Constant Sweeney Lake (1840-1917)

 

  The second posting for this new year takes us to Iowa and Constant Sweeney Lake, a longtime Marengo resident who was active in Democratic politics in that region. A veteran of the Civil War, Lake served as a delegate from Iowa to the Democratic National Convention of 1880 and six years later was tapped by President Cleveland as U.S. Pension Agent for the districts of Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakota Territory, where he served for four years. A native of Ohio, Constant Sweeney Lake was born in Mansfield on February 14, 1840, the son of Elijah and Susan Crothers Lake.

  A resident of Ohio until age thirteen, Lake removed with his family to Iowa City, Iowa in the early 1850s and here received his education. Desiring a career in law, Lake began study in the office of Edmund and Ransom in 1859, continuing until the outbreak of the Civil War. He enlisted in Co. B., First Iowa Infantry in April 1861 and later re-enlisted in the Eighteenth Iowa Infantry. Sometime later he was transferred to the Twenty-Second Infantry and concluded his service as an adjutant with the Twentieth Iowa Infantry. 

  Constant S. Lake married in the mid-1860s to Sarah Elizabeth Shepherd (1841-1897). The couple's three-decade union produced six children, Bertha Lee (1866-1937), Jessie Louise (1869-1949), C.B., Norma (1872-1951), Lallah (1874-1878), and Pearl (1884-1885).

  Following his war service, Lake resumed his law studies, reading in the office of state representative Rush Clark (1834-1879), of Iowa City. Upon completion, Lake relocated to Marengo in 1866, where he operated a practice with N.B. Holbrook. Sometime later Lake partnered with state senator and future congressman John Nicholas William Rumple (1841-1903), and their firm continued well into the 1880s. In 1880, Lake served as part of the Iowa delegation to that year's Democratic National Convention, journeying to Cincinnati, Ohio where Winfield Scott Hancock was nominated for the presidency.

  In 1886 President Grover Cleveland named Lake as Pension Agent for the districts of Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakota Territory. His appointment was profiled in the Sioux City Journal in April of that year and denotes Lake as "one of the clearest-headed lawyers in the Fifth district", and further notes that he was:

"Universally esteemed as an honorable, open handed, high minded gentleman of education and character. As a democrat he has never faltered, even in the darkest hour of the party's history. He was a delegate from the Fifth district to the national convention, which nominated Gen. Hancock for president, and has been active and influential in state politics." 

 Lake's tenure in the pension office continued until June 1890, when he resigned. He resumed the practice of law in Marengo and continued until the death of his wife Sarah in 1897. Following her death, he resettled in Marion, Iowa, where he lived with his daughter Bertha. He died at her home several days prior to his 77th birthday on February 7, 1917, and was interred alongside his wife at the IOOF Cemetery in Marengo. 

From the Marshalltown Evening Times-Republican, February 9, 1917.

Dethloff Willrodt (1840-1932)

Portrait courtesy of the Texas Legislative Reference Library.

   Born of humble stock in Germany, Dethloff Willrodt migrated to the United States in the late 1850s to seek a new life, finding one in the vast expanses of Texas. During a life that extended nine decades, Willrodt saw action on both sides during the Civil War, learned the carpentry trade, became a successful farmer, and was elected to a term in the Texas House of Representatives. Although a picture of Willrodt has been located (along with other pieces of information vital to the construction of this article) little else could be found on his life, except a small biography in Volume 4 of the 1916 work A History of Texas and Texans by Francis White Johnson.

  Dethloff Willrodt was born on January 19, 1840, in the village of Luetenberg, located in the Duchy of Holstein in Germany. Willrodt was the sixth of seven children born to farmer Dethloff Willrodt (died 1857) and his wife Margaret Herbst (died 1845). Willrodt and his siblings attended schools native to Holstein and upon reaching adolescence were encouraged by their father to seek out a new life in America.

   Inspired by his father's words, Willrodt began on his path to the United States in 1859, embarking from a port in Hamburg and after a few weeks reached New York. Soon after he began a trek to the county of Macoupin, Illinois to live with relatives. His Illinois residency lasted about a year, and he eventually moved from Macoupin County to Texas, where his brother Ernst had immigrated some years previously. Once settled, Willrodt began learning the carpentry trade whilst also studying at a private school to learn the English language.

  Willrodt's migration to Texas came at a time when the seeds of secession were being sown in the South, and in February 1861 Texas became the seventh state to secede from the Union. Although opposed to slavery and secession, Willrodt wasn't exempt from the Confederate Conscription Act passed in April 1862. With this act (the first draft in American history) Willrodt and others of his age group basically "volunteered" for service in the Confederate ranks, with our subject being assigned to Waul's Texas Legion, under the command of Col. Thomas Neville Waul (1813-1903). This outfit was eventually deployed to Mississippi, and, by a stroke of luck, Willrodt never saw armed combat as a Confederate soldier, as he was taken prisoner by the Union Army at Oxford, Mississippi.

   After his capture, Willrodt and other soldiers were sent North to Cairo, Illinois, where they were "given the opportunity to enlist in the Union Army." Not passing up the opportunity to do so, Willrodt enlisted in the Twelfth Illinois Cavalry and subsequently saw action at the Battle of Brandy Station as well as the Battle of Gettysburg. The Twelfth Illinois later was sent to New Orleans and then Texas, where Willrodt was mustered out of service on December 20, 1865. After returning from the war front, Willrodt settled in the city of Bellville in Austin County, Texas, and began a career as a farmer.

From an 1866 Illinois Adjutant General's Report.

  On February 4, 1869, Willrodt married in Bellville to another German immigrant, Ms. Elizabeth Waak (1848-1916), originally of Mecklenburg. This union eventually produced several children, who are listed as follows in order of birth: William (1869-1949, later a prominent local merchant), Heinrich (1871-1884), Herman (1874-1941), Ernst (1876-1960), Alma (died in infancy in 1878), Minna (birth-date unknown), Max (1880-1913), Richard D. (1892-1975) and Meta (1893-1984).

  During the latter half of the 19th century, Dethloff Willrodt found success as a farmer in Austin County, owning over 200 acres of land by 1884. The 1916 History of Texas and Texans notes that he also followed the carpenter's trade and gave special attention to growing corn and cotton on his property while also raising stock. This work also denotes that he was the primary organizer of the Mercantile Company of Bellville, as well as holding stock in the company.

  Around the same time as his involvement with the aforementioned mercantile company, Willrodt began treading the political waters, being elected as a county commissioner for Austin County from the First District. In 1898 he won a term in the Texas State House of Representatives from Bellville, serving in the legislative session of 1899-1901. His service here saw him sit on two house committees, those being Penitentiaries and Public Buildings and Grounds, and his house service is marked by the History of Texas and Texans as that of a "sterling representative, and put himself behind all useful and practical legislation enacted during that term." A roster from the Texas Legislative Manual of 1899 is shown below, bearing Willrodt's abbreviated name.

  In the years following his one term in the legislature, Willrodt continued to be involved in various aspects of public service, helping to establish a rural mail delivery through Bellville and helped in formulating a new form of telephone system for the community. In August 1916 Elizabeth Waak Willrodt died at age 68 after over forty years of marriage and was buried in the Coshatte Cemetery in Austin County. Willrodt didn't remarry following her death and though advanced in years continued an active schedule, being a member of the local Lutheran church as well as maintaining an honorary membership in the Sons of Hermann fraternal organization.

   Dethloff Willrodt celebrated his 90th birthday in 1930 and died two years later on June 12, 1932, in Coshatte, Texas. His life had spanned from humble beginnings as a child in Germany to Texas statehood, to the Civil War battlefield to the presidency of Herbert Hoover.  Following his death, Willrodt was interred at the Coshatte Cemetery in Austin County, Texas alongside his wife Elizabeth, who had predeceased him over a decade earlier.

Mazeppa Thomas Turner (1840-1920)

   A pioneer citizen and politician in the Oklahoma Territory, Mazeppa Thomas Turner served in the first session of the Oklahoma State House of Representatives in 1908. He was originally a resident of Virginia, being born in Greenville County on May 8, 1840, and later moved with his family to Mississippi at age five. 
  Turner removed to Shelby County, Tennessee in the late 1850s and married here in 1860 to Laura Johnson, with whom he would have five children: Elizabeth B. (1865-1901), Edward Bynum (1872-1947), Jack (1874-1890), and Polly (1878-1953). Laura Johnson Turner died in 1890 at age 50, and a few months after her death Mazeppa remarried to Alice Atkins, and three further children (Angie Mae, Reginald, and Mildred) were born to this union.
  Turner joined the Confederate Army shortly after the Civil War began and served under the command of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest (later infamous for founding the Ku Klux Klan). Turner subsequently saw action at the battles of Chickamauga, Shiloh, and Selma, and after the hostilities ceased, resettled in the Choctaw Indian Territory.
  Throughout the succeeding years, Turner engaged in farming pursuits and cattle raising in his native Murray County, Oklahoma. The First Administration of Oklahoma (where the above picture of Turner was located) also notes that he served as a Davis, Oklahoma city alderman before going to the legislature. When Oklahoma gained statehood in 1907, Turner was urged by the residents of Murray County to run for a seat in the newly established State House of Representatives. He defeated his opponent J.W. McCall by over 1,000 votes and took his seat in 1908. 
  While serving in the legislature, Turner became a prime mover in the development and construction of the Oklahoma School for the Deaf and was one of the drafters of the Oklahoma State Constitution. He also held a seat on the committee on Charities and Corrections during his first term. Turner was later elected to a second term in the statehouse in 1910 before retiring to private life. The earlier mentioned First Administration of Oklahoma sums up Turner's stint in the legislature as being "one of the quiet, conscientious, hardworking members of the house."
  Mazeppa Turner died in Murray County at age 80 on August 29, 1920, and shortly thereafter was interred at the Dougherty Cemetery in Dougherty, Oklahoma. On an interesting side note, Turner Falls (a large waterfall/park located near Davis, Oklahoma) was named in honor of Mazeppa Turner in the years after his death.

                                                                Mazeppa Turner, 1840-1920.