Biographies:  Clinton County, Iowa

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From the History of Clinton County, 1879, by L. P. Allen

GEORGE WOURMS PASCAL, Grand Mound. "I was born March 14, 1828, in Longeville, Le St. 
Avold, in Lorraine, France; my father, mother and their children came to Canal Dover, Ohio, in the 
spring of 1841; we were Catholics; I went to common school and soon became American in head 
and heart, loved the American people in all their general habits and sought to imitate their good 
qualities. In 1846 and in 1847, I learned to make and paint chairs, in Shanesville, Ohio; there 
became a Methodist and was thrown on my own resources; taught school one term, then went to 
Allegheny College at Meadville, Penn., where I was a student during 1848, 1849 and 1850; I 
found many fast friends there; Hon. John F. Duncombe, now of Fort Dodge, Iowa, was a 
classmate and friend. March 11, 1851, I married Miss Talitha Cumi Cotton, sister-of Hon. A. R. 
Cotton (now in Clinton; she is a pure Yankee of the old Plymouth stock, born Feb. 13, 1829, in 
Austintown, Trumbull Co., Ohio; we commenced life in Parkman, Geauga Co., Ohio, and, Dec. 
26, 1851, was born to us our first babe-Diophantus L.; in 1852, I was a short time in Cleveland, 
Ohio, learning surveying with the City Engineer, and at the close of that year started for De Witt, 
Clinton Co.; walked over the Mississippi from Albany to Camanche, on the ice; Camanche, then 
the chief town of Clinton Co., was small, but it had some men of enterprise in it, honest, upright 
and friendly to all, who encouraged the new settlers; I walked to De Witt and was delighted with 
the beautiful prairies, and resolved to make our home in Clinton County, then an almost 
uninhabited prairie; there were a few small houses and cabins along the margins of the groves; 
the people were very friendly, good and kind; I entered some prairie Jan. 8, 1852, now our 
Malone farm; on May 1,1853, I landed in Camanche with my wife and babe Diophantus, and Lucy 
L. Parker (aunt to wife and Hon. A. H. Cotton, sister of John Cotton); she was old and of the pure 
Yankee blood; she was Lucy Cotton, born in Plymouth, Mass., Feb. 8, 1783 (the year of peace 
with Britain); she loved the many New England settlers who kept coming with their enterprise; we 
made our home near De Witt, entered some land and bought some; the country was new and 
wild; I taught school the winter of 1853, and quite a number of the young men now active 
business men, were little boys then in my school in De Witt; I surveyed for many years and 
traveled over the almost trackless prairies with my compass; then the timber in the groves 
consisted of old trees in a half dying condition, and in many groves it appeared that timber could 
not grow; a clear sight could be taken through most of the groves and timber belts; there was not 
much underbrush or young growth; this was burned from year to year, and it then seemed that 
fuel would fail as soon as the few old trees were consumed; people were very careful to save the 
timber and protect it from the prairie fire; from this vigilance there are now many beautiful groves 
of thrifty young trees, and there is much more timber in Clinton County than before it was settled; 
I surveyed in Lyons when it seemed to be but a bush with some huts and very few small houses 
near the river bank; Elijah Buell was then a man of great force and foresight, and did much to 
encourage the early settlers; I surveyed in the main town when all was bush over the square and 
the main part of the town, and I could not get a clear sight without cutting brush; this had been 
protected from the fire; I surveyed Buells Addition to Lyons, when it was almost all brush, timber 
or field, and when Clinton was yet farms and bush; it had been marked on the old maps of Iowa 
as a town and was called "New York;" this shows that some of the pioneers on the river had an 
eye to the future of the side now occupied by the thrifty city of Clinton; I traveled over the 
expanded prairies with my chain and compass, spread out my tripod from place to place and 
surveyed a parcel to be the future home of those who came to share our hardships and enjoy our 
hopes and pleasures, and with much delight watched hut after hut, and shanty after shanty rise 
on the prairie; we all knew each other for many miles around and were happy to meet and greet 
each other as neighbors and friends. I made my home one mile north of De Witt, on an eighty-
acre lot, and built a comfortable strong house, planted the orchard that is there, and there were 
four of our children born. The college year of 1859-60, I was a student of astronomy and the 
higher mathematics in the University of Michigan and the Detroit Observatory, under James 
Watson, Director this was a source of great delight to me; March, 1861, I was admitted to the bar 
as an attorney at law under Judge John F. Dillon; I did not like to earn my living by meddling with 
other people's quarrels so did not practice.

During the rebellion, I was on the Union side, always hating slavery, and could not endure 
the thought that slaves should have to toil and breathe in our otherwise fair land I enlisted in the 
26th I. V. I., with the privilege of joining the Engineers as soon as convenient; but when the 
volunteer engineers were dismissed, I was dismissed and came home, and was never mustered 
in. I was drafted, near the close of the war, to fill the Clinton County quota; got Albert Roseman, 
of Davenport, to be my substitute, at a cost of over $1,000 cash.

In politics I take but little part, letting America rule and manage the public affairs of the 
country they have built so nobly. I, like most foreign people, was a Democrat, then a Free-soil 
Democrat; but, as my knowledge increased, I advanced, joined the Republican standard, and 
took part in the organization of the Republican party in Clinton County, and have adhered to its 
general principles ever since; have sometimes voted for Democrats of good principles and fair 
talents, rather than vote for men of my party whose good faith I doubted.

We have spent our best days in Clinton Co., and have tried to act our parts as well as our 
talents permitted. Here we have laughed, smiled and wept; here were born to us four sons and 
three daughters; here in De Witt we buried our infant son Dio, brought with us, who died in Lyons 
August 29, 1854; in De Witt, we buried grandma Lucy L. Parker, who died on our farm near 
Malone Feb. 28, 1870, aged 87 years and 20 days. Our children were born in Clinton Co., the 
eldest in Lyons, four on the farm near De Witt, the two youngest on the farm near Malone: Aylett 
Leveriere, born Oct. 25, 1854; John La Place, born Feb. 5, 1857; Lucy Anna, born March 29, 
1860; Arcana Celestia, born March 20, 1862; Talitha Cumi, born March 27, 1866;  George 
Wourms, born April 10, 1868; Daniel Descartes, born Aug. 18, 1870. Aylett L. was a student of 
the University of Iowa in 1875-78, and, in June, 1878, took his degree as Batchelor of Laws, 
was admitted to practice in all the courts of the State, and is now practicing in De Witt. He married 
Miss Celia Purcell, of Iowa City, Aug. 21, 1878. We have made three farms in Clinton Co.: one of 
only eighty acres, one mile northeast from De Witt; one of 240 acres, half a mile west of Malone; 
one of 410 acres, one mile east of Grand Mound; have 160 acres of woodland, two miles 
southeast from De Witt, near the old Ames homestead. We have now left in Clinton Co., 810 
acres and a few lots; once owned a block and a half in De Witt; have 800 acres in Pocahontas 
Co., Iowa, since June, 1858; have raised many thousand bushels of grain and many thousand 
pounds of pork and beef; have a good comfortable home on a farm of 410 acres near Grand 
Mound, a railroad station, and the palace cars glide by our door on one of the best steel-track 
railroads in the world. On Oct. 4, 1876, I, the little wife and Aylett L., our eldest son, started to see 
the Centennial Exhibition, in Philadelphia, where, for eight days, we with great delight saw the 
best works of the civilized world.

We have, for over one quarter of a century, lived and labored in Clinton Co. have tried to do 
our part in converting the wild prairie into fertile fields, and improving Clinton Co.; have paid taxes 
generally quite cheerfully, knowing well that time would reward us; have lived long enough in 
Clinton Co. to see it rise from a wild prairie to a beautiful county in a great State. We have not 
been lonesome;  we have met intelligent people here, and brought with us from the halls of 
college some rare books of great thinking men. I have now some of the text books which Bishop 
Calvin Kingsley studied when he was a student of old Allegheny College, of Meadville, Penn.;  I 
received them from his own hand Feb. 22, 1851, at Meadville, Penn. One book is a rare one- Sir 
Isaac Newton's immortal Principia; also Euclid, and Coffin's Conic Sections, &c., The good 
Bishop died in Beyroot, Asia Minor, while traveling in the Holy Land;  he was my teacher in 
mathematics, while he was professor of Allegheny College.

During my labors in Clinton Co., I have ever sought to solve some great problems, or 
demonstrate some celebrated theorems in the higher mathematics, and thus I fed my innate 
vanity for intellectual pleasures; I have ever been conscious that I seemed odd to most persons 
who first saw me; the cause was simply this: I was ever thinking intensely on some intricate 
theorem in physical astronomy, and trying to simplify the integrations of the complex differential 
formulas in celestial mechanics. The differential and integral calculus were the engines by which I 
developed my knowledge of the universe. My knowledge of chemistry was a constant source of 
pleasure, and I hope that more than one young man will, in his future life, think of me, when be 
thinks of his early studies. We have generally enjoyed good health, with much pleasure and a 
great many blessings, for all of which we return thanks to God and to the good people of Clinton 
County."