MUSCATINE COUNTY IOWA REGISTER OF OLD SETTLERS BOOK ONE

Source: REGISTER OF OLD SETTLERS , BOOK One, page 478 & 478-a thru d
submitted by Ronna Thuman, December 12, 2007

MUSCATINE JOURNAL, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1901
THE OLD SETTLERS MEET.

Another One of Those Interesting Annual Gatherings Held Saturday at the City Hall.

The program at the old settler’s meeting Saturday was well delivered and the delivery showed the spirit of brotherhood that holds them together year after year. Chas. Futz and Miss Gertie Kintzie furnished the music for the day. Mrs. Alice Walton Beatty, who delivered a good address, remarked during her discourse that she thought the old simple tunes that they played on the autoharp and guitar were more appropriate for a meeting of this kind than other music, as it brought back recollections of old. Several patriotic numbers were rendered.

Secretary D. V. Jackson in reading the minutes of the last meeting, gave a list of old settlers that have died since the last meeting and also a list of those who have passed away during the last year. They are as follows:

Mrs. Fred Nolte, John H. Phillips, S. T. Chesebro, Mrs. Henry Funck, Mrs. A. L. Bliven, B. W. Earl, John doran, Mrs. Frank Wertz, Mrs. Cecella R. winn, Jedsen Wamsley, Dennis Mahana, Mrs. Susan P. Williams, John Barnard, Mrs. Susan H. Saprks, Mrs. Michael Gardner, Mrs. Chas. Giesler, Marshall Farnsworth, Mrs. Jas. Turkington, W. H. Hoopes, Patrick Doran, Benjamin Boiler, Mrs. Almira F. Dayton, Adam Drumm, A. B. Hershey, Joseph Fredericks, Mr.s Charlotte Webb, F. G. Goldsberry, Samuel B. Creiger, Andrew Kaufmann, Wm. Humblebee, Mrs. Louise Nesselbush, Wm. Schreiber, Peter Knott, Geo. Schneider, Mrs. Jane Howell, Catherine Schneider, Ursula Winterstein, Peter Dallas, J. W. Garnes, Mrs. Johanna Murphy, Mrs. Mary Groschell, Mrs. L. A. Zipser, Mrs. Johnanna Ehrecke, F. N. Heaton, Henry Schwaim, Mrs. Emmo O. Reppert, Robt. Moxley, Mrs. Jacob Schum;aker, Mrs. Peter Leysen, Mrs. Samuel Wildasin, Mrs. John Braun, Mrs. D. B. Neyenhuis, Benjamin Klepper, Wm Doran, Mrs. Margaret Humphries, Geo. C. Stone, John Mordhorst, Mrs. F. A. Drake, Mrs. Elizabeth Bueser, Thomas Loftus, Jacob Lantz, Dr. James McNutt, John Heerd, Henry O’Connor, Mrs. Geo. Schields, Solomon Knouse, Mrs. Wilhelmina Schmidt, Mrs. J. B. Dougherty, George Frederick Funk, Mrs. Mary Brown, Peter Jackson, Mrs. Margaret A. Romaine, Samuel Littrel, Mrs. Andrew J. Hyde, Wm. B. Davis, Mrs. Henry Molis, Chas. B. Tyler, Mrs. Cynthia Buckman, Fred Miller, Chas S. Porter, Mrs. Bridget McKenna, W. A. Bronnell, Isaac Gatton, Rev. K. F. Oberman, Mrs. James Featherstone, John W. Garnes, Mrs. S. G. Stein, August Fricke, Mrs. Chas. Judisch, Joshua Lasena, Theodore S. Parvin, Edward Byrne, Mrs. Abraham Smalley, Mrs. Samuel Pollock, Max A. Bodman.

Omitted Last Year.


S. W. Stewart, Mrs. S. W. Stewart, Mrs. Ida Parvin Ingersol, Martin Koetting, C. A. Rink, Appolis Cone, Henry Madden, D. S. Marsh, John Hafleigh, John Holtz.

*** continues on page 478-a ***

W. S. Fultz read an address on “Pioneers in the Country.” This was well received and was quite interesting throughout. This was followed by the splendid address of E. F. Richman on “Pioneers in the City.” The address commanded the closest attention of the hearers throughout. Closely following were the addresses of Prof. Leverich and Mrs. Alice Walton Beatty, which were both very good.

Resolutions were passed requesting the secretary to draw up resolutions on the president’s death. Also a resolution of thanks to the musicians for the music furnished. The election of officers for the following year resulted in the following persons being elected:

President—E. F. Richman.

Vice President—Mrs. Cora Weed.

Secretary and Treasurer--W. S. Fultz

President McNutt is greeting the meeting spoke as follows:

President McNutt’s Speech.


Ladies and Gentlemen In addressing our fellow citizens it is often difficult to know what to say that may be proper on the occasion. Sometimes the best of words may be spoken, and yet be altogether inappropriate for the particular occasion. This is illustrated by the story of the two talking parrots. It is said that a gentleman died leaving two daughters and his second wife, their step-mother. By his will he left all his property to the use of his wife during her life time: but at her death it should go to the two daughters. The old lady had a talking parrot which she valued very much and as the years passed by the two daughters would sometimes say to each other, in the hearing of the parrot, “I wish the old woman was dead.” Bye and bye the parrot took up the words, and would scream out at any time, “I wish the old woman was dead.” When the old lady heard the parrot say these words she was frightened, and thought the devil had got into her bird, and she went to her clergyman and told about it. He said your bird has learned to say bad words, but I have a parrot that speaks good religious sentences, and even words of prayer. Take my parrot and place it near yours, and it will teach yours to say good things. She did so, and immediately her parrot sung out “I wish the old foman was dead,” and the clergyman’s parrot replied, “Lord grant it, Lord grant it.”


This would have been a proper utterance under suitable conditions and circumstances but under unsuitable conditions would be entirely inappropriate and improper.


We are met here in the annual reunion of Muscatine County’s Old Settlers Society. Since last we met many of our members have passed away to the great beyond, and their voices are silent in the grave, while their names are enrolled upon our records. Some of us yet remaining have seen three score and ten yers. Your speaker has seen three score and fifteen years, and to him as well as to many of you, the coming days are few.


In our life and in our character, we have been, and we are now, just what education and surrounding circumstances have made us. By education I mean the varied influences which surrounded us in childhood, youth and early life, controlled, in a great degree, the hereditary tendencles born in us. And now, in our advanced years, the best that we can do for the rising generation is to give such advice, and such counsel as our observation and our experience have taught us is the truth.


In the nineteenth century in which we have lived, there has been more advancement in knowledge, and progress in the arts and sciences, than was made during the two thousand years preceeding the last century. Even in our own lifetime the inventions and the improvements have been wonderful. Instead of the hand sickle with which the farmer cut his wheat and oats, he now drives his team with the self binding reaper, which delivers the sheaves of grain already bound. His plow is no longer a piece of wood with ribs of iron and wooden mold board to turn the furrow; but it is a well formed plow of steel that does far better work, and so on through all the departments of agriculture. The woman of the house, in town and country, no longer toils at the ancient spinning wheel, from morn’ till night, for the spinning jenny in the factory does the work of a hundred woman at once. The old time stage has passed away, and in its stead we have the locomotive, the iron horse, with eyes of fire and breath of steam carrying a burden of many thousand tons with a speed of sixty miles an hour. Instead of the tallow-dip candle we have the kerosene, the gas light, and the greater and better still, the electric light, and the uses and powers of that mysterious thing which we call electricity, are not yet fully known. By it we now can converse with friends on the other side of the globe as quickly as we can think. Time and distance are destroyed, and all nations are in close and intimate communion with each other.


In our own time this republic of ours has grown from a group of discordant communities to be a truly united nation, having no part of its soil marked by the tread of a slave. We have expanded our territory until it reaches north and south from the orange groves of Florida to the icebergs of Alaska, and east and west from the palm groves of the West India islands to the sunny plains of the Philippines. And now the sun never sets on the flag of the United States of America. Before his setting beams leave the shores of our Porto Rico his morning rays have shone upon the fields of Mindinao and Luzon.


In a little over one hundred years, we have become one of the great nations of the earth—one of the great powers with nearly eighty millions of energetic and enterprising people who have a country possessing more resources than any other nation. Herein lies our greatest danger for wealth, and power engender luxury, extravagance, and corruption, and there have been the causes. I may say the national diseases which destroyed all the great nations of which history gives a record. No foreign military can destroy us, our decay and our destruction, if they ever come, will come form within ourselves, will come from our wickedness, and our own corruption.


For this reason it is our interest and our duty to examine ourselves carefully as to who and what we are, and what contributed or tended to make us the kind of individuals that we are. The nation is just what its individual citizens may be; and this is especially true of a republic like ours. Therefore, those of us who are aged and have had more experience in the world than the younger generation should tell them what we have seen and know, in regard to what makes a successful, a useful and a happy life and a good citizen. From the observations and the experience of my own seventy-five years among my fellow mortals, I know that the practice of temperance morality and virture, are what make a useful and a happy life, and a good citizen, and generally add to the number of years a person will live.


We have passed through that period of conceited youth when we thought we knew more than the old folks. That may be called the sophomore period, or the age of wise fools,…


*** continues back on page 478 top of third column ***


…. as we learned after we were older. The temptations and allurements which decoy and beguile the youthful must be carefully guarded against, and avoided, for though


“Vice is a monster of such hateful mein.
That to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, than pity, then embrace.”


So that the only safety is to keep away from all temptation and from all doubtful company, because it is true that


“Who friendship with a knave has made
Is judged a partner in the trade;
And thus upon our choice of friends,
Our good or evil name depends.”

*** continues on Page 478-b ***

MUSCATINE COUNTY OLD SETTLERS REUNION

The old settlers and their friends will meet in the Court House next
Saturday, Sept. 14, 1901
immediately after dinner at 1 o’clock.

Program of Exercises:

Called to order at 1 o’clock, sharp.
Reading of last years minutes.
Opening brief address of the President.

MUSIC.

Pioneer times in the Country, - W. S. Fultz
Pioneer times in the City. - E. F. Richman

MUSIC.

Now and then, - - Prof. R. W. Leverich
Old Settlers Society, Mrs. Alice Walton Beatty

MUSIC

Memorial Resolutions, Ex-Judge S. Richman
Short speeches by members not here named.

MUSIC

Election of officers for next year.
General hand shaking and conversation,
Adjournment.

All Persons are Invited to Attend

SAMUEL McNUTT, President

D. V. JACKSON, Secretary.

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The following was hand written notes:

Address, Now & Then by Prof. R. W. Leverich
Address-Old Settlers Society by Mrs. Alice Walton Beatty
Music
Memorial Resolutions by Ex-Judge J. I. Richman
On Motion The resolutions presented were unanimously adopted
The President than read a letter from W. L. Clark of Buffalo which was much appreciated.
Short remarks were then made by A. Cone, Tobe Brown.

*** hand written notes continued on page 478-d ***


W. S. Fultz called the attention of the meeting to the fact that our drought years have occurred every 7 years.
On motion a vote of thanks was tendered to the musicians Gertie Kinzle and Frank Fietz.
On motion adjourned.


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