Baldwin, Cyrus 1799 – 1882

BALDWIN, CHURCH, HOLLIS, BUCKNUM

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 6/5/2014 at 14:02:43

Iowa Plain Dealer May 25, 1882, P3 C3

Obituary.

Died in Cresco, Iowa, May 21, 1882, Cyrus Baldwin aged 83 years 3 months and 11 days.

The deceased was born in the town of Egremont, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, the 10th of February 1799, where he resided until he removed to Iowa, about the year 1858 or 9. In 1822 he was married to Elizabeth Church, a native of the same town, who survives him, and who was about three years his junior.

Mr. Baldwin was a man of large and varied experience in the history and workings of the government, his youth commencing with the infancy of the Republic, his extensive reading, relentive memory, intimate acquaintance with the prominent public men of the Old Bay State, his close observation and practical judgment enabling him to form correct conclusions of worth and character. His ancestors were among the earliest colonists that fled from tyrannical oppression in Europe to enjoy broader, purer, better freedom, religious and political, in the new world. The old homestead where to him and Mrs. Baldwin were born and reared a large family of children, three of whom survive him, was among the earliest plantations of Massachusetts, was known then and still is as Baldwin’s Hill, the house which was built before the American revolution having been the home of his ancestors and of himself and family until his exodus to Iowa.

He was a man of strong will power, of wonderful bodily and mental vigor, and of that sterling integrity of character that his word of promise passed, he regarded with the sacredness of his bond.

The children which survive him are his son Eben, Mrs. Hollis and Mrs. Bucknum, all of whom but the son, reside away from Cresco, and were not present at his death or burial. The deceased has been confined to the house, and bedridden for most of the time of the past three years much of the time an intense but patient sufferer.