OSCAR F. LODGE, OF Walnut, is the pioneer merchant of that thriving town, and a man who has been identified with the business interests there since its foundation. He was born December 31, 1827, in Greenville, Mercer County Pennsylvania. His father, Samuel Lodge, a tanner but afterward a farmer, was of English descent. His grandfather, Benjamin Lodge, was a lieutenant in the war of the Revolution. He also was born in Pennsylvania, and was a farmer in Westmoreland County. Samuel Lodge was an industrious and economical man and in comfortable circumstances. For many years he was an elder in the Presbyterian Church. At the age of about fifty he moved to Henry County, Illinois, where he bought a farm, and where he died at the age of about sixty years. He was a man of excellent character and had descended from a long line of American pioneers and soldiers. Mr. Lodge married in Pennsylvania, Miss Jane McCord, daughter of George and Elizabeth (Mossman) McCord. Both families were old settlers and pioneers in Pennsylvania and of Scotch descent. Mr. and Mrs. Lodge were the parents of eleven children: Benjamin, Oscar F., Elizabeth, George, Margaret, Martha (died in infancy), Albert, Leander, Mary A., Samuel H. and one who died an infant.

Oscar F. Lodge, the subject of this sketch, learned when young the business of farming, and the greater part of his life has been devoted to that most primeval calling. At the early age of twenty-three he came to the state of Iowa and near Davenport carried on a farm on which he lived nine years in company with his brother Benjamin, who was a man of family. In 1871 he came to Walnut, which at that time contained no store and but three or four houses, and here he established a mercantile business, in company with his brother, Leander, the stock consisting of general merchandise. This business continued until 1880, and was successful, and in 1883 Mr. Lodge went into the hardware business with Alfred E. Kincaid under the firm name of Lodge & Kincaid. This has also been a prosperous business. Mr. Lodge has naturally taken an active interest in assisting to build up the town. He has been school director and township trustee. He has seen the town's steady growth from a small hamlet to its present prosperity.

In political opinion he is a stanch Republican. When the great civil war broke out he enlisted in Company D, Eleventh Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and served fifteen months, receiving an honorable discharge. He was in the great battle of Shiloh, but escaped without wounds.

In 1880 he married Jennie Elliot, daughter of Benjamin Elliot, of McDonough County, Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Lodge have had six children namely: Arthur E., Walter B., Oscar L. and Harry G. (twins), Nellie H. and Edna. Mr. Lodge is a man of quiet tastes and a citizen well known and highly respected by all the people who know him. He is a self-made man having by his own industry an economy accumulated his property. The family is American on both sides, coming from good stock.