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Kinyon Digital Library

History of Adair
County, Iowa, 1915.

Biographical.  Volume 2.

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C. M. Rigg.

C. M. Rigg is the owner of an excellent farm of two hundred and forty acres situated on section 28, Grove township.  He was born near Knoxville, Marion county, Iowa, on the 15th of July, 1856, and is a son of John and Hannah (Robinson) Rigg, both of whom were natives of Washington county, Pennsylvania.  In childhood days they accompanied their respective parents to Guernsey county, Ohio, where they spent the period of youth and were there married.  The maternal grandfather was a soldier in the War of 1812 and received a land grant for eighty acres in recognition of his services.  This he gave to his daughter, Mrs. Rigg.  She afterward remained with an uncle in Jefferson county while her husband made his way to Marion county and secured an eighty acre tract with the land grant.  Upon that place he built a log cabin and as soon as his arrangements for a house had been completed he took his wife to their new abode.  He continued in the work of the farm up to the time of his death.  Subsequently his widow made her home with her son, C. M. Rigg.

In the district schools C. M. Rigg pursued his education , but his advantages were somewhat limited, owing to the necessity of his concentrating his energies upon farm work.  He was the youngest son and his brothers were at the front in the Civil war, so that it was necessary for him to engage in cultivating the fields.  One of his brothers was killed by the bushwhackers in Arkansas.

After the war C. M. Rigg had the opportunity of attending school in Des Moines for two years.  In 1869 he arrived in Adair county, Iowa, where he had a brother-in-law living.  He secured employment with Tom Harris and was thus engaged in farm work for five years, or until the spring of 1877, when he went to Des Moines and attended school, returning to Adair county to work through the harvest season.  In 1878 he made an overland trip to Colorado, where he was employed as a farm hand until 1882, when he purchased a quitclaim deed on a homestead near Fort Collins.  He then began farming on his own account and so continued until 1894, when he sold that property and returned to Stuart, Iowa.  Through the succeeding summer he worked for his brother-in-law and in 1895 he began farming on his own account as a renter.  In September, 1895, he contracted for his present home farm, to which he removed in March, 1896.  His place embraces two hundred and forty acres and the land is naturally rich and arable, responding readily to the care and cultivation which he bestows upon it.  He is also a stockholder in the Greenfield Creamery Company and is a stockholder in the Lincoln Township Mutual Telephone Company, of which he was the first vice president.  He occupied that position for eleven years, but resigned in October, 1914, because it was demanding too much of his attention which he did not wish to spare from his farm.

Mr. Rigg was married in 1882 to Miss Maud E. Rison, of Fort Collins, Colorado, who died June 15, 1883, leaving an infant daughter, Dora M., now the wife of Sidney W. Cooper, a civil engineer in the government service.  In 1890 Mr. Rigg was joined in wedlock to Miss Sarah E. Garber near Fort Collins, Colorado.  She is a native, however, of Jefferson county, Iowa.  Unto this marriage have been born nine children:  Elstun L., Charles W., Theodore O., Bessie E., Margaret E., Hannah C., Elizabeth E. and John D., twins, and Mary L.  The family circle still remains unbroken and all of the children are yet under the parental roof.

In his political views Mr. Rigg is a republican with prohibition tendencies.  It is his earnest desire to see the cause of temperance grow and he has ever been active in promoting public sentiment along that line.  He and his wife are consistent and faithful members of the Methodist Episcopal church and Mr. Rigg is now serving on its official board.  He endeavors to shape his life in accordance with its teachings and he is guided in all of his relations by straightforward and honorable principles, making him a man whom to know is to esteem and respect.

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