Back when I was a kid and rode the school bus into Russell some years from the east, I used to admire this old house a mile and a quarter or so from town on the Blue Grass Road. By that time it had lost its tower but was well kept in a park-like setting and known as the Vogel Smith place, after its owner.
So I recognized this somewhat battered photograph when it turned up this week as we redeploy contents of a storeroom at the museum. It was among a few documents and photos recovered from the basement of a building on the square that was being prepared for sale some years ago, then passed on to the historical society.
The photo also appears on page 553 of Lucas County's 1978 history, illustrating a brief segment about the Clinton D. Smith family (Clinton was Vogel Smith's father). According to that history, Dr. H.E. Pendleton built the house about 1884 and modeled it "after the Mallory Castle in Chariton. They (Pendleton and S.H. Mallory) both had come from Ilion, New York, earlier." Clinton Smith purchased the 80 acres containing the house and other outbuildings in 1894 from H.E. Pendleton.
There certainly is a resemblance between this house, once apparently known as Pendleton Park, and Mallory's Ilion, built during 1878-1881 and demolished in 1955. The Ilion, however, was far larger and built of brick. So this is kind of a poor man's version --- although the Pendletons weren't by any means poor.
The builders, Hartford Eugene Pendleton and his wife, Julia, are enigmatic characters now, but that's only because they died long ago and left no children to tell their stories. Oddly enough, the remains of both rest in unmarked graves --- Julia, at Chariton's Calvary Cemetery; H.E., at Mount Calvary Cemetery near Imogene in Fremont County.
The couple married in 1869 in Rock Island County, Illinois, then came later that year to what they developed into a 240-acre show place just outside Russell, founded two years earlier when the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad was built through the town site.
Dr. Pendleton did leave behind this brief biographical sketch, which appears in Lucas County's 1881 history:
"PENDLETON, H.E., farmer and doctor, section four, post-office Russell. Is prominent among the enterprising citizens of his township. His natal state is New York, He was born in 1843, and received his preliminary education at Norwich Academy, then studied medicine at Geneva Medical College, graduating in 1867. The doctor practiced two years in Pennsylvania, then came to Illinois. He there married Miss Julia McAvoy. He has no children of his own, but has adopted five. Settled on his present farm in 1869, and has followed farming since. He has a well-improved farm of 240 acres, with an orchard of 500 trees, besides forty-six kinds of forest trees and shrubbery. The doctor is an amateur farmer, taking special pleasure in horticulture, landscape gardening, and fine stock. Is a correspondent of the Farmers' Journal, and obtained the premium for the prize essay on swine in 1876. The prize was substantial, taking the form of a gang-plow, which the doctor runs with five horses."
"Miss" Julia McAvoy actually was "Mrs." --- apparently a young widow with no children and considerable resources. It seems to have been her money that was poured into developing Pendleton Place and she also seems to have possessed the business head in this matrimonial partnership.
That left H.E., who never seems to have practiced medicine in Lucas County, free to be a "gentleman" farmer and something of a bon vivant. He was active in the Lucas County Agricultural Society and the earliest Iowa Swine Breeders Association, ran (unsuccessfully) for public office, including county supervisor and state representative, was an orator of sorts and, as Chariton Leader Henry Gittinger described him in 1905, "a sage beyond his day and generation, who formulated more theories, both practical and impractical, for the progression of society than any man living since Noah baffled the flood."
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The beginning of the end came during the late 1880s as Julia Pendleton became increasingly ill. She died on Jan. 13, 1889, at Pendleton Park of what Lucas County death records describe as "dropsy."
The Chariton Herald of Jan. 17, 1889, reported that "Mrs. Dr. Pendleton died at her home near Russell last Monday, and was buried in the Catholic cemetery in this city on Tuesday."
The following week, The Herald published this remarkable tribute to Julia on its local news page, reprinted from The Russell News:
AT REST
A Worthy Tribute to a Noble Woman
(From the Russell News)
Mrs. Pendleton was truly a child of Nature. She loved music, delighted in art and from field and forest, garden and glen, she caught the inspired lessons of God's love and wisdom. The horses, the cattle, the fowls and pets all knew her voice and recognized her near approach. With flowers it was her greatest joy. From the tiny violet to the queenly rose she had no special choice. Her careful hand assisted nature and with eager delight she watched them unfold their colors from the hand of God. She was a mother to the orphan, friend to the poor and her strong sympathies went out for suffering humanity to the utmost limit of earth's boundaries. In the affairs of trade her judgment ready set could weigh all matters well. In all of her domestic cares and duties she made the most of what there was. Two things she admired: Integrity and Ability. Two things she hated: Profligacy and Laziness.
There is no scale by which to gauge the worth of such a woman. There are but few and the world should learn to know them more. While years are dropping from the calendar of time and earth's busy scenes move on with steady tread, may that solar orb of heat and light shine with soft and gentle rays upon the consecrated ground beneath whose turf she lies, she whose whole life's work, nature and being marked as one good, grand and noble woman.
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Julia had written her will on Nov. 14, 1888, apparently as she sensed death approaching, and when it entered probate with the reliable Alfred H. Goodwin as executor it became evident that she had, in fact, owned the entire Pendleton operation.
Of the estate, H.E. received only the 80 acres where the house and its outbuildings were located as well as her household goods, furniture and personal possessions.
The balance of the 240-acre farm as well as other assets were to be sold to fund a variety of bequests to others. The largest amount, $500, went to Libbie King, "the orphan girl now living with me." She directed that Libbie be educated in Catholic schools and soon thereafter the little girl was placed in the care of the Sisters of the Humility of Mary at Ottumwa.
Adopted son Simon Pendleton received $100 providing he "return home and claim it with four years," which he did. Julia's sisters, Elizabeth McNerny and Lucy McNerny, both living in New York City, received $200 each. The balance of the estate went to Julia's brother, Edward Clark, address not specified. Not mentioned in the will were two other adopted sons, brothers Clement and Willie Pendleton, who later ended up in the Iowa Industrial School for Boys at Eldora.
What Julia failed to do in her will was direct that a suitable tombstone be erected at Calvary Cemetery in her memory and apparently this was something her surviving spouse was not inclined to do. Which is why her grave there remains unmarked to this day.
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H.E. Pendleton continued on at Pendleton Park for some years after Julia's death. During December of 1889, a little less than a year after Julia's death, he traveled to the little southwest Iowa town of Imogene and married there Miss Catherine Horrigan.
The Chariton Democrat of Dec. 12, 1889, reported that, "Dr. H.E. and Mrs. Pendleton entertained a host of their friends at their mansion east of town Tuesday evening, it being in honor of their recent marriage. The doctor's wife is worthy of him in every respect and as entertainers they cannot be excelled. The Pendleton homestead is one of the finest in the county and brilliantly illuminated as it was on this festive occasion its decorations and architectural designs showed to perfection. May they live long to occupy it and enjoy wedded felicity."
By 1894, however, perhaps without Julia's money and her business acumen, the Pendleton operation was floundering. The 80 acres, with its mansion, were sold to the Smiths, who occupied it thereafter, and H.E. and Catherine moved on.
I've had no luck tracking their movements after 1894, but burial records of Mount Calvary Cemetery, Imogene, show that both H.E. and Catherine are buried in unmarked graves there without indication of when or where they died.
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