Bonebright, Thomas Blackwell (1836-1921)

BONEBRIGHT, BREWER, CLOSZ, SHEETS

Posted By: Debbie Greenfield (email)
Date: 9/20/2016 at 14:23:19

Daily Freeman Journal, Webster City, Iowa, Monday, March 7, 1921 AND Webster City Freeman, Webster City, Iowa, Monday, March 7, 1921

DAUGHTER GIVES FUNERAL TALK

Harriet M. Closz Delivers Funeral Address of Father, Thomas B. Bonebright

WAS PIONEER HERE

Came to Hamilton County in 1856 With Early Pioneers

The funeral of Thomas B. Bonebright was held Saturday afternoon at the family home in the southeastern part of the city. Harriet M. Closz, daughter, delivered the funeral oration. She spoke as follows:

Friends - We are assembled today to look for the last time upon the remains of a fellow citizen who had made his home in this community for more than three score years.

Thomas Blackwell Bonebright, was born in Lycommon county, Pennsylvania, in 1836. Had he lived until September 20, next, he would have been 85 years of age. When but a small child his parents moved westward, and pioneered near the town of Freeport, Illinois. He was the eldest of eleven children.

A young man of twenty, Thomas Bonebright, with the courage and physical prowess possessed by all early settlers, came to Hamilton county in 1856, where he has lived and labored and at last has left us. Here he was married in 1858 to Sarah Brewer, and here we children were born and grew to maturity. Posterity must list to him six children, sixteen grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

Thomas Bonebright, during the early days of this community, was a physical personage to be reckoned with. He was unafraid of bodily harm and his agility, strength and endurance were the warrant for his safety among men. The meaning of the word danger could not be understood by him. Midnight held no greater menace to his mind than midday, hence he could not realize the timidity of the cautions or the terror of the fear-stricken individual. He was among the leaders in all the sports of our town's early days, and was prodigal of his strength. Running, jumping, lifting, climbing, wrestling, swimming - no feat for such tests was too difficult for him to undertake. Wood chopping and rail splitting developed the pioneer athlete and such work, in abundance, insured the physical efficiency which carried forward the heavy labor of the frontier.

The wild beasts of the woods were stalked boldly by him, and the domestic brute was cowed by his attentions. Winter weather or high waters did not daunt or delay the performance of duties undertaken by him, and he never shirked the work assigned to him by an employer. For several winter seasons after his arrival in Webster City, he teamed to and from Iowa City, Dubuque and Des Moines, and during the time of blizzards and floods a teamster imperiled his life with every trip through the trackless swamps or across the white wastes of Iowa's snow fields, but our father's tenacity of purpose, his physical stamina and courageous persistence brought to the early settlers their provisions and other necessities of life. These hardships, however, did not impair, but rather augmented his courageous endurance, and I trust that at least a measure of this physical quality has been transmitted to his children.

Thomas Bonebright scouted for a short time on the northern frontier, and was a member of the relief expedition for the settlers at the time of the Spirit Lake massacre of white settlers by the redmen. The perils and hardships of this expedition are generally well known, but it was the work of Private Bonebright to carry upon his shoulders Major Williams during the company's progress through frozen swamps and swollen streams. His services, in the relief work, were recognized by the state and a pension granted. His name is inscribed on the memorial tablet in our Hamilton county court house.

Thomas Bonebright was not a partisan in politics, and lists of names meant little to him. He belonged to neither lodge nor church, hence we could not, consistently, procure a minister for the services of these last rites. He was not given to speculation on a future life, or the continuity of existence after death. He neither affirmed nor denied the possibility or the fact of immortality. He did not know the origin and destiny of man, but he has fulfilled his destiny in life. He came into being, he grew to maturity, he reached the zenith of his development, he gave life to his children, he contributed his force and activity, he served according to his understanding, and now has relinquished his earthly responsibility. It remains now, for us, as his friends and his family, to assume the burden and seek to solve the simple, as well as intricate, problems of life. The dead are placed beyond the reach of help or harm, but the living with their trials and troubles are all about us, and their needs are innumerable.

We cannot decide the destiny of the dead, but we can lend a hand to burdened living beings. We cannot overcome the working of nature in a lifeless body, but we can renew the courage of our stricken, suffering neighbor. We cannot increase the ease or comfort of a form of clay, but we can help to assuage the grief of sick and submerged multitudes. We cannot change the natural processes of life and growth, of death and decay, but we can prevent the invasive acts and unjust treatment for many of our fellow men.

The dead shall rest in peace, but for the living there is work unceasing - the work of enlightenment and service which shall secure for us in life, the measure of liberty and justice which the bleeding but patient people must gain. If men are just to their fellow men, and should there be continuity of conscious personal existence after death, then natural justice would indicate the future to be secure.

When we think of a person who has excelled in physical strength, it seems a pathetic thing that he must grow aged and helpless, but the law of nature cannot be changed for the individual. Birth, growth and decay is inevitable and goes forward in the minutest particle of inanimate matter as it does in the highly organized and intelligent individual. Change is the immutable law. Man is but a unit in the great cosmos and he responds to the change as natural necessity indicates. The missions of life are manifold. They extend to infinity and one of life's manifestations has been accomplished in the genesis, progress and exodus of Thomas Bonebright. The measure of life has been filled. The pendulum of time, for him, has reached its equilibrium. Rest thou in peace.

PROMINENT PIONEER IS TAKEN

Thomas B. Bonebright Dies From Valvular Heart Disease at Home on Ohio Street

84 YEARS OF AGE

Member of Company who Went on the Spirit Lake Expedition

Thomas B. Bonebright, one of the oldest and best known pioneers of Hamilton county, passed away Thursday evening at 9:30 o'clock at his home, 222 east Ohio street, from valvular heart disease and complications incident to old age. He was 84 years, five months and three days old.

The funeral was held Saturday morning at 10:30 o'clock at the home.

The deceased was a native of Lycoming county, Pa., where he was born Sept. 29, 1836. In 1846 he moved with his parents to Stephenson county, Ill., being among the first settlers of Freeport. Here he was reared on a farm. In 1856 he started for Hamilton county, Iowa, driving a team for Washington Sa--bury for whom he worked the first year of his residence in the county. The next year he was employed by Geo. McClure in a saw-mill, and in the spring of 1857 joined the company of hardy pioneers who went on the Spirit Lake expedition and assisted in burying the dead killed by the Indians at that place. In 1859 he went to Wright county, and lived four years, when he returned to Webster City, where he worked for several years at the carpenter's trade. In 1882 he was employed as mechanic on the Northwestern railroad, and later superintended the water department on the western branch of the road, having charge of all the pumps and engines.

Mr. Bonebright was married May 2, 1859, to Miss Sarah Jane Brewer, a daughter of Willson Brewer, also a pioneer of Hamilton county, one of the first settlers in this city. Six children were born to this union, one of whom is dead. The five living children are Mrs. Harriet M. Closz and F.A. Bonebright of this city, Mrs. Myron Sheets of Medford, Ore., Wallace Bonebright of Bolton, Ill, and Geo. W. Bonebright. The widow, Mrs. Sarah Bonebright, also survives.