Representative Henry Blake Mitchell View All Years

HON. HENRY B. MITCHELL.

MR. SPEAKER—Your committee appointed to prepare resolutions commemorating the life and work of the Honorable H. B. Mitchell, late of Fairfield, Iowa, beg leave to report as follows:

Henry Blake Mitchell was born in Claremont, New Hampshire, on July 5, 1818. He was reared on a farm, and having lost his father at the age of fourteen thereafter was left to make his own way in the world. Having reached the years of his majority, and attracted by the allurements of the west, he left his native state and journeyed by wagon to Troy, New York, then by canal to Buffalo across the state of Ohio, then down the Ohio river and up the Mississippi to Keokuk. In 1840 he came to Jefferson County and located on a farm near Fairfield, where he and his brother, Thomas, afterward a pioneer of Polk County, builded a cabin, the first house west of Fairfield.

October 26th, 1847, deceased was united in marriage to Maria Elizabeth Tool in Jasper County. For more than sixty years these two shared life’s joys and responsibilities. To them were born ten children. Mrs. Mitchell died about three years before the death of Mr. Mitchell.

Mr. Mitchell was always interested in state and national affairs. He served as a member of the House in the Fourth General Assembly, being the first Whig ever so chosen, and it is thought his death removes from earth the last survivor of the membership of the Fourth General Assembly, which Assembly was the last to meet at Iowa City before the Capitol was removed to Des Moines. For seventeen years he was president of the Fairfield Township School Board. He was for nine years a member of the Jefferson County Board of Supervisors, eight of which he held the place of Chairman. In 1886 he was again elected to membership in the House of Representatives and was elected Temporary Speaker.

Mr. Mitchell was one of the founders of the Iowa State Agricultural Society, which held its first two fairs at Fairfield. He also helped organize the Jefferson County Fair Association and was for fifteen years its president. A man of the highest integrity, he was also one of the most useful men the community, where his home was so long, has known. To those who were less fortunate than himself he was always a friend. His counsel was always sought when good advice was needed. He passed from this earth at the home of his daughter, Mrs. U. B. Rogers, at Fairfield, Iowa, June 2, 1912. He carried with him the esteem of every man with whom he had transactions of any kind, for he did his utmost to make life worth living for those about him.

Resolved, That the House of Representatives directs that a memorial be entered on its records, attesting our appreciation of the man, and while the mournful fact is presented to us of his departure from earth, yet there is a measure of gratification that one so well deserving our commendation was so long permitted to remain to bless the community and state; and be it further

Resolved, That a copy hereof duly attested be transmitted to the family of the departed pioneer.

S. A. POWER,

J. T. HAZEN,

H. C. RING,

Committee.

Adopted April 16, 1913.