And just before, the shining shore,
We may almost discover.
When Burns and his friends arrived with boats, they informed him that a number of infuriated slave holders were on the other side, determined to seize him and bring him back to Missouri. To avoid them, they rowed up the river twenty miles before crossing to Illinois, then quietly brought him down, overland, to Quincy. Several efforts were afterwards made to retake Doctor Nelson to Missouri, but John Burns and his loyal friends vigilantly guarded him until the bitter feeling subsided and died out. In Quincy Doctor Nelson established one of his four institutes to educate young men for Christian Missionaries, in which he spent all of his own means besides much money raised by him in the East. He died poor, at the age of fifty-one, and was buried in Woodland Cemetery, where friends have erected a large granite monument to his memory. He left only a daughter, a Mrs. Rose Clapp, who, if living, is now in California. One of John Burns’ daughters is in Quincy, Mrs. Schermerhorn. Miss Julia Burns, long a school teacher here, is now employed in the Treasury Department at Washington.
Samuel Hopkins Emery, D. D., born at Andover, Massachusetts, in 1815, died in Taunton, Massachusetts, October fifth, 1901, was a Manx and Irish Celt. His father was John Emery, who traced back to John Emery of Newbury, Massachusetts, who, with his brother Arthur, came to America from Ramsey, Isle of Man, England, in 1635. His mother was a daughter of Colonel Welch of New Hampshire, who commanded a regiment under Washington during the war for American freedom. Doctor Emery graduated at Amherst College, a classmate of Henry Ward Beecher. He was one of the brainy Americans, who made their age and time famous for high thought and culture. He came to Quincy as pastor of the First Congregational Church in 1855, at the height of the formative thought that lifted the Republic out of the black slime of human slavery and made of it in deed, as well as name, what their fathers of 1776 meant it should be, a real land of the free and home of the brave. Doctor Emery remained in Quincy fifteen years, during which time he endeared himself to all by a kind and generous nature and an untiring interest in the public welfare. During the war there were three military hospitals in Quincy, crowded with sick and wounded soldiers brought up the river on boats from the frontier. Doctor Emery was the army chaplain in charge. He comforted and cheered as few men could, the sick and wounded, especially those on whose brows the cold hand of death was laid, because his heart was in the cause of the country for which they were suffering and dying. Early in the war, he aided in organizing two patriotic bands of Quincy women devoted to the relief and comfort of soldiers, not only in his own hospitals, but on the fields everywhere. They were known as the “Needle Pickets” and “The Good Samaritans,” among whom were Mrs. Governor Wood, Mrs. Anna McFadon, Mrs. Robert Benneson, Mrs. Anna McMahon, Miss Ella Carrott and Mrs. Finlay, the wives and daughters of Irish pioneers. Those consecrated women devoted their time and strength and means to furnish supplies for the hospitals at home and on the fields of conflict. They commenced their work early, scraping lint and rolling bandages, and remained active until the close of the war. They organized an “Old Folks” concert company that gave entertainment in cities in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. They sent nurses to the front. They held a fair in Quincy that continued two weeks and netted them $36,000. With the consent of President Lincoln, they sent Doctor Emery to visit the hospitals in the South and report on their condition. The following is a copy of his pass or authority:
“War Department, Washington, D. C., April 13, 1862.
“Ordered; That permission be given to the Rev. S. Hopkins Emery of Quincy, Ill., to pass within the lines of the United States forces to Savanna, Tennessee, and wherever the sick and wounded soldiers of the United States may be, together with any ladies and gentlemen that may be in his company, for the purpose of affording care and attendance to the sick and wounded. The quartermasters and commissaries will afford them transportation when required and all officers and persons in the service or employment of the United States will afford them courtesy, assistance and protection.
“(Signed) Edwin M. Stanton,
“Secretary of War.”
The Illinois Sanitary Fair, which was held in mammoth tents which covered Washington Park at Quincy, Illinois, attracted the attention of the nation. One of the things offered by them at auction was a book of autographs signed for the occasion by some of the most distinguished men and women of the time. The one from James Russell Lowell was accompanied by the following note and verses:
“I couldn’t send a bare signature to a state which has sent 200,000 men to fight the battles of us all and whose regiments bear on their tattered flags the names of our most glorious victories.