Marion and Vicinity
- Brief Mentions.
I have not written
much concerning the early inhabitants of Marion, simply because of my
inability to do justice to the many good citizens who lived there
during the time which this record is designed to cover.
It is to be hoped that some one who possesses the requisite knowledge
and ability will write out a full and accurate history of the men and
events of the early years of Linn county's capitol city.
There were many names there in the early years that were quite
familiar to the writer in his boyhood days, with some of whom he has
been personally acquainted.
Some of them have already been noticed in these pages, other well
known and respected citizens can only be mentioned by name as I recall
them: Major J. T. McKean, and his brother, A. J. McKean; Samuel W.
Durham, our popular and highly esteemed county surveyor of early
times, a man of marked intelligence and of unsullied character, and
one for whom the writer has always entertained feelings of the highest
regard; David Woodbridge and Henry D. Thompson, who opened the first
store in Marion; J. C. Berry, the first county clerk; T. S. Ovington,
the tailor; Robert Shinn, Hosea W. Gray, O. S. Hall, the hotel keeper,
Judge N. W. Isbell, J. E. Sanford, the shrewd lawyer; Thomas Downing,
another tailor, and an honest one, who afterwards lived in Cedar
Rapids for some years; Col. William Smyth, Dr. Bardwell, Dr. Tryon,
John Zumbro, Richard Thomas, John Greer, Hiram Bales, Bartimeus
McGonigal, Amory Keyes, Elijah Evans, J. E. Bromwell, Dean Cheedle,
Joseph Mentzer, H. H. Welch, Ambrose Harland, the sheriff, George A.
Patterson, and William J. Patterson, now of this city; the Messrs.
Vaughn, Goerge Gray, and his son Capt. Geo. A. Gray, for many years
county surveyor, and many others whom I do not now recall.
And then east of Marion were the Ives; the Jordans, the Bealls, the
Harmons, the Daniels etc. And a little west where Rufus Lucore, the
Hunters, John and William, and their venerable father, Thomas Hare,
William Willis, Mr. Jones, John P. Glass, one of our sturdy farmers,
who came to Linn county in 1845, locating at the McLeod Spring, where
he built a carding mill and woolen factory in an early day, and later
erected a flouring mill, and whose history, together with that of his
family would require a separate volume; all these and many more whom I
cannot now enumerate. These were pioneers in and about Marion, who
deserve a more extended notice than I am able to give them in this
little book.
It was such men as these who laid the foundations upon which have been
built up those institutions which are now our pride and our boast. The
horse thieves and outlaws deserve mention only as "exceptionals" and
"incidentals" in a new country, whose history, though brilliant
perhaps in their own estimation, was brief.
Most of them passed on to other scenes in this world or beyond it, and
so peace and prosperity smiled upon our beautiful country.
Looking back now to the days of prairie schooners, and ox teams and 25
cent letter postage, and comparing them with our palace cars and
lightning express trains, our 2 cent postage, combined with our
telegraphic and telephonic methods of communication, it is with the
greatest difficulty that we who lived in those early times can realize
that we are still in the same world, much less in the same part of the
world upon which our youthful eyes then looked.
For my own part I stand amazed, finding no better words to express my
astonishment than those contained in that first memorable message ever
sent over the newly completed line of telegraph - the first ever built
in this country - from Washington to Baltimore: "What hath God
wrought!" To Him belongs all the praise.
Closing Words.
It was the misfortune
of my family to have a considerable amount of sickness while we were
on our farm, but in most cases, mothers skillful and tender nursing,
together with the administration of a few simple remedies which she
knew how to dispense, proved sufficient to carry us through. But the
time came finally when her skillful treatment could only alleviate but
not cure.
In 1845 my father had a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism from
which he suffered untold agony for many weeks. He, however, finally
recovered so far as to be able to get about with tolerable comfort,
though he was never again a well man.
In the summer of 1846 my brother Frank Cook was seized with
inflammation of the bowels and suddenly passed away from us, while I
was lying unconscious with congestive chills.
The following October, on the 14th day, my father, too, was borne to
his last resting place, bilious fever being the disease that ended his
life.
The year after, that is, in 1847, we rented our farm and came into
town, living in a log house located on the bank of the river below
Fourth avenue. It was as already stated the second house erected in
the town and was built by Mr. John Young upon whose claim it stood.
In 1848, having had a great deal of sickness still in the family,
mother yielded to the advice of a half brother living in Wisconsin,
and decided to go there with her family and see if the change would
not be beneficial, and so in the fall of that year she went to Hazel
Green. The change, however, did not prove as beneficial as it was
hoped, and so after about eleven months she returned to Cedar Rapids.
In 1850 we purchased a lot on Third avenue, near the Empire House and
erected a house which was our home up to 1854.
On June 20th of that year, mother departed this life, after a short
illness, her children kneeling at her bedside and receiving her
parting blessing.
In 1852 my sister Julia was married to Mr. David Blakely, principal of
the Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute. On the 9th of April, 1857, she
also, finished her life work and entered her rest.
The other members of the family have been mentioned elsewhere in this
record.
As for myself, leaving out, of course, all the bad things that might
be said, the remaining part of my personal history can be written in a
few lines.
At the close of the three years of school life under the supervision
of Rev. Williston Jones and Mr. David Blakely, in Cedar Rapids, I left
home for the first time in the fall of 1854; spending one year in
Alexander College, Dubuque, Iowa, three years in the University of
Michigan at Ann Arbor, and two years in Union Theological Seminary, in
New York City.
Being threatened with a serious throat and lung trouble which seemed
to have been greatly aggravated by my residence in the city and so
near the ocean, my physicians advised my return at once to Iowa,
which, to my great regret, involved the necessity of cutting short my
theological course one term.
Returning to my own beloved state in the spring of 1860, and breathing
its health-giving air, strength and vigor were soon regained to such a
degree as to warrant the resumption of the office of preaching, which,
as a layman, I had begun to exercise as early as the summer of 1855.
During the summer of 1860 I was duly licensed to preach by the
Presbytery of Iowa Valley, and in the following December was regularly
ordained as an evangelist, at Steamboat Rock, in Hardin county.
For nine months acting as an evangelist and itinerating missionary in
Hardin and Franklin counties, I was finally called to the First
Presbyterian church of Wyoming, Jones county, Iowa, where I remained
seven years including nine months of service in 1864, as chaplain of
the 24th Regiment Iowa Volunteer Infantry.
In 1868, having never recovered from the serous illness contracted
during the exposures and hardships of army life, I was compelled to
resign my charge and take a few months rest.
Being advised by my physician that a more active life would be better
adapted to my constitution, I entered the service of the Presbyterian
Board of Home Missions and for six years acted as District Secretary
with headquarters the first half of the time at Council Bluffs, and
the last three years at Cedar Rapids, my duties requiring many
thousands of miles of travel each year in Iowa, Nebraska and Dakota.
After this I served the Presbyterian church of Sac City, Sac county,
as pastor for three and a half years, and the Presbyterian church of
Logan, Harrison county, four years, when I was called back to Wyoming,
my old charge, after an absence of seventeen years. After remaining
there six and a half years I was stricken down with a severe illness
which came very near terminating my life, and from which I have never
been able to recover. In consequence of this I was compelled to resign
my charge in the fall of 1891.
A sea voyage and a five months' sojourn in Germany in 1892, although
beneficial, failed to restore me sufficiently to warranty my taking
another charge; and so at last I find myself at my old home in Cedar
Rapids where I expect to remain until Providence orders me elsewhere.
If not due to myself, it is at least due to the reader, that this
brief concluding record be made.
But one other word
remains to be said.
In the preparation of
this manuscript for the press, there has been one silent but very
efficient participator in the work, to whom no reference has yet been
made.
She does not claim to be an old settler, nor does she seem willing to
be called old in any sense, (who ever heard of a woman that was
willing to be so designated), but if not an old pioneer herself, she
is the wife of one; and although she naturally shrinks from public
gaze, and desires that her name should not be mentioned in these
pages, yet when the f acts come out, as they must and will, sooner or
later, that, with her left hand, (her right arm having been
fractured), she copied on the type-writer, nearly all of the
manuscript, besides looking over every page of the proof sheets, I am
sure I would deserve and receive the censure of all who read these
pages, if I failed to make honorable mention of her in this place.
It is more than probable that these pages never would have been
written at all had it not been for her sleepless vigilance and her
most tender and skillful nursing through several very severe turns of
sickness that I have endured in the past few years.
She is the daughter of Elihu and Charlotte B. Baker, both deceased.
Mr. Baker was for several years in the mercantile and banking business
in this place, and later, National Bank Inspector for the State of
Iowa.
Mr. and Mrs. Baker were members of the First Presbyterian church.
Their children, now living, are: Mrs. N. C. Milligan, wife of Mr. J.
G. Milligan, of Chicago; Rev. Lewis C. Baker, D. D., of Philadelphia;
William M. Baker, real estate dealer of Chicago, and an elder in the
Second Presbyterian church; the Rev. Alfred B. Baker, D. D., Rector of
Trinity Protestant Episcopal church, Princeton, New Jersey; Mrs.
Margaret O. Wood, wife of Mr. Henry Wood, of Boston; Lt. Asher C.
Baker of the United States Navy; and Mrs. Joanna B. Carroll.
Mary Scott Baker, the youngest of the family, died in Chicago, in the
summer of 1856.
And now the task that I have laid out for myself is done. As to how
well it is done, I must leave others to judge. |
