Cemetery Walk No. 4: Traveling Bones

It’s often possible to date a cemetery fairly accurately by locating the earliest year of death on a tombstone within it, but anyone who tries that at the Chariton Cemetery is going to be misled.

That’s in part because the first burials at Chariton occurred during the late 1840s and early 1850s at Douglass Cemetery, southeast of town along the Blue Grass Road, and in a small cemetery located at the current site of Columbus School, half a block from where I’m typing now.

The current Chariton Cemetery dates from June of 1864 when 19 investors organized the Chariton Cemetery Co. Soon thereafter all graves were moved to the new cemetery from the Columbus School site and families began to transfer bodies from Douglass, a process that continued for many years. In many instances, tombstones accompanied remains and now are scattered across older portions of the newer cemetery.

The oldest bones (if dated from year of death) buried in the Chariton Cemetery, however, traveled considerably farther. They are those of Leonard Gibbon, a newspaper editor shot dead in the streets of Smithland, Kentucky, in 1844, two days shy of his 33rd birthday, by an angry reader. That was two years before the first permanent white settlers arrived in Lucas County.

While we often become angry these days at newspaper editors, we rarely shoot them. So Leonard’s death and postmortem travels make for an interesting story.

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Leonard was born Sept. 12, 1811, in New Jersey, where his ancestors had settled during the 18th century, one of 11 children of Leonard Sr. and Rachel (Keasby) Gibbon. Leonard Jr. had an elder brother, Mason Seeley Gibbon (married Mary Brooks), whose son, William Henry Gibbon, a pioneer Chariton physician, also will have a part in this story.

Leonard Jr. launched a career as a newspaperman that took him west into Ohio and Kentucky and prior to 1837 he married Sarah Ardery. They had one child, Laura R., born Oct. 28, 1837, in Cincinnati, according to her obituary (The Chariton Patriot, Dec. 30, 1915).

From Cincinnati, the Gibbons moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where he was editor of the Louisville Dime, and then ca. 1844 to Smithland, Kentucky, where he became the editor and publisher of the Smithland Bee.

Brenda Joyce Jerome picks up the story at this point in an Oct. 2, 2008, posting to her excellent local history blog, Western Kentucky Genealogical Blog (http://wkygenealogy.blogspot.com). If you wish to read her account in its original setting go here. Otherwise, continue:

"James K. Polk of Tennessee, a Democrat, and his running mate, George M. Dallas, were engaged in a close battle for president and vice president of the United States in 1844. Running against Polk and Dallas were Henry Clay and his running mate, Theodore Frelinghuysen, Whigs. The big issue was the annexation of Texas and a claim to the whole of Oregon. The Democrats favored it --- the Whigs did not. These issues were hotly debated, even in small towns of western Kentucky. Those who opposed the annexation of Texas feared Kentuckians would all migrate to the new state.

"Leonard Gibbon and his wife, Sarah, and daughter left their home in Louisville, where Gibbon had been editor of the Louisville Dime, and settled in Smithland, Kentucky, where he planned to publish the Smithland Bee, a Whig newspaper. They arrived in Smithland by July of 1844 --- right in the middle of the presidential campaign --- and settled in to start a new life, with Gibbon signing several promissory notes and mortgaging the printing press and equipment in order to acquire money to print the Bee.

"Said to have been a mild, peaceable, quiet and inoffensive man, Gibbon, nevertheless, voiced --- perhaps recklessly --- his opinions of the presidential candidate favored by the Democrats. His comments offended at least one reader --- Dr. Samuel C. Snyder, another recent arrival in Smithland. Not long after the article appeared in the Bee, Dr. Snyder happened to meet Gibbon walking down the street, holding the hand of his little daughter. A fight took place, pistols were discharged and Leonard Gibbon fell dead in the street.

"The widow, Sarah Gibbon, was faced with no way to support herself and a young child to rear. Her only resource was the printing press and equipment. Sarah took another mortgage on the press and equipment and continued to operate the newspaper herself.

"In the meantime, Samuel Snyder had been arrested, placed in jail and was indicted for the murder of Leonard Gibbon. There was a change of venue to Crittenden County, where the evidence was heard on the 29-30 of April and 1 May 1845 by a jury composed of the following men: Mickelberry Bristow, Jeremiah Lucas, Alfred Moore, William Ditterline, Thomas H. Wallace, William Clement, Lewis Saxton, Conrod Crayne, Robert Hale, John W. Jenkings, James Fowler and William Molsber. On the 2nd day of May, after all the evidence had been heard, Snyder was led to the bar in custody of the jailor to await his sentence. Finally, it was announced. “We the jury find the prisoner Not Guilty!” Samuel C. Snyder was acquitted and left the court as a free man.

"Sarah Gibbon struggled on, trying to run the newspaper and care for her child. The last record of her in Livingston County was when she took out a mortgage in August in 1847. She also appeared on the 1847 Livingston County tax list with 1 town lot worth $50 and one child between the ages of 5 and 16. According to Through the Canebrake, a book on the Gibbon family and which fictionalizes the story of the murder in Smithland, Laura, the young child of Leonard Gibbon, was motherless when her father died and she went to live with relatives in Iowa.

"Samuel C. Snyder owned property in Smithland also, does not appear on the Livingston County tax lists after 1846.

"Even though Sarah B. Gibbon was still mortgaging the printing press and equipment as late as August 1847, a new editor had moved to Smithland. In September 1845, William Scott Haynes conveyed unto John W. Ross and Ezekiel Green all his right and title in the printing press, stands, types and all other fixtures belonging to the office of the Smithland Bee, his interest being an undivided interest in 3/4 of press, types, stands & fixtures belonging to said office. It was understood that Haynes had plans to print a newspaper called the Jackson Republican. I have three issues of the Jackson Republican from 1846 and was interested to see there was very little local news, but a fair amount of national news and quite a few advertisements for local businesses.

"A couple of things have been noticed while researching and writing these articles on the early residents and events of Smithland. There were a lot of doctors for a small town and there were a lot of murders. In at least two cases, the murders involved doctors."

The book “Through the Canebrake,” published in 2002 and cited by Jerome, was written by William McCollough, a descendant of Leonard’s and Sarah’s daughter, Laura. Sarah Gibbon, contrary to McCollough’s account, however, was very much alive and Laura did not arrive in Chariton until several years after her father’s murder.

At some point after 1847, Sarah Gibbon married another newspaperman, Carr Huntington, and by 1860 Carr, Sarah and Laura were living in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, where he was editing the Beaver Dam Democrat, which he had established in 1858.

On the 4th of September, 1861, Leonard’s and Sarah’s daughter, Laura, then just short of her 24th birthday, married at Beaver Dam her first-cousin, William Henry Gibbon, son of Mason Seeley and Mary (Brooks) Gibbon, and they moved to Chariton. William had established his medical practice in Lucas County in 1858.

William Gibbon served as a surgeon during the Civil War and their only child, Anna, was born Dec. 5, 1864, while William was serving and Laura was visiting family in Cincinnati. They returned to Chariton after the war and settled down.
William established a drug store, too, and the building he erected to house it still stands at the northeast corner of the square. Just before his death in 1895, he and Laura built one of Chariton’s grandest homes on South Grand Street. It also survives in good repair although long since divided into apartments.

At some point prior to 1870, perhaps after the war, Carr and Sarah Huntington moved to Blue Earth, Minn., where he established another newspaper, the Bee.

I do not know what became of Carr Huntington, but suspect that he died at Blue Earth between 1885, when he was enumerated in a special Minnesota state census, and 1888, by which year Sarah Gibbon Huntington was living in Chariton with her daughter and son-in-law. She died at their home on September 11, 1888, and was buried in the Chariton Cemetery, the first grave on a family lot now containing nine.

At some point, and it is not clear from cemetery records when --- nor was any mention made of it in Chariton newspapers --- Leondard Gibbon’s body was removed from its first burial place, perhaps at Smithland, and reburied beside Sarah in the Chariton Cemetery, a considerable distance from where one would expect to find him.

His only grandchild, Anna, married twice in Chariton, first to Ralph F. McCollough and following his death, to Josiah C. Copeland. The Gibbons, the McColloughs and the Copelands all were among Chariton’s wealthiest and most influential citizens although by now, as tends to happen, all have vanished and few current Chariton residents would recognize their names.

Because of their prominence, the Gibbons are featured in various county histories and biographical compilations of their time. Upon death, lengthy obituaries were published. But the passing of Sarah Gibbon Huntington was noted only briefly in 1888 and no mention ever is made of Leonard, her first husband, Laura’s father and William’s uncle. Nor is it possible to discover from material available in Lucas County that William H. and Laura Gibbon were first-cousins as well as husband and wife.

The snow’s a little too deep right now for a visit to the Gibbon graves, but come spring you’ll find them in the northwest corner of the Chariton Cemetery. Enter the main gates and drive west until the long straight drive curves south. The Gibbon-Copeland lot will be on your left. The lot contains three rows of graves marked by individual stones and a massive gray granite monument inscribed “Gibbon” on one side and “Copeland” on the other.

The Gibbons are buried in the row the greatest distance from the driveway, from north to south as follows:

SARAH GIBBON
HUNTINGTON
OCTOBER 6, 1813
SEPTEMBER 11, 1888

LEONARD GIBBON
SEPTEMBER 12, 1811
SEPTEMBER 10, 1844


LAURA R. GIBBON
OCTOBER 28, 1837
DECEMBER 24, 1915


WILLIAM HENRY GIBBON
SURGEON
15TH IOWA VOLUNTEERS
JANUARY 31, 1832
OCTOBER 2, 1895

For more information on the graves of Anna (Gibbon) McCollough, her two husbands, a son and a grandson, click here.

Cemetery Walk No. 3: Edith and Sam Beardsley

Edith and Sam Beardsley were one of Chariton’s early power couples, innovators at a time when undertaking was shifting from a furniture store sideline to full-time profession and both involved in their business to the point that when Sam unexpectedly dropped dead, Edith continued to operate Beardsley Funeral Home on her own for nearly 20 more years.

The photo above, perhaps taken about 1920, is of the Beardsleys with their son, Joe, adopted in 1911 at the age of two months.

Sam was the only son of Wilfred Wesley Beardsley, an Ohio-born marble cutter and purveyor of tombstones who came to Chariton as a young man, and his first wife, Sarah. He was named Samuel Newton Beardsley upon his birth in Chariton during June of 1880.

Edith, whose parents were Millard Fillmore and Ida J. (Willhite) Stevens, was born Aug. 11, 1884, in Grant City, Missouri, where she graduated from high school in 1902. Edith and Sam were married in Chariton on March 1, 1904.

Sam apparently got his start as an undertaker as an apprentice in the Melville Furniture Store operation, but in 1916 he struck out on his own solely as an undertaker.

The Chariton Herald Patriot of March 8, 1916, contained the following announcement: “Having severed my connection with the Melville Furniture store, I will have an exclusive and modern funeral establishment at my home, which I have remodeled for the purpose. I will have a complete new stock and rigs, and I feel that by devoting my entire time to the business I can give better service that ever before. I am located at 537 North Grand St., both phones No. 253. After September 1st I can furnish automobile hearse where it is wanted. Yours very respectfully, Sam Beardsley.”

The new Beardsley Funeral Home, opened at a time when undertakers as a rule embalmed the deceased in his or her home and the corpse remained at home until funeral services were held there or in a church, was an innovation in itself. It was located in a large and rather plain foursquare house located on a lot now occupied by the gymnasium addition to Chariton High School.

Fifteen years later, the Beardsleys were ready to take the next logical step, acquiring a far grander building in a better location and remodeling it into what the Chariton Leader of Nov. 10, 1931, called the “finest funeral home in Iowa.”

The house the Beardsleys had purchased, located at 227 South Grand Street (now Fielding Funeral Home), had been built by Frank R. Crocker and his wife, Minnie (Arnold) Crocker, then remodeled and expanded by the Crockers into one of Chariton’s finest homes. The horseshoe-shaped window on the east façade was a distinctive feature, as were the the turret at its southeast corner and a distinctive porte-chochere that allowed guests to alight from their carriages under cover and pass through a small foyer into a grand reception room where an open stair soared to the second floor.

Following Frank R. Crocker’s suicide in 1907 in this house and the collapse of the Mallory-owned First National Bank, which he had managed into insolvency, the Crocker home became entangled in court action as First National’s federal receiver attempted to obtain ownership on behalf of bank creditors. Litigation continued for years, but finally the Iowa Supreme Court awarded the house to Minnie Crocker, ruling that it was indeed exempt from other claims.

Minnie Crocker then sold the home to businessman Horace G. Larimer and his wife, Willie Blanche (Hollinger) Larimer, and they lived there with their family until after his death in 1928 when it came on the market again.


This photo appears to have been taken after the Larimers had vacated the home but before the Beardsleys had begun to remodel it. The sign indicates that Ralph Downs, who later operated Downs Funeral Home out of the old J.E. Stanton home on East Court Avenue, operated briefly out of the old Crocker-Larimer house, too, but I’ve not explored that aspect of things.

Whatever the case, the Beardsleys spent most of 1931 remodeling and expanding the house and it was ready for a grand opening to which all of Lucas County was invited --- from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 14 and 15, 1931. The project had cost $10,000, an astonishing amount at that time.

Just prior to the open house, the editor of The Leader toured the new funeral home and published the following report in his edition of Nov. 10:

FINEST FUNERAL HOME IN IOWA OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Sam Beardsley Announces Formal Opening of New Home for Saturday and Sunday
Building Cost $10,000
Two Floors of New Home Used in Funeral Service

The new Beardsley Funeral home will be thrown open to the general public of Southern Iowa at a formal opening on Saturday and Sunday, November 14 and 15, Sam Beardsley, owner, said Tuesday.

The new home was completed recently at a cost of $10,000 which included remodeling the Larimer home and installing the latest funeral equipment. The building has four floors, two of which are turned over to the exclusive use for funeral service.

The entire home has been remodeled and finished in white paint. It presents an attractive appearance with tall shade trees and landscaping, with simplicity the major note surrounding the home.

The porch of the home is in stone. The front room of the house has been made into an office, the floor of which is inlaid presenting an unusually sober picture.

A door to the rear of the office opens into the reception room and a circling, wide stair case mounts toward the second floor from this room. To the left of the office is the state room.

Opening off the reception room is the chapel capable of seating several hundred. The draperies of the chapel are in steady red with walls in two tones of cream.

The rostrum of the chapel is in the west end of the building. Mounted on the rostrum is a microphone through which the speaker’s voice is amplified to every room in the building. The Turner public address system also furnishes organ music prior to and following the service.

To the left of the speaker, across the hallway on the first floor is the family room where relatives may sit in comparative separation. The family room will seat 45 persons.

At the rear of the first floor wide doors open into the garage where the six automobiles comprising the Beardsley carriage service are stored. The casket is loaded into the hearse inside the building. The car service of the Beardsley home includes three passenger cars, one hearse, one ambulance and one truck.

Mounting to the third floor on the electric automatic elevator, the service rooms of the home are located. The largest room on the third floor is turned over to the casket display room where the buyer may purchase any type of casket. To the rear of this room is located the burial garment room where dresses and suits may be purchased for burial. In this room is stored the baby caskets.

On this same floor is the operating room where the body is prepared for burial. A closet on this floor contains all the undertaking equipment.

The second floor has been turned over to the living quarters of the Beardsley family. This floor lists bed rooms, a sitting room and a dining room together with a kitchen and ironing porch in the rear. The floor has a guest room which is always available for guests of the home. The maid room is located on this floor.

In the basement a mechanical coal stoker furnishes heat for the building. A lounging room for employees of the home is located in the basement while a toilet and shower bath has also been installed. The laundry room completes the basement rooms.

The home is one of the finest outside of Des Moines. The home is capable of furnishing the finest in funeral service and all Chariton can share the pride of the owners in this fine asset to the community.

And indeed it was a sight to behold and a major factor in breaking Lucas Countyans of funeral-related customs that had been in effect since the beginning of Lucas County. Funerals in private homes became almost unheard of and funerals in churches became less frequent. Dunshee Funeral Home, Downs Funeral Home, Miley Funeral Home --- all competed, but Beardsley had the edge. In my own family (except for my maternal grandfather who had not liked Sam Beardsley and specifically forbade his children to retains his successors) it generally was felt that death was not official unless Archie Beals preached, Gilbert Gartin sang and Beardsley’s handled the arrangements.

Sam Beardsley did not have long, however, to utilize his fine new funeral home. He died there unexpectedly of a heart attack on 30 April 1935, age 54, and became a patron rather than a purveyor.

Edith Beardsley continued to operate the funeral home with assistance from her son and other licensed embalmers until 1952, when she entered an operating partnership with Keith and Mary (Laufersweiler) Fielding. The Fieldings purchased Edith’s share of the business following her death on Aug. 21, 1958, of injuries sustained in an automobile accident. She was 74. Fielding Funeral Home now is owned and operated by Clark and Maureen Fielding, son and daughter-in-law of the late Keith and Mary.

I do not remember Sam Beardsley, of course, but have heard a number of stories about him. I do remember Edith, however.

My aunt, Flora Myers, had worked as Edith’s maid in the new funeral home for a time not long after it was completed. I’m not sure if this was while Aunt Flora was attending normal school or at a time when she had failed to obtain a teaching job (competition for these low-paying country school jobs was fierce during the Great Depression).

She had liked Edith and Edith had liked her and they had remained in touch. When Aunt Flora died too young of complications from multiple sclerosis during May of 1958, just three months before Edith’s own death, she came down those grand stairs at the funeral home when we stopped there to reminisce with my dad. So I remember Edith as dignified, gracious and kind.


At the Chariton Cemetery, Sam and Edith Beardsley are buried on the east side of the drive that parallels its west boundary. To reach the graves, rive straight west from the main gates to the west end of the cemetery and turn left. The Beardsley graves will be perhaps half way between that turn and the Copeland mausoleum on your left, easily visible from a vehicle.


The Fielding family added the new chapel at right, designed to be complement the original house and recycling in its porch original materials. When the chapel was added, the porte chochere was enclosed to serve as an entrance and a number of other interior modifications were made to the original building and 1931 features. Some years before the chapel was added, porches on the southeast corner were removed and additional rooms added in their place.

Cemetery Walk No. 2: Anna Gibbon McCollough Copeland

The best laid schemes often do go awry, in this instance because of the number of interesting people grouped around Anna (Gibbon) McCollough Copeland on the triple lot in the Chariton Cemetery that she shares with two husbands, a son, a grandson, her parents and her maternal grandparents.

So two return visits will be required, one for her parents, Dr. William Henry and Laura (Gibbon) Gibbon, and another for her grandparents, Leonard Gibbon and Sarah (Ardery) Gibbon Huntington. To do anything else would overshadow Anna herself.

And that overshadowing business is one of frustrations of local history --- women before perhaps the latter half of the 20th century often were presented principally as extensions of their husbands or their fathers. Most of the published biographical material out there tends to devote 95 percent of the attention to male accomplishment and only a paragraph or two to the women who held the operation together. It seems odd, looked at from the 21st century.

Anna, however, tends to overshadow her husbands --- one of whom, Ralph McCollough, died after only 10 years of marriage leaving her with three small children; and the other, Josiah C. Copeland, who died after a 20-year marriage that produced three more children.

While her father certainly was revered, her mother --- also a woman of accomplishment --- may have had the greater influence. Anna and her family shared the Gibbon home on South Grand Street, one of Chariton’s finest, with Laura (Gibbon) Gibbon for 20 years.


Both women were pioneers in the public library movement in Chariton and for many years the library was located upstairs over the Gibbon drug store on the northeast corner of the square. Anna also served on the Chariton School Board and worked, when she probably would not have needed to work at all, as librarian at the Chariton High School.

Gibbon, McCollough and Copeland all were names to be reckoned with in Chariton during its first century although all now are absent. Anna seems to transcend much of that, based upon what was written about her and a portrait probably dating from not too long before her death. She seems someone any of us might be comfortable sitting with for a time on that grand front porch on South Grand. Here is her obituary:

DEATH SUMMONS WELL KNOWN LADY
Mrs. Anna Copeland Succumbs
After Illness of But Two
Days With Paralysis
Chariton Herald-Patriot, 12 April 1928, Page 1

The citizens of Chariton and community have been greatly saddened by the passing away of one of our best loved women, Mrs. Anna Copeland. Last Friday afternoon about ten o’clock, she was suddenly stricken with a cerebral hemhorrhage, while apparently in the best of health, and in a hour’s time lapsed into unconsciousness. She never rallied, and on Easter Sunday, Aprl 8, 1928, at eleven o’clock a.m., as the church bells were ringing, summoning worshippers to the house of God, her soul departed to be with the risen Lord. Everything that loving hands and medical skill could do was done to restore her health, but the good God above saw fit to summon her to the home on high. Largely attended funeral services, conducted by her pastor, Rev. Geo. L. Brown, were held at St. Andrew’s Episcopal church on Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock, after which the remains were laid to rest in the Chariton Cemetery.

Anna Gibbon, daughter of Dr. William H. and Laura Gibbon, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 5, 1864. Her mother at that time was spending some time in Cincinnati with relatives while Dr. Gibbon was serving in the civil war, although the family home was in Chariton, Iowa. At the close of the war the family come to the home here, which had been established in 1861 when Dr. Gibbon and wife were married. The doctor was one of the early pioneers of Chariton, coming here in 1858. The daughter attended the Chariton schools and then went to Providence, Rhode Island, where she spent two years at the Friends’ (Quaker) Boarding School, and received a liberal education.

She was married on September 4, 1884, to Mr. Ralph Ferree McCollough, who died on February 4, 1894. Three children were born to them, Clement Gibbon, who preceded his mother in death on September 11, 1912, and Mrs. Dorothy Vaughn, of Bloomfield, and Henry McCollough, of this city. On November 26, 1896, Thanksgiving Day, she was married to Mr. (Josiah) C. Copeland, who passed away on September 3, 1916. They were the parents of three children, Lawrence Copeland, of Corydon; and Mrs. Anna Laura Piper and Miss Kathryn Copeland, of this place. Besides these five children above mentioned she is also survived by eight grandchildren.

Mrs. Copeland ever took an active interest in public affairs, and for some time served as a member of the Chariton school board, also on the public library board, and during the world war and on various occasions has given much time to Red Cross work. For several years, until a year and a half ago, she filled the position of librarian at the Chariton high school. She had been an active and devoted member of St. Andrew’s Episcopal church from early girlhood, and was ever ready and willing to assist in all church activities, in which she was greatly interested. She was also a member of the P.E.O. Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, Eastern Star order, Daughters of Union Veterans, and Chariton Woman’s Club. She possessed a calm and pleasant disposition and to know her was to admire her for her many lovable characteristics. She was an ideal wife and mother, a splendid neighbor, a true friend, and no one in Chariton will be missed more than she. To the grief stricken children and grandchildren, the deep sympathy of the community will be extended.


Anna’s first husband was Ralph Ferree McCollough, a son of James N. and Rebecca (Feree) McCollough, proprietors of a dry goods firm, J.N. McCollough & Co., with which Ralph was associated. He died on 4 February 1894 of pneumonia complicated by “inflammation of the bowels and brain” after an illness of approximately a week. (Lucas County death records and Ralph's obituary give the death date as 4 February, at variance with the tombstone date).


A little more than two years after her first husband’s death, Anna married Josiah Carey Copeland on Thanksgiving Day, 2 November 1896. Born in Kenton, Ohio, he was a son of Howard and Catherine Copeland and a brother of James Darlington Copeland, also of Chariton. Josiah was a lawyer who at the time of his death of “heart trouble and a complication of diseases” was president of Chariton National Bank (not to be confused with the failed Mallory First National Bank) and mayor of Chariton.


Also buried in the same row with Anna and her two husbands is one of her two sons by Ralph McCollough, Clement Gibbon McCollough, who died at his home on 11 September 1912, age 27, of a “hemorrhage of the stomach.” Clement lived next-door to his mother and stepfather on South Grand and it was she who discovered him unconscious and dying. At the time of his death, Clement was operating the family business, Gibbon Drug Store, for his grandmother, Laura Gibbon. He left a widow, Louise (Angel) McCollough.


To reach the Gibbon/McCollough/Copeland lot, drive straight west from the main entrance of the Chariton Cemetery until the drive turns south. The lot will be on your left. The large family stone is inscribed "Gibbon" on its west face and "McCollough" on its east face. One of Anna's grandsons, Lawrence G. Copeland Jr., is buried beside the family stone. The second row on the lot contains the graves (from north to south) of Josiah Carey Copeland, Anna Gibbon McCollough Copeland, Clement Gibbon McCollough and Ralph Ferree McCollough. The third row on the lot contains the graves (from north to south) of Sarah Gibbon Huntington, Leonard Gibbon, Laura (Gibbon) Gibbon and William H. Gibbon.

Cemetery Walk No. 1: Robert Coles

At first I thought I’d call what I hope will be a recurring feature Cemetery Stumble rather than Cemetery Walk. Partly out of deference to the good people across Iowa who work hard to organize, research and present cemetery walks like the one held last Friday in Corydon and coming up at Chariton in September. I don’t plan to invest that much effort. And partly in recognition of my habit of becoming preoccupied in cemeteries with the search, overlooking sunken graves or tumbled tombstones and falling flat on my face. But Cemetery Walk it will be.

The rules are simple: The subject has to be someone I’m interested in, I have to be able to find a portrait of him or her suitable for posting and I have to have visited the grave in person. In most instances I’ll allow obituaries or published biographies to speak for themselves with additional information added when needed to fill the holes.


So let’s begin with Robert J. Coles, interesting for many reasons, most of which are mentioned in his obituary, but also for a few that aren’t. For example, his surname really wasn’t “Coles,” but “Cock.” A son of Oliver Cock and Zipporah Coles, not mentioned by name in his obituary, Robert apparently found the name uncomfortable. I would like to think that in those more delicate times its unfortunate associations were with poultry but suspect there always has been a tendency to think anatomically. Some families have solved that problem by altering the spelling a little and becoming Cox.

But by act of the Iowa Legislature in 1853, Robert Cock became Robert Coles (his mother’s maiden name) and the family arrived in Chariton during that year under that new and more euphonious surname. Their last joint appearance as Cocks was the 1850 census of Wapello County, I believe.

There’s also a distant family connection here. Robert’s son, Wilberforce, married my remote cousin, Sarah Elizabeth Boswell, on 23 May 1869 in Chariton three years after she had moved here with her parents, William M. and Eliza Jane (See) Boswell, from their old home near Hogue Cemetery in Washington Township, Wayne County.

After 35 prosperous and presumably happy years in Chariton, Robert died on January 22, 1888. The following obituary was published in The Chariton Democrat of 26 January 1888. A far shorter death notice also was published in The Chariton Herald of that date. Presumably there also was a full report of his death in the Patriot, but issues for this period of the Patriot are missing. Here’s the obit:

OBITUARY

Death of Hon. Robert Coles

DIED --- At his home in Chariton, Iowa, on Sunday, January 22, 1888, Hon. Robert Coles in the 84th year of his age.

Deceased was born in New York City, on August 20, 1804. In 1815 he removed with his father to Ohio. In 1824 he settled in Bond County, Ill., and taught the first free school in that part of the country. Here he was married (to Lydia Hunt, for some reason not mentioned by name in the obituary) in 1826. In 1831 he removed to McDonough county, Ill., where during his three years’ residence he was engaged part of the time in improving land and part in merchandizing in the then new town of Macomb. In April, 1836, he removed to what is now the state of Iowa and settled in Des Moines county. He was enrolling clerk in the first territorial legislature of the then territory of Wisconsin, and afterward a Justice of the Peace and Probate Judge of Des Moines county. He assisted in the first government land sales of Iowa held at Burlington in 1839. During his residence in Des Moines county, he improved a large farm near Burlington. In 1843 Mr. Coles moved to Henry county, where he improved another farm, and in 1846 moved to Wapello county and settled near Eddyville. In 1852 he was chosen to represent Wapello county in the state legislature. April 10, 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed him Register of the Land Office at Chariton, in which position he served four years with marked ability and integrity, disposing of nearly two million acres of public land.

Deceased has been a resident of Chariton from 1853 to the day of his death. His life has at all times been a singularly active and energetic one, and through all the long years has suffered no stain of dishonor. He has always been one among the first of his townsmen in advocating all measures for the common good. Possessed of a high degree of ability and a natural oratory, he was always in demand on occasions when the power of speech was required, and we presume no man ever lived in the county who has been heard oftener than he.

For the past forty years Mr. Coles has been licensed to preach as a local minister in the M.E. church. His illness has extended over a period of three or four years, during which time he has been confined to his house ever encouraged by the promises of his religion, never faltering in his faith as a Christian. He died as a man should die, after an honorable career extending much beyond the usual limit of human life.

The wife of the deceased has preceded him some two or three years to the grave (Lydia died 8 December 1884). He leaves a large number of descendants to mourn the loss of the grand old patriarch who has been to them as a tower of strength for several generations.

The funeral occurred last Tuesday afternoon, the ceremonies being in charge of the Masons and Odd Fellows, to both of which orders he belonged. Religious services were conducted at the M.E. Church by Rev. W. F. Bartholomew. A large concourse of people accompanying the remains to their last resting place in the Chariton Cemetery.

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The obituary does not mention that after leaving government office, Robert was a merchant in Chariton, most of the time a grocer, and farmed in addition to preaching and serving as a free-lance orator.

If you’d care to visit Robert, enter the Chariton Cemetery’s main gate and drive straight west. The Coles lot is approximately three-quarters of the way to the west end of the cemetery, right along the drive and distinctive because the family stone is aligned east-west so that it faces you. Inscriptions for Robert and Lydia are on the west end of the stone and their graves are in the west half of the lot. A Masonic emblem is engraved on the front (north face) of the family stone. A Chariton Volunteer Fire Department flag holder marks Robert’s grave individually but Lydia’s grave is otherwise unmarked.

Buried on the east half of the lot are Wilberforce and Sarah Boswell Coles on the north side of the family stone and their son, Thomas A., on the south.


Wilberforce, born 18 April 1843 in Henry County, was a veteran of the Civil War and died in Chariton on 10 April 1914.


Sarah, born 19 December 1847 in Mason County, (West) Virginia, died at the home of her daughter, Amber (Coles) Alcorn in Chicago on 11 January 1930.


Their son, Thomas A., was born at Chariton 3 October 1873. A locomotive engineer by profession, he was killed on 27 March 1913 at age 39 in Fort Worth, Texas, when the boiler on his engine exploded.

In addition to Wilberforce, Robert and Lydia Coles had the following children: Zipporah Ann (Newell), Esther Louisa (Williams), John Oliver Coles, Samuel Coles, Albert Coles, Robert Jesse Coles and Wesley Wilson Coles.

Further reading: More information about descendants of Robert and Lydia (excluding Wilberforce who for some reason was overlooked) and a great deal of information about Robert’s ancestry may be found in a book by George William Cocks and John Cox Jr. entitled “History and Genealogy of the Cock-Cocks-Cox Family” and published privately in New York in 1912. I found it on Ancestry.com.