The Summers Family

SUMMERS, SEELEY, LITTELL, JOHNSON, BLAKELY, DUTTON, MOREHEAD, FORTNER, SMITH, PARKHURST, WHITFORD, CURTIS, HEADLEY, PIERCE, BUCHANAN, LEONARD, MURPHY, DISNEY, JONES, DODGE, HARLAN, GRIMES, BRIGGS, HEMPSTEAD, LEFFILER

Posted By: LuAnn Goeke (email)
Date: 5/23/2009 at 07:51:05

THE SUMMERS FAMILY.
By J.W. Ellis.
In the territorial days of Iowa, and during the first decade of statehood, but few names were more familiar in Jackson, Clinton and Scott counties than that of Summers. In 1837 Laurel Summers, who, it appears, was a man of much more than average ability, came to Scott county and settled at LeClaire, where he spent all the remaining years of a long and useful life.
In 1840, Redmond and Shelton, brothers of Laurel, came to Clinton county and settled in the town of Comanche, the first town founded in Clinton county, and, according to John Seeley, who wrote an interesting article on the Summers' family, was there in 1844 when the first recorded tornado passed through that village. Mr. Seeley said: "The house of Redmond Summers stood in the line of the tornado. Seeing the storm approaching and having no protection in the way of a cellar or dugout, Mr. Summers told his wife to take the baby, afterward Mrs. Amanda Littell, and get under the bed, while he would hold the door, trusting that the stout logs of which the house was composed would withstand the storm. The house was blown down and Mr. Summers found himself lodged in a tree, and not much injured. He also found his wife and baby unhurt."
In 1845 Redmond and Shelton came to Jackson county. Redmond settled on section 29, South Fork township, and Shelton on section 19 of same township, where both gentlemen spent the remaining years of their lives, living to a good old age, honored and respected by all who knew them.
Another brother, Caleb, who came later, has always resided in this vicinity and is still living, in 1910, in the vicinity of Maquoketa. Sheldon, or Shelton Summers, was married to Martha Johnson, of Indiana, and by her had several children, viz.: Mary Jane, John, Samantha and Nancy. Redmond was married in 1842 to Miss Vashti M. Blakey*. By this union was born Amanda, heroine of the cyclone and mother of our townsman, Harry Littell, of Maquoketa. There also came to Jackson county in 1856, the second daughter, Adaline, who married Ezra Dutton, of Iron Hills. Annie, the third and last child of Redmond, married John Littell, who for many years owned a farm near the Morehead bridge.
When the Summers brothers first came to Iowa Territory, they came with ox-teams, and their first markets were Dubuque and Galena. Redmond Summers died in 1896, and his wife in 1906. Two daughters still survive them, their eldest, Mrs. Amanda Littell, having passed away June 14, 1909.
Shelton Summers died many years ago, but his two daughters, Mary Jane Fortner and Samantha Smith, still reside in Maquoketa. His wife passed away in 1909. Caleb Summers also has three daughters, Helen, Eva and Mamie, and one son, James, on the old home farm in South Fork township. The following biographical sketch of Laurel Summers is copied from the Port Byron Globe, dated May 10, 1901:
"Among the pioneers of Iowa the name of the late Laurel Summers, of LeClaire, well deserves conspicuous and honorable mention in the history of this great commonwealth, for he was among the first of the early settlers who began the work of transformation of a wilderness into one of the richest and most progressive states of the American Union, and through the territorial era and the period of statehood, covered by the passing of more than a third of a century, he was a zealous, active and efficient coworker with his fellow citizens in the marvelous development of Iowa, which the annals of the state so well portray in record of its progress.
Laurel Summers was born in Montgomery county, Kentucky, October 2, 1812. Thence he removed with his parents in 1823 to Morgan county, Indiana, where he remained until 1830, when he located at Indianapolis, where he learned the bricklayer's trade. In 1837 he came to Iowa, and soon decided to locate in Scott county, which throughout his life remained his home.
At that time, as the historian records, Iowa was a part of Wisconsin Territory, but by act of Congress, June 12, 1838, the then future Hawkeye state acquired a territorial organization of its own. At the first election thereafter, September 10, 1838, Mr. Summers was elected to the house of representatives of the first general assembly of the new territory, and he continued to represent the people of Scott county therein in 1839 and 1840. In 1845 he was chosen a member of the territorial council, corresponding to the state senate, in which body he retained membership until statehood was attained, December 28, 1846. In August, 1850, he again became a member of the legislature, having then been elected to serve in the lower house.
During these years Mr. Summers lived in the part of the present town of LeClaire, then known as Parkhurst, so named in honor of an estimable family of pioneers, among the first settlers of the locality. A daughter of this family, Miss Mary Parkhurst, born in the State of New York, January 11, 1822, was united in marriage to the subject of this sketch in May, 1841, and in this first year of the twentieth century she is blessed with good health, and exhibits lightly the weight of nearly four score years. Five children were born of this union: Mrs. Helen L. Whitford, of Beloit, Wisconsin; Mrs. Elsie A. Curtis and Mrs. S.I. Headley, of LeClaire; Augustus D., of Dallas county, Alabama; and Lewis Cass—the last named died in infancy.
In 1853 Mr. Summers was appointed United States marshal for Iowa by President Pierce, and in 1857 he again received the appointment, his last commission for an additional four years tenure of the office having been signed by President Buchanan. At that time Iowa comprised but one United States judicial district, and as there were no railroads in the state prior to 1855, and but little railroad trackage within its borders later during his term of service. Mr. Summers traveled mainly by stage or steamboat in attending sessions of the Federal courts. In 1860 he conducted the United States census, which exhibited the remarkable growth from 1840 of forty-three thousand population to six hundred and eighty-four thousand but a score of years later.
Shortly prior to his retirement from the position of United States marshal in 1861, after eight years' service therein, he was chosen by his fellow townsmen to serve them as mayor, and in later years he was thrice more called upon to serve them in the same capacity. In 1858 he had been a member of the city council, and in these positions of municipal trust he demonstrated the qualities of efficiency and devotions to the public interests that had characterized his course as a legislator in the pioneer legislative assemblies of Iowa. In 1874 he was designated by the governor to serve as trustee of the Iowa Agriculture College at Ames, and there superintended some important building improvements, for which trust his excellent business capacity and his skill as a mechanic well qualified him.
His last public service, not many years before his decease, was that of chief deputy for Sheriff Howard Leonard, and at various times he was called upon by Mr. Leonard to discharge the full functions of the office.
At the dawn of a spring morning, April 15, 1890, Laurel Summers was called away from earthly scenes. From the press of the state and from beyond its borders, from citizens of his county and state, and from many in other states there came eloquent and touching tributes to his memory. They were merited. He was a man whose nature drew toward him a feeling of warm personal regard, whether inside or outside of his own political fellowship. After the close of a heated political contest, political opponents who had referred to him unkindly, became his warm, personal friends. His unselfish nature, his able, genial manner and his strong intellectual and moral worth rendered it impossible for anyone to retain a feeling of resentment toward him. He was optimistic, but never visionary. He entertained a feeling of intense pride - well justified - in the great state whose foundation he had assisted in placing. His perceptive sense enabled him, in early years, to foresee the coming greatness of this region, and he was ever earnest and outspoken in advocacy of any measure that could contribute toward its more complete development. An instance is here given on the authority of the late Hon. J.H. Murphy. Mr. Murphy many years ago informed a well known and respected citizen of LeClaire (C.P. Disney) that Laurel Summers was the first man to suggest that the island of Rock Island be reserved for the building of a government arsenal, and that he urged that the legislature memorialize congress to that end.
It is not improbable that Iowa owes to Mr. Summers the historic interest to that municipality as having been the capital of the territory and state from 1841 to 1857. In 1840 the subject of removal of the capital from Burlington was agitated in the legislature, Mount Pleasant having been a contestant for its location, when, after many fruitless ballots, during which Burlington strove to retain it, Laurel Summers turned the scale in favor of Iowa City by announcement of his vote therefor.
In official position Mr. Summers well exemplified the illustration, "A public office is a public trust," in his zeal, efficiency and strict integrity which characterized his fulfillment of its duties. He was not an orator, but his public addresses were clear and impressive, and no hearer could doubt the perfect sincerity of his expressed convictions. He was an able and highly entertaining conversationalist, and a most interesting correspondent. The large accumulation of letters left by him from men distinguished in public life as well as from others gifted in literary attainment fully testify to the appreciation vested in correspondence with him. In public life he was contemporaneous with such eminent men as Senators Jones, Dodge, Harlan and Grimes; Governors Briggs and Hempstead; Congressmen Leffiler, Cook and Vandever, and Judges Love, Mason, Grant and Dillon, and with many other men of distinction in the annals of Iowa. But the correspondence of Mr. Summers was not restricted to fellow citizens of his own commonwealth; it included men famous throughout the republic, in and out of the public service, at the national capitol and elsewhere.
Such men as Laurel Summers are a benefaction to any community in which they cast their lot. They are as an inspiration intellectually and morally, for they afford a noble example to those who come within the radius of continued association with them, and thus it is that their influence becomes apparent as a halo to all within their vicinage. It was, therefore, but natural that the neighbors and townspeople of Mr. Summers should feel and manifest a keen sense of personal loss when they realized that he was no more on earth. No more deserving, no more appropriate inscription was ever placed upon a monument than the brief one engraved upon that erected in the LeClaire cemetery which marks the grave of Laurel Summers: "An honest man is the noblest work of God."
1910 History of Jackson County Iowa, Pg 379-381

*Name should be Blakely.