Jonathan Cable, my 2nd great grandfather on RootsMagic tree.

Jonathan Cable was born in Pennsylvania around 1807 and married Eliza Frey around 1840 in Somerset, Pennsylvania. By 1850 Jonathan, Eliza and their sons John and Chancey lived in southeast Wisconsin. Jonathan was a millwright. He and Eliza had another son, William and 2 daughters Sarah and Violet. When Eliza died in 1857, Jonathan married Charlotte Knapp.

By 1865 the Cable family lived and farmed in Pleasant Grove, Iowa where records show Jonathan paid taxes on a watch and a melodeon- like an accordion. In 1867 Jonathan and his family were part of the first Methodist congregation in Pleasant Grove, with a pastor visiting the town every 2 weeks or so. Jonathan built the second blacksmith shop in Pleasant Grove, still standing but not used in 1882.

Jonathan and son William’s land is in the 1895 Floyd County Plat Book: Jonathan owned 80 acres and William owned 160 acres of farmland. The 1870 agricultural census shows Jonathan’s farm with 69 acres of improved land, 16 acres of woodland, 2 horses, 5 milch cows, 4 working oxen, 12 swine. The farm produced 436 bushels of spring wheat, 200 bushels of Indian corn 354 bushels of oats, 20 bushels of Irish potatoes, 700 pounds of butter, and 17 tons of hay.

In 1885 Jonathan, Charlotte and William Cable lived on their Pleasant Grove farm with Charlotte’s dad William Knapp, a soldier in the Civil War. Jonathan’s death date and place are unknown. 

Sources:

• Volume 2 pages 840 and 843, History of Floyd County, Iowa: Chicago: Inter-state publishing co., 1882, at HathiTrust.
• 1870 Pleasant Grove, Floyd County Iowa, Iowa Non-Population Census Schedules, 1850-1880 at FamilySearch.
• 1885 Pleasant Grove, Floyd County Iowa State Census at Ancestry
• 1895 Pleasant Grove Township in Plat Book of Floyd County, Iowa at Iowa Digital Library, U of I Libraries.