Stickney, John Maurice, 1845-1904

STICKNEY, GARDNER

Posted By: Lydia Lucas-Volunteer (email)
Date: 11/22/2011 at 22:51:30

A PIONEER GONE

John M. Stickney died at his home in Sioux City last Friday [December 30] at the age of fifty-nine years. He was a pioneer of Sioux county and had only resided at Sioux City a few months. He was an old soldier well known in army circles. His family is well known throughout the county--two of his daughters having been prominent teachers in the public schools of several towns of Sioux county. He died of heart failure from which he had suffered for years. He was sitting up in bed when the end came and he suddenly fell back dead.

Deceased was born at Lockport, New York in 1845. He came to Iowa when a boy and at the age of sixteen enlisted in the Eighth Iowa Volunteer Cavalry. He served in the Army of the Tennessee under Brig. Gen. McCook. He was a prisoner in Andersonville and Florence prisioners [i.e., prisons] from July 1864 until March 1865 and passed through all the horrible experiences of those prisons. Thirty-four years ago he crossed the Floyd river with an ox team where the town of Sheldon now stands and homesteaded a piece of wild prairie eighteen miles west of there. He passed through all the harrowing pioneer days of Sioux county--acquired a competency and raised a respected family.

He leaves to mourn him a wife and eight children. They are all at home and attending school in Sioux City except Mrs. LeRoy Craig of Leeds and Miss Emerald who teaches at Alton.

An account of his prison days written for the Pattersonville Index twenty years ago should be of interest to his old comrades and friends and the public generally. It is an interesting article and we reproduce it in full below: [There follows a very lengthy reminiscence of Andersonville and Florence prisons.]

Source: Alton Democrat, January 7, 1905 (p. 1)

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Also in the Alton Democrat, January 7, 1905 (p. 8):

Died at his home at Morningside, Sioux City, John Maurice Stickney aged nearly sixty years. Mr. Stickney was one of the pioneers of Sioux county having lived here thirty-four years. He and his family moved to their present home at Sioux City about two months ago for owing to his failing health he was unable to attend to business on the farm. Mr. Stickney was an old soldier and loved to talk of the war times. He was an inmate for some months of the terrible Andersonville prison. He was known as an earnest patriotic man, a true friend and honest citizen and his death is much regretted by his friends and old neighbors in Sioux county.

The funeral was held at Hull Sunday afternoon and was attended by old soldiers and friends from different parts of the county who came to pay a last tribute of respect to their old comrade. Rev. Chandler of Sioux City conducted the funeral services which were under the auspices of Grand Army of the Republic and the Women's Relief Corps. We offer our deep sympathy to the widow and children in their bereavement. Mrs. Stickney and children returned to Morningside Monday morning.

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COMRADE STICKNEY DEAD

Nearly sixty years ago, at Lockport New York, a little boy who was named John Maurice Stickney was born. A few years later with his parents he moved to Wisconsin, thence to Kansas and then to Marshaltown from which place he enlisted in the year 1863, scarecely a lad of eighteen, in what was known as the "Boy regiment." With some others he was taken prisoner and spent several months inside the Andersonville prison wall. How any of them ever survived this awful hellhole is more than mortal mind can understand. Impoverished in body and insane, John Maurice Stickney was paroled with others at the close of war.

After returning home, and regaining his health as much as could be expected, he migrated to Sioux county in the vicinity of where Perkins is now and entered a homestead which became the early home of himself and his young wife, and later "Willow Glen" to his excellent family. Through grasshopper days, and the pioneer struggles, this soldier and pioneer and his faithful wife labored to make themselves a home. A good home it was, but owing to Mr. Stickney's failing health, and the desire to give the children better educational advantages, they rented their farm this last fall and moved to Morningside, Sioux City. But the dread disease that had taken a sure hold on him in old Andersonville, asserted itself to the extent that his case had been pronounced hopeless and that he was liable to die at a moment's warning. Last Friday morning after another severe attack, the final summons came and word was passed around among friends that Maurice Stickney had died.

His funeral under the direction of the G.A.R. Cottrell post, at Hull of which he was a member, was held from Davidson's hall at Hull Sunday afternoon. The funeral sermon was preached by Rev. Chandler of Sioux City, the deceased's pastor. He paid just tribute to the old soldiers who fought, bled and risked their lives for this government. Eloquent tribute was paid to the character and worth of the deceased. The deceased leaves a wife and eight children to mourn his death. All were permitted to attend the last sad rites, though Mrs. Stickney was threatened with apoplexy about the noon hour. The doctor through resort to restoratives and prompt work averted physical collapse. Mrs. Stickney though unable to be present during the funeral service, went to the cemetery where the last remains of John Maurice Stickney were laid to rest in Hope cemetery. [There follows a paragraph of sentimental expressions.]

Source: Rock Valley Bee, January 6, 1905.

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The death of the late J. M. Stickney of Morningside, Sioux City, came as a surprise and shock to his many friends and acquaintances in Rock Valley and Hull, in both of which he was well and favorably known; he died of heart failure, induced by a chronic heart disease, the result of his army service. At 7 o'clock Friday morning, Dec. 30, 1904, at his home in Morningside after a short but painful illness, death coming suddenly and unexpectedly.

He was born in Lockport, New York, in 1845, came west when a child with his parents, residing in Wisconsin, Kansas and Iowa, enlisting in the early summer of 1863 in the Eighth Iowa Cavalry and served till the close of the war, was captured in 1864, and confined eight months in Andersonville, Ga., Florence, Ala., and Macon, Ga., being paroled in February, 1865. He came to Sioux county in 1870 with his parents, being one of the original homesteaders of the county; was married in 1874 to Miss Kate L. Gardner, who with 8 children survives to mourn his loss. The remains were intered in the cemetery at Hull on New Year's day, under the auspices of the G.A.R.

The writer was intimately acquainted with him, and had been his personal and family physician for a third of a century, and in the exercise of the closest bonds of friendship can bear testimony to his excellence and worth as a husband, father, friend and neighbor. He died a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and in the last conversation held with him by the writer expressed himself prepared and ready whenever the final summons should come; and as your correspondent stood beside the bier of his dead friend and comrade, and looked on the features so lifelike, so calm and placid even in death, there came a tugging at the heart-strings, a dimness of the eyes, natural yet not unmanly, as he realized we should meet no more save sometime in the limitless expanse of the Great Beyond. A good man and true friend has gone, a brave and noble comrade has answered the last roll call and over his resting place let there be inscribed the fitting epitaph: "After life's fitful battle he rests in peace."
KLAUS VAN SPRUIJKENDOOKER

Source: Sioux County Herald (Hull), January 4, 1905.