The errors which are corrected below are highlighted in the biographical sketch, which may be seen here.
Editors Free Trader:–In your issue of the 5th of February, Under the title of “Biographical Sketches,” you—or the types—have made three small errors which I have been requested, by a relative of the persons named, to ask you to correct. The first and second occur in the nineteenth and twentieth lines from your quotation from history of La Salle county, and should read, Mathias Trumbo and Rebecca (Grove) Trumbo, David Shaver and Nancy (Grove) Shaver. The third occurs in the thirteenth line from the closing sentence, and should read, Isabel (Parr) Potts, &c.
Mary (Parr) Grove is still living near Utica, with her husband, Ex Supervisor Samuel Grove. The daughter Isabel was the literary one of the family, and in her girlhood days contributed an occasional poem to the Free Trader. She was an estimable young lady—“fair as a lilly,” modest and retiring in her manner, yet intelligent and charming in her conversation. I have never had the pleasure of perusing any of her poems, as I was not then a subscriber to the Free Trader, but I have often thought I would be most happy could I gaze upon an emanation from her youthful pen.
A lady friend of deceased tells me that her last published literary effort was a poem written upon the death of her father, Wm. Parr, and was very pathetic and exhibited a fair degree of poetic talent. If you have the time, and it would not be asking too much, I would suggest that you look among the files of your paper for January and February, 1858, and if you can find it, to republish it. I am sorry to say I cannot give you the title, nor the “nom de plume” subscribed to her poem.1
As this reader suggested, I looked among the January-February 1858 issues (available at Chronicling America) and did indeed find the poem.
DIED–At his residence, in Rutland, Jan. 11, William Parr, aged 50 years, 1 month, 16 days.
Farewell! dear father, thou art gone,
Thy loss we feel most deep,
But though ’tis thy eternal gain,
We can but grieve and weep.
Farewell! within this world of care,
Thy form we’ll see no more,
But trust in Heaven thy spirit rests
With loved ones gone before.
Farewell! ’tis Jesus called thee home,
And we must be resigned;
But, oh! we miss thy words of love,
For thou wast ever kind.
Farewell! we dare not wish thee back,
Thy troubles now are o’er;
Sickness and sorrow, pain and death
Will ne’er disturb thee more.
Farewell! and may we not forget
Thy dying, last request,
To be prepared when death shall come
And meet thy spirit, blest. I. D. P.2
- Ottawa Free Trader, February 12, 1887, p. 8, col. 2.
- Ottawa Free Trader, January 16, 1858, p. 3, col. 3.
Dayton and the Greens 