A Narrative History of The People of Iowa with SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY, BUSINESS, ETC. by EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M. Curator of the Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa Volume IV THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc. Chicago and New York 1931 JOHN C. JORDAN, president of the Iowa National Bank at Ottumwa, is a member of a family that on the whole has supplied as much good material to the business affairs and citizenship of Iowa as any other that could be mentioned. His father was William A. Jordan, one of the Iowa pioneers who came from Indiana the year before Iowa Territory was admitted as a state. He had the qualifications of a school teacher, but in Iowa became a merchant at Lancaster, then the county seat of Keokuk County. Subsequently he was a merchant at Richland and later at Eddyville. William A. Jordan married Maria McGraw, who was born in Ohio, removing with her parents first to Indiana and later to Iowa, where settlement was made in Keokuk County. She died in 1910, at the age of eighty-one years. It was in 1868, sixty years ago, that the home and center of activies of the Jordan family were transferred to Ottumwa. William A. Jordan was a merchant at Ottumwa and acquired a wholesale boot and shoe business, which he subsequently turned over to his son Walter B. He lived in Ottumwa until his death in 1873, passing away at the age of fifty-four. All of his sons became prominent in business in Iowa and elsewhere. Their names were Walter B., Jacob W., Albert C., John C., Charles L. and William G. William A. Jordan also had six daughters, all of whom are married and living, as follows: May, wife of Ira A. Myers; Ada, Mrs. Ben W. Ladd; Ida, Mrs. George F. Hall; Kitt J., Mrs. Claude Myers; Inez, Mrs. M. B. Hutchison; and Eva, wife of Emmett R. Work. All the sons were keen, able men. Walter B. after leaving the business he had taken over from his father became a post trader in the Dakotas and Montana in the early '70s, and should properly be credited with having done much toward the founding of Miles City in the latter state. Later he was in business at Saint Paul and Minneapolis, and saw his sons prosperously fixed in the business life of those cities. Jacob W. Jordan was a merchant in Ottumwa until 1902, when he retired. He died in 1910. His brother, Albert C., left Ottumwa when a young man, lived at Marshalltown for a number of years, but died and is buried at Ottumwa. Charles L. Jordan was connected with the Jordan interests in Ottumwa, and died during the '80s. William G. Jordan was for some years in the wholesale drug business at Des Moines, and later in Minnesota was associated with his older brother in the wholesale grocery business. He is now living retired at Pasadena, California. John C. Jordan was reared and educated at Ottumwa, leaving school at the age of sixteen. He went to work in his father's establishment, and has had a consecutive connection with the commercial life of Ottumwa for over forty years. He has been president of the Iowa National Bank since 1904. Mr. Jordan has been a member of the city council and for twelve years on the school board. He was a Democrat until the free silver campaign of 1896, in which year he identified himself with the gold wing of the party and has since acted independently. He married in 1881 Miss Nellie Butler. They had four children: Ethel, wife of Merrill C. Gilmore; Oscar W., who died at the age of twenty-seven, in 1912; Charles B. and Frank R. The two younger sons enlisted and were in training at the time of the World war. Debbie Clough Gerischer _http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/index.htm_ (http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/index.htm) _http://iagenweb.org/history/index.htm_ (http://iagenweb.org/history/index.htm) _http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/_ (http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/)