History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I, Part 93

Author: Ellis, James Whitcomb, 1848-; Clarke, S. J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 730

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The meetings have been so profitable and pleasant that the club has often had open sessions to which their friends have been invited. It has also been the custom to hold annual banquets at which the husbands, brothers and friends have been guests of honor.

The Woman's club, while distinctly literary, has from the first been inter- ested in the laudable effort to beautify Mount Hope cemetery. In the second year it expended over one hundred dollars in carrying the city water pipes from Main street to a lot near the center of the cemetery, and in 1904 placed there, upon a beautiful site near the west entrance, an elegant fountain which was purchased at a cost of about four hundred and seventy-five dollars.

The club is not only living in accordance with its motto: "Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum," but is keeping abreast with the spirit of the times. The present officers (1910) are: president, Mrs. J. M. Swigart; first vice president, Mrs. G. L. Mitchell; second vice president, Mrs. S. F. Millikan; recording secretary, Mrs. Mary T. Godfrey ; treasurer, Mrs. H. B. Hubbell; corresponding secretary, Mrs. J. R. Wright; critic, Miss Mary Paul; historian, Mrs. M. G. Murray ; par- liamentarian, Mrs. A. J. House.

THE ATHENAEUM CLUB.

This club was organized in 1898 as the Entre Nous. The purpose of the Entre Nous was a better knowledge of the Bible and its history. The charter members were all active helpers in the Epworth League. In this the club gained much intellectually, and their lives wefe broadened by studying into the con- ditions of the poor and needy in our midst, and the doing of charitable work among them.

A Constitution and By Laws were adopted and the membership limited to twenty-five. In the following year the club name was changed to the Athenæum and other literary work was taken up. Since its organization various topics have been taken up as, United States' history and American literature, Eng- lish history and current topics, including domestic science, the British Isles and English literature, miscellaneous topics and current events in general. Civil government is a subject that has been dwelt upon extensively, also the political history of foreign, as well as our own countries. The programs are enlivened by frequent social meetings, when all the honorary and corresponding members each with one friend have been invited to renew old acquaintances and friend- ships.

The Atheneum club is indeed great, if the space covered by its scattered members is considered, for they are found from the oil wells of Texas to the forests of Washington. In connection with the club treasury is kept a fund from which money is drawn for the purpose of sending flowers to cheer and comfort the sick. The charter members were: Mrs. Nettie Follette, Mrs. Cora Phillips, Lucy Foster, Alice Doubrawa, Minnie Miller, Delia Lane, Mar- garet Martin, Lilly Pangborn, Misses Addie Pangborn, Tillie Kaler (deceased), May Maskery, Louisa Weed, Martha Eaton, Salina Conery (deceased), May Taylor.

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Miss Martha Eaton was president of the Entre Nous, and Mrs. Delia Lane was the first president of the Athenaeum club. The present (1910) officers are : president, Mrs. Luella Bach; First vice president, Mrs. Alice Foster ; sec- ond vice president, Mrs. Marie Lang; recording secretary, Mrs. Fanny Ogden ; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Mary Pain; treasurer, Mrs. Nettie Follett ; auditor, Mrs. Ida Hamley ; parliamentaria, Mrs. Lou Tabor; historian, Mrs. Clara Bol- ton.

TERRITORIAL PIONEERS.

THE REV. CHARLES E. BROWN, WHO CAME TO THE FORKS OF THE MAQUOKETA AS BAPTIST MISSIONARY IN 1842.

(Seeley)

When, in writing the past of some prominent man, it becomes necessary as is sometimes the case, to expose only the delightful views as seen on life's broadway, screening the alleys with silent lies, it is not a pleasant duty to perform. It is a positive delight to turn to such a man as Charles Edwin Brown, whose whole eventful busy life was as an open book with each side of every leaf turned a clean page. At his own request he was appointed missionary to Iowa territory in 1842. He left the comforts of an older community, and brought the gospel into the sparsely settled region of the Maquoketa valley, and spread it into distant wilder- ness parts, going on foot or by rude conveyances many miles over trackless prai- ries, through forests and across bridgeless waters, sometimes swimming swollen streams.

He organized and became the pastor of the first Baptist church of the Maquo- keta region, which was also the first in the territory embraced in Jackson, Clin- ton and Jones counties. This church was organized at the house of William Y. Earle, three miles southwest of Maquoketa. He organized the first Sunday school in Clinton county. His labors were not wholly confined to spiritual needs for he was intensely interested in educational matters. With his own hands he helped fell the trees, hew the logs, and erect the first schoolhouse in Jackson and Clinton counties near Wright's corners. He went east to York state to seek aid in building the first academy at Maquoketa, and was one of its trustees. His good wife and others, among them Mrs. J. E. Goodenow and Mrs. Sophia Shaw, boarded free of charge the workmen who worked on the structure in order to cur- tail expenses of building.

His coming meant much for eastern Iowa, and especially Jackson county, as undoubtedly it pointed the way to others who became life long residents of these parts and reared families of useful citizens and ornaments to society, and some have become prominent. We believe that neither C. E. Brown's parents nor brothers ever came here to reside, as his father and several of his brothers were ministers of the gospel laboring in other fields. His wife, Frances Lyon Brown, however, was a sister of Mrs. Truman A. N. Walker, a lifelong and respected resident near Maquoketa.

Their son, Nelson Walker, in company with George D. Lyon, brother of Mrs. Brown, was in the mercantile business in Maquoketa in an early day, and died there at the home of C. E. Brown. Another son, George Walker, in later years was a member of the Washington state legislature and had the honor of naming Idaho. Mrs. Brown was also the sister of Mrs. James O. DeGrush, another pio- neer and life long resident near Maquoketa, mother of Fred De Grush, Civil war veteran and life long worker here as an educator. Mrs. Brown was also the sister of Mrs. Stephen W. Brown (not related to the pastor) of Little Falls, New York, who was the mother of the late Mrs. Julia Dunham of Maquoketa.

In the Rev. Brown's own family there were those who like their father became distinguished and useful to the world, giving the lie to the old saw, "for a devil give us a preacher's son." Two of his sons served their country during the Civil

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war. After the war Charles P. Brown was many years a faithful and successful revenue agent and is now a successful business man of Ottumwa, Iowa. James D. Brown was for many years a trusted, respected agent of the Chicago, Mil- waukee & St. Paul Railway Company, at Lime Springs, Iowa. W. C. Brown commenced as telegraph operator and by perseverance rose to be general super- intendent of all the Burlington lines of railroad in Iowa, and is now vice presi- dent and general manager of the New York Central Railway. These sons of the Rev. Brown had no backing, only their own efforts and noble qualities inher- ited and instilled into them by their parents.

Though Maquoketa was the Rev. Brown's first field of labor in Iowa, it was not his only one. He spent several years at Davenport and did much work there, also at Rock Island and LeClaire, and afterwards at Vernon and Lime Springs in Howard county. From that county in 1877, he was elected to represent the county in the seventeenth general assembly of Iowa. In the session following among other work he introduced a resolution to amend the state constitution so as to authorize a majority of a jury to bring in a verdict in civil cases. It passed the house but was pigeonholed in the senate, as a great many, other things are which should become law.

He took the ground that in the early history of the jury system the unanimity rule governing verdicts was not known, that a majority of the jury was competent to deliver a verdict, was the rule in England for many years and still the rule in different European countries. The unanimity rule was the result of gradual changes in the system by designing self interest to protract litigation, and was con- trary to the principles of a republican form of government in which, as in this country, a majority must by right rule. It often defeated the ends of justice by hanging the jury or by leading men to return a verdict contrary to their honest convictions rather than be kept virtual prisoners an indefinite length of time. We have not space here to reproduce the entire plea, for the measures were eloquent and fraught with much sound reasoning.

There is much in our own recollections and more in those of other old settlers to eulogize the Rev. Brown, who often preached here at Buckhorn. For the de- tails of his coming and pioneer work, we are especially aided by a brief account written by himself to please his children and a few copies were published in book form at their expense to distribute among immediate members of the family as souvenirs. The copy I have been allowed to use is in the Walker family. It is brief, but every page calls up to the intelligent minds so much that was endured by pioneers, so much of historical interest not only to the student of theological his- tory but civil as well, that volumes seem to pass before the mental vision. It is a modest simple description of a noble life's work, and is of great value to those in- terested in early religious and civil history of eastern Iowa and reads like romance. If it was twice as long it would be well worth a place in the annals of Jackson coun- ty. We will copy from it mostly, as it is much better compiled than one like me can do, who only received a little "oil of hickory" and district school education with grammar entirely left out as a not to be endured affliction.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES WRITTEN BY REV. CHARLES BROWN, 1813-1893.

To the memory of my beloved wife, Frances Lyon Brown, who for nearly half a century shared with me the trials and hardships of pioneer life, whose loving, cheerful presence made the frontier cabin the happiest of homes, and whose happy, hopeful disposition found a silver lining to every cloud, however dark, these remi- niscences are lovingly inscribed.

I write this at the solicitation of my children, and commence it this 23d day of February, 1893, the eightieth anniversary of my birth. For several considerations I am admonished to be brief. I was born the 23d of February, 1813, in the town of Augusta, Oneida county, N. Y. My father, the Rev. Phillip Perry Brown, was born in the town of Bennington, Vermont, and died September, 1876, at Madison, Madison county, New York, aged eighty-six. For over fifty years he was a suc- cessful pastor of Baptist churches in central New York. My mother, Betsy Dickey,

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born in Wethersfield, Vermont, was a descendant of the Scotch-Irish Dickey, who emigrated from Londonderry, north of Ireland, and settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire, before the Revolutionary war. My good mother died in Hamilton, New York, April, 1862, aged seventy-four. I am the second of nine children-six sons and three daughters. The two youngest and myself are the only ones now living (1893). Two brothers are buried at Port Byron, Rock Island county, Il1- inois, one sister at St. Louis, Missouri, one in Newport, Herkimer county, New York, one sister in Litchfield, Herkimer county, New York, one · sister at Lime Springs, Howard county, Iowa. My parents are buried at Madison, Madison county, New York.

Before my recollection, my parents moved to Smithfield, Madison county, New York, a new country heavily timbered. In the midst of poverty, or very limited means, and the hardships incident to such a new country, I lived until past eighteen years of age. Our sugar was made from the sap of the maple. Our luxuries were the flour shortcake, the nutcake and the sweetened johnnie cake, luxuries not often indulged in. In the fall we were favored with samp and milk-sometimes had a mess of brook trout. Our youthful sports consisted in apple parings, snap and catch buttons, drop the handkerchief and like sports, sliding down hills and attending spelling schools. Our school books consisted of Webster's spelling book, the English reader, and Daboll's arithmetic. The family was blessed with good health, the physician was seldom called. My father became pastor of the Baptist church in Augusta in the fall of 1829. During the summer and fall of 1831 I worked as a farm hand for a farmer by the name of Danford Armour.

The Armour farm was at the summit of what was known as the "mile hill," the grade commencing at Leland's tavern afterwards known as the "Five Chimney House," and near the top of the "mile hill" the road forked from the main road for quite a distance running southwest, then south, the other running due west.

The Armour farm lay along the west side of this west road, and was bounded on the east by the main road, then called the "Peterboro turnpike." The house was a small one, being one and a half story and unpainted-a small kitchen and two small rooms below and a kind of a storeroom and one small bed room above, an old fashioned chimney and fireplace in the south end, with a ladder leaning to the chamber standing at the side of the fireplace.

Two little boys in dresses, named Simeon and Watson, and a little girl baby in the mother's arms, together with the father and mother, made up the family. The following year a third boy was born, called Phillip D. The home was a very happy though an humble one.

The parents of Danford Armour came at an early date from New England to New York, which at that time was "out West." Many years later Danford re- turned to Connecticut to find a helpmate who was Miss Julia A. Brooks, daughter of a thrifty, well to do Yankee farmer. I feel the incidents are especially worth notice when I realize the influence for good throughout the West which these three little boys above mentioned have exerted during the past twenty-five years. Philip D., Simeon B., and A. W. Armour have honored the name they bear and the place that gave them birth, and are an honor to the sturdy New England stock from which they sprang. When I left the employ of Mr. Armour there was due me for four months work thirty-two dollars, which was paid me in cash.

Within a week from the time I received this money, I met an acquaintance who knew of the amount I had received and who wanted to borrow just that amount. He plead so earnestly and made such fair promises to pay in a short time I let him have the money. It has been on interest ever since. I went to Augusta late in the fall to learn the tanning, currying, and shoemaking business with Hazzard Wilber, a deacon of my father's church. In the month of September, 1832, in a three days' revival meeting. I became a Christian with many others and was baptized by my father, and was soon impressed with the conviction that it was my duty to preach the gospel and in a few weeks entered Hamilton literary and theological seminary. now Colgate University. In the spring of 1833, Professor Daniel Haskell started

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a manual labor school at Florence, Oneida county, for the benefit of poor young men. I entered that school. During term time out of school hours my roommate joined me in chopping down the big trees and preparing them for logging. During vacation, with a hired yoke of oxen, we logged and cleared the land, and thus paid a part of the expense of our education. Three winters I taught school. In the win- ter of 1834-35, I taught in Pittston, across the Susquehanna River, the Wyoming massacre of the settlers by the British tories and Indians which occurred July, 1778.

Among the little girls carried away by the Indians was Francois Slocum. One of my pupils, a young lady, was a niece of this Francois Slocum. Fifty-seven years had passed and no intelligence had ever been received of Francois Slocum. Some eight or ten years after this, she was found among the remnants of a tribe of In- dians in Indiana, the wife of an Indian, and the mother of grown up children. A brother and sister from Pennsylvania visited her Indian home and tried to induce her to go and spend the small balance of her life with them, but she declined, pre- ferring to remain with her children.

In 1838 I held revival meetings in the township of Frankfort, Herkimer coun- ty, four or five miles west of Frankfort village. A good helper in these meetings was old Father Harvey, a licensed preacher one hundred and four years old. His wife (second marriage) was so much younger than himself her family opposed the marriage for the reason she would soon have a helpless old man on her hands to care for. She had become old and feeble and Father Harvey being much the smarter and more active, had a feeble old lady on his hands to care for which he did with the utmost tenderness and love. After this Father Harvey preached in Utica and other places.

In rising in the pulpit, as in his younger days, the first thing was to take off his coat. I love to think of these schoolhouse revivals ; with the mind's eye I can see Father Harvey in his chair in front of the schoolhouse desk. With the mind's ear I can hear Father Harvey's tender and heart moving voice in prayer or exhor- tation. During the months of April and May of 1838, I preached for the Bap- tist church in Frankfort.

At this time my father, then pastor in Litchfield eight miles south of Utica, was engaged in revival meetings at Little Falls twelve miles below Frankfort on the Mohawk River. The meetings were interesting and powerful. I went down to witness the display of God's saving mercy and help in the good work. From Frankfort (bridge over the Mohawk) to Little Falls, was my first ride on a railroad. The rails were made of wood with a strap of iron about the width and thickness of a cart tire on top. The passenger coaches consisted of two apartments, each having cross seats facing each other, the passenger on one seat riding backwards.

The conductor while collecting tickets, walked on a plank outside and held on to an iron rail under the eaves of the coach. Arriving at Little Falls I went directly to the church where the meetings were held. After the services I was taken to the home of Mr. Stephen M. Brown, sheriff of Herkimer county, for entertainment and with the understanding it would be my home while I remained in the place.

Though of the same name we were entire strangers and that was my first visit at Little Falls. Meeting with a cordial reception, I very soon felt at home. Mr. Brown's family consisted of himself and wife, Frances Lyon, and George D. Lyon, brother and sister of Mrs. Brown. ("It was this chance meeting of Frances Lyon that eventually did so much for Iowa.") George had been a member of the Baptist church for some time; Frances, then twenty- five years of age, was a bright, decided, and interesting convert of the revival then in progress. Rev. J. W. Olmstead, so long the editor of the Watchman was pastor of the church at this time.

With a class of about twenty-five, I finished the course at Hamilton, July 15, 1838. Through the agency of my brother William, then pastor of the Baptist church at Newport, Herkimer county, I was invited to visit the church

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at Norway, four miles from Newport, with a view of a settlement as pastor. The visit resulted in a call to the pastorate of that church to commence the following November. The 20th of September at Litchfield, where my father was pastor, I was ordained to the work of preaching the gospel. The 26th of the same month, in the Baptist church at Little Falls, I was married to Frances Lyon, Rev. Augustus Beech officiating. The good providence of God, so dis- tinctly marked, made no mistake in the selection of a most worthy and suit- able helpmate for the young pastor.

Early the following November, we commenced housekeeping in the par- sonage at Norway, and also the untried and inexperienced work and respon- sibility of pastoral work, on a salary of two hundred and seventy-five dollars per annum and the use of the parsonage. We were both poor but through the kind generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Brown, we had a very plain but sufficient outfit for keeping house. From this date I will associate my wife in my labors and as a general thing use the pronoun we.

For reasons that for the time seemed sufficient, we remained in Norway but eighteen months. We found two of the deacons were working against us because the pastor quite often used the same text in the morning and in the afternoon presenting different branches of the same subject; this was done to avoid preaching long sermons. Not knowing what might be the outcome, we quietly resigned, leaving the church in peace and harmony, so that when we returned in 1851 from the missionary work in Iowa, to repair lost health, we received a very cordial call to a second pastorate of the Norway church, one of the best we have ever labored with. During our residence in Nor- way our first child-a little boy-was born in July, 1839, whom we named Benjamin Perry.

I was appointed by the association to visit the Morehouseville church twenty miles north of Norway, far away in the dense wilderness. During our first pastorate at Norway, we made a missionary tour into the wilderness twenty miles beyond Morehouseville to a new settlement at the head of Peseca Lake.

On leaving Norway our next field of labor was Warren, one of the south- ern towns in Herkimer county, entering the work April, 1840. During the first year little could be accomplished on account of the all absorbing political campaign of "log cabin hard cider, Tippecanoe and Tyler too," which resulted in the election of William Henry Harrison as president, and John Tyler as vice president. The second year manifested a good deal of religious interest. Our increasing interest in, and love for missionary work directed our thoughts to some field in the distant west. In October, 1840, in Warren, our second son, Chas. P. Brown, was born.

In October of that year, 1841, our wish was laid before the Board of the New York State Missionary convention at the annual meeting held at Whites- borough. In the application nothing was said about salary or any local field, only sent us to Iowa Territory. The convention endorsed the application and recommended an appointment by the board of the A. M. Baptist Home Mis- sion Society. In due time the appointment came, designating the Forks of the Maquoketa, Jackson county, Territory of Iowa, as the field, on a salary of one hundred dollars per annum and seventy-five dollars for traveling ex- penses to the field.

As household goods could not be transported so far, we sold all except clothing, bedding, a common table and stand, which could be conveniently packed in boxes, and a kitchen rocking chair for the comfort and convenience of a mother in caring for the children on the journey. We also bought a cookstove of small size, which we took to pieces and packed in straw. Our goods, well packed in boxes, weighed about one thousand six hundred pounds.

Monday, May 2, 1842, we left Utica on a canal line boat for Iowa. These boats had a comfortable cabin with berths in the bow for passengers, and a

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good cook and dining cabin in stern, and the space midship for freight and baggage. The fare, with board and lodging, was two cents a mile, and no charge for young children. We had good traveling company, the board clean and nice, the captain and hands pleasant, sober and accommodating, so that the trip from Utica to Buffalo-two hundred miles-was comfortable and pleasant. We arrived at Tonawanda, twelve miles from Buffalo, at twelve o'clock Sat- urday night, and as the boat did not run on Sunday we lay by until twelve o'clock Sunday night, arriving at Buffalo just at daylight Monday morning.

Our goods were transferred from the canal boat to the steamboat "Great Western," Captain Walker, which was to leave for Chicago that evening. We felt that we were fortunate. The fare from Buffalo to Chicago had just been reduced by reason of competition, from twenty dollars to eighteen dollars. The freight on our goods from Buffalo to Chicago was eighteen dollars. When the time arrived for leaving the harbor there were some eight hundred passengers on board, probably not fifty of them had ever been on the water before and nearly all going to Illinois, Wisconsin and regions beyond.

It was nearly dark when the great steamer was fairly out upon the dark but quiet waters of Lake Erie with ominous clouds gathering in the west. The cabin passengers were very generally gathered on the promenade deck, some looking back upon the lights of the city and towards the homes and loved ones there, some looking out sadly upon the dark waters, others looking anxiously upon the gath- ering and threatening clouds in the west, and very many with tearful eyes. It was one of the most intensely interesting, solemn scenes we ever witnessed and took part in. We retired to our state room, but I guess not to sleep much. The storm came down upon us in the night, but our noble steamer met and faced it bravely, and brought us safely into the harbor at Cleveland.

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History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I, Part 93

Author: Ellis, James Whitcomb, 1848-; Clarke, S. J., publishing company Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 730

Author: Ellis, James Whitcomb, 1848-; Clarke, S. J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 730