Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Jefferson County's '49ers The Fairfield Weekly Journal April 3, 1902

"The Fairfield (Iowa) Weekly Journal, Apr. 3, 1902, P. 3, col. 3-4

SULIFAND S. ROSS -- ARGONAUT.

(H. Heaton).

The Junken family was of Scotch (sic) extraction, in fact were Highlanders of the McGregor clan, who fled from Scotland to the north of Ireland, at the time the McGregor clan was outlawed by the English government. Reaching Ireland, many of the clan assumed the name of McJunken; and their descendants came to America and settled in Virginia on the banks of the James River, from thence they moved into the Kentucky wilderness. William Junken, father of Mary Ann and Nancy Elizabeth (?) Junken, was a soldier in the War of 1812, and many of the Junken family were noted Indian fighters.

We have already seen that Mr. Ross’ health had been greatly impaired by the toil of clearing the Indiana farm, and now with three small children, Lucinda but little more than an infant, Mr. Ross’ life near Rome, was desolate indeed, in comparison with the former happy years spent with his large family, or in comparison with the stirring events of the life in California. Bearing these thoughts in mind, it is not surprising that Mr. Ross sought relief by marrying a third time. He sought and found a wife in the daughter of his old friend, James Gilmer, with whose family we have seen his own family so intimate in former days. Jane Gilmer was fifteen years his junior, yet she had so long been acquainted with Mr. Ross that he could not have found a wife more sympathetic and well suited to restore the old home, that was no doubt in want of a mother‘s care.

Mr. Ross’ third marriage was in 1855, when he was 55 years old, he having been born the first year of the century, Feb. 5, 1800. The marriage was solemnized at the home of the bride’s parents, near Glasgow, by a justice of the peace, George Chapman. Besides Mr. And Mrs. R. T. Gilmer of Fairfield, who was present at the wedding, there was also present Mrs. Calvin Gillham, also of Fairfield, but who was then a girl friend of the bride, Elizabeth Easby. Squire Chapman had been a magistrate a number of years and on first being elected to office he had announced that the first couple that should employ his services, he would marry free of charge. Calvin Gillham of Fairfield, who had just then returned from California, claimed the gratuitous services, marrying Miss Alameda Howell of Glasgow, as we have already seen.

It soon became apparent that Mr. Ross was not strong enough to conduct his farm, and once more breaking up his home, he removed to Eddyville, in the spring of 1856, to be near his son (?) brother William, and it became more and more apparent that his life was drawing near its end; he died September 26, 1856, and was buried at Eddyville. A few weeks before Mr. Ross’ death, Mr. and Mrs. R. T. Gilmer had visited him, and had then driven on to Des Moines. In 1856 there were no railways in Iowa, and when, after a short visit at that town, they returned to Eddyville, they found that Mr. Ross had been buried and his wife of but little more than a year returned with them to her father’s home near Glasgow, and after a widowhood of forty-one years, she died at Fairfield Sept. 8, 1897.

Jefferson County has had men who have been more fortunate in the things of this world, and in opportunities to serve the public, but we doubt if it had on its roll of names one more deserving of honor than Sulifand Sutherland Ross. The helping hand Mr. Ross extended to John Huff in his need; the home he made for Ruble, the first Methodist preacher of Iowa, and who died in his house, finding not only charity by sympathy and love; and the hospitality he so often extended to Launcelot G. Bell and family, and to hundreds of other needy persons, in Indiana, Iowa, and California, prove him to have been worthy of the esteem of his fellows.

If our effort has not been entirely in vain in writing this series of papers, it must have been clear, that Mr. Ross was withal one of the most, if not altogether the most, picturesque characters Jefferson County has ever known, and this, too, without the faintest wish on his part to make himself striking or noticeable in the eyes of men.

Fred Douglas said that Abraham Lincoln was the only man he ever met who seemed not to know that a colored man was in any way different from a white man. The same could easily have been said of Mr. Ross; colored man, Indian, or white man, all were one to him, and his wrath flamed out on anything like knownothingism, or whatever might deliberately or wantonly deny to any man the right to prove his manhood equally with all other men. Of Mr. Ross we may say he was Nature’s true nobleman."

“And that he bore without abuse
The grand old name of gentleman,
Defamed by every charlatan,
And soil’d with all ignoble use.“

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