Representative Alonzo Abernethy View All Years

ALONZO ABERNETHY was born in Sandusky, Ohio, April 14, 1836; he died at Tampa, F1orida, February 21, 1915. In 1839 he removed with his father’s family to Bellevue, Ohio, where his early boyhood was spent working on a farm and attending school. In 1854 they removed to Illyria, Iowa, where he taught school. Later he attended Burlington Academy and Chicago University. In 1861 he left his studies of the senior year to enlist as a private in Company F, Ninth Iowa Infantry. He participated in the battles of Pea Ridge, Chickasaw Bayou, Jackson, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge and many other important engagements, and was rapidly promoted to lieutenant colonel. He was mustered out July 18, 1865. He represented Fayette county in the House of the Eleventh General Assembly, and was especially active in the revision and perfecting of the school laws. In 1869 he removed to Denison and engaged in farming. The following year he became principal of the University of Des Moines. After nine months’ energetic service he accepted the position of state superintendent of public instruction. He was twice re-elected and served until 1876 when he resigned to accept the presidency of the Chicago University which he held for two years. Following a European trip, he returned to his farm at Denison. In 1881 he accepted the presidency of the Cedar Valley Seminary at Osage to which he gave twenty-one years of service, leaving it transformed to a well-located, well-endowed permanently useful institution. In 1909 he located in Des Moines, spending part of each year in Florida where he had business interests. Colonel Abernethy received the degree of A.B. from the University of Chicago in 1866 and of Ph.D. from Lenox College in 1886. He took great interest in the educational interests of the Baptist denomination in Iowa, and was constantly in demand as a speaker before institutes of farmers, teachers, etc. He was secretary of the Iowa Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge Monument Commission, and a member of the board of regents of the State University of Iowa from 1890-1909. He was the author of “Iowa under Territorial Government and the Removal of the Indians,” “History of Iowa Baptist Schools,” “Glimpses of Abraham Lincoln,” and editor of Whitman’s “Early Life of Jesus and New Light on Passion Week.”