Walsh, Adam J. (1818-1908)

WALSH

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/13/2021 at 12:52:46

ADAM JAMES WALSH (1818 - 1908)

History of Warren County, Iowa; Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns & Etc., by Union Historical Company, 1879, p.
WALSH, ADAM, farmer, Jefferson Township, Sec. 8; P. O. Lothrop; born in Kings county, Ireland, in 1818, and lived there till 30 years of age, then came to America and landed in New Orleans in the fall of 1848, and came to this county in April, 1852. He married Margaret gill, a native of Ireland, in the summer of 1859; they have a family of six sons and one daughter: Patrick, Adam, John, Thomas, Mary, Darby, and George; has a farm of 335 acres; he has held the office of Township Trustee.

Pioneer Sketches – by Leonard S. Spencer [Advocate Tribune, Indianola, IA, Thursday, April 30, 1885, p.2, col.2]
When the summer of our youth is slowly and silently, and without its touching effects, wasting into the nightfall of age and shadow of the past grows deeper, as if life were near its close, it is pleasant to look back through the vista of time upon the sorrows and felicities of the years. If we have a home to shelter us and friends have been gathered by our firesides, then the rough places of wayfaring will have been worn and smoothed away in the twilight of life, while the sunny spots we have passed through will grow brighter and more beautiful; happy is the man whose intercourse with the world has not changed the tone of his holier feelings, or the musical cords of the heart have not been broken, whose vibrations are so melodious, so touching to the evening of age; such men can look back upon the past with satisfaction and pleasure.
There is scarcely a more melancholy sight to a considerate mind than that of an old man who is stranger to the only true course of satisfaction. Nothing is more affecting and at the same time more disgusting than to see such a one awkwardly catching at the pleasures of his younger years which are now beyond his reach. To such a one gloomily indeed does the evening of life set in; all is dark and cheerless. A man in this condition can neither look backward with complacency nor forward with hope, while he who has lived a life that had a tendency to make men better instead of worse can lean back upon his Redeemer, can calmly reflect and say, “I have not lived in vain.” Wealth, power, prosperity, how transitory and uncertain; but religion dispenses her choicest cordials in the seasons of exigency, poverty, exile, sickness, and in death. We might dwell upon this longer, but perhaps we have said enough as regard to the coming age.
Once more we must refer the reader to the old country to find the birth place our subject. If we turn to the map of Ireland and look on the 53rd degree of north latitude and the 69th degree of east longitude we find a county named in honor of the king, called King County. In this county Adam Walsh was born during the year 1818, soon after the close of the great wars of Napoleon in which the Irish and English took a prominent part. His father being a tiller of the soil, young Adam and an older brother were raised to the same occupation, and this has been their profession during life.
Like many others of his countrymen, young Adam caught that hereditary disease, the western fever. He emigrated to Uncle Sam’s possessions in the year 1848. He came by New Orleans, and landed there in November of that year, he having a brother living there. Here he spent three years and six months of the best part of his life; sometimes working on a river steamer, sometimes upon a farm, just to accommodate the times and circumstances in which he was placed. He was willing to work at anything to make an honest living whether on board a steamer or on a farm or in the wood yard. After shifting about from pillar to post, here and there, he concluded to come to Iowa, where his bother, Patrick, had preceded him or perhaps they came together, the writer will not be positive.
He came to Warren County in April 1852 and settled in the western part of the county at what was then called Crew’s grove. Here the two brothers purchased a farm and settled upon it. They lived together; sometimes batching it, but the most of the time having a sister to keep house for them for several years, until the sister married, and if we are not mistaken she kept house for them for sometime afterwards. It was in their bachelor state that the writer became acquainted with them during the fall of 1854.
From that day until the present we have found Adam a man in all his dealings, a man in citizenship.
But as years were slowly and silently creeping upon him, he concluded that it was not the most part of life to live alone and that he would take to himself a helpmate. Perhaps he had his eye upon the woman of his choice for years, the writer is not prepared to say, but he made his selection and in August 1859 Miss Margaret Gill assumed the name of Mrs. Margaret Walsh. In her he found one that has been a helpmate through sunshine and storm. The fruits of this marriage are seven children; six boys and one girl.
A few years after the marriage of Adam, his brother, Pat, married. He was killed by his team in Des Moines; his horses having become frightened by the engine of a train of cars. He was killed almost instantly. Adam is living upon the farm they purchased on their coming here, thirty-two years since.
The writer of this article has been on very intimated terms with him for the last thirty years, and we have found him to be a man in its true sense. His brother Pat used to take a little too much of “How come you so,” but in all our acquaintance we have never seen Adam take a drop of the stuff. We do not say he has not taken his dram but we never saw him nor do we think he ever does. He has raised a fine family of boys to become young men. When he goes down to his grave may they honor them as sons should honor their father and mother.
In politics he is a conservative. His last vote was for the great statesman Blaine. In religious views he is a Catholic and is well posted in general matters. He will long be remembered as one of the early pioneers of Warren County. [Note; Adam J. Walsh was born Feb 7, 1818 in the county of King, Ireland and died May 7, 1908 in Warren Co., IA. He came to Warren Co., IA in 1852 and was married in 1859 to Margaret Gill (1832 - 1920). Both Adam and Margaret are buried in Saint Patricks Cemetery, Madison County, Iowa.]