John Dighton BAILEY

BAILEY, NOYES, RICE, MAGOR, HILL

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 9/8/2010 at 22:44:17

December 27, 1822 -- December 13, 1901

Britt News-Tribune, Britt, Iowa
December 1901

by Edwin Noyes Bailey

DIED -- On Friday, December 13th at 11:30 a.m., John Dighton Bailey, aged 78 years, 11 months and 16 days.

It is indeed a hard task for the writer to chronicle the death of his father, who for more than years he has never been separated from more than three years altogether and have nearly all out lives lived where we saw him nearly every day or at most every few weeks. For several years he has been failing, more from an injury received in a fall when he lived on the farm than anything else, and with old age creeping on he has grown more feeble each week until the machinery of life ran down, the pulse was stilled and nature paid its debt. He was resigned to death and for several years has said he was simply "waiting," and living on borrowed time.

J. D. Bailey was born in Essex County, New York, December 27th, 1822, moved to Ohio when he was 10 years old where he acquired his education and lived until he grew to man's estate. In 1848 he married Martha A. Noyes by whom he had four children. E. N. Bailey the oldest son, Mrs. M. C. Rice, of Antigo, Wisconsin, Fred H. Bailey, of San Diego, California, and Mrs. Gertie Magor of Kanawha.

When the writer was five years old, then the only child, this little family started by team as pioneers into the then howling wilderness of Wisconsin. 30 miles further north than the railroad ran he "pitched his tent" and proceeded to carve out a home for himself with axe and plow. This was in 1854. Here he lived for 23 years when he sold out and moved to this county at what is known as Bailey's Grove where his father and mother had lived for several years. About 12 years ago our mother died on the old farm and was buried back at the old home in Wisconsin. A few years later he married Mrs. Rose Hill who survives him.

He has had a good pleasant home in Britt for the past ten years and has not done any manual labor, but has lived easily and enjoyed life as well as his health would admit. He died full of years, honored by everybody. Justice and honor were his watchwords through life and every promise was faithfully kept and every obligation redeemed.

The funeral was in the M. E. church, Rev. Cole delivering a funeral oration and the sepulture was in Evergreen cemetery in Britt. Out under the cold clods and the storms of winter we left his earthly remains, the good name that he left behind will live in the hearts of his children and his friends until they themselves shall go the same journey. His life work was finished, his peace was made years ago, he was not unwilling to die. Why mourn such a death? It is the ideal ending of a busy life. And yet our heart is filled with sadness as we pen these sad lines to the memory of dear old father.

His second wife survives him and 23 direct descendants mourn the departure of their aged progenitor. Two in Corwith, Iowa, six in Wisconsin, one in California and 14 in Britt. With the wives and husbands of his direct descendants added there are 30. He was the oldest of a family of 14, 12 of whom lived to be men and women and seven of whom survive him. More than 40 nephews and nieces, grand nephews and nieces, and great nephews and nieces live in and around Belmond. As many more in Oklahoma, a numerous family in Findley, Ohio, another in Garner, Iowa, another in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, still another in Davenport, Iowa, numbering altogether more than 200 direct descendants of our grandfather, John A. Bailey, who was a pioneer in Hancock county in 1864, and who together with his good wife, have peacefully slumbered in the cemetery at Garner for a quarter of a century. The years will come and go, winter's snow and summer breezes alike unnoted by him who now sleeps beneath the sod.