Daniel STEPHENSON comes to Fairfield

STEPHENSON, SNYDER, CONLEY

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 5/29/2006 at 21:01:49

"Fairfield Ledger", Fri., May 25, 1928, Pg. 8

HOW DANIEL STEPHENSON, WEAVER, CAME TO FAIRFIELD, By his daughter, Mrs. Lovina M. SNYDER

My grandfather and father first sailed from England and came to America in 1840 when father was 17 years old... It took them 25 days to cross the briny deep and that was considered a very quick voyage at that time... Grandfather came west and secured a fairly good job in Springfield, Ohio, and left father at Geneva, a town on Seneca Lake, N.Y.. He was to stay there so as to be handy to go and meet grandmother and the other five children. They were given orders to come up the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie and father, when he thought it about the right time, went and just as he was walking across the bridge, saw grandmother starting out across the end of the dock below him, with a little bucket in her hand, to get some milk for their breakfast. Father called to her, and she looked up and exclaimed, "Ah, there is our Daniel!"

Grandfather had a brother who had come to America three years previous to his coming, and had come to Iowa and entered 160 acres of land in 1838, and as he was an old bachelor and was a weaver, he wanted to go back east where he could work at his trade. He told grandfather if he would come to Iowa and live on the land and improve it, he would not charge any rent. They thought that was a wonderful offer. So they decided my father was to come first and locate the land... When he arrived in Fairfield he went to the land office and soon found the land. They told him it was twelve miles east.

The next thing was to build a log house and prepare all he could for the rest of the family. They started to come that fall. Down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi, and they got as far as Keokuk and the river froze over and they had to stay there till spring. Then as soon as they could they resumed their journey and landed here about the twenty-first of April, 1846.

The country was new and lots of swamps and decayed vegetation and lots of fever and ague. Grandmother walked about two miles to minister to a very sick neighbor lady. She had to go through tall grass and weeds. It was early in the morning and she got very wet in the dew and in a day or two she took down very sick with a hard chill, and that night grandfather called to the children, who were sleeping in the loft, that he believed grandmother was dying... Before they had time to summon medical aid she passed away... That was the 26th day of August, 1846.... Father said it seemed to him as though she just got a glimpse of the promised land....

In 1848 my father told grandfather he believed he would like to learn coverlet weaving. Grandfather advised him to go to Springfield, Ohio, and he wrote to a man, I think his name was Robert CONLEY, and he wrote back that he would take him as an apprentice for two years if he would agree to not start up in business closer than 200 miles. Father told him it was his intention to come to Iowa and start up...

One of his favorite poems was "The Mystic Weaver." (The transcriber located the poem on the internet, properly titled 'The Divine Weaving', and copied it below.... of the several sources examined, no author was noted. -JS)

"See the mystic Weaver sitting
High in heaven--His loom below.
Up and down the treadles go.
Takes, for web, the world's dark ages,
Takes, for woof, the kings and sages.
Takes the nobles and their pages,
Takes all stations and all stages.
Thrones are bobbins in His shuttle.
Armies make them scud and scuttle--
Web into the woof must flow:
Up and down the nations go!
At the Weaver's will they go!

"Calmly see the mystic Weaver
Throw His shuttle to and fro;
'Mid the noise and wild confusion,
Well the Weaver seems to know
What each motion, and commotion,
What each fusion, and confusion,
In the grand result will show!

"Glorious wonder! What a weaving!
To the dull, beyond believing.
Such no fabled ages know.
Only faith can see the mystery,
How, along the aisles of history,
Where the feet of sages go,
Loveliest to the fairest eyes,
Grand the mystic tapet lies!
Soft and smooth, and ever spreading,
As if made for angels' treading--
Tufted circles touching ever:
Every figure has its plaidings,
Brighter forms and softer shadings,
Each illumined--what a riddle!
From a cross that gems the middle.

"'Tis a saying--some reject it--
That its light is all reflected;
That the tapet's lines are given
By a Sun that shines in heaven!
'Tis believed--by all believing--
That great God, Himself, is weaving,
Bringing out the world's dark mystery,
In the light of faith and history;
And, as web and woof diminish,
Comes the grand and glorious finish,
When begin the Golden Ages,
Long foretold by seers and sages."

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