Alvin Fairbrother (1813-1885)

FAIRBROTHER, EASTBROOK, TAUBMAN, MCCRARY

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 11/19/2009 at 20:51:51

Jackson Sentinel, December 12, 1885.

ALVIN FAIRBROTHER-
DIED-
On Tuesday afternoon last, December 8th, Mr. Alvin Fairbrother, aged 72 years, 6 months and 18 days. Another pioneer gone. It was only last week that we chronicled the death of Alex Reed, who claimed to have turned the first furrow in Jackson county. Mr. Fairbrother, says the biographical writer of Jackson County, is a native of Wyndham County, Vermont, born May 20,1813, he grew to manhood there, then removed to Essex County, New York. While living there, in May 1832, he married Miss Polly Eastbrook of Essex County, New York. July 18, 1833, they started for the west and came by wagon; they came to Iowa and to Jackson county and arrived where Maquoketa is now located September 10, 1833. His wife and her sister were probably the first ladies that passed a night in Maquoketa. Mr. Fairbrother used to hunt and trap, and afterwards engaged in farming, having a taste for bee culture, he has for many years been one of the largest and most successful bee-keepers in this section of the state. There have been very few more practical bee-keepers in the state. He has 150 stands of bees and extracts most of the honey from the comb and sells mostly in the home market. They have three children, James E., Laura (now Mrs. Henry Taubman), Harriet (now Mrs. McCrary, living in Kansas) and they lost three daughters.