Mr. Tower secretary and treasurer. In the intervening years
they have increased the business four-fold, doubling it the first year. They
employ on an average from sixty to sixty-five people in the manufacturing and
jobbing of candy and have six traveling salesmen upon the road. They make a
specialty of the manufacture of high-grade chocolates, and their output finds a
ready sale upon the market because of its excellence and by reason of the
straightforward business methods of the firm.

Mr. Tower was married in Chariton, Iowa, on the 10th of June, 1896, to Miss
Berta Belle Briggs, a native of Dubuque and a daughter of Maurice W. Briggs,
born in Erie, Pennsylvania, a grain dealer of Dubuque and later owner of the M.
W. Briggs Wholesale Paper House of that city, but now deceased. His wife was
Harriett E. Crandall, who was born in West Hartford, Vermont. They came to Iowa
in 1867. Mr. and Mrs. Tower have one child, a daughter, Doris Briggs, born
September 19, 1902. Mr. Tower belongs to that class who have justly earned the
proud American title of self-made man. He has worked his way steadily upward in
business connections, his power and ability increasing through the exercise of
effort, and today he stands among those who are resourceful, energetic and
progressive and to whom the city owes its present progress and prosperity.


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


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