Reference: History of Page County, Iowa, also biographical sketches of some prominent citizens of the county, by W.L. Kershaw; S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, 1909.

In a review of American history, recognizing those who have contributed to the world's progress, it is imperative that mention be made of Jerome B. Armstrong.  Perhaps no man has done so much in propagating corn and in this connection has received recognition from the department of agriculture in Washington and from many expositions.  He is now the senior partnerof the firm of J. B. Armstrong & Son, seedmen of Shenandoah, and is the pioneer in this line of business not only in Iowa but also in this part of the country.

He was born in New York on the 3d of July, 1831, and is a son of David W. and Sarah M. (Tredway) Armstrong.  The ancestors of the Armstrong family were of Irish birth, while the Tredways were of Scotch lineage.   Both families were founded in America in the seventeenth century, settling first in Connecticut.  The grandfather of our subject and three of his uncles, two on the paternal side and one on the maternal, served throughout the Revolutionary war.  Two of the number held commissions, seeing official duty in connection with the struggle for independence.  One of the uncles was shot in the neck at the capture of Fort Ticonderoga and the bullet, passing through his body, ranged downward and was taken out of his back.  He recovered from his wound, however, and lived to a good old age.

David W. Armstrong was the seventh son in his father's family.  He was liberally educated, being a graduate in medicine from the Middlebury (VT) College.  He afterward practiced medicine to the time of his death, first locating in New York at the fork of the Ausable river, which, at that time, was a very important mining district.  Later he returned to Vermont and established his office at Shoreham, where he had previously lived and where he practiced for four or five years.  He turned to Westhaven, Vermont, where he remained until 1848, when he took the old Erie canal to Buffalo and thence proceeded by way of the lakes to Detroit and over the first railroad which his son ever saw to Parma, Michigan, eight-six miles from Detroit.   This trip by rail consumed an entire day.  There the father resided up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1869, when he was about fifty-seven or fifty-eight years of age.  He had survieved his wife, who passed away at the age of forty-five years.

Jerome B. Armstrong had one brother, A. D. Armstrong, who served through the Civil war in the Fifteenth and the Thirteenth Michigan Regiments.  He was shot through the body at Pittsburg Landing but recovered and reenlisted in the Thirteenth in time for the battle of Corinth.  Later he was with Sherman on the march to the sea and was captured and confined in Libby prison from the time of Johnston's capture until the close of the war.  He died in Shenandoah, Iowa, when but forty-five years of age.

Jerome B. Armstrong was reared at home, acquiring his education in the public schools of the Green Mountain state.  He was a youth of sixteen years when his parents removed to Michigan.  Prior to this time, however, he had worked as a farm hand, thus contributing to his own support as early as his tenth year, when his renumeration was only three dollars per month.  At the time of the removal to Michigan he secured a clerkship in a store at Parma, where he was employed for about five years.  His father had intended that he become a physician and with that end in view Jerome B. Armstrong began his studies under his father's direction, but destiny willed otherwise and one morning, after a talk with his father, he took the train for Galesburg, Illinois, where he secured employment in a grocery store as a laborer.   After a week's work, however, he was placed behind the counter in the absence of one of the clerks and immediately demonstrated his ability to sell goods.  He had hired to work at a salrary of thirty-five dollars per month but when placed behind the counter his wages were increased to sixty dollars permonth and two or three weeks later he was again promoted to a position in the wholesale department at a salary of sixty-five dollars per month.  There he remained for four or five months when Galesburg received ity city charter, and on the establishment of the police court he was asked to serve as clerk of the court, which position he filled for three and a half years.  During this time he was appointed deputy United States marshal for the southern district of Illinois and in that capacity, through Captain R. N. Pollock, who was chief of police and United States marshal, he came frequently in touch with the Pinkerton Detective Agency, acting as private detective and special policeman.

In 1858 Mr. Armstrong came to Iowa as a representative of the Ellwanger & Barry Nurseries of Rochester, New York.  Three years later, on account of his health, he returned to Illinois, rented a tract of land, bought horses and farm machinery and began farming, but in July following he suffered a sunstroke, which terminated his efforts along agricultural lines.  In the fall of that year he returned to Michigan to consult his father relative to his eyes, having almost entirely lost his sight.  His father gave him no encouragement and he then went to Detroit and consulted a specialist, who treated him with but little benefit.   After spending almost all of his money he cast around for something to do and the result was that he engaged in the harness business with a man at Corunna, Michigan.   Soon Mr. Armstrong acquired the entire business and became an expert harnessmaker.   In nine years he had not only secured an extensive stock but had saved five thousand dollars from his earnings.  He then quit that line of business on account of his health and removed to Windsor, Illinois.  In the fall of 1869 he started westward for Emporia, Kansas, on a visit to his brother-in-law in southwestern Iowa, but became attracted by the opportunities and advantages offered in Page county.  Therefore he purchased one hundred and sixty acres of school land near what is now Shenandoah and the following spring removed to his new home, erecting a dwelling and breaking the sod.   When he came to Shenandoah in 1869 the first two buildings were being erected, these including the old depot which Mr. Armstrong now owns.  Returning to Illinois he engaged in the harness business for four years and then came to Iowa to make his home.   Locating in Shenandoah he engaged in harness making, conducting a successful shop here and also one in Coin.  For thirty-four years he continued in the harness business, successfully conducting his trade along well defined lines of labor, his energy and ability bringing to him well merited success.

While Mr. Armstrong became locally well known in mercnatile lines, he has gained world-wide reputation in connection with the propagation of corn.  While in Michigan he began studying and experimenting along that line and after coming to Iowa and seeing one crop of corn matured which was the best he had ever seen up to that time, he took up the study of further improvement and delved deeper and deeper into the work, studying and reading everthing to be found upon the subject and putting forth many new, original and valuable ideas.  The president of Ames College recently made a statement that the methods now taught in the college in the propagation of corn were the methods advocated and developed by Mr. Armstrong years ago, who at that time was fifteen years ahead of the times.  It has been said by those who are competent to speak on the subject that there is no an acre of corn now grown in Iowa that does not have the Armstong strain in it.  Form this beginning Mr. Armstong gradually drifted to the seed business.  As he became master in the work of propating corn, in 1888 he began advertising hisseed corn and thus started, he has since developed his present extensive business until today Shenandoah is recognized as the greatest seed corn center in the world.  This is due entirely to the energy of Mr. Armstrong and his success along this line and his work of developing corn.  Today Shenandoah ships seed corn all over the world and the name of Armstrong is known wherever corn is sucessfully produced.  In 1898 he received a gold medal, the only one awarded to a grower of corn in Iowa,and a silver medal and all the other honors awarded at the Omaha Expositon for the best exhibit of corn.  In 1905, when the National Breeders Association was formed, Secretary of Agriculture Wilson, who was then and is still president of the association, in his appointment of three official members from Iowa named C. F. Curtis, president of Ames College, as the first, and Mr. Armstrong as the second.  In 1908 Mr. Armstorng made a further experiment.  He had planted one hundred and sixty acres of corn which was drowned out and on the 10th of July, simply as an experiment, he planted his second crop of corn, which developed and matured perfectly.  There is no one more competent to spead in authority on the production of this great American cereal than is he.  The value and worth of his work is inestimable for the prouction of corn is one of the greatest sourcesof the country's wealth and from America its use has been introduced into other lands, where it is becoming more and more popular.

Mr. Armstrong was married in Peoria, Illinois, on the 25th of July, 1860, to Miss Louise Hoag, of Galesburg, Illinois, who was a graduate of Knox College of that city in 1858.  Unto Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong have been born two sons and five daughters: Sarah C., the wife of Richard DeRouse, of Shanandoah, Grace, the deceased wife of William H. West; Orah, who resided at home; Mary, deceased; Jerome B., Jr., a member of the firm of J. B. Armstrong & Son; Carl, of Cheyenne, Wyoming; and Louise, the wife of Calvin Sturtzbach of Tampa, Florida.

In early life Mr. Armstorng gave his political allegiance to the whig party and was one of the organizers of the republican party, with which he has since been identified.  He has never sought, however, the reward of office for party fealty.  He is a member of the Shenandoah Lodge, I. O. O. F., and has assisted in instituting numerous lodges, being much interested in the work of the order.  He has now passed the seventy-eighth milestone on life's journey but seems a man of much younger years, being keenly interested in matters relative to the world's progress and especially in what is being done in agricultural lines.  His own contribution to the world's advancement has been a notable and commendable one and will make his name honored for years to come.