Biographical and Historical Records of
Wayne and Appanoose Counties P-439
Interstate Publishers
Chicago
1886

E. P. Steele, section 12, Union Township, postoffice New York, came first to Wayne County, Iowa, in 1853, when the country was new and settlers few. The following winter he taught a school of forty pupils from both States, Missouri and Iowa, in a log schoolhouse on the State line at Lineville. In 1854 he joined a party of 119 for an overland trip to California, and drove an ox team via Council Bluffs, Platte River, Salt Lake, South Pass, Bear River and Fort Hall. He worked in a mill in Sonoma County, California, and eighteen months later returned East via the Isthmus of Panama and New York City. In 1856 he came again to Iowa, and settled permanently in Wayne County, where he has since lived. He bought the 160 acres where he now lives for $1,300, and now, after a residence here of thirty years, which have been filled with hard work, he has, as the result of his good management, a pleasant home, surrounded by a grove of thirteen years growth. In his early life he was a plasterer, and for several years after coming to Iowa worked at his trade, visiting different parts of the county. He is a public spirited, benevolent citizen, and has assisted materially in developing and improving his adopted county. He was born March 22, 1829, in Whitley County, Kentucky, and was reared in Putnam County, Indiana, where his father, Andrew Steele, died February 8, 1885, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. Mr. Steele came to Iowa a bachelor, and began life alone on his farm in a small house. After getting a start he began to think of having a companion to share with him the vicissitudes of life, and accordingly, in 1858, took to himself a wife in the person of Luhama Querry, who came to Wayne County with her widowed mother. Their only child, W. P., was born September 19, 1859. W. P. Steel was reared in his native county, and was educated here and in Quincy, Illinois. He made a specialty of surveying, and was for some time employed to assist Burrus Moore. In 1881 he was elected surveyor of Wayne County, and is now serving his third term. He was married November 8, 1882, to Hattie E. Myers, of Quincy, Illinois. They have one daughter-Olive May. In politics the Steeles, father and son, affiliate with the Republican party, and are strict adherents to its principles.