IRA SEELEY.-This popular caterer for the public was born in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, October 8, 1830. is father settling in the wilderness, where Ira was born and rocked, not in the cradle of opulence, but in a sugar trough. When the boy was about seven years or ago, his father moved to Western Pennsylvania, and settled in Mercer County; Ira working on the paternal farm until seventeen years of age, and then engaged in teaching a district school in the winter; after which he improved his education at a college in Wilmington, Pennsylvania. He then built flat-boats on a tributary to the Alleghany River, and afterward emigrated to Jasper County, Iowa, in the spring of 1855, making his home in this county June 12th of the same year. In 1857, he was chosen Sheriff of Union County, and was married to Miss M. A. Anderson, of Des Moines County, in August, 1859. In August, 1862, he enlisted in Company H, 21th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, serving through the war; after the close of which he was elected County Treasurer. At the expiration of his term of office, he bought land and improved a farm, four miles north of Afton, where he continued until January 1,1876, when he purchased the Afton Tribune, and is, at this writing, conducting one of the live newspapers of Union County.

Illustrated Centennial Sketches, Map & Directory of Union County, Iowa, published 1876 by C. J. Colby.

[Ira is SGS # 2784g – Ira; Gideon; Agur/Augar; Joseph; Joseph; John; Nathaniel; Robert]