Back to Horatio and Lucina
Butlerville, Iowa
Butlerville 1901
The first paragraph below, written by my Aunt Fannie Maud
Malcom Bergman, was written long before the advent o the Internet and was composed using her own personal memories of conversations she had with Joseph and Permelia Malcom and her father, George William Malcom concerning their collective memories of Horatio.   Fannie was born in 1896.  Horatio had died in 1890, Joseph in 1914 and Permelia in 1935.  She "disremembers" Lucina's name and her death date. She probably is guessing about the cause of her death, just as we are today.  Today it is easy to be critical of those pioneering genealogists who had to rely a lot on their personal and sometimes faulty memories.       Aunt Fannie Wrote:

Below is a beautiful map, made in 1901 showing the location of now defunct Butlerville.  We know that Horatio and Lucina lived in that town at one time during their stay in Tama Co. Iowa (between 1854-1863), as there is existing paperwork showing that they purchased the town lot in January 2, 1857 and they paid taxes on the lot in 1858.  New information sent to me by the Tama County Historical Museum reveals that the lot was described as "Lot #3 in half block #2 in Daly's first addition". The name "Daly" is misspelled on the original court records and should be "Daily". Horatio purchased the lot for $35. I have highlighted the town lot in yellow on the plat below.   I do not know when the town plat was created but I received it when I visited the Tama County Historical Museum in the summer of 2007. 

The colored map below on the left shows the 4 different soil types existing in the county at that time.  I have marked in red the location of 4 land parcels owned at one time or another by Horatio Malcom.  Two of them are in Indian Village township: 4 acres in section 11 and 10 acres in section 15.  The 10 acres is only about a mile an a quarter from Butlerville and about 2 1/4 miles from the railhead at Montour.  This land is rich bottom land beside the Iowa River and floods frequently.  It has many black walnut trees growing on it today.  I have a tiny red arrow pointing to the Butlerville Cemetery where Lucina May Streeter Malcom (d. 1863) may have been buried. This is a pioneer cemetery, hard to find and to get to. Today you have to drive through a farm yard and follow a dirt road around behind an existing shed or barn and up a steep grade to the top of a hill overlooking the Iowa River valley to the east.  The  gravestones are unreadable for the most part.  There are existing grave records of persons buried there but Lucina is not mentioned. If Lucina had a wooden marker, it would be long gone by now. Both Donna Meszaros and myself believe that it is likely Lucina is buried there although there are no records showing that.  It doesn't seem logical that Horatio would place her in land subject to frequent floods.  It is possible that he and his sons may have buried her in their 4 acre parcel of land shown in section 11. 

I have a copy of an article written for the Sunday Times Republican in the section called Central Iowa Today (Oct 31,1999). This article interviews Joyce Wiese, the chairperson of the Tama County Historical Society and also the head of the Tama County Pioneer Cemetery Commission.  This commission was formed to bring Pioneer Cemeteries in Tama county "back to life."  The Butlerville cemetery is just one of them.  Joyce  is quoted as saying, " Among the most mysterious things found at the site (Butlerville Cemetery) was a limestone marker of a burial."  Wiese said she has "no idea who was buried there and the stone was never put there to say, only to mark the grave.  The Commission also recently excavated a cemetery on the Meskawaki Settlement which had 13 such markers."  Could this be Lucina's grave marked in the local Indian manner?  

There is another cemetery located in section 14 about  a mile and 1/2 to the east of Horatio's 10 acres.  This is the Rouse Pioneer Cemetery.  My husband and I also explored this cemetery in 2007 and found it much deteriorated and the stones unreadable.  This is a very small private cemetery and most likely Lucina is not there.  Where Lucina is buried probably will remain a mystery for years to come.

Horatio's brother George, his wife Minerva and their son Charlie are buried in Maple Grove Cemetery located in section 27 just southeast of Montour. This large  cemetery is "modern" and well-kept. You can read more about George and his family here.  I have marked in red the two 80 acre parcels of land Horatio owned in Highland township.

Note on the Butlerville plat, the top part is labeled Original Indian Town and the lower half, below Orange Street, is labeled Original Butlerville.  Indian Town was also known as the Daily's Addition. The name "Indian Town" had been around for some years and shows up on all the older maps I could find.  Was this an annexation, a merge of sorts or just a "borrowing" of an old name?  If you have any further information about Lucina or the town of Butlerville please contact me at: miller.malcom.ft@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1856, Lucinda, the wife of Horatio, died of a sickness, probably pneumonia. A woman of great character and sweetness, she had been greatly loved and her death was a shattering blow to her sons and husband. Her coffin was of the finest black walnut, silk-lined and encased in an oaken box, made by the hands of her sons and even as aged men they were unable to speak of her except with longing and in tones of bereavement. Her husband grieved for her the remainder of his life and when near death himself was consoled by the fact that the walnut and oak of her coffin would still protect her body from the elements.

Below the maps you will find two personal family histories about Lucina. They add flesh to the Malcom history.
Below that is a recollection of a distant cousin, Laura Lee Malcom Beyer, who partially substantiates Aunt Fan's memories.  Laura Lee wrote this in a letter dated Aug 7, 1984 to Glenn Malcom, a grandson of Duncan Malcom, who was Joseph Malcom's younger brother.          Laura Lee Malcom Beyer wrote: