My subscription to the genealogical service Ancestry.com renewed itself the other day --- at considerable expense. But I justify the cost by using it almost daily, although rarely these days to research my own family history. Frankly, I get bored by my ancestors and prefer most days to poke around for more interesting stories to tell.
But now and then I'm overcome by guilt and spend a little time updating the family database. So yesterday, I polished up and posted the following biographical sketch of my paternal great-grandfather, Cassius M.C. Dent. That's Cash, above, with my great-grandmother, Susan Elizabeth (Dunlap) Dent, and their two eldest children, Ethel (my grandmother) and Homer.
Great-grandpa moved around a lot. Born in Belmont County, Ohio, he came to Lucas County, Iowa, as a child, spent his most productive years near Rock Rapids in far northwest Iowa and ended up in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. Here, for anyone interested in wading through it, is the sketch:
CASSIUS MARCELLUS CLAY DENT
By Frank D. Myers
Cassius M. C. Dent, the only surviving child of George Asa and Eliza Jane (Brown) Dent, probably was born on 4 December 1856 in Belmont County, Ohio, a little more than a year after his parents’ marriage.
This is the best we can do, faced by several conflicting dates of birth presented in various sources. In a letter to Ethel (Dent) Myers dated 7 March 1952, Cassius's half-sister, Sarah Minerva (Chynoweth) Rosa, shared her knowledge of the date through her daughter, Dorothy (Rosa) Elson: "Cassius M. Dent - Born Dec. 4, 1856 or 1857. Mother isn't quite sure but thinks it 1856. Born in Belmont Co., Ohio, and she thinks it was near a town by the same name."
The inscription on his tombstone in the cemetery at Hyattville, Big Horn County, Wyoming, reads, "Cassius M. Dent, 1863-1931," which is wrong. Cassius fudged on his age as the years passed and may have told his sons that he was born in 1863.
The year of birth is given as 1854 in a vanity biography published on page 477 of “Compendium of History Reminiscence & Biography of Lyon County, Iowa,” Chicago: Geo. A. Ogle & Co., 1904-1905. His parents, however, were not married until August 1855.
As if these contradictions weren't enough, when Cassius married on 30 December 1885, he stated that he would be 25 on his next birthday (Washington County, Iowa, “Marriage Record I,” page 66).
Cassius was enumerated as age 3 in George and Eliza’s household when the 1860 census of Richland Township, Belmont County, was taken during July (the George Dent family entry is dated 11 July) and so it seems likely he was born in that township. His grandfather, John Dent, stepgrandmother, Sarah, and aunts and uncles Sarah, Robert and Isabella Dent, lived next door with two of his cousins, Margaret J. and John M. Calvert, whose mother, Verlinda (Dent) Calvert, had died during 1852.
Since Isabella was only two years older than Cassius, it seems likely that they were playmates.
Cassius does not seem to be a Dent or Brown-Schooley family name, so its origin is uncertain. It is likely, however, that George A. and Eliza named their son in honor of Cassius Marcellus Clay (19 October 1810-22 July 1903), cousin of Henry “the Great Compromiser” Clay, a firebrand anti-slavery orator, a newspaper publisher, a captain in the U.S.-Mexican War and a confidant of Abraham Lincoln who helped persuade the president to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
We have Nathan J. Kinney, George’s brother-in-law, to thank for providing information about the family on page 243 of his “Journal.” The entry regarding George reads, “5. George Asa, born May 23, 1833. Married Aug. 21, 1855, to Eliza Jane Brown. Died Aug. 16, 1860. His children were, Cassius M.C., Julia and Schooley.”
Julia M, born during 1857, died on 16 May 1858 at the age of one year. Schooley, born during January of February of 1860, died on 16 May 1860, just two months before the census enumerator called at the Dent home. According to the mortality schedule attached to the1860 census, his death was caused by pleurisy. The graves of Julia and Schooley are marked by a single stone in East Richland Cemetery. George's grave probably is located near those of his children, but it is unmarked.
George was only 27 when he died and we have no idea what killed him --- or his daughter, Julia. The mortality schedule attached to the 1860 census states that little Schooley died of pleurisy.
ELIZA JANE MARRIES JOSEPH T. CHYNOWETH, MOVES TO IOWA
Three and a half years after George's death, on or about 27 January 1864, Eliza Jane married Joseph Turner Chynoweth in neighboring Monroe County, Ohio. The Chynoweths were old neighbors of the Dents, dating from the years they had lived next-door to the John Dent family in Adams Township, Monroe County.
Joseph and Eliza’s first child, Sarah Minerva Chynoweth, was born 4 November 1864 in Belmont County, and when she was six weeks old, during December of 1865, the family moved from Ohio to a farm just east of Chariton in Lucas County, Iowa, where several Belmont Countyans, including Joseph’s sisters, Mary A. (married to Lot Curtis) and Martha (married to Thomas Curtis), had settled four years earlier, during 1860. In Lucas County, Joseph worked as a farmer and as county surveyor.
When the 1870 census of Chariton (later Lincoln) Township, Lucas County, was taken, Cassius, age entered as 12, was part of a 10-member household that included his mother and stepfather; three younger Chynoweth half-siblings, Sarah Minerva, George and Mary; Joseph’s son by his first marriage, Thomas Bentley Chynoweth; Joseph’s mother, Bridget “Biddy” Chynoweth, and Joseph T. Chynoweth’s younger brother, William, and his son, also William.
Joseph T. and Eliza J. had become the parents of three more children after arriving in Lucas County: George, born 28 August 1866, and twins, Mary and Martha, born 2 March 1868. The twin Martha, however, died soon after birth and was buried, according to family stories, in the old Douglass Cemetery at Chariton's southeast corner.
Cassius apparently remained a member of this extended family until he was 18, although his work as a farm hand may have included boarding privileges at times. The only account of the next few years of his life is his own, published on page 477 of “Compendium of History Reminiscence & Biography of Lyon County, Iowa,” Chicago: Geo. A. Ogle & Co., 1904-1905. The relevant portions of that “vanity” biography read as follows:
“The subject of this writing began working out as a farm hand when he was about thirteen years old, and followed that avocation in Lucas county, where he remained until he reached his majority. In 1876, he went to Illinois where he spent some four years. After that he put in a year in Lucas county, and the fall of 1881 in Osceola county. He was among the very early settlers in this part of the state. Rock Rapids was then a small town, and Doon consisted of a hotel, a store and the Depot. Here Mr. Dent was mainly engaged in farm work, though ready and willing to do anything that came to hand. Mr. Dent entered the employ of H. G. McMullen, of Cedar Rapids, as a farm hand about 1884, and was set to work on his farm north of Rock Rapids.”
The biographical account eliminates a stop in extreme southwest Iowa, documented by the 1880 census of Fremont County. Casius (sic) M. Dent, age 22, relationship to family given as farmhand, was enumerated in an entry dated 12-13 July in the household of Thos. A. McKee, farmer, in Riverside Township (Census Page No. 208A). Other members of the household included Thomas McKee’s wife, Henrietta M., 38; and children Clark W., 16, Harry M., 14, Nellie, 4, and Pliny V., 2.
It would be nice to know why Cassius went to Illinois and what he did there, and also how he happened to end up in Osceola and Lyon counties, in the far northwest corner of Iowa, wide prairie land worlds removed agriculturally from the wooded hills and smaller prairies of southern Iowa. But Cassius did not share that information.
CASSIUS AND SUSAN ELIZABETH DUNLAP ARE MARRIED
Cassius met Susan Elizabeth Dunlap, who would become his wife, at about the time he went to work for H. G. McMullen. Her parents, Franklin and Sarah (Hunter) Dunlap, had purchased a farm in Section 31 of Riverside Township, Lyon County, about a mile and a half northwest of Rock Rapids during July of 1882.
Susan Elizabeth was born 14 May 1862 in Joe Daviess County, Illinois, and had moved with her parents to a farm near Washington in Washington County, Iowa, prior to 1870.
Although the Dunlaps would return to Lyon County, they apparently had moved back to Washington County when Cassius, “of Rock Rapids, Iowa,” and Susan Elizabeth, “of Washington, Iowa,” were married at Washington on 30 December 1885.
The newlyweds may have established their first home on the McMillan farm north of Rock Rapids, but about 1888 they moved to Horace Greeley McMillan’s newly-acquired property, Lakewood Farm, south of Rock Rapids. At this point, Cassius continues the story:
“Later he came to the present McMullen ranch, which he opened up and brought into cultivation himself. At that time it was wild prairie, and now comprises 1,120 acres, with the finest of farm buildings and everything strictly modern and according to the most advanced ideas of progressive farming. It is a magnificent estate, and its entire development has been accomplished under the personal care and supervision of Mr. Dent who still (during 1904) is in active charge. The principal feature of his management is stockraising, though much grain is produced every year. The show of blooded stock, horses, cattle, and hogs, is peculiarly fine, including desirable strains as the Percheron horse, Short-horn and Jersey cattle, and the Poland-China hogs. Mr. Dent has raised and sold many thoroughbred stallions and bulls.”
A few paragraphs on Page 100 of “From Buncombe to Twenty-Two, 1853-1922,” a history of Lyon County written by Paul C. Smith and Lucy Jo Colby and published during 1975 by the Lyon County Reporter, tells more about Cassius’s employer and Lakewood Farm:
“Rock Rapids came into the limelight late in January of 1898 when one of its most prominent citizens, H .G. McMillan, was nominated for United States attorney for northern Iowa. “Mac,” as he was popularly known, had been high in Republican circles for many years and had been chairman of the state Republican committee.
“McMillan had been a lawyer here, he had been one of the owners of a newspaper at different times, and he had built up a great farm operation south of town. Late in February (of 1898?) the McMillans held a pure-blooded hog sale at the farm. It was held in the big barn, recently built, and more than 500 people attended. The blooded hogs sold well. Top animal brought $100; others went for $90. The average of all animals sold was $28.
“Lakewood farm was one of the big success stories of the area. McMillan bought the place 10 years before for $10.50 an acre. There were 713 acres in the spread. Now it was reported to be worth $40 an acre.
“In May, McMillan and Cyrenus Cole, who was the editor of a Des Moines paper, bought the Cedar Rapids Republican, one of the state’s big daily papers. Cole was to be the editor of the paper and McMillan would look after business matters — in connection with his legal work and work for the government. The sale price of the daily was $45,000.
“The McMillans moved to Cedar Rapids in July of 1898.”
By 1888, Susan Elizabeth’s family had returned to Lyon County. During August of that year, Franklin and Sarah sold their Riverside Township farm to Lional P. Wigram and, during September, purchased Lots 4,5 and 6, Block 40, of Smith’s addition to Rock Rapids.
DEATH DIVIDES THE DENT FAMILY
Cassius and Susan Elizabeth became the parents of three children during their happy years in Lyon County: Ethel, born 25 September 1886; Homer, born 7 June 1888; and Frank George, born 22 December 1893.
They seem to have occupied at least part of the time the big house at Lakewood Farm where they also boarded the farmhands.
When the 1900 census of Garfield Township was taken on 5 June 1900, the Dent household consisted of Cassius and Lizzie and their three children, Ethel, Homer and Frank; five farmhands, M. Beckford, 25, H. Beckford, 27, B. Moon, 28, C. Wilbourn, 31, and H.F. Brandt, 33; and a servant, Rosa Pickett, age 21. Cassius’s occupation was given as “manager.”
By the time that census was taken, however, death and dislocation were waiting in the shadows for the young family.
Susan Elizabeth was of a family predisposed to tuberculosis, a disease that also had plagued a previous generation of Dunlaps. Although her grandfather, James J. Dunlap, lived to age 86, he had watched two of his five children die of “consumption” in Washington County, Nancy at age 20 in 1858 and Thomas at age 28 during the late 1860s.
In Susan Elizabeth’s immediate family the toll would be at least four, brother John W., sisters Samantha and Melinda — and Lizzie herself.
A month after the census-taker visited the Dunlap family, Susan Elizabeth’s father, Franklin, died on 18 July 1900 in Rock Rapids at the age of about 72, also of tuberculosis.
About a month later, perhaps during August, Susan Elizabeth gave birth to the couple’s fourth child. That child lived only until December.
Throughout all of this, her health worsened. In January of 1901, she apparently developed a case of the flu which weakened her even further, and about midnight on Tuesday/Wednesday, 11/12 February 1901, she died at her home in Garfield Township.
The funeral was held that afternoon at the family home, and burial followed beside her father, infant child and sister, Samantha, at Riverside Cemetery in Rock Rapids. The following obituary appeared in The Rock Rapids Reporter of 14 February 1901:
“Mrs. Lizzie Dent, wife of C.M. Dent, died at the family home south of Rock Rapids Tuesday night at 12 o’clock. The cause of death was lung trouble of long standing, hastened by an attack of grip from which she suffered severely early in January and from which she never fully recovered. The deceased was born in Jo Davis (sic) county, Illinois, and was 36 years of age. She came with her parents, Mr. And Mrs. Frank Dunlap, to Lyon county in 1885, and was married to C.M. Dent at that time. Four children were born to them: Ethel, age 15; Homer, age 13; Frank, 7, all living; and a baby who died last December at the age of 4 months, and it is said that grief over the little one hastened the end.
Funeral services were held at the home Wednesday afternoon at 2 o’clock, and the Rev. F. G. Beardsley delivered the sermon. Interment was in the Rock Rapids Cemetery.”
No individual Dunlap-Dent graves are marked in Riverside Cemetery. Instead a large stone inscribed only “Dunlap” is centered on the lot where Susan Elizabeth and her baby apparently rest with other members of her family. Ethel was given the name plate from her mother’s coffin, which reads “Susan Elizabeth Dent, At Rest.”
Soon after her mother died, Ethel was sent to Lucas County to live with her uncle and aunt, John W. and Sarah Minerva (Chynoweth) Rosa. Although her father supported her, she never lived with him, or her brothers, again. She would have been 14 at the time.
Cassius remained in Lyon County, managing Lakewood Farm, for some time after Susan Elizabeth died — at least through 1904 — and Homer and Frank seem to have remained with him. But it also seems that Frank at least may have spent time in a children’s home or boarding school. This may have been related to the case of polio, then called "infantile paralysis," that he experienced as a child. When asked one time why he was so comfortable within the Episcopal church, he replied that he had practically been raised by nuns, and so he felt right at home with similar Episcopal liturgy and practices.
CASSIUS MARRIES THAT YOUNGER WOMAN
According to Cassius’s obituary, published in The Basin (Wyoming) Republican-Rustler on 8 January 1931, Cassius married Miss Maude Gatley during 1908 and two years later, about 1910, the family moved to Wyoming.
Cassius would have been about 54 at the time of his second marriage and Maude, according to census records, approximately 25 — a substantial age difference.
Daniel Myers recalled that his mother, Ethel, liked Maude and that they corresponded for a number of years. It is even possible that Ethel and Irwin Myers gave their daughter, Flora, born during 1907, the middle name “Maude” in honor of Maude (Gatley) Dent.
Frank Dent’s obituary states that he “moved with his family to Wyoming in 1912, locating on Trapper Cree, near the town of Shell.” Trapper Creek follows a valley southeasterly into the Big Horns from Shell, which is located in the Shell Creek Canyon which cuts deeply into the Big Horns’ west face.
It appears, however, that the Dents arrived in Wyoming at least two years earlier. When the 1910 census of Wyoming was taken, Cassius, Maude, Homer and Frank were recorded in an entry dated 22-23 April as residents of Maple Street in the town of Lusk, then in Converse County, now in Niobrara County.
Cassius’s age was given as 54; Maude’s, 27; Homer’s, 21; and Frank’s 16. Cassius’s occupation was given as horse barger, and the census entry states that he and Maude had been married four years, suggesting the 1908 date for their marriage given in the obituary may not be accurate.
Cassius’s obituary states that the Dents lived near Hyattville, also in Big Horn County, until 1923. Hyattville is in high and, to a Midwestener, lonesome country about 20 miles southeast of Shell, on Paintrock Creek.
When the 1920 census of Washakie County was taken, C.M. Dent, age 63, and M.E. Dent, 37, were enumerated as residents of Election District 1. His occupation was given as “ranchman,” working for a wage. The entry, dated February, is found on Sheet B, Enumeration District 126.
During 1923, Cassius and Maude moved to Colville, Washington, located in the far northwest corner of that state.
In 1929, Cassius returned alone to Wyoming, apparently in failing health, and moved in with his son and daughter-in-law, Homer and Edna Dent, who lived on a ranch near Ten Sleep in Washakie County, south of Hyattville.
Daniel Myers recalled being told by his uncle, Frank Dent, that Maude more or less sent Cassius packing when he was no longer able to work full-time to support them. It’s useful to remember that Cassius actually was six years older than he claimed to be, and so he actually was 73 during 1929.
He died at the Homer Dents’ home near Ten Sleep on Monday, 5 January 1931. On Wednesday, the 7th, his body was brought to the community hall in Hyattville where funeral services were held. He was buried in the Hyattville Cemetery, just northwest of town, with Sam Hyatt, Ralph Mercer, William Fultz, Thurston Doyle, Bliss Bayne and Bruce Durfey as pall beareres.
The following obituary was published in The Basin Republican-Rustler of Thursday, 8 January 1931:
CASSIUS M. DENT DIED ON MONDAY
C. M. Dent, well-known to the people of the Hyattville and Ten Sleep districts, died on January 5 at the home of his son, Homer, near Ten Sleep, and funeral services were held yesterday afternoon at the community hall in Hyattville, with the Rev. Mr. Byron in charge. Mr. Byron was assisted by a quartet composed of Ross Kirkpatrick, Bassie Kirkpatrick, Ed Ilg and Cort Pritchard, with A. J. Schnorr as the accompanist. Songs sung during the service were "Rock of Ages," While the Years of Eternity Roll," and "The Old Rugged Cross."
Cassius M. Dent was born December 4, 1862, in the state of Ohio. During his tender years the family moved to southern Iowa, where the deceased grew to young manhood. Shortly after reaching his majority he moved to Lyon county, Iowa, where he engaged in the farming and livestock business. In 1886 he was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Dunlop (sic) and to this union were born three children, Ethel, Homer and Frank. In 1899 death robbed the happy family of their wife and mother.
In 1908 Mr. Dent remarried, taking as his wife Miss Maude Gatley, who remains to mourn his passing. Two years following his second marriage the Dent family came to Wyoming and lived in the vicinity of Hyattville until 1923, when Mr. and Mrs. Dent moved to Colville, Wash., where they made their home. Mr. Dent came back to Wyoming in 1929 and had been at the home of his son Homer for over a year, where failing health had been his lot. He died there January 5, 1931, at the age of 68 years, one month and one day.
He is survived by his wife, Maude Gatley Dent of Colville, Wash., his daughter, Mrs. Ethel Meyers (sic) of Chariton, Iowa, and two sons, Homer of Ten Sleep and Frank of Hyattville, as well as five grandchildren.
Mr. Dent was a typical American, a man of fine character and many qualities which caused him to be in highest esteem by all who knew him. His death is mourned by all and his loved ones have the sincerest sympathy of all in the loss they have sustained.
Following the service, the remains were laid to rest in the cemetery at Hyattville. The pall bearers were Sam Hyatt, Ralph Mercer, Wm. Fultz, Thurston Doyle, Bliss Bayne and Bruce Durfey.
WHAT BECAME OF MAUDE?
The list of survivors, here, is somewhat misleading. Although Maude survived Cassius, she was no longer married to him. My cousin Steve Dent’s persistence answered a number of questions about Maude and her fate.
Marriage records of Stevens County, Washington, found online at the Stevens County U.S. GenWeb site, show that Maude E. (Gately) Dent and L. Franz Woodruff were married 24 December 1929, slightly more than a year before Cassius died.
When the 1930 census of Stevens County was taken, Franz, age 45, a farmer, headed a household in Bruce Creek Precinct that included Maude, 46; his son, Spencer T., 15; and Maude’s niece, Ruth T. Gatley, 12 (Enumeration District 32-10, Sheet No. 1A, dated 18-19 April; Woodruff entry dated separately 21 April).
Steve also located online at the Bonner County, Idaho, U.S. GenWeb site records of Pinecrest Cemetery at Sandpoint. According to those records, Franz and Maude Ellen Woodruff are buried there: “Woodruff, Maude Ellen, 1883-02-12-1963” and “Woodruff, Franz, 1884-04-16-1966.”
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