Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/242

 W. F. HARRIMAN was born in Warner, New Hampshire, August 16, 1841. His education was acquired in the public schools of his native town and in the New London Literary and Scientific Institution. He worked on a farm and taught school until his parents removed to Iowa in 1860, when he began to read law. In 1869 he was admitted to the bar at Charles City and settled in Cherokee where he began practice. He soon became a large land owner and planted the first artificial grove in that county. In 1876 he removed to Hampton in Franklin County where he resumed the practice of law. Retiring from active practice in 1888, Mr. Harriman engaged extensively in farming and stock raising. In 1891 he was elected on the Republican ticket Representative in the House of the Twenty-fourth General Assembly, serving by reëlection also in the Twenty-fifth General Assembly. In 1895 he was elected to the Senate from the district composed of the counties of Cerro Gordo, Hancock and Franklin, serving in the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh General Assemblies. He was the author of the act creating the Department of Agriculture. ELDEN J. HARTSHORN, soldier and legislator, was born in Lunenburg, Vermont, June 16, 1842. He was educated in the public schools and St. Johnsbury Academy where he prepared for college. In 1862 he enlisted in Company E, Fifteenth Vermont Volunteers, and was soon promoted to second lieutenant. He was offered a West Point cadetship, but declined to leave the service. In 1864 Lieutenant Hartshorn was promoted to captain of Company G, Seventeenth Vermont Infantry and joined Burnside's Ninth Army Corps in the Army of the Potomac. The regiment was in the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Tolopotomy Creek, North Anna River, Bethesda Church, Cold Harbor, Petersburg and the fall of Richmond. At the close of the war Captain Hartshorn studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1869 and coming west the following year, located at Emmetsburg, in Palo Alto County, Iowa. Here he was land agent for the Milwaukee Railroad and represented many non-resident land owners. In 1873 he was elected Representative in the House of the Fifteenth General Assembly from the district consisting of the counties of Pocahontas, Buena Vista, Palo Alto and Emmet. He was elected to the Senate in 1875 serving in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth General Assemblies. In 1898 Captain Hartshorn was appointed to a position in the Interior Department at Washington. SERRANUS C. HASTINGS was born in Jefferson County, New York, on the 22d of November, 1814. He was liberally educated and at the age of twenty became Principal of Norwich Academy. In 1834 he removed to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar. In the presidential campaign of 1836 he was employed as editor of the Indiana Signal, supporting Martin Van Buren for President. In 1837 he