Warren County IA Archives Biographies.....Fowler, Benjamin 1834 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 12, 2007, 9:33 pm

Author: Lewis Publishing Co. (1896)

CAPTAIN BENJAMIN FOWLER, one of the prosperous farmers of Lincoln township,
Warren county, Iowa, and an honored veteran of the great Civil war, dates his
birth in Perry county, Ohio, October 7, 1834, he being one of the eleven
children of John and Sarah (Brown) Fowler. Five of this number are still living,
namely: Mary Ann, wife of George Barnett, of Ohio; David C., who resides on the
old homestead in Perry county; Maria, wife of James E. Davis, Perry county;
Benjamin, the subject of this article; and William H., Perry county.

   John Fowler, his father, was born in Maryland, near the city of Baltimore,
and lived there until he was twenty-one years of age, On attaining his majority
he emigrated to Perry county, Ohio, and made settlement in a heavily timbered
district, he being the first white settler of Pike township, and so far as known
there were no settlers to the west of his location. He was a soldier in the war
of 1812, was nearly all through that struggle and rendered valiant service. Some
time after the war he was married to Miss Sarah Brown, a native of Virginia and
a daughter of Isaac Brown and wife, whose maiden name was Clayton, both natives
of Virginia; and in Ohio Mr. and Mrs. Fowler spent the whole of their married
life, and died and are buried there, her death occurring at the age of
sixty-three years and his at eighty-four. Our subject's grandfather, Richard
Fowler, was a native of France and a son of Richard Fowler, they being descended
from the old nobility of France. The elder Richard Fowler was a man of marked
personality and prominent in military matters. His son Richard came to this
country in early life and made settlement in Maryland, where he was for many
years engaged in farming and where he died at an extreme old age. The Fowlers
are noted for longevity. In the family burying-ground upon the old homestead may
be seen the graves of fifteen members of the family whose ages average over
eighty-five years—a remarkable record indeed.

   Captain Benjamin Fowler, whose name graces this sketch, made his home in his
native State until after the close of the Civil war. August 26, 1861, he
enlisted in the Thirtieth Ohio Infantry, Company D, under Colonel Hugh Ewing,
and at once went to the front. The first important engagement in which he took
part was that of South Mountain, where his regiment met with a heavy loss. His
command also met with heavy loss at the battle of Antietam, the siege of
Vicksburg and the siege of Jackson, Mississippi. Other engagements in which he
participated were those of Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta, Kenesaw
mountain, Ezra Chapel, Jonesborough and Bentonville. At Missionary Ridge,
Company D lost one-third of its members. But Mr. Fowler passed safely through
the many hotly contested battles until that of Bentonville, where he received
his first wound, and for three months thereafter was in hospital. His regiment
participated in the grand review at Washington, but Captain Fowler—he having
been promoted to the rank of Captain some time before—had not sufficiently
recovered from his wound to be there on that occasion. He was mustered out of
the service August 18, 1865, at Little Rock, Arkansas, after four years of
honorable and arduous service, and after receiving his discharge returned to his
old home in Ohio. That same fall he came out West and settled in Warren county,
Iowa, on the place where he now lives.

   Mr. Fowler was married September 22, 1857, to Miss Emily Brown, a daughter of
Joshua and Sarah Brown, she being a native of Perry county, Ohio, and a member
of a large family of children. Mr. and Mrs. Fowler have four children: Grant,
living on a farm adjoining his father's; Thad., at home; Sallie, wife of Ed
Webster, Fort Collins, Colorado; and Samuel, at home.

   For a period of thirty-five years Captain Fowler has made Warren county his
home, and in this time has won a place among the most successful and
enterprising farmers of his vicinity, always abreast with the times and ever
ready to give his support to any movement or enterprise intended to advance the
interests of the county. A veteran of the Civil war, he is, of course,
identified with the G. A. R., his membership being with James Randolph Post, No.
116. He is in politics a pronounced Republican and finds as he grows older that
he is more strongly imbued with Republican ideas. Both he and his wife are
devoted Christians and earnest and efficient members of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, their church organization having recently erected a fine, new house of
worship on land immediately joining the Fowler homestead.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

A MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF IOWA

ILLUSTRATED

"A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendants."'—MACAULAY.

"Biography is by nature the must universally profitable, universally pleasant,
of all things."—CARLYLE

"History is only biography on a large scale"—LAMARTINE.

CHICAGO: THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1896

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