I want to be remembered as a friend. ---Denise D'Amico

     Fate cheated those that left for Heaven too early.  They were allotted limited Earthly time with no real opportunity to be known for a great achievement, discovery, talent, or benevolence.  The Become Awesome website offers those who recently left our realm with a voice. The website describes the Mt. Olive lives lost too early so that each may be known for the mark they left here.

     What about those who left early but before we, the current Mt. Olive dwellers, were born?  The founding families certainly made their mark on Mt. Olive and are remembered by the names of towns and roads.  Who were their children who left too early?  Who were their parents who suffered the losses? This issue will be the focus of the next several blog entries.  To start, I am pleased to introduce Irenaeus Bartley 1861-1888.

     Irenaeus grew up in what came to be known as "Bartleyville," located to the south of Budd Lake and east of Flanders; it is on the border of Washington Township and, by 1868, was part of Mt. Olive Township. Irenaeus' father was William Bartley and his mother was Almira Wolfe Bartley.  The couple married in 1850. William opened a large and very successful foundry which melted metals likely harvested from the nearby iron mines. Irenaeus and his older brothers, Sam and Augustus, worked in the machine shop.  A third son born before Irenaeus in 1860, William Jr., lived for only one year.  Almira gave birth to Irenaeus in 1861 shortly after burying William earlier that year.

     In 1880, Irenaeous entered Lafayette College in Easton where he pursued a major course of study in Civil Engineering. Lafayette's academic courses were based on a tri-semester yearly schedule in those days. The College's President, Reverend William Cattell, was also a professor of Mental and Moral Character. As an interesting side note, the famous psychologist, James Cattell, was William's son and graduated from Lafayette in 1880 before entering U of Penn.  At any rate, Irenaeous' required courses included Algebra, French, German, and English as well as Analytical Chemistry, Mineralogy, Botany, Anatomy, and very strange Calculus classes. He had the opportunity to take a class entitled "Practice with a Blow-Pipe" which must have been a riot in and outside the classroom. As a senior he got to cut stone, draw bridges, and do other less fun but very heady engineering hard stuff.

     At the time of his death in 1888, Irenaeus was working in Missouri as the Civil Engineer involved in a bridge construction. There is no obituary or account of his death that I could find anywhere.  However, he is included in The Biographical and Genealogical History of Morris County, Vol.2 (NY: Lewis Publishing, 1899) as follows:

"He was a young man of fine character and marked ability, and his untimely death was a blow to those near and dear to him." electronic position 1509.

So, to Mr. Irenaeus Bartley, we are happy to meet you.