Sumner B. HEWETT, Sr.

HEWETT, PAINE, ALLEN

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 2/10/2024 at 13:06:56

August 29, 1807 ---- January 17, 1876

SUMNER B. HEWETT, Sr.
Another Old Settler Gone.

Sumner B. Hewett, was born in Sutton, Worcester county, Mass., August 29th, 1807. Lived with his father, on a farm, until he was eighteen years old, when he left home and served an apprenticeship with Oliver Hall, of his native town, learning the trade of a millwright. He worked at his trade until 1830 when he married Mary E. Allen, daughter of Moses Allen, of Cheshire county, N. H.

Mr. Hewett and his wife have constantly lived together in happiness, he working at his life trade or on agricultural improvements until 1853 when they moved to a farm in Portage county, Ohio, but sold out in the fall of 1854 and removed to Rock Island, Ill. Rock Island was then the jumping off place of the west, and their residence there was only temporary. From there they came to Wright county and have resided here up to Mr. Hewett's death, which occurred on the 17th. inst.

When Mr. Hewett built his log cabin on section 10, 91, 23, this county was a part of Webster county, the nearest post office was 35 miles away and the nearest mill 40 miles. For meat he had to depend upon deer, and Indians were plenty. None but a brave man would have built his cabin on this wild frontier.

Mr. Hewett never mixed in politics, or cared for sectarian religion, but his life was one that Christians would do well to emulate. He came to this county broken down in health and comparatively poor; he took wild, prairie land and built, upon it a beautiful home around which cluster the comforts that energy, frugality and honest industry have so nobly won, and he leaves his noble, loving wife in easy circumstances.

Not only his family and neighbors, but the whole community have met a great loss in his death, he being not only one of the oldest settlers, but a man noted for his truthfulness, a man whose word was as good as any man's bond, a man of generous and forgiving disposition and a man who ever had a kind word and a helping hand for the needy. He was a man of whom we believe it could be said: "He left hosts of friends, but not an enemy on earth." S. B. Hewett, Jr., and Mrs. N. B. Paine of this county, are children of Mr. Hewett.

Wright County Monitor -- Clarion, Iowa
January 26, 1876

****
[re-interred in Rose Hill Cemetery in Eagle Grove from Hewett Cemetery]