Reminiscences of L.B. Copeland

COPELAND, PAGE, PARKER, SCOTT, TILTON, HENDERSON

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 4/23/2011 at 15:42:49

The Grinnell (IA) Herald; Jan. 2, 1934

REMINISCENCES OF L.B. COPELAND

L.B. Copeland, Civil War veteran, who will be 88 years old "pretty soon," writes The Herald an interesting letter from Quincy, Mich., telling of experiences of the early days in this section. He says:

"I have read what old settlers have written in your paper of early days in Iowa. Maybe you would call me an old settler. I came with my parents to Poweshiek county in the spring of 1856, when I was ten years old. We settled near Lynnville, a quarter of a mile east of the Jasper county line. I helped my father all I could getting logs to build us a log house and we got it done before winter. We got help to raise it from some neighbors. They were scarce those days as it was a new country and neighbors were few and far between.

"Late that fall my father said for me to fetch the yoke of oxen, saying that he would go on ahead with the gun. He had located a deer lick of salt. I heard him fire off his gun. I went and put the chain around the deer's neck and dragged it to the house. We got one or two more that winter. I saw five or six coming out of a small grove while I was standing in the house door.

"I grew to manhood at that place and in 1864 I enlisted with a neighbor friend, Homer Page. We went that spring with the Grinnell and Montezuma boys, making up Company B of the 46th Iowa regiment. L.F. Parker and Charley Scott were lieutenants and J.H. Tilton was captain of Company B and D.B. Henderson was colonel of the regiment. I was discharged Sept 23, 1864, at Davenport, and came home.

"I married a Quaker lady in 1866 and joined the Friends church. We stayed in that neighborhood until 1880 on my brother's farm part of the time.

"In 1871 one day I thought of going to church on mid-week meeting day. My wife and little boy did not want to go so I walked to the old church that was there by the Friends' cemetery east of Lynnville. Some way I felt an urge to do something. I tried to keep off but it got to pressing harder on me. Everything was still as a mouse so Levi broke loose in singing, which never was done before that I knew in the Friends church. When church broke up, I did not get out of the yard before I was tackled by an old friend for disturbing the church. Some favored me. That song was:

"Pray, brothers, pray:
The heavens are shining.
Pray, brothers, pray;
The Lord is upon His throne.
A few days more
And the Lord will call us home
To walk the streets
Of the new Jerusalem."

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(By W.G. RAY)

The preceding letter from L.B. Copeland goes into the misty memories of the past as far back as 1856. He speaks of some things which we learned from reading Prof. Macy's autobiography of himself. The Copeland family came here in the summer of '56 and if our memory is right the next winter was a severely cold one which the old timers remember with interest. He speaks of shooting deer in the timber near his home. In those days deer was rather plentiful in the region near Skunk river and the adjacent creeks. His rebuke for singing in church and disturbing a Quaker meeting seems quite natural after reading Prof. Macy's memory of the Quaker ideals in those days.

We are very glad to hear from Mr. Copeland and glad to publish it because it calls up memories of long ago.