George Jamison 1817-1901

JAMISON, NICHOLS, VERTRESS, HERRICK

Posted By: Beverly Gerdts (email)
Date: 8/17/2021 at 06:02:58

Columbus Gazette, Columbus Junction, Iowa
Thursday, July 4, 1901
Page 8

George Jamison was born in Ross county, Ohio, August 25, 1817. He died at his home in Wapello township, Monday, July 1, 1901. He thus lacked a little less than two months of attaining to the ripe age of 84 years. Mr. Jamison was a pioneer of Pioneers. His great grandfather, Robert Jamison, was a native of the north of Ireland, who came to America prior to the revolution. Some of his immediate ancestors took part in the battle of the Boyne with the Protestant army. He settled and died in or near Philadelphia. His family first emigrated to Virginia, subsequently to Bourbon county, Kentucky. In 1796, one of his sons, William, and his wife and family of sons and daughters, came with a Presbyterian colony from Cambridge, Kentucky, and settled on the site of the present city of Chilicothe, Ross county, Ohio. He helped raise the first crop of corn grown by while men in that vicinity, at Prairie Station, a short distance above that place. His youngest son was Merit, who was married in Ross county to Elizabeth Nichols, a sister of the late Samuel Nichols of Nichols, Iowa. To them were born six sons and three daughters- Sam'l, George, William, LaFeyette, Mathew, and one other who died when a boy; the daughters were Margaret, Deihl, Susan Vertress and Serildah Herrick. Of this large family, only one, the youngest son, Matthew, now survives.

George Jamison was married to Huldah A. Herrick, September 2, 1840, and immediately, in company with his father's family, started in their wagons from the new state of Ohio to the newer state of Iowa, arriving here after a journey of almost two months' duration. He settled about five miles south of Wapello, and his home was in that immediate vicinity to the time of his death. Mr. Jamison had few educational advantages, never having reached beyond the most rudimentary branches, but he was a man of much more than ordinary intelligence and a man of fine business attainments, being, at one time, one of the three or four wealthiest citizens of the county. But a succession of reverses brought about by his efforts to help others, wasted the greater part of it. He was a sterling democrat- never wavering in the faith. In 1879 he was elected a member of the Iowa legislature, although he had an adverse majority of nearly 1,000 votes to overcome in order to be elected. He was raised a Methodist, but never united with any church. He always took especial pride in the church and cemetery grounds at old Bethel, located on the first farm he ever owned. He was in old times, old style gentleman, whose hospitality was sincere and unbounded.

His health had been very poor for several years; the immediate cause of his death was cancer. He suffered all the horrors of that dread disease with out flinching or complaining. he leaves four sons, John W., Jacob H., Merit L. and O. B., all living with their families in or near Wapello. His wife survives him, though much broken in health. The funeral took place at Bethel church on Tuesday afternoon at 3 o'clock, and his remains were laid to rest in that cemetery.