A founding father of Belinda meets his maker

Many Lucas Countyans still can locate the pioneer village of Belinda, astraddle Highway 14 between Chariton and Knoxville, thanks in large part to a legendary fast-pitch softball team and its playing field, located there from the mid-1940s well into the 1960s.

But Belinda's origins are obscure and I can tell you authoritatively only that the post office of that name was established in 1858 and that the venerable Samuel Scott Walker (1807-1892) was appointed first postmaster on the 10th of September that year. He eventually moved west to Kansas. The final postmaster was Nathan N. Byers, appointed on the 9th of November 1895, who served until 1908 when the post office was discontinued.

The story in my family is that the village, never incorporated formally, was formed on land owned all or in part by Alfred S. and Sarah (Busey) Cole, who moved west to Lucas County soon after their marriage during 1854 in Morgan County, Illinois. The village was named for their first child, a daughter named Belinda, who was born on Aug. 7, 1855.

So I was especially interested the other day when I came across an account in The Chariton Patriot of June 17, 1874, of Alfred Cole's demise, which had occurred on the preceding Sunday, June 14. Mr. Cole, unfortunate in death, was doubly unfortunate because the details of his demise fell into the hands of a newspaper editor intent on using the circumstances to illustrate the hazards of strong drink. Here's The Patriot report:

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 We are indebted to Mr. F. H. Boggess of Pleasant Township for the particulars of the death of Alfred Cole, also of Pleasant township, which occurred about 2 o'clock p.m. on Sunday last. Cole unfortunately was of that class of men who imbibe too freely of intoxicating liquor when suitable opportunity offers, and his sudden death was the result of his last spree of this kind.

On Saturday last, he was in Chariton, and after getting a full supply of the beverage in his stomach, and a few days rations of the same article in his pocket, started home in company with a man by the name of Rhone, of Columbia, Marion county. They all arrived safely at Cole's when the team was changed and a more spirited one hitched up to take Rhone and his wife on to Columbia, Cole, after being disarmed of his bottle by his wife, undertaking to manage the team for the trip.

In this he succeeded until on the way back, when the horses became unmanageable and ran away, throwing the drunken man from the wagon and injuring him so badly that his death followed at the time above mentioned.

Our informant does not mention the character of the injuries, but it is enough to know that they were fatal. The man is dead, his wife is a widow, and whisky is the cause. "Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging, and whoso is deceived, thereby is not wise."

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Alfred was buried in the nearby Columbia Cemetery where a couple of his infant children already had been laid to rest (tombstone photo here courtesy of Find a Grave). Sarah remained on the Lucas County farm into the 1890s but was much remarried --- as many as three times. She came to rest finally on the 8th of February 1911 while living at Lovilla and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery there.

Belinda had a hard life. Two years after her father's death, on June 23, 1876, she married a distant cousin of mine, Jones S. Clair, son of Zolomon J. and Delilah (Feagins) Clair, whose marital misadventures are themselves the stuff of family legend.

Belinda and Jones had seven children, two of whom died young, but he, unfortunately, was an abusive drunk --- and she divorced him in Lucas County citing physical and mental abuse and adultery during 1894. After that, Belinda remarried at least twice. Her end came at the age of 79, on the 24th of November 1934 at the Iowa Hospital for the Insane in Mount Pleasant, attributed to senility. Her remains were buried in the hospital cemetery.