Hales, Moses

EMMONS, HERRINGTON, ROSE, BAKER, PEARSON, OBER, TAYLOR

Posted By: Charles E. Hales (email)
Date: 7/31/2003 at 19:32:46

Moses Hales
1818-1845

In the spring of 1840 a young man named Moses Hales left Carroll County, Ohio to begin a new life in the Iowa Territory. With $250 borrowed from his uncles, Jacob Herrington and Adam Jackman he made a large decision — head west with the movements of the times. Moses and his bride of only a few months, Mary Jane Emmons, chose to stop at a growing area in the new Iowa Territory — the village of Keosauqua on the Des Moines River.
For most early settlers an important requirement, in addition to land, was water for transportation and power plus timber for building. Keosauqua with its new courthouse under construction met all the requirements for this young merchant. By 1864 his two younger brothers, John and Thomas Hales would also move west to the new state of Iowa. By the late 1800’s the Hales people would own more than 800 acres of land, mostly in Vernon Township southeast of Keosauqua.
Moses established a merchant business, which included the "Desmoines Mill" for milling grain on the river, and prospered as proven in his estate papers on file in the Van Buren County Courthouse. He paid off the $250 loans, how do we know? In the early days one of the interesting ways of doing financial transactions shows up in the dusty old probate pack #493. When a loan was paid off the debtor’s signature was torn off, in this case the uncles’ two notes are found in the file with Moses’ signature torn off.
By now it is obvious that there is a sad ending to the story of Moses Hales and his promising future. He died in Keosauqua on September 23, 1845, without a will at the age, of 27. Drs. Cyrus H. Ober and F. W. Taylor had called on him for a period of eight days prior to his death. Could the reason for his early death be explained in a publication The History of Van Buren County — Keosauqua Incidents — which says:

"In 1845 and 1846, there were but three families out of seven hundred people who were not ill. Bilious and intermittent fevers raged, and there was a heavy mortality list in consequence."

For those of us doing family histories, dying intestate can provide a great deal of information. This record also tells us that Moses had a partner, Robert Rose, who was doing wool carding along with Moses main business of milling flour and selling lumber. Even the famed Keosauqua resident, Benjamin Franklin Pearson, later a Lt. in the Civil War, is on his books for flour.
The probate file doesn’t say if he and Mary Jane had any children, I rather think not. This court record does not list a cause for his death nor does it give a burial site. Burials made during epidemics in the frontier were often done in haste and poorly marked which makes a search 150 years later nearly impossible.
In addition to his two younger brothers Moses had another uncle, Nathan Herrington, who with his wife Julia Ann Baker, also came to Van Buren County. Their tombstone is in Keosauqua’s Oak Lawn Cemetery.
While I know a great deal about the Hales in Van Buren County, this great uncle has always intrigued me. Tell me more.