Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/925

 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY 797 eighl years. For the long period of sixteen years he worked faithfully as president of the village school board, and his de- cisions as justice of the peace for ten years have been just, yet ever tempered with good sense. Mr. Leavitt was born in Strat- ford. Fulton county, New York, April 29, 1834, and received his education in the common schools, after which he became a teacher, instructing country schools five terms before he was twenty-one years of age. He came to Pine Island township in 1864, and after one year on a farm went to the village and re- mained twenty years. For ten years he managed a grocery store of his own, and for a long period acted as agent for farm ma- chinery and windmills. Along about the middle of the eighties he took up farming on his present place, where he owns 160 acres which he has improved and brought to a high state of cultiva- tion, building a nice home and commodious outbuildings and carrying on general farming. In 1859 he was married to Elvira L. Gould, who died December 4, 1860, leaving one daughter, Elvira, who is living at present with her father. On January 15, 1861, he was married to Sarah C. Gould, sister of his first wife, by whom they have four children, Carrie, Bennett, Nettie and Jennie. Elvira married John Weckerling, of Reeseville, Wis., they having four children, viz. : Helen, Burton, Milford and Laura. Carrie married Frank Mott, of Pine Island, and has one son. Willis. Bennett lives at home. Nettie married George Dick- inson, who comes of one of the pioneer families of the county. They have three children, Lyle, Burton and Ora. Jennie is the wife of Thomas Congdon, of Hibbing, Minn., and has four chil- dren. Bennett, Ora, Alice and Thomas. Justus B. and Ruby (Vos- seller) Leavitt, parents of Charles H. Leavitt, were natives of Connecticut and New York state respectively, and in the latter state spent the larger part of their lives together. The father was a school teacher and county judge, also doing some farming. He died at the age of thirty-five, but the mother lived to be ninety- five years of age before passing to her eternal reward. Louis Starz, of Pine Island township, was born in Minneola township, August 29, 1861, son of J. J. Starz. He was educated in the common schools of the township and Zumbrota, and after- ward attended Mount Pleasant College in Iowa. Upon leaving school he entered into business in Zumbrota, and conducted a general store for twenty years, being very successful. In 1902 he purchased 200 acres of land in Pine Island township and en- gaged in general farming and dairying. He has built a fine home and barn with basement 40x80, and has all his land under culti- vation with the exception of about twenty-five acres, which is timber. Mr. Starz has been twice married. His first wife, by whom he has three children, died in 1892, and in 1894 he was