Rowley, John Brownley

ROWLEY

Posted By: Anne Hermann (email)
Date: 1/15/2008 at 07:44:27

Jackson Sentinel
December 8, 1870

The Death of An Old Citizen.

Fairfield Tp., Jackson Co., Nov. 28, 1870.
To the Editor of The Sentinel:

Having frequently read in your paper requests for local items of news, I send you the following:

On Friday last the quiet of our rural life was somewhat startled by the report that John Brownlee Rowley had died that morning. He had settled in this neighborhood nearly twenty-eight years ago, and had resided where he died, over twenty-five years. His sickness was short, as he was working as usual on the Monday previous. The skill and efforts of two attending physicians were unavailing. He had been a member of the M. E. Church for several years before settling in Iowa, and continued a leading and efficient member until his death. The funeral services were solemnized on Sunday, at 10 o’clock a.m., at the school house nearby. The funeral sermon was preached by Mr. Kimball, of Iowa township, from the text Revelations, chap. xiv, v. 13. The sermon embraced a body of divinity suitably adapted for the benefit of his audience, but entirely destitute of that fulsome panegyric generally served out on such occasions, the preacher merely referred his audience to the life of the deceased as being his living epistle read of all. Viewing the vast concourse assembled – numbering hundreds – it would indicate as if the surrounding inhabitants had nearly all come to pay their respects for the dead by attending the funeral. The place of interment is nearly two miles east of the school house, and when the arrangement of the vast crowd was completed, the hearse was put in motion and followed by the weeping and sympathizing throng, in carriages, wagons, and other vehicles. The pageant was displayed in a string of teams about half a mile long, followed by many on horseback. Arriving in the vicinity of the burying ground, your correspondent felt the beggary of his ability to describe its grandeur. Suffice to say the cemetery is on the top of a natural mound, whose base is washed on the west and north and east by the Maquoketa river; and from the river’s bank and up the slope spread the royal oak and trees indigenous to that sequestered nook, far removed from noise and smoke, has escaped the force of the woodman’s stroke, except for the hearse and pedestrian’s walk, around the sweep on to the peak of that lovely spot, which may have been for ages – for anything known to the contrary by your correspondent – the burying ground of the original natives, dating their epoch soon after the dispersion spoken of in Genesis chap. xi, v. 8, “So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth,” and might have continued as their burying place down the ages until disinherited by the present race, and is now consecrated as their buying ground, and may so continue for ages yet to come until disinherited (may be) by some unknown race that may yet appear. – One word by your correspondent respecting the departed. That scripture was remarkably fulfilled towards him, found in Proverbs chap. xvi, v. 7: “When a man’s way’s please the Lord he maketh his enemies to be at peace with him.”