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Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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Biographical History of Cherokee County, Iowa
W. S. Dunbar & Co., Chigago - 1889

[page 633-634]

    PETER LINQUIST, of Diamond Township, Cherokee County, is one of the
    most intelligent, industrious, enterprising and respected citizens
    of foreign birth residing within the limits of the county.  He was
    born in the southern part of Sweden, January 26, 1846.  His parents
    were JOHN and STENA SWENSON, and he is the youngest of a family of
    six children who grew to maturity.  While a young man he learned the
    cabinet-makers's trade, and when he had reached the age of twenty
    years he decided to emigrate to the United States, believing he could
    better his condition.  Accordingly he took a steamer at Copenhagen
    for Quebec, which city he reached, having passed through the usual
    incidents of an ocean voyage.  His destination was Chicago; for a
    few months he was employed at Logansport, Indiana, on a railroad con-
    struction site.  He then went farther west and spent two years in
    Wyoming, at work on the Union Pacific Railroad; he then was in the
    employ of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, and for one
    season was engaged in quarrying stone.  His next move was to Minne-
    sota, where he worked on the Northern Pacific Railroad, then building
    into Duluth.  He was soon transferred to Kettle River, where he became
    section foreman; he attended to the arduous duties of that position
    for nearly two years, when he concluded to engage in farming.  In
    order to carry out this desire he purchased eighty acres of land about
    sixty-five miles from St. Paul.  After one year's farming in that
    rigorous climate he determined to come farther south, and we next
    find him a resident of Iowa.  His first business there was employment
    in a hardware store at Sheffield, where he became a partner of JOHN
    MOHL, who afterward came to Cherokee County with Mr. LINQUIST, in
    1876.  Our subject first purchased eighty acres in Diamond Township,
    which he improved and made his home until 1887, when he removed to
    his present home in section 30, Diamond Township.  This place is
    known as the MAXEY farm, and contains 160 acres in an advanced state
    of cultivation.  Mr. LINQUIST has excellent improvements of the farm,
    and his surroundings show the management of an experienced hand guided
    by an intelligent brain.  He still retains his original farm, upon
    which most of his life in the county has been passed.  He has met with
    financial prosperity and stands to-day one of the stanch farmers of
    Cherokee County.  Mr. LINQUIST was married at Kettle River, Minnesota,
    October 5, 1871, to Miss MARY MOHL.  She was born in Scandinavia, in
    May, 1844.  They have an interesting and intelligent family of four
    children: JOHN, LOUISA, NICHOLAS and HERMAN.  Like most of his coun-
    trymen, Mr. LINQUIST believes that the Republican part is the one that
    has done most for him and his people, and in consequence he supports
    it enthusiastically.  No man in Diamond Township has more firm friends
    than he, and no man has to a greater degree the qualities of head and
    heart that win and hold friends.  He believes in becoming an American,
    having adopted this country, and in giving his children the advantages
    afforded by an English education.

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