McCrary, Abner H.

Born: 1814-02-23 Indiana

Died: 1898-04-14 Iowa

Flourished: Iowa

Abner H. McCrary was a farmer and state politician. Denied the opportunity for much formal education, McCrary pursued agriculture. In 1834, he married Nercissa Mangum, and the couple settled in Gibson County, Indiana. In 1835, McCrary and his wife moved west, settling first in McDonough County, Illinois, before crossing the Mississippi River in 1837 and arriving in the Michigan Territory, where they settled on a farm in Van Buren County in what would become the Iowa Territory. McCrary would continue to operate his farm until well after the Civil War. He would also take an interest in local and state politics. In 1841, McCrary won election as a justice of the peace. From 1848 to 1852, he represented Van Buren County as a Whig in the Iowa House of Representatives. In 1854, he moved to the Iowa Senate. With collapse of the Whig Party in Iowa, McCrary joined other like-minded Whigs in moving into the Republican Party. In 1856, he represented Van Buren County at the convention called to meet in Iowa City to establish the party in Iowa. That same year, he won reelection to the Senate as a Republican, serving in that body until 1860. Two years later, Van Buren County voters returned him to the Senate, and he won reelection in 1864.

Autobiography of Charles Clinton Nourse (Cedar Rapids, IA: Torch, 1911), 35-36; Benjamin F. Gue, History of Iowa from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century (New York: Century History, 1903), 3:461, 462, 466, 473, 476; "Abner Harrison McCrary," The Iowa Legislature, accessed 24 April 2020, https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislators/legislator?ga=2&personID=5376.