James Cannon, 1794-1890

CANNON

Posted By: Emmet County IAGenWeb Coordinator (email)
Date: 1/27/2009 at 15:37:43

James Cannon died at the residence of his son, C. B. Cannon in Armstrong Grove, Emmet County , Iowa, April 3 1890, aged 95 years, 4 months, and 1 day.

He was born of New England parents December 3, 1794, in Brocket, Berkshire county, Mass. His father, Ira Cannon, of Welsh decent, married Olive Goodspeed who bore him six children--James, Eben, Hannah, George, John, and Rosina. James, the subject of this sketch was the oldest of the family. When a young man he joined as a private a company of the Massachusetts militia under Captain Nye. During the War of 1812 he was for a few weeks in the service of the government of Boston, and has received a pension as a survivor of that war since 1873.

He was married at the age of 20 to Polly Baird. He removed with his wife and two children a farm near Colchester. After remaining there a few years he removed to Sullivan county, N. Y. While living in this state, five more children were born--seven in all. Their names were Henry, Mary, Ira, Cornelius B, Olive, Rosina, and Elizabeth, of whom only two are g. His wife died in 1861, and in 1867 at the age of 73 he married Junnette Muir, and the same year removed to Farmington, Ohio, where he purchased a small farm and lived for twenty years doing all the time the greater part of his farm work.

His second wife died in the autumn of 1887, and being quite feeble himself he came the same year to Emmet county, where he has spent the remaining years of his life with his son C. B. Cannon of Armstrong Grove. He had a remarkable constitution, having been seriously sick but once in his life. He has always been a hard worker, an early riser and strictly temperate in all his habits never having used either tobacco or liquor. He was a great reader and kept himself well informed on all social, religious and political subjects of the day. His memory until the last few weeks was remarkably well preserved; he being able to relate minutely the events which occurred under his own observation as far back as 1812.

He has been a staunch member of the Methodist Episcopal church since 1822, and was for many years a steward and class leader in that denomination. He always gladly contributed of his means to the support of the Gospel, and was an ardent temperance worker, having been among the first engaged in the temperance movement in Sullivan county N. Y. The sunset of his life has been prolonged far beyond that usually allotted to man; and after the lapse of nearly a century, he dies of old age as peacefully as one sinks to quiet sleep, retaining almost to the last the use of all his faculties. Death had no fears in store for him, and when he was called to lay down the burdens of life, he did it in full confidence that he would receive a welcome to a mansion in Heaven for which he had been faithfully seeking so many years.

Contributed: Doreene Hanson. Source: Estherville Northern Vindicator, Estherville, Emmet County, Iowa, April 11, 1890.