- LEVI B. RAYMOND, soldier, journalist and politician, was
born in Allegany County, New
- York, on the 3d of July, 1836. His parents removed to Wisconsin
where he spent his boyhood years acquiring an education at Beloit
College. He learned the printer's trade and came to Iowa in 1864.
locating at Hampton. Mr. RAYMOND became editor and publisher
of the Hampton Recorder in 1837 and, with the exception
of four years, from 1872 to 1876, has continued to publish that
paper up to the close of the Nineteenth Century. During this
period of four years Mr. RAYMOND was instrumental in establishing
weekly papers in the northwest portion of the State. The new
towns desiring newspapers, Mr. RAYMOND, pioneer-like, undertook
to supply the demand. The papers established by Mr. RAYMOND from
1872 to 1875 were the Sheldon Mail, Cherokee Leader,
Sioux County Herald, O'Brien Pioneer, Newell
Mirror and Doon Republican. Colonel RAYMOND has been
superintendent of schools, a trustee of the Clarinda Insane Asylum,
also of the Soldiers' Home at Marshalltown, where he was instrumental
in establishing the cottage system whereby the wives and widows
might receive the benefits of that institution as well as the
disabled and infirm Union soldiers. He has been an active Republican
during his entire residence in Iowa, having served as a delegate
in thirty-three State Conventions and was chairman of the Republican
committee of Franklin County for thirteen years. From 1883 to
1886 he was Special Examiner of the United States Pension Department
and postmaster of Hampton from 1889 to 1894. He served two years
on the Republican State Central Committee. Before coming to Iowa
and when a young man, Mr. RAYMOND was in the Union army, serving
as sergeant in the Sixth Wisconsin Infantry. He was for fifteen
years a member of the Iowa National Guard, serving in all grades
up to and including the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
-
- [Taken from "History of Iowa from the Earliest Times
to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century, Vol. IV" by Benjamin
F. Gue; (c)1903 The Century History Co., New York City; pp. 218-219]
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