Ward Walton Beebee 1810-1868

BEEBEE

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 2/9/2016 at 19:40:02

The Herald, Friday, December 25, 1868

THE LATE W.W. BEEBE
~
A Short Sketch of His Life.
~
The death of Mr. Beebee was not entirely unexpected for several week past by his family, his physician and his visiting friends. He had been in declining health for some time, but more especially since the last of September, when he was prevented by a sudden illness from going to Clinton, where he expected to exhibit a large variety of apples and some other fruits, the products of his extensive nursery and orchard. Since that date he has been in the streets a few times, when his business required his personal attention. But failing health through November confined him mostly to his house, and under the effects of a complication of maladies, he soon gave up all hope of mingling longer in his active business or life, or even to enjoy much longer the earthly society of his family, and of the numerous friends and acquaintances.

Ward Walton Beebee was born in East Bloomfield, N.Y., Jan. 25, 1810, and was therefore in his 58th year.

He came to Dubuque in 1856, and in connection with Dr. Asa Horr, and as the successor of Fahnestock & Horr, continued the nursery business about two and half miles north of the city. His ten years of industry and skill made the grounds of Fruit Hill, (as his place was named), surpass any of those large nurseries in the county.

One of his friends made the following memoranda, merely as the briefest sketch of his active life:

“He removed to Mt. Vernon, Kings Co., Ohio, in the spring of 1833, and in 1840 to Fairfield Co., Ohio, where he cast the only vote cast in that county for J. G. Birney, the libery or anti-slavery candidate for the presidency both in 1840 and 1844. He was always a most compromising abolitionist in public and well as private, and sometimes at great personal hazard, having been more than once insulted and mobbed on account of his political principals. In 1847, he returned to Mt. Vernon, where he remained until he came to Iowa, in the spring of 1856, and settled at what is now known as Fruit Hill, north of Dubuque, and engaged in the nursery business, and since that time has been actively engaged in promoting the agricultural and horticultural interest of his adopted state. He has been a member of the Congregational Church for many years, and was deeply interested in every enterprise caleuisted to advance the cause of God and humanity in the world. His last illness was comparatively brief , and his death quite sudden and unexpected to his friends, but he was not taken by surprise or found unprepared – from the first he seemed to anticipate a final termination of his disease, and arranged his business accordingly; and then, with perfect confidence and peace, met his death – not as the king of terrors, but as a welcome friend, who would release him from the cares and toils of earth, and introduce him to the society and felicities of heaven.”

In addition to the above we add, in honor to the memory of Mr. Beebee, that he was one of the most hardworking men in our state. He built up his large nursery business in ten years of the most unremitting toil. Yet he found time to write for the newspaper and periodically on his favorite subjects: to prepare and publish pamphlets on tree planting and fruit growing; and as the secretary of the State Horticultural Society, made the best report ever published on fruit matters ever published west of the Mississippi. He occasionally made tours through almost every part of Iowa, delivering lectures on fruit culture, and by the (cannot make out word)—of homes by evergreens or other shade trees.

The character of the man may be correctly interred surrounding “vignette” of a dish of fruit on his printed “letter heads.” “ What a though when God thought to make a tree. Flourish ye westward orchards!” At the heading of his letters were also these words:
“Plant trees intelligently. Plant for beauty, shade, fruit, thoroughly mulch and frequently mellow the soil around newly planted trees. Feed orchards well in the morning in the summer and they will feed you and yours in both the spring and autumn of life.”

The funeral of W. W. Beebee was largely attended yesterday, as well as could be expected in such severely cold weather. The services were conducted by Rev. Whiting of the Congregational Church.

His remains were placed in Linwood Cemetery, where many lots are already adorned by evergreens that had been reared by his own hands.