James Seargeant 1801-1889. James Seargeant was born in the town of New Berlin, Chenango Co, NY., 1801 and died at the residence of his son Andrew in the township of Bradford, Chickasaw Co., Iowa, Dec 13, 1889.

He married Miss Fanny Hale in 1823 and they had three sons and two daughters; Emily, the wife of Simon W. Bailey died in 1874.

For five years before his death he groped his way in darkness, having become totally blind. In 1845 he moved to Wisconsin from NY and settled in the town of Bark River(Hebron) (Jefferson Co, WI) on the farm now owned by John Saur, then literally in the woods for only a small patch had been cleared, and a rude house erected by John Ritter whose claim he purchased. A few years after his settlement the forest gave way to cleared and productive fields; the log house to a roomy and comfortable frame one; the cattle hovel to a large Barn and other out buildings. It required industry and frugality to bring about results so marked.

During the year 1876 he sold his farm to his son Andrew, and retired from the active pursuits of life and from thence on his home was with his son, and in his family. His wife Fanny died in 1875.

They had for immediate neighbors living in the same school district(No.1) in 1845: Stephen and Johnson McClure, Robert Wilson, Billings Baldwin, Corydon Culver, Abraham Sanford, Samuel T. Clothier, Edward F. Hutchins, William Moore, John Porter, B. F. Fay, and Sylvester Fox. Stephen McClure and wife are sole survivors of the neighborhood of forthy-five years ago.

Of the number that were living in town forty-five years ago-heads of families-and are yet living, I can only recall the following names: Marshall Torry, William K. Case, H.J. and Mary P. Munroe, David Wilcox, Mrs Emily Wilcox, Mrs. Sally L. Folts. Adin Reynolds, Mrs Rufus H. Parker, John J. Garlock,and Mrs. Polly Green, C.S. and Louisa Crittenden, Henry C. Westphall and wife, Willard and Sarah P. Grant(Stella, Nebraska), Orin Clark(Kansas), John Jackson and wife (Eau Claire), John Burnham (Fort Atkinson), Albert Burhnam and wife, (California), Hon, Joseph Powers (Michigan) Harrison P. Willard (Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin).

There are but few left of the old settlers and the large gathering at the funeral testified to the fraternal feeling that still exists among those who struggled for a home in the woods back in the forties(1840's, and his early friends bore him to the cemetery and tenderly laid him beside his companion with whom he had lived for forty years.

Note: While James Sergeant is buried in Hebron, WI, he died in Chicaksaw Co and many of his descendant's continued living there after his death and burial in WI.