Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 37 
JOHN H. CHARLES. 
By FRANK H. GARVER. 
At the regular annual business meeting of the Sioux 
City Academy of Science and Letters held on April the 
19th, 1904, there was chosen in addition to the regular 
officers, an honorary president. The person for whom 
this office was created was Mr. John H. Charles, first 
president of the Academy and the subject of this sketch. 
Ever since its organization in 1885 Mr. Charles has been 
one of the most active and enthusiastic members of the 
Scientific Association of Sioux City. Indeed he was 
chosen president each year from 1890 to 1903, when the 
Association was merged into the new organization incor- 
porated as the Academy of Science and Letters of Sioux 
City. In honor of his previous services the Academy 
unanimously chose him as its first president and at the 
close of its first year designated him as honorary presi- 
dent. 
While in his prime, though a man of unusual activity 
and burdened with the cares of a large business, Mr. 
Charles yet found time to attend the meetings of the 
Scientific Association with great regularity; now, 
though his health does not permit of attendance upon 
the Academy sessions, yet his interest in its welfare is 
keen and is manifested in various ways. 
This man whom his friends and fellow citizens have 
delighted to honor has led an active, eventful career. 
Born on the 19th of January, 1826, in Hempfield town- 
ship, Lancaster county, Penn., he moved at the age of 
four months, taking his parents with him, (as he himself 
puts it), to Mifflin township, Richland county, Ohio, where 
he resided till he reached the age of twenty-four. In the 
meantime a shifting of boundaries threw his father’s 
farm into Ashland county. 
