John V Mather

MATHER BRASSFIELD

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/21/2010 at 19:59:16

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

John V Mather
By Alliene Baker Lindgren

John William Mather, son of John Mather, born 1800 in Massachusetts, was born at Benton, New York, on August 2, 1830. He was twenty-two years old when he came to Sergeant Bluff in 1852 with a party of surveyors which included Leonard Bates. After staying there a short time, he went on west into the Dakotas and as far west as Pike’s Peak. HE came back to Sergeant Bluff in 1855 and settled there by building himself a small log cabin south and west of Sergeant Bluff in Liberty Township.

He married Druscinda Brassfield in 1861 and went to live on forty acres that was her dowry and that had belonged to Bill Bates. He bought forty more acres to the west of this land to take his holdings to the Missouri River and this became ‘the home place’. Later Mr Mather brought one hundred and twenty more acres from various settlers until his holdings ultimately amounted to about three hundred acres.

The land then was mostly timber, but as soon as a place was cleared or after a brush fire, tall weeds immediately grew in and the settlers began calling the district Weedland. Wil Mather, the second son, remembers that ‘going after the cows’ meant a trip through tall thick timber with only the elusive tinkle of the cow bell as a guide. He also remembers the fast riding horses he and his brothers owned and the group of young Weedlanders who came to town together or went calling on other settlers throughout the neighborhood. Travel then was by foot, by riding horses, or by driving horse and wagon.

John and Druscinda Mather had four sons: John, William, Fran, and a bay who died in infancy; Druscinda died giving birth to the child. John’s second wife was Barbara Hamilton and she bore four children; Albert, Myrtle, and two that died from diphtheria when quite young. John continue to live in Weedland until his death on December 16, 1899. He was a farmer and a gentle man who had served his local government as Justice of the Peace or Liberty Township, Assessor for Liberty Township, and Supervisor for Woodbury County in 1870. He was a Civil War Veteran belonging to the Seventh Iowa Regiment, Company M.