Harrison Henry "Harry" Boyes (1839-1917)

BOYES, BALLARD, OLMSTEAD, TREEMAN

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 7/13/2015 at 22:43:50

From Nevada Representative March 16, 1917 (front page)

IN MEMORIAN.

HARRY H. BOYES

Harry H. Boyes, pioneer, veteran, farmer, county officer and much loved citizen, died at his home in this city Wednesday, March 14, 1917, following an illness the end of which had been apparent to all, himself included. Speaking a few weeks ago to an intimate friend, he said it was "the end of the ball of yarn," and he died as he had lived, facing without fear whatever might before him.

Harrison Henry Boyes, of "Harry," as he was universally known, was a son of Hiram L. and Esther Boyes, and he was born in Cataraugus county, New York, April 12, 1839, having attained at his death to an age of 77 years, 11 months and 2 days. He moved as a child of four years with his parents to southern Michigan, and in 1854, when he was fifteen years old the family came to Iowa and settled in Howard township of Story county on the farm which yet remains in the family and is occupied by his only son. He helped on the farm and attended the district school until the fall of 1860, when in company with some other young people of the neighborhood and county he went to Cornell College at Mt. Vernon, where his and their studies were very abruptly interrupted in the following April by the firing on Sumter and by President Lincoln's call for 75,000 men to put down the rebellion in ninety days. Along with Jason D. Ferguson and Addison Davis, who were fellow students at Mt. Vernon, and with George Schoonover, who got into the same association through some other circumstance, he undertook the job; and though it took him four years and a half, instead of the indicated ninety days, he staid by the job until it was done. The four young men noted were the sole representatives of Story county in the First Iowa Infantry, and they all went through the Missouri campaign of that regiment, marched forty-seven miles in one day, were in the Battle of Wilson's Creek, met a great reception on their return to Iowa after a service that had lengthened to four months and were muetered out with their regiments.

But the muster-out did not mean staying out. Schoonover ran the Representative for awhile with a great deal of much approved vigor, before he got back into the service with the result that he won further honors, was elected county recorder immediately following the war and died after he had been three months in office; but the other three got home just int time to find that Company B of the 2nd Iowa Cavalry had been organized largely out of this county and they started for Davenport to catch up with it. At Cedar Rapids Ferguson and Davis were stopped by proposals that they join a company organizing there for the 12th Iowa, so that Ferguson became its first lieutenant later, while Boyes kept on to Davenport accoding to the original program, went into the Company B and ultimately won his commission in that command. Ferguson was killed at Shiloh, and Davis died some fifteen years ago in California; so that of the original quartette of Story county soldiers Boyes was and had long been the sole survivor and he was the only one of them who continued to be known here or who survived to attend the semi centennial celebration of the regiment at Keokuk.

Mr. Boyes was persuaded once by the writer to prepare a chapter on the 2nd Iowa Cavalry for history of Story county which the latter was then compiling. We have re-read the chapter now to see what we can find in it about Harry Boyes; but the search is a barren one. There is a narration of a foil four years of intense regimental activity. The regiment was in nearly all the big scraps and as many of the little ones as one regiment of cavalry could possibly get into from Pittsburg Landing to the chase through Georgia after Jeff Davis; but all that one can get out of it about the author is the deduction that he must have been there in order to be telling the story the circumstances that he was promoted to lieutenancy sometime after the battle of Nashville, which was evidently the biggest fight that the regiment ever got into. And that is about what one is able to get on his own authority of the particular Story county soldier who gave more months of actual service to the cause of the Union than did any other soldier of county. Which statement will, of course, not be taken as discriminatory toward any other Story county soldier; but though there were many to respond to Lincoln's first call, there were few in a position to secure acceptance of their response, and Boyes was one of the few; while at the other end of the war there was such use for the cavalry to various patrol service in the south that the regiment was not went home and its member mustered out until October of 1865. He was in the service first and last and all the way between; and he was not killed nor even wounded, and he survived to a ripe old age in the county which he had honored with his service.

Immediately upon his return from the war he was married, October 1, 1865, to Miss Sarah E. Ballard of the same neighborhood in Howard township, and upon the removal a year and half later the senior Boyses to Nebraska, they took charge of the Boyes home farm before noted. There they remained until late in 1880, when Mr. Boyes, having been nominated and elected county recorder,m they removed to Nevada and here they continued to reside during the six years that he filled the recorder's office. After his retirement form office in 1887, they removed to Seward, Nebraska, and a year later to Wray, Colorado; but this western movement did not last long, and in 1891 they returned to the old farm in Howard township, where they continued for twenty years and until they were ready to move again in the spring of 1911 to Nevada. Here they have since made their home, celebrated their golden wedding and enjoyed others of the good things of life; for the unscathed hero of a hundred battlefields, came home one night from a visit with his relatives at Seward, Nebraska and was hit by a westbound freight as he was coming from the Northwestern depot. But his luck did not wholly turn; for he escaped with his life and only lost a foot though his further activities were circumscribed by this accident as well as by growing dullness of both sight and hearing. So it came about that in his very last years he was much shut in; but his courages never faltered and his temper never rose, and the love of all his friends continued with him.

Harry Boyes was in every respect a man of finest worth, and if anyone were to find a fault with him it would be that of undue modesty. But if he was modest; people found him out nevertheless, and honor and respect and confidence came to him as soldier and a man and a citizen. He was a very exceptional figure in the county, and honored and peaceful will be his rest. Mr. and Mrs. Boyes had four children of whom two boys died in infancy and a daughter, Lizzie, just as she was blooming into an attractive young womanhood. He is survived by Mrs. Boyes and their remaining son Homer L. of Howard township, also by brothers, George W. of Wray, Colorado; Carlos of Seward, Nebraska, and Hiram L. of Perry, Oklahoma and by sisters, Mrs. O. K. Olmstead of Seward and Mrs E. L. Treeman of Perry. The two from Seward and the two from Oklahoma will probably be here for the funeral; but the one from Colorado is not thought able to come. The funeral will be conducted from the home Saturday at one-thirty by Rev. Innes of Ames assisted by Rev. W. P. Payne of this city.

W. O. P.