Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1910 — “Grandfather” Gwin Rememorates About Early History of Monticello. [ARTICLE]

“Grandfather” Gwin Rememorates About Early History of Monticello.

Monticello Herald— Mr. John M. Gwin, of Rensselaer, now in his 92nd year, climbed the Herald office stairs unaided Tuesday and gave the editor a gtory of early Monticello which not many people remember. It was in 1852, and he and two of his neighbors were emigrating from Henry county to Jasper county with their families in wagons. They stopped here to replenish their stock of provisions, and on their way down to the flour mill the wagon containing the women and children upset, and horses, wagon, women and children rolled over an embankmen about fifteen feet high. All the occupants of the wagon were more or less hurt, and one child, a little daughter of Rev. Lemuel Shortridge 18 months old, was ■ fatally injured, her skull being fractured by striking a sharp stone. Drs. Spencer and Lovejoy attended the child and by raising a piece of the skull which pressed upon the brain, relieved her of the spasms caused by the depression. The families resumed their journey the next day, but the child diedabout three weeks later at the home of Mr. Shortage's father on the Mon on, where they stopped to care for it. Mr. Gwin is the grandfather of Mrs. Geo. A. Thomas, at whose home he is visiting this week. He also has a daughter living south-east of town who has recently moved here. Though now in the last decade of a century, he Would pass easily for a man of seventy. His hearing is impaired, but bis eyesight is good, and for twenty years past he has been able to read without glasses. He has voted at eighteen presidential elections, and his vote--has...Jielped elect twelve presidents, from which ir~may"l>e~lbTßrmd-'tirat-he is a republican. That he is a thoroughbred may also be inferred from the fact that of a voting posterity of thirty-six sons, grandsons and son-in-laws, all but one voted for Roosevelt in 1904. One, he says, broke away and “went popocrat.”