USA > Iowa > Poweshiek County > History of Poweshiek County, Iowa: a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume 1 > Part 14
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Those in one building across the street from the campus are wakeful. The man looking up from his paper says: "That is an extra train at this hour ;- but-what is it? It is a cyclone. Now for the cellar. "The wife caught one child, he another. They are just below the floor, and the house is lifted, borne a short distance when a corner strikes the ground and it goes to pieces. A piano was crushed like an eggshell. The trunks of large trees were riddled by fine slivers driven through them by the terrible force of the wind. Over forty lives
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were lost in the town, but fortunately only three students were among those killed.
A NEW CAMPUS.
It is rare that a college loses a building, but never before was a college ground swept so clean as the twenty acres of the campus here. The storm came just before commencement had begun. The pastor of the Congregational church gave up the next day to the care of the injured. There was no time for church and the town was full of thanksgiving that so many still lived and so many houses were left.
The governor issued an appeal for help at once. Mayor C. N. Perry appointed committees to do the best things and to care for monies should any come in. J. B. Grinnell had generous friends among the wealthy in the busy west and richer east. They were ready to respond to appeals for aid, and some instructed their agents to be ready to aid him promptly if he should call. Those friends were in business, in church and in congress.
The first $1,000 came from R. E. Sears, of Marshalltown, an alumnus of the college, and a former citizen of Grinnell, a business man of ready sym- pathy and great energy. Ezekiel Clark, of Iowa City, was quick in our stricken city with a handshake with Mr. Grinnell and the brief word under tearful eyes, "Here is $500." It was all understood.
William E. Dodge of New York concealed a $5,000 check under Mr. Grin- nell's napkin at his breakfast table, and Mrs. Dodge begged the privilege of adding $1,000 "for the girls." Senator W. B. Allison called on John I. Blair, builder of the Northwestern railroad, in company with Mr. Grinnell. A little pleasant bantering about a gift of $50,000 followed when the railroad prince took the book and down went $15,000.
We might enlarge on Mr. Grinnell's visit to Plymouth church, Brooklyn, and Henry Ward Beecher's characteristic comments and the hearty pocket sym- pathy of his congregation, of many other men of national reputation who gave gladly- and generously, as well as of hearty lowa and western response through the efforts of friends at home.
The committees worked hard and gave satisfaction to the needy by the fair- ness of their allotments in the town. The college received kindliest recogni- tion and buildings better than before and more of them began to cover the campus.
The cornerstone of the first building to be replaced was laid nine days after the cyclone for East College, or Alumni Hall. The class of 1882 fur- nished the funds for the walls and the roof. Chicago Hall and Blair Hall were nearly finished before the year ended. The museum was well housed in the second story of Blair Hall. Hon. E. A. Goodnow, of Worcester, Massa- chusetts, through the influence of Mrs. Mary (Grinnell) Mears, his pastor's wife, gave $10,000 for the erection of Goodnow Hall, especially for a library. It was built of the beautiful and durable Sioux Falls "jasper."
The Mary Grinnell Mears cottage, built in Chamberlain Park in 1888, of a beautiful block presented to the college by Rev. J. M. Chamberlain, is not on the campus but adjoins it on the east, and should be noticed here. Every
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room was taken before the beginning of the winter term of 1889, and it will accommodate fifty-four women. The home is a popular one. Hon. E. A. Goodnow added $5,000 to his other benefactions that it might be added to the building and that it should bear the name of his pastor's wife.
The E. D. Rand gymnasium for young ladies was presented to the college by Dr. George D. Herron, acting in behalf of Miss Carrie Rand, the donor. It is 58 feet wide by 120 feet long and made of vitrified brick. It is well adapted to its purpose with modern equipments. It was erected in honor of Miss Rand's father and brother.
The young men's gymnasium followed in 1899. It is 95 x 116 feet, east and west, with a central trancept, and has fine equipment.
The Carnegie Library was erected in 1904. It is a beautiful building and cost $50,000.
The Christian Association's building furnished these organizations a home in 1906, and during the same year the Herrick chapel was erected. The donor of the chapel was a graduate of the first college class in Grinnell and often a tutor during his course, a soldier in the war, a mayor and bank president in peace, a prosperous fruit-raiser in California and not slow in promoting benevo- lent enterprises. The chapel will seat 800, memorial windows ornament its sides and ends, and the Lillian Louise Terril organ in it is exceedingly useful.
COLLEGE DEGREES.
The college gave the A. B., or classical degree from the beginning for com- pleting the classical course. Since then several courses have been added and dif- ferent degrees given. The group system has been adopted by the faculty, using their mature and varied judgment to unite the various studies with such groups as will combine culture and business utility. The faculty now give A. B., or the classical degree, and S. B., the scientific degree.
THE PRESIDENCY.
The head professor in the early years was acting-president, but no uniform distinguishing title was given to the presiding officer of the faculty during the ten years at Davenport, or during the first six in Grinnell. When Dr. George F. Magoun came in 1865, he was called
THE FIRST PRESIDENT.
Dr. Magoun, a graduate of Bowdoin of Andover, was an able speaker, an easy and strong writer, familiar with advanced students and more reserved with beginners, and a leader beyond college halls. The cyclone of 1882 did not turn him aside from the duties that came to him when houses were in ruins, families in mourning, but his commencement sermon was adapted to the occasion, and his college motto was "Forward March," and every look forward was hopeful and resolute, and all caught much of his spirit. An air of confidence and hope
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pervaded the hours. In 1884 he resigned his office, but continued in college as a professor until ----. Professor S. J. Buck, who had been a professor in the college twenty years, was made
PRESIDENT PRO TEM.
He held that office three years, discharging its duties faithfully and with excellent results. We will not try to improve on the words of Austin P. Haines, a pupil of his, who wields a facile pen with keenest discrimination. He wrote as follows :
"Under different circumstances the interregnumn might easily have proven a period of doubt and suspense and fear. But Professor Buck was chosen acting president, and the work went forward uninterruptedly, gaining in quality and quantity, so that at the close of this triennium the attendance had increased over forty-three per cent, and more money was raised for Iowa College than during any similar period in its history of nearly six decades."
He was ready for any service in college or for it through more than four decades, and indifferent to compensation.
PRESIDENT GEORGE A. GATES
was in office from 1887 to 1901. He was a graduate of Dartmouth, and pastor in Montclair, New Jersey, succeeded Professor Buck. Devoted to his work. tactful in administration, winsome everywhere, he was the student's idol. Dr. Ephraim Adams, a long time trustee of the college, said of him admiringly : "During his administration there gathered over the college but one cloud. It rose from its connection with the chair instituted for "Applied Christianity." Although the professor in charge did not seem always altogether sane, either intellectually or morally, he said many good things and some had visions of a million or more back of him. The "cloud" did not linger long.
DR. DAN F. BRADLEY, PRESIDENT 1902-1905.
He had an eye only for the bright and cheerful and carried sunshine and beauty wherever he went. Business, politics and all forms of benevolence inter- ested him, but "institutional" service in the church drew him so powerfully that in three years he dropped college work, much as he loved it, for the service of the Plymouth Institutional church, in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dr. J. H. T. Main preceded Dr. Bradley two years as acting president, and followed him as president. A campaign for an addition of $500,000 to the endow- ment was finished in 1908. In such a "whirlwind campaign" much is due to many, but most is due for the plan and the execution to President Main. The trustees have recently shown their appreciation by increasing his salary to $5,000. President Main is a scholarly man, of broad sympathies, an able administrator and an inspiring leader. He is the object of the most enthusiastic love and loyalty on the part of the student body. May he long remain our leader.
U
Chicago Haut
Wimnr Hart
Chapel Library Bidas
GROUP OF COLLEGE BUILDINGS
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COLLEGE ACHIEVEMENTS.
The history of the college has been very gratifying to its friends from the first day with its one teacher and two pupils, notwithstanding war, and fire and tornado. It has gathered heroes and heroines of service into faculty, heroes of self-denial and inspiration. We would be glad to name them all and record their excellencies, too, but for these we have no room at present. These have been written on tablets more enduring than paper.
The number of graduates is 1,490. They have been in all professions and in many nations. We name a few of them in different professions.
College or university presidents or professors : Henry C. Adams, University of Michigan ; H. H. Belfield, Chicago University; Mary E. Apthorp, Normal School, Wisconsin; W. A. Noyes, University of Illinois; O. F. Emerson, Adel- bert College, Ohio; G. M. Whicher, Normal College, New York city; S. L. Whitcomb, University of Kansas; F. I. Herriott, Drake University, Carl Kelsey, University of Pennsylvania; George E. White, Anatolia College, Turkey ; Rich- ard D. Jones, Tufts College ; Mary B. Brainerd, Wellesley College; and in Grin- nell (Iowa) College, Jesse Macy, H. W. Norris, Paul F. Peck, G. P. Wyckoff, Clara E. Millard, Caroline Sheldon, H. W. Magoun, Fanny O. Fisher ; Jonathan Risser, Beloit College; J. L. Gillin, State University of Iowa; Elizabeth Avery, Redfield College ; S. R. Williams, Oberlin College; Mary Chamberlain, Mills Col- lege, California; Samuel P. Craver, Theological Seminary, Buenos Ayres ; F. G. Woodworth, Tongaloo; Charles Davidson, University of Maine.
Authors and writers: J. Irving Manatt, Jesse Macy, English Constitution ; Albert Shaw, editor Review of Reviews; Bertha, Bush, novelist; Caroline Shel- don, poet; Pauline (Given) Swalm .;
In state or national legislatures:" Joseph Lyman, Robert M. Haines, W. G. Ray, J. P. Lyman, A. C. Savage, George E. Grier, James L. Carney.
Architects and painters: E. H.W.Taylor; Cedar Rapids; W. H. Brainerd, Boston ; H. K. Holsman, Chicago) -Mrs: Abby W. Hills, Tacoma; John P. Parks. Lawyers or judges : J. P. Lyman, superior court, Grinnell; Lucien Eaton, St. Louis : H. H. Stipp, Des Moines ; R. M. Haines, D. W. Norris, W. G. McLaren.
Librarians: M. H. Douglass, State University, Oregon; Lilian Burt, Uni- versity of California; Helen Starr, Congressional Library; Annie Shiley, in office of superintendent of documents, Washington, D. C.
Missionaries: Hester A. Hillis, India; George D. Marsh, D. D., Turkey ; S. P. Craver, D. D., Argentina; George D. White, D. D., and his wife, Esther (Robbins) White, Marsovan, Turkey; Mary E. Brewer, Sivas, Turkey; Susan B. Tallman, M. D., D. E. Crabb, M. D., and A. B. De Haan, in China; and twelve others in several nations.
"Grinnell College" has recently been authorized as the official name. The standards of the college have always been very high, and Grinnell College today ranks among the leading colleges of the entire country. It was the only college in Iowa recognized by being placed on the first list of accepted colleges of the Carnegie Foundation. And the scholarly character of its work was further recognized in 1908 by a chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa scholarship fraternity being located in the college.
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Today it has a fine campus of forty-five acres, with twelve buildings, and with other real property and equipment, the whole valued at about $650,000, and a productive endowment amounting to about $950,000.
There has been no attempt or desire to make of Grinnell College a university. The one aim has been to give a college course that would fit men and women for life, that would teach them to do hard and systematic mental work and that would at the same time give them a desire to be leaders in all good work and noble service. The ideals of the college other than those of real and thorough scholarship are probably well indicated by the two groups of names of former students placed in the chapel-the one on a marble tablet making permanent the record of the young men who went from the college and gave their lives in the Civil war, the other a group of over twenty names on a large memorial window preserving the memory of the former students and graduates who are or have been in the foreign field carrying the Christian religion to heathen lands. The principle of service shown in these two examples of patriotic care for the inter- ests of the state and of zeal in promoting Christian life and influence, is domi- nant in the teachings of Grinnell College.
CHAPTER X.
THE PIONEER PHYSICIAN.
HARDSHIPS AND PRIVATIONS OF THE EARLY PHYSICIAN WERE MANY-RODE HORSE- BACK DAY AND NIGHT IN ALL KINDS OF WEATHER-HIS WORK ARDUOUS AND REMUNERATION SMALL-THE POWESHIEK COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.
The pioneers of the healing art in Poweshiek county were the guardians of a widely dispersed population. Aside from their professional duties they con- tributed their full share to the material development of a newly opened country. Some were men of culture who had gained their medical education in college ; the great number were of limited educational attainment whose professional knowledge had been acquired in the offices of established practitioners of more or less ability in the sections from which they emigrated. Of either class almost without exception they were practical men of great force of character who gave cheerful and efficacious assistance to the suffering, daily journeying on horseback scores of miles over a country almost destitute of roads and encountering swol- ien, unabridged streams, without waterproof garments or other now common protection against water. Out of necessity the pioneer physician developed rare quickness of perception and self-reliance. A specialist was then unknown and he was called upon to treat every phase of bodily ailment, serving as physician, surgeon, oculist and dentist. His books were few and there were no practition- ers of more ability than himself with whom he might consult. His medicines were simple and carried on his person, and every preparation of pill or solution was the work of his own hands.
Practically no data is at hand relating to the first physician of the county. Dr. Henry Clay Sanford, who came from Keokuk in 1851, and located at Monte- zuma. All that is known of him is that he remained there for some time and then left for another field of action in the southern part of the state.
Dr. Edward Barton is another pioneer physician of the county, of whom little is known at this day. He came from Ohio in 1852 and settled at Brooklyn, remaining only three years, when he removed further west, to Kansas.
The year 1853 found Dr. Reuben Sears in Brooklyn. He was born at Dracot, Massachusetts, in 1824, came west while while a young man, graduated from Vol. I-9
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Rush Medical College, at Chicago, began the practice of his profession at Mon- trose, Lee county, Iowa, and from there came to Brooklyn, where he continued in a successful practice until 1863. In that year Dr. Sears moved to Grinnell, where his practice was enlarged and there remained until 1873, when he removed to Marshalltown, ending his useful life, June 6, 1896.
Dr. Sears was a good physician, skillful surgeon and an energetic, enter- prising and prosperous business man. He was the chief instrumentality in the birth of Brooklyn and gave the splendid little city its name. Another town of the county of no mean importance, Searsboro, perpetuates the memory of this pioneer physician.
Dr. Holyoke was born in Brewer, Maine, in 1820, graduated at Waterville, then studied medicine and settled in Searsport in 1848. The next year he mar- ried Nancy Catherine Clark, came west and became one of the founders of Grinnell in 1854.
Here he resumed the practice of medicine and soon became the county sur- veyor. In 1856 he opened a drug store, in which he placed his cousin, George Holyoke, in charge for about a year. when Charles H. Spencer took his place. With the persons just mentioned, Dr. Holyoke opened a loan business, which expanded into the First National Bank in 1866. At the time of his death, which occurred in 1877, Hon. J. B. Grinnell spoke of him as "the oldest living land- mark of the town; the good physician; the citizen without reproach; the guile- less Christian; the able college lecturer and trustee; and though the whitest Parian marble should mark his resting place it will only be a semblance of his pure life and enduring name."
Dr. John W. H. Vest arose to prominence in his profession in Poweshiek county, both as a physician and surgeon. He was a native of the "Old Domin- ion," where he was born in 1822. When ten years of age his parents removed to Hillsboro, Ohio, where he attended the academy and prepared himself for college. In 1847 he was fitted for the practice of his chosen profession, locating at New Vienna, in his native state. In 1856 the Doctor graduated from Starling Medical College, then came west and located in Montezuma, where he at once built up a large clientele. In August. 1862, he was appointed sergeant of the Twenty-eighth Iowa Volunteers and was with the regiment until December 4. 1864, when he resigned. In 1865 he took a post-graduate course at Jefferson Medical College, at Philadelphia, and going south was made surgeon-in-chief of the Third Division, Thirteenth Army Corps, on General McGinnis' staff. He was afterward medical director on the staff of General Ransom and afterwards on the staff of General McClernand. Dr. Vest made a brilliant record as an army surgeon, and it is needless to say his standing among the medical men of the state has been of the highest. His son, Dr. W. E. Vest, after a course in Iowa College of Grinnell, the University of Iowa, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Keokuk, graduat- ing from the two latter institutions, became a partner of his father.
Dr. John Conaway was one of the first physicians to practice in Brooklyn and that part of the county. He was a native of Ohio, where he was born in 1822. The original Conaways were from Ireland and early settled in Maryland and Virginia. Dr. Conaway was raised on a farm and at the age of twenty entered
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the academy at Hagerstown, where he spent two years. He read medicine while completing his studies and teaching, four years, and then practiced about five years at Bakersville, Ohio. In February, 1854, he graduated from the Eclectic Medical Institute, at Cincinnati. On the ist of May, 1857, Dr. Conaway reached Brooklyn, and entered into a practice that continued successfully for many years. He had a thorough medical education and was for a number of years United States medical pension examiner. Dr. Conaway took quite an active interest.in politics. Early in life he was a democrat, but after the Missouri Compromise was repealed, became a republican. He was chairman of the committee on township and county organization and acted on four or five other committees, while representing Poweshiek county in the state senate from 1874 to 1878. In 1873 Dr. Conaway associated with him in the practice, his brother, C. D. Cona- way, who was born in 1836 and came to Brooklyn in 1865. Dr. C. D. Conaway was admitted to the practice in 1868, after taking a course of lectures at the Eclectic Medical College, Cincinnati.
Dr. C. E. Rayburn practiced medicine in Brooklyn for many years. He was a native of the Buckeye state, his birth occurring in the year 1835. He received the benefits of a common-school education and in 1854 came west, located at Montezuma, taught school until 1857, when he went into the office of Drs. Vest & Watts, and read medicine until 1860. He then took a course of lectures in the medical department of the Iowa State University, then located at Keokuk, from which he graduated in 1864. That same year he enlisted as assistant sur- geon in the Sixtieth United States Colored Regiment, joining the organization at Helena, Arkansas. Three months later the Doctor was chief surgeon of the post. In 1865 he was transferred to Little Rock, where he was placed in charge of the Third Iowa Battery Ambulance Corps. In the autumn of the same year he was discharged. Returning to Brooklyn, he resumed his practice and later opened a drug store. Meanwhile he was surgeon for the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company.
Dr. E. H. Harris was perhaps the best known and the leading physician of his day in Grinnell, to which place he came in March, 1855. His birth occurred in Pennsylvania in 1827. There he was raised and educated. Living on a farm until he was eighteen years of age, he then clerked in a store, attended the Alle- gheny College and while pursuing his studies taught school to pay his tuition. At the age of twenty-three Dr. Harris began the study of medicine and soon thereafter began to practice. He then came to Iowa, practiced one year in Farmington and in the year stated hung out his professional sign in Grinnell. The spring following his advent here, Dr. Harris took a post-graduate course in Bellevue Hospital, then known as the New York Medical College. During the war Dr. Harris was the official surgeon for the Twenty-first Iowa, served as surgeon for the Ninety-ninth Illinois, was later transferred to a hospital boat and afterwards to a hospital in New Orleans, where he remained until the close of the war. In 1854 the Doctor was married to Rachel Hamlin, a Pennsyl- vanian, and also a practicing physician, a graduate of the Hahnemann Homeo- pathic College of Chicago. One of their sons, W. H. Harris, is a leading physi- cian today, of Grinnell. Dr. E. H. Harris died in 1908.
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Dr. T. M. Hedges was born in 1838, in Pennsylvania, and in 1855 was a resident of Sheridan, Poweshick county, Iowa, where he read medicine several months, then went to Keokuk to continue his studies. In August, 1861, he enlisted in Company B, Sixth Iowa Infantry, and served three years in the Civil war. After his discharge he returned to Keokuk, where he graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the spring of 1865. then came to Grin- neli and engaged in the practice of his profession.
John Lewis was born in Indiana county, Pennsylvania, in 1817, and received his education at Jefferson College, graduating in 1842. In 1846 he commenced the practice of medicine in Fayette county, Indiana, then at Ogden, in the same state, and in the fall of 1869 located at Grinnell, where he acquired a fine prac- tice.
The first permanent physician in Malcom was Dr. J. W. McDowell, who came from Princeton, Illinois, in 1867. He was attending lectures in the State University at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1863, and graduated from Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, in 1866. Dr. McDowell also took a course of medical lectures in New York in 1875. He became prominent in his profession in Malcom and had a wide acquaintance throughout the county. Dr. McDowell was a member of the County and State Medical Societies.
Dr. Oliver H. Conaway located in Deep River and began the practice of his profession in that section of the county in 1878, meeting with success and acquir- ing a competency. He was of the Eclectic School.
Dr. Christopher C. Terrell emigrated from Ohio, where he was born in 1817, to Iowa, in 1856, and located in Union township at Forest Home, where he built up a large and lucrative practice. Dr. Terrell was a graduate of the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati in 1853. He was the typical, pioneer country practitioner, who faced many hardships. Mounted on horseback, with leather saddle-bags at the croup, through sunshine and storm, heat and cold, he was truly of a class of courageous men, devoted to their calling. Dr. Terrell never refused a call and attended the rich and poor alike.
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