Blanchard, James (1829-1923)

BLANCHARD

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 12/5/2016 at 01:30:04

The Advocate-Tribune Newspaper, Indianola, Iowa, Thursday, Feb. 1, 1906, front page
History of Warren County, by Geo. A. Epps

JAMES BLANCHARD
James Blanchard, the subject of this sketch was born at Urbana, Champaign county, Illinois, March 7, 1839, where he spent his boyhood attending school and working in his father’s wagon shop until he was sixteen years old. In the autumn of the year 1855 his father moved from Urbana to Osceola, Clark county, Iowa, where he entered eighty acres of land; the next year he sold the land, moved to Osceola and engaged in wagon making. In the fall of the 1856 James came to Palmyra to visit friends he had known in Illinois. When he returned to Osceola he portrayed the beauties of the country around Palmyra in such glowing terms that his father decided to come to the land of promise; accordingly in March of the year 1857 the family came to Palmyra. The subject of our sketch was eighteen years old; for the next five years he assisted his father in the shop and when not needed there he worked by the month for the farmers around the town. In company with Lem Flesher, G. M. Bartholomew, Tip Blizzard and Zeke Webster and others, he somehow went on foraging excursions. The soil was very productive in those days and the town of Palmyra vied with each other to see which could raise the best and largest water melons. When the melons were ripe the boys who were working through the day would go of nights to see the melons and the experience which “Jim” gained in those foraging excursions was useful to him later when he volunteered and entered the service of uncle Sam. In this way the boys had many hair breadth escapes. Some times the owner of the melon patch would object to having his melons judged by the boys; but nothing serious happened. It was sometimes a little hard on the melons but it made hustlers of the boys. In one of the papers which have preceded in this series I stated that there was a branch of the underground railroad extending from Thomas Boyd’s on Butcher creek west of Palmyra by way of Pierson’s farm north to Boston Taylor’s. While working in this Mason neighborhood, Mr. Blanchard made several trips from Pierson’s to Boston Taylor’s with runaway slaves. Mr. Blanchard remembers that while living at Osceola in the year 1856; John Brown with a company of men on their way from the east to Kansas passed through Osceola. They were armed and had two small cannons, the first he ever saw. John Brown made a speech in the court house on that occasion. I have been told by some of the old settlers that John Brown passed through Palmyra on one of his trips to Kansas. He was traveling in a covered wagon and camped at the roadside just east of where Mr. Blanchard now lives and I have it from what I consider good authority that John Brown passed through Palmyra in 1859 on his way to Harper’s Ferry and stayed over night with Dr. D. B. Rees, who at that time lived in east Palmyra in the house where Wren Bruce now lives. So Palmyra had the honor of entertaining the man whose hatred of slavery and love of liberty had much to do in bringing on the war of the rebellion. John Brown was a pioneer and a participator in the border ruffian warfare in the territory of Kansas. Too much cannot be said in praise of the brave and hardy men and women who endured the struggles and privation of pioneer life to make our country what it is. It was through this heroism and their toil that the way was prepared for the church, the school, the temple of justice, and the public institutions which the state has provided to meet the requirements of all conditions of society. They killed the rattle snakes, cleared away the brush, broke the prairie, planted the orchards and laid the foundation which made it possible for Iowa to rank with the foremost states in the republic. Rude and unlettered as many of them were, they fought the good fight, transformed the wild prairies into the productive farms of today and place our generation under a debt of gratitude which we can never repay. So it is our custom to meet one day in each year at Summerset where with song and speech and hearty handshake we assure the old settler of our appreciation of the great achievements of the last half century. In the evolution of time another character appears on the state and performs his duty in the great drama of life and this character is the soldier. The pioneer is the founder of a state or nation but the soldier is the nation’s defender, its savior. For more than a century the press, the pulpit and the public lecturer have been proclaiming the coming of a time when the nations of the earth would not engage in war any more. But the truth is, there never was a time in the history of the world when so much money, brains and inventive genius was being used to the preparation for war as today. Washington, the father of our country, the first president of the republic was a slaveholder. The institution of slavery was so firmly rooted in the south at the organization of the government that it could not then be eliminated. We have attempted to show in a previous article on the underground railway how the north and south became arrayed each other on account of slavery and how this estrangement culminated in the civil war by the arrogant slave power trying to secede from the union of states. At half past four o’clock on Friday morning, April 12, 1861 the first rebel shot was fired at the flag which floated over Fort Sumter. This shot electrified and unified the north and the south and the war followed. In the north the mechanic closed his shop, the farmer left his plow, the merchant his yard stick marching to the field of battle with the sword and the rifle they made it possible for Abraham Lincoln to issue his emancipation proclamation and thus the soldier became the savior of his country the emancipator of man and when Lee surrendered his sword to Grant the union soldier returned to his home with the stars and stripes floating over the grandest republic on earth; a nation without a master, without a slave; a nation where every man is entitled to the price of his labor, a nation where every child is born a free child, with a free mother to nurture and protect it. The world’s greatest problem is, and always has been, the emancipation of man and the key which furnishes the solution of this question is patriotism, the noblest attribute of the soul. Patriotism is the link connecting man with the divine. Christ was impelled by patriotism for the world to wear the crown of thorns and suffer on the cross. Patriotism eradicates all selfishness, the patriotic soldier forgets self, leaves home, leaves family and sheds his blood for the good of all. He has transformed the warring states of 1861 into a sovereign power great and free. A nation respected and feared by the leading powers of the earth. Let us nourish the seeds of emancipation until Cuba is annexed, Canada admitted and Mexico taken in on probation with one flag, the stars and stripes, floating over all. James Blanchard enlisted in company B, 31 Regiment Iowa volunteers, August 11, 1862 and was honorably discharged Aug. 15, 1865, having served three years and four days. His discharge shows that he participated in every engagement in which his regiment was engaged during the war. His record shows that he enjoyed good health and with the exception of a short time when he received an injury from a fall, he was always able for duty. He has no hospital record. He receives a pension of six dollars per month. It is a law of nature that there are not two things in all the world exactly alike, no two leaves, no two blades of grass, no two men. Every man has something by which he is distinguished from his fellow man; and one of Mr. Blanchard’s peculiarities is that he always speaks the truth. He has his faults and weaknesses but he is truthful. After receiving his discharge at Houston, Texas he returned to his home in Palmyra, arriving on the evening of Sept 7. The soldiers coming to Hartford and Palmyra came as far as Kellog station in Jasper county on the train. There they hired a man to bring them in a wagon to Hartford. William Taylor, son of Boston I. Taylor, who had served through the war in Mr. Blanchard’s company, died at Houston, Texas, after his discharge. He was the favorite son of Mr. Taylor. And on their return they stopped and told him of the death of his son. The moon was shining; the old man walked out under the great oak trees which stood around his house and with his face lifted heavenward the tears streamed down his cheeks. The scene was pathetic. After his return from the war he was married to Miss Margaret Lemon. From this union three children were born, one son and two daughters, the son died in infancy. One of the daughters, Mrs. J. L. Park, lives at Clay City, Kansas. The youngest daughter, Mrs. W. J. Myrick, lives at Bentonville, Ark. He worked at his trade of wagon maker for several years. He rented a farm one year and then bought forty acres east of town, sold that and bought the farm where he now lives joining the town plot on the north, containing eighty acres of good land well fenced; good buildings, a good orchard and a find grove of fifteen acres. In this grove is a find spring of water and two artificial ponds. A fine farm beautifully situated an ideal home. In June 1888 his first wife died and on the 18th day of October 1891, just twenty-six years to a day from his first marriage, he married his second wife, Miss Izora Byers. In her he has found a congenial companion and a true helpmate; and here they extend the hospitality of their home to their friends. Mr. Blanchard is not a member of a church. He belongs to Palmyra lodge 16, I.O.O.F. He affiliated with the republican party until 1896 when he supported W. J. Bryan for president. Since that time he has acted with the democrats. We think he is soundly converted to the doctrines and teaching of true democracy. I will close this paper with a list of the names of all who served in the war of the rebellion from Palmyra Township. The following list may not include the names of all those who volunteered from this place, but I have been unable to find the names of others: Eli Vance, L. F. Laverty, James Laverty, Samuel Parker, Sidney Viers, J. B. Halterman, Thos. Axtell, James Blanchard, Joseph Frazier, Tilman Fox, William Hall, Dennis Hall, Stephen James, Irwin James, William Nicholls, Jno. Peck, David Shepherd, M. T. Flesher, Wesley Dunagan, Dan Fox, Jacob Hefmer, George King, Garrett King, William Lundy, Oscar Lundy, Alva Myrick, Perry Myrick, F. W. Sexton, V. H. Scott, Henry Hootin, Abe Spence, James Cutlip, Harvey Reed, Elias Reed, Steward Reed, Silas Boyd, Matt Boyd, Scott Boyd, L. H. Kerr, Thos. Kerr, Wm. Kerr, W. N. Campbell, Eri Campbell, D. A. Campbell, William Parker, Harry Morris, Morgan Morris, C. W. Kitchel, Aaron Kitchel, W. W. James, Arch Payne, P. G. C. Merrill, Joseph Paul, Hatton Sander, W. E. Flesher, Sam Roberts, William Lewis, Matt Farley, Milt Davis, Wm. Ramsey, James Ramsey, John Surrett, Chas. Todhunter, G. M. Bartholomew, William Jessup, Charles Leaming, Rufus Maxwell, Isaac D. Nicholls, N. Turnipseed, James Gillman, Dan Sleeper, Rodney Higbee. The above names volunteers served in the 3rd, 4th, 10th, 15th, 34th, and 48th regiments. Some of them died on the field of battle; some died from disease in the hospitals; some lived to return home for awhile and enjoy the love of their families, the friendship of neighbors and the honors conferred upon them by a grateful country and then passed away; some returned and live her for awhile and then moved away and are now living in some other part of our country, but there are four, only four of the seventy-two, just one in eighteen of those who went forth to fight for home and country, now living in Palmyra township and their names are: Eli Vance, James Blanchard, Stephen James, who served in the 34th regiment, and G. W. Bartholomew who served in the 48th. They are honorable and respected citizens of our country’s noble defenders, but the flag under which they fought will forever float over the land they made free.