The Winterset Madisonian
Winterset, Madison Co., Iowa
October 22, 1920


THE GORDON FAMILY REUNION

The annual reunion of the GORDON family was held on September 12th, at the Leese GORDON home, eight miles south of Dexter.
This reunion was instigated at the request of Aunt Jane GORDON, deceased wife of the deceased S. A. GORDON, mother and father of Mrs. H.T. CLAMPITT of Greenfield, Iowa. The reunion to be held as nearly as possible to the 12th of September, which seventy years ago was the wedding day of this couple.
Quite different are the conditions today from what they were when these sturdy pioneers left their home in Ripley County, Indiana, and settled in Madison County, Iowa, near the present town of Winterset, which at that time consisted of a log store, a long postoffice, a double log building used as a court house, church or for many other community gatherings.
The town was named Winterset at the suggestion of a man named Harrison, as the day was so bitterly cold. Many were the hardships endured by the early settlers when the wild buffalo and bear furnished them their meat, and the fierce wolves and panthers chased them about while they dodged Indians and rattlesnakes. Their houses were not modern, like ours today, but when the snow sweeping down over the hill slopes, a goodly portion found its way through the cracks of the walls, and when morning came, the first one out of bead took off the top cover to shake off the night's accumulation of snow. And still worse, perhaps, was when the fireplace was looked into and they found naught but blackened embers. Then they must hit two flint rocks together to rekindle, or take an old shoe to a neighbor's house to borrow a few live coals.
Irvin W. GORDON, and wife, Sarah, moved from Washington County, Pennsylvania, in the spring of 1823, to Clairmount, Ohio, in 1824, to Ripley County, Indiana and in 1827, to Madison County, Iowa in 1852.
On the night of May 21, 1863, Irvin W. GORDON became a member of the Union League in Winterset, Iowa. The GORDON family were affiliated with the Baptist Church until 1827, when the left them and embraced the reformation by the Campbells.