Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1889 — OBITUARY. [ARTICLE]

OBITUARY.

HORACE BLOOD. ', Horace Blood was bom in Putney, Windham Co. Vermont, December 21st, 1804, and died at the home of his son-in-law, Geb. Griffin, in Remington, lnd<, Oct. 25th 1889, at the age of 84 years, 10 months and 4 days, He was married to Nancy Fairbanks in Fovember 1831. and to them were born twelve children ; eight of whom are still living. His youth and early manhood were spent at the home of his birth. His ehanees for education were confined to the countiy schools of that time, four months in the year; but he acquired a fair education and was ever a man of broad and liberal views; interested in all that pertained to the general good. He was connected with the schools, as one of the officials, for many years and in all the works of public enterprise was a worker in the front ranks. About the year 1835 he removed to western New York, near the present city of Buffalo, which at that time was but a small town. At the time of the threatened attack upon Buffalo, in the winter of 1837 and 8, knowii riot War,” he was a member of a

volunteer company which went to. the defence ot that town. He had been a member of the state militia when in Vermont. In politics he was a whig until the demise of that party and after wards an ardent Republican. He was always actively engaged in politicsduthe ycurs of his strength, and in his old age as deeply interested as in his youth, never being absent from the polls at election time. During the thrilling times of the late civil war he was debarred from service by reason of age, but he sent three of his four sons, though one was but 17 at the time of enlistment. In 1869 he visited his daughters in Remington apd in the following spring removed there, together with one son and two daughters, who yet reside there; His married life extended over a period of more than 53 years. He and his wife were born on adjoining farms; attended the same school; were familiar friends and associates from their babyhood, until they formed that closer union which bound tnem together until death parted them Jan. 3rd 1885. Since that parting he has never been contented, and has seemed to feel a sense of loss and loneliness. His mind remained clear until the end of life; his memory being something remarkable. He remembered the events of the present as clearly as those of the past,

and was a storehouse of information in regard to things past as well as present He remembered the age of every old persotf’in this vicinity and of many would tell the date of their birth—day and month as well as year. He was a Bible student of no mean order, and in his later years few were as apt at quotations or application. Though not a professor of religion, in the common acceptance of the term, he was always a .regular attendant at church and a liberal supporter of the gospel. Faith was not wanting and in his dying hours so long as voice was left him, found solace in the lines, “In my hand no price I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling.” Four sons and four daughters, together with twenty-six grand children and four great-grand-children, though scattered from the Atlantic nearly to the Rocky mountains, mourn the loss of the kindest and most indulgent of parents and grand-parents.