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Submitted by Cheryl VanWormer 


				HON. SANFORD A. YEOMANS

	HON. SANFORD A. YEOMANS.  The name of Sanford Yeomans is well known to the citizens of 
Ionia County as that of one of its earliest pioneers, as well as a man of prominence in various 
relations of life.  His many friends will be pleased to read this account of his life, even 
though time and space forbid a more detailed recital of his experiences and labors.  He is now 
President of the First National Bank of Ionia and is one of the large landowners of the county, 
his home farm being in Easton Township.  It consists of four hundred and fifty acres, well 
developed and well improved, and other tracts add many acres to his landed estate.  His stock in 
the aforesaid bank is rated at $12,700 and he has $2,000 in the Fifth National Bank at Grand 
Rapids.  The influence that comes from abundant means belongs to Mr. Yeomans, and coupled with it
is that stronger power exerted by mind and character.
	The parents of the Hon. Mr. Yeomans were Erastus and Phebe (Arnold) Yeomans, natives of 
Connecticut and Rhode Island respectively, and the mother a daugther of a Revolutionary soldier.
The father fought in the War of 1812 and became a pensioner of the Government on account of his 
services.  The parental home was in Herkimer County, N. Y., where our subject was born November 
29, 1816, and there they continued to reside until the child had reached his seventeenth year.  
They then, in the spring of 1833, made a removal to Ionia County and located in Easton Township 
on section 24.  They were practically in the woods, although the old homestead where his father 
settled is now included in the corporate limits of Ionia.  Erastus Yeomans was the first 
Postmaster of this place, was County Superintendent of the Poor and Associate County Judge.  He 
occupied his original estate here until his decease in 1883, at the age of nearly ninety-two 
years.  The venerable man was a well-known figure in the city and was valued as one of the best 
of citizens and the most useful of the old pioneers.
	As the eldest son in the parental family Sanford Yeomans necessarily bore an active part 
in improving the homestead, and early in life developed a strength of character and vigor of body
that seems to have been characteristic of the members of the pioneer families.  His education was
well advanced in the district schools of his native State, and was added to after coming West 
whenever opportunity offered.  As the curriculum of that day was not extended, he is 
self-educated in many branches.  He made his home under the parental roof until he was twenty-
four years old, when he started out to enter upon his personal career.  In 1840 he settled upon 
his present farm, which was partially timber and partly level plain, and was in the primitive 
condition of a country whose only inhabitants had been Indians.
	Mr. Yeomans first put up a small frame house, which he occupied a number of years but 
which was finally replaced by a more ample and commodious residence.  He developed the farm and 
added to the forty acres which had been given him by his father until he brought the home place 
up to its present acreage.  Among the other tracts now owned by him is a part of his father's
homestead.
	In January, 1841, Mr. Yeomans was married to Miss Abigail Thompson, a native of Vermont, 
who shared his fortunes until 1848, when she closed her eyes in death.  To the union there came 
four children, three of whom are living--Erastus, Olive and Walter.  The daughter is now the wife
of William J. Just.  Mr. Yeomans won for his second wife Miss Marietta A. Stebbins, who was born 
in Franklin County, Mass., March 6, 1829, and is a daughter of Chancey M. and Sophia Stebbins.  
She accompanied her parents to Ionia County in 1836, and is therefore nearly as well acquainted 
with the pioneer history of the county as her husband.  Her surviving brothers and sisters are: 
Seymour M.; George and Albert, living in Easton Township; Armanella, wife of Hiram Moss, in 
Clinton County; Chester, in Montcalm County; and Julia, wife of Andrew Ross, in Easton Township. 
By his second marriage Mr. Yeomans became the father of seven children, three of whom are living,
 their names being Willard S., Frank H. and Edwin.
	Like his father before him Mr. Yeomans is a stanch Republican and a man of undeniable 
public spirit.  For twenty years he has served as County Superintendent of the Poor and he has 
been Clerk of Easton Township for many years.  He served two terms in the Lower House of the
Michigan Legislature, the one in 1877 and the other in 1879.  In 1867 he was a delegate to the 
Michigan State Constitutional Convention, representing the west half of Ionia County.  In the 
archives of the State may be found his legislative record and in the memory of his constituents 
it is also engraved.  That Mr. Yeomans possesses more than ordinary financial ability is attested 
by his broad acres and other evidences of wealth.  That he is well versed on general topics and 
is thoughtful in his consideration of the issues of the day is soon learned in conversation with 
him.  The hospitality of himself and wife is almost unbounded, and the confidence and esteem in 
which they are held testify to their excellent characters.



This biography is taken from "PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL ALBUM OF IONIA AND MONTCALM COUNTIES, 
MICH."  Chapman Brothers.  Chicago, Illinois.  1891.  Pages 652-653.