Mary "Polly" Sutphin Scott Howard was the fourth guest during Sunday's 19th annual Chariton Cemetery Heritage Tour. Portrayed by Ruth Stufflebeem, Polly explained how she came to occupy Lucas County's oldest marked grave, located since the 1860s in the Chariton Cemetery but for more than 10 years before that on what now is the Columbus School hill along Court Avenue just west of the square. Here's the script:
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If you play local history trivia, I have a question for you: Whose remains occupy the oldest marked grave in Lucas County?
My name is Polly Howard and, as you might have guessed, the grave --- just over there --- is mine. I did not live long in Lucas County --- only from April of 1850 until October, when I took sick and died, but I do have that distinction.
Home during my brief lifetime here was historic Chariton Point, encompassed in a 320-acre purchase made by my husband, John Howard, and myself on Nov. 29, 1849 --- the first warranty deed recorded for Lucas County land.
Our cabin home had been occupied by the legendary Buck Townsend and his family and may have included a shanty built by the Mormon pioneers who overwintered here in 1846-47 and claimed the land by pre-emption that spring.
We also purchased --- during May of 1850 from the government --- 160 acres in Benton Township, a couple of miles southeast. That land incorporated the Mormon grave around which Salem Cemetery grew, just as our acres here at Chariton Point included the Mormon graves around which the cemetery you now call Douglass Pioneer developed.
So although I’ve been largely forgotten, I am embedded deep in Lucas County history, both literally and otherwise.
I AM NATIVE to Pennsylvania, born during 1802 in Northumberland County. As a child, I moved west with my family to Jackson County, Indiana, where I married my first husband, Jacob Scott, on the 3rd of July 1824, when I was 22.
Jacob was a dozen years older than I and we had three children before his untimely death at the age of 45 in Jackson County ten years later, during 1834.
All three became honored residents of Lucas County whose descendants now number in the hundreds --- at least. They were Aaron Salter Scott, Anna Marie Scott Bentley and Cyrus Douglass Scott.
TWO YEARS after Jacob died, I married as my second husband John William Howard during 1836 in Morgan County, Indiana. I was 34 at the time and John, recently widowed with four young children, was eight years younger --- only 26.
During the next few years in Indiana we became the parents of five more children, concluding with Thomas, born during 1845 when I was 42 and only 5 when I died at the age of 47.
John did not linger in Lucas County after my death, so none of these children ever lived here after that or would be remembered by many who did. But my two families remained in touch with each other as the younger ones grew up at Fairfield and their older half brothers and sister married and flourished here in Lucas County.
PIONEERS FROM Indiana flooded into Iowa during the later 1840s, responding to the government’s offer of land formerly occupied by native Americans but now for sale to white settlers at $1.25 per acre.
My Scott children --- Aaron, Annie and Cyrus --- were the first of my immediate family to head west in the fall of 1848 just after Aaron’s marriage to Elizabeth Wells. They stopped with kinfolk in Fairfield until the spring of 1849, then came on west to Lucas County where both Aaron and Cyrus made pre-emption claims to 120 acres each southeast of Chariton Point.
John and I gathered the younger children and made the trip west after harvest that fall, stopping for the winter as my older children had done at Fairfield, then on the edge of civilization.
The federal land office was located in Fairfield then and John was able to make a deal with a speculator named Hugh Sample, buying 320 acres at Chariton Point for $350 that included a log house and a few plowed acres during November of 1849.
We moved there in the spring and recorded the deed --- the first warranty deed recorded in Lucas County. We also purchased another 120 acres from the government that May, a tract that includes the current location of Salem Cemetery in Benton Township and near my son, Aaron’s, farm.
THAT CHARITON POINT land had a history of its own by the time we bought it. Claim to it had been made first during the spring of 1847 by members of the Nickerson party --- Mormon pioneers who had been trapped by harsh weather and forced to spend the winter down along the Chariton River there.
Although Lucas County land could be claimed at that time, the survey was not complete --- so it couldn’t be purchased yet from the government. So pre-emption claims were made --- then bought and sold as if the property were deeded. So the Nickerson men made claims to help them out financially when they continued their westward journey.
When spring came and the Nickersons’ oxen had gained enough strength as grazing improved to pull wagons, they were anxious to head farther west. So the venerable Thomas Brandon, then living as a young man at Iconium in far northwest Appanoose County, traded two heifers and a three-year-old cow for their claims and log shanties at Chariton Point.
A year later, in the spring of 1848, having spent the winter with him, Mr. Brandon sold out to a surveyor, entrepreneur and all-around rapscallion named Buck Townsend for a two-horse wagon and a horse.
Mr. Townsend had hoped to profit mightily if Lucas County’s seat were to be located on his land when Chariton was located and named during September of 1849 --- but that was not to be. The selected site was a ways north. Buck --- then anxious to move along in search of new opportunities --- sold out to Mr. Sample, from whom we purchased it, packed his family and moved to far southwest Iowa.
JOHN AND I moved our family into the Townsend cabin when we moved up to Lucas County during the spring of 1850 and got to work.
But as I said, my time in Lucas County was short and by October of that year I was critically ill and on October 17th, I died.
There was considerable discussion about where to bury my remains. There were Nickerson family graves, including that of the family patriarch, Elder Freeman Nickerson, on our land at Chariton Point at a place you now call Douglass Pioneer Cemetery. A few others already had been buried there, too.
But there were those in Chariton who proposed starting a new city cemetery on a pretty hilltop just a block west of the Chariton square.
Eventually it was decided that I should be buried there --- the first interment.
AFTER I DIED, John decided to move our large family of young children back to Fairfield, where he had relatives and friends who could help him with their care. So he divided the Chariton Point tract into three parcels and sold them off. He had returned to Jefferson County by Christmas.
On April 20, 1851, John married the widowed Gracie Ann Doughty, who had been left a widow with four young children when her first husband died. They went on to have five children of their own by the time of his death during 1870 at the age of 59 at Fairfield.
Back in Lucas County, my Scott children prospered. Aaron and Elizabeth raised a large family in Benton Township. Annie married the village blacksmith, John A.J. Bentley, and they lived long and productive lives in Chariton. Cyrus married Eliza Jane Wilson and they raised a large family on their farm, also in Benton Township.
MY ORIGINAL GRAVE did not fare so well. By the time the Civil War was winding down it had become evident that the site just west of the square was too small and would impede the city’s growth if it remained there and was expanded.
As a result, this new cemetery --- where we are now --- was established during 1864 and arrangements were made to remove all who had been buried near the square to the new location.
On the 7th of June 1865 my children, Annie Bentley and Cyrus Scott, purchased adjoining lots here. My remains were relocated to the Cyrus Scott lot, as were the remains of one of his infants; and two infant children of Annie and John A.J. Bentley were relocated to their new lot.
The former cemetery site in Chariton became the location of the city’s first large school building and remains the site of a newer version --- Columbus Elementary School.
Several other Lucas County pioneers had died before I passed, but their graves were marked only with wood and fieldstones and have by now vanished. But John Howard was determined that I would be remembered. So he ordered the fine stone that still marks my resting place and had it inscribed with my name, his name and the names of my parents. When my remains were moved, so was the stone.
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