We're unlikely ever again to see the likes of Mary Jane (Calhoun) Johnston/Brown --- or of the type of community newspaper reporting that produced the following brief memoir of a Lucas County pioneer, published on Page 1 of The Chariton Leader of July 10, 1928, to mark her 80th birthday.
The tombstone here is that of her first husband, James C. Johnston, whose death in 1876 at age 36 left her a young widow with four sons to raise. It's located in Oxford Cemetery, not far northeast of Chariton. I took these some years ago. I've borrowed photos of the Brown stones from Find a Grave. They're the work of Doris Christensen.
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Mrs. C.W. Brown, of 734 Auburn avenue, celebrated her 80th birthday quietly at her home on last Saturday. During the day she was the recipient of congratulations by telegram, mail and personal calls, also many remembered her intense love for garden flowers with handsome bouquets.
Mrs. Brown bears the distinction of having a continued residence in Lucas county for seventy-five years. Born in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1848, to Mr. and Mrs. James Calhoun, she was named Mary Jane and at the age of five years she came west with her parents, who located at Chariton Point.
Her father was a young carpenter and many buildings are yet standing in the county as monuments to his mechanical ability, his own home, for instance, now the home of Miss Josephine Thorpe on West Armory avenue, which he traded shortly after the close of the Civil war to William Penick, father of Hon. J.A. Penick, of this city, for a farm in Lincoln township, across the road from Oxford church and to which place they moved at once.
Mrs. Brown remembers the trip to the "far west" by rail from Zanesville, Ohio, to the river, thence to Keokuk, and the balance of the journey was by stage to this place, where they took a temporary home in a log house located where the south side of the square is now located. She well remembers that Dr. Charles Fitch and his bride were also residing then in this pioneer inn.
There were no schools here, except as someone offered his or her services to as many as were willing to "subscribe." She yet has thrills when she thinks of her fright at the sight of the Indians who roamed at will and of how she crept along to school, taught by the wife of a Methodist circuit rider and dodging Indians.
Rev. Bracewell, whose death was noted last week, performed the marriage ceremony sixty years ago of Mary Calhoun and James Johnston, also native of Zanesville, Ohio, who was deceased at the early age of thirty-six, leaving three sons to the care of the widowed mother. Corwin Johnston is the eldest and surviving son, a prominent businessman of Springfield, Illinois.
Mrs. Johnston was again married to the late C.W. Brown, of Lincoln township. They were the parents for Claire Brown and Mrs. Robert Lucas, of Lincoln township; Gail, of Des Moines; and Carl, of Albin.
Mrs. Brown enjoys a reasonable degree of health and finds great enjoyment among her lifetime friends who sincerely wish that she may be spared to enjoy more birthdays in this community where she is so highly esteemed.
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Sadly, Mrs. Brown did not live long after this piece was published. Her health declined rapidly after this and she died on Aug. 8, 1928, at her home, an apartment in what was described as the "Baxter home," a nice old home that's on the market now, just in case you're interested.
The Indians Mrs. Brown remembered most likely were hunting parties composed of remnants of the Sauganash band of Potawatomi, resettled in southwest Iowa and then driven into Indian Territory after that, who continued to live and hunt in the region for some years thereafter.
2 comments:
CW(charles Washington), a husband of Mary Calhoun was a relative of my grandmother, Daisy Pearl Brown Moore, I have a copy of a phote of Mary with a bunch of people standing in front of the Oxford Church, when I was a kid, for a short time we lived with my grandfather near the Oxford cemetery, at the time the then abandoned Oxford church was still standing, across the road from the church lived a Foster family, one of the kids who lived there and I used to go inside the church, when we lived with my grandfather, I found a hymnal from the church, which I had for a long time, but then sent i on to the Lucas Co. Historical Society , I wnet to the Oxford school when I was in the 5th or 6th grade.
the "unknown" is Hugh Wallace Latham,NY
mary calhoun was 2nd or 3rd marriage to Charles Washinton Brown, first or 2nd was a lady named Kirkhoff (sp?) buried at oxford, my grandmother was married to my grandfather Wesley Moore, they lived their lives around the oxford neighborhood, both buried at Oxford, Daisy Peal Brown Moore was raised by her grandmother Elmira Foster Brown, also buried at Oxford, she lived East of Williamson, on a farm now owned by the White family, as I recall first by Thomas White, then his son Kenneth White, and now his son whose name I don't know, Elvira was widowed when her husband died shortly after her husband was hit by a pole at the lucas co. fair or so the story goes.
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