HEMENWAY, Martha Toll (Honey) 1840-1927

HONEY, HEMENWAY, HOUGHTON, HOSMER

Posted By: Errin Wilker (email)
Date: 5/29/2008 at 09:49:11

Martha Toll Hemenway was born in Rushville, Illinois, Decmber 10, 1840, and died at her home in Lansing, Iowa, December 10, 1927. She was the daughter of John Honey, Sr., and Fanney Honey.

Mrs. Hemenway was the pioneer resident of Allamakee County, having come with her parents, October 14, 1848, to the site where the town of Lansing is now situated. Her father, with his son James, had come in the spring of 1848. He had secured from the government a grant of land in that locality, and in conjunction with H.H. Houghton of Galena, Illinois, founded the town of Lansing, now one of the beauty spots of the upper Mississippi.

Mrs. Hemenway received her education through private teachers and at Upper Iowa University, graduating in the famous "War Class" of 1861.

On September 30, 1866, she was united in marriage with Samuel W. Hemenway, captain of Company B, 27th Iowa Volunteer Infantry. They had two sons and four daughters.

She was an artist of ability and student of the best in art and literature. Possessing a remarkable and accurate memory, she was an authority on the early history of northeastern Iowa. She recalled with pleasure the early Sunday morning in May, 1851, when the famous sculptress, Harriet Hosmer, a passenger on the packet playing between St. Louis and St. Paul, climbed the high bluff back of the Honey home. In honor of Miss Hosmer's feat that morning, it was at once christened, and has always been called, Mount Hosmer. And in the shadow of this bluff, Martha T. Hemenway spent seventy-nine years of her life.

Source: Annals of Iowa, Volume XVI, No. 7, January 1929