Arnold, Seth A. 1839-1907

ARNOLD

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 7/4/2011 at 11:12:17

The Grinnell Herald (Grinnell, Iowa) March 8, 1907

SETH A. ARNOLD

Vancouver (Wash.) Independent:

Rev. Seth A. Arnold was buried February 17, 1907, from the Presbyterian church of Ellsworth. Rev. Andrew Carrick, the pastor, conducted the services and four of the grown sons of the deceased were the pallbearers.

Seth A. Arnold was born in Darke County, Ohio, February 16, 1839, and came with his parents to Iowa in pioneer days. He became a Christian at the age of 19 years and dedicated his life to the ministry. He graduated from a classical course at Iowa College in '69 and later from the Union Park Theological Seminary of Chicago. He entered the ministry of the Congregational church in Illinois in 1871, and after four years came to Iowa, where he labored continuously for 30 years, preaching with success, earnestness and consecration.

The severity of the Iowa climate forced him to come to the coast in 1901, and for two years he was pastor of the Congregational church at Clackamas, Oregon. On account of failing health he retired from active work in 1903, and took up his residence at his beautiful home on the Columbia river near Ellsworth, where he spent these few years working to build up a Christian community. There being no Congregational church near his home, he united with the Presbyterian church at Ellsworth, was elected elder, served faithfully as Sunday School worker, as a member of the building committee when the new church was erected, and in all ways exerted himself to promote the best interests of the church and community up to the time of his last illness.

He was a man of strong moral and religious convictions and lived and taught as he believed. During the Civil War he was connected on the Union side with commissary work, while his father and several brothers were enlisted men. He was a patriot of the highest type, an exemplary citizen and constantly aggressive in the cause of all that is good.

He died a happy and triumphant death, surrounded by his family. Six children were at his bedside, one being absent in the Philippines.