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Silas H. Stevens

STEVENS

Posted By: Connie Swearingen - volunteer (email)
Date: 1/31/2016 at 16:48:43

Akron Register
1 March 1917

PIONEER PREACHER
Established Free Will Baptist Church in LeMars

S. H. Stevens died at his home in Bonesteel, S.D., on Tuesday. He settled there when the country was opened up. He was seventy-eight years of age and died following a year or more of mental and physical ills. He leaves a wife and two children and an estate estimated at $500,000 in realty holdings. He located near Bonesteel in the early nineties. The Sioux City Journal says: Silas H. Stevens, who came to Woodbury county in 1874, was widely known over northwestern Iowa as a Baptist preacher. When he came to the county he and Mrs. Stevens organized a Sabbath school at Correctionville. He organized the first Free Will Baptist churches at Sheldon, Aurelia, Cherokee, and LeMars, and preached alternately at those points and also at Correctionville for about three years. He preached two years at Monticello and Greene Prairie, Wis., and after spending two years on a farm in Dixon county,
Neb., he returned to Woodbury County.

In 1880 Mr. Stevens bought a quarter section of land in Rutland township and gave up preaching. Later he bought another eighty acres and carried on farming up to the time of his removal to South Dakota.

Mr. Stevens was born in Little Valley, Cattaraugus county, N.Y., April 18, 1838. He was reared on a farm and received a common school education.

In July, 1861, he enlisted as a private in the Sixty-fourth New York volunteers and served with the army of the Potomac. At the battle of Fair Oaks he was shot through the neck, but recovered in time to take part in the battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorville. In June, 1864, he was discharged on account of physical disability. He then began preaching


 

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