People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 27-25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1896 — DAVID B. NOWELS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DAVID B. NOWELS.

David B. Nowels is the youngest son of David and Phebe Nowels, and was born on a farm five miles northwest of Rensselaer, March 5, 1856. He lived here through boyhood, attending the country school in winter and working on the farm in summer. At the age of sixteen his parents sent him to Onargo, Illinois, where he attended school about three years. Upon his return he began teaching, which avocation he has followed ever since. In 1875 he attended the National Normal School at Lebanon. Ohio,

two terms. After taking a more or less active part in the educational affairs of the county during the years 1876, 1877 and 1878, in June, 1879, he was elected superintendent of schools for Jasper county, succeeding James H. Snoddy. At the'time of his appointment to this position Mr. Nowels had the distinction of being the youngest county superintendent in the state. During his incumbency of this office the good work in the public schools, so welt, begun by his predecessors, was rapidly carried forward. The first meeting of the County Teachers’ Association was held; the first outline of township institute work was compiled and published, thus unifying and organizing this work which bhfore had been unorganized and desultory; the Monthly Reports from teachers to county superintendent were provided for; the first County Manual for the schools of the county was published; the Roll of Honor system was planned and introduced, and, as chairman of the committee appointed by the county superintendents’ Stale Convention to draft and report a plan of graduation from the country schools, he assisted to formulate the plan now in use throughout the state. The first graduates from the common school course of this (Jasper) county received their diplomas during the last year of his administration. He retired from office in June, 1883. His teaching has been confined mostly to the country schools and there are few’ who understand them more thoroughly than he. In the campaign of 1894 he was nominated, without solicitation on his part, by both the populist and democratic parties for joint representative for Jasper and Newton counties in the state legislature. Although he ran ahead of his ticket considerably, yet, he went down in the landslide that followed, with all the rest, and thus escaped the dubious honors of a legislative career. He w r as married Oct. 15, 1879, to Sarah E. Burk, eldest daughter of Geo. W. Burk of this county. They have but one child, a son. aged thirteen years, and have a pleasant home in Rensselaer where they now reside.

Tile and brick are made in several places in the county. Two large mills for the making of these much needed and much used articles are situated near Rensselaer, one in Remington and one in Barkley township.

DAVID B. NOWELS.

JAMES W. DOUTHIT. See Sketch.