My Genealogy Hound

BURTON, ISHAM, far., Sec. 28; P. O. Fort Madison; son of Levi Burton, who was born in Maryland, and when 10 years of age, moved with his father to Guilford Co., Va., where he grew to manhood, and married Miss Betsy Lansford, who was born in Virginia; Levi Burton and his wife remained in Virginia about five years; then moved to Kentucky, near Harrisburg; thence to Indiana, when that country was beginning to settle up; the country was so infested with Indians, they returned to Kentucky; after the Indians were quieted in Indiana, they returned to that State, and settled in Harrison Co., where Isham Burton was born in 1811, and where his mother died in 1814, leaving a family of four children; Isham received such an education as his native county afforded at that early period. At the age of 22 years, he married Miss Lydia Harger, who was born in New York; in 1813, her parents, Samuel and Eunice Harger removed to Indiana, when she was quite small; in the spring of 1836, they removed to Iowa and settled at West Point, Lee Co., where he made the brick used in building the first church ever erected in the Territory; they came from Indiana in an ox-wagon, and were four weeks on the road, often “sticking” in the sloughs and pulling out backward; they remained at West Point some years, and then removed to Pleasant Ridge Tp.; his wife’s father visited Burlington and bought 100 acres of land that is now occupied in part by the Patterson car-stables; and, in 1846, Isham removed to Union Tp., Des Moines Co., where he purchased 300 acres of land, and remained until 1861, when he purchased and removed to his present beautiful homestead of 320 acres, valued at $70 an acre, near Fort Madison, and afterward sold his Des Moines Co. land. He is a Democrat; members of the M. E. Church since their youth. Mr. Burton’s father married a second time; in 1842, removed to Iowa and settled in West Point Tp., remained until 1848 then moved to Des Moines Co., where his wife died in 1852, and he in 1860, at the age of 93 years.