A. S. LAKE A FACTOR IN
CITY'S DEVELOPMENT
Came from New Hampshire and Played Important Part in Educational Development of Shenandoah

Lewis Cass, Salmon P. Chase, Daniel Webster, Horace Greeley, Franklin Pierce, Henry Wilson, the White mountains and Dartmouth college.

Some talk of mountains, high and low, Of  summer streams from melting snow, Of breezes fresh that always blow, And people whom we ought to know. You'll find them all where tourists go, in old New Hampshire.
The land of Stark and Webster, too, Where fleecy clouds in skies of blue Reflect a myriad colored hue O'er all that nature's best could do In foliage, fields and lakes for you, In old New Hampshire.

It is a good state to be born in and its sons never forget her and never fail to revisit the old home.

A. S. Lake was born in Merrimack county, New Hampshire, and passed his boyhood days on one of those rolling farms with woods, rocks and trees with which the state abounds. He attended the district school during his earlier school life, and had the usual experiences of a New Hampshire boy on the farm, such as plowing, harrowing, planting, hoeing, reaping wheat, mowing and raking hay, driving oxen, breaking steers, picking stone every year from the fields where small grain had been cut, and these stone seemed to produce a new crop as certain as corn and potatoes, and last but not least, working in one of those water-power saw mills which were so numerous in the state in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Mr. Lake's relatives on his father's side were farmers, and on his mother's side professional men and teachers— and mostly democrats.

He lived in that period of New England history when singing schools, spelling schools, wiriting schools, and lyceums were in their prime and were among the objects which interested the youth of that day and called out their desires to excel. On the farm, industry and economy were necessary virtues faithfully taught, and happy was the lad who could get a dime to spend at the annual town meeting or at the muster of the state militia which was held in autumn and called together nearly all the population of the near-by towns.

This was also the period of the New England academy. Families were ordinarily large and no home was far from some of these academies. Mr. Lake, during his school days attended at least three different academies and received the advantages and the disadvantages of a variety of teachers, some of whom, however, stood very high. During this time of study it was the custom to teach school in the winter and thus earn a little money for further attendance at the academy. Mr. Lake commenced teaching in Merrimack county, in a district near the birth place of Daniel Webster, and interesting to relate, had a pupil by the name of Daniel Webster. His first pay was thirteen dollars a month and he borrowed a watch in Concord, New Hampshire, buying it at the close of the school for three dollars. All the four Lake brothers taught at different times in the earlier period of their lives.

It was the common custom for the academy scholars of that day to board themselves, renting a room in some house and setting up a stove for cooking purposes. Owing to the limited income from those rocky farms this method was a necessity, and also a pleasure, for it gave opportunities for a higher education which was certainly prized at that time.

In 1858, Mr. Lake, having fitted for college  and  taught  several district schools, entered Dartmouth and remained there four years living in the family of his uncle, E. D. Sanborn, professor of Latin for a third of a century.   During the winter he taught school, which was the custom very generally among the Dartmouth students of that day.   Among his classmates   was   Edward   Tuck—son of Hon. Amos Tuck, who has given several thousand dollars to the college in recent years.   While in college Mr. Lake was  elected  librarian  of' the Social Friends—a literary society and at  graduation  was elected  to the Phi Beta Kappa society.

After graduation he taught in academies and high schools in the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut and so continued till 1873 when he moved to this city, then a small place of perhaps two hundred people and innocent of worked streets, blue grass or a public school building.

Mr. Lake had intended to follow teaching for several years more, and he had fitted pupils for Vassar, Mt. Holyoke, Amherst, Dartmouth and Yale, but the nervous wear caused him to change his occupation. In 1868 he took a vacation trip on foot all through the White Mountains of New Hampshire in company with a former schoolmate, and there saw Horace Greely for the first time and only time in his life.

In 1874, six months after his arrival here, he was elected mayor of our city but not being fond of office and declined to be a candidate again. He soon went into the hardware and implement busines with T. J. Warren, who was then postmaster and express agent, and experienced in the hardware business. Mr. Lake attended to the books, the post office and express business. It was at this time that he introduced into the post office the celebrated "drum" which was used till removed by the department several years later. This drum, which he made, was a hollow cylinder eighteen inches in diameter and three feet long, set on end on a pivot in the center so it could be turned by anyone outside the office, but the letters on the surface of the drum could not be reached as there was glass in front. One could see if he had a letter, and, if so, call for it. If he had no letter, he simply went away. The letters were held in place behind little elastic tins, fastened to the surface of the drum and each letter of the alphabet had its own row of tins. It was an immense saving of time to the post office clerk. The idea was taken from the post office in Hanover, Mass., where Mr. Lake taught in the academy.

This post office and hardware store was in the only wooden building now standing in the Delmonico block, and is now used for a restaurant, having the sign "Eat" over the front door.

While Mr. Lake was mayor a public well was dug in the street in front of the present Ambler livery, and, to avoid a mud hole, the platform was arranged so that the waste water from the pump would run back into the well. This water was used for drinking as well as for stock, and one of our then citizens got to washing his feet there late in the evening in warm weather, letting the water run back into the well. W. E. Webster, whose bank was on the present C. E. Young site, wrote the mayor that he had no objection to people washing their feet, but thought the water thus used should not run back into the well. Henceforth it ran elsewhere.

Mr. Lake sold his interest in the hardware business after two years and took up real estate and loans and used to ride over the west half of Page and the east half of Fremont counties inspecting farms upon which application had been made for a loan. This was and continues to be an immense business. One of our citizens used to say a debt was an inspiration to effort and that many men if out of debt were uneasy till they got into debt again. Of late years Mr. Lake has confined himself more to real estate and city loans. When he first came here short-time money was two per cent a month, but soon came down to 1% per cent a month and later on still lower.

At that early day school teachers here were scarce and committees sometimes asked Mr. Lake to find one. Six months after his arrival here he was elected a member of the school board, but having just been chosen mayor he declined the call to the school board. He afterwards was elected on the board and served for several years.

He is a charter member of the Congregational church, which was organized in 1877, and served as the superintendent of the Sunday school for twenty years and also on the board of trustees and as church collector. He occupied a similar position in the M. E. church here before 1877.

On the organization of the Western Normal College company in 1892 and the building of the present college edifice, he was elected president of the corporation and has held the office continuously to this time. He was one of the original stockholders of the First National bank at its organization in 1875, and for several years a director.

For many years he was a regular attendant at the annual meetings of the Page County Sunday School association and at one time its president. He assisted in the post office under three different postmasters, having, as a matter of fact, had more years of service than any one post­master. He used to have a book and notion stock in the front part of the post office room and opened up a circulating library in connection with his other business. Once he missed a book or two and many years after he received a letter from a party who once lived here, stating that he had become converted and wished to acknowledge the theft. He did not offer to pay for the books, however. Mr. Lake has now forgotten who and where the party was at the time of writing the letter.

The lyceum idea mentioned above still possessed Mr. Lake after he left his early home.   When teaching in South Hingham, Mass., and also in Thomaston, Conn., he organized lyceums and the leading citizens of both towns freely, aided in making them interesting and successful.

Here in Shenandoah years ago he organized a debating society of the larger boys and gave them lessons and drills in parliamentary usage as well as discipline in debate and presiding. The society was called the "Websterian Society"' and held its meetings in the directors' room of the First National bank, the free use of which was given to the society. Among the members were Elbert A. Read, now an officer of the bank; Fred Fischer, one of our lawyers and once county attorney; two Pond brothers; J. B. Armstrong Jr., one of our successful seedmen; John F. Lake, now cashier of the Shenandoah National bank; Lute Tompkins, and perhaps others. In looking over some papers not long since, Mr. Lake found the constitution and rules of this society.

This was his last effort in strictly lyceum work but not the last effort with young people. While he was superintendent of the Congregational Sunday school, he carried on Sunday school concerts every few months for twenty years, selecting the pieces and doing all the drilling himself; and for the last seventeen years he has conducted a patriotic concert annually on the evening of Memorial day, under the auspices of our local army post. He has now and has had for many years an adult class in the Sunday school.

In the first years of his residence here he had a spelling match open to all, in the original M. E. church building and offered Webster's dictionary as the prize for the winner. The dictionary was won by A. E, Lake, a brother of A. S. Lake, who came west at about that time and once taught school in Manti and in the High district on Walnut creek. The second best spellers were Mrs. West, mother of A. B. West, then our Q. depot agent, and Julius Swain, still with us.

His real estate business led him to build many houses for sale or rent, during the last twenty-five years, in one year erecting thirteen houses. These he sold on the monthly plan and thus enabled many men of limited income to finally own a home. All these houses are well marked by cherry trees set out by him when the houses were built.

In 1903, having lived in his first house for thirty years, he built, on the same site, his present house with all the modern improvements required for comfort and happiness. The original house is standing and occupied on the lot next west of the present home of Joseph Snow.

Mr. Lake has had a love for martins from his youth up, and made a stately and commodious house for them, which stands on a post twelve feet high and contains seventy rooms.

Eighteen months ago, after an ab­sence of thirty years, he took a trip back to the familiar scenes of early
school days and school teaching. The childhood school house once filled with happy boys and girls had only three pupils and the district had closed the same and was hiring a man to take them daily to the adjoining district for schooling. This condition seemed to be true all through that region. He visited the academy at Hanover, Mass., and sat in the chair on the platform at the table, where, nearly half a century ago, he taught the "young idea how to shoot". For want of patronage this building long since ceased to be used for academy purposes. The academy building at Thomaston, Conn., erected while Mr. Lake was teaching there, at a cost of $12,000, went up in smoke years ago. The academy at Pittsfield, New Hampshire, where he attended several terms, and was once a flourishing school, closed its work long ago. Mr. Lake was gone for a month and visited old Dartmouth, whose freshman class now numbers more than the entire number of students when he graduated there; also Pittsfield and Manchester, in New Hampshire; Hingham, Bradford, Boston, Duxbury and Plymouth in Massachusetts; Norfolk, Alexandria and Mt. Vernon, Virginia; Washington, D. C; Johns Hopkins university in Baltimore, Md.; Gettysburg battlefield, as well as the old childhood home and farm now occupied by his oldest brother in Loudon, N. H.

Not the least interesting feature of his trip was to meet persons who once lived near his former working ground or knew some of his former acquaintances. Just one illustration. He called at the census building, Washington, to get the population of Shenandoah, and the young man who took him to the superintendent said, he had been in Shenandoah, and lived just below in Missouri.

But while change has marked so many of the country regions of the east, it is interesting to note the wonderful progress which has marked this city and vicinity since Mr. Lake came down the valley in, August, 1873.  

At that time our public highways had not been worked at all; the fields were unfenced; the blue grass had not arrived. In our city there was no city hall; no completed school house; only one brick store; no adequate system of fire protection; only one church edifice; no uniform system of sidewalks; not twenty five trees in town; no library and no certainty of fixed or increasing value in our farm lands. James L. Lombard of the then Lombard Investment company, under whom Mr. Lake began to make farm loans, gave instructions to loan only a small per cent of the estimated value of our lands till it could be seen that prices were to be maintained, and our region not be ruined by frequent droughts.

That was only thirty-nine years ago. Now we have a city hall and superior court, five public school buildings and the Western Normal college, all of main street essentially lined with brick stores, one of the best fire companies in the state, a complete system of sidewalks, the whole town now a forest of trees, one new sixty thousand dollar church, two churches of twenty-five thousand dollars each, and others soon to be erected, a new ten thousand dollar library the gift of Mr. Carnegie, well patronized; a forty thousand dollar Elk building, several paved streets and extensive curbing and parking, the largest seed houses and nurseries in the west, and civic and literary societies of both sexes to match these material evidences of progress. When we add steam heat, gas, electric lights and telephones our progress seems very marked for a city of the prairie.

But the country, also, has changed. Mr. Lake used to ride on a road cart, so called, visiting farms before any road had been worked or fences built, often starting up the wild prairie chickens at a time when farm houses were small and spring buggies had not arrived. Now all the roads are graded, fences built, the second and sometimes the third house has been built, furnaces set up, telephones in action, and by means of the rural delivery the daily papers are on the farmer's table by noon. 

Mr. Lake says it is indeed interesting to watch the growth of both town and country from year to year. Many who used to give mortgages are now buying mortgages while some who used to drive to our city in farm wagons now come speeding along in automobiles. Who knows what the future will bring forth?

[Sentinel Post, Shenandoah, Iowa, Apr 16, 1912]