Representative Alexander Moffit View All Years

ALEXANDER MOFFIT.

MR. SPEAKER—Your committee appointed to prepare resolutions to commemorate the life and public service of the Honorable Alexander Moffit, late of Cedar County, Iowa, submits the following:

Alexander Moffit, pioneer citizen and lawmaker, passed away at his home near Mechanicsville, in Cedar County, November 20, 1897.

His life story is an epitome of the hardships, the poverty and the achievements of those brave souls who conquered the trans-Mississippi wilderness, built churches, established schools, founded colleges, and laid the foundations, let us hope, of a commonwealth which shall endure in their spirit while the world lasts.

Mr. Moffit died exactly seventy-seven years from the day when as a lad of twelve he first set foot on the soil of the county in which he henceforth made his home until the day of his death. He was born April 24, 1828, in the County of Tyrone, Ireland, and was the youngest of ten children, all of whom emigrated to America. The family started on the long voyage which finally brought them and their meagre possessions to Philadelphia. From Philadelphia they made their way to Pittsburg by wagon and canal boat, thence down the Ohio to the Mississippi, and up the Mississippi to Muscatine, where they arrived on the 18th day of November, 1840, seven months and eighteen days after setting sail from Ireland, and two days later they arrived in Cedar County, which was to be their future home.

Cabins were few and far apart; schools were all but a minus quantity, and were maintained by subscription and attended only three or four months in the winter. The school which the subject of our sketch attended was something like eight miles from his home. The arrival and departure of mails was at irregular intervals. Land could be had in abundance at a dollar and twenty-five cents an acre; and but few people had sufficient money to buy any amount of it even at that price; most transactions were by barter and exchange.

In April, 1852, Alexander Moffit, with two companions, outfitted a wagon drawn by six yoke of oxen, and crossed the plains to California, being impelled thither by the gold excitement. He returned two years later. It took six months to make the trip.

Mr. Moffit was married September 21, 1859, to Miss Martha Petete. To this union eleven children were born, three of whom died in infancy; and eight of whom are now living, five boys and three girls. The mother passed away September 1, 1914. The oldest son is Col. John T. Moffit of Tipton, long prominent in the Iowa National Guard; a member of the State Senate in the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth General Assemblies; and now a judge of the District Court in the Eighteenth Judicial District.

Mr. Moffit spent his entire life upon the farm; he was diligent in his business and successful to a degree; he long owned one of the largest and best equipped stock farms in eastern Iowa. Mr. Moffit always took an interest in public affairs; he was a republican in politics; held various township and school offices; was a member of the board of supervisors, and a member of the Sixteenth General Assembly.

Mr. Moffit had, it seems to us, an ideal life. He was a part and parcel of the upbuilding of a great state; he came as a boy on foot to what was then a wilderness; he did well the things that every American citizen ought to do if the heritage bequeathed to us is to be kept inviolate; he was a friend and patron of education, his children being given every advantage; he was always interested in young people and rejoiced to see them win out in life’s battles and helped many a one over rough and difficult places. Mr. Moffit stood for all that is best and noblest and most satisfying in human life.

Therefore, Be It Resolved, That the House of Representatives takes this occasion to present this tribute to the memory of a faithful public servant, and to express appreciation of his character and public service;

And the Clerk of the House is hereby directed to enter these resolutions upon the journal of the House and forward a copy thereof to the family of the deceased.

J. E. LARSON,

C. F. CLARK,

H. W. FLENNIKEN.