10.11.2023
Civil War veterans residing in southern Iowa. Among them are Daniel Figgins and Josiah Mostoller. Figgins is my great grandfather. Figgins and Mostoller descendants settled in Itasca County. [Collection of Chris Marcotte]
During the time of the Civil War, Itasca County was very large. When Minnesota became a state, Itasca included the counties we now know as Cook, Lake, Saint Louis, Koochiching, eastern Lake of the Woods, eastern Beltrami, Itasca, northern Aitkin, and northern Carlton. According to the 1860 United States census, there were just over fifty white people enumerated in Itasca County. There are no records I have located on ancestry.com that indicate any men living in Itasca enlisted in the Civil War. But there were a handful of men who served and resided in the area later in life. I found the names of ten men, all of whom were identified as Union soldiers in the war between the states.
The men represented a cross-section of experiences, including enlisting at a young age, enlisting as a substitute, being wounded, being a prisoner of war, capturing a Confederate spy and participating in Sherman’s March to the Sea. The soldiers are listed as to when they came to our area.
Samuel W. Thomas ~ White Oak 1893
“Samuel Thomas was born at Bellevue, Ohio, in December 1846. He grew to manhood there, and on February 2, 1865, he enlisted for the remainder of the Civil War in Company G of the 188th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was mustered out with his company at Nashville, Tenn., Sept 22, 1865.
He came to Deer River about 37 years ago, as near as can be learned, and clerked in a store owned by the late F. L. Vance, one of the first ever established here. This community has since been his home.” [Deer River News 8-14-1930]
In September 1926, Thomas was issued the first small game hunting license in Deer River. “Mr. Thomas is an ardent sportsman of the proper type, and for his years retains wonderfully well his ability with a gun. His home on White Oak Point is located near some of the best shooting grounds in this section, and Mr. Thomas will no doubt bag his full quota this season.” [Itasca News]
When he was 84 years of age, Thomas moved into Deer River, living at the Miller Hotel. He died there on Sunday, August 9, from a self-inflicted bullet wound. He is buried at Olivet Cemetery.
John E. Seaman ~ Wirt 1894
“John Seaman was born in Monmouth, Ill., in April 1846. He grew to manhood in Pewaukee, Wis. When only 17 years of age, he enlisted in the Union army and fought in the Civil War. As a member of the 32nd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, he went with Sherman on his historic “March to the Sea,” and had the distinction of having captured the first Confederate spy found in the Sherman army.
In 1894, Mr. Seaman came to Itasca County, homesteading 2½ miles east of Wirt, where he lived at long intervals until 1912. He was prominently identified with the pioneer life of that section. He never lost his love for the region, and practically every year has spent a few weeks here enjoying its outdoor sports.” [1-3-1929 Deer River News]
The year before Seaman died, he was living in White Bear Lake and brought into that local newspaper office a map he had, which showed General Sherman’s famous “March to the Sea.” The map had been drawn by a buddy, J.B. Tripp, also of the Wisconsin infantry. Both men were members of the band for the company when there were not active battles. John died at a hospital in St. Paul at the age of 82.
James Everton ~ Deer River 1894
James Everton is the only one of the Civil War soldiers I found living in our area who was born in Canada. By the time he was 20, Everton had immigrated to Michigan, and in 1861, he enlisted in Company A, 11th Regiment, MI volunteer as a teamster. He was wounded at Missionary Ridge when a bullet entered his arm about eight inches below the shoulder. After a lengthy hospitalization, he was pronounced fit for duty and re-joined his company. Less than a month after he mustered out in September 1864, Everton married Rosanna Steinhoff at Burr Oak, MI.
On the 1890 United States Veterans Schedule, the Everton family is living in Roscommon, Michigan. It was shortly after this that they moved to Deer River and built the Everton Hotel. He was appointed postmaster of Deer River on 8-24-1894 and served until 7-22-1897. Everton died in 1909 at the age of 69 and is buried in the Old Soldiers Cemetery in Grand Rapids.
David Charles Cochran ~ Wabana 1895
David Cochran has been referenced in a few Reminisce articles. He was born in Maine in 1845 and enlisted in the Army of the United States for one year in 1864 as a substitute for Reuben L. Pierce. Pierce paid “a sufficient consideration,” and Mr. Cochran signed the papers with his own mark. His age was stated as 18 years, and he was assigned to Co H 9th Regiment Maine Infantry. He saw three years active service in the Civil War where he was seriously wounded in battle and was mustered out May 24,1865.
Cochran married and raised a family in Maine, moving to Wisconsin in about 1875. Seventeen years later, he settled in La Prairie, Itasca County, where he lived for several years. In the late 1890s he built and managed a popular summer resort on the south end of Wabana Lake. In 1900 Cochran was listed as a farmer living near the lake with his second wife Margaret, their three children, and a son from his previous marriage. Cochran died in 1924 at the age of 79 and is buried in the Old Soldiers Cemetery in Grand Rapids. He was one of the few surviving members of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) and was given the traditional salute by a firing squad of local legionnaires.
John Benjamin Rahier ~ Effie 1902
John Rahier lived the longest of these soldiers. He was born in Wisconsin in 1840. On 11-26-1863 he enlisted in the US Navy and was discharged in December the following year. After the war, he moved to Wright County, Minnesota, married Mary Maurice and raised a family of fifteen children. Mary died four months after the birth of their last child in 1891. John married Celina Bastian 1896 and fathered three more children.
In1902 Rahier, his wife, and a good number of his children moved to the community of Effie where land was available to homestead. When he applied for a pension in1915, he explained his injuries. “In swinging a nine inch gun, the gun slipped and ruptured my left gland and bruised a hip at the same time which has been with me ever since – and also at Alexander Lusa, on the Red River, the Mound City went aground hitching a tug to her, the wratchet slipped and wounded nine of us, and broke my collar bone which was never set back.” [Civil War Veterans of Itasca County by Robert Anderson]
Rahier died in 1924 at the age of 86 in Bigfork and was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery, Annandale, Wright County, Minnesota.
Nathaniel Thompson Robertson ~ Max 1903
Nathaniel Robertson was born in Greene, Tennessee on May 20, 1845. He enlisted in September 1863 at the age of 18, signing the enlistment papers with an X.
“Nathaniel was part of the Company C 4th Regiment Tennessee Infantry when he was reported missing from the Post Hospital. His telling of the story was much more interesting, however. He said he was taken captive by Confederate soldiers and that he had escaped Anderson Prison under a load of dead bodies. When he applied for a pension, he declared he had injured his leg in the war, but his family understood that he had fallen out of a wagon as a youth and broken his leg; thus, one leg was shorter than the other.”
According to the documents in the military archives of ancestry.com, his capture date was 8-6-1864 in McMinnville, Tennessee and that he was taken to Anderson Prison. “As a memento of the war, he had a .44 gun with a powder horn and bullet mold that he used to make bullets from hot lead. Nathaniel was married twice and had five boys and two girls. One of the boys died at two years old. The youngest boy Albert had asthma, and they needed to move from Missouri to a different climate.
In 1903 Nathaniel and his sons visited Max to file for homesteads. In 1907 the entire family came to stay, bringing all their animals and furnishings by covered wagon from Missouri.”
Robertson died on November 29, 1921, at the age of 76 and is buried at the Pine Grove Cemetery near Max. [Italicized notes from There’s No Place Like Max written by Bernard “Bud” Anderson.]
“He was a member of the G. A. R. [Grand Army of the Republic] The burial was in Mack Cemetery which is one of the spots of greatest natural beauty in the state of Minnesota. On the hill with the large green trees all about, the firing squad, and the colors on the casket, and taps sounded, the body of the veteran was laid to rest.” [Itasca News 12-10-1921]
Alanson Allison Byers ~ Jessie Lake 1914
Alanson Byers was the youngest of these men to enlist. He was born in Ohio in 1845 and joined the Co. G 44th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry when he was sixteen. In January 1864, he was transferred to the Calvary Division. Byers and his first wife Mary, had six children including John, born in 1867. The Byer family moved from Ohio to Texas.
In about 1914 John Byers and his family moved to Jessie Lake. Alanson, nearly 70, and his second wife Sarah, also moved to the area. Alanson died in 1918 and is buried at Greenwood Cemetery at Jessie Lake.
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Other Civil War Soldiers that I found mention of, but very little additional information about were: Burkhart Berger ~ Third River; Thomas B. Miller ~ Deer River; and Frank Van Dresser ~ Third River.
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