Memorial and biographical record of Iowa, Part 164

Author:
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1360

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Receiving a commission as special land agent from the Department of the Interior at Washington to examine 2,600 cases of sus- pended land entries on the Pacific coast, he left his family at Snohomish and repaired to California in the execution of his new duties, and was absent a year; and during this time he traveled back and forth between old Mexico

and Vancouver's Island by rail and sea, look- ing after lands and gathering testimony con- cerning their entry, and in these trips visited all parts of California, becoming thoroughly acquainted with that wonderful country. Dur- ing the next year, 1890, he spent eight months in New Mexico, traveling throughout its ex- tent in the same service, and from there he re- turned to the State of Washington, with head- quarters at Seattle. Here he took out the first corps of surveyors upon the Olympic range to survey suspended entries.

Subsequently he received orders from Hon. T. H. Carter, then Commissioner of the Gen- eral Land Office and now Senator from Mon- tana, to explore the Mount Ranier region for the purpose of obtaining the necessary information in regard to the propriety of making a timber reservation there. The idea of making this reservation was originated by Mr. Mosier. A "national park " had been previously sug- gested by other parties; but before Congress could carry out any plan for a park here the region would have been denuded of its timber and beauty by organized bands of timber and land thieves. Mr. Mosier spent two years ex- ploring this section of Washington and obtain- ing the opinions of citizens of the Sound cities as to the feasibility of making a reservation which should range entirely around the moun- tain and constitute an evergreen frame, as it were, for this awfully grand snow-capped peak.

Loading a mule with a dog tent, blankets, bacon, flour, coffee, and a few other necessaries, a 5x7 kodak, an aneroid barometer, thermome- ter, field-glass, level, forty-four six-shooter, repeating rifle, etc., he walked behind the faithful little animal from the settlements at sea-level to the timber line on the mountain, which was generally about 8,000 feet above the sea, and camped alone at night, proceed- ing to points fifty to a hundred miles from civilization. In the daytime he had to cross swollen glacial rivers alone, which are always dangerous even when help is at hand. But he could not retreat; all his work lay before and above him. When the shades of night

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draped the earth with their mysterious pall and the stars shone out like electric lamps from the black depth of space, the ominous silence being broken only by an occasional scream of the mountain lion and the mysterious notes of night birds and other animals, also the sound of grinding rocks forced by an avalanche sweep- ing the timber and everything before it down the mountain side, reverential awe which lan- guage cannot express, rather than fear, took possession of Mr. Mosier's mind.

He made numerous trips of this. kind, starting from different sides of the mountain, the last being from North Yakima, on the east- ern side of the Cascades, during which time he camped in deep snow for three days, his horse pawing down through the snow to the earth to obtain his provender, which consisted of the nutritious grasses buried so deeply.

To the ordinary observer it would seem that such extreme out-door life would have been impossible, following immediately a period of more than twenty years devoted to court work, where close confinement and steady application were so absolutely neces- sary to the discharge of duty. The secret lies in the fact that Mr. Mosier had all his life been an enthusiastic sportsman, going annually hun- dreds and sometimes thousands of miles to en- joy the pleasures of the chase, hunting and fishing and the romance of camp life. To shoot antelope on the plains of Texas and Mexico, to climb the Rockies in quest of mountain sheep, goats, bears and black-tail deer, or to shoot water-fowl and grouse about the lakes and fields of the Dakotas, afforded him the necessary exercise for health as well as opportunity to indulge his passion for the study of nature. It was this that especially pre- pared and fitted him for the hardships and daring exploration we have mentioned in con- nection with the topographical survey of the Mount Rainier region, now Pacific Reserve.

In his explorations Mr. Mosier gathered specimens of all the herbaceous plants, mosses, shrubs and trees that he saw, from the salt marshes at sea level to the glaciers between

10,000 and 12,000 feet above. These speci- mens he forwarded to the Forestry and Botan- ical Divisions of the Agricultural Department at Washington. The fauna and flora of this region are worthy the attention of the whole scientific world. He photographed natural scenery, trees and other plants, cascades, rocks, avalanches and glaciers, plains and mountains, and even the ocean; and when, in December, 1892, he made his final report to the Interior Department, recommending the reservation of about 1,600 square miles, or 1,000,000 acres of land, about and on Mount Ranier, he attached as exhibits more than 100 copies of these photographs. He holds that the Government should never have parted with any of these vast tracts of timber lands, the revenue from which would have paid the total operating expenses of the Government, tariff or no tariff.

In concluding his report to the Department of the Interior, Mr. Mosier said:

" This grand mountain region, with its ice- bound peaks, its smoldering volcanoes, its craters, its crags, its mimic battlements and towers, its precipices, its deep chasms, its steeps, its lakes, its brooks and rivulets and rills, its waterfalls, its fleecy snows, its crin- kled drifts, its crevasses and net-work of deep fissures and chasms and gorges, its columns of basaltic rock, its moraines, its piles of many- angled rocks, its record of the fiery work of volcanic forces, its heaps of scoriæ, its vol- canic ash-beds, at. times garlanded with the choicest plants and flowers, its blooming shrubs, its fragrant wild roses, its nameless mosses, its tall cedars and hemlocks and firs and pines, its yews and spruces and arbor-vitæs, its smooth- barked alder trees, its fallen monarchs, its strings of wild vines, its bowers, its brakes and graceful ferns, its sedges and rushes, its mal- lows and orchids, its tangled wild-woods, its shrubs with blazing flower and fruit, its sub- alpine trees, its enchanting parks, its colon- nades of balsam firs and pines and larches, its grassy lawns, its undulating tables, its clumps of exquisitely beautiful trees, its nooks and

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meadows, its wooded hills with their green slopes and flecks and patches of mid-summer snows of purest white, its dizzy heights and fearful depths, its bursting avalanches and roaring cataracts, its milk-white glacial rivers, grinding boulders, falling rocks with their re- verberating echoes, moaning winds, screaming panthers, soaring eagles, wild goats, deer, bear, beaver, marmot and hare, its partridge and grouse and quail and ptarmigan, wild ducks and geese and heron, its song-birds, its bees and myriad insect life, its fishes, its mur- inuring waters, its mineral springs, its clear blue skies, its starry depths, its clouds, its zigzag lightnings and loud-rolling thunder, its calms, its storms and tempests, its sunshine and shade, its sunrise over mountains of pur- ple and gold and silver sheen, its glorious sun- sets, its weird, creeping shadows, its hal- lowed gloom, its peaceful solitude, its many voices of nature, exciting reverential awe, its peaceful solitude, -all these and much more that language cannot express, impel me to again urge that this reservation be made for the benefit of the people of the State of Wash- ington, of the United States and of the whole civilized world."

As the result of Mr. Mosier's eloquence, coupled with the facts, President Harrison made the reservation, and made it precisely in outline and extent as mapped out and recom- mended by our subject, and is known as the "Pacific Reservation."

As already inferred by the reader, Mr. Mosier is a decided Republican. At the early age of twenty years he took part in the organi- zation of the Republican party in Polk county, and was at the ratification of the election of Governor Grimes in 1856.

As to military affairs, we may observe that Mr. Mosier was commissioned Adjutant of a battalion in 1864, organized at Des Moines to repel an invasion by the Rebel general Price froin Missouri. He commanded the company five months, while a private taking his turn on guard and all other duties that devolved on a private soldier, until he received his

commission as Captain. Was twice offered promotion, but preferred to stay with his com- pany, which he did until after the war was over, being discharged in January, 1866, at San Antonio, Texas. During its service his company traveled 10,750 miles, participated in fifteen battles and many skirmishes, losing in killed and wounded sixty-five per cent. of its number. Some of the battles in which he was engaged were Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Kenesaw mountain, Peachtree creek, Atlanta, Jonesboro, Lovejoy, Franklin, and Nashville. He always commanded his company on every march and in every engagement. One brother of our subject, Lieutenant Oliver, lies in a sol- dier's grave, and his other brother, of the name of Cross, was a private in the Union army, in many engagements, finally taken prisoner and confined for nine months at Andersonville and six months in other rebel prisons.

In 1856 Mr. Mosier's father sold out his Des Moines farm for $30 an acre, and moved · to New Corydon, sixteen miles above Des Moines. This was about the time that Mr. Mosier began to attend select school in Des Moines.

In the autumn of 1861 Mr. Mosier married Miss Rachel A., daughter of Samuel and Rachel Bell, and they have had four sons and three daughters. Lenore, the eldest, married H. L. Devin and resides at Sedro, Washing- ton; she has three daughters living and one son deceased. Blanche is married, has two children and is now a teacher in the Des Moines public schools. Albert G. lives at Seattle, Washington, where he is a civil en- gineer at present engaged on the ship canal there; he was formerly division engineer on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Rail- road, as early as twenty years of age. He has aided in building the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad, and also the Great North- ern across the Cascades. In 1893 he married Bessie, daughter of General Reno. He is now thirty years of age. Cyrus A., Jr., is the name of the son who died in 1875. Charles R., now sixteen years old, is a student at Drake Uni-

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versity. Lucy R. is attending the high school in Des Moines; and Mac Henry, the youngest, is also at school.

Immediately after his marriage Mr. Mosier built his residence, -16 x 24 and a story and a half high,-with his own hands, cutting the logs, sawing them, framing the whole structure and finishing it, building the chimney and plastering one room. No American excepting a frontiersman would have the ambition to do this; and this was all done during the hard times of the war period. After all, that was the happiest period of Mr. Mosier's life.

ILLIAM OTTO BOCK, Clerk of the Court of Allamakee county, Iowa, was born September 20, 1859, in Krontorp, Sweden, being a son of Charles and Elizabeth (Lunquist) Bock.

The father of our subject, Charles John Bock, was born in Sweden, February 6, 1823, was a blacksmith by trade, reached America in 1868, and came on West to Lansing, Iowa, reaching that point in June of the same year, where he resided for twelve years, giving his attention principally to his trade. In 1880 he moved to La Crescent. Minnesota, and three years later to New Albin, where he has resided since. He was married in Sweden, in 1848, to Miss Elizabeth Lunquist, who was born March 27, 1822. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Charles John Bock are: Charles Gustav, born May 7, 1849, married Anna Nelson, is a blacksmith by trade, and lives in New Albin. John Julius, born November 18, 1851, mar- ried Hannah Peterson, and is at present clerk- ing for Nielander & Company, in their branch store at New Albin. August Alfred, born April 28, 1854, married Mary Anderson and is engaged in the general merchandise business at Wausau, Wisconsin. Andrew Peter, born March 31, 1857, married Inis White, is a printer by trade and lives at Austin, Minne- sota. William Otto, the subject of this sketch, is the next child. Mary Christine,

born March 7, 1862, married W. A. Cutting, wlio is passenger conductor on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad and keeps his residence at Savanna, Illinois. Edward, born June 9, 1864, has been in the employ of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad for the past sixteen years and is at present their agent in New Albin. Leonard, born June 28, 1867, died at Lansing, July 10, 1868.

Juliuson Bock, grandfather of our subject, came to America with his son, and died at Lansing in 1868, aged eighty-two years. His children were: John, born in 1815, married Louisa Gjilstrom and is at present living at Stockholm, Wisconsin. Andrew G., born March 11, 1820, married and is living in Mo- line, Illinois. Sarah Elizabeth, born in 1822, married Daniel Wenerstrom and lives in Swe- den. Charles John, father of our subject, is the youngest child.

Mr. Bock, our subject, was one of the eight children who accompanied his parents when they emigrated to this country. He did gen- eral work, and attended public school until fif- teen years of age; he then began clerking for Askson Brothers, of New Albin, who kept a general merchandise store, and continued with them for four years. For the next six months he clerked for H. Martin & Company, and then entered the employ of Lane & Bock, Alfred Bock, his brother, being the junior member in the firm. At the end of four years Mr. Bock sold out out to his partner, and our subject had full charge of the business until it was closed ont six months later. Mr. Bock now clerked for Erickson & Tartt, by whom he was employed for the next four years, at the end of which time Mr. Tartt sold out his interest to his partner. The drug business of W. O. Bock & Company was now started, and continues to the present time. In this firm our subject is associated with his old em- ployer, Mr. Tartt. Mr. Bock was made Post- master of New Albin in 1889, and continued until August 1, 1893. He was elected by the Republican party Clerk of the District Court in the fall of 1894, took office the following Jan-

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uary, and is at present engaged in the dis- charge of his official duties.

Our subject was married April 27, 1881, to Miss Cora Edna Tartt, daughter of James Mortinier and Phoebe Ellen (Goble) Tartt, of New Albin, Iowa. Mrs. Bock was born March 3, 1864, at Dorchester, Allamakee county, Iowa. They have one child, Forrest Wayne Mortimer, born December 10, 1892. Mr. Bock is a member of the A. F. & A. M. at Lansing, Iowa, and also of the A. O. U. W. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and is quite active in Sunday-school work, being Superintendent of the New Albin school for a number of years. He is a young man just entering on the prime of life, having a good business record behind him and a promising future ahead.

ON. GEORGE WASHINGTON BE- MIS. - The subject of this brief biog- raphy might truthfully quote as equal- ly applicable to himself the opening sentence of the Memoirs of General Grant: "My family is American and has been for gen- erations, in all its branches, direct and collat- eral;" and to the believer in the potency of hereditary influences in the formation of cliar- acter, he affords an example of the cumula- tive results of such an ancestry. Thoroughly imbued with the spirit of our institutions, cherishing an unwavering faith in the ultimate universal establishment of the fully human liberty, and recognizing no social distinction based upon any foundation other than personal merit, he presents a striking type of the ideal American.

The son of Eleazer Bemis, he is a descend- ant, in the paternal line, of Joseph Bemis, an English yeoman, who emigrated to this coun- try, settling in Watertown, near Boston, in 1640, and through his mother, of Susan Hart- well, daughter of William Hartwell, who lo- cated in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1636. Patriotism, industry and integrity seem to have been the salient qualities which marked his

progenitors, and instances of exceptional longevity point to exemplary habits and well conducted lives. In this connection the fol- lowing quaint obituary notice, published in the Massachusetts Spy of December 26, 1810, is worthy of reproduction in full:

"Died, in Spencer, Captain Edmund Be- mis, aged 90.

" There are some things worthy of record in the life of this aged and war-worn veteran. His father was one of the first settlers of Spen- cer, having removed from Sudbury about the time of the birth of this son, or about the year 1720. This son, Edmund, has been very re- markable for his habits of honesty, industry and temperance, which produced a long life, health and happiness. He early entered the service of his country, and was a Lieutenant at the reduction of Louisburg in the year 1745. At this siege he was a zealous and active offi- cer. After the French had surrendered to the victorious armies of New England, it was found that they had spiked their cannon, intending thereby to render them entirely useless to their captors. It had been heretofore deemed an impracticable thing, after a gun was thus spiked, to drill it out, or by any other method whatever to render it again fit for service. The commander of the American forces offered a premium to any one who would undertake the task if he would prove successful. Lieutenant Bemis undertook it, and by a process hereto- fore unthought of effected the desired object. Instead of drilling, as was supposed to be the only practicable method, he collected a large quantity of wood around the cannon, and set- ting it on fire heated it to such a degree that with a cold punch the spike was easily driven into the barrel. Thus was he the author of a successful discovery to his country, which has ever since been followed with complete suc- cess.

"After the reduction of Louisburg, he was Captain in the war with France, which suc- ceeded, at the close of which he returned to seek repose among his friends, which he has since enjoyed without interruption."

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George Washington Bemis was born Octo- ber 13, 1826, at Spencer, Massachusetts, where he remained until 1837, when his father re- moved to Alabama, Genesee county, New York. This change of residence was an event of no small moment, and involved a journey of many days, fraught with more adventures and pos- sible dangers than are now incident to an ocean passage or trans-continental tour. The sec- tion of New York in which he was thus brought was then a part of the ever advancing frontier, and he gave a sturdy lad's assistance in the arduous labor in subduing the rugged face of nature to the needs of civilization. This task performed, his summers were spent in working on the farm which he had helped to wrest from the surrounding wilderness, and his winters were devoted to making the best use of such advantages as were offered by the primitive country schools. The list would be a long one, which included the names of all the men of prominence who owe much of their success to the efforts of the Yankee pedagogue of that period whom Halleck describes as

" Teaching

The A B C from Webster's spelling-book,

Gallant and godly, making love and preaching,

And gaining, by what they called ' hook and crook,'

And what the moralists call over-reaching, A decent living."

A course at the Cary Collegiate Seminary at Oakfield supplemented this instruction, and that he profited by every educational oppor- tunity is shown by his early election to the office of superintendent of the township schools. His interest in political matters dates from the presidential campaign of 1840, and in 1848 he disgusted his father, an ardent Whig, by cast- ing one of the eleven anti-slavery ballots "which leaven the lump" of 400 polled in that district for the opposing candidate. He remained an enthusiastic and uncompromising abolitionist throughout the struggle which ter- minated in emancipation. He has always, too, been a zealous advocate of woman's suf- frage. He taught school for two years in Wis- consin, and in April, 1854, came West to visit an acquaintance. So enamored did he become of

the broad and fertile prairies of Iowa during his stay, that he determined to adopt Independ- ence as a place of residence, and went into the land business. Shortly afterward he be- came engaged to Miss N. T. Roszell, and, in February, 1855, went to New York, whither the young lady had preceded him and brought her back his wife. This proved an excep- tionally happy marriage,-a union of con- genial tastes and hearty co-operation of pro- gressive aims. It was blessed by three chil- dren: May, who did not long survive early womanhood; and William S. and Arthur R., young men who have now established homes of their own.

Mr. Bemis was elected a member of the Eighth General Assembly in 1859, and served in the Lower House during the regular session of 1860. It may be of some interest to men- tion, as an illustration of the changes wrought in a few decades, that four days and three nights were consumed in going from Independ- ence to Des Moines, and that the capital had neither a railroad nor a telegraph line at that time. The session lasted nearly three months, and the legislators had to deal with business of great importance, including a revision of the code and an attempt to mitigate the "hard times " then existing by remodeling the reve- nue laws. Mr. Bemis introduced an important bill in relation to the duties of county sur- veyor and was largely instrumental in substi- tuting the present supervisor system for the then existing county-judge rule. The extra or "war " session which followed in June, 1861, was one that demanded action in affairs of much moment, and in all the deliberations he took a prominent part, the influence of his sa- gacity being very apparent. As one of a special committee of five he was sent to inves- tigate the construction of the Insane Asylum at Mount Pleasant, out of which some ugly scan- dals had arisen, and he performed other and important duties.

Upon the expiration of his term he was made a postal clerk on the Illinois Central Railroad between Dubuque and Sioux City, a

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position which he held for seven years. In the fall of 1869 he was appointed by Governor Merrill one of the commissioners of the hos- pital for the insane at Independence to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Albert Clarke, and he acted as secretary and treasurer of the board until his resignation in December, 1871. He was re-appointed by Governor Carpenter in April, 1872, and served in the same capacity until July, 1892, during which time he received and disbursed more than a million dollars. He was elected from Buchanan county to the State Senate in 1871, and was justly regarded as one of the most efficient members of that body, giving to its records little in the way of oratory but much service in a conscientious application of practical business judgment to the questions which presented themselves for consideration. He served as chairman of the committee on the State University, and was one of the committee on appropriations. He also secured for the hospital at Independence, without a dissenting voice in the Senate, an appropriation of $200,000, the largest ever granted. He was elected State Treasurer in 1876, and re-elected in 1878, conducting the affairs of that extremely responsible office in such a manner as to win expressions of general approval.

He was a member of the first Board of Su- pervisors of Buchanan county, and when a candidate of his party for that office he once told an amusing and characteristic anecdote. On the day of the election he returned from an Eastern trip, to learn with surprise of his nomination. The struggle was an intensely hot one. Party feeling ran high, and the re- sult of the battle was in great doubt. He started for the polls with the modest intention, as in previous instances, of voting for his op- ponent; but it occurred to him on the way that he was no more justified in "scratching" than any other voter, and he deposited a straight ticket in the box. "I received a ma- jority of exactly one," he concluded, and so became the "choice of the people!"

Mr. Bemis is rather of more than medium

stature. His physiognomy and the general contour of his head recall portraits of Charles Darwin, and in many respects he is not unlike that eminent iconoclast. A long public career has left him with an unblemished reputation. He has held great pecuniary trusts with an in- tegrity that has never known a shadow of sus- picion, and in every situation he has been a champion of temperance and sound morality. It is fitting that, with good health, a keen relish for all intellectual and wholesome recre- ation, surrounded in his pleasant home by the friends and neighbors of half a century, he should be able to say with Adam in " As You Like it,"-

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Memorial and biographical record of Iowa, Part 164

Author: Publication date: 1896 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1360

Author:
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1360