Wapello County IA Archives Biographies.....Spaulding, B. A. ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ia/iafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 July 4, 2013, 1:05 am Source: See Below Author: S. J. Clarke, Publisher REV. B. A. SPAULDING. With the material progress of the frontier sections of Iowa the moral development of the state went hand in hand, a fact due to the untiring and self-sacrificing labors of such men as the Rev. B. A. Spaulding. He was one of the little band of Christian ministers who made their way to this state in pioneer times, sharing in all the hardships and privations incident to settlement upon the frontier. While others planted the seeds which sprang forth in harvests of corn, wheat and other cereals, he and his colleagues were sowing the seeds that resulted in truth, righteousness and Christian fellowship. The Rev. B. A. Spaulding was born in Billerica, Massachusetts, and was the eldest son and fifth child in a family of ten children, whose parents were Sampson and Susanna Spaulding. Liberal educational opportunities were offered him and by him were thoroughly improved. He supplemented his early mental training by a course in Harvard College, from which he was graduated in 1840. He afterward entered the theological seminary of Andover, Massachusetts, the oldest theological school in the United States, and was again graduated. Of the class to which he belonged eleven decided to devote their attention to the work of home missions in the west and became known as the Iowa Band. Mr. Spaulding spent several years as a pioneer missionary and that chapter of his life was one fraught with hardships, defeats and victories. Dr. Dunning said in this connection: "The Iowa Band among all missionary bands must ever hold an honorable distinction. It is not too much to say that this combined influence has given character not only to the denomination but to the state itself." The eleven young men who had received their instructions at Andover, Massachusetts, met again at Buffalo, New York, October 7, 1843, where a great public meeting was held, and the Buffalo Gazette said: "We cannot refrain from saying that we have seldom seen so many men banded together in an enterprise who seemed to possess such sterling good sense and humble, quiet characters, coupled with firmness and decision, as these men." At length the time arrived when, after being ordained in Denmark, Iowa, the band separated, Rev. Spaulding being assigned to the most distant field, or what was known as The New Purchase. He made his way to what was then the far western frontier and on the 10th of November, 1843, he wrote: "The frail dwellings, beaten trails and newly made graves of the Indians still remained and they were often seen passing and repassing, carrying away corn which had been raised in their fields and sometimes lingering about their old hunting grounds as if unwilling to leave the land which had been so long their home. "The eager strife of the whites to gain possession of the country just left by the Indians bears a most striking contrast to the slow and reluctant step of the recent owners in leaving their native groves and prairies. Says one, the wife of a chief, as she was hurried away: 'Oh, let me go back and take one more drink from the old spring.' "And yet these sensitive, immortal beings are to be driven into a distant wilderness bv a Christian nation and left to perish for lack of knowledge, while an old sword, if it had drunk the blood of Tecumseh or Black Hawk, would be preserved in our public halls as a glorious trophy for civilized men to behold." Rev. Spaulding preached in about thirty different places, some of them one hundred miles apart. He traveled on an average fifty miles a week, or twenty-five hundred miles during the year, chiefly on horseback, and was in peril of waters, in peril in the wilderness and suffered from hunger and thirst and cold. But in all this he wrote: "I joy and rejoice." A church of six members was organized in 1844 at the Agency. Its first communion season was held in the old council house. "Here," he wrote, "less than two years ago savages were lying and smoking their pipes; now a congregation of Christians are celebrating the dying love of their Lord and Master." For eight years he performed the work of an evangelist, preaching in new and destitute settlements. After organizing churches at Agency City, Eddyville, Oskaloosa and Ottumwa he was installed as pastor of the church in Ottumwa, Iowa. After trials and sacrifices which few are willing to make he had the joy of seeing the first meeting house for the worship of God erected in the city. At length his constant labor told upon his health and he removed to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where he performed a year's successful ministry in the Congregational church, where a beautiful memorial window bears his name. At the age of fifty-two he was compelled to lay down the armor and pass to his eternal reward. His classmate, Dr. William Salter, of Burlington, Iowa, said of him: "He made friends of all sorts and conditions of men. He attracted good men to his service without regard to creed or denomination. His ministry was one long, untiring struggle with difficulties. His salary during twenty years' service was four hundred dollars per year, of which the Home Missionary Society never paid less than one-half." He himself said in reviewing his ministry: "Although I have suffered more from sickness and privations than in all the rest of my life I have enjoyed more real happiness. The home mission work! What a glorious work to live for and if need be to die for!" And of the church of his love he says: "I have a firm hope that it will abide under the shadow of His wings. Who I trust has founded it, and remain there as a light as long as the wayward shall need counselling or the wanderer reclaiming." One does not need to go to the battlefield for heroes. In our own day they were found in the cabins of the missionaries in the far west. The laborers may pass awav, but the work will go on. We are like runners in the old Grecian torch race. One grasps the torch and runs and, as his strength fails, passes it on to the next and though the runners fall the torch goes on to the distant goal. They who bore it are not dead, their life and faith are in us. Let us not fold our hands and rejoice in what the pioneers have done for us. The commission is first to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and then to the uttermost parts of the world. Millions of foreigners are coming to us and our motto must be: "Save America to save the world." The influence of such a life can never fade while those remain upon whom he left the impress of his noble soul. Rev. Spaulding was married to Miss Ann Nichols Norris, who was born in Holderness, New Hampshire, January 2, 1819. Before her marriage she taught school in Bloomington, Illinois, and Ottumwa, Iowa. To Rev. and Mrs. Spaulding were born six children, five of whom died in infancy. The surviving daughter, Julia Spaulding, still living in Ottumwa, was educated in Denmark Academy at Denmark, Iowa, and in the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She has followed the profession of music as a teacher in Oberlin, in Wichita, Kansas, and in Ottumwa. Such in brief is the life history of the Rev. B. A. Spaulding, to whom Ottumwa owes much of her development along moral lines and the establishment of those high standards of manhood manifest in many of her citizens. His influence yet remains as a blessed benediction to all who knew him. Additional Comments: Extracted from: HISTORY OF WAPELLO COUNTY IOWA ILLUSTRATED VOLUME II CHICAGO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1914 Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ia/wapello/photos/bios/spauldin724gbs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ia/wapello/bios/spauldin724gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/iafiles/ File size: 8.1 Kb