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b. April 6, 1837
bp. Bath, Summit Co., Ohio
m. October 26, 1860, Richard Steffens
d. January 23, 1908
Mercy Jane Hammond Steffens was the youngest of three daughters of Ward K. Hammond and Sophronia Hale. After a public school and advanced education she taught school and worked with her family on the farm until she was twenty three. She then married Richard Steffens, who had recently moved to Spring Valley, Fillmore County, Minn., with his brother. Her early years there were pioneer living in poor conditions compared to her home in Jo Daviess Co., Ill. She was less than a hundred miles northwest of Hanover but public transportation was difficult at that time. Nine children were born to them but five of them died young. As the transcontinental railroads opened up from Chicago to the Washington-Oregon area several members of this family moved to Rochester, Minneapolis and then some on to Seattle, Washington.
Mercy Jane Hammond, at the request of her son, Dr. Orson Richard Steffens, wrote a resume of her life and memories of the family ancestors in 1902 at her home in Spring Valley, Minn. This gave insight into the migration from Ohio to Peoria, Ill., by primitive steamboats of the early 1840's, and of the life in Knox County prior to life in Jo Daviess County. The family passed these items on to Charles Hammond Steffens who later lived at Hubbard, Iowa, and his daughters Alice Mercy Steffens and Charlotte Steffens passed them on to us.
I was born in Bath, Summit Co., Ohio, April 6, 1837. My father was Ward K. Hammond who married Sophronia Hale, my mother, in the year 1827. I was the seventh child and the youngest of three daughters. The oldest of my brothers and sisters was Emily Pamelia who died at the age of sixteeen of consumption. I was about four or five years old when my parents moved (1841-42) from Ohio to Knox Co, Ill., traveling by way of Cincinnati4.7, and from there on the river up to Peoria, Ill. My only recollection of the journey was that of a little girl falling down the hatchway on the boat and was killed.
We then went by way of wagons to Knox Co. and for a time lived in what we called ``the woods'' or on the edge of a heavy grove, near us lived a nice family by the name of Robinson. Once my mother took me there and I picked a green pepper growing in the garden and played with it. Pretty soon my eyes smarted and I set up a howl and mother took me to the pump and scrubbed my face and hands vigorously and said, ``I guess you won't pick any more peppers'' and I didn't. Well, we did not live there long for my father had bought government land, one hundred and sixty acres I think, and built a log house out on the prairie. The chimney was built outside of the house with sticks something like lathe. It smoked a great deal. It was there my mother did the cooking for quite a large family and where my two younger brothers, Royal Cornelius4.8and Orson Ward, were born. Us children slept upstairs, climbing a ladder to get there.
Down in the living room was two beds with curtains at each -- one being the ``spare bed''. I remember one morning we discovered there was an occupant in that bed and were full of curiosity, but mother cautioned us to ``keep still'' and soon a burly negro came out who was a full blooded African. He was well dressed and intelligent, an escaped slave and my father, who belonged to the underground railroad in those days, took the team and carried him to town eighteen miles distant, and when they saw anyone coming then the negro would lie down in the wagon and my father would throw some blankets over him and thus he escaped. He was on his way to Canada -- then the land of the free to the poor slaves.
Of course, we had no schools there then, but there was a second cousin of mothers, Henry Piper by name, a young man from Ohio who spent a winter or maybe longer with us, and so he taught a school in our house. A family near by the name of Finley also sent their children. Our books were such as we had in the house and my reader was the New Testament in which I had learned to read when I was six years old.
My brother Merwin and Julius, were very good and industrious and had put in the crops and by other work had supported the family. I went to school the next summer when I was ten years old -- the first birthday I remember was that spring. I walked out alone in the poplar grove close to the house and thought to myself, ``Why I'm ten years old today.'' It was a beautiful day and I celebrated it alone for we did not have birthday and Christmas gifts -- the days were alike to us -- not like ``tis now with little folks''. One thing always afforded me much joy and that was rag dolls. Could have all I chose to make and build playhouses and all the broken dishes I could find. My sister, Emily, as I have said, died at the age of sixteen and we left her buried on the farm but she was removed to the village cemetery later. She was ill for two years and the last three months of her life was confined to her bed. I used to wait on her a great deal and she used to talk to me and tell me she was going to die and to meet her in Heaven. I remember her as tall and slender with dark brown hair and eyes and rather a prominent nose, was very good looking and a bright girl. What she gained in thus early going, only Heaven knows.
Well, my life went on with much of sameness. Sister Julia was four years older than I and we took turns washing the dishes. Somehow we did not love each other very much but my six brothers and I got on very well except brother Ed4.9, who was two years younger than I and we used to have some battles. He grew, though, into a good Christian man. He was a brave soldier all through the Civil War, and was with Sherman in this march to the sea. He was in the siege of Vicksburg and his Co. planted the flag on the heights when it surrendered. He was wounded at Pocataligo, S. Carolina, in the arm and lay all night in the rain and mud before his arm was dressed. It was his right arm, the full use of which he never recovered. He died of pneumonia at age of fifty, or about that, near Galena, Ill., where he lived on a farm, leaving a wife, son and daughter.
I went to District School when ``Ma could spare me'' for I was always good to work, so she said, and used to love to clean up the house and make things look their best. I had some very unpleasant experiences that you have heard me tell, but I will not here record them. When I was twelve years old, sister Julia married S. D. Edgerton, a neighboring young man, well to do and of good habits. At home it was pleasanter for me after that. She lived near and I was often called on for help which I always cheerfully gave. Her oldest child was Metta and like a sister to me. She is now the wife of an M.E. minister, Abbott by name. When I was seventeen was sent to Mt. Carroll Female Seminary twenty miles from home. It was a good school and there I met Sister Mary Ann Steffens, the sister of him who became my companion later. She was a dear girl, and my love for her is still warm and deep; will ever be while life lasts.
I was at this school for three years or part of the time here when I first felt the need of a Saviour and saw my own sinfulness. It was my last winter at the Seminary and a great religious revival was in progress there. Many of the students were among the seekers. It was a decisive step for me and one I always rejoiced over, though I've been such a weak follower of the dear Saviour who has done so much for me. After going home I joined the M.E. Church as most of our family belonged to that church, there being no Congo Church in that place4.10.
My mother, Sophronia Hale Hammond, was a true faithful Christian, so patient and trustful and bearing such heavy burdens all through her life. So do I cherish her memory and the many things she tried to teach us. She died at the age of sixty-nine years at the home of my brother Charles4.11, and only my youngest brother, Orson, was with her at the time. Her home for some years had been with brother Julius and family but she had gone to brother Charles to visit and to be with her baby, Orson, who was staying there for a while, having hurt his knee in the shop where he worked at carpentry in Hanover, the village near by. Her disease was called dropsy of the chest, but her health had failed for many years and it was to her a happy release. She lies alone in a three cornered lot of the cemetery at Hanover, Ill.
I used to teach country school after I left school at the age of nineteen. My last term was the year or summer previous to my marriage October 25, 1860 to Richard Steffens, whose acquaintance I had made through his sister Mary whom I met at school and had visited her at her home in Millageville, Ill. He was fourteen years my senior, a plain quiet man, honest and true as the sunlight. We were married at home with only relatives present. After visiting his folks, two weeks later we left them all and started for Hamilton, Fillmore Co., Minn., where he with his brother, Ephriam, had land and were together on a farm. I was well. I had a good stock of health and strength to begin my married life for it was not an easy life I led. Things were not convenient and all through the first winter we had Richard's two brothers, Ephriam and John with us. The brother Ephriam, was with us a great deal until his marriage to Miss Susie M. Johnson, in Canada on June, 1869. Richard and E. had been in partnership in business but had divided up in the Fall before I entered the family. The house we lived in at first was his, so the next Fall we moved to where we lived so many years.
Charles, my first born, was born here and we were very proud of him. Next came Alice nineteen months later. She was such a pretty child, was very active and self reliant. Then Joseph Ward was born and my heart swells with grief as I write of him -- dear Joe. He was a bright affectionate little fellow, so active and alert. He and Charley were good boys and got along so well together and were so bright in school. Charles later went to Winona where he graduated at the Normal in June 1884. Alice was a nice girl, and was great worker. She went to District School and later to Carleton. After she taught District School and then graded work.
But I must not fail to tell of the birth of our twin daughters, Emma and Edna, in the winter of January 19, 1868, after which I had a long sickness and my life was despaired of but my time had not yet come. There was much for me to do. These dear babies were only lent us for at the age of twenty-two months they died after an illness of two weeks within an hour of each other -- bilious diarrhea was the cause and I was at my sister in Hanover, Ill., where I had been to visit my relatives there. My mother was then living in very feeble health. I never saw her after that although she lived two years, I think.
Sister Mary Steffens came home with me -- that dreadful journey -- our sweet little prattlers in a coffin up in the hurricane deck of the boat in the chill cold of Nov., then by rail from Winona to Rochester and then a ride in a wagon from there home to their father who knew not of their death and who was crushed with grief. He was so rebellious but later his heart softened and he gave it to Jesus the following winter during a revival and was ever after a faithful Christian.
In the year 1872 on June 13, our little Metta Sophronia was born. She was fair and sweet in disposition and never did I hear a child sing as she used to. Scarlet fever took her from us at the age of nearly five years. It seemed to me than I never could ``take up life's weary ways and walk in it again.'' I mourned so for her, my loving little daughter, who used to talk so much of ``going up in the Sky''. Then later came Orson Richard and four years later Harry Hale. These two boys were 7 l/2 and 4 l/2 years old respectively, when my good husband left us after a brief illness and we had to lay him away too. He was sixty years of age and his death was peaceful. His last words were ``Trust in God.''
As I'm writing this after 20 years of widowhood I feel that somehow the dear Lord has led us, cared for us, and I do not feel like recording all that occurred. You, Orson, my dear son, you know it all and helped me all along the weary way. After you grew older I somehow leaned on you and you were so trustworthy and true. Harry, too my baby boy who is with me still. How hard we three labored on the home place to get along. Alice was away teaching, Charlie married and Joe in college. Well, we did not swamp the homestead and the two boys acquired a fair education.
In the summer of 1899 Orson married Sara Eppard, and then Harry and myself moved to Spring Valley where we have lived since. Harry graduated in 1900 and in a few weeks entered a bank where he has worked since. Joseph Ward at this time was in a hospital in Chicago. Had graduated at Carleton College, taught as principal of schools for six years, then he studied medicine in Chicago at the Northwestern Medical School, graduated and entered the St. Lukes Hospital, as House Physician. During his second year of labor there he contracted typhoid fever.
After an illness of sixty-three days he gave up his life, dear brave patient. This was February 1, 1901. His last words were ``Jesus peace.'' My heart is too full to dwell on this great blow to us all. It was too much gone from our lives and we miss him so, my dear son, who never gave me an anxious thought. Charley and myself made two trips to Chicago and at the last brought him home and laid him in the cemetery at Hamilton where he waits the Resurrection of the Just.
The photograph shows Mercy Jane Hammond Steffens (ca. 1875) with one of her daughters, probably Alice Vienna Steffens, one of the family's early genealogists. Alice V. married but divorced later and worked as a business woman in Minneapolis, Minn. She secured, extended and had printed about 1929 the Hale/Hammond ancestor chart that was circulated among this Hammond family and is still available.
My grandmother Mercy Jane Steffens died Jan. 23, 1908.
This past year of 1973 I made a pictorial record of the family that included my father Charles H., Uncle Orson, and Uncle Harry H. whose birthday is tomorrow, March 12 and Aunt Alice who married and then divorced George St. John. The boys all married and had families. Father, eight children. Orson had two, a boy and a girl, named Merwin and Alice Ella. Uncle Harry was the father of three girls. All, or nearly all, of these cousins married and have a family but not even knowing their cousins who live in the same city -- Rochester, Minn. It was to correct that condition that this pictorial record of these families was made by me. As I am a retired school teacher I have nothing to do, as it is thought by some. The book is practically done but I have Alice E. Steffens, my cousins family, to record yet. They are so slow in getting pictures to me, but I am never discouraged. On July 9, 1974 my favorite nephew, and my brother Lincoln's youngest child, is to be married. I hope to attend the wedding at Red Bluff, Ca., one hundred miles north of Sacramento. I am a sufferer of arthritis and fall down so much and have to be helped up. Knees are bad so I might not be able to go.
I am returning the records you sent to me since you did not say I could keep them. The entire family but my sister and me are Methodists. We joined the Baptist Church after coming to this lovely place -- Kingston Village. So we are not exactly outlaws for there is not really much difference I find between the two denominations. The goal of each is the same. Thank you for your most interesting letter and I hope I have added a bit to your family history.
Sincerely,
Alice Mercy Steffens
In the above letter, Alice Mercy mentions that she also brought together the older pictures of her family in a pictorial album that has now become ``lost'' to much of the family. This photo album would greatly aid family researchers should it come to light through descendents.
