Council Bluffs Nonpareil
Council Bluffs, Iowa
May 12, 1927

Rev. DeLong Dies After 'Good Night'
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IN FINAL WORDS COMMENDS SOUL TO GOD ARRANGES OWN FUNERAL
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After making the arrangements for his funeral, reciting one verse of his favorite hymn, Rev. Henry DeLong, aged 93, Council Bluffs oldest pioneer, at 11 o'clock Thursday morning, said " Good night, Good night, Until we meet in the morning." and died. During the evening he had asked that Thomas Maloney, former mayor, Charles Paschel, Joe W. Smith and A. L. Mickel have charge of his rites, and to each he delivered a message. He asked that Mr. Mickel, formerly a Methodist minister and a life long friend of Rev. DeLong officiate, assisted by Rev. H. W. Wilkinson pastor of the Broadway Methodist church. During Wednesday night, he dictated a statement to the public and to those he wanted to officiate at his funeral. Later he said to his son Harvey:" It is well with my soul, Halleluah." and after a brief pause added " We will meet over yonder in the morning" Then he recited the hymn:

"All hail the power of Jesus' name
Let angels prostrate fall
Bring forth the royal diadem
And crown him Lord of all"

Then as if in retrospect, he said " I have lived in the greatest century of the ages". and finally the goodnight message. During the night Rev. DeLong told those about him that when he passed away he wanted no weeping, and during a lucid period recited, while one son held the Bible under his hand, the seventeenth chapter of John, which he had committed to memory since he was 50 years of age. The message he dictated to the public and his especial friends was:

" There's a vast difference between being good to be saved and being saved to be good. We may die without the knowledge of many things and go to heaven, but if we die without love there is no heaven. Faith, hope and love is a perfection on earth, love alone is the perfection in heaven.

I am going out to the other shore and when the Savior asks me by what grounds do you want to be taken in? I will say, I am just a poor sinner, just a poor sinner saved by grace through faith in the blood of the lamb.

" Tom Maloney: I see the shadow of the cross, I guess you are elected to say something. You and I have been very close friends and we have learned to love each other in spite of our different opinions.

"Charles Paschel: You can say something about the visions we saw together in your little office.

" And now Brother Mickel, as you know me better than my pastor, I have selected you to take his place.

" And Joe Smith, It is yours, to put on the cap sleaf as you have known me as long as any man has and you and I have been very close together. I trust you.

" And now comes our pastor, you are the chairman and you direct all these folks. I believe you have finished. I might say this much more to the low and the high. Jesus must be the Christ before he can be anything else. These last words I give to my friends, a farewell till we meet in the morning.

At his bedside were his two sons Henry Jr. and Harvey, Harvey's wife, Dr. H.D. Kelly, his physician, and his special nurse Miss Agatha Keller.

Three weeks ago Rev. DeLong went to Mercy Hospital and rented a room. Then he summoned Dr. Kelly, saying, " I'm sick, I've rented this bed here, and I'm going to get in it, never to get up again. I want you to keep me alive as long as possible." His death was caused by pneumonia following bladder and kidney ailments.

Mr. DeLong had lived in Council Bluffs eighty-one years, coming here with the Mormons from Nauvoo, Ill. in 1846. He was one of the two survivors of the historical trek of the Mormons toward Utah, the other being George Coulson of La Harpe, Illinois.

He was born Sept. 7, 1834, in Old Brighton, Beaver, county, Penn. His parents joined the Mormons in 1844 and went to the colony at Nauvoo in 1844. The next year both died, leaving their son an orphan at the age of 11. At the age of 12 he came west with the Mormons.

Wanted To Be The Best Gambler
Until he was 16 years old young DeLong did what manual labor he could put his hand in. During his sixteenth year, he attended school for three months in a log school, east of the city. This constituted his entire schooling.

According to his own statement, the next ten years of his life were spent as an employee of the Ocean Wave saloon, located where the Broadway Methodist church now stands. During this time he had the ambition to become the best gambler in the then very wild, young city of Council Bluffs. How his energies were shifted into more Christian lines he often related. He and a group of others from the Ocean Wave Saloon attended a church meeting with the intention of, at the sign of the leader arising and making so much noise that the revival would be broken up. While they were waiting for the signal, DeLong listened to the minister and was so impressed that he was then and there converted and had since that time, 1858, been active in the church. Two years later he was licensed to preach, and was instrumental in securing the Broadway church on the site of the old saloon.

In 1870, he joined the Methodist conference at Boone, and was appointed to the Council Bluffs circuit, which comprised the west half of Pottawattamie county and parts of Mills and Harrison counties. He preached every night of the week for some time and three times a day on Sundays, meantime digging wells during the days to secure additional funds.

In 1857, he was located here at his own request and had since that time been doing missionary work in this city, maintaining his own mission home.

Mr. DeLong was a veteran of the Civil War, enlisting in 1864, with the third Iowa battery stationed at Little Rock, Ark. While there he secured $200. washing shirts for his comrades. With this he bought the Ocean Wave saloon site in 1866.

Rev. DeLong was married to Miss Sophronia E. Whitcomb Sept. 25,1862, and seven sons and three daughters were born to them. Of these, but the two sons, Henry Jr., and Harvey survive. Henry lives here and Harvey, of Kansas City, Mo.
Of recent years Rev. DeLong has established a reputation as a marrying minister. For some time he had a office at the courthouse easily accessible to the couple who had secured their licenses at the clerk's office. Later he moved across the street in the Merriam block where the would be weds continued to seek him out. Until his fatal illness began a few weeks ago, he was on the street daily. During his ninetieth year he took several airplane rides.

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LeMars Semi Weekly Sentinel
Lemars, Iowa June 28, 1927 page 2

Council Bluffs Loses Distinguished Citizen

Odd in speech, dress and manner, Rev. Henry DeLong was an outstanding personage at the National Grand Army Encampment in Des Moines last fall. He was a distinguished citizen of Council Bluffs in which city he recently died. Over a thousand people attended the funeral.

Henry DeLong was born in a log cabin in Old Brighton, Pa. Sept. 7, 1834. His parents came to Nauvoo, Ill.,ten years later having joined the Mormons. He came to Kanesville, now Council Bluffs with Brigham Young and his followers when they were driven from Nauvoo by a mob. He was then an orphan. Henry was eleven years old when he arrived in Council Bluffs with the Mormon Train, July 3, 1846. He did not remain long with the Mormons, mainly because of mistreatment by the man who adopted him.

He fell in with a gambler who conducted a vile den in that pioneer western town but was converted at a camp meeting that he intended to help break up and immediately entered the ministry.

In 1864, Henry DeLong enlisted in the 3rd Iowa Light Artillery, in which he served until the close of the war, while in the army he saved $250., which he earned washing shirts for his comrades at five cents apiece.

For eighty one years he was a noted character in and around Council Bluffs. In his earlier days he would dig wells in the day time and preach at night.
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The following was taken from an article in the Des Moines Register, May 16, 1926. This was a part of a series they were doing on the LDS in Iowa. There was a part with Henry's recollections.

RECALLS LONG JOURNEY

"I was only a boy of 12, reminisces the Rev. Henry DeLong of Council Bluffs, yet I recall the dreadful misery experienced by all during that long, long, trail to Council Bluffs. I was with the train immediately following Brigham Young's cortege called 'The Camp of Israel'.

"Our schooner was full to overflowing so I was forced to sleep on the wet ground beneath a wagon. Like the rest, I suffered from rheumatism and frost bite.

"I remember the despair of the women (and there were more women then men in the first wagons) and their constant fight against disease, cold and death. Heroic at first, they grew sick at heart as babies died and families and friends grew weaker from privation. Burials were frequent and who can recount the utter sadness of a prairie burial.

"Perhaps a windswept prairie where low lying brush formed a protection of a sort along a boggy trail; perhaps a pouring rain to chill the bereaved friends already driven to dull melancholy. There was no undertaker, perhaps not even time to construct a coffin. Loved ones were laid to rest in the great wide spaces which had offered little but hardship.

"Snow and slush, rain and mud", the Rev. DeLong continued. It seems that the memory of those days will never fade. I was grateful that my good dog Maje, escaped. He was my comfort. I had a pet lamb that slept with me and I shared rations with them.

DANCED BY CAMPFIRE

Day by day the kaleidoscopic pageant toiled into the West. The strange hegira, founding a new route of empire, was augmented by nomads seeking adventure. As the trains halted to rest, the camps were bustling with activity, while tanners prepared the hides from perished animals; shoemakers made the leather into boots or harness; blacksmiths shod the few horses or mended the wagons; women carded wool and spun cloth for their garments. They learned too, that the jogging of the wagon over the rough trails churned their pails of milk hung beneath the schooners.

"There was the happy side of our journey.", said the Rev. Henry DeLong. There were the rolling hills carpeted with brilliant wild flowers such as we shall never again see; there was deer and wild fowl and the flash of bright winged birds. Even the long grass swaying in the wind symbolized the green and silver ocean my friends had described.

"At night there was the weirdness of the camp fires. although, many, many nights the rain quenched the precious blaze. How we danced to the tune of Captain Pitts' brass band! Often Brigham Young himself led the minuets and cotillions of men and women danced and sang in an endeavor to regain courage for the morning.

"We encountered few Indians until we entered Pottawattamie county. As a boy, I was divided between hope and fear of meeting savages. As we slowly advanced from water course to water course, along hills and through forests, I pictured myself a hero rescuing the whole train from disaster by some clever ruse. Because I was adept at killing blackbirds with beans as bullets, I presume I considered myself an expert shot.