Joseph Jeffries 1811-1879

JEFFRIES

Posted By: Debbie (email)
Date: 4/9/2005 at 20:08:41

The Free Press
Mount Pleasant, Henry, Iowa
July 17, 1879
Fatal Accident.
Death of Joseph Jeffries

Joseph Jeffries on Saturday afternoon was helping get hay on his farm a short distance east of town. They had just taken in one load and returned for another. Mr. Jeffries was standing on the hay rack near the rear end of the wagon. The team made an unexpected start and he fell over backward on the ground striking upon his head. The jar and strain upon the neck so affected the spinal column that he was completely paralyzed from the neck down. This occurred about two o'clock. Dr. Pitcher was sent for and pronounced the case very serious. All that human skill could do was done but it could not avail. Though perfectly conscious, the body below the head seemed literally dead. He suffered but little, complained of pain in his neck and as the fever set in had head ache, but he gradually failed until Monday morning at 8:50 o'clock when he quietly breathed his last.

Joseph Jeffries was born in February 1811 in Beaver county Pennsylvania. He was therefore in the 69th year of his age at the time of his death. In the fall of 1854 he removed to Warren County, Illinois, and from there to this county in 1862 when he settled near the town of Winfield. He removed to his present home near this city in the fall of 1875.

Mr. Jeffries was an unassuming, courageous man of a conservative turn of mind, his mind once fixed and settled on a course of action he never changed. Failure only added to his zeal, and nothing short of accomplishing his purpose satisfied or abated his efforts. He early took his stand against human slavery, and was an outspoken abolitionist until slavery was abolished but had no sympathy with the radical political scheme that enfranchised the colored people before they were at all prepared or fit to vote.

Mr. Jeffries died as he lived with true heroic courage and welcomed the angel of death as the only deliverer from his sufferings, yet at the same time he retained his cheerfulness and composure and exhorted all around him to be calm. His wife survives him. Their only child is our esteemed fellow citizen, W.J. Jeffries, Esq., Thus closes the long and useful live of Joseph Jeffries.

"After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well."