Cleavenger, Eliza J.

CLEAVENGER

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/13/2021 at 14:09:42

ELIZA JANE CLEAVENGER
born Apr 24, 1823, Ohio

Mrs. Eliza Jane Cleavenger, widow of the well-known pioneer citizen and founder of Lacona, was born in Highland county, Ohio, April 24, 1823, a daughter of pioneer William and Elizabeth (McConnell) Cochran. They were the parents of five children, viz: Eliza Jane, the subject of this sketch; Hetty, deceased about two years ago, was the wife Jackson Corioin, of Osceola, Iowa; Mary, widow of Aaron Higby, and resides with subject; Jasper, one of the well- known of this locality, and has represented Warren county in the Legislature; Captain John, a contractor and builder of this city. The paternal grandfather of these children was a Pennsylvanian by birth, and served throughout the war of 1812. While returning home one evening he was robbed and murdered by highwayman. His widow long survived him. Grandfather McConnell was a native of Virginia, and was also a soldier in the war of 1812, in which he was wounded. He subsequently removed to Indiana, where he died at the advanced age of eighty-four years, and his good wife soon afterward passed away. William Cochran, the father of our subject, emigrated to Ohio in an early day, settling in Highland county, where he married Elizabeth McConnell, and there also Mrs. Cleavenger was born. In 1845 the family removed to Indiana, where they resided until their departure for Iowa, in 1855, crossing the river at Burlington, and located in White Breast township, Warren county, just north of where Lacona is now located. Mr. Cochran owned many hundred acres of land, and as Lacona began to grow and White Breast township became settled, a cemetery became necessary, and this land was given by William Cochran. Today, though the silent dead are numerous, the place still bears his name. He was enterprising, progressive and public-spirited, and when his son-in-law, Willis Cleavenger, proposed to lay out a town, William Cochran did all in his power to promote the project, He was a devout worker in the United Presbyterian Church. He was called to his last resting place after having attained the seventy-first year of his age, and sleeps peacefully in the soil that he donated for burial purposes. Beside him sleeps the wife of his choice. She was a good Christian lady, who so patiently bore many of the privations and vicissitudes of pioneer existence, and was a worker in God's vineyard. Eliza J, Cleavenger, the subject of this sketch, spent her early life in Highland county, Ohio where she attended the primitive log schools of the subscription order, and grew to womanhood. She was married there January 23, 1845, by Reverend Phillip Nation, Willis Cleavenger. They had seven children, namely: Elizabeth, wife of Harvey Gray, prominent farmer of Belmont township; William F., of Des Moines; Jasper, also of city; John L., a farmer of Nebraska; Alice, deceased was the wife of Albert Rodgers proprietor of a hotel and a merchant of Lacona Mary wife of Louis Thompson; Martha E., now Mrs. Bennett, and a of Bent county, Missouri. Their father, Willis Cleavenger, was born May 5, 1819. Of a progressive spirit, his patriotism manifested itself when the country was in the throes of the rebellion by enlisting in Company D, Thirty-fourth Iowa Volunteer Infantry. He was discharged at St Louis by reason of illness contracted in the service, and his death occurred November 26, 1866. He was laid at rest in Cochran Cemetery, and the old soldiers of Lacona, among whom are comrades who fought by his side, yearly strew flowers on his grave, while the children who claim Lacona for their birth- place point to his grave as the burial place of the founder of the city. Much might be said in honor of this sterling, patriot citizen, but suffice it to say that he was ever a warm friend of the public-school system, and was ever ready to forward any enterprise which in his judgment would redound to public good. His widow, though seventy-two years have passed over her head and many privations were her lot, is still blessed with comparatively good health and that happy disposition which has characterized her long life and which has won for her many friends. Source: A Memorial and Biographical Record of Iowa, Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1896, vol.1, p.1159