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Baggs, John Charles 1832-1915

BAGGS, DUFFUS

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes
Date: 6/5/2018 at 16:26:34

The Grinnell (IA) Herald
Jan. 8, 1915

J.C. BAGGS

J.C. Baggs, a resident of Grinnell years ago, died near Des Moines on Monday night. The body was brought here on Thursday afternoon and the funeral services were conducted by Rev. J.M. Brown from the Methodist church. Interment was in Hazelwood cemetery. Mr. Baggs was 83 years of age.

Mr. Baggs was seized by his last illness on November 30 at the home of his daughter, Bertha L. Duffus, eight miles northwest of Des Moines. When taken ill he wrote down a few memories of his life which were used by Mr. Brown in his talk at the funeral and are given below:

"John Charles Baggs, son of Mary and Robert Baggs, was born in Weymouth, Dorset county, Old England, August 26, 1832. In 1845 his parents and the children all came to America by way of Quebec. They came on a sailing vessel or schooner which was coming to Quebec for lumber. After four weeks of rough weather they arrived in Quebec in time to see the embers of the great fire still smoking.

"After some days of sight-seeing," continues the little autobiography, "we journeyed on up the St. Lawrence river and to Niagara Falls, Detroit and across Lake Michigan, arriving on June 9 at Southport, now Kenosha, where we settled on a farm. In 1853 I left home to learn the tinner trade at Kenosha. Finally I settled in Chicago and then in Kankakee, Ill., remaining there until after the war of '61-'65."

During his residence in Kankakee Mr. Baggs joined the Methodist church and remained all his life a devoted member. During his residence in Grinnell, he made a great many friends who still remember him as a kindly, upright man, and who mourn his death. He was the last of a family of six children, two sons and four daughters.


 

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