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Volume 058-4 - October 2004 (6 pages)
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Page: of 6
Brierly did not know Meredith personally, being in town a
short time, but his extraordinary address was printed and
ran three and half columns in the Nevada Democrat on June
22, 1860. The church was so densely crowded that
hundreds were not able to enter.
Nevada was the first city in the Northern mines to publish a newspaper. The Nevada Journal was started in April
1851 by Warren B. Ewer as its editor, and no paper in any
mining town had at its helm so many notable men: Aaron
A. Sargent, Nathaniel P. Brown, Edwin G. Waite, Henry M.
o™Fuller, John P. Skelton and Dr. William Alban. The paper
started as a weekly, went to a semi-weekly for a short time
and then became a weekly again. The Journal was a Whig
paper until July 1855, “then began the advocacy of American [Party] principles.” In March 1862 the Nevada Journal
was purchased by Brierly & Co. At the time Brierly took
the helm, the country was in the middle of the Civil War.
In 1861 the first in a series of near tragedies plagued the
family, first when their young son shot another boy in the
head while they pretended to duel. Fortunately, Dr. Harvey
Hunt was able to remove the ball from the victim’s forehead and save his life. In August 1862 a second son, an
engineer on the steamer Golden Gate, nearly died when the
ship burned at sea, killing many passengers. Less than a
year later death took Benjamin Brierly to his great reward.
Although he had been suffering ill health, his death was
sudden. He left no will, and his wife, herself an invalid and
visiting with their daughter near San Jose, did not make it
home in time to say goodbye to her husband, being a few
hours too late. Their engineer son, being in port, rushed to
Nevada City and received his father’s blessing.
Brierly was widely known in Northern California and it
is interesting that the Sacramento Union in the July 24,
1863, edition headlined its obituary, “DEATH OF AN
EDITOR.”
Rev. Benjamin Brierly, formerly of San Francisco,
and late editor of the Nevada Journal, died at the latter
place July 21. He was also Pastor of the Baptist
Church at Nevada.
NCHS Bulletin October 2004
Left: Henry Meredith
and monument on
his grave at Nevada
City’s Pioneer
Cemetery on
West Broad St.
Right: Rev.
Osgood
C. Wheeler,
pioneer Baptist
minister and
good friend of Rev.
Benjamin Brierly.
Brierly’s funeral service was preached by the Reverend
Osgood C. Wheeler, one of the most eloquent and able ministers of the denomination and on intimate terms with
Brierly. As noted earlier, Wheeler had been present at
Nevada City when the Baptist church was founded in 1853,
and had preached the dedicatory sermon on January 13,
1861, when the church was rebuilt.
Osgood C. Wheeler
Wheeler’s background was very different than Brierly’s.
Wheeler was born at Butler, New York, March 13, 1816. He
had been converted at the young age of nine and baptized at
age fifteen. He worked on his father’s farm until he was
twenty; taught school for two winters, then studied at
Middleburg Academy. He graduated at Madison University
in 1845, was ordained at East Greenwich, Rhode Island, in
November, built a church and ministered there two years.
Wheeler arrived in San Francisco on February 28, 1849.
Sent by the American Baptist Home Mission Society,
Osgood had finally relented after repeatedly refusing the
mission. Osgood built the first Protestant church edifice in
California that year. In January 1852 he moved to Sacramento as pastor of the first church there. Osgood was compelled to stop preaching in 1855 due to a throat disease. He
partially recovered and he resumed his work, preaching in
almost every part of California, and filling in at various
churches as was needed.
Like Brierly, Osgood was talented with the pen and he
edited and published the Pacific Banner, the first Baptist
newspaper west of the Rockies (which began publication in
Sacramento on August 19, 1852), the Daily Times, and
several large volumes on agriculture. In 1873, by appointment, he wrote and carried through the press a biographical
work of 500 pages, The First Steamship Pioneers. He became the chief clerk of the California Legislative Assembly
in 1864; also a U.S. Internal Revenue Collector; was
secretary and manager of the U.S. Sanitary Commission in
California during the Civil War, and was general agent of
the Freedmen’s Commission. In 1871 he was appointed to