USA > Iowa > Report of the organization and first reunion of the Tri-State Old Settlers' Association of Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, 1884 > Part 10
USA > Illinois > Report of the organization and first reunion of the Tri-State Old Settlers' Association of Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, 1884 > Part 10
USA > Missouri > Report of the organization and first reunion of the Tri-State Old Settlers' Association of Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, 1884 > Part 10
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The chair appointed as a committee to select and report an Executive Committee for 1886, Messrs. C. F. Davis of Iowa, Hon. S. R. Chittenden of Illinois and Col. David Moore of Missouri.
Adjourned until 2 p. m.
AFTERNOON.
Music by Nauvoo Band .- A large crowd assembled at Opera house when Governor Stanard introduced Hon. Clark E. Carr of Galesburg, Ill., who said :-
"I am not on the programme as one of the speakers and simply came as a citizen of Illinois, interested like others, in the exercises of this great occasion. It is a great occasion when the venerable, the honored, the noble, assemble together, -- when those whom we
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٥٠٠٠ سببير صفت لة
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call old are gathered as here today. Illinois needs no other speaker after the eloquent address of that best representative of the patriot- ism, the simplicity and the grandeur of our people, Governor Richard J. Oglesby.
As my mind has run back to the early times, I have thought of those who came, as we came, and of how we lived in our new homes.
Of the old log cabin, the one room occupied as parlor, bed-room dining-room, and kitchen, of the great big fire-place and the good housewife preparing the savory meal with her pots and kettles and coals and ashes, of the amusements on the winter evenings, and have thought that there could be no mansion or palace builded which would so perfectly express to me the idea of the sweet home as these old log cabins on the prairies.
I have thought of the people who came here from different states, as our family came from New York and became acquainted with each other, and that, perhaps there was more philosophy than we have supposed in the sentiment of Stephen A. Douglas, that "Vermont is a good state to be born in if one leaves early enough." Until we go away we are apt to think that our native township, county, and state represent all that is worth having of American citizenship. I felt it when I came to Illinois. I thought that a man could not be a first class man unless he came from New York or New England. I leave it to you who came from the southern states if you did not have something of the same sentiment in re- gard to us. When still a boy I started out to teach school, and got into a district composed of southern people. I remember that there was only one eastern man and he was such a rara avis that he was called all over that country Yankee Wingate. I soon found that while perhaps I had read more books than any grown man in the neighborhood, they knew more than I. They had received educa- tion of a high order by tradition. Information had been dissemin- ated from man to man and from woman to woman and by word of mouth. Many of them appreciated and understood the character and institutions of our government better than any people I had ever known.' They had some of them sat at the feet and learned ed from Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson and other American states- men. I came to realize as I had never done before, that a man may be very well informed and act intelligently as a citizen, with- out having read many books, and that a man may read books and still not have much sense. I call to mind that grand race of men
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who came to Illinois from Kentucky, of whom Lincoln and Browning, and Yates, and Oglesby, are among the best represnta- tives. Without reflecting upon the older states, it must be conced- ed that this coming west, this pioneerism gives a man higher, broader, and more liberal ideas, and that he has a better apprecia- tion of American citizenship.
We are building up a fine race of men and women upon these prairies, a combination of all the best races of the world. Macauley prides himself upon the English people made up of Normans and Saxons and Northmen. It has been claimed that the royal family of Europe have, by intermarriage, built them- selves up and created families superior to all others in their realms. What a kingly race of men and women is being developed upon these prairies. Here the best blood of all the ages is intermingling. The best blood of New England, of the Middle States, of Virginia and the Carolinas, and not only this, but the best blood of all the people of Europe. Here is mingling the blood of the cavaliers and independents of England with that of the men who fought with the Great Frederick, with Napoleon, with Gustavus Adol- phus, Celt, Saxon, Scandinavian, German, all combining to pro- duce a new race of Americans, which will be superior to either of the parent races.
But I am admonished that I cannot occupy your time further, as there are so many persons whom we all wish to hear. I will close by relating an incident about an Iowa old settler, which probably has never been put in print, illustrating the courage and persistence of Iowa women.
While the battle of Shiloh was still raging, in company with Governor Yates, who had immediately chartered a steamboat, we were on our way down the Mississippi, to go up the Ohio and Tennessee to Pittsburgh landing, to bring home our Illinois, wounded. We landed at Cairo, only expecting . to stay a few minutes, but when about to leave, the captain received orders from the General in command of the district, that our boats could not be allowed to go. The order was peremptory and we had to obey it The river was so commanded by the federal guns that no vessel could move without permission. Had we attempted it, we might have been overtaken by a cannon ball. We went to head- quarters to ascertain the cause of so remarkable an order, and to our surprise and consternation found that we were detained by an lowa woman. She had an order from the secretary of war au-
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thorizing her to seize any boat on the Ohio or Mississippi River, not in the service of the United States, and procced up the Ten- nessee River to Pittsburgh Landing and bring home Iowa wounded soldiers. Our boat was not in the service of the United States, but of Illinois, and so she had gone to the Commanding General, showed him the order and stopped us, and we were detain- ed there at the wharf until Governor Yates could telegraph to the Secretary of War, who replied modifying the order and excepting our boat from 'its conditions. The woman who was so earnestly and persistently laboring for the relief of your Iowa sufferers was Mrs. Senator Harlan. Though we could not, when upon such an errand, give up to her, we could not help admiring her. It is need- less to add that such energy and determination could not fail, and that she obtained a boat and was at Pittsburgh Landing almost as soon as we.
Gen'l F. M. Drake being introduced by the President, respond- ed to the toast,-"The Pioneer Railroad men," as follows :
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It seems to me that those who make arrangements for speakers for old settlers' meetings almost always make serious mistakes. For instance you appoint the Hon. H. C. Dean to respond to the toast on pioneer preachers, and Henry Clay Dean was one of the first preachers of Iowa, and the sound of his eloquence has not yet died away although he has not preach- ed for 25 or 30 years. You select me to speak of railroads because I have something to do with railroads. Now I could talk about the preachers but you know a man ought not to talk about himself.
Then again you bring the most eloquent orators of these three great states and ask a man who was never known to make a speech, to come before you and speak. Illinois sends that grand, old, rough and ready orator and warrior, Governor Oglesby, from whose lips this morning has been poured upon the old settlers in streams of eloquence, such golden words as could be inspired only on an occasion like this. The honored and distinguished sons of Missouri and Iowa have also responded nobly and well. And now this afternoon, the eloquent Col. Carr of Illinois leads the van with poor me to follow and I find myself sandwiched between him and one of the greatest living orators, Henry Clay Dean of Missouri, so I know you will not expect much from me.
However, I can say to you that I have lived in the States of Illinois and Iowa, for 54 years, more than half a century, and in. Iowa for 48 years.
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When I came here locomotion was on foot and with oxen and when a man could go on horseback he was a lord indeed. I re- member the days of the log cabins; I remember the days when as we marched west we drove the wolf before us; and we all remember and are glad as Gov. Oglesby told us, that now the railroads go ahead of immigration and immigration follows the railroads. The first R. R. in the United States was projected by Gridley Bryant, a civil engineer, in 1825, and was built by him and Col. T. H. Perkins in 1826 for the purpose of transporting granite from the quarries of Quincy, Mass., to the nearest tide-water. It was four miles long including switches and sidings, was called the Quincy Railroad and was operated by horse-power. The second was built in 1827 from the coal mines of Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania to the Lehigh river and was 13 miles long, operated one way by gravity and the other was by mule power. In 1828 the great Baltimore & Ohio road commenced building. The first locomotive that ever transported passengers on this side of the Atlantic was on that road; it was built by the great philanthropist, Peter Cooper in 1830. It had an upright boiler about like a drum to a coal stove and the whole engine weighed about one ton ; the cylinder, was 3 1/2 inches in diameter but with that engine Cooper hauled a train from Baltimore to Ellicott's mills, 13 miles, loaded with the friends and directors of the road at about the rate of 18 miles an hour. That road although its progress was snail like at first, finally crossed the Blue Ridge and Alleghany mountains and reached Wheeling and was never satisfied until it reached Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis. Then was built the Boston & Albany, the N. Y. Central, the. Pa. Central, the Erie, the Toledo, Wabash & Western, the Illinois Central, the C. R. I. & P., the C. B. & Q., the C. & N. W., the C. M. & St. P., the Des Moines Valley, the M. I. & N. and hundreds of others, thus con- necting the Mississippi and Missouri rivers with the Atlantic. The discovery of gold in California had much to do with the rapid progress of wealth and population in the territory beyond the Rocky Moun- tains and caused Congress in 1862 to authorize the building of a railroad from the Missouri river to the Pacific. Senator Breuse of Illinois and Gen'l Curtis of Iowa were among the first men to urge this measure before Congress and the project first took definite shape in the bill of Senator Benton of Missouri; Gen. G. M. Dodge of lowa was chief engineer of the Union Pacific so these three great states were the first movers to connect the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers with the Pacific. The road was commenced in 1865 and completed in 1869 when you could travel from New York
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to San Francisco by rail, and thus matters have gone on until in the United States we have more than 125,000 miles of road, about 1-5 of which is embraced in the three states of Illinois, Iowa and Missouri.
You have asked me to respond to the toast of Railroad Pioneers. To refer in detail to the history and character of those grand men who have projected these great Railroad enterprises, would be a herculean task, and one which even if I were familiar with the history of them all, all the facts I could not allude to on this brief occasion, and hence it might seem invidious to refer to any of them. But in this direction Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, have de- veloped some of the greatest and most successful pioneers. I might refer to David W. Kilbourne, Gen. Hugh T. Reid, Colonel Perry and Wm. Leighton of Keokuk, who spent their best days in the service, noble men, who have gone on that train which never waits for passengers, to that bourne from which no traveler returns. These gentlemen I have known from childhood, They were noble, sagacious, enterprising, determined men. When the State of Iowa undertook to slack-water the Des Moines river and make it navigable and had failed, these men opened up the Missouri slope and the rich valley of the Des Moines by railroad to the gate of commerce, and over the Des Moines Valley road the trade of central and southern Iowa and northern Missouri first obtained its outlet, and citizens of Illinois were first enabled to penetrate this rich region with speed and safety and comfort. It might seem invidious in me to mention names, but I cannot fail to say that pioneers, whether they pioneered railroads or school houses, or whatever they may have pioneered, that the pioneers of this country of all classes have been noble men and women, and I can look over this audience and pick out men I have known for fifty years, and I want to say to you that I am glad to meet you. I am glad to look in the faces of these old settlers whom I hold in such high esteem. I am sorry some are not here; I was sorry not to see Judge Russell from whom I first learned my letters. But there are grand men and women here and I am glad to meet you.
Response of HENRY CLAY DEAN to the Toast "The Pioneer Preachers."
Ten minutes is too brief an allotment of time in which to discuss or even review the great events of twenty centuries. The pioneer preachers have always led the van of civilization, established its
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outposts and organized those systems of educated and cultivated morality which form the bulwark of freedom everywhere. It is . not necessary to the vindication of the character of the self-denying missionaries who have planted churches, colleges, benevolent socie- ties and eleemosynary institutions and carved out the system of free governments of the world to argue the truth of miracles to the ful- fillment of prophecies.
Here is a standing, growing miracle which overshadows all other evidences of the divinity of the mission of pioneer preachers. Twelve barefooted fishermen, without money or family, or influ- ence, or any power among governments or rulers, who were called "the filth and offscouring of the earth," commenced their mission with no other conquering weapons than a universal law which might be written upon the margin of a silver dollar, "Whatsoever ye would have men do unto you do ye even so unto them."
With this simple motto the old Roman armies of Julius Cæser, Augustus Cæsar and the long list of idolatrous usurpers were van- quished, the learning of Aristotle, the philosophy of Plato, and the secluded school of the exclusive scholars gave way to broad, deep and liberal systems of education which embrace the whole world, and in turn, the whole world reaches out its arms to embrace, culti- vate and cherish the intellectual and spiritual repast provided it.
There never has been any system of just government without Christianity. Infidels point to Greece, with her governments, and call them intellectual republics; but Athens, the most refined of all the Greek States, gave freedom to only a few of her people. The great body of her people were servile slaves, the rest were trained soldiers. The great civilized Roman republic and empire were com- posed of warriors and slaves-conquerors and conquered-peoples, where conquered provinces were confiscated and the conquered people were sold as slaves or thrown to wild beasts in. the amphi- theatre.
When Rienzi, "the last of the Roman Tribunes," came forth from the tombs to revive the love of liberty and restore the purity of the courts and justice in the government, opposed by the barons and aristocrats, the rich and the tyrants, the bishops, the pope and the church ran to his relief to establish the rights of man.
The Christian navigator, Columbus, discovered America. No sooner had his ship landed on the shores of the New World than
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the pioneer preachers in poverty and self-denial commenced the mis- sionary work, establishing schools and teaching the word of life to the Indians.
On the continent of Europe civilization and liberty drew their inspiration from the teachings of Christianity. The priests pre- served the manuscripts of the fathers and improved the literature of the age in caverns and recesses.
To the deep root which Christianity had taken in Europe are we indebted for the early struggles for liberty in the Old World, where the seed was planted and the growth was transplanted to the New World, where it is bearing its rich ripe fruit The emigration to America was led by the pioneer preachers. The Puritans came to New England and brought with them their motto: "A church without a bishop and a government without a king." New York and New Jersey brought the honest, independent religious zeal of the Netherlands. Honest William Penn settled Pennsylvania with zealous religious Quakers and was himself a pioneer preacher and extended his missionary work wherever he went. He paid the Indians for their lands and eschewed cruelty and war.
The colony of Maryland was planted by the Catholics and for the first time in human governments the liberty of conscience was recorded as fundamental law. Virginia and North Carolina were settled and placed under the tuition and control of the Church of England, whose preachers were largely her schoolmasters. South Carolina was settled by the Hugenots, who in search of re- ligious liberty, were driven all over continental Europe and finally by the billows of the Atlantic to her western shores and landed on the coast of Carolina. Like her sister colonies she brought with her her preachers and her teachers to prepare the people for the most perfect enjoyment of religious liberty. Georgia, like Vir- ginia and North Carolina, was educated by the Church of Eng- land.
To these pioneer churches America is indebted for her free gov- ernment. Her children were largely educated by the churches, her preachers were nearly all schoolmasters. Before the Revolution, and for nearly half a century afterwards, every higher institution of learning was under the control of the Christian churches. The New Testament was a school-book out of which Hancock and Adams. Franklin and Washington, Madison and Jefferson, Clay, Webster and Calhoun learned to' read and from their familiarity with the teachings of this book came the laws which have made ours the best government among men.
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Col. Ingersoll sneeringly and ignorantly, as well inquires, "Dur- ing the Revolution, where were these preachers?"
The truth of history is that they were found in the ranks, and leading regiments, battalions and companies.
When the Declaration of Independence was signed, Rev. John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian divine, born in Scotland and pioneer president of Princeton College, followed by honest John Hart, a Baptist deacon, the Lees, who were Episcopalians, and Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, a Catholic, with the Lutherans, Quakers, Con- gregationalists and Unitarians joined as one man to be free. The Methodist church was then unknown as an organization and Alexander Campbell was unknown in the religious world.
Very largely the forms of Congregational church government were made the model of the civil governments of the new nation. In the commencement of the Revolutionary period Rev. George Whitfield joined the Edwards, of New England, and aroused a general revival of religion.
One of the most remarkable preachers of the Revolutionary period was Rev. H. M. Muehlenberg, D. D., who came from Ger- many to Pennsylvania and founded the first Lutheran church. Rev. G. Henry Ernest Muehlenberg, his son, after being educated at Halle, in Germany, was the pastor of the Lutheran church and an active patriot. His oldest brother, Peter Muehlenburg, was or- dained an Episcopal minister. During the Revolutionary war he received a commission as an officer of the army and read the com- mission to his congregation and recruited them. He arose to the second in command next to LaFayette at the surrender of Corn- wallis at Yorktown, and afterwards arose to the highest political honors in his State and the nation.
His other son, Frederick Augustus Muehlenburg, also a Lutheran clergyman, was raised from Revolutionary service to be the Speaker of the first and third Congress. This honorable body of pioneer preachers have left a large and influential body of descendants who yet serve Pennsylvania.
The pioneer preachers of the west sowed the seed of civilization and Christianity together. The school-house was used as the church, and often it happened that the house of the pioneer preacher was used for both school and church. The names of Cartwright, Ben Abbott, James B. Finley and a multitude of great and good men carried the gospel and established free government among the
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people. Ohio's first Governor, Edward Tiffin, was a Methodist preaeher, Peter Cartwright was a candidate for Congress against Abraham Lincoln and Rev. James Harlan was a distinguished Methodist preacher. Ths Catholics were the pioneer Christians of the Mississippi valley who followed the Indians into their wild country to carry Christianity among them and civilize them. I know of one instance of heroism which I must here record. Father Smith went fifty miles to visit a poor parishioner who was dying with the small-pox, without fee, but purely for love and mercy, ministered to his wants, caught the disease and died with it, all for devotion to his duty. Such men are clothed with power which is communicated to the people and perpetuated among them and builds up society. The Methodist preachers were a body of self-denying, industrious, zealous men who have done a noble work for Iowa. Such noble, pure and cultivated men as Rev. Dr. Salter, of Burlington, Rev. Dr. Turner, of Denmark; Dr. Robbins, of Muscatine, with others planted and built up the Con- gregational church which with the other denominations have filled the land with schools of the highest grade. Other minis- ters of other churches took an early and vigorous hold and have, like giants, wrought in the Mississippi valley to make it what it is. Among the churches I make no distinction in my choice or award of merit. They are all alike, good. Here and there a fallen son, but when they fall they are no worse than all they find outside the churches. The pioneer preachers have done more than all the politicians to reform the people. It was the churches, not political parties, that abolished slavery. The pioneer preachers did the work. They are always pioneers in reformation of every kind and always will be. It would be pleasant to recall the memories of these noble, self-denying men now passed away. Just one whose memory 1 cherish, I will now recall; good old father Clark, with a mind broad and deep and clear as crystal, and fashioned after that of Bacon, and a heart which was a flowing fountain of generous impulses, came in the childhood of the exist- ence of Iowa and died in the vigor of its manhood.
But these pioncer preachers have reproduced themselves. Father Clark has left intellectual children to represent him in another field. Sitting before me is his son, one of the highest type of literary men in the land. We must not forget that Abraham and David were both preachers; that the Senate was adorned with Edward Everett, a Unitarian minister, and with Harlan and Brownlow, pioneer
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Methodist preachers; that the first colored man who entered the Senate was a Methodist preacher-Hiram R. Revels-while the House of Representatives has resounded with the eloquence of ministers of the gospel of every persuasion. The late President Garfield was a minister of the Christian church; his Vice-President, Arthur, was the son of a Baptist minister, and our present Presi- dent, Cleveland, is the son of a Presbyterian divine.
With these great facts looking them in the face, some vain, foolish men contemplate the overthrow of all Christian institutions. But long after Voltaire, Volney, Paine, Bolingbroke and Ingersoll are dead, damned and forgotten, the Christian religion will still be the foundation of just government and refined human character, and the light of the glory of God, shining in the face of Jesus Christ, shall illumine the world.
No good, free government ever has or ever can prosper without a sound morality, based upon the doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount.
William B. Street, Esq., being introduced as one of the early settlers, familiar with the Indians, by reason of personal intercourse with them, responded as follows:
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I thank, my God, that I am this day permitted to be heard on behalf of a despised and down trodden race. You have heard the eulogy pronounced by my friend Dean on the Christian preachers. As I listened to him I could not but think of the aboriginees of this country, the savages who have been so wronged beyond all my powers of expression ; and I thank God that I have an opportunity to speak in their behalf. There is but a remnant of them left, and as Gov. Oglesby has said . they will soon be swept from the face of the earth. But citizens of Iowa, Illinois & Missouri let me appeal to you this day to do some- thing for this remnant of a noble race. They are willing to receive the Christian religion and have received it. I have lived among the Indians fifteen or twenty years and know something about them. I know that if a white man is your friend he gives you what he can spare; if an Indian is your friend, you are welcome to all he has. Indeed the Indian is far more honest and worthy than he is usually represented. I remember the old chief, Keokuk's eloquence; he would gather his blanket around him and the words seemed to flow from his mouth like water from a pitcher.
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