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Wells Sylvanus Rice
Marshall County
A native of Ashtabula county, Ohio, where he was born November 18, 1822. His father was a Massachusetts farmer, but, went with his parents to the Slate of New York, at the age of sixteen. In about 1888 he moved with his family to Ohio, where he lived until 1852, when he emigrated to Iowa, where he died in 1893. Young Rice resided at home during his minority, attending school and clerking in his father's store. At his majority he began life as a miller in Greenfield, Huron county, Ohio. After six years at this business he went to Trumble county, and for two years engaged in dairying. In 1851, he emigrated to Bureau county, Illinois, where he renewed his labors as a dairyman. After a year and a half at this place, he moved further west; settled in Marshalltown, Iowa, before there was any town, himself building the first house and selling the first dry goods and groceries in the place. He naturally took an interest in the embryo town; purchased the north half of the town plat, and surveyed an addition of one hundred acres adjoining the town on the west, known as "Rice's Addition." With a few exceptions he has been actively engaged in merchandizing up to the first of July, 1872, when he closed out for the purpose of devoting his entire time to real estate interests. In 1840, he was married to Miss Emily Caswell, of Steuben county, N. Y., and the daughter of a Knickerbocker farmer. Politically, he is a straight Republican, He has never been an office seeker, but by the suffrages of his fellow citizens he was elected to the State Senate for a term of four years, in the fall of 1857. He served his term faithfully and acceptably. He advocated several bills of importance, and one particularly of interest to his constituents, was the removal of the State Capitol to Marshalltown. Mr. Rice is emphatically a self-made man. Mr. Rice enlisted in Co. D. 5th Iowa Infantry, and was mustered in as captain, and served about eight months, when he resigned.
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