Charles L. LeBarron

from the Shenandoah World, April 21, 1905

transcribed by Pat O'Dell

Pioneer Citizen Passed Away Thursday Morning--Death Came Suddenly from Apoplexy

As sudden and shocking a death as has taken place in Shenandoah for a long time, occurred early Thursday morning, when Charles L. LeBarron one of the earliest settlers in this section of the country, and well known all about here, died suddenly at his home on Sixth avenue, his death resulting from an attack of apoplexy, which took away his life most unexpectedly while he was lying in his bed.

The news of his death came as a great shock for the reason that only the day and evening before he had been down town, attending to his business and even a moment before his life went out, his wife, in the same room, did not know of the overhanging fate. His death occurred at about 5:30 o'clock, shortly after the family had awakened. It was his custom to call members of the family, including his grandson, who is staying there, and that morning he had asked his wife if it was not about time to be getting up. She replied that it was and had gotten up and then her husband called others of the family. In a moment Mrs LeBarron noticed that he was breathing heavily and unnaturally and she called to him but got no reply. Calling the second time and getting no reply she went up to him and after getting to the bedside he gave just a few gasps and was gone, life having been extinct for some time before a physician could arrive.

The cause of the sudden death was apoplexy, a small blood vessel at the base of the brain having bursted, causing almost instant death and entirely without pain, and it is not likely that even he himself knew anything of what was transpiring.

The news was soon spread about and it caused no end of surprise and comment. Only the day before he had been about, attending to his business as usual and apparently was in as good health as ever. In the evening he had come down town, expecting to attend the Eastern Star lodge meeting but the rain began and he knew that his wife would not venture out such an evening and so he went home and spent the evening in his customary manner, retiring at about the usual time, seeming, and in fact being, in as good health as ever.

Mr LeBarron was born at Hoosie Falls, Renssaler county, New York, Nov 27, 1835. The following spring his father, Lathrop LeBarron, and his grandfather decided to "go west" and traveled across the county to Cattarangus county in western New York, where they bought land and began to clear the forest. They were thirty-one miles from Buffalo. The mother and baby, Charles, followed them a few months later. In July Charles' father was killed by a tree which fell upon him. Later Mrs LeBarron married her husband's brother and by him had two more children, Julia M. and Joseph O. The first named is a resident of Shenandoah and widow of the later Moses Barce. Joseph resides in Cushing, Ida county, this state.

Ten years later, by a remarkable coincidence, Mrs LeBarron's second husband, brother of the first, was killed in a similar way, by the falling of a tree, within 80 rods of where the first was killed. His mother continued to reside in that locality and he remained with her until he was within three days of eleven years old, when he left home and from that day continued to make his own living.

He went to work first for a rich farmer named Ralph Johnson and lived with him 18 months, working part of the time on the farm and part of the time in the curry-house and tannery owned by the same man. After leaving Johnson he continued to work in that locality, going to school a few weeks each winter and working the balance of the time. For two or three years he worked for a man named Margham, who had a shingle machine and Charles manipulated that part of the time. Then he worked a while on a dairy farm and the last place he worked in New York was for a fine religious man named Dan Brown. LeBarron was taken sick there and Brown took care of him very kindly and waited for him to recover, but he did not get so he could work much and finally gave up and concluded to go west and see the county. in the spring of 1854 he landed in Kankakee, Illinois.

An aunt named Elizabeth Berzee lived at Kankakee. Markham, for whom LeBarron had worked for in New York, had moved to Illinois and owned a farm 12 miles southwest of Kankakee and LeBarron went to work for him, doing light work at first. By harvest time he made a full hand. In the fall he got the ague and had it good and hard but he stayed there that year and the next until fall. During that time he made a visit to New York and brought his mother to Illinois, where she met and married Samuel Chapman and then in the fall of 1855 Charles went to work for Chapman. During the years of his mother's widowhood, Charles contributed to her support and spent money in doctoring his sister's eyes. After his mother's marriage Charles married his step-sister, Martha E. Chapman, Aug 3, [1853?].

Oct 23 that year he and his bride started with team of oxen and an old wagon and drove across the county and reached his wife's brother's home on Tarkio Creek the day before Charles was 21 years of age. The brother was Ralph Chapman, well known in Page County, who had located on Tarkio a year previous.

C.L. left his wife at the Chapman home and he and Ralph came over to Fischer's Grove, afterwards called Manti, and rented a house of J.F. Durfey, on the John McComb hill but they did not like it and only stayed a few days. Charles then went to Edmund Fisher and rented of him a room occupying a space between two log cabins on what was afterwards the John Meyers place. LeBarron and his wife had only been there three days when a terrible snow storm set in, more severe than any that has ever taken place since. It was the biggest snow LeBarron ever saw in Iowa, four feet deep on a level. The wolves that winter killed about all the deer in this country. LeBarron worked for Fisher that winter hauling logs and wood. The village was cut off for weeks from all communication with the outside world. The state route from Clarinda to Sidney was closed for a month. When Phil Banks finally got through with the mail it took him two days to reach Manti.

The following February LeBarron and his wife moved to Hickory Grove on Buck Creek, in Lincoln township, and he hired out to his brother-in-law, Ralph Chapman, and that summer split rails, built fence and broke up sod. He bought a land warrant of Chapman for $1.20 per acre, saving 5 cents per acre by the transaction as government land was sold for $1.25 per acre. He also pre-empted some land. He proved up and paid for his land, 123 acres that is now known as the Barnhill farm in Grant township, land now worth $150 per acre, 125 times what it cost then. But he was unable to build on it or to get the breaking done so he could farm it. That fall he moved to Manti again and spent the winter of 1857-8 in a little cabin belonging to Nicholas Taylor on what afterwards became the Call farm. In the spring of '58 he rented some land of Almond Sherman and put in a crop. After the crop was in LeBarron and wife and their baby, Asa, and Ralph Chapman all drove back to Illinois and LeBarron went on to New York and stayed three months. They spent the following winter in Illinois and then drove back to Manti, where LeBarron farmed some land for Fisher and lived in a house belong to D.S. Brown, where J.M. Sinclair now resides. Here his second child, Lydia, was born. During the fall of 1859 they bought a long house in Manti and lived in it that winter but the next spring they built a cabin on their own land, tearing the other to pieces and using it to build a tale and some cribs. That summer LeBarron got a little breaking done on his own land and raised some wheat but also rented some land of Mr Fisher. He continued to rent of Fisher in 1861, and in 1862 he rented of a Missourian name Rudisill, who got into disrepute as a rebel and LeBarron got all the crop that year. Stirring events came on about that time and LeBarron remembered a band of soldiers following some horse raiders past his place; also the soldiers bringing a rebel past his place and hanging him some where near the Mckissic's Grove. LeBarron became a member of the Manti Home Guard, a squad of ten men. The government furnished them with guns and ammunition but they had to furnish their own horses and went to Sidney to drill. They made two trips to the Missouri line in search of "the enemy" but did not have any fighting. Dr Whiting, S.S. Wilcox, Louis Whiting and Jed Anderson were other members of this same home guard. There was considerable rebel sentiment in the vicinity of Sidney at that time but it did not manifest itself in any overt acts and LeBarron was not called upon to show his valor under fire.

In the fall of 1862 he drove across the country to Illinois for a visit and was taken sick shortly after he started on the return trip and then retraced his steps to the home of his step-father, where he underwent a long siege of sickness. Then the step-father died and soon after his mother died. LeBarron and his wife remained there and settled up the business of the estate and sold the wife's interest in it and finally returned to Manti about the close of the war. His brother and sister came with them. LeBarron went onto his own farm and remained there several years, improving it and getting on his feet financially. He built a good house and go along nicely. When the railroad came through in 1870, he and Lyman Fisher bought a machine and cut hay and sold to the graders at a good price.

When the town started LeBarron owned 40 acres of land, part of which is now inside the corporation and is used for the cemetery and the brick yard. He sold it to the town company for $800. In the spring of 1871 he built a livery barn, where the seed house of J.B. Armstrong now stands and engaged in the livery business, the first livery man in Shenandoah. The barn was built by Covertson and Dillingham, their first contract in Shenandoah. It was a regular old fashioned eastern barn, with 8x8 sills and 6x6 posts, all well braced as you will find in most of the barns built 40 years ago. LeBarron had a monopoly on the business then and made some money; made more than the liverymen of today make. He got $4 per day for rigs and $1 per day for taking care of a team, 50 cent for a feed. He ran the business over one year alone and then sold a half interest to Lyman Fisher and they ran it a year and then LeBarron sold an interest to Chas Cox. One day Chas Cox made him an offer and he took it up. He was unloading a load of ha6y at the time and he got right off the load with half of it there and turned the business over to Cox. Some time after this Cox sold out to Captain McGogy and while the barn was being moved to another site it was burned. After he sold his livery business LeBarron engaged in the stock shipping business and continued at it for five and one half years. Benj Carey and John X. Griffith were in the business at that time also. Times were against the shippers and Grange movement came up when the farmers concluded to dispose of the middlemen and, in common with the others, LeBarron failed. He lost his money and his farm and was practically cleaned out of everything. W.E. Webster got the farm but he permitted LeBarron to live on it for a time. Then he came to town and got a job as City Marshal and served for five or six years. One year he ran a dray.

In 1885 he went to Rawlins county, Kansas, and took up a homestead of 160 acres and remained there until he got a deed for it. He also took a timber claim but lost that through some defect in the papers. In 1890 he returned to Shenandoah, to the same house he left. He traded his Kansas land to Jeff Williams for 15 3/4 acres just southwest of town, which he still owned. Of his history since his return most of our readers are familiar. The first year he worked at any odd job he could get. The second year was put in as street commissioner and marshal then out a year and in again. He was elected as constable for two or three terms and then as justice of the peace and in which capacity he was still serving. Mr LeBarron was the first constable in Grant township and has served as constable in all 28 or 29 years. He was deputy sheriff 5 years when Isaac Damewood was sheriff. He was the third man to take the degrees of masonry shortly after the organization of the Tri Centum lodge in 1871. Thomas Warren and O.A. Rogers going in just ahead of him.

Mr and Mrs LeBarron have had nine children, all of them living but one. Asa was born in Manti in 1857, Lydia on the Sinclair place in 1859 and died when 19 years old. C.B. was born on the Barnhill farm in this township, Feb 5, 1862, and it is thought he is the oldest native of Grant township, having lived here from his birth, over 43 years. The other children are Etta M. McConnoughey, Edward C., Eugene S., Mattie L., Will I., and Samuel O.

The time of the funeral services has not been fixed, the family waiting to get word from Asa, at Kingham, Arizona, as to whether or not it will be possible for him to get here. The Masonic order will have charge of the services when they are held.