Another Revolutionary Patriot Gone

The Marietta Intelligencer, August 22, 1850

Died at his residence in Watertown, on Tuesday, the 30th July, Col. Simeon Deming, in the 88th year of his age.  He was a native of Sandisfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and emigrated with his family in the fall and winter of 1796 and 1797, to the then Northwest Territory, and with two others, opened the first Wagon Road West from Marietta.

Nurtured in the school of the revolution, he early imbibed the spirit of those times, and when a youth, participated in the trials and dangers of a campaign on the Northern frontier of New York, and was led into an ambuscade of Tories and Indians, when Col. Brown and others of the Massachusetts volunteers were killed.

Particularly fond in early life of Martial display, he devoted considerable attention to the subject - and held commissions from Gov. Hancock of Massachusetts - and also from acting Gov. Sargent of the Territory, older than any man living at this time.  Arden in his sympathies, he was sincere and confiding in his principles, of diffident and unobtrusive manners, he rather shunned than courted the attentions of others.  Domestic in his feelings he always sought and found his greatest enjoyment in the endearments of home - rendered doubly endearing by the enchanting melody of his own sweet musical powers, which were of a highly cultivated order and for many years, the favorite exercise of his leisure hours.

Strictly puritan in his education, the high moral standard of that age, marked all his conduct through life, but he renounced all confidence in the efficacy of his own moral goodness, by a public profession of faith in the atoning merits of one whose Righteousness is perfect.  Temperate and uniform in all his habits, he enjoyed almost uninterrupted good health, and though for the last twenty years, he lived secluded from the world (by reason of deafness) and had wholly resigned all its cares, still it was his pleasure to be diligent in business, with no other object or motive than the luxury of doing good.  He seemed to live a relic of other days, and could say, "all the days of my appointed time will I wait," till my change comes.  And when the summons came, he understood its meaning, and without moving a muscle he quietly fell asleep in about twelve hours after its announcement.

H.

Watertown, Aug. 14.