Representative Joseph H. Evans View All Years

TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE THIRTY-SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY, EXTRA SESSION:

Your committee appointed by the House to draft a statement and resolutions relative to the life of the Honorable Joseph H. Evans, deceased, report:

Hon. Joseph H. Evans, who passed from earth on July 9th, 1908, was born in 1822, in Maryland, being left an orphan at the age of four years; was educated in Baltimore, preparing himself for a teacher, emigrating to Indiana first, and then in 1852 to Iowa, locating in Jones County, where, while commencing the study of law, he heard and responded to the call of our martyred President Lincoln for “six hundred thousand more,” enlisting in the celebrated regiment commanded by Colonel William Smythe, known as the “Hawkeye Hounds” because they marched so far, fought so well and never tired, the regiment being assigned to the Fifteenth Army Corps, under command of General Sherman. Enrolling as a private, within three months he received the commission of Captain of Company “G,” in which he enlisted and from which he was mustered out at Louisville, Kentucky, on June 27th, 1865. He was commissioned to take eighteen hundred cattle to General Thomas, and therefore missed being with his command in the celebrated march through Georgia, but participated in many notable battles, among which were the battles of Atlanta and Jonesboro, and was with his company in the great parade of Grant’s and Sherman’s victorious armies in Washington, D. C., on May 23rd and 24th, 1865.

Becoming a resident of Mahaska County and a farmer in 1869, he served faithfully his State as Representative in the Eighteenth General Assembly of Iowa, and later his County two terms as member of the Board of Supervisors. He introduced the bill enacted into law creating the first Mine Inspector of Iowa. He belonged to the Masonic Fraternity and G. A. R. Post.

He leaves a wife, one son and two daughters to revere the memory of a long and useful career.

Resolved, That in his death we recognize the loss of a loving parent and valued soldier, a sturdy pioneer, a good neighbor, an honored official and an upright, honest, industrious, highly patriotic citizen of sterling character.

Resolved, That these resolutions be entered in the Journal of this House and that an engrossed copy be furnished his family by the Chief Clerk.

A. F. N. HAMBLETON,

JOHN MCALLISTER,

G. H. SCHULTE,

Committee on part of the House.