USA > Iowa > Jackson County > History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I > Part 55
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HON. WILLIAM H. REED.
Hon. William H. Reed, the subject of this sketch, was born in the town- ship of Castle, Parish of Bodeny, County Tyrone, which place is twenty miles from Londonderry on the river Foyle. When fifteen years of age he came to America with his parents, landing at Philadelphia, where they remained but a short time, going from there to St. Louis. Here he left his crippled father and invalid mother and with his brother, Robert, started for the north to seek a home.
The brothers left St. Louis on a steamboat and when they reached Daven- port or the point where Davenport now stands-as there was no town there
HON. WILLIAM H. REED
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at that time, 1838-they left the boat and started north over land passing through Scott and Clinton counties and on up through the Deep Creek valley where not a house or hamlet was to be seen. They considered that country worthless at that time on account of absence of springs and timber and its distance from the Mississippi River, which at that time was the only means of transportation to the markets.
Reaching Jackson county they spent a short time here, then pushed on to the lead mining camp at Galena, but only a short time was spent there and Mr. Reed returned to Bellevue and sent for his father and mother to come on from St. Louis. He then entered the land in Washington township, upon which he lived continuously until 1900 when he moved into Bellevue.
Mr. Reed's early education was very limited, he having attended school in Ireland but never a day after leaving the old country. However, a young man who had been employed to help clear the newly entered land, had a good edu- cation and his spare moments were spent in teaching Mr. Reed, and to him was given the credit for the education he had acquired.
Mr. Reed was a hard student and an earnest reader and few men in his com- munity was better posted upon current events, political and social, than he. Sixty-three years a resident of Jackson county, he had become one of its best citizens. He was big hearted and sympathetic and always had a word of en- couragement for the unfortunate.
Politically he was a democrat and three times was chosen to represent this district in the legislature. He was a member during the extra session of the legislature at the opening of the Civil war and there demonstrated his loyalty. He also served two terms from 1871 to 1876. He had served the county as a member of the board of supervisors, and his township in'various offices. He was perfectly honest in all his dealings and true to all his pledges.
Mr. Reed departed this life on Sunday morning, May 19, 1901, after two years of patient suffering from cancer.
He was married in the year 1855 to Miss Catherine Lamborn, who, with eight children, survived him. Those living at the time of his death were,- Robert H. of Elliott, Iowa; Mrs. R. A. Poole of Spencer, Iowa; Mrs. E. S. Dyas, Miss Mary Reed, Bellevue, Iowa; J. L. Reed, Griswold, Iowa; W. H. and Alexander Reed, Bellevue, and Mrs. Walter L. Gifford, Des Moines, Iowa. The funeral services were held in the Presbyterian church, Tuesday afternoon, May 21st, where tribute was paid to the dead and a fitting eulogy delivered by the Rev. C. Memmott. The interment was in the Presbyterian cemetery. J. C. Murphy, J. T. Nicholson, B. W. Seward, Jr., John Merkle, A. G. Kegler, and J. C. Campbell were pallbearers.
PERSONAL ESTIMATE OF DR. HOLT. (Dr. A. B. Bowen.)
Few localities held out to the prospector and the pioneer greater attractions for future homes than this stretch of hill and dale, upland and prairie, timber land and river bottom, that constituted Jackson county in the early days.
Its wealth of resource bordering the "Father of Waters" were sufficiently alluring to attract men of all temperaments and inclinations. The toiling homeseeker here found congenial surroundings and achieved success and fame in subduing the wilderness and carving out a heritage and a home. There was not lacking those of baser motives who infest new domains, giving the con- fines of civilization their preference over old established and law abiding com- munities which offer better facilities for preying upon the accumulating re- sources of industry and toil. Our sister town of Bellevue was the headquar- ters of this gang of outlaws, while the whole country around suffered from the depredations of these midnight marauders. But thanks to the eternal vigilance of our pioneers, law and order triumphed, and the enemies of good government were forced to seek more congenial localities for their illicit depredations.
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This locality, presided over by the Jackson County Historical Society, was never lacking in resource for honest toil. It is true in their nocturnal slumbers no one dreamed of oil wells or gushing fountains of crude petroleum. Nor is it clear that our pioneers indulged in hopes of traffic and transportation over trolley lines or interurban roads, in palace cars with lightning. as a motive power. But despite all these engines of modern civilization, attractions in- numerable for their varied inclinations and tastes abounded.
The great belt of primeval forests, with its wealth of resource was ever in evidence. Our deposits of limestone with their inexhaustible supply of build- ing material ; the water power furnished by innumerable streams, while above all, nature's broad acres furnished untold mines of wealth in its virgin soil.
The red man abandoned this happy hunting ground, so typical of the In- dian's heaven, with sad hearts, after Black Hawk had exhausted their re- sources. For this was a sportsman's paradice, and they like their successors felt,
"The labors of life their joys best lend, Where the rolling prairies and forests blend."
To the pioneers is not a little of this prosperity due, for they builded better than they knew. Our pioneers had in their ranks men of unselfish propensi- ties, men like John E. Goodenow, nature's noblemen, whose unselfish devotion to the homeseeker, prompted them to forget self-interests and the accumu- lation of wealth that would have enriched posterity.
The log cabin tavern presided over by Mr. and Mrs. Goodenow in the early days was ever the home of the wanderer and the homeseeker, his capacity or inclination to settle his bills made little difference with the philanthropic land- lord. Some travelers of note also found lodging there, for no less a personage than Stephen A. Douglas was once a guest at this famous hostelry.
But the life of the pioneer was not devoid of comfort. Their social gather- ings were of a primitive type and enjoyable. The ox cart, farm wagon and sled furnished ample means for locomotion and transportation.
"In the cradle of hardship, genius rocks her biggest children." Among the pioneer physicians of Jackson county, Harrison Holt, M. D., was perhaps the best known, and his varied accomplishments, broad culture and sagacity of intellect attracted friends and made him a conspicuous and valued citizen of this inland community. He seemed actuated by motives of kindness and con- sideration for the feelings of others, and an urbanity of manner so unusual in modern civilization (where avarice and greed are so conspicuous), were among the predominating characteristics in the life and character of Harrison Holt, M. D. Such unusual traits of character attract the attention of the busy world and provoke criticism from envious rivalry, but "truth crushed to earth shall rise again," and envious criticism of recognized merit has little power to detract.
His respect for the opinion of his patient even though the patient might have been whimsical, sometimes amounted to a decided condescension. There was none of that austerity of manner in the makeup of Dr. Holt, which we so often find associated with egotism, but a frank, friendly, cordial greeting that recognized a degree of merit in everyone. Few practitioners of the healing art were ever more devoted to the best interests of their patients than Dr. Holt, and though time and progress have made many changes in pharmacology and accuracy of diagnosis, yet his capacity to discriminate disease in the absence of modern in- struments of precision, like the thermometer, the hypodermic syringe, the micro- scope, or the X-ray, was based on clinical knowledge acquired by experience and observation-the world's best teacher. And his therapeutics were of the quality that inspired home and confidence.
More than a generation has passed since Dr. Holt ceased his labors in this community, yet his name is often quoted by those who appreciated his skill and kindness and were the recipients of his professional attention. Some in this com- munity were met at life's portals by his kindly administrations and welcome, while
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not a few had their sufferings ameliorated and the span of life prolonged by his timely interference. His devotion to his patients was exemplified in his last ill- ness, for he was stricken with his mortal sickness at the bedside of a patient on a cold winter's night, at a lonely farmhouse in the country. Like the Roman soldier stricken at the post of duty.
My observations of Dr. Holt are, he possessed two rare traits of character in an eminent degree, honesty of purpose and gentlemanly in manners.
Harrison Holt, M. D. was born at Andover, Massachusetts, A. D., 1815. He was educated at Phillips College in his native place, from whence he went to Bridgetown, New Jersey, and engaged in the capacity of teacher in an academy. At this time he commenced the study of his chosen profession which he completed at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. He first located in practice at Mt. Jackson, Shenandoah county, Virginia, where he remained five years. Many of his patients there represented a money valuation, as he was in the employ of planters who were slave owners.
Dr. Holt left Virginia in 1848, came to Iowa, settled in Dubuque and had editorial charge of the Miners' Express newspaper until 1852, when he, with others, established the Dubuque Herald, which he edited with ability and success for several years. In 1855, he accepted an appointment in one of the depart- ments in Washington, where he remained until 1860, when he returned to Iowa, located at Maquoketa, and renewed the practice of his profession with ability and success.
In each and every calling Dr. Holt attained success. As an editor he estab- lished a reputation as one of the most accomplished writers, occasionally giving vent to his eloquence in public speeches, making him the champion of his polit- ical party. Dr. Holt was scarcely in his proper elements as a medical practitioner, although he was one of the most accomplished and successful physicians.
Statesmanship was the field that nature seemed to have marked out for him. In this field he might have inscribed his name on the roles of fame and left a memory to be emulated. But his ambition was not realized . An admirer of the doctor's abilities quoted the well known lines of Shakespeare:
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."
That might be all true, replied the doctor, but the same author says :
"There's a Providence which shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will," thus implying that his destiny was settled.
A contemporary said of him, "Dr. Holt combined in an eminent degree, those social qualities which attract and retain friends. Genial, courteous, sensitive and the soul of honor, he was ever mindful of the feelings of those about him, while his fine personal appearance, happy command of language, and great general in- formation, rendered him the most agreeable of companions. In his warm, ardent nature, impressions took deep and lasting hold, making him a true, firm friend. He left a very large social circle, bereft of one of its most valued members."
"But perhaps it still is better that this busy life is done,
He has seen old views and patients, disappearing one by one,
He has learned that death is master, both of science and of art,
He has done his duty fairly and has acted out his part."
REV. F. C. BAUMAN PASSES AWAY. (Fifty-five Years Pastor of Reformed Church at Zwingle.)
After fifty-six years of continued and faithful service as spiritual adviser of the Reformed church of Zwingle, the venerable and beloved pastor, Rev. F. C. Bauman passed peacefully away, Saturday morning, September 25, 1909, after a lingering illness from infirmities of old age. His passing is an immeasurable loss to his congregation and his long service has entwined many families wherein he
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has invited many a couple who have become grandparents and baptized their children. His passing away after these long years of devoted service to his con- gregation and charge can not be truly estimated. The influence, the holy inspira- tion, and the great power for good make his life's work important and his useful- ness unbounded. Devoted to his calling, home, and family, their pleasures were his pleasures, their sorrows his sorrows, consequently his death leaves a void in the family circle, which time can never fill. Laid to rest by loving hands, his kind deeds, his acts of generous impulses are a living and abiding memory.
Rev. Frederick C. Bauman, the first resident minister of the Reformed church west of the Mississippi River, and for over half a century pastor of that church at Zwingle, Iowa, was a native of Hesse-Cassel, Germany, where he was born No- vember 17, 1826. At an early age he commenced attending the village school at Eberschutz, where he remained until 1836, when he emigrated with his parents, J. Henry and Christina Bauman, to the United States. They settled near Xenia, Ohio, and he entered the Heidelberg Theological Seminary at Tiffin, Ohio, where he graduated and was ordained.
In 1853, he was appointed pastor of the church at Zwingle, and immediately entered in the discharge of his duties. This church was organized at Zwingle, December 25, 1851, by Rev. Daniel Kroh, of Monroe, Michigan, and was the first reformed church in Iowa. The field of labor occupied by Mr. Bauman was large, the membership of the church scattered, without organization rendering the duty devolving upon him one not easy of performance, and requiring energy and ability to execute with success; that he possessed these qualifications in an eminent degree, it is only necessary to state that he organized several churches in the state, and that the membership of his charge at Zwingle has increased from the forty-three original members at its founding, until it now embraces over two hundred. He was an earnest worker in the church and a strong advocate of its principles. October 29, 1854, he married Miss Elizabeth J. Cort, daughter of Hon. Daniel Cort, an old and honored citizen of Zwingle. To this union were given nine children, who with the wife survive: four sons, Dr. S. H. Bauman, of Birmingham, Iowa; Attorney D. T. Bauman, of Maquoketa, Iowa; Rev. J. N. Bauman, of Jeanette, Pennsylvania ; Rev. A. B. Bauman, of Baltimore, Maryland, and five daughters, Mrs. Maggie Bretz, of Goshen, Indiana; Mrs. Mettie Mathes, of Toledo, Ohio; Mrs. Mable C. Dower, of Haskins, Ohio; Mrs. Bertha Doft and Mrs. Stella Alspach of Zwingle. All these were able to attend the funeral.
Rev. Boomershine, of Maquoketa, conducted the services and delivered a beautiful tribute to the deeds and acts of his late brother and friend. The choir so long in service rendered beautiful music and the services altogether were fit- ting for the beloved and respected pastor who now sleeps in peace.
The pallbearers were his four sons and two sons-in-law, W. E. Doft and E. E. Alspach. The interment in the Zwingle cemetery. The services were wit- nessed by far the largest crowd ever assembled on a like occasion in this part of the state, showing the high esteem he commanded.
BOARDMAN.
Virginia has been called "The Mother of Presidents." In like manner New England, more honorably, may be said to be the mother of men ; for no part of the world has given birth to a higher type of man, in the best sense, than has New England. For business thrift and enterprise, and for a high stand of mor- ality and practical piety, no other country has sent into the world in the past two hundred and fifty years so large a proportion of the kind of men that make a nation substantial and truly great.
Critics may sneer at the days of the Salem witchcraft and the land of wooden nutmegs, and wooden clocks, but those nutmegs were a myth, and those clocks and their successors of good brass have been keeping time to the . perfect satisfaction of their owners, not only all over America, but in all the
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confines of the civilized world. We must not forget that the battle of Lexington was fought on New England soil, and that the echoes of that bloody strife have ever since been rolling over some downtrodden people, and today are sound- ing with unabated solemnity in bureaucratic Russia. William C. Boardman, the founder of the Boardman Institute Library, in whose honor we here meet, was born one hundred and two years ago today in honorable New England. In every sense of the word he was a "chip of the old block." Had he been born fifty years sooner, and in Massachusetts instead of Vermont, no doubt he would have been at Lexington with a musket in his hand. He was of sturdy build, nearly six feet tall, endowed by nature with a good degree of health and strength, and with his full share of Yankee diligence, thrift and foresight, no one could truthfully say of him that he ever asked for anything to which he was not entitled ; or that he was ever guilty of a low or mean action, or that any stain ever rested on his honor. That he was the trusted employee and representative in the west of the Fairbanks Scale Company of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, then the pioneers and leading manufacturers in the world of platform and other scales, and for more than a quarter of a century, speaks in the high- est terms of Mr. Boardman's integrity, diligence, and honorable dealing. Fifty years ago come the latter part of April, this writer had the honor of coming to Maquoketa with Mr. Boardman for the first time. We first met by chance at Dewitt. If the mud, through which our hack slowly plowed its weary way, was ever deeper than it was that day, a record should be made of it. Maquoketa was even then a thrifty burg with great expectations, and something over twelve hundred inhabitants. A corps of railroad engineers made this their headquarters, and buildings for business and residences were going up on every part of the town plat. Mr. Boardman was then and long had been a married man. His wife, Mary Benton Boardman, was here, and presided over his home with true New England "faculty." Whenever her name was men- tioned by either one of the pair, the Benton of it was made prominent. This was because the wife came of a Benton family, which on its native heath ranked among the "four hundred" of that generation. Mrs. Boardman in in- tellect was in no respect behind the rest of her family. As between her and her spouse she was probably the ablest, and that could be said without in any manner derogating anything from Mr. Boardman as a man, in what he was or ought to be. Mrs. Benton Boardman was in fact a magnificent specimen of a large, healthy, forcible intellectual New England woman, gifted in every re- spect, except perhaps in striking personal beauty, and except in having a fam- ily of children, of which she had none. And yet Mrs. Mary Benton Boardman was a great lover of children, and the children of the Sunday school all loved her. In her last sickness she mentioned a bottle of perfumery which one little member of her class had given her ; a bottle she had never opened, for smells of such kind were not necessary in those days for her entrance into the best society our city afforded, a bottle she had treasured for a keepsake for years. She had abundant time to carry out her plans, and she planned to instruct and delight the flock of little ones that crowded around her in the school, listening with open mouth to the words of wonder and wisdom falling from her lips.
Mrs. Boardman never forgot the annual Christmas tree, nor the interest of her class in that joyful event. It is mentioned in Grecian fable that the God- dess Aphrodite was born from the foam of the sea, springing from the waves full grown and beautiful; and so without any fable at all, Mrs. Boardman an- nually created legions of rabbits, full grown and with wonderful pink eyes, from her supplies of cotton flannel, stuffed out to fatness as rabbits ought to be, and white as snow; white like the rabbits in winter time of her dear New England forests, and not colored like the degenerate race of rabbits that gnaw off the bark of our apple trees in winter in our western orchards. It was lovely to see these rabbits disporting, as it were, among the branches of the Christmas tree, and every member of the class had one, warranted not to bite or gnaw any-
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thing. Mrs. Boardman died in 1878 at the age of sixty-eight years, a woman born to be a leader in fact in the society in which she moved.
For a few years after his settling in the city, Mr. Boardman continued in the business of selling and locating platform scales. He laid the foundation of substantial addition to his fortune by purchasing in 1855 over a thousand acres of wild land in western Iowa. At that time the best of government land could be bought for one dollar an acre. He personally inspected every forty of that land, and with keen foresight knew the coming value of what he was buying. The death of his wife was indeed a sad blow to the subject of this sketch. No children of his own growing up around him, he was in some respects a lonely man. He was now seventy-four years of age. By the prudence of his business life, he was beyond the necessity of that active exertion that is a pleasure to those who are in their prime. He had been a consistent and valued member of the Congregational church, east and west, for half a century, and his interest in the welfare of the church, to which he belonged spiritually and temporally, in no manner abated. In 1878 his church in Maquoketa were engaged in re- building their place of worship. They decided to have the windows of stained glass, but their funds admitted of only the plainest kind. The windows came from the factory and Mr. Boardman saw them. He at once offered to procure richer windows if the society would return the ones they had already pur- chased. His offer was at once accepted, and to this generosity of Mr. Board- man we owe the windows, second to none in their beauty in eastern Iowa, that adorn the building in which we are now gathered.
Up to the same time the Congregational society of Maquoketa owned no parsonage. Mr. Boardman was born and reared in a part of a country that believed in churches and that a parsonage was the proper adjunct of a church, and the one almost as necessary as the other. He purchased property for $2,100, and conveyed it to the society ; and this he did, like his gift of the win- dows, with no thought of special publicity, with no thought of self-glorification, but as a public service done as a public good, and a wise appropriation of the means with which God had blessed him in the services of his Master.
The last public act of Mr. Boardman was his best one. I refer to his endow- ment of the Boardman Institute Library. By his last will he set aside five thousand dollars, providing that if a corporation should be created for library purposes with a paid in capital of five hundred dollars, it should receive this endowment under sundry wise conditions for its perpetuation. Those condi- tions have been and are being faithfully complied with. Under arrangements made with the authorities of the city of Maquoketa, which are to continue for a long term of years, and I hope forever, a library is being built up with ąc- cretions from year to year, destined to be of nothing but public benefit, the limit of which no one can measure. The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt devoted the lives of countless thousands of unhappy serfs and millions of treasure to the erection of pyramids, which at the best were only piles of stone. We do not know with certainty whether they were intended to be merely the tombs of those monarchs, or landmarks indicating the points of the compass. They were of no valuable use and did not even have the merit of furnishing paid em- ployment of laborers out of work, for they were built by the labor of slaves. Military heroes, in all ages of the world, have sacrificed the lives of their sub- jects and of other unaccounted millions to their thirst for glory ; and we who read of it, realize clearly that these sacrifices were only for base purposes, without the smallest element to anybody, and their authors are being rapidly consigned to the limbo of the forgotten past, except as a warning to the present and com- ing generation of the evil that man may do when their lives are not conse- crated to high and noble purpose.
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