Ebenezer Badger's tragic end and bitter legacy

Ebenezer Badger

Ebenezer Badger must have seemed to have it all, at least to the casual observer, when he took his own life on the family farm southeast of Chariton at the age of 62 on Feb. 24, 1880.

Born during 1812 in Dutchess County, New York, Mr. Badger had moved west as a child and young man with his family through Ohio to Grant County, Indiana, where on the 10th of January 1836 he married Margaret Ann Wyant.

The couple prospered and produced seven healthy children in Grant County, then during early spring, 1850, headed west by ox-drawn wagon to Lucas County, Iowa, accompanied by extended family (including his mother-in-law, Magdalena Wyant, about whom I wrote yesterday).

Upon arrival at Chariton Point (the village of Chariton barely existed at the time; Lucas County had been organized only a few months earlier, during the fall of 1849), the Badgers purchased several hundred acres of land.

The couple brought with them sufficient resources to purchase in addition to government land (at $1.25 per acre) a piece of property with one of the longest ownership pedigrees in the county --- claimed first by Mormon pioneers, traded in succession to Thomas Brandon and the legendary William "Buck"  Townsend and his wife, Edna, then purchased by John and Mary Howard.

During their first years of residence in the two-room log cabin they found already on the land, the Badgers would have watched as the tail end of the Mormon exodus from Nauvoo rolled past their home on the Mormon Trail along with hundreds of gold-seeking California-bound 49ers and immigrants headed farther west into Iowa in search of black gold --- Iowa's rich soil.

As the years passed, Margaret and Ebenezer became the parents of four additional children and replaced the cabin with this fine house at the first corner of what we now call the Blue Grass Road just southeast of town. Their only recorded tragedy was the loss of a son, John Wyant Badger, who died at age 24 while in service during the Civil War.

But on Tuesday morning, Feb. 24, 1880, the news spread rapidly through Chariton that Ebenezer had killed himself --- and family secrets abruptly became public knowledge. Dan Baker, editor of The Chariton Leader, reported the suicide as follows under heading "Sad Suicide" in his edition of Feb. 28:

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On Tuesday morning the people of the city were shocked to hear of the death by suicide of Mr. Ebenezer Badger, an old and respected citizen of this county, residing a mile or so southeast of town. The coroner was soon at the house of the deceased, where the truth of the terrible report was soon realized.

The old man had deliberately placed a loaded shot-gun to the side of his head and discharged it, killing himself almost instantly. The cause for the rash deed was family difficulties, as for some years past the old  man, his wife and boys at home had not lived harmoniously, the trouble arising from the ownership of property. It seems that Mr. Badger had made an engagement to come to town on Tuesday morning, and had saddled a horse to ride, but that one of his boys turned him loose and refused to permit the old gent to ride. Soon afterward the tragedy was committed.

The old man two or three years ago was strongly inclined to move to Oregon, but a reconciliation was effected between him and his family, and he gave it up.

Mr. Badger was one of the pioneer settlers of Lucas county, he having removed here from the state of Indiana in 1850, and settled upon the place where he died. He was a hard working, frugal, thrifty, temperate man, and after thirty years of exertion had accumulated a handsome competence, which should have been a source of comfort and happiness to  him in his old age. He reared a large family, most of his children being married and residents of this county.

As a friend, neighbor and citizen, Mr. Badger was universally esteemed by those who knew him and will be lamented now that he is dead. His age was about sixty-nine years.

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The family buried Ebenezer the next day in the Chariton Cemetery --- at the south end of the large lot where his mother-in-law, Magdalena, had been laid to rest five years earlier.

When his will was produced in the days that followed, it became evident that Ebenezer had recorded evidence of family troubles in it for posterity. After standard bequests to Margaret and nine of their 10 surviving children, he singled out son Isaac Newton Badger:

"As to my son Isaac Newton, who was the main cause of the estrangement between myself and his mother, it is my will that he take no share of my estate."

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During the week that followed The Leader report of Ebenezer's death, Newton Badger called on Dan Baker to complain about what he had perceived as inferences in it against him. Baker replied in his next edition:

"Mr. Newton Badger thinks our item of last week relating to his father's suicide is a reflection on him. He says that the old man did not intend riding to town the morning of his death, and that they had no fuss about a horse, which we do not doubt. He also asserts that the old man and family have lived perfectly harmonious for years past, &c.

"In view of the fact that the old man himself disinherited the aforesaid Newton in his will because the said Newton had estranged the old folks from each other, we will leave others to judge of the truth of Newton's statements. That's all."

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There's every indication that the Badger family pulled itself together after Ebenezer's death and carried on. Isaac Newton Badger continued to farm near Chariton and raised a family. When he died at his home in Chariton on June 2, 1939, at the age of 85 he had outlived all of his siblings.

Note: I've taken the photograph of Ebenezer Badger from his memorial at Find a Grave where it was posted by a descendant, Betty Best.