In the dark of winter in January 1916, when World War I already was raging in Europe, an elderly widow took her final breath in the prairie town of Hastings, Nebraska. Although Caroline Herrick Johnson left behind a large family and was praised at the time for her virtuous life, her death at age 89 probably didn’t seem particularly remarkable. Her final resting place, next to that of her husband William Johnson, is in Block B at Parkview Cemetery.
Learn more, however, and one can see that Caroline Johnson truly was a remarkable figure in Hastings history — a person who for the final 40 years of her long life provided a living, breathing, hand-to-hand link between an upstart Midwestern farming community and the very founding of the United States of America. You see, Johnson was the daughter of a soldier who fought for the Continental Army 135 years before her death, risking life, limb and future in the struggle to secure the 13 American colonies’ independence from the British Crown. The father’s hands she held as a child had carried weapons in the Revolutionary War.
Fast-forward to a sun-splashed August ceremony on Saturday, when that remarkable connection was commemorated at Johnson's gravesite by the Daughters of the American Revolution with support from their male counterparts, the Sons of the American Revolution. Remarks were offered. Prayers were said.
Wreaths were laid. America’s colors were presented by members of the Sons of the American Revolution dressed in period uniforms, complete with epaulets, long jackets and tricorn hats. And a special bronze plaque attached to the Johnson family monument back in 1925 was rededicated in Caroline’s memory.
At the end of the half-hour gathering, participants expressed satisfaction at having resurrected the name of a “Real Daughter” within the DAR family, now deceased more than 108 years, while heralding the sacrifices made by Johnson’s father and his contemporaries for the sake of American liberty. “Nothing is really ended until it is forgotten,” said Tami Pickel of Hastings, regent for the Niobrara Butler-Johnson Chapter of DAR, performing her role in the event. “We would not be here today if it was not for the sacrifices of the people willing to give all,” said Hastings resident Gayle Van Patten, one of several members of the Niobrara Butler-Johnson chapter of DAR who participated in the Parkview event and stayed around to visit with a reporter afterward.
In DAR parlance, “Real Daughters” are women whose own parents were verified Revolutionary War “patriots” (soldiers or others who meaningfully supported the war effort), and who went on to become members of the Daughters organization after it was founded in 1890. Just 767 Real Daughters are listed among the national organization’s deceased members. Day to remember The Parkview Cemetery event was one of three in Hastings Saturday for the Daughters and Sons of the American Revolution, which are separate organizations but work together to promote American patriotism, share U.
S. history, and serve veterans and In the morning, they marched together in the Kool-Aid Days parade downtown, where they handed out out 450 U.S.
flags to spectators in the first two blocks of the parade route. “We could’ve used 1,000,” Van Patten remarked. Then, in the early afternoon, the Sons organization dedicated a stone marker in the Hastings College Arboretum designating a giant cottonwood as a “Liberty Tree” — part of a nationwide Liberty Tree campaign to commemorate the 250th anniversary of key events leading to America’s independence.
About 40 people, including representatives of DAR and SAR from both Nebraska and Kansas, attended Saturday’s cemetery event . Earlier, about 30 were on hand for the dedication of the Liberty Tree marker. Connie Plettner, honorary state regent for DAR, and John Braisted, Nebraska Society president of SAR, were among the dignitaries taking part in both events.
The Niobrara Butler-Johnson Chapter of DAR has about 45 members from Hastings, Sutton and other communities in and outside Nebraska. The SAR has about 150 members statewide, with local chapters only in Omaha and Lincoln but future plans for a chapter in North Platte. In their service projects, patriotic initiatives and colorful ceremonies, the organizations seek to bring new life to American history and acquaint new generations with foundational events that may seem obscure to many, as long ago and far away as they occurred.
“We stand on the shoulders of our founders, and the future will stand upon our shoulders,” Braisted said during the tree ceremony. Adams County’s Liberty Tree The original Liberty Tree, an elm planted in 1646, was located near the Boston Common and became a gathering place for colonists unhappy with British rule in the decade leading up to the Revolutionary War. That tree became an icon and landmark in the American Independence movement, which eventually led to the convening of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia on Sept.
5, 1774 — 250 years ago next month. In 1775, British soldiers and loyalists cut down the old elm and used it for firewood — but not before many other colonial communities had been inspired to designate Liberty Trees of their own. Now, the Sons of the American Revolution are carrying on that tradition from history, said Mark Byars of Omaha, vice president of the SAR’s Omaha Chapter, registrar for the SAR’s Nebraska Society, and chairman of the state group’s America 250 Campaign.
Liberty Trees can be either planted as saplings or identified for the designation from among existing trees. In Hastings, the latter course was selected — in this case with a cottonwood, Nebraska’s official state tree. “We chose to dedicate a tree because that’s what our patriot ancestors did,” Byars said.
The group was happy to dedicate a tree in Adams County, which is named for John Adams, a leading figure in American Revolution politics who became the second president of the United States, Byars said. A number of similar around the state are anticipated. “One of the goals we have with our Liberty Tree program is to plant a Liberty Tree in every community in Nebraska named after a Revolutionary War patriot,” he said.
Will Locke, a Hastings College professor emeritus of teacher education who volunteers to help care for the trees on campus, estimated the cottonwood north of Hurley-McDonald Hall is 80-90 feet tall and somewhere between 50 and 70 years old. Locke said Paul Dooley, college maintenance manager, had recommended the cottonwood for Liberty Tree designation. “It’s in beautiful shape and it’s close to the flagpole and the circle drive,” Locke said.
“It’s a mature cottonwood with many, many decades left.” Living history According to a biography prepared for Saturday’s gravesite ceremony, Caroline Lois Herrick was born March 8, 1826, in Towanda, a township in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest daughter of Ebenezer Herrick, then age 62; and his second wife, Phoebe.
Ebenezer Herrick had been born Sept. 21, 1763, in Preston, a town in New London County in Connecticut — at that time a British colony. He lived in New Hampshire colony at the time of the war and served in the Continental Army from 1781-83, when he was roughly 18-20 years old.
Ebenezer Herrick went on to marry and raise at least 10 children. A listing of his offspring on the Find-A-Grave cemetery research website suggests his oldest son was born in 1790. Caroline was the youngest child listed.
She was 20 years old when her father died at age 83 on Feb. 11, 1847. Ebenezer Herrick is buried at Corinth in upstate New York.
Caroline married William Johnson in New York on Dec. 11, 1849. They moved to Adams County in 1876 and settled on a farm near Hastings.
They had eight children. Her husband died Feb. 3, 1886.
Caroline Johnson spent just shy of 30 years as a widow. A 1915 Hastings city directory shows her living at 314 W. Fifth St.
with one of her daughters, Minerva Johnson, who was or went on to become a deputy city clerk for the city of Hastings. According to the DAR biography, Caroline Johnson’s life was remembered as “one of self-sacrifice and devotion to others.” She was called” a gentlewoman, highly respected by all who knew her.
” Following her death, nearly a decade passed before a ceremony Dec. 1, 1925, in which her bronze Real Daughter grave marker was unveiled. Daughter Minerva pulled back the cover to reveal the Real Daughter plaque.
A great-grandaughter, Mary Helen Schultz, spread roses on the grave. Johnson is one of two women buried in Parkview Cemetery who have been recognized as for their parents’ service to the Revolutionary War effort. The other is Barbara Fishburn Knowles Hood, who was born in 1795 and died May 12, 1886, at age 90.
Hood lived in Hastings from 1883 until her death. According to Hastings Tribune archives, the mother of eight children originally was buried at Highland Park Cemetery and later was re-interred in the new Parkview Cemetery, where her headstone may be found in Block C. The DAR marked Hood’s grave with a plaque in a ceremony Oct.
1, 1929. She is designated as the Daughter of a Revolutionary War Patriot. Hood’s father, Philip Fishburn, reportedly served in the 6th Battalion of the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, State Militia, beginning in 1778.
Hood’s mother, Henrietta Maria Coles Fishburn, also is noted for service to the war effort in Bedford, Pennsylvania, where both Philip and Henrietta are buried..
