Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Grinnell, Josiah Bushnell
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
- J.B. Grinnell
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1872-1952
History
1821 Born in New Hampshire
1847-ca.1853 Congregational pastor
1852 Married Julia Chapin
1854 Founded Grinnell, Iowa
1856 Active in organizing Republican Party in Iowa
1856-60 State Senator. Worked to establish public schools in Iowa
1858 Admitted to the Iowa bar
1860 Delegate to Republican convention which nominated Lincoln
1863-67 Representative (Republican) to U. S. House of Representatives
1854-84 Trustee of Iowa (Grinnell) College
1891 Death
Interests included religion, education, politics, railroading, stock breeding, and sheep raising.
More details in Dictionary of American Biography, National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Who Was Who in America, Charles Payne’s Josiah Bushnell Grinnell.
Grinnell, Iowa was founded in March 1854 by Josiah Bushnell Grinnell (1821-1891) who chose a site which surveys indicated would be the junction of two railroads. Grinnell was a minister, trustee and benefactor of Iowa College (later renamed Grinnell College), helped organize the Republican party in Iowa, was a Representative to the Iowa legislature and later to the U.S. House (1863), was active in agricultural development and railroad building. He and his wife, Julia Chapin, were both descended from old New England families; their daughter, Mary Grinnell Mears, may have assembled some of these papers.