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Note: t she met and married Phineas Brigham on 10 October 1838, and they continued to live in Cherry Valley. They had 5 children, but 3 died as children. The 2 children that lived to adulthood were Mary Louise Brigham (1839 - 1910) and (Dewitt) Johnson Brigham (1846 - 1936). In the 1850 US Census, the family was living in Cherry Valley with Eliza’s mother Hannah. In the 1860 Census, the family was living in Dix, Schuyler, New York where Eliza was listed as a milliner. Her husband Phineas and her son Johnson enlisted to fight in the Civil War in 1862. After the war was over, the couple divorced, and in 1869 she was listed in a business directory as having a millinery shop in Watkins, New York on Franklin Street. Thereafter she met an Illinois farmer, Payson C. Stone, and they married in 1877. In the 1880 US Census, Payson and Eliza were living as a couple in Morrison, Illinois. Payson died in 1888, and she moved in with her son, Johnson Brigham, who was a newspaper editor in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1893 she moved to Des Moines, Iowa along with Johnson Brigham and his new wife Lucy, and lived in their home until her death on April 12, 1910. She is buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, alongside her son, Johnson Brigham and his wife Lucy Walker Brigham. Eliza’s flair for writing was exhibited in a newspaper article in 1892 entitled “Observant and Reminiscent - An Old Lady’s Journey Across the Country…from a Private Letter”. Excerpts include the following: I am en route to my old home in New York. I have seen the Niagara again. I have looked at cities, villages, orchards, farms, railways, canals, and, last but not least, our always interesting American people. I have been studying faces, looking for rays of sunshine and sparkles of mirth, grabbing up, as it were, all the little pleasures as they pass before me…. …We are in central New York. Let us turn again and look at those lovely views of hills and valleys, sunshine and clouds. East of Utica - it’s perfect at this time of year. The hills, like the trees and houses yonder, look small. The villages are picturesque. Now the Mohawk river, like a silver thread is seen, then the canal with its many boats on which the weeks washing is flying in the breeze, with always the red tablecloth, (at its best on a clothesline), which brightens up the ever changing panorama. Here we are nearing the village of Fultonville; on one side of us is the West Shore railroad, the other, the Erie canal and they seem to be the same old boats in which all travelled. Often I have visited Lockport, western New York, and taken a week to go from Fort Plain and a week to come back. A letter from my husband once reached there before I arrived, asking if I was “going to stay forever.” And right here I recall my parents going to Schenectady to take a little ride on the first railroad. That must have been 55 years ago. The canal boats, or packet boats of a half century ago, were neat and attractive and a journey on one of them was very enjoyable. Many pleasant memories are associated with those days. Would that I could now see a certain Charley at the helm, who to please the blue eyed and red cheeked girl of fourteen, gave up swearing, at least while in her presence. I recall the colored boy who at every stopping point saw that same girl was provided with fruit. Then there was the interesting young man from the west in a velvet hunting suit, who would run to the farmhouse to get something new and good in his handkerchief to please her. The young are not hard to please. I see also the dear mother, long since gone to another home. She looked lovely to me, in a green silk kalash, a queer and unique head gear made of silk and reeds, with narrow ribbon near the top to draw down over the face like a carriage top. The young westerner on leaving us handed me a small snuff box, saying, “Goodbye; give the box to your mother.” On opening it a note was found in which was a lovely small moss agate pin. Thirty years afterward, the pin was lost and it seemed as cruel as though I had lost a fortune, or a veritable charm. As I recall the packet boats of that elder day, how dingy and dreary these passing canal boats look now! On her 80th birthday in 1902, a special birthday celebration was described in the newspaper that included the following sentiments: …. Mrs. Stone occupied the seat of honor and certainly a more beautiful picture of serene and happy old age is seldom seen than was she as one after another sought her hand to extend congratulations. Mrs. Stone was born in historic Cherry Valley, NY Feb 10, 1822. At 16 she became a bride, and at 18 the mother of a daughter who has, all her life, seemed more the younger sister than a daughter. At 28 she had given birth to 5 children, 2 only of whom lived to maturity, Mr. Johnson Brigham, state librarian, and Mary Brigham Compton, the “sister’ to whom reference has been made. The bond between Mr. Brigham and his mother has been of that sweet and tender kind that rendered a long separation quite out of the question. Mr. Brigham said “We have always been together. Earlier in life I was with her, and later she has been with me.” Her obituaries (April 23, 1910) include the following information: Mrs. Eliza J. Stone, a resident of Des Moines for the past 17 years, died early this morning at the home of her son, state librarian Johnson Brigham of 511 Franklin Avenue. She was 88 years of age and had been sick but a short time. On February 10, she celebrated her birthday with a reception and was in the best of health. About 2 weeks later she began to fail. Mrs. Stone is survived by 2 children Mr. Brigham of this city and Mrs. Norris M. Compton of Elmira, New York. Mrs. Stone was born in Cherry valley, NY in 1822. For many years she made her home in Cedar Rapids, where the body will be taken for burial. Funeral services will be held at the family residence. On account of Mrs. Stone’s death, the state library will be closed this afternoon by order of the library board.
Note: Eliza Johnson was born 10 February 1822 in Cherry Valley, New York. She was the fourth child of Ezekial Johnson and Hannah Sloan. She was christened in 1825 in the Cherry Valley First Presbyterian Church. Not much is known of her early life, bu
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