Dixon, Andrew J. (1829-1909)

DIXON

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 12/1/2016 at 23:33:50

The Advocate-Tribune newspaper, Indianola, Iowa, Thursday, Jan 4, 1906, front page

History of Warren County, by Geo. A. Epps

ANDREW DIXON
Andrew Dixon and his twin brother, George Washington Dixon, were born among the pine-clad hills and mountain slopes of old North Carolina on the first day of January, 1829; here their uneventful lives passed quietly until they reached the age of twenty years; their youth had been spent at hard work and they found themselves at this age strong, rugged men, with a strong desire to go out into the world and do something for themselves. Accordingly they bid farewell to father and mother and the scenes of their childhood and started out to seek their fortunes. Their path lay to the northwest in the direction of old Virginia. About two o’clock in the afternoon of the first day of their journey, they sat down to rest and quench their thirst from a spring which bubbled from the side of the Blue Ridge mountains over which they were passing. There beside this mountain spring they meditated, deliberated and made decisions, which shaped the destinies of their future lives. George Washington Dixon turned back and returned to the old home where years afterwards he was killed in the machinery of a mill which he was tending. But Andrew Jackson Dixon, the subject of our sketch pressed onward and upward over the mountains in the direction of old Virginia. What a picture! Those twin brothers, swarthy browed and rugged , standing on the mountain side holding each other by the hand. At last the moment for separation came; they press each other’s hands and separate; the one goes back to the loved ones at home, to him the grandest place on earth; the other goes out in search of new fields, new opportunities, new obstacles to conquer, and a new home to make. For a time that afternoon the twin brothers could see each other – the one pressing on, the other retreating – each to perform his allotted part in the great battle of life. In due time Andrew arrived at his destination in Virginia where he apprenticed himself to a blacksmith, working for two years, when he again set his face toward the setting sun and in the year 1857, fifty-four years ago, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Gus Laudy, the marble and granite dealer of Indianola, he landed in Palmyra with no capital but a pair of brawny arms and a firm determination to succeed. He went to work with Doc Farley as a partner in the blacksmithing business, this shop was located on the lot where Mrs. L. H. Kerr now lives; there was no spreading chest nut tree to shade the shop of those pioneer artisans, but few children coming home from school looking in at the open door watching the flaming forge; the blacksmith of that day pounded from the iron and steel many of his tools, he made his bolts, his knife, his horse shoes; he made the farmer’s ax and hoe, his plows and much of the work now done by machinery was shaped by hand in the blacksmith shops of fifty years ago. Notwithstanding the hard labor of the day Mr. Dixon had some music in his soul and nights after the day’s work was done, he would sit up on his forge and magnetize his brawny arms with the fiddle and bow. When he had earned money enough he purchased the lot where the old drug store building now stands and built a house thereon. He sold this property in a short time, went to Des Moines and purchased from Allen and Steele the forty acre tract of land lying north of where George Gardner’s house now stands, and from that day on for many years he pounded iron late and early; the money was invested in land and today he is the owner of 340 acres of as fine farm land as can be found in Warren county. At the time we are now writing of a strip six miles wide from the north side of Warren county had been attached to Polk county. Palmyra was in Polk county. Early in the spring of the year 1858 Mr. Dixon concluded that it was not good for a man to live alone, so in company with
George Bartholomew, Lem Flesher and Wm. Popejoy, he went to Des Moines and procured a marriage license; on his return to Palmyra he was married to Miss Harriet Flesher. One child was born to them but died in his youth. When Mr. Dixon went to Des Moines after his marriage license he and his companions did not go to Carlisle and take the train as we do today; they did not hitch to the carriage because there was not a carriage in the township, but they walked, went afoot. When they got about four miles this side of Des Moines on the banks of a little stream stood a little shanty called a claim house; this they pushed into the stream just to see the water splash. So, we see human nature fifty years ago was very much like human nature today. All of our ancestors were not George Washingtons. After Mr. Dixon’s marriage he lived for awhile in the town of Palmyra, then south of town on the Hooper farm. He then bought and lived on the farm where William Lindamood now lives, but for the last forty years he has lived on the farm where he now lives. He set up his forge and worked at his trade. Only a few years ago he sold his tools to the son of his nephew, Samuel Garrett. Mr. Dixon rents his land to tenants who pay him grain rent; he does not handle stock but sells the grain and takes good care of the proceeds and there is after all where the secret of success lies, in knowing how to take care of the proceeds; and what is true in regard to the accumulation of dollars and cents is true in regard to the accumulation of knowledge We may learn how to think but we must do more than this, we must learn how to save our thoughts for future use. Mr. Dixon has always affiliated with the democratic party, but of late years he has a strong leaning toward the prohibition party. A few years ago he united with the Friends church, near his home. If he lives three more years he will reach the four score mile post of life. In the evolution of life each life that is honestly lived leaves some distinctive mark upon the human race. So when the old blacksmith throws down the hammer and passes on to the great beyond it is our belief that his life of toil will leave its impress upon the good people of Palmyra.