USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 77
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country in 1838. On the 22d of December, 1870, Senator Harlan, of Iowa, pronounced a brief and well-merited eulogy on Colonel Smyth in the United States senate, and from his remarks on that occasion we make the following extracts :
His rapid advancement in his profession, and his early elevation to the highest positions of honor .and trust in the various departments enumerated, notwithstanding the severe competition and earnest rivalry which must always be encountered by a young man without wealth or family influence in a new and vigorous community in a frontier state, sufficiently attest his capacity and sterling qualities of head and heart. These qualities did not attract attention so much on account of striking brilliancy as for the har- monious blending of superior mental capacity, moral force, and purity of character, resulting in a high order of prac- tical ability, which crowned his efforts with almost uniform success. His great qualities and marked success seemed to be more the fruits of correct early training, honest industry, severe study, careful reflection, and persistent effort, than of extraordinary native endowment. Hence the contem- plation of his career may be more useful to the youth of the country than that of men of unequaled genius and na- tive brilliancy. The former are self-made, the latter God- created; the former invite, the latter forbid, imitation. . . .
He was modest and retiring almost to a fault; he did not think of himself more highly than he ought; and yet he had that self-respect and confidence in his own capacity which prompted him to undertake to do whatever was necessary to be done without much regard for the character of the obstacles in his pathway. But this confidence seemed to be the outgrowth of an abiding faith in the capacity of hu- manity, as a common endowment of the individuals of the race, rather than self-esteem. He seemed to expect a large degree of personal success as the legitimate reward of per- sistent and well-directed effort, and the confidence and ap- proval of mankind as the just reward of merit.
He was not inordinately ambitious, nor yet was he insen- sible to the good opinion of his fellow-men and the public honors which marked his career. It is said that he ex- pressed in his boyhood an earnest desire one day to obtain a seat in congress. He, however, seemed rather to ac- cept than to seek preferment, and more on account of the wider field for usefulness which it afforded than on account of a desire for personal distinction. We have no evidence that unchaste desire for preferment among his fellow-men ever illured him from the pathway of virtue, or caused him to swerve a hair-breadth from the line of duty. He reached the goal of his youthful ambition in the meridian of life;
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his neighbors had freshly crowned him with honors more desirable to an American than a royal diadem, when he was cut down in the midst of his years and usefulness.
I knew him in his boyhood; I watched his upward career during his manhood, and rejoiced in witnessing his every triumph. He was my friend and neighbor. It was my privilege to sit by his bedside and converse with him when the icy fingers of death were feeling for his vitals. I knew him to be a faithful friend, a generous neighbor, a confiding husband, a tender parent, an upright citizen, an able ad- vocate, a just judge, a brave soldier, a learned counselor, a wise legislator, and a devoted christian. God has called him to a higher life. While we drop a tear at his grave, may we cherish his memory, imitate his virtues, and be able to meet the great conqueror with the christian fortitude which marked his closing hours when the Supreme Ruler shall call us hence.
Robert was admitted to the bar about 1854, but did only office business. From 1861 to 1866 he was paymaster in the United States army, with rank of major. Near the close of the civil war, some time in 1864, he was breveted lieutenant-colonel. No paymaster left the army with a cleaner record. He receipted for more than ten million dollars.
He was a member of the territorial legislature in 1843-44, and of the first general assembly of the state in 1846-7. During both of his terms there was an extra session of the legislature which he attended. He has also been a state senator during one term, attending the sessions of 1868 and 1870. In this body he was chairman of the committee on banks, and was on the committee on public offices, acting as chairman of that committee, also, part of the time, the chairman proper being absent. He did a good
work in both branches of the legislature, his indus- try cropping out there as everywhere else.
In politics, Mr. Smyth has been a strong repub- lican since the party had an existence. Originally, on becoming naturalized, he was democrat with anti- slavery proclivities, and joined the free-soil party in 1848. In 1875 his friends persisted in bringing his name before the republican state convention as a candidate for gubernatorial honors, and he had a strong support in that body, the popular old war governor, Samuel J. Kirkwood, becoming the nom- inee. Mr. Smyth has the ability to fill almost any chair in the gift of the people of Iowa.
He is a Presbyterian in religious belief, and an elder in the Mount Vernon Church. The character of no man in the county stands fairer. He was a delegate from the Cedar Rapids presbytery to the last general assembly of the Presbyterians held in Chicago. He is a wise counselor in an ecclesias- tical as well as a political body. The answer to Sir William Jones's sonnet, "What Constitutes a State?" would be, "just such men as Robert Smyth."
On the 2d of July, 1846, Miss Margaret Moffitt, a native of north Ireland, but at that time a resident of Cedar county, Iowa, became his wife, and has been the mother of eight children, four of whom are now in the other world. One daughter, Anna, is preceptress of a collegiate institute, Napa City, Cali- fornia; the other three children are at home.
ALEXANDER CLARK,
MUSCATINE.
A LEXANDER CLARK, Most Worthy Grand Master of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted York Masons (colored) for the State of Missouri and its jurisdiction, popularly known as the " colored orator of the west," was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, on the 25th of February, 1826, his parents being John Clark and Rebecca née Darnes. His father was born a slave, yet the son of his master, an Irishman, who emanci- pated both him and his mother, who was a mulatto. The mother of Alexander Clark, who still lives, at the age of seventy-one years, is a full-blooded Afri- can, consequently our subject is two-thirds African and one-third Irish. To his relationship to the last named nationality is due in a great measure the gen- ius and brilliancy which so much adorn his charac-
ter, for it must not be supposed that because the Irish element in his composition is comparatively small that its influence in the formation of his char- acter is not very considerable. Scientific men are familiar with the fact that the potency rather than the quantity of an ingredient in any mixture deter- mines the general effect ; and we have no doubt that to the circumstance alluded to is mainly due the existence of those elements of character which have led to the success to which Mr. Clark has attained.
On his mother's side he comes from a robust and long-lived stock. His grandfather, George Darnes, died at the age of seventy-three, and his grand- mother, leticie, lived to the age of one hundred and one, and her sister, l'enda, lived to the age of one hundred and four.
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Fraternally yours Alexander Olarte grand
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Alexander received but a very limited education in the common schools of his native village, but he was a bright and intelligent lad, and seemed to learn by intuition. He read men rather than books, and was continually absorbing from everything around him. At the age of thirteen he removed to Cincin- nati, Ohio, where he learned the barbering business with his uncle, William Darnes, who also sent him to school for about a year at different periods, where he made considerable proficiency in grammar, arith- metic, geography and natural philosophy. In Octo- ber, 1841, he left Cincinnati and went south on the steamer George Washington as bar-tender. In May, 1842, he settled in Muscatine, lowa, which has since been his home. Here he conducted a barber-shop till 1868, when failing health, resulting from the con- finement incident to the business, compelled him to seek a more active occupation. Having by industry and frugality accumulated some capital, he invested in real estate ; bought some timber land in the neigh- borhood of Muscatine; obtained contracts for the furnishing of wood to steamboats; did some specu- lating, which proved successful; and the result is the accumulation of a competence on which he lives in ease and retirement.
In 1851 he became a member of the Masonic or- der by joining Prince Hall Lodge, No. 1, Saint Louis, Missouri, then operating under a charter from the Grand Lodge (colored) of Ohio, but which is now No. to, under the Grand Lodge of Missouri (colored) of Free and Accepted Ancient York Masons. In 1868 he was arched and knighted and elected dep- uty grand master of the Grand Lodge, H. M'Gee Alexander being grand master. The latter dying on the 20th of April, 1868, our subject became grand master in his stead and fulfilled his unexpired term. The jurisdiction then extended over Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. He organized all the subordinate lodges in the last three states, and assisted in organizing their grand lodges. At the next annual meeting of the Grand Lodge of Missouri he was elected grand treasurer and appointed a delegate to the Most Worshipful National Grand Compact of Masons (colored) for the United States held at Wilmington, Delaware, on the 9th of October, 1869. In June, 1869, he was again elected grand master, and held the distin- guished office for three consecutive years. In 1872 he was elected grand secretary, and in 1873 was ap- pointed chairman of the committee on foreign cor- respondence.
In 1874 he was again called to the position of grand master, and annually reëlected to the same position since, being at present (1877) incumbent of the office. His jurisdiction now extends over the states of Missouri, lowa, Minnesota and Colorado, and embraces eighty-seven lodges and twenty-seven hundred members. He is said to be one of the most accomplished ritualists, and among the most able and successful executive officers the order, in any branch of it, has ever had.
In politics, he is a republican, both from gratitude and principle, and being one of the most original, eloquent and pungent orators of the nation, it will readily be conceded that he exercises a controlling influence upon his colored brethren wherever he is brought into contact with them.
In 1863 he enlisted in the Ist Iowa Colored Vol- unteer Infantry, and received the appointment of sergeant-major, but was refused muster on account of physical disability in left ankle. He afterward, however, became one of the most active agents in the west in gathering recruits for the army and fur- thering the Union cause. In 1869 he was appointed by the colored state convention of lowa a delegate to the colored national convention which met that year at Washington, and by that organization he was appointed chairman of the committee to bring before the proper committees of the senate and house of representatives the claims of colored soldiers and seamen to an equality with their white copatriots in the matter of bounties and pensions. He was also appointed a member of the committee from the same convention to wait upon President Grant and Vice- President Colfax, to tender to them the congratula- tions of the colored people of the United States upon their election to the highest offices in the gift of the people, and on the first occasion was the mouth- piece of the committee. In 1869 he was a member and vice-president of the lowa republican state con- vention, and took a prominent part in its delibera- tions. In the following year he was also a delegate to the state convention and a member of the com- mittee on resolutions, and on each occasion addressed the convention with such power, enthusiasm and effect as secured for him the title of " colored orator of the west," and it is generally conceded that in this regard he is second only to the redoubtable Fred Douglass. He has " stumped " the State of Iowa, as well as most of the southern states, at every election held since the close of the slaveholders' rebellion, and is recognized as one of the most powerful, elo-
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quent and sapient orators of the country. In 1872 he was appointed by the republican state convention of Iowa a delegate at large to the national repub- lican convention at Philadelphia which nominated Grant and Wilson for President and Vice-President. In 1873 he was appointed by President Grant consul to Aux Cayes, Hayti, but refused the position, owing to the smallness of the salary.
In January, 1876, he was appointed by a colored convention of Iowa a delegate to the Centennial Ex- position at Philadelphia, for the purpose of prepar- ing statistics and gathering useful information for the colored race. Later in the same year he was appointed an alternate delegate by the Iowa state republican convention to the national convention at Cincinnati, Ohio, which nominated Hayes and Wheeler.
It will thus be seen that Mr. Clark is a gentleman of national renown, esteemed and respected alike by both white and colored citizens; and his career, overcoming as he has done the most serious obsta- cles in the way of education as well as caste, and attaining both to wealth and position, cannot fail to be an ennobling example and inspiration to many an ambitious youth of his race struggling to gain a position of honor and independence. Like the great apostles of freedom, Sumner, Goodell, Garrison, Phillips and Fred Douglass, he has struggled man- fully for the emancipation and elevation of his race. He had an undying faith from the earliest dawn of reason that he would live to see the extirpation of slavery from the United States, if not from the world, and he has not lived and labored in vain. The names of Brown, Lincoln, Lovejoy and Grant are indelibly written upon his heart, and should be cher- ished as talismanic by the African race for all time to come.
On the 9th of October, 1848, at Iowa City, he married Miss Catherine Griffin, of African and In- dian origin, born in slavery, but manumitted at the age of three years. She is a woman in every way suited to his companionship, and worthy of her hus- band, and is highly esteemed for her christian char- acter by all who know her. She has borne him five children, two boys and three girls, of whom two- John and Ellen- died in infancy ; the survivors, Rebecca J., Susan V. and Alexander G., all inherit their father's intellectual endowments, all severally graduates of the high school of Muscatine, and give promise of useful and honorable lives. Alexander is a printer on the Muscatine "Journal," and quite
intelligent ; Rebecca is the wife of G. W. Appleton, of Muscatine; Susan is the wife of Rev. Richard Holley, a minister in the African Methodist Episco- pal church.
Our subject became a member of the African Methodist Episcopal church in 1850, and continues in fellowship. He is superintendent of the Sabbath school of the church of that denomination in Mus- catine ; is also a steward and one of the trustees of the congregation, to the support of which he is the largest contributor. He is also generous with his means for the support of charities and benevolent institutions of the city of his adoption, and is, in short, one of the best citizens of the place.
Alexander Clark is a man of unquestioned ability. His Masonic addresses bespeak the soundest judg- ment and the clearest intellect, besides thorough re- search and acquaintance with the most ancient his- tory, rivaling in many regards the orations of the most famous craftsmen of the order, often ranging high in the regions of the poetic and sublime. As a polit- ical orator, he is clear, prompt and strong, and has the rare merit of stopping when he is through ; and while he is uncompromising in his principles, yet he says things so straight, and in a manner so cautious, as to excite no ill will from any one; he is, in short, a valuable citizen, of whom the State of Iowa feels proud. His leading characteristic is a philosophic turn of mind by which he analyzes everything claim- ing his attention with reference to its usefulness. If a matter will not contribute to his own good or the good of his fellow-men, he will have nothing to do with it.
As already mentioned, he is a republican from gratitude. He appreciates fully the boon of eman- cipation and enfranchisement, not because it has been of special benefit to him, but because of its numerous blessings to others. Striving, as he has done all his life, against the prejudice of color, he longs to see the time when a man will be esteemed at his true worth without regard to circumstances of race or birth; hence he was never a sympathizer with the principles of the "know-nothing " party.
Although he is a Methodist, both in principle and practice, he cultivates a feeling of liberality toward all other creeds. He is at the same time frank and outspoken in his own opinions. In all departments of thought and action he believes that honesty is the best policy ; hence he is never in favor of resorting to any expedient or to doubtful means in order to insure a temporary triumph, or even a permanent
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success ; he will not do evil that good may come; he has more faith in being and doing than in mere be- lief, although he believes the latter to be essential. His friendships are slow in their formation, but when once formed they are enduring ; indeed he has never been known to desert a friend. His feelings of
sympathy are easily enlisted, though in matters of charity he exercises the same caution that he does in his own business affairs, and is seldom deceived. Many a poor and helpless one, especially of his own race, has reason to thank God from the heart for the existence of such a man as Alexander Clark.
JAMES S. SMITH,
IOWA FALLS.
J
AMES S. SMITH, a pioneer in Iowa Falls, is a
son of Thomas Smith, a merchant, and Lydia P. Wright, who were both from New Hampshire fami- lies. The great-grandfather of James S. came from Ireland, and his grandfather, Joshua Smith, was an early settler in Holderness, New Hampshire, and died there. The subject of this notice was born in Dorchester, New Hampshire, on the 27th of May, 1831. Two years later the family moved to Holder- ness, where James S. was reared, receiving an aca- demic education at New Hampton, Belknap county, attending this institution five or six terms.
In 1850 he removed to Wentworth, New Hamp- shire; engaged in clerking there four years, then bought out the proprietor, merchandising for himself a year or more, and in October, 1855, settled in the then prospective village of Iowa Falls. He was the first merchant in the place, hauling his first load of goods by team from Dubuque, a distance of nearly one hundred and fifty miles. He continued in the mercantile trade for fifteen years, and in 1870 changed
to the grain and live-stock business, which he still continues, having on the whole fair success as a traf- ficker. He has always been a straightforward, square dealer, early securing and steadily retaining the con- fidence of his patrons. He has seen Iowa Falls slowly expand from a four-corners in embryo to a place of twelve or fourteen hundred inhabitants, and has never shown any backwardness in trying to en- courage its growth and contribute to its prosperity. He has served as town trustee and mayor, and is now in the school board. As an official, he is prompt, perfectly reliable and very efficient.
He has always affiliated with the democracy, but has not been among the most active partisans. He was postmaster during part of Buchanan's adminis- tration. He is a member and clerk of the Baptist church, and is living a consistent christian.
On the 16th of October, 1858, he was joined in wedlock with Miss Rhoda A. Whipple, of Wentworth, a very prominent family in New Hampshire. She has had five children, four of them yet living.
HARTLEY BRACEWELL,
CORYDON.
O NE of the early settlers and best business men of Wayne county, Iowa, is Hartley Bracewell, banker, of Corydon. He made the first entry of land in Warren township, in the southwestern part of the county, eleven miles from the county seat, when there was not a house between his lands and Corydon. There were then but few voters in the county, and he has lived to watch its settlement and growth for twenty-four years, he himself having been one of the leaders in improving the county.
Mr. Bracewell is a native of Yorkshire, England ; was a son of John and Mary Starkie Bracewell, and
dates his birth on the 3d of March, 1822. The Bracewells were originally from Scotland ; moved to West Riding, Yorkshire, two or three centuries ago, and became a numerous family, the town of Brace- well being named for them.
The youth of Hartley was spent on his father's farm. His opportunities for study were limited, yet he succeeded in obtaining a fair business educa- tion by attending a night school; and on coming to this country in 1849 he taught a district school six months in Green county, Illinois. He then worked on a farm one season in the same county, and thus
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procured the funds for purchasing forty acres of land, to which he added a little later forty acres more; farmed in Illinois four years, and in June, 1854, came to Wayne county, entering lands and locating as before indicated. The land office was then at Chariton, Lucas county, and when he asked the proper officer to open his map of Wayne coun- ty, Warren township showed a clean white page, not an entry having been made. Mr. Bracewell, who had previously entered eighty acres of woodland in Jef- ferson township, now entered one hundred and sixty acres of prairie, improved it, and remained on it till 1869, when he moved into Corydon. Here he was a merchant for four years, a miller three, and for the last two has been cashier of the Wayne County Bank, in which he is a stockholder. He owns other prop- perty in Corydon, and three well improved farms in the county ; has been an eminently successful busi- ness man, and has a splendid reputation.
Mr. Bracewell was elected to the general assem- bly in 1859, and reelected in 1861, serving in the regular sessions of 1860 and 1862, and the extra sessions of 1861 and 1862. He held various town- ship offices before becoming a member of the legis- lature, and has also been president of the school board of Corydon, being an active and very useful citizen. He has been a life-long democrat.
A member of the Methodist Episcopal church since early manhood, and a local preacher more than thirty years, his life has always been above reproach. He is kind-hearted and obliging, and a good friend to the suffering and needy.
In July, 1844, Miss Margaret Broughton, of York- shire, England, became the wife of Mr. Bracewell; they have one son, Broughton Bracewell, a farmer in Wayne county. Mrs. Bracewell has been a true helpmeet of her husband, and is a worthy christian mother
HON. GEORGE A. MORSE,
CORNING.
P ERHAPS there is no name of more antiquity in its origin, as relating to the Saxon race set- tled in America, than that of Morse. The original stock from which the subject of this sketch is de- scended was named Samuel Morse, who emigrated to America in 1635. He settled at Dedham, in the colony of Massachusetts, and died at Medfield, in the same colony, in 1654.
The Morses are now scattered all over the United States, though a very large proportion of the direct issue of the original Puritanic stock still reside in New England, and most of them in Massachusetts. The various families of Morse have ever been pro- verbial for their probity, being, as is demonstrated in the genealogical book published in Boston in 1850, ever found to be " worthy citizens and honest men " in their worldly transactions. Many of them possessed sterling mental qualifications.
Many of the Morses have been great inventors and discoverers. From an electric telegraph to a printing press, they have left their impress upon the advancement of science, literature and art in the United States, during the past century, to a greater extent than has any other family on the continent.
The father of the subject of this biography was named Alphens, and was born in Weston, Massa-
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