One by one the old settlers of Kansas are dropping off. One by one they silently embark for the unknown shore, the dim Beyond, from which no news ever comes, no tender missives pass to and fro; the somber veil of mystery envelops them. The place that knew them once, knows them now, no more forever. This is what we call death. He who was with us yesterday, is farther from us today than if he had pitched his tent in the uttermost parts of the earth, and a thousand leagues of ocean rolled between him and us. The same elements would have surrounded him, the same sun would have shone upon him. He would have been warmed by fire and nourished by food, and the subtle bonds of human sympathy would have linked our lives together; but the still cold form of the dead repulses all communication. It is not the living mortal of flesh and blood that we have loved, nor the royal spirit we have worshipped; it is a lifeless semblance of what had once been a noble, beautiful piece of mechanism, lighted by the electric radiance of a kingly soul. Hearts may ache and the lips make moan, but its cold silence is unmoved. Remembering how his sympathies had comforted us in affliction, and his consoling, words had soothed so often our wounded spirits, we almost wonder that he should lie so mute under our grief. Now, for the first time, our interests are separate. He has no voice in our councils, nor management in our affairs, nor tears in out sorrow, so we may lay him away in the cold grave, where the spring daisies will find him, realizing, as never before, how small a part of the being is the body, knowing that the God given soul has entered the Gates of Beauty, to bask in the light of eternal life.
Rev. Mace R, Clough was a native of New Hampshire, became a member of the Methodist church early in life, married in Maine and, after a few years spent in Georgia with his wife, he entered the ministry, under the Maine Conference, and for a number of years was a successful and earnest worker in the field he had chosen. In the fall of 1855, he came, with his family, to Kansas and took up a quarter section of land near the Wakarusa Creek, four miles west of the newly laid-out town of Lawrence, then a hamlet of thatched huts, tents, and a few balloon frames. In those troubled times, he was a staunch supporter of Free State principals, and when the historic "800 Border Ruffians" were camped over against Lawrence, threatening the young city with destruction, he was among the first to volunteer his services in her defense. He left his wife and several young children on his "claim" and was obliged to ride out occasionally and see to their welfare. For greater safety, he would make these excursions in the night, as the country was over-run by the cut-throats of the border. On the same road, going home in the same way to his family, poor Barber met his death at the hands of the desperadoes. And Buffum was killed without provocation, in the same vicinity. Yet no harm came to the preacher-soldier, who served as an officer in that noble volunteer band, in the defense of fair Kansas. When peace had again spread her wings over the land for a brief, delusive period, he again entered the ministry, still retaining and residing at the old place. There are many who will remember that location well, half-way between the then considerable town of Clinton and Lawrence, and they will also remember that "Brother Clough" kept an open house, and all that came or went, drove up and partook of what there was, without money and without price. In his extensive missionary work, he knew everybody and everybody knew him, in the then thinly settled region, the belated traveler pressed on, for he was sure of a welcome and good cheer at that unpretending home. Whether it was the preacher on his rounds, or the politician on his canvass, or the soldier on parole, it was all one to the hospitable entertainer, who always found some common ground to meet upon with all. During the "Famine of '60" it was the same, and sometimes half a dozen wagons of those who were fleeing the country, or shifting to better quarters, would be corralled in his yard.
When the war opened, he was traveling a huge circuit in Johnson county, that included the towns of Lanesfield, Gardner, Spring Hill, Olathe, and Shawneetown. During the greater part of that four year conflict, here was his field of labor, on the rebel-ridden border. A goodly Providence seemed to protect him. Olathe was sacked twice, and some of her citizens shot in the public square. Gardner was plundered twice, Shawneetown was the scene of countless butcheries and robberies. The country was scoured by marauding bands of bush-whackers, yet he rode alone across the lonesome prairies, and through the wild timber lands infested by the followers of Quantrell and Dick Yaeger, held his appointments, preached his sermons and visited his parishioners. It was he, who, knowing so well the cursed character of these Border fiends, warned friends of Lawrence that they might come to grief, all defenseless as they were, and when it was really done, and they had come and gone, leaving a track of fire and a trail of blood, from the ashes of Lawrence to the cover of the Border, he, horror-stricken, and mourning the loss of many warm friends, loaded his wagon with what provisions he had, (as did many in the country) and went to the relief of the suffers in their desolate city.
Subsequently he engaged in the "Bible work" as the agent for the American Bible Society, for Kansas, and during this time lived in Baldwin City, where he had removed to educate his children at the University in that place. In this capacity he traveled over most of the state, visiting and establishing new branch societies, holding meetings, taking subscriptions and accomplishing much good, making new friends, and acquiring a thorough knowledge of Kansas and her resources. After several years of unremitting labor in this field of usefulness, in 1869 he conceived the idea of "settling down" upon a farm. He purchased two hundred acres of excellent land in Franklin county, six miles north of Ottawa, and set himself about making a home, built a house, planted orchards, groves and vineyard, a few years would have made it the pleasantest of country places, but he was again induced to enter the ministry, and, his heart being so entirely in the cause of Christianity, he took work again in the Wesleyan Methodist conference. His labors were the first year in Nebraska, but last fall he was elected President of the Kansas conference and transferred his work to this state. During the failures, the drought, the grasshopper panic of the year, he, suffering too and heavily from hard times, losses on his farm, lack of crops and scarcity of money, kept up a cheerful heart, never yielded a moment to discouragement, interested eastern churches in their poverty stricken brethren in Kansas, distributed aid, drove through wind and snow and storm and, no doubt, by exposure, took the cold, that culminating in congestion of the liver and brain, terminated his life, after a brief illness, on the 18th of February, in the full strength of a vigorous manhood, his eye undimmed by age and his locks untouched by frost, with every faculty at its brightest and best, strong and active in mind and body, he has fallen like a mighty tree in the forest. His family are overpowered by his loss, and the church he loved, and his large circle of friends mourn for him as one who can not be replaced. He was one of the few who needed no preparation for death. Always serving others, always thoughtful, kind, and unselfish, he certainly could have done no better these many years had he looked for each hour to be his last.
It is a fearful shock, to the weak who leaned upon him, when the well and strong die suddenly: but, after all, there is something glorious in the thought of falling in the ranks, with the full armor on, never laying by, nor arriving at that period of rest we all look forward to, some time on earth; but working to the last and among the bravest, sinking at last like a soldier on the field of victory with the ring of the battle in his ears. His children can never think of him with silvery locks and tottering step and trembling hand, but as the prop and stay of the household: the strongest and the best.