Henry Clay Dean’s papers return to Mount Pleasant

When Iowa Wesleyan closed its doors, its contents had to find new homes. In the case of many of the donated historical documents and items, they were returned to the original owners. Henry Clay Dean was an early trustee of Iowa Wesleyan and his papers were part of the IW Archives. Rebel’s Cove Historical Society requested the return of his historical documents to the family which is now headquartered in Missouri. The Rebel’s Cove Historical Society is composed of the descendants of Henry Clay Dean.

Henry County Heritage Trust is deeply involved in the preservation of the Iowa Wesleyan Archives. Approximately 80% of the archives were transferred to the Trust. After being assigned their own room in the museum, they were reorganized, cataloged and displayed. The Iowa Wesleyan Archives are now open for research. It is important to know that Iowa Wesleyan not only preserved documents related to its history and evolution, but it also preserved many community items. It is a rich source of Mount Pleasant and Southeast Iowa’s early days.

Henry County Heritage Trust was pleased to receive word that the Rebel’s Cove Historical Society wished to return Dean’s papers and portraits to Mount Pleasant. It is apparent that HCHT is regarded as an important group, engaged in serious preservation of thought as well as objects. The procedures to accept donations of this nature are painstaking and detailed. Spencer Barton organized and cataloged IW Archives presently available. He was there when the Rebels arrived with their boxes of documents and books. He then verified the items that the Heritage Trust would keep, provided the papers for them to sign, and returned items to them if necessary.

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While all the necessary legal work was being completed, the descendants and members of the Heritage Trust shared stories of Henry Clay Dean. Hopefully many of the stories will be recorded and remembered. Henry Clay Dean was brilliant, outspoken, a great orator and intensely interested in education. He was not a Lincoln fan and even incarcerated for a time because of his rebel leanings. For a time, he was Chaplain at the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C. Society did not exactly know what to do with him as he did not fit the norms of the time. Henry Clay was also known as “Dirty Shirt Dean.” His hygiene was questionable.

While the donation was being processed, a story was told of his time in D.C. As chaplain of the Senate, he was invited to many senator’s homes for dinner. At one of the dinners, they proceeded to the dining room where they removed their coats. Sure enough Dean’s shirt was unacceptable, but Sunday dinner was completed with as much decorum as possible. The lady of the house however had a solution. She went to the department store, bought Dean a shirt. It then resided at her house. When Dean came to dinner he changed into the clean shirt. When dinner was completed and as he was leaving, he changed back into his own shirt. The senator’s wife then washed the shirt and made it ready for the next visit.

This author tried to locate copies of some of the prayers he would have said to open Senate sessions but found that the Senate notes have only been digitized back to 1857. Hopefully earlier works will soon be available.

Mark Twain and Henry Clay Dean met face-to-face just once, but Twain remembered him from days when Henry Clay was in Keokuk. Twain included a chapter about Dean in his book “Life on the Mississippi.” In Chapter 57 Twain describes Dean.

“After an hour or two spent with former friends, we started up the river again. Keokuk, a long time ago, was an occasional loafing-place of that erratic genius, Henry Clay Dean. I believe I never saw him but once; but he was much talked of when I lived there. This is what was said of him-

He began life poor and without education. But he educated himself—on the curbstones of Keokuk. He would sit down on a curbstone with his book, careless or unconscious of the clatter of commerce and the tramp of the passing crowds, and bury himself in his studies by the hour, never changing his position except to draw in his knees now and then to let a dray pass unobstructed; and when his book was finished, its contents, however abstruse, had been burnt into his memory, and were his permanent possession. In this way he acquired a vast hoard of all sorts of learning, and had it pigeon-holed in his head where he could put his intellectual hand on it whenever it was wanted.

His clothes differed in no respect from a 'wharf-rat's,' except that they were raggeder, more ill-assorted and inharmonious (and therefore more extravagantly picturesque), and several layers dirtier. Nobody could infer the master-mind in the top of that edifice from the edifice itself.

He was an orator—by nature in the first place, and later by the training

of experience and practice. When he was out on a canvass, his name was a lodestone which drew the farmers to his stump from fifty miles around. His theme was always politics. He used no notes, for a volcano does not need notes….”

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Twain’s description is accurate according to the legends of time. It does however emphasize the fact that Twain did not do any verification of the lore. Henry Clay Dean would appear to those around him to be uneducated. Dean, in fact, was college-educated. He attended Madison College in Pennsylvania, where he paid for his education by working as a stone mason, a teacher, and a bookkeeper for an iron manufacturer. His dedication to education is apparent, as his life of notable service to Iowa Wesleyan demonstrates.

Everyone is looking forward to finding more about this “edifice.” Hopefully there is detail about the planning and building of Pioneer, his relationship with the ISU at Ames and his quarrel with Lincoln. When Spencer and Pat finish working their magic with this new collection, that will hopefully become possible. Henry Clay Dean’s descendants have also indicated how willing they are to have everyone visit the Rebel’s Cove Conservation Area and learn about his life in Missouri. The family is continuing his legacy in many ways. An important historical adventure is surely in store for all.