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Rebecca Given
(1846-1885) |
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Rebecca Given 1
- Born: 4 Dec 1846, Virginia Beach, Virginia Beach (city), Virginia, USA 1
- Marriage: Robert G Hamilton on 26 Apr 1848 in , Wapello, Iowa, USA 1
- Died: 28 Dec 1885, Pella, Marion, Iowa, USA at age 39 2
- Buried: Pella, Marion, Iowa, USA 2
 Noted events in her life were:
• Letter, 1939, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA. 3
Rebecca married Robert G Hamilton, son of James N Hamilton and Rachel Berry, on 26 Apr 1848 in , Wapello, Iowa, USA.1 (Robert G Hamilton was born on 2 Feb 1824 in , Bath, Virginia, USA,4 died on 25 Nov 1895 in Pella, Marion, Iowa, USA 2 and was buried on 28 Nov 1895 in Pella, Marion, Iowa, USA 2.)
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Sources
1
Geralyn W. Barry, e-mail 08182007. Surety: 3.
2
Geralyn W. Barry, e:mail Geralyn Barry of 08212007 - (D: DB - Death of Robert G. Hamilton, - VERSION 2 - [transcribed and] annotated by Geralyn Wood Barry, 18-20 August 2007. Surety: 3.
3
Geralyn W. Barry, e-maile #2 of 22 August 2007. Surety: 3.
4
Geralyn W. Barry, e:mail Geralyn Barry of 08212007 - (D: DB - Death of Robert G. Hamilton, - VERSION 2 - [transcribed and] annotated by Geralyn Wood Barry, 18-20 August 2007. Surety: 3. source file: D:\\Genealogy\\Legacy DB\\Pictures\\Berry-Hamilton\\Geralyn re Berry-Givin-Hamilton.txt
VERSION 2 - annotated by Geralyn Wood Barry, 18-20 August 2007 ==============================================================
Death of Robert G. Hamilton
Last Monday evening at 9:50 o'clock at his home surrounded by his family and a few near friends, Robert G. Hamilton breathed his last and peacefully entered into rest. Though not wholly unexpected the summons was sudden, unrelenting and heartbreaking to his family. It had been known to this family and friends for several years past that he was afflicted with heart disease and for several months past the nature of the disease indicated a fatty degeneation [sic] of the heart. The malady had gradually increased and though able to be about his business he was frequently obliged to take an extra day of rest to regain his failing strength. Last Monday he did not feel able to go to his work but remained with his family at home. He did not appear to be in any marked degree worse than on previous similar occasions, and chatted pleasantly and cheerfully with his neighbors several of whom called during the day the inquire as to his welfare. Late in the afternoon symptoms of the crisis began to be manifest. He experienced difficulty in breathing. The usual remedies were applied with satisfactory results but the relief was only temporary and the difficulty returned more and more frequently and with greater severity, till the medicines failed to afford relief when the doctor was sent for at about 9 o'clock. His lungs gradually filled with blood caused by the heart's failure to carry it away, and he died of suffocation before the arrival of the physician.
Robert G. Hamilton was born in Bath county, Virginia, Feb. 2nd 1824, son of James N. and Rachel Hamilton [1].
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[1] Rachel Hamilton nee Berry was the daughter of John Berry and Jennet
(Janet) Given
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His parent [sic], in the fall of 1832, started for Northern Indiana, via Charleston [2], thence by boat to Madison, Indiana [3], where they disembarked and were preparing for their journey northward, when the Governor of Indiana, in anticipation of Indian wars in the new purchase, toward which settlers were going in large numbers, issued a proclamation forbidding settlers emigrating into the hostile country [4].
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[2] This is almost certainly Charleston, WV (today the capital of West Virginia but at that time part of Virginia) in Kanawha County, located about 100 miles WNW of Warm Springs, Bath County, Virginia. They could have traveled by boat down the Kanawha River from Charleston to Henderson / Point Pleasant, located on the Ohio River, and from there, down the Ohio to Madison, Indiana. See the following websites for more about river travel on the Kanawha:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanawha_River,
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wvkanawh/local/KanawhaRiver.html and http://www.wvculture.org/HiStory/wvhs1401.html . Another website claims that the "Kanawha River was the first river ever to be improved at government expense in the United States"
[http://www.pointpleasantwv.org/MasonCoHistory/MasonCountyHistoryWebPage.htm].
[3] Madison is located on the Ohio River in Jefferson County, Indiana.
On the other side of the river is the town of Milton in Trimble County, Kentucky. There were some Hamiltons and Berrys in Jefferson County, Indiana census records for 1830 and 1840, but I do not know if there is any connection.
[4] I tried to confirm some of these dates given for Indian hostilities in northern Indiana in online resources, but gave up. It seems to me that we could determine if the dates given here are correct or off by a few years.
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The following spring (1833) hostilities with the Indians began and the Hamiltons sojourned in Madison till the fall of 1834, when they started northward again, but being alarmed by the reports of Indian atrocities, they turned aside, and directed their way into Illinois, settling near Peoria where they remained till April 1836, when they removed to Lee county, Iowa, and settled three miles north of West Point [5].
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[5] Peoria, Illinois is in Peoria County the north central part of the state on the Illinois River; East Peoria is across the river in Tazewell County. In the biographical sketch for George Berry at http://www.beforetime.net/iowagenealogy/lee/HistoryOfLeeCounty1879/P806.html
, it states that Berry went to Peoria in the fall of 1836 and to Lee County, Iowa in the spring of 1837. I found an application of a George Berry for a permit to build a mill in Peoria County in 1836 which supports his story. The first federal land offices opened in Iowa in
1838 at Burlington & Dubuque; that is the earliest year that land could be purchased in Iowa from the federal government. It seems likely that the Hamiltons, Berrys and Givens traveled together from West Virginia.
Later records say George Berry and Isabel Given married on 18 Nov 1834, but I have not found a record of that. Might they have married in Indiana?
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The father dying in 1840 [6], the older sons, John B. and Robert G.
[Hamilton in company with G. T. Clark, Henry McPherson, Dr. J. L. Warren and son Robert, Tyler Overton, and Henry Miller emigrated to Marion County], camp[ing a few miles southeast] of where Pella [is now,] on the 26th day of April 1843, [being] among the earliest settlers in the county [7].
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[6] James N. Hamilton probably died in 1842.
[7] Missing narrative due to torn paper was supplied from a very similar account that appeared in a letter to the editor of The Pella Chronicle [Pella, Iowa, Thursday, May 4, 1939] from Robert G. Hamilton's daughter Emma Hamilton, 3515 McClintock Avenue, Los Angeles, California. I believe she also wrote Robert's obituary or contributed substantially to it. G. T. Clark was Green T. Clark, the future brother-in-law of John B.
Hamilton, whose wife-to-be Anna Wilson (married 22 Aug 1843 Lee County,
Iowa) was very likely the sister of Clark's future wife Nancy Wilson (married 5 Nov 1846 in Marion County).
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He was united in marriage to Rebecca H. Given, April 27, 1848, and to them were born eight children, seven of whom still live [8].
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[8] Robert G. Hamilton and Rebecca H. Given were married 26 Apr 1848 in Wapello County, Iowa, where the Given family was living at the time.
Their 7 known children were:
1) James Given Hamilton (born 20 Oct 1849 Marion County, Iowa; d. 6 Feb
1919 Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa, USA; buried 8 Feb 1919 Oakwood Cemetery, Pella, Marion County, Iowa; married 3 July 1889 to Mrs. Mary E. Hayden in Lee County, Iowa, who brought children with her to the marriage; I do not think they had any children together)
2) Charles W. Hamilton (born abt. 1851 Iowa; d. 29 Dec 1913, Waterloo, Douglas County, Nebraska; buried 1 Jan 1914, Oakwood Cemetery, Pella, Marion County, Iowa; married 23 Oct 1872 to Amelia Worth in Marion County, Iowa; 3 known children, including 2 sons, John and Charles Edwin, and a daughter Eleanor)
3) Ancel (or Ansel) W. Hamilton (born abt Feb 1852 Iowa; married abt 1880 to Mary C. [maiden name unknown at present; d. 1920-1930 probably Wyandotte County, Kansas]; two daughters)
4) Elizabeth A. Hamilton (b. abt 1855 Iowa; d. 28 Feb 1932; buried Oakwood Cemetery, Pella, Marion County, Iowa; never married)
5) Emma Hamilton (b. abt 2 Dec 1856 Iowa; d. 3 June 1945, Los Angeles, California, where she lived with the family of her niece Eleanor
(Hamilton) Todd, daughter of Charles W. Hamilton (2) above and wife of Mark Todd; never married)
6) Arthur John Hamilton (b. 27 March 1864 Iowa; d. 14 Feb 1943 Los Angeles, California, USA
7) Mary Louisa Hamilton (b. 7 Sep 1865 Pella, Marion County, Iowa; d. 17 May 1886 Pella, Marion County, Iowa; buried 19 May 1886, Oakwood Cemetery, Pella, Marion County, Iowa)
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For nearly 38 years, or till Mrs. Hamilton's death in 1885, they traveled life's rugged pathway hand in hand, one in purpose, one in faith and hope, and one in their loyalty to their duty toward God and their fellow-men.
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[9] Rebecca (Given) Hamilton died 28 Dec 1885 at Pella, Marion County, Iowa and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Pella. We tried to find the Hamilton plot in Oakwood Cemetery. In the publication "Oakwood Cemetery of Pella, Marion Co. IA" (part of "Cemeteries of Marion Co IA"), the Hamilton family is listed in Lot 166, with details that suggest that the information was perhaps taken from gravestones. We thought we had located "Lot 166" in the older section of the cemetery on a map of Oakwood Cemetery that we found at the Pella Historical Society. However, there were no visible gravestones in that area when we went to the cemetery. Either the gravestones are no longer visible or else we had the wrong lot. It is a very large cemetery and it was getting near dark...
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He engaged in farming for several years, until an injury disqualified him from following that pursuit, when he moved to Pella in 1855 and engaged in contracting and building and later in the retail lumber business. He had filled various official positions in the city and township, at one time serving as Mayor of Pella.
Throughout the 52 1/2 years of his residence in this vicinity, his life has been an open book, read and known of all men. "He stood four-square to all the winds the blew."
[part of article missing, the line below must be the end of a missing paragraph]
bor, friend or christian undone.
In his family he was all gentleness. As a husband he was kind, constant and true. His beloved wife preceeded [sic] him to the better world ten years ago. True to the faith in which they had walked together for so many years, he sat by her bedside all through the long day preceeding [sic] her death, and quoted to her the blessed promises of God that had cheered and sustained them so long.
As a father, he was a Godly example to his children, demanding no standard of conduct that he was not willing to conform to himself, thus earning and enjoying in full measure the loving loyalty of all his children.
His last day upon earth was spent at home with his family; in cheerful converse with friends who called or in reading the scriptures or the hymns from his Church Hymnal. From the hymnal he read to members of his family a few of his favorites and commented upon their beautiful expression of his faith, and hope, and upon examination of the book after his death it was found that he had marked the hymns that were sung at the funeral services Thursday afternoon.
How beautifully did his life fulfil [sic] the high command of the idealist:
So live, that when Thy summons come to join, The innumerable caravan that moves To the pale shade, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed, By an unfaltering trust: approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
To his children he has left the heritage of an honorable and untarnished name; -- "rather to be chosen, than great riches," -- to all who knew him, the example of an upright, steadfast christian life.
While we can but mourn his death, yet we rejoice that the sum of his life, "Goes not down behind a darkened west, nor hides obscure in the tempest of the sky, But fades away in the light of heaven." So, since he has so fully and so faithfully served the Divine purpose of his Master, how justly might he have said, with Paul:
"I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness."
The funeral services, held in the M. E. church were very largely attended the church being filled to overflowing with sympathizing neighbors and friends. The city council and old settlers attending in a body. Rev. A. W. Haines, of What Cheer, Rev. W. F. Mair, of Knoxville and Rev. G. E. Farr of the Baptist church in this city, assisting Rev.
C. E. Westfall, the pastor, in the impressive services.
Those from a distance who came to [page torn] funeral: Miss Maggie [tear or fold in paper, but perhaps no loss of text] Hamilton of Council Bluffs [10]; Mr. and Mrs. James Hamilton [11], Miss Margaret Given [12], Miss Jessie Dicks [13], Mr. and Mrs. S. F. Prouty and Miss Lillie Warren, all of Des Moines.
[10] I think this Maggie Hamilton is the daughter of Robert G. Hamilton and Rebecca Given; she married Dr. John Green M.D. in about 1898 and died in 1905 in Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie County, Iowa (across the Missouri River from Omaha, Nebraska), but was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Pella.
[11] I think this couple is James Given Hamilton (son of Robert G.
Hamilton and Rebecca Given) and his wife Mary E. (maiden name unknown to me).
[12] Miss Margaret Given is probably the daughter of James Given and Elizabeth Graham, who was born February 1834 in Virginia. She never married and died in Des Moines in 1914.
[13] Miss Jessie Dicks was the daughter of Elizabeth Given and her husband Alonzo F. Dicks. Elizabeth was the daughter of James Given and Elizabeth Graham.
In 1900, Margaret Given [11] was living with the Dicks family in Des Moines.
