James Hawthorn

HAWTHORN, MARTIN

Posted By: Margaret Owen Thorpe (email)
Date: 11/30/2004 at 22:05:03

The following biography of James Hawthorn, a leading citizen of Nevada in the 19th century, was transcribed from microfilm of the Story County newspaper by me - Margaret Owen Thorpe - a couple of years ago. James Hawthorn was my great-great-grandfather. His daughter, Mary Isabel, married Ira Edwin Martin in Nevada. They moved to Goleta, California, in 1869.

I am posting the biography not only for the wonderful and complete story it tells of Major Hawthorn but for the elegant writing of the 1904 editor of Story County's newspaper.

*******

OBITUARY OF
MAJOR JAMES HAWTHORN
NEVADA, STORY COUNTY, IOWA
OCTOBER 26, 1904

Major James Hawthorn died peacefully at his home in this city early in the afternoon of last Friday, October 21, 1904, aged ninety years, five months and seven days.

Thus ended a life that was most exceptional both in its length and in its usefulness. Honored by the community in which he lived, successful in his own affairs, efficient in promotion of the general good, the patriarch of a numerous and worthy family, he has passed to the reward of upright character and kindly disposition. No one will say that he was cut off in the bloom of his youth, but he lived in the full possession of his faculties to the last; and though any one who talked with him seriously at any time in the past few months had occasion to know that he regarded his remaining days as numbered, yet none had reason to doubt that he was ready for the final summons and was awaiting it without regret. He passed away as the patriarch should pass, with his family about him and friends to sorrow for him, but withal to feel that his passing was as the gathering of the ripened sheaf.

"Major Hawthorn", as he was always called, was born in County Down, Ireland, May 14, 1814, was left fatherless when one year old, and was one of a family of eight children who were brought by the widowed mother to this country three years later. The voyage was a long one by means of sailing vessel -- it was long before the days of steamships -- and it ended at Georgetown, the quaint old town at the head of navigation on the Potomac River. Thence after a little the family removed to Hagerstown, Maryland, where the boy grew to manhood with many privations and few advantages. His schooling was brief, and he was early put to work as a bobbin boy in a factory. Later he was a carpenter's apprentice, and when his apprenticeship ended at his coming to majority, he worked one month for ten dollars, and with the money in his pocket and his other belongings in a bundle that he flung with a stick over his shoulder, he started on foot for the west to find his fortune. He tramped to Columbus, Ohio, where his money having been about spent, he got a job carpentering; but he got the ague here and went to the home of a brother at Fairfield, Ohio, for a time. At Oxford in the same state, he was married to Rachel Hoover and two or three years later removed with his little family to Brookville, Indiana, which proved to be the home of his young manhood. He prospered here, held various offices, including that of sheriff, and was made major of a militia regiment, thus attaining to a title which ever after adhered to him. All was not happiness here, however, for his wife died, as well as a little daughter who was especially wont to greet him on his return from business trips abroad. These trips were made to sell a razor strap, in the manufacture of which he had engaged profitably; but on his return for one the child failed to meet him, and he lost his heart for traveling.

He was married again at Brookfield [sic - above says Brookville] to Mary Jones, and with her and his growing family came in 1855 from Indiana to Story County. Their first winter was spent amid primitive surroundings near Johnson's Grove; but the next year they removed to Nevada where ever after remained the family home. His second wife also died young; and he was married here in 1875 to Elizabeth Davis, a widow, who survived until March, 1893, when she died, and some years later he married Mrs. Jennie Duff, who has cheered his last years and survives him. In 1858 Martin Batzner, who was a barber and had a little grocery on the north side of the south square committed suicide, and he having no known relatives, Major Hawthorn was appointed to wind up his affairs. This circumstance brought the major into the merchandise business, in which he continued very successfully until 1876. This was the period of his greatest activity and most notable success. The country was developing rapidly; people were coming in; it was a time for men who were awake to their opportunities. But Major Hawthorn was ambitious not only for himself but his community. He recognized that in the determination of precedence in the new country railroads were everything and he set out to get railroads for Nevada.

The story of Major Hawthorn's struggle for transportation -- partly successful and partly unsuccessful -- is the most vital in his whole career, as well as the most important to the public. In those days railroads were largely a matter of land grants and subsidies. The roads were run out onto the prairies, where there was little or no business, but where it was expected that people would move in and make a country. Very small circumstances determined the fate of towns, and Major Hawthorn undertook, so far as he was able, to control these circumstances for Nevada. He went with a delegation to a railroad meeting at Cedar Rapids but was the only one of the number that could see anything in the prospect. [emphasis mine] The proposition of John I. Blair and others was to build the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad, if the counties along the line would give them the land grant that had been passed on to them by the state from the general government, and if also the counties would furnish the right of way and $700 per county for the survey. It was a pretty vague proposition; but the major worked up the case here and then went over to Boonesboro and worked it up there, where people had failed to take hold. He was made a director of the railroad and continued as such until the road had been completed to Council Bluffs and all the local directors frozen out.

Having contributed [illegible] to securing one railroad, Major Hawthorn started out to work up a cross railroad also. With men of similar enterprise in other towns he started in to work up the Iowa, Minnesota and Dakota Railroad. Its origin was to be at a now forgotten place on the Des Moines River, and it was to come up through Newton to Nevada and hence on to Eagle Grove, where it would fork and be extended ultimately along the routes that have since been substantially followed by the two branches of the Northwestern running northwest and north from Eagle Grove. In the furtherance of this enterprise he spent the great part of two years, canvassed the country along the route, talked in the school houses, got a five per cent tax voted in every township, had the bonds negotiated, and was apparently grasping assured success for the enterprise and attendant large rewards for himself -- when the elections of 1873 resulted in the choice of the "Granger Legislature." As fell the blight of populism in later years upon Kansas, so fell the blight of this legislature upon Iowa. It voiced a spirit of hostility to capital in general and to railroad capital in particular. While the legislation which it enacted remained on the statute book not a mile of railroad was built in Iowa. The capitalists who had agreed to back the Iowa, Minnesota and Dakota took fright with the rest and backed out of their bargain. The enterprise which meant so much to the men who were in it and to this community failed through political conditions arising suddenly at the critical moment and to which Story county had contributed by electing L.Q. Hogatt as its representative. When the political conditions again changed and railroad capital was again seeking investment in Iowa, the business situation had changed also and other interests were able to secure the field which the major had arranged to have his road occupy.

The failure of this road was the disappointment of Major Hawthorn's life, and the story of his effort and failure was the one that was always listened to with the greatest interest. He had worked with as good judgment and as fair prospects as did any of the promoters whose efforts fixed Iowa lines of transportation, and the upheaval that overthrew him was something of which there had been no sign in advance. Fate simply played him false and decreed that one railroad and its smaller rewards was all that he should be instrumental in bringing to the Iowa that was honored by including him in its citizenship.

Major Hawthorn was a factor in politics as well as in business; but he was a Democrat, and, in this Republican community, his opportunities were limited. As afore noted, he was in his younger days a sheriff in Indiana; and he was chosen once a representative in the General Assembly being the only Democrat that was elected to that office by the people of this county. He was elected in 1867, when there was a Republican split in the county, but the Republicans had even then more than two-thirds of the votes in the county, and if he had not run ahead of his ticket he could not have beaten even a divided party. In 1883 he was a candidate for the same office and received considerably more than the party vote, but party lines were then quite strictly drawn in the great prohibition fight, and all he could do was to reduce the Republican majority.

Major Hawthorn was an enthusiastic Mason and Odd Fellow. He had belonged to the Masonic Order for more than sixty years, and he had been an Odd Fellow in Indiana before the lodge here was organized in the latter '50s. He went often to the grand lodges and was recognized at home and abroad. As long as he could he kept up his attendance; and among his bretheren he will most certainly be missed.

Major Hawthorn was four times married and left his fourth wife, four living children, eighteen grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. He had, of children who grew to maturity two by his first wife, three by his second and one by his third. The last named had also four children by her former husband, who were reared as members of his family and stood to him in the light of children. His first wife's children were Mrs. Jennie Garrett and Mrs. Belle Martin, both deceased but leaving families. His second wife's children are Mrs. Esther Meek, Daniel J., and Isaac J. His one child by his third wife is James M. and her other children who he helped to rear are Isaac Davis and Mrs. Mary Martin of Valley Falls, Kansas, also Addison Davis and Mrs. Rachael Simmons, both deceased but leaving families. His last wife also had children before their marriage, but they were grown and were never members of his family. There were present at his funeral all of his living children, Isaac and James of Nevada, Daniel of Denver and Mrs. Meek of Waterloo, Indiana, his stepson Isaac Davis from Valley Falls, Kansas, his grand daughter, Mrs. Belle Garrett Rayburn and her husband from Grinnell; Mrs. Alice Dingman of Cedar Rapids, who was a niece of his third wife, and his other descendants and relatives from the county.

From the foregoing and from much more that might with truth, and probably ought in justice to be said it will be noted that Major Hawthorn was a man of mark in his community. Withal he was singularly modest; and when one looks back over much of his career as has been within the observation of men now active, it is impossible to say that anything that he has done in the sight of men has been done with the appearance of self-seeking. He struggled for the railroads, because he wanted his town to have the roads; and he ran for office because the members of his party recognized his availability and forced him into the fight. He was honored by his bretheren of the secret orders because they liked him, and he liked them. He was loved by his family and all his acquaintances because he was kindly of heart. The closing years of his extraordinarily long life were spent in quietude and peaceful enjoyment which were rightfully his and which constituted the best surroundings for a retired patriarch. At his death there is a sentiment that he had lived his life, the whole of it, and that all is well.

The funeral was conducted at the Presbyterian church at 2:30 Sunday afternoon by the pastor, Rev. W.H. Sanford, who delivered a short but most fitting address; and the last rites at the grave were pronounced by the members of the Masonic lodge.