Tittsworth, Wm. G. (1847-1925)

TITTSWORTH

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 9/22/2019 at 20:43:20

William G. Tittsworth
Apr 9, 1847 - June 28, 1925

(From the 1891 Biographical History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, p.584)
WILLIAM G. TITTSWORTH. The untiring and hardy seeker after mineral wealth in our mountain ranges and the adventurous ranch men, the forerunner of the more plodding farmer, all combined contribute their various characteristics to form the complete picture which the biographical write has presented to his view. Remarkable as it may appear, all the above occupations and traits of character are blended in the adventurous career of the subject of this sketch.

He was born and reared on our southern borders, and passed his youthful days among a people noted for their tempestuous character and through the turbulence of frontier life. He received no education and in his boyhood, surrounded with the perils of a rude and bloody border warfare, grasped the musket of the soldier almost before his slender form was capable of enduring the fatigues of bearing arms. He became a soldier in our great civil war and marched with that daring leader, Sherman, in the greatest campaign in history – the famous march to the sea. Laying down his arms only when peace was declared, the youthful soldier, confronted with the problem of making his own way in life, became a sailor, adventurer, hunter and trapper in the then unsettled and trackless wilds of Wyoming, and finally became a successful ranchman. He passed through an experience with reckless characters, which would have ruined a large majority of young men. His innate strength of character brought him safely through to become a kind father, loving husband and a prominent American citizen.

William G. TITTSWORTH was born April 9, 1847, in Franklin County, Arkansas, and on account of having been left an orphan by the death of his father, William D. TITTSWORTH, when a mere child, he received no education. This defect he has partially supplied by self-instruction and a habit of reading, and that practical experience gained by close observation of human nature which a life of adventure and travel gives, and when combined with a manly force of character is frequently of more value to its possessor than a liberal education. Young William left Arkansas at the early age of five years, and the family settled on a farm in Taney County, Missouri. There were six children in the family, namely: A.D., William D., William G., Mary, Marcessa and Annie. The mother married again in that state to James CLEVENGER of Taney County, Missouri, and a farmer by occupation. Young William, not being satisfied at home, went to live with his grandmother, May, who resided on a farm in the same county, and here he spent much of his time until he came to Iowa, just prior to the breaking out of the great civil war. Here he was engaged in herding cattle for I.C. COOPER of Des Moines. He returned to Missouri after a short time, when the great Civil War burst upon the country. Missouri, being one of the border states, was soon a scene of great domestic violence, the people being divided in their opinions; some were strong in favor of the Union and the old flag, and others, influenced by their close relationship to the Southern people, were the most bitter secessionists. Therefore, neighborhood was divided against neighborhood, family against family, and partisan warfare raged in all its violence.

Our subject was but a boy of 14 years when he was surrounded with all the excitement of this state of affairs. Armed bands, called guerrillas, took the field, and, clothing their real object, which was murder and plunder under the guise of loyalty to the South, swept like a remorseless scourge upon the defenseless people. One of these bands raided the neighborhood where his mother lived, and committed many acts of violence in the peaceful valley. Visiting his mother’s house, they searched for arms and plunder, and with bluster and threats over-awed the trembling inmates. William D. TITTSWORTH, the elder brother of our subject, then a boy of about 16 years of age, was at a neighbor’s place on Bear Creek, four and a half miles away. The raiders found him, and being aware that his step-father had voted for Missouri to remain in the Union, and that the family were imbued with Union sentiments, remorselessly shot him down. Alf BOLER, a noted bushwhacker, did the shooting, about July 1, 1861; but, although severely wounded, Mr. TITTSWORTH escaped to the bushes, with which that country was thickly covered. He reached a vacant log cabin in the woods and was cared for by sympathizing neighbors. Another young man, by the name of DAVIS, who also was wounded, shared the cabin with him. DAVIS was shot under circumstances, which well illustrates the bitterness of the struggle in Missouri. A man named MANNING, the father-in-law of DAVIS, was one of the leaders of the bushwhackers. DAVIS, as well as his father, was a Union man, but had taken no part in the conflict, fearing the raids of the bushwhackers. They, like many of their neighbors, had made a practice of sleeping in the bush at night for safety. MANNING was aware of this, and told them to come home and sleep on the porch, and he would see that they were protected. DAVIS, believing his father-in-law would do him no harm, consented, and one night, in company with his father, slept on the porch. MANNING treacherously collected some of his men, surrounded the house, and took them both prisoners. In company with a man named KELLEY, a blacksmith who had been previously captured, they were taken along a bridle path toward a mill, and were told they were to be shot. KELLEY was blindfolded and DAVIS and his father thought it was simply done to fright them. Soon, however, they heard the report of firearms and heard KELLEY fall. Then with a glance at each other, they broke away and ran for the timber. The elder DAVIS fell dead on the way, and the younger, with a hasty glance at his father, reached the timber, not, however, without being wounded by three shots and falling suddenly behind a log escaped to a cabin in the woods, and finally recovered. BOLER, a noted guerilla, was their leader in this part of the country, and killed many people with his own hands. He was finally himself killed by Union soldiers and beheaded, and the gory trophy carried on a pole to Ozark, Missouri.

Through such scenes as these, young TITTSWORTH passed, at an age when he should have been gaining an education for a future honorable and useful life; but, seizing a rifle he mounted a horse, which his mother gave him, and joined the Home Guards, May 2, 1861, when so young as to be hardly able to carry arms. He served under Captain Jesse GALLAWAY, who was shot down at the threshold of his own door with his child in his arms, which was also killed by the same bullet! He was just leaving his home for the field, and had just picked up the little child to kiss it goodby, when the relentless guerrilla fired upon him from the dark.

The commanding officers of the company of Home Guards in which young William served was: First Lieutenant F.M. GIDEON; Second Lieutenant James OLIVER. They fought a skirmish with the bushwhackers at Forsyth, the county seat of Taney County, and were repulsed. Soon afterward, General SWEENEY came upon the scene with a regiment of Jayhawkers from Kansas, with two pieces of artillery, and attacked the bushwhackers at Forsyth, and with a few shots from the artillery dispersed them. Young William was present at both engagements. Missouri was the home and hot bed of this class both before and after the war. Their hatred, enmity and superstition were mingled with a chaos of governmental ideas – a mass of conflicting political notions, which at last took shape in arms. Their riding from daylight till dark, from midnight till noonday, and on into midnight again, shooting right and left at public and private enemies, the guerrilla bands plundered the dead, taunted the dying and murdered opposition wherever it rose up. Stopping only to demand meals and horse feed, they often rode until nature’s check, fatigue, compelled them to halt. They were brave, cunning and merciless, picked from the most desperate characters which that era developed and revealed. These grim partisans were well calculated to fill a land with dread. Perhaps never has there been gathered under one flag a band so uniformly evil and pitiless, accustomed to no restriction and little order, their laws were few and brief and they recognized no crime but cowardice, no virtue but courage. With them, life was too worthless to be spared or considered. The tiger, crouching by the spring where his prey must come to drink, is not more patient, more tireless in his lonely vigil, and through days and nights these stealthy watchers have lain beside a house, a road, a shadowy pass and waited like the tiger for their prey. They knew it would come and they waited. They never missed their mark. This is all that is necessary to describe these fearless warriors, with whom our young subject was, as a boy, called upon to do battle.

In 1863, he enlisted in Company B, 18th Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and served to the close of the war. He was in the Army of Tennessee, and took part in the battles of Atlanta, Resaca, Dallas, Snake, Creek Gap, and many others. He was with SHERMAN on that famous march in history, where the Union arms and flag was borne through the heart of the enemy’s country to the sea. He was also on the return march to Washington, and was present at the great military pageant, the grand review, where Abraham Lincoln, the savior of his country, and Ulysses S. Grant, its able general, viewed the mighty triumphant northern hosts who had suppressed the greatest rebellion in the annals of history, connected the Union of States, and gave the priceless boon of liberty to 4,000,000 human beings. Young William was honorably discharged at St. Louis, Missouri, and while still a young man came out of the arena of military life to the great struggle of providing for himself a home and fortune. He was a good soldier, and was always redy for duty. He received no wounds, was never in a hospital, and was never sick except from a severe sunstroke from which he suffered at times. He was well known to all in the regiment as “Little Tittsworth.”

Mr. TITTSWORTH came to the State of Iowa and went to Michigan and Chicago, where, meeting an old acquaintance, he became a cook on a vessel on Lake Michigan, his friend teaching him at odd times the mysteries of the culinary art. In 1868, probably with the advance of that eminent philosopher, Horace GREELEY, he went to the then almost unknown wilds of the Territory of Wyoming, and became a trapper and hunter, selling the products of his skill to the builders of the Union Pacific Railroad, which was at that time pushing its lines to the far West. He continued in this vocation until 1871, when he became a rancher, raising horses and cattle in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, combining the business with that of drover. He became a noted cowboy and expert trailer. At one time, he visited Wyoming to show parties the celebrated Golconda diamond field, which a man named ARNOLD was supposed to have discovered. After tracing the trail across the desert, he found that the diamond field had already been staked out by ARNOLD, and that numbers of other people had already gathered at the place. Experts soon found the field had been “salted” with diamonds, emeralds and rubies, and that ARNOLD, who had fleeced eastern capitalists of large sums of money, had already fled from the country. He was not in the employ of anyone when he visited the diamond mines, but went on information gained from citizens of Laramie. Mr. TITTSWORTH went all through the excitement of early life in Wyoming, when the gamblers almost ran the country, and many men were shot down in cold blood. In his experience he visited a wide range of territory in that state, Utah, and Washington Territory, killing a great many bear, deer, elk, mountain sheep, etc. He was present at the opening of the Henpeak mine in Colorado, when 200 warriors of the Ute tribe, who had just murdered the VAN DYKE party, ordered the Henpeak miners to leave the country. The celebrated scout, Jim BAKER, an old companion of Kit CARSON and Jim BRIDGER was with the miners. He had in early days married several different Indian squaws, and was the father of many half-breed Indian children. It is said he could count upon his fingers as many as from 20 to 30. His son William, a half-breed, then about 30 years of age, was then with him. Jim BAKER was a very fearless and powerful frontiersman, and had killed many Indians. He met the warlike party of Utes in council, and boldly told their chief that he had been to Washington and seen the great White Father, who had given him that country to Bear River, and that they must leave. The chief replied that the whites had killed their buffalo and mined their gold, and he demanded that they leave. BAKER seized the chief and roughly jerked him off his horse, telling him he would kill him, and BAKER stepped into his camp and seized his rifle, ordering the Indians to leave or he would open fire, and the fight would begin at once. The sagacity of the Indians convinced them that discretion was the better part of valor, and they departed; and BAKER sent three men, one of whom was our subject, to see that they crossed the Bear River.

Among the various experiences of Mr. TITTSWORTH when a young man, struggling to gain a position in life, is his career as a circus man. For one season he was with Yankee Robinson’s circus in Illinois and Iowa, his business being to describe for a side show the relics left from the burning of Barnum’s famous museum in New York. Thus he obtained a wide knowledge of human nature, which has been of great value to him.

The summer ranch of TITTSWORTH was in the Salt Wells Basin, and he wintered his cattle at Brown’s Park, Colorado and Utah, which is a deep depression in the ground, the sides rising from 4,000 to 7,000 feet. At the foot of the park begins the grand canon of the Green River, at the gate of LaDore, the walls of which rise 2,000 perpendicular. July 24, 1872, he was married to Jane LAW, daughter of George LAW, a Scotchman, who was born in Fifeshire, Scotland in 1812, and who was married in that country to Elizabeth PHILLIPS. Mr. Law was a coal miner in that country, and in 1869 came with his family to America, settling in Cache Valley, Utah. To Mr. LAW were born ten children: John, William, Jemima, Margaret, Alice, George, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary and James. The father died in 1882 at the age of 70 years. Both he and his wife were members of the Church of Latter Day Saints. He was appointed President of the Crofthead branch of that church, which office he filled honorably for 13 years. He ws an honorable and upright citizen and was respected by all who knew him. Mr. TITTSWORTH was greatly assisted while on the ranch in Wyoming by his faithful wife. The ranch was very isolated, being at least 35 miles from the railroad and 15 miles from the nearest neighbor; and when Mr. TITTSWORTH was away on his trading expeditions, and as a guide to droves crossing the desert near his ranch, she was often all alone for three weeks at a time, save for her little daughter Florence. She knew the use of fire arms, and bravely endured the lonesome days and nights. She could shoot well, and could kill with a rifle wild ducks and sage hens. At one time, when her husband was away, a party of the Ute Indians visited her. They tried to frighten her, and got their guns ready. They asked for bread, which she gave them, and they finally went away. Mrs. TITTSWORTH helped to make the property in Wyoming, and was a helpmate indeed to her husband. She was born at Crofthead, Scotland, March 29, 1857, was 13 years of age when she came to America with her family in 1870. She married Mr. TITTSWORTH July 24, 1872, and immediately became the mistress of a ranch. She is a splendid example of a type that we will soon see but little of in America. She has instilled into the minds and hearts of her children those principles of modesty and honesty which the true mother can alone impart. It has been said by an eminent writer that “no boy can be dishonest who had an honest mother.”

After marriage, Mr. TITTSWORTH lived on his ranch for nine years, or until the fall of 1880, when he moved to Pottawattamie County, Iowa, and settled on his present farm, consisting of 315 acres of fine farm land, which is pleasantly situated within one and a fourth miles of Avoca. Mr. And Mrs. TITTSWORTH, having the welfare of their children deeply at heart, and desirous that they should possess a good education, made considerable financial sacrifice in order to give them the benefits of our excellent educational system. He is a member of the G.A.R., U.S. GRANT Post of Avoca, Iowa, and also is a Mason of the order of Knights Templar. He is a practical farmer, stock raiser, and a member of the firm of Greenhalgh & Co., of Marshall County, South Dakota, where they own 800 acres of land, and are extensively engaged in horse breeding and farming.

Mr. TITTSWORTH is certainly a self-made man, having accumulated all his property by his own unaided efforts, and he stands deservedly high in this community as an honorable citizen. The family have a pleasant and cultivated home situated on a beautifully wooded eminence, and containing all things needful for luxury and comfort.

Although we have quite fully delineated the character of our subject, and related some of his more remarkable adventures, yet the biographer cannot leave him without a passing tribute of justice to the sterling straits of character, doubtless inherited from a worthy ancestry, which enabled him in early life to withstand the unusual temptations which surrounded his youth, and which in his more mature manhood strengthened his heart and nerved his arm to battle cheerfully with all the vicissitudes of life, that he might make a comfortable home for his wife and children, and win an honored and unsullied name for himself; that he might also bequeath to them that greatest of all blessings – a spotless character. To the most remote descendants, the reverend names of father and mother, the real founders of the family in this country, should be handed down with reverence and regard. To Mr. And Mrs. TITTSWORTH were born five children, namely: Florence Elizabeth born June 30, 1875; David born January 15, 1877, deceased; William D. born November 24, 1879; John C. born August 23, 1882, and Bertha B. born March 31, 1885.