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BATTLE CREEK BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
How truthfully the following passages from the sacred writer apply to her in her past life:
"She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. "
"Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. "
She died at her son Darwin's residence in South Battle Creek, of cancer in the stomach, on the 18th inst. She leaves three children, Morgan G. Beach, of Battle Creek city, Erasmus Darwin, and Mrs. D. P. Simmons, of Homer, Michigan.
Rev. ASA PHELPS. *Prom the Battle Creek Journal.
Rev. Asa Phelps was born on the 31st day of March, A. D. 1792, in the town of Blandford, Hampshire county, Mass. Nurtured amid the green hills and rugged mountains, and under the benign institutions of his native state, there was early developed in his character the traits of courage, strong self-reliance, and an. intense love of country and of mankind, which have rendered New England's sons so preeminent throughout our land. Thrown upon his own resources at the immature age of thirteen years, his early youth was a time of severe discipline, which the better prepared him for the still sterner duties of after life.
When the war of 1812 broke out between the United States and Great Britain, he was among the first to enroll himself among his country's defenders. At the end of his term of service, having no taste for a military life as a profession, he mingled again with his fellow citizens, and took up his residence in the town of Russell, St. Lawrence county, New York. While living in Russell, in 1817, he married his first wife, Miss Maria Stiles, formerly of Westfield, in his own county. Having purchased, with the earnings of many a hard day's work, a tract of land in the unbroken wilderness, with no capital but an ax and a strong arm, and no companionship except that of his young and hopeful wife, he undertook to carve out of the forest, for himself and loved ones, a home and a competency. Por a time fortune smiled upon him. Children were born unto him; his lands brought forth plentifully; there was an abundance in his barn and in his dwelling.
Michigan
Page 65
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