A Wilson Family Tree
Notes for Horace Everett
"Biographical History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa", The Lewis Publishing Company, 1891, pp. 519-521:
HON. HORACE EVERETT, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, descended on both the paternal and maternal sides from the oldest and best known of the early Pilgrim families of Massachusetts. His mother, Mary Leverett, was a daughter of William Leverett, of Windsor, Vermont. The founder of the family in America arrived in Boston in 1633, in the ship Griffin, from England. His son, Sir John Leverett, was Governor of Massachusetts from 1673 to 1679. His grandson was Rev. John Leverett, President of Harvard College from 1707 to 1724. Mr. Everett’s father, the Hon. Horace Everett, of Windsor, Vermont, came from Foxborough, Massachusetts, and from the same family as the great and polished orator, Edward Everett. Richard Everett, the forefather, came from England in 1635, and the family for many generations lived in Dedham and Waltham, Massachusetts. Hon. Horace Everett was a prominent lawyer of his State and represented the Windsor district in Congress for fourteen years, where he established a reputation that cannot be overrated and exerted an influence which will long be felt. His labors in the cause of justice to the Indians are in themselves a monument to his memory.
Horace Everett, the subject of this sketch, was born at Windsor, Vermont, February 8, 1819. With the keen desire that the parents of that day had “that their children should be brought up to learning,” he was sent at the early age of eight years to the Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, New Hampshire. When fourteen years of age he entered the University of Vermont at Burlington, and graduated therefrom in 1837. After graduation he spent two years in the study of law under his distinguished father, and was admitted to the bar. In 1841 he decided to seek a wider field for his talents, and settled in Gainesville, Alabama, where he practiced in the courts of that State and Mississippi, for fifteen years.
In 1851 he was married to Mary, daughter of Judge Abiel Leonard of the Supreme Court of Missouri, also a descendant of Sir John Leverett. In 1855 Mr. Everett settled in Council Bluffs, where he resided at the time of his death and with whose best interests he was ever identified. He was appointed by President Lincoln to the responsible position of Collector of Internal Revenue for the Fifth District of Iowa, embracing all southwestern Iowa. He served one term as member of the city council, but so distasteful to him were the petty annoyances of the office he declined a re-election. He was one of the trustees of the Fairview Cemetery Association, had been its president ever since its organization, and to his taste and wise forethought was due the selection of the romantic and beautiful site it now occupies. His interest in the cause of education was great. He was twice elected by the Legislature as one of the Regents of the State University in Iowa City, and was regarded as one of the most zealous and efficient members of that board. Mr. Everett had a remarkable literary ability, his private and business letters show a decided genius for composition. It is to be hoped that a collection of his letters may be published. He repeatedly interested himself to have the Legislature abolish corporal punishment in the schools of the State, considering the use of the rod on little children as barbarous and cruel.
Mr. Everett was a member of the Episcopal Church, and had been a member of the vestry of St. Paul’s Church since the organization of the parish.To his long continued benefactions during all the years of his residence in Council Bluffs the church owes much of its present success. Always a liberal giver to every worthy object, he was sadly missed in the two institutions in which he took a special interest, the church and the public library: of the latter he was really the founder, and was the president of the board of trustees at the time of his death. While Mr. Everett was a successful and practical man of affairs, yet his tastes and pleasures were those of a scholar. He enjoyed poetry and literature, and only those who knew him intimately realized how largely sentiment and imagination characterized his mind. In every enterprise relating to the welfare of Council Bluffs he was an active factor. He was one of the men to whose zeal the city was indebted for the location of the terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. A life time Whig and Republican and strong Union man, always an advocate of the emancipation of the negro, he sacrificed large property interest in the South rather than remain where free speech was denied him. Mr. Everett was a devoted lover of nature; he never tired of the beautiful scenery of the Missouri River bluffs, and the prairies bordering on them, and was never happier than when rusticating on his large “Highland” farm of 4,000 acres near Council Bluffs, where under his personal supervision were planted 100 acres of forest trees and forty acres of apple orchards. He had the pleasure of gathering nuts from his walnut groves and of seeing his orchards red with apples. The trees planted by himself in front of his residence are now four feet in diameter and seventy feet in height. Mr. Everett retained to the last a warm place in his heart for his birthplace, “delightful Windsor,” as he called it. He never looked upon a Vermonter as a stranger, and never forgot the hills, brooks or mountains of his native State. He was not willing that the old homestead, situated on the banks of the beautiful Connecticut River, should ever pass into the hands of strangers: so early in life he purchased the interest of the other members of the family, and made provisions in his will for retaining this beloved old home in the family. Mr. Everett’s great interest in everything that related to the early history of the country and his zeal and enthusiasm in the collection and preservation of manuscript and books led to his appointment as trustee of the Iowa Historical Society. Mr. Everett’s private library was a very large and well selected one. His collection of rare old books was complete and interesting. He took great care of all interesting papers and manuscripts which came into his possession and has preserved many autograph letters of great value.
Mr. Everett was a man of unfailing courtesy, great dignity and beautiful refinement, one of the most sympathetic of men, but of a retiring nature and wholly unambitious of public life, preferring the quiet comfort of home and society of his family and books. Exemplary in all the relations of private life, genial, benevolent and hospitable, he was tenderly beloved by his family and friends, and honored by the esteem of all who knew him. He was in failing health for a year previous to his death and was stricken with paralysis on the 30th day of September, rendered almost helpless thereby, but lived until the 3rd day of November, 1890, tenderly and assiduously ministered to by his devoted family until the end. When the appointed time came he had passed to that world where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying nor any more pain. He was buried in the family grounds in Fairview Cemetery, beneath the beautiful elms he had so carefully planted and cared for. Mr. Everett left surviving him of his family his widow, Mrs. Mary L. Everett, his sons, Leonard, Torrey and Edward, and his daughter Ada, wife of Prof. J. A. L. Waddell, of Kansas City, Missouri.
Note: Some of the information in these pages is uncertain. Please let me know of errors or omissions using the email link above. ...Mike Wilson
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