Egbert Storrs Barrows 1799-1892

BARROWS, SULLIVAN, SANDERS, FREYER

Posted By: Obituary Fairy (email)
Date: 6/28/2009 at 16:04:16

The Davenport (IA) Tribune; Wednesday, March 9, 1892:

Another Old Settler Gone

Dr. E. S. Barrows, in His Ninety-Third Year, is no More With Us

Another old settler has passed away, and one who for a great many years was a marked individual in this locality with which he had been identified since he became a citizen of Rockingham in 1836, soon afterwards removing to Davnport which was his home till death. Dr. Egbert Storrs Barrows died yesterday afternoon, March 8, at 2 o’clock, at his long time residence in this city. He would have been 93 years old on the 26 of this month, and might have lived years longer, with his vigorous health and remarkable vitality, but for an unfortunate accident. Last Friday week he fell while walking in his own house, and the result was the fracture of a bone in his left hip. From that hour he was almost incapable of any movement whatever without assistance. As a physician he realized that at his age there was no prospect of ever being able to get on his feet again. Yet his death came sudden and unexpectedly to those who had so tenderly cared for him.

Dr. Barrows was born at Middlebury, Vermont, March 26, 1799, one of a large family of children of whom he was the sole survivor. He was a man of remarkable size and strength, and when only 18 years old was six feet high and weighed 180 pounds. At 25 he weighed 225 pounds, and in the 50 years following never varied five pounds from this weight. He left home early and studied medicine at Frankfort, Ky. He was a surgeon in the U. S. army during the Florida or Seminole war. July 6th, 1836, he left St. Augustine for Iowa, then just opened for settlement, and located at Rockingham, as a physician. On the trip he met a young lady, sister of Col. John H. Sullivan, of Rockingham, and daughter of Judge Sullivan of Zanesville, O., and soon after they were married at Columbus, O. Mrs. Barrows died at Marietta, Ga., only last year, and was buried here April 9th.

The old settlers yet living have many kindly remembrances of Dr. Barrows. He was big in heart as in frame, rough and peculiar in his ways, yet a gentleman in every refinement of feeling, honesty, truthfulness and integrity. Since the close of the war, during which he was examining surgeon here, he had retired from practice with a sufficiency to spend his remaining years in comfort. He leaves two daughters, Mrs. Add. H. Sanders, of this city, and Mrs. F. L. Freyer, of Marietta Ga.

The time of the funeral cannot yet be announced. The doctor has long had his own and wife’s monument erected at Oakdale and on it are inscribed these words:
“All who sleep here still exist as material constituents of the universe. Hope may, but belief should not transcend experience.”