On an early spring day in March of 1931, Fred Cummings, Carimona Township farmer, set out on a patriotic mission. He carried a hollow tube of metal to Waukokee Cemetery, where as a boy, pioneer Cummings witnessed the burial of War of 1812 veteran, Isaac Farnsworth. Farnsworth, who died Jan. 16, 1857, served in that war as a drummer and was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in the one-and-a-quarter acre community burial land surveyed a year prior to his death. Word had reached Cummings that local Legion posts planned to locate and mark all gravesites of military veterans buried in Fillmore County. One of few people yet living in the area with a personal memory of that burial three-quarters of a century previous, he carefully inserted a length of pipe in the spot where he recalled the Farnsworth coffin had been lowered into its grave. The rose-colored granite marker was set later that year.
Isaac came alone to Minnesota Territory in spring of 1851 on two missions. The first was to prepare a way for his family, the second was to prepare a way for the Lord. Isaac planted two acres of wheat, two acres of corn and a half-acre of potatoes before he gave his family permission to head west. After paying expenses of their journey, wife Deborah and their grown children arrived literally without a spare penny. Isaac met them at McGregor Landing, accompanied by a neighbor with an ox team hitched to a prairie schooner. From there it was a trip of four days to reach Fillmore County, camping along the way.
The second of Isaac’s missions wa a spiritual one. Rev. John Dyer of Lenora Church organized a Methodist Episcopal Society in January 1856 with services occasionally held in the Waukokee village school house. Isaac had been sent out by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the missionary field of a village little more than a post office on the amil route form Dubuque to St. Paul. Located in section 25 of Carimona Township the name “Waukokee” derived from an Indian chief who hunted and fished in the Willow Creek valley.
Born 18 Jan 1790 in Alstead, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, Isaac was son of Moses Farnsworth and Annie Wilson. Isaac served as musician in Captain Oliver Taylor’s Company of the 2nd Regiment Vermont Militia. He was mustered Sep 1812 in Thetford, Vt., and discharged Dec 1812. Under the ScripWarrant Act of 1855, Isaac was issued military warrant #28796 for 120 acres in Bristol Township.
Isaac married Eunice Page in Sep 1817 in Oneida County, N.Y. Following her death he married Deborah Downer in 1837. Their four sons — Harlan, Isaac Jr., Austin, and Albert — all enlisted with Minnesota regiments during the Civil War. After the war the Farnsworth boys spread out in different directions. Widowed Deborah resided with a son in Hennepin County. She was buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Minneapolis.