50th anniversary

Half a Century

Mr. And Mrs. Enoch Mead

celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their wedding day

Jan. 20, 1835, just half a century ago yesterday, under most auspicious circumstances, Rev. Enoch Mead was joines in marriage to Miss Mary E. Jameas at Weybridge, Vt. The groom was a young minister, a graduate of Yale and of Auburn theological seminary, and even then was gaining high praise for his talented preaching. He was descended from Maj. Gen. Mead, a revolutionary hero, who with his ancestors had occupied a homestead at Greenwich, Conn., since before 1660. The bride was a young lady of an old family, with a character finely fitted for the position of a minister's wife. At the time of the marriage Mr. Mead was the pastor of a congregation at New Haven, Vt., where he was very successful in his calling. New Haven was their home until 1837, when Mr. Mead under the influence of a desire to move to the then almost unsettled country about the Mississippi, started west. It was mid winter, and he traveled in the primitive way then necessary. His route was by way of the Ohio river to the Mississippi. He then came up the Mississippi to the Illinois river and to Peoria. From there he made his way alone to Rock Island, and from there to Davenport, in a flat boat ferry, with the river full of floating ice.

Davenport was at that time but a hamlet of a half dozen houses, but four miles below the village of Rockingham was thriving with about two hundred inhabitants. To that place he went and found a field open for a man of his calling. He staid there teaching and preaching until 1839, when he returned to Vermont, packed up his household goods, shipped them to Rockingham via New York and New Orleans, and started with his family in a wagon, overland. He reached Rockingham before winter set in and settled in a log cabin back of Rockingham and in the direction of Blue grass. Their houshold goods did not arrive until spring and they were in a bad predicament the first winter, with only such furniture and utensils as could be borrowed from the neighbors. They built a new log house the next summer not a quarter of a mile from their present residence. They lived there two years and then moved into a new palatial log house where they now live. The house was eighteen feet square, contained but one room and the logs were niely fitted together. The neighbors thought that it was an immense house and wondered what they wanted such a large one for, and remarked on the great height of the ceiling - about six and one half feet. The inside work was made of walnut, which was cut from the woods near by, taken to the nearest saw-mill, at Muscatine, sawed and dressed and then brought back. In the course of time a better house was needed and the new frame dwelling which is their home now, was erected. The old log house was still strong and perfect and the new house was built around it. So that the old friends who visited Mr. and Mrs. Mead stood within a log house of the old times, although none would have known it from the sense of sight.

The fiftieth anniversary of the wedding was a happy day for the aged but well preserved couple who thus celebrated an event from which nothing but happiness had followed. Old friends poured in in a constant stream all the afternoon, to the talk of old times recalling pleasant rembemrances of younger days. Old settlers especially delighted in grouping together and relating reminiscences of times gone by. Members of the old settlers' society, of which Mr. Mead is an ex-president, were numerous among the callers, and three generations each vied with the other to make it pleasant for them, for Miss Lizzie Mead, and Hon. James Mead, of Wichita, Kan., were present, as were Miss Mamie Mead, and James Mead, Jr., son and daughter of Mr. James Mead, and grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. Enoch Mead.

Refreshments were served during the afternoon and when a number of old pioneer friends gathered around a table and began to talk the reporter began to feel as if he ought to have long baby dresses on and that he was only beginning to learn to talk. In the sitting room, on a table and about the room were evidences of the esteem in which the venerable couple were held, in various tokens to commemorate the event. There were also some family keepsakes that had been handed down from ancestors. The was some needle work over one hundred years old, some pen work by the revolutionary hero Gen. Mead, of Washington's staff, grandfather of Mr. Mead, some china and silver spoons which had been owned by three generations, having been wedding presents of Mrs. Mead's grandmother.

Not the least prized mementoes were replies to invitations from classmates of Mr. Mead at Yale. There are nearly a dozen of them not yet through with their life work. Among these replies was one from from Elias Loomis, now senior professor at Yale, and from Mr. Bissell the noted Sunday school worker and also from Ray Palmer the poet, author, among other sacred hymns, of

"My faith looks up to thee,

Thou lamb of Calvery."

Few couples reach the age of Mr. and Mrs. Mead or pass the half century stone of married life who are so well preserved, mentally and physically, as this worthy couple. Both are active and appear able to make the journey of life together to celebrate their diamond wedding, and many were the congratulations they received on the subject with wishes that they might live in strength and happiness to observe succeeding anniversaries for years to come as pleasantly as they made that of yesterday to their friends, and the Gazette with many others sincerely wishes that such may be the case.