A Wilson Family Tree
Notes for John Wesley Arnold
"Portrait and Biographical Album of Branch County, Mich.", Chapman Brothers, Chicago, 1888, pp. 641-644 (obtained from http://archive.org/details/portraitbiograph00inchic):
JOHN W. ARNOLD occupies a good position among the intelligent and educated farmers and stock-raisers who compose so large a proportion of the agricultural community of Branch County, Mich. His farm, comprising eighty acres of valuable, well-tilled land, forms a part of the old homestead on section 11, Arnold's Corner, Gilead Township, which was the place of his birth in 1840.
Not only is our subject a native of this State, but he is a son of one of its pioneers, who was one of the first settlers of Gilead Township. His father, Samuel Arnold, was born in Middletown, Conn., Feb 20, 1800, and was the son of Joshua Arnold, a native of New York. When eleven years of age his parents removed from their Connecticut home to Massachusetts, where they remained until he was seventeen or eighteen years of age. He received a substantial education, obtaining the preliminaries in the public schools of New England, and after the removal of his parents from Massachusetts to Oswego, N. Y., completed his education by attending for three months an academy at Cazenovia. He was reared to the occupation of a farmer, but followed teaching in the winter months, and taught thirteen quarters in all. He engaged extensively in agriculture, cleared much land in New York, and improved three farms. He married, in Oswego, N. Y., Miss Catherine S. Hugumin. Her father was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. In the fall of 1836 Mr. Arnold came with his family to Michigan and settled in Branch County, and taught the first school in what is now known as Waterhouse Corner, Kinderhook Township, thus being a pioneer educator as well as a farmer. He located on a tract of eighty acres of land on section 11, Gilead Township, having entered said land from the Government, moving onto it with his wife and three children in the following October. He immediately commenced the clearance and improvement of his land, and added to it until he at one time owned 200 acres of fine, arable land. He continued to reside on the old homestead for nearly half a century, until his death, Sept. 30, 1878, at the age of seventy-eight years, seven months and ten days, after suffering with rheumatism a number of years, having been a cripple for eight years. He was an able, far-seeing man, of undoubted integrity of character, and will long be remembered as an honored pioneer who did much to develop the resources of Gilead Township. He took an active interest in public affairs, and was Captain of a rifle company. His devoted helpmate and companion survives him at the venerable age of eighty-three years. Of their marriage eight children were born, of whom our subject is the fifth in order of birth.
John W. was reared on the old homestead, and received the basis of his education in the district schools of Branch County, and afterward, in the falls of 1860 and 1861, attended Oberlin College, Ohio, where he intended to prepare for the ministry, courageously working in the vacations to pay his own way. The breaking out of the Rebellion seriously interfered with the studies of our subject; his brother left Oberlin to enter the army, and he longed to follow him. He watched with burning interest the progress of the war through the summer of 1861, and at last, in the fall of that year, came home and enlisted, but, he being under age, his father prevented his going to the front, where two of his sons had already gone. In the fall of 1862, our subject having attained his majority, and his father no longer opposing his desire, enlisted as a drummer. He went to Dowagiae to undergo the requisite examination, and again his youthful ardor was doomed to disappointment, as he was rejected. He returned home and worked on the farm until 1864, and in September of that year his wishes to join the army were realized, as he was drafted into Company G, 14th Michigan Veteran Volunteer Infantry, was mustered in at Jackson, Mich., and thence went directly to Chattanooga, getting there immediately after the fall of Atlanta. He acted as Corporal there until November, and went to Knoxville, where he was kept on guard duty until the 26th of the month, when he was sent to Chatham, and from there to Nashville, arriving on the 1st of December. He was employed there in throwing up works as a defense against Gen. Hood's troops. That position was afterwards abandoned for Murfreesboro Pike (on the right) Dec. 3, 1864. His regiment remained there until after the fight with Gen. Hood, being held in reserve. He was subsequently ordered to Indianapolis with his comrades, from there to New York City, where, on the 9th of January, 1865, they boarded the steamer "Fulton" for Savannah, Ga., arriving there January 14, when he joined his regiment. On the 20th of that month they started on the march for Richmond.
Our subject was attacked with pleurisy at Sister's Ferry, and was taken back to the hospital at Savannah, where he remained until the 1st of March. He was then sent down the river two miles to Ft. Beggs to the smallpox hospital, remaining there until April 26. On that date he returned to Savannah, where he boarded a steamer for Morehead City, N. C., which place he left May 1 for Newbern, N. C. After staying there two days he went to Alexandria, Va., by way of Morehead City, arriving there May 7. On the 22d he joined his regiment there, and in the same month, under the command of Gen. Sherman, was present at the grand review at Washington, D. C. His regiment went into camp until the 13th of June, and then went to Parkersburg, W. Va., thence to Louisville, Ky., remaining there until July 20, our subject acting at that time as Division Commander Sergeant. He was finally mustered out of service at Detroit, Mich., July 31, 1865, when he returned to East Gilead. He still bears the effects of his suffering during the war, being subject to pleurisy in the left side and chronic diarrhea.
After the war Mr. Arnold went to farming, and also taught school for ten winter terms in Branch County, and in 1868 taught in the township of Riley, Clinton County, also in the winter of 1875 taught in Leelanaw County. In that year he married Miss Sarah J. Snyder, who was born in Ohio in 1855. She was the seventh child born to Josiah Snyder, who left his native Pennsylvania in 1859, and came to Michigan, and now resides in Bethel Township. After marriage our subject and his wife settled on his present farm, which he then purchased of his father. Two children have been born to them, Leotha May and Samuel Garfield, both of whom are attending school and securing the advantages of a good education.
Mr. Arnold is a great traveler, and besides the places that he visited in the different States during the war, he has seen almost every part of the United States between Michigan and the Pacific Coast. Being well educated and an intelligent observer he has profited much by his travels, and employs his fine conversational powers to great advantage when discoursing to an interested listener on what he has seen and heard. He has a fine collection of specimens and curiosities as souvenirs of his journeyings to and fro. We are sorry that the brief limits of this biographical notice will not permit more than a rapid review of the points of interest that he has visited. In 1871 he went to California, thence to the Sandwich Islands (visiting Honolulu), returned to San Francisco, from there to St. Paul, and thence going to New York City, going there by way of steamer from New Orleans, and from that city to his home in Branch County. In 1879, in the fall of the year, he went to Dakota, and revisited that Territory in 1881, having two claims there. He spent the summer of 1881 and the winter of 1882 in that region, and then returned home, where he remained until the fall of 1883. He then took a trip to Minnesota, visiting the Falls of Minnehaha, then went to Dakota, from whence he went to Portland, Ore., over the Union Pacific Railroad, arriving at his destination in November, 1883. He then proceeded to Tacoma, W. T., where he remained until the 11th of December; from there he visited Seattle, Ludlow and Port Townsend; from the latter place he went to Victoria, British Columbia, remaining there three days; then he returned by the same route, and proceeded to Olympia; from there to Portland, and from that city he visited an old friend of Gilead in McMinnville, Yam Hill Co., Ore. We next hear of him in Cornwallis, on the Willamette River, where he staid for about three weeks with an old pioneer of Gilead; from there he went on a hunting expedition for two weeks, and then returned to the home of the pioneer from Oaktown, and staid with him until he went to Salem, and from there to Portland; subsequently, after visiting Dallas City, he worked in the fisheries of S. L. Whitcomb in Portland for five weeks. He then went to San Francisco and Sacramento, whence he went to Jacinto and worked in the harvest fields for seventy-six days. After that he went from Sacramento to visit the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove, seeing the big trees and many other wonders of those famous places. From San Francisco he went to Portland, thence to the mountains, back to San Francisco, and then to Yuma, Los Angeles, El Paso, Ft. Worth, Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, and other large cities, returning to Gilead in 1885. In that year he made a visit to Northern Michigan, and in September took his family to Owatonna, Minn. He extended his trip to his landed possessions in Dakota, returning therefrom in December. In March, 1887, he moved with his family to Brown County, Dak., coming back from there with them to settle down in their old home Jan. 24, 1888.
Mr. Arnold has borne an honorable part in public affairs, takes an active interest in politics, and votes with the Republican party. He has been Justice of the Peace and School Inspector. He is a prominent member of the G. A. R., and in company with Jackson Kamouse organized Arnold Post No. 336, our subject being first Commander. It was named after his brother Samuel, who died of smallpox in 1865, while in the service , and sleeps at the foot of Lookout Mountain. The post is now called the Charles E. Hilton Post. Mr. Arnold is also a member of the A. F. & A. M. at Coldwater.
There is a great deal of information about the Arnold family in "A Connecticut Arnold Memorial", by John's grandson, also named John Wesley Arnold.
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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