Quintain Reed was born around 1813 in Harrison County, Ohio. He married Susannah West in Harrison County, Ohio, on August 11, 1835, and they had at least ten children: John, born around 1836; Maria, born around 1838; Hannah, born around 1840; Frederick, born around 1841; Mary Ann, born around 1843; Jasper, born around 1844; Martha, born around 1846; Cynthia Jane, born around 1850; Sarah, born around 1852; and Elizabeth, born around 1854.
They lived in Patterson, Ohio, and Reed worked as a farmer. By 1850, he owned $300 of real estate. They moved to Crawford, Missouri, in the 1850s, before settling in Jones, Iowa, in the early 1860s. He supported the Democratic Party and opposed emancipation throughout the Civil War. By 1870, he owned $800 of real estate and $600 of personal property. He died in Iowa on May 8, 1889.