The Empty Chair, Part 3: Death and Burial in Burlington, Iowa

 It is not possible to determine exactly when Partrick Lewis arrived in Burlington, Iowa in the spring of 1837. He may have been there for a few weeks before he became and ill and died around June 5. He travelled by coach from Connecticut through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, before reaching either Gulfport, Illinois, (across from Burlington) where he could have taken a ferry across the Mississippi River, or to St. Louis, Missouri, where he could have reached Burlington via steamship. The trip would have taken several weeks and would have been arduous at best. Much has been written about the condition of roads on that route, and the ever-present possibility of a breakdown or accident along the way. It would not have been a smooth ride, either. A passenger would have been exhausted by the time he or she arrived at their destination.

In addition to an uncomfortable ride and the possibility of accidents, disease was a constant threat. In Lewis’ case, if he didn’t catch smallpox on the trip, in close proximity to total strangers, he could easily have gotten it in Burlington. A smallpox epidemic was raging at the time, presumably brought by infected passengers aboard the SS St. Peter, a steamboat owned by the American Fur Company of John Jacob Astor. The ship left St. Louis up the Missouri River with infected passengers, leaving infected people along the way. Burlington is not near the Missouri River but it’s not much of a stretch to think of the epidemic racing up the Mississippi River valley. The American Fur Company later denied any culpability in the matter, denying knowledge of sick passengers. Regardless of who was responsible, the epidemic raged among the tribes of the region, killing at least 17,000 people. There were also periodic outbreaks of cholera.  The Smith Cemetery referred to below was often the final destination for those who were passing through and got sick.  It seems as though Burlington, along with the rest of the Wisconsin Territory, was an excellent place to get really sick if that was your plan. 

Perhaps in an effort to assure readers that Burlington was past the epidemic, the Wisconsin Territorial Gazett published an article on August 31, 1837:

Health—It is exceedingly gratifying to us to state that health generally prevails in this section of country. There is no such thing, so far as we have learned, and we have made frequent enquiry as an epidemic prevailing either in this Territory, or on the Illinois side of the river.  Heretofore, it must [ ] be admitted, the towns generally on the Mississippi, have been more or less affected in the summer and fall months with ague and fever, and intermittent fevers but this season, thus far, and the season is now far advanced, there has been no such thing. That there has been isolated cases of ague and fever, remittent fevers, and dysentery, we do not pretend to conceal; but there has been no prevalent disease, no epidemic of any sort.

It seems likely that smallpox probably killed Lewis, but there is no record of his death save a brief obituary in the Alton Telegraph of Alton, Illinois on June 21:

DIED A few days on at Burlington, Wisconsin Territory PATRICK LEWIS Esq Formerly of Meriden Conn

An obituary also appears in the Columbian Register, a New Haven, Connecticut newspaper, on July 15:

In Wisconsin Territory, about the 5th of June last, Patrick Lewis Esq. of Meriden, Ct. aged about 35.

 
In the family plot in the East Main Street Cemetery in Meriden there are two family plots for the Lewis family in two generations. There is a memorial stone for Partrick and the grave of his wife Mary, who died in 1861 along with a son and daughter. The other stone is for their son, George Hallam Lewis and his family. George died in the Civil War in 1863. The stones were set up in the 1860's, decades after Partrick's death.

Note that the cenotaph for Partrick notes his death date as June 13. It is impossible to say why there is a discrepancy. It may be that the exact date is not known and the family settled on June 13 to give some finality to his death. The two newspaper obituaries quoted above are vague, presumably because they did not know the exact date. This adds to the probability that Partrick died alone and his death date either was not known or was not recorded.

The story doesn't end with Partrick's death. Even in death he still moved around some. For this part of my search I am indebted to Julie at the Des Moines County Heritage Center in Burlington and to Paul French, a lifelong resident of Burlington and a local historian. Paul in particular was extremely helpful in tracking down information about the earliest cemetery in Burlington.

In 1833 a Jeremiah Smith established a private cemetery on the western edge of Burlington on Boundary Street, now Central Street. Families had to pay to have their loved ones buried there. The burials accumulated rather quickly. Major Smith's grandson. C. E. Smith, wrote in the September 16, 1908 issue of the Burlington Evening Gazette about his grandfather's cemetery:

In a more recent issue of your paper, reference was made to the discovery of eight skeletons where excavations are now in progress for the new High school building. The facts you give are correct, but here is the earliest history of that plat of ground. That entire block where the Burlington university stood and where the old High school stands to-day, was given to the city of Burlington in the 40’s by my grandfather, the late Major Jeremiah Smith, Jr., “the ground to be used for a burying ground and no other purpose.” At this time, Fourth street was about the western limit of the town. In a few years it was noticed that the little cemetery would soon be inadequate for the growing town, and Aspen Grove and other cemeteries were established.

In 1852, Rev. G.J. Johnson, pastor of the Baptist church, succeeded in gaining, very reluctantly, the consent of my grandfather (who was at the time on his death bed) to remove the dead and build on the spot the Burlington university, or Baptist college, as it was sometimes called.

Many of the old settlers were highly indignant over the disturbing of the bones of the pioneers and others laid to rest there. One old settler named Chas. Cloutman published a pamphlet expressing his indignation over the matter, and he saw to it that one of his pamphlets found its way to every door in Burlington.

The removal of the dead to other cemeteries continued for some time. Many were past being removed, while others were the remains of emigrants who were on their way to the Far West, their relatives stopping long enough to inter them, and then abandoning them to their fate of disinterment over a half century later.

image courtesy of Paul French

In the image to the left, taken from an 1846 plat of Burlington, is shown the Smith cemetery after it had been turned over to the town. If you look closely you can see horizontal lines, some dark and some lighter, that probably represent burials. The cemetery quickly absorbed the burials of people who were passing through and died for various reasons. Aspen Grove Cemetery was established in 1844 to provide more room out of the center of town. The City of Burlington declared the Smith cemetery a nuisance in 1852 and passed an ordinance requiring families to remove their loved ones' remains to Aspen Grove or another cemetery of their choice, giving them a year to do so. The city was hoping to attract a Baptist college to town and felt that the cemetery site would be a good place for it. Some removed their loved ones' remains, and the earliest gravestones in Aspen Grove originally came from the Smith cemetery. But, many were not moved, suggesting a rather hasty removal of anything above ground with little regard to who or what was buried below ground. Evidence of this is found in periodic reports of human remains turning up in construction. The site of the cemetery, since the cemetery's removal, has been host to three successive large school buildings and some homes. On December 3, 1872 the Burlington Hawk Eye Gazette reported that forty-six skeletons had been discovered on the site and were reburied in the Potter's Field in Aspen Grove.

I visited Aspen Grove and the Potter's Field which is presumably the current burial place of Partrick Lewis. The Potter's Field is a section of the cemetery set aside for those families who did not have the means to pay for a burial.  Many of the graves are for small children whose families could not afford a burial. A number of adults are buried there as well. The photograph to the right is of several rows of gravestones from the Smith Cemetery. Considering the close proximity of the stones to one another it doesn't seem likely that the bodies are with the stones as placed. These gravestones are believed to be the oldest gravestones in the state of Iowa.

I stayed in the cemetery for quite awhile. In a sense I didn't want to leave him behind after taking so long to find him. I left something behind, though--a small sliver of chestnut from a beam from the 1830 house, that imposing mansion that was their home for only four years, and a chip of Connecticut brownstone, so ubiquitous here.

Partrick and Mary were avid readers of poetry, apparently, from their choice of their son George's middle name, Hallam. Arthur Henry Hallam was a romantic poet who died at a young age in 1833.  The first of Hallam's Meditative Fragments expresses the sense of longing that Partrick must have felt as he lay dying in an unfamiliar place:

 My bosom friend,'tis long since we have
looked
Upon each other's face; and God may will
It shall be longer, ere we meet again.
Awhile it seemed most strange unto my heart
That I should mourn, and thou not nigh to cheer;
That I should shrink ‘mid perils, and thy spirit
Far away, far, powerless to brave them with me.
Now am I used to wear a lonesome heart
About me; now the agencies of ill
Have so oppressed my inward, absolute self,
That feelings shared, and fully answered, scarce
Would seem my own.

So that's the end of the story for Partrick. I will soon post my first blog entry on Partrick and Mary's son George, my gr. gr. grandfather.

My family and I now know what happened to Partrick Lewis and where he is buried. Those were my two goals in the lifelong search for my gr. gr. gr. grandfather.  We don't have to accept the cover story created to cover up the pain of a bankruptcy and a tragic death. I promised my father I'd find him. The chair isn't empty any more.

I found him, Dad. For you.

The Empty Chair, Part 2: The Wisconsin Territory and the Panic of 1837

In 1830 the Federal Government, with the passage of the Indian Removal Act, made a monumental decision to expand the land available for settlement and farming in the United States. Native people of the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes, along with others, were forced off their traditional lands located from Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico. The were relocated to land west of the Mississippi River. This is the time of the Trail of Tears. This grossly immoral act uprooted people who had lived on those lands for thousands of years, land that was a part of their spirituality and their identity. Today they still live with the effects of this tragic decision.

By 1833 the Michigan Territory covered what are now the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and the eastern parts of North and South Dakota east of the Missouri River. The Wisconsin Territory was set apart in 1836, and the Iowa Territory, a part of our story, was formed in 1838. Iowa became a state in 1846. With the establishment of the territory the region was opened for the purchasing of land. The sale of land took off and shot up like a rocket. People left the Northeast and the formerly westernmost states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to find cheap land in the new territory. The growth in the region was uncontrolled and at times chaotic.

Burlington was the gateway to the Michigan/Wisconsin/Iowa Territory. Now at the southeastern corner of Iowa it was first settled in 1833 when the territory was first opened. Very quickly it became the first stop for anyone looking to settle in the vast region. Stores opened, selling provisions for the journey inland. Burlington itself was little more than a collection of log cabins and a few more permanent structures. It experienced a constant flow of people passing through, some staying in town, but most moving on. In some cases people would be found face down in a ditch after a hard night at cards or a drinking binge. Burlington was also a good place to become seriously ill. There were waves of smallpox and cholera, and undefined fevers called “bilious” fevers that were probably viral in nature.  It had the feeling of a rough and ready frontier town. There was no local governmental authority to keep order so residents simply did what they wanted. In 1836 the first Wisconsin territorial legislature sat and began to establish laws to govern the territory.

When the Michigan Territory was opened for land sales it was assumed that the majority of buyers would be families looking to relocate, but speculators, looking to make a quick profit, swooped in and started buying up huge tracts of land for resale. They paid for it with specie, paper money issued by state banks that was not backed by hard cash, but by land. Eventually the government saw through this and in 1836 President Andrew Jackson signed the Specie Circular, an executive order that required buyers to pay in gold or silver for land. The idea was twofold: to reduce the exponential growth of the use of specie in the economy, and to make it more difficult for speculators to buy up large tracts of land. 

The Panic of 1837 reached a climax on May 10, 1837 when New York banks ran out of silver and gold coinage and would not honor specie at full face value. Being based on the inflated value of real estate, the bottom fell out of the specie market. When this happened, prices for many things deflated. The economy did not recover until 1844. Manufacturers and merchants in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Delaware were hit especially hard by the financial upheavals, and many businesses failed.

Economic historians differ on what caused the Panic of 1837. Some see the Specie Circular as the cause, others look to links with British investment in American interests. The Specie Circular would have been a factor, although how much is still open for debate. What happened, though, is not. The value of specie plummeted and New York banks would not redeem it at face value. On May 10, 1837 the New York banks stopped honoring specie and there was a rush on banks. What resulted was a depression that lasted until 1844. Andrew Jackson was blamed for the disaster. The copper token below is one of many that substituted for US coinage when the disaster struck. One side has a phoenix rising from flames and the inscription "SUBSTITUTE FOR SHIN PLASTERS NOVR. 1837" and the reverse has the inscription "MAY TENTH 1837. SPECIE PAYMENTS SUSPENDED". "Shin plasters" was a derogatory term used for paper money in denominations less than a dollar. It came to mean something that was worthless.

1837 token used as a substitute for a US penny

1837 token used as a substitute for a US penny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Horace Greely, editor of the New York Tribune, placed the blame squarely with Andrew Jackson:

…General Jackson retired to his Hermitage, congratulating himself that he left the American people prosperous and happy. Never was man more mistaken. He had just before pointed to the immense sales of public lands, in 1835-36, as proof of increased and general addiction to agriculture, when, in fact, it proved only a plethora of currency, and a consequent high-ride of speculation. At length, convinced that something was wrong, the General attempted to dam the flood by a “specie circular, “ prescribing that only coin should thenceforth be received as pay for public lands. This device precipitated the catastrophe it was intended to avert.  ( Horace Greely, Recollections of a Busy Life (New York, 1869), p. 122)

The tide of migration to the west increased as people found themselves destitute. In the first issue of the Wisconsin Territorial Gazette (July 20, 1837) this assessment is found of the attraction of the west:

Emigration in the Far West.—In the letter from Wisconsin which we published a day or two since, it was mentioned that government land in that region at the low price of $1,25 per acre, and it is not long since it was stated that land in the city of Detroit had fallen from the high estimate which had been placed upon it and could be obtained at reasonable rates.  For some years past the tide of emigration has rolled strongly and rapidly toward the west, but it has been impelled by a spirit of speculation rather a sober desire of finding a place where a subsistence of a competence might be obtained.

The flow of emigration has not yet slackened; on the contrary, from the recent convulsions in the mercantile and manufacturing districts, which have deprived merchants and manufacturers of their fortunes and mechanics and operatives of the means of gaining bread, an immense accession has been made to the number of those who are looking to the far west for a home, and a region where they by patient toil and industry gain a livelihood if not retrieve their fallen fortunes.  Though there are yet some who dream of golden harvests from western speculations, the great body of those who are now turning their faces towards the West are animated by far different feelings.——They leave cities which can no longer give them support, and towns where the hand of want and distress has fallen heavily upon those whose handy work had heretofore been a fruitful source of support, and seek those broad and fertile regions where the toil of the farmer will be rewarded by the generous crops of a new, and heretofore unbroken soil.

1837 political cartoon blaming Andrew Jackson for the depression

Not everyone saw emigration as a good thing. The Feb. 4, 1837 issue of the Columbian Register reprinted an editorial from the New York Express on the subject of preemption. A bill was passed in Congress in 1830 that allowed squatters who were living on federal land when the land became available for sale to have first refusal on the purchase of the land for $1.25 an acre. Many protested this policy because it circumvented the whole process of someone buying the land through established channels. The writer of the editorial saw this policy as an easy way to encourage people to leave their homes in the Northeast and emigrate to the territories, thus depleting the workforce:

 

If Connecticut does not call to account her Senator for his treachery, and ask him why he has given this bribe to her people to leave their homes and emigrate to the West, she has lost all that sagacity with which the world is crediting her……If New Hampshire ever asked a question—but New Hampshire does not —she would demand “why do ye so?”  It may be, however, that New Hampshire at last recognizes the sentiment of Jeremiah Mason, of Boston, when toasting his own native State— “New Hampshire—(a pause, and with feeling,) —New Hampshire, a noble State to emigrate from,” and hence this Bribery Bill to tempt her citizens in scores to run away from home. 

It isn't surprising that with the economy in a shambles people would look for a fresh start in new territory. Partrick Lewis eventually took the gamble. After the disastrous foreclosure on most of his property pool he remained in town. There are no indications of what he did for employment, if anything. At some point it would have occurred to him that there was nothing left in Meriden for he and his family. In January, 1837 he sold his parent’s house for around $250, equivalent to about $7500 in current dollars. Considering he had probably made plans to move to Wisconsin Territory, and could only pay for land from the government in gold or silver, he would need cash in hand.

At a February 1, 1837 political meeting, where Lewis was one of the secretaries, two resolutions were passed that seem out of context, but may relate to his financial difficulties:
 

 Resolved, That whilst we deny all desire or wish in any way to screen the fraudulent debtor from punishment, or of throwing in the way of the creditor any hindrance to the collection of debts—yet we cannot but regard the present laws in relation to the imprisonment of poor debtors as the mremnant of barbarous times yet lingering amongst us—revolting to humanity, at war with Christian principles, and disgraceful to a free an[d] enlightened people.

    Resolved, That we are opposed to the increase of Banking privileges in this state—to all chartered monopolies and to all exclusive privileges and whilst we admit (under existing circumstances) that banking, if fairly and honestly conducted, may be and no doubt is, of advantage to many—yet we would not on this account shut our eyes to the evils and abuses growing out of the system, but believe a strict and rigid examination called for—and where-ever it shall be found that any banking company have denied accommodations to citizens of our own State for the purpose of obtaining a greater per cent incerest [interest] for the use of their money from the citizens of other states—thus showing that money making, and not the accommodation of the public, is their governing purpose, it should be considered as it in fact is, a virtual violation of chartered privileges, and for such conduct they should be deprived of their charter. (Hartford Times, Feb. 11, 1837)


Advertisement in the May 14, 1836 Columbian Register

 

 

After that he made plans to travel to Wisconsin Territory (Burlington, now on the Mississippi River in Iowa) to get a new start. He would have easily followed the development of the territory as most newspapers carried to latest actions of Congress and the President. The Columbian Register (New Haven), for instance, published a summary in its Saturday, Aug 27, 1836 issue of an act of Congress that set apart the towns of Fort Madison and Burlington in Des Moines County. Columbian Register. Many people went west ahead of their families. They would go out, get some land and get established, and send for their family when things were settled. It didn’t work out that way for him. The window for his time in Wisconsin (now Iowa) is rather short. He was present at the meeting of the local Democratic party convention in Branford, Connecticut on February 1.  After that time I can’t track his movements at all other than his death on June 13. A lot happened between those dates. 

Next time I'll look at what happened to Partrick Lewis in Iowa, based on my recent research trip there.