Webster-Hamilton-Dubuque County IA Archives Biographies.....Aldrich, Charles 1828 - 1882 ************************************************ 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 sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 14, 2007, 8:25 pm Author: Cyrus C. Carpenter (1896) CHARLES ALDRICH (by ex-Governor Cyrus C. Carpenter).-Early in June, 1857, the writer first met Charles Aldrich, who had recently established the Hamilton Freeman at Webster City, Hamilton County. The dominating influences in Fort Dodge at that time were entirely with the Democratic party, and the prospects of having a Republican newspaper in northwestern Iowa enlisted the interest of every Republican in the editor and his enterprise. A few days afterward; on calling at his office, the new editor was found, with his assistant, a small boy, with hand press, type-cases and fixtures all crowded into an office of a single story, and a single room, not more than sixteen feet square. We talked of the possibilities of northwestern Iowa, of its opportunities for useful activity in all departments of industry, and of the future of the Republican party and of its principles and purposes. This was the beginning of a friendship which for thirty-eight years, in prosperity and adversity, in peace and in war, has continued unbroken. It will never be forgotten that before this interview was terminated the busy editor had given his views on a half dozen local issues which he had already determined to agitate through the columns of the Freeman. Returning home on horseback, the long ride across the prairie, from Webster City to Fort Dodge, afforded opportunity to mentally analyze the young editor and his enthusiastic and hopeful ambitions; and now, after all these years, it is a pleasure to record a final estimate of his character. He was born in the town of Ellington, Chautauqua county, New York, October 2, 1828, the son of Stephen and Elizabeth (Nichols) Aldrich. The ancestors of Stephen Aldrich lived many years at Smithfield, Rhode Island. He was a blacksmith in early life, and later a merchant and lumberman. He came West in 1865 and located at Webster City, Iowa, spending his later years on a farm. He died near Webster City, in 1882, at the age of seventy-six, and his wife died in 1880, at Olean, New York, also at seventy-six years of age. Both were connected with the Methodist Church. He was a County Supervisor and Justice of the Peace in the State of New York, and was always recognized as a good-hearted, impulsive and energetic man. His father, the grandfather of Charles, was also named Stephen. He lived near Middlesex, Yates county, New York, was a farmer, and died there at the age of sixty-one. His wife was a woman of marked ability, a great reader and a natural orator, possessing a wronderful gift of language, and a devout Methodist. Her maiden name was Lucy Williams. They had a large family. The maternal grandfather of Mr. Aldrich was Stephen Nichols, who had been a sailor in early life and in following the sea had visited every port of any importance on the planet. He settled in later life in Broadalbin, where he died at an advanced age. When Charles was about eight years old his parents removed to Cattaraugus county, New York, where his father engaged in merchandising and lumbering. He failed in business in 1837, and then removed to Little Valley, in the same county, where he lived on a farm for twenty-five years. So the boyhood of Mr. Aldrich was almost entirely spent on the farm, where he was subjected to the toil and the deprivation from scholastic advantages of the son of a farmer in moderate circumstances. Up to the age of fifteen, he received only such an education as could be obtained at the district school. After this he attended Jamestown Academy, Chautauqua county, for a single year. At the home he studied the branches usual to the country school, and at the academy devoted his time to algebra, geometry, chemistry and philosophy, taking lessons in Latin for a brief period. In June, 1846, he engaged with Messrs. Clement & Faxon, of Buffalo, New York, in the office of the Western Literary Messenger, to learn the printer's trade, and, having become quite proficient as a printer, worked in Attica and Warsaw, New York, and Warren, Pennsylvania. In June, 1850, he established a weekly paper entitled The Cattaraugus Sachem, at Randolph, New York, continuing its publication one year. Thence he moved to Olean, in the same county, and established the Olean Journal, which he conducted between four and five years, when he for a time abandoned journalism and became a farmer in Little Valley, the home of his youth. On the 29th day of July, 1851, he was united in marriage with Miss Matilda Olivia Williams, who was born August 8, 1836, at Dansville, Livingston county, New York, the daughter of Aaron and Olivia (Nichols) Williams, and who died at Boone, Iowa, September 18, 1892. She came of a patriotic, intelligent and sturdy stock. Her grandfather, Stephen Williams, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and was seriously wounded at the battle of Trenton, New Jersey, December 26, 1777, from the effects of which he lost the sight of an eye, and later that of the other, thus spending half his lifetime in total blindness. Mrs. Aldrich was always her husband's sympathizer, counselor, and helper in all his ambitions and all his enterprises. They settled in Webster City, Hamilton county, in 1857, and removed to Boone in 1891. She was well known throughout Iowa, and her death was deeply mourned by uncounted friends. She was a member of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and her sympathy for overworked horses in large cities was touchingly shown in her letters to her friends. She was fitted in character, in ambitions, in love of nature, in sympathy with the aspirations of her husband, to aid him in all his undertakings. The Freeman, which was established in May, 1857, on their removal to Webster City, was the apple of her eye as well as of that of her husband's. It was a weekly Republican journal, now one of the oldest newspapers, under the original name, in the State. The newspaper field at Webster City at the time of its establishment was literally a good place and a good business in which to "grow up with the country," but it presented a meager prospect for newspaper patronage. The village had about 200 inhabitants, and the county, just organized, about 1,500 people. During the first year of the publication of this paper Mr. Aldrich had no other assistance than that of an apprentice; but his journal was always "on time," on publication day, and soon attracted the attention of leading politicians throughout the State. It was recognized as a newsy, sprightly and able advocate of Republican principles. In the political conflicts of those days there were vital elements unknown to the active politicians of our later years. The questions which agitated the country just preceding the Civil war were the sole issues dividing the parties of the period. It is difficult for partisans who are familiar only with the discussion of issues in respect to revenue and finance to comprehend the hot blood and exalted earnestness of the politics which were the expression of the anti-slavery convictions preceding the election of President Lincoln. Into this crucial test of ability, principle and power, Mr. Aldrich entered with all the fervor of his nature and the ardor and industry of an ancestry which from Smithfield, Rhode Island, to Little Valley, New York, never surrendered to any vicissitudes of fate or fortune. It is within the bounds of moderation to say that no paper was quoted more frequently by the State press and leading politicians than the Hamilton Freeman, while conducted by Mr. Aldrich. He called the first Republican convention held in Hamilton county, and was the chairman of the Republican county committee for two years. He continued the publication of the Freeman until September, 1862, when he locked up his office and entered the military service as Adjutant of the Thirty-second Iowa Infantry. He served in this capacity a year and a half, when he resigned and returned to Iowa, where he was soon afterward preparing to enter the service as a Major in the Tenth Cavalry, when orders came discontinuing the organization of that regiment. Subsequently he was tendered an appointment on the staff of General M. M. Crocker, when that officer was about to proceed to Arizona, but was compelled to decline on account of private business affairs. In 1865 he was for a short time editor of the Dubuque Daily Times, and in 1866 purchased, and for about three years conducted, the Marshall County Times. During his ownership of that journal no weekly newspaper in the State excelled it in rapid increase of circulation, influence and prosperity; and he retired from it only on account of impaired health-the result of overwork. He resided in Marshalltown until 1871, and in the autumn of that year removed to his farm on the banks of Boone river, one and a half miles north of Webster City. In i860 he was elected Chief Clerk of the Iowa House of Representatives, and re-elected in 1862, 1866 and 1870, thus holding that position eight years, as well as the next highest clerkship of the same body one year. Except in a single instance, he was chosen as Clerk of the House on each of these occasions by acclamation. It is a well-known fact to legislators that during these years no member of the General Assembly originated more salutary, progressive and humane measures now on our statute books than did this ever active and vigilant worker at the clerk's desk. In January, 1872, he was appointed by the Governor a member of a commission under authority of an act of the State Legislature to investigate and report upon the land titles of sundry settlers in the Des Moines valley, who were being driven from their homes by adverse decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Governor was empowered to send these commissioners to Washington with instructions to make an effort to secure, as far as possible, indemnity to the settlers for their losses. Mr. Aldrich was continued in the office at Washington, and in Iowa a portion of the time, until March, 1875. The other commissioners, Messrs. John A. Hull and Norman H. Hart, acted with him constantly during the work at home and also for a portion of the time at Washington. The labors of the commissioners resulted in the passage of a law by Congress under which the President appointed a new commission to report upon these titles in respect to the responsibility, for their failure, of the Federal Government. President Grant appointed Mr. Aldrich, Gen. J. S. Robinson, of Ohio, and O. P. Chubb, of Minnesota, as the new commission. Their recommendation for the relief of settlers, in the form of a bill, introduced by Capt. Jackson Orr, passed the House of Representatives in 1874, but was lost in the Senate. During the year 1875 he was a member of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories, under charge of Dr. F. V. Hayden, The operations of the survey during his connection with it were in southwestern Colorado and adjacent portions of Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. His letters descriptive of the country through which he passed, and particularly of a visit to the "Cliff-Builders'" houses in the canyon of the Rio Mancos and other ruins of an extinct race, were published in the Chicago Inter Ocean and very widely read and copied. While Mr. Aldrich was connected with the Iowa press he commenced the agitation favoring the substitution of the supervisor system of township and county government for that of the county judge system, as the latter then existed in the State. He advocated something similar to the New York system, with which he had been familiar prior to coming to Iowa. By his pen and personal efforts with legislators, he was instrumental in securing the passage of a law in i860 making the proposed change. The interest of Mr. Aldrich in the unfortunate classes has been one of the characteristics of his ever active life. He was an early advocate of giving a systematic course of instruction to the convicts in penitentiaries, contributing many articles in this behalf to the press of the State, by which the misfortune, and to some extent the vice, of ignorance might be eliminated from this class of unfortunates. The amelioration of the statutes in this regard has been largely influenced by his efforts. Our present statute for the protection of the harmless birds (section 4,063 of the Code of 1873) was drafted by him and its enactment secured. In late years he has been a contributor to the columns of some of the most noted metropolitan journals on topics of politics, biography, general and natural history, and in the treatment of them has exhibited varied and comprehensive intelligence. He was one of the first men in the State to agitate the propriety of making the State library a store-house of periodical literature. This to-day is one of the most interesting features of the great library, and is becoming one of the popular departments in many of the local libraries of the State. He was also appointed by the Governor one of the commission to supervise the building of a monument in commemoration of the massacre at Okoboji and Spirit Lakes in 1857. In fact the early interest he took in preserving the history of the massacre, and the tablet which was placed in the court house at Webster City through his efforts, tended to revive the interest in these events, which finally resulted in an appropriation by the Legislature to build a monument. In the fall of 1881 Mr. Aldrich was nominated by the Republicans of Hamilton county for Representative in the State Legislature, was elected and served during the winter of 1882. It may be unnecessary to say he was a wide-awake and active legislator. He introduced a bill to prevent railroad companies from issuing free passes to public officers. It created a heated discussion in the House and was the cause of almost world-wide newspaper comment. Mr. Aldrich made two speeches in defense of it, both of which were published and commented upon by newspapers, not only in this country but also in Canada. The bill was also noticed by the public journals of London and Paris. As illustrative of the character of the man it may be recalled that he introduced and secured the passage of a bill granting the widow of Judge A. W. McKenzie, of Franklin county, who died in office, the salary which would have been due him if he had served to the end of his term. When it is remembered that Judge McKenzie was a young soldier in the civil war, whose death was hastened on account of hard service and desperate wounds, the gracefulness of this action of Mr. Aldrich and the Legislature will be more fully appreciated. He also introduced a bill to create a Board of Pardons, which passed the House, but was not reached in the Senate. Having now traced without attempt at ornament and without exaggeration the story of this busy man's career down to the time when he presented to the State the books, portraits, manuscripts, autographs, letters, and other interesting and valuable contributions now known as the "Aldrich Collection," we may pause to briefly review his work in connection with this unique, original and most remarkable enterprise. Mr. Aldrich had laid the foundation of the collection many years before presenting it to the State. In its inception it was entirely a purpose to gratify his private taste and employ in a work which most pleased his fancy an occasional hour of recreation from hard labor. "But he builded better than he knew." To-day it is a department of the State government, most exceptional in its popularity. It is the judgment of those who have become most conversant with this valuable historical work and the rapid progress of this department, that it will develop into a great museum, which will contain large collections in natural history, geology, mineralogy, as well as military relics, mementoes and historic manuscripts, thus becoming a great gallery illustrating the political and scientific history of the State. This department cannot be better described than by inserting the following notice from the Des Moines Daily Capital, of March 28, 1894: "The success of the Aldrich Historical Collection illustrates what one man can do when his heart is in the work. Not very many people know the difficulties and discouragements that attended the early labors of Hon. Charles Aldrich in connection with the State Historical Collection which bears his name. He began the collection years ago as an individual, but, of course, he did not contemplate anything so magnificent as he has already accomplished. His collection grew from year to year, however, and finally he donated it to the State. For some time after his donation was made, the collection remained as a part of the State library in the library rooms. This arrangement was not satisfactory in any respect: it was not meeting the hopes and desires which Mr. Aldrich had formed for building up a really valuable historical collection. He "went to work to secure legislative consent to occupy separate rooms. To accomplish this end was no small task, but it was finally accomplished two years ago; and now the wisdom of Mr. Aldrich is being illustrated every day by the increasing number of visitors attracted to the historical rooms and the increased interest shown in the collection. Every hour of the day persons visit these rooms to find certain facts or to consult newspaper files. Mr. Aldrich has just issued his first biennial report, giving substantially a catalogue of the collection. This report makes due acknowledgment for various and valuable donations made to the department during the past two years. A glance through the report will convince any one of the great value of the collection. It is a most interesting department, and when Mr. Aldrich's plans are carried out the public will find out really what a valuable labor he has performed. He has been entirely unselfish in the matter. When the department was originated he insisted that his compensation should be fixed at the modest sum of $100 per month, emphasizing the fact which all who know him know,-that he cares nothing for anything outside his collection but for subsistence. "In this age of greed and selfishness, when poetry and romance and even remembrance are being taken out of ordinary lives, it is refreshing to know that some such men as Mr. Aldrich still live to perform their unselfish labors for the benefit of posterity." Speaking within bounds, the work of collecting, classifying, labeling and preserving all these contributions to the department has been a herculean labor. It is proper, however, to say that through all the years of labor, and in all the sacrifices made by Mr. Aldrich in the interest of this historical collection, until the day of her death, there-stood by his side, in the person of his wife, one who shared his toil, who sympathized with his enthusiasm, and who appreciated his purposes, and everywhere by her advice and encouragement was his good angel and inspiring helper; and in the far-away future, when this great department shall be fully developed and thoroughly understood and appreciated, the two names which will stand side by side in recognition and memory of those who shall come after, will be those of Charles and Matilda (Williams) Aldrich. Before leaving this branch of the subject it is well to say that Mr. Aldrich, as a tribute of love, in memory of his good wife, has had a neat brass tablet set in one of the collection cases in the department, and a handsome memorial window placed in the Catholic Church at Boone. In his religious convictions Mr. Aldrich is liberal. He believes that there is a better expression of religious faith in deeds of kindness and in generous sympathy for humanity than in dogmas, creeds or professions. Politically he began his career as a Free-soil Democrat,-was secretary of the first anti-slavery convention ever held in Cattaraugus county, New York,-but since the organization of the Republican party he has acted with it, though in 1872, as a matter of personal choice, he voted for Horace Greeley, while supporting the remainder of the party ticket. During his newspaper life, and in fact up to the time he became a State officer in charge of the historical department of Iowa, he was actively a Republican politician and most of the time editor of a party organ. Prior to the civil war his earnestness and party devotion made his newspaper one of the most wide-awake Republican organs in the State, and he was recognized as a thorough and aggressive partisan. But after the great issues which appealed to moral judgment and humane sympathies were settled by the war of the Rebellion, and politics descended to a lower level, dealing principally with questions of revenue and finance and the division of the spoils of office, he in a measure lost his political enthusiasm. In fact, it is doubtful whether his tastes were not always more literary and 'scientific than political; and it is probable, if his environments when young had brought him into association with purely literary and scientific men, that he would have followed the bent of his natural genius and have become a traveler and descriptive and scientific writer. Notwithstanding his busy life he has found time to visit most of the States and great cities of the North American continent and many European countries; and when on the wing as a traveler his pen is always busy. He has visited the Pacific coast, the States of New England and of the South, in our own land; and has visited the Territories with an official exploring expedition, as we have heretofore related; has also traveled through England and Scotland in the British empire, and across the continent of Europe on different routes, visiting several European countries and great cities. On these various journeys the letters which he has written for the press, and which have been read with interest by a vast constituency, would fill several volumes. In all these letters he never dealt in gossip or the stale descriptions taken from guide-books, but always found new and original topics upon which to write. His pen was principally employed in giving his observations of the social condition of the people, their educational institutions, their political progress, their history and their industries and economics. He was always especially happy in gathering facts of local interest connected with familiar historic characters. His connection with the Hayden expedition has been noticed; and his letters to the Inter Ocean from the unsettled Territories explored by the expedition, as practical exponents of the character of the soil, the varieties of the timber, the wild animals which inhabited them, the evidences of their former occupancy by an extinct race, and the resources which invite occupancy by white people, were in the opinion of this writer absolutely the most valuable contributions of the exploring party to the practical literature of the times. His style as a writer is clear, liquid and unpretentious,-just the style of a man who has something to write about and is anxious only to make himself understood by the use of an idiom which will not offend good taste. As a business man, Mr. Aldrich, when he gave himself to business, had the thriftiness of his ancestry. When he is engaged in any enterprise, whether that of a journalist, a farmer, traveler for purposes of observation, a clerk of a legislative body, a lobbyist to secure the enactment of measures which he believes to be right,-as illustrated in his efforts in behalf of the river-land indemnity bill, and again in behalf of a bill to secure the vindication of the military record of Dr. Hammond,-or as a specialist in securing contributions necessary to building up an historical department of the State government,-whatever for the time being may engage his attention, he puts his soul into his business. Whilst thus engaged he never makes a journey, never visits a friend, never goes out for a day's recreation, without adding something to the enterprise he has in hand. In his private business he exacts honest measure I and honest work, and will give to his employees and persons with whom he deals all that he asks for himself. There is probably no man in Iowa who has done more for young people-especially poor young men and women struggling to get ahead in the world. He never had an apprentice in his printing-office whom he did not endeavor to inspire with the purpose of owning some day a library and a newspaper. He never employed a man on his farm whom he did not try to make a better man and teach him to work and save so as to secure a farm of his own. There are many men and many women in this and other States who have secured a foothold of useful and independent citizenship as a result of the encouragement, direction and material aid of Mr. Aldrich. The books he has loaned to poor boys and girls, the information he has given them how to obtain books, and the advice he has given them in respect to utilizing their time, is known only to those who have been beneficiaries of his ever active interest in young people. His versatility is one of the strong characteristics of his mind. When made a commissioner to aid the passage of a river-land indemnity bill, although not a lawyer, it was but a few weeks before he acquired technical knowledge of the history of the grant and the legal complications of the situation. Few men can turn from journalism to farming, from farming to traveling and observation, with the result of making these observations interesting and instructive to a great newspaper constituency; and turn from all these activities to the superintendence of a historical department of a great State, requiring wide research, constant and alert attention and unceasing industry,-and make a success of all these enterprises. Mr. Aldrich has proved himself equal to all this. He is not only a lover of domestic animals, but is also a friend of the animal kingdom. There are few men who, while performing the duties of a responsible and exacting office, and while deeply interested in the political management of public affairs, can find time to turn aside from their duties and work for the passage of a statute to protect the innocent birds. He could do this. His horses and the domestic animals which fed in his pastures when on the farm, were his friends. He loved to feed them and care for them when living; and when they died he could write of them with touching and pathetic tenderness. He is a man of most agreeable manners, and an interesting conversationalist. It is a delight to hear him talk of his experiences in the pioneer days; of the odd characters he has known, many of whose memories have been preserved by his ready pen; and he is also most entertaining and pleasing in relating the incidents of his journeys in foreign lands, and the notable people he has met and with whom he has become acquainted. One of the prominent traits in the character of Mr. Aldrich is his loyalty to friends. Gratitude for friendly offices is not one of the prevailing virtues; but no man ever did Charles Aldrich a favor who was not entered on the list of the elect, in his memory, as a subject of his future self-sacrificing friendship. In the code of the politician there is an unwritten law which some people think authorizes a little deception and insincerity. Mr. Aldrich was never that kind of a politician, and in all the affairs of life is not that kind of a man. When editing a newspaper he would use its columns with unsparing generosity in defence of a man whom he believed to be true and worthy. He was equally unsparing in his efforts to expose a fraud. Such is Charles Aldrich. At the capitol of the State he is now at the head of a department which he created himself. His enthusiasm for its success has led him to work in its behalf without pay; and then on such salary as might come to him by the voluntary appreciation of the Legislature; but always and everywhere the work has been first in his thought and the end of his ambition. May he live to see it all that his fondest dreams have pictured as its future! Additional Comments: Extracted from: A MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF IOWA ILLUSTRATED "A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants."'—MACAULAY. "Biography is by nature the must universally profitable, universally pleasant, of all things."—CARLYLE "History is only biography on a large scale"—LAMARTINE. CHICAGO: THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 1896 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ia/webster/bios/aldrich163gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/iafiles/ File size: 29.1 Kb