Henry Johnson Broadhead Cummings
BROADHEAD, CUMMINGS, JOHNSON, ROBB, WARD
Posted By: Kent Transier (email)
Date: 8/3/2006 at 19:45:03
The Winterset Madisonian
Winterset, Iowa
Thursday, April 22, 1909
Page 1, Column 1Death of H. J. B. Cummings
One of Winterset’s Leading Citizens Peacefully Passes away.
For Fifty-three Years one of the Central Figures in Madison County.
H. J. B. Cummings was born at Newton, New Jersey, May 21st, 1831. If blood counts for anything he was much indebted to his ancestry, for the best blood of America coursed in his veins. His father, as the name indicates, must have been of Scotch Irish parentage and his mother was a granddaughter of Gen. Daniel Broadhead, of Revolutionary fame. In youth his father died and his mother being an invalid he first made his home with his grandmother and afterward with his uncle, Hon. Henry Johnson, who, in years gone by, frequently visited Winterset and whom many read this sketch were acquainted with.
The ancestral home of the Johnsons was in Pennsylvania so Col. Cummings spent his youth and early manhood in that state and thus Pennsylvania, rather than New Jersey, was regarded as his home state. His education was received in the public schools of Pennsylvania supplemented by a year’s training in a select school.
After his school days he spent two years in the pineries of Lycoming county, Penn., where he worked as a common laborer. All who were acquainted with Mr. Cummings’ personal characteristics readily know that saw mill work was not congenial to one of his turn of mind and at the age of seventeen years he begun the study of law, which he pursued for over one year, when in order to procure funds and in pursuance of a natural bent of mind he took a position in a printing office of a newspaper published in Schuylkill county. Here he served an apprenticeship of three years and the excellent discipline received there stood him well in hand when he entered upon his long and successful career in the newspaper business in Winterset. His uncle afterwards bought the paper and being elected to the office of state senator, Mr. Cummings became the editor and publisher of the paper.
In 1852 he removed to Muncy, where he completed his law studies and was admitted to the bar in 1854. The next year he started to Iowa seeking a new home. He crossed the Mississippi river on the ice on New Years Day 1856 and came to Winterset, which he chose as his new home, and returning to Pennsylvania was married the following year on March 4th to Miss Annie W. Robb, who immediately returned with him to Winterset which remained their home ever afterward.
Mr. Cummings’ coming to Winterset was contemporaneous with the coming of the republican party and he did more than anyone else in the organization of the party in Madison county. He also helped organize the party in the counties west of Madison. Although he was a politician by instinct and practice Mr. Cummings held but few offices and seldom sought office. He was elected prosecuting attorney one term, was elected to congress in 1876, was mayor of Winterset two terms and city attorney for several years; this in addition to two unsuccessful candidacies constitute the whole of his political ambitions, which considering his ability, his prominence and effectual political work would not by any means lay him liable to the aspersion of being an office-seeker.
The most valuable service Mr. Cummings rendered to his country was during the civil war. At the beginning of the sectional trouble in 1861 he started the first military movement of the county by organizing the Winterset Zouaves, a company of home guards which was enlisted and armed under the authority of the state for home protection against a threatened invasion from Missouri. This company soon became the nucleus of company F of the 4th Iowa Infantry, which joined the regiment at Council Bluffs in 1861, and as captain of that company took part in the hard fought and important battle of Pea Ridge, as ranking captain, he was temporarily in command of the regiment till he was summoned back to Iowa by Gov. Kirkwood to organize a new regiment which became the famous 39th, largely made up of Madison county volunteers, and of which he became colonel.
His military service ended only with the end of the war when he returned home and in 1869 he purchased the Madisonian which he edited and controlled until a few years ago when owing to the infirmities of age he reluctantly parted with it.
During his connection with the Madisonian in 1876 he was elected to congress. The district then contained ten counties and he was elected by a majority of more than 8000. In entering congress he took high rank in that honorable body and by his painstaking and industrious habits secured very valuable legislation. One measure which he secured by his own individual efforts was an important pension law by which his old comrades in arm received about one and a half million of dollars in Iowa alone.
Mr. Cummings was no Napoleon of finance, neither did he aim to profit by other people’s necessities. Although he was successful in business and accumulated quite a fortune he never resorted to questionable measures. What he accumulated was by slow plodding efforts supplemented by rigid economy. He was a man of more than average good judgment; was prudent, cool-headed and provident, but whoever says he was avaricious or stingy either did not understand the man or is moved by malice or envy.
He was one of the organizers of the Citizens’ National bank and retained his connection with till death. He always had a pardonable pride in the phenomenal success of this business enterprise and it was doubtless due, in a large measure, to his safe and prudent counsels that the Citizens’ National has for so many years, and still has, that incomparable asset – the deserved and unquestioned confidence of the people.
Mr. Cummings had some rules of conduct that were sadly out of date in these degenerate times and which have few imitators; one was to never buy anything unless he had the ready money to pay for it; he never gave a note or paid any interest. However, when he determined to make a purchase or employ workmen he promptly paid a fair price without haggling or brow-beating. Our lamented T. F. Mardis, who did much work for him, often told the writer that in all his experience as a contractor and builder he never worked for a more liberal employer than Col. Cummings. If he ever had disagreement with a printer about his wages during his long career in the newspaper business the writer never heard of it.
Some eight or ten business buildings around or near the public square remain as monuments of Mr. Cummings’ enterprise and business sagacity. They remain not as mute reminders of someone’s tricks in finance or business sleight of hand, but reminders of the patient, honest, and careful mind that planned and the industrious head which will no longer think and perform among us.
Mr. Cummings was raised an Episcopalian and with his wife were members of that church when they came to Winterset. There being no church of that denomination here they united with the Presbyterian church which had been recently organized. Both remained loyal and influential member of that church until death. Mr. Cummings was also a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity and the last impressive service of that order was rendered at the grave in charge of Mr. J. W. Frankelberger, the head of the lodge at this place. The funeral services at the house were conducted by Rev. J. S. Corkey.
There remains but one heir, Mrs. Laura J. Miller, who with her husband, Mr. J. W. Miller, have with so much love and tenderness waited around the sick bed of father and mother during the long dreary hours of day and night of the months which lengthened into years. The memory of those duties so cheerfully performed will doubtless be the most valuable inheritances of their lives.
Owing to the condition of the roads and the fact that there are no Sunday trains the relatives at Creston and other places were not present. Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Robb, of Des Moines, were present at the funeral. Many and beautiful were the floral tributes received, but owing to the inclemency of the weather they were not placed on his resting place until the next day. Mr. Cummings passed away about midnight Friday, April 16th. The funeral was held at the residence Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m., just a week and one year after the death of Mrs. Cummings.
In the death of Col. Cummings there has passed away one of the most characteristic and prominent citizens of Winterset. In directing the political, social and business affairs of the city and determining just what position Winterset should occupy in the county, the state and the nation, he wielded a steady and conservative influence and in the end his life has counted for more than any other man. Moreover he was honest, truthful and reliable in all his dealings and intercourse with his fellowmen, and so uniform was he in the practice of these virtues that he had no peer in the city or time in which he lived. Some who read this sketch written by one who learned to know him thoroughly, trusted him implicitly and loved him dearly, may think the estimate overdrawn. If so it is because they neither knew or understood the man while living and consequently cannot properly estimate his character when dead. If it be true that an honest man is the work of God, then the citizens of Winterset should honor the name and revere the life of Col. Cummings for he had no rival in this school of ethics and his honesty was not simply confined to business honesty, which is most common, but widened out so far as to take in the social honesty, political honesty and those other kinds less common and becoming exceedingly rare.
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