LAMSON, Ward Nicholas Boylston - 1890 Bio (1820-1904)

LAMSON

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 8/13/2007 at 19:12:28

Portrait and Biographical Album of Jefferson and Van Buren Counties, Iowa, Printed 1890 by Lake City Publishing Co., Chicago
Pages 655-657

Ward LAMSON.

Having subscribed for the Jefferson County 'Album' and being called upon for a sketch of my life, let me state that I was born September 7, 1820, in the Log School District, in the town of Sterling, ten miles north of Worcester, Worcester County, Mass. I lived there in my parents' home upon their small farm until I was twelve, working some on the farm and in my father's scythe sneath shop, where he invented and perfected the crooked scythe sneath. I was "licked" because I played too much and worked too little. I went to the district school some and again was whipped because I did not study more. I went to the Baptist Church and was scared enough to make a sage, if fright would make a dunce wise. I was also taught to fear God there in order to make me love him, but the more they licked and scared, the less I loved and knew, and if my father had not made fun of their scare stories, I think they would have licked and scared what little sense and might I had out of me to make a good boy. At twelve, my father took me to Carnington, Hampshire County, Mass., to work in his scythe sneath shop. There too I went to school some until seventeen, and went to church and Sunday-school to be trained in the fear of God to make me love him, but there too my father's confiding trust in God's loving purpose to reform, not to confirm erring children in wrong, finally helped me to love and reform some. I wanted an education to become a preacher, but father thought I was too proud, ambitious and lazy to make a useful minister, so at seventeen, he gave me $100 to come to Burlington, the capital of Wisconsin Territory at that time, now Burlington, Iowa. I arrived December 6, 1837, but did not obtain work at government land surveying as I hoped, but found work, first as a porter and then as a clerk, with better wages than I expected. I gave up my land surveying enterprise and continued clerking about nine years until my health failed. I thought then that I was broke, but I found that I could think and that I knew enough of business to conduct exchanges of products profitably between the upper and lower Mississippi River, and that I had credit enough with my old employers to aid me in effecting exchanges upon a moderate scale until near the close of the Mexican War, in 1848.

In New Orleans, in the spring of that year I made some investments in land warrants and in the summer opened an office in St. Louis for the prosecution of the land warrant business. After that I opened offices in Burlington and Fairfield, for conducting the sale and loan of land warrants. As for the manner in which I had conducted my business, it has always depended upon the mood I was in, whether I was more or less greedy. When I charged the current high rates I felt like a hog, and I guess that many who paid them thought I was one. When I charged one half or one fourth the current rate and reduced my own expenses to correspond with my income, folks said I was a crank or crazy, but I was not so crazy as to run heels over head in debt to make money to splurge, or to court or incur bankruptcy.

With the humble, industrial and economical help of my present wife, we have raised a large family of boys and girls who are mostly married and trying, so far as I know, with the help of God, to lead useful lives. Of my three deceased wives, suffice it to say, they were good enough for me, and I liked all well enough to seek another, although I thought each time that I could never find another to replace my loss. I have not joined any church because I have not found one which gives me that freedom of search and individual action which I crave and need for mental growth; and because I don't want to spend or be spent in substituting Christianity with mere churchanity, as I understand both; and because I believe that speech prayer to God as practiced by the churches, as if God does not know or is faithless to do what is best for his children without speech prayer, is neither wise nor reverent toward God; and because growing charity among intelligent sectarians is making them less sectarian, so that I enjoy sincere converse in the spirit of truth with them for mutual improvement, without much hinderance from dogmatic, sectarian faith, though I am not a church member. As a rule, I have been treated as well by others through life as I have treated them, so that I can't complain of others without making complaint against myself. As this would not be "taffylogical" in a biographical album, I will make no complaint at having no offices of honor or profit pressed upon me against my will. But I have accepted some such offices as road supervisor and the like when no others would serve. When jogged by a good faithful Christian minister to diffuse useful knowledge by means of books for general use, I worked hard to start the Jefferson County Library in Fairfield in 1853, and I went to Boston, by request of the Library Association, to buy the first installment of books, having first provided that I should secure wiser minds than mine, there, to make up the list; and to their wise selection and to Jefferson County's people's appreciation of the books, subsequently came that warm support by the appreciators, to which Fairfield now owes the existence of the largest, best and most widely read public library in any town of its size in Iowa if not in the United States, so say better judges than I. But among the most difficult official duties which I have elected myself to perform out of office is that of railway regulation, so as to tax corporations the same as private property and suppress railway rate discrimination and extortion. Though reason, justice and the public welfare require the adoption of these measures; and although they are easy to understand and apply and are fair toward all, yet free passes and other special transportation privileges to influence influential citizens, still defeat the return of our most intelligent and faithful public servants to office, who like our late Gov. Larrabee, mean practical reform. But I still hope that our influential men will see and correct their mistake before it is too late. I would present you a photograph of my phiz, if it was as good looking as my wife's and she would consent to the presentation of hers.

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I have no relation to the person(s) mentioned.