Representative Wesley Redhead View All Years

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Wesley Redhead

Polk County

Born in Cumberland County, England, July 22, 1825, when but four years old he came over the sea with his parents to Montreal, Canada. His parents died in 1831, and he then went to live with an uncle in Cincinnati, where he was apprenticed to learn the printing business. After a time, his uncle, thinking his environments were bad, sent him to Fairfield, Vermont, where his eldest brother was engaged in cabinet making. After a month's trial at cabinet making, Wesley concluded he could do better. He left Fairfield between two days, without a "ticket of leave," and walked most of the way to Whitehall, New York, where he got a job as driver on the Erie Canal. When the canal froze up, he went to a farm, where he worked two years, receiving therefor his board, clothes, and three months' schooling each year. In 1842, he concluded farming was not for him, and went to Saratoga Springs, where, for two seasons, he served visitors at Congress Springs, as a "dipper" of the aqueous fluid, when another predatory fit seized him, and he shipped on a Mississippi River steamboat as cabin-boy. On the way up, at Muscatine, in September, 1844, he deserted the ship, and went to Iowa City, where a brother resided. There he secured employment in the office of the Iowa Capital Reporter setting one column of type a day for the paper. Playing the "devil" for one year was enough for him, and, in 1845, he went to Anamosa, where he got employment to run a carding machine in a woolen factory, but soon after his health became impaired, and he returned to Iowa City and apprenticed himself for three years to learn the tailoring trade. In 1851, he came to Fort Des Moines and opened a tailor shop on Second Street. He was married twice, first in October 1851, to Miss Isabel Clark of Iowa City. In 1860, he lead to the altar Miss Annie Seymour, a native of Kentucky. In 1852, he took a clerkship in the general merchandise store of J. M. Griffiths, on Second Street. He was a good mixer, jolly, and, though a Democrat, in 1853 he was appointed postmaster by President Fillmore, to succeed Hoyt Sherman, who had resigned. He retained the office in the building erected by Sherman at Second and Vine streets, put in a small stock of books and stationery, and remained there until the Sherman Block was completed at Third Street and Court Avenue. In 1855, he opened an agency of the Aetna Fire Insurance Company, of Hartford. In 1856, at the May term of court, he was admitted to the bar as an attorney. In 1857, Redhead removed the Post Office to Sherman Block and controlled the trade of the city for many years. In the early Sixties, he began to widen the scope of his business. Coal and cattle presented strong inducements to him. In 1864, Redhead organized a company and began mining coal in a systematic way, with varied success. In 1865, he organized the Des Moines coal Company. In 1867, when the Equitable Life Insurance Company was organized, Redhead was elected Vice-President. He was one of the organizers of the People's Savings Bank, and one of its Directors. Politically, Redhead was a Democrat, until 1865, when he became a Republican. In 1866, Redhead was elected to represent the county in the Lower House of the Twenty-first General Assembly. Religiously, he was a Methodist, and a substantial pillar of that church.

House District 39