Presley Saunders

As printed in 1906

PRESLEY SAUNDERS.

Presley Saunders was born in Fleming county, Kentucky, July 11, 1809, and emigrated to Springfield, Illinois, in the year 1828, and there engaged in farming until the breaking out of the Black Hawk war in 1832. He enlisted in Captain Moftet's company, and was an active participant in the events following, which lead to the capture of Black Hawk. The treaty of 1833, and the settlement of this territory by the whites. He was in the same regiment with Abraham Lincoln, and they were close, intimate and personal friends. In 1834 he, with his four companions, started west, and finally located on the site of Mount Pleasant, where he set his states and pre-empted the land from the government. In February, 1835, he brought his family from Illinois. In 1836 he opened a store in the new village of Mount Pleasant, and there began the business life which he followed, with strict integrity and always with success, for fifty-two consecutive years, making him the oldest merchant in the state.

In the early days Presley Saunders, with his brothers, Alvin and William A., organized a private bank, which they operated safely and successfully. In the year 1862 this bank went under the name of Saunders, Kibbin & Company, and continued thus up to the time of its organization as the First National Bank of Mount Pleasant. Presley Saunders was president of the First National Bank from the time it was organized up to the date of his death, July 19, 1889.

In 1830 he was married to Aliss Edith Cooper, of Sangamon county, Illinois, but she died at Mount Pleasant in 1836. They had one child, Alary, who married John W. !\IcCoy. In 1837 Mr. Saunders was married to Huldah Bowen. She was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, in 181 7. and was the daughter of Isaac and Rhoda Bowen. natives of Maryland and Kentucky. Their union was blessed with four children. Smith, who lived in Mount Pleasant for quite a number of years, and afterward moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he died on April 15, 1901, leaving two sons, Alvin B., who married Alice Saunders and who died in 1904, leaving a wife and three children who now live in Kansas City, Missouri: Eliza, the wife of John Bowman, now residing 'in York, Nebraska, and who have three children; and Etna, who married Fred Hope, and who now lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with her daughter, ]Mrs. Chester Rouse.

The life of Presley Saunders was full of encouragement to young men who had an earnest desire to succeed. He started only with a capital of a good constitution; was temperate and had frugal habits; was industrious, and was full of perseverance. From these humble beginning he raised himself to a prominent position in the community and acquired an ample fortune.

As printed in Biographical review of Henry County, Iowa, containing biographical and genealogical sketches of many of the prominent citizens of to-day and also of the past .. (1906). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.