BARRETT, Mrs.Jane

BARRETT, JONES, MESSENGER, ACORD

Posted By: Oregon Rain
Date: 3/21/2007 at 00:02:49

Submitted by WF
THE FREMONT COUNTY HERALD.
Sidney, Fremont Co., Iowa
May 13, 1910.

---"COUNTY'S FIRST WHITE BRIDE DEAD".-- The news of the death of Mrs.Jane Barrett which occurred at her home near Surprise, Nebraska, April 22, will be of more than usual interest to our readers. inasmuch as the demise of this well-known woman removes from earth one of the very earliest settlers of Fremont county. In just what year she became a resident of this section
is not apparent, but her marriage on October 17, 1841, to William Barrett--said to have been the first union of whites in the county--proves her truly a pioneer of this section and entitles the name of Jane Jones Barrett to a place in Fremont county history.

Imagination may stretch backward and form some remote idea of what this country was at the time of her marriage, when we pause to think that at that time the southern section of the county, including Hamburg, where the ceremony was performed, was apart of Atchison county, Missouri. It was five years prior to the time the Indians crossed the turbulent Missouri and took up their abode in Kansas. It antedates the issuance of the first marriage license in the county by eight years. It was five years before Iowa was admitted to statehood; Fremont county had not been organized, Hamburg existed in imagination only, if indeed it existed at all, and the present county seat was unheard of. Primitive indeed must have been the conditions at that time; but deceased with the fortitude of the true pioneer, which made possible the present greatness of Iowa, remained loyal to the country of her adoption, endured the privations and braved the dangers for nearly 35 years, when, with her husband and family, deceased removed to Nebraska to once more take up life on the frontier.

Mrs. Barrett was born at Munsey, Indiana, July 12, 1824, and bore the good old-fashioned name of Mary Jane Jones. Her union with William Barrett resulted in the birth of 12 children, all but five of whom preceded their mother to the better land. There are living three sons, John, Sam and Elroy, and two daughters, Mrs. James Messenger and Miss Sally Barrett, all residents of Nebraska. She also leaves one sister, Mrs. Cynthia Acord of Sidney. Mr. Barrett departed this life about 13 years ago.