Opening…

Introduction

The history of Linn county is covered by the events of only a few years, if compared with the history of communities east of the Mississippi. The space of one life-time embraces all that has happened here since the first white man looked upon our goodly heritage. True, that life has been prolonged beyond the scriptural three score and ten years. Robert Ellis, who came to this community more than seventy years ago, and who was one of the very early settlers, yet lives in a hale and vigorous age on land he "claimed" at that time.

But if the history of the county does not cover many years, it yet is a history crowded with happenings of interest, some of the incidents being more or less stirring.

History is defined as a record of the past. It does not concern itself with the present. It has been the purpose of the editors of this volume to treat somewhat at length of the early days in the county. Those conversant with events occurring prior to the Civil war are rapidly moving on, and it is high time that their recollections of beginnings here were gathered and put in permanent form.

This has been attempted--how imperfectly done no one realizes more keenly than we realize it. But like little Mary Wood of the story, we have done the best we could in the few months given us to prepare the pages which follow. We have done some things which need not be done again by any one who follows us. We have made definite some things in our history as a county that heretofore have been matters of uncertainty. It is felt that the present volume will make an excellent starting point for some future chronicler.

The task of the historian has been an arduous one--far more arduous than can be imagined by any save those who have done similar work. Withal the task has been one of pleasure and of inspiration. The pursuit of knowledge in this instance has really been a delight.

We have been taught many things by our work that add to the sum of the pleasures of living in a day crowded with all the conveniences of the twentieth century. Our respect for the courageous pioneer men and the equally courageous and self-sacrificing pioneer women of our county has been placed high. Nobly did they suffer, enduring privations now undreamed of, and never complaining that theirs was a hard lot. We stand with uncovered heads and with a reverent feeling in their presence.

It is not possible to make due acknowledgments to all those who aided in gathering the material in this volume. Many who came here in the early years of the county have been consulted, and always with profit. The drudgery of the work of making this book has been greatly lessened by their courtesy and their help. We thank them all. Some of them have been credited with their assistance in the narrative itself. In addition to the names mentioned in the text we desire to give thanks for aid and counsel to N. E. Brown, perhaps the best posted man in Cedar Rapids on the early history of the city; to Ed. M. Scott, for most valuable aid in the preparation of the chapter on banks and banking; to Capt. J. O. Stewart and Col. W. G. Dows for appreciated assistance in the writing of the chapter on our military history; to Carle D. Brown, of the Commercial Art Press, who gathered most of the illustrations for the volume; to W. F. Stahl, for aid in giving the history of the United Brethren church in the county. Robert Ellis, Mrs. Susan Mekeel, Mrs. Susan Shields, Mrs. Elizabeth Hrdlicka, Augustus Abbe, J. H. Preston, C. G. Greene, J. S. Ely, Wm. Smyth, C. F. Butler, L. W. Mansfield, and many others have assisted in gathering much valuable material concerning the lives of the pioneers.

Much that has been gathered concerning times far removed from the present, is from "hearsay," hence it has been difficult to be certain as to the correct facts in some instances. Inaccuracies may be found, but these are due to unavoidable omissions, largely on the part of those who have related these happenings and not from any sense of bias or prejudice.

All prior county histories have been consulted as well as the early state gazetteers, Andreas' Atlas, Carroll's History, History of Crescent Lodge, History of the Bench and Bar of Iowa, History of the Courts and Legal Profession, Proceedings of the Linn County Historical Society; and the files of the newspapers published in the county in an early day. It is needless to add that the early city directories have been largely used with reference to the business men of Cedar Rapids in the early days.

References to persons have been confined to mere statements of facts and have been free from undue flattery on the one hand and from anything derogatory on the other. The members of the legal and medical professions have been referred to at some length for the reason that the lawyers and doctors were important factors in pioneer days, both in the organization of the county and in the promotion of the various enterprises in our towns.

Trusting that this history may be of some value in preserving material which ere long would pass beyond reach of preservation, this work is respectfully dedicated to the early pioneers of the county, whose lives and careers the authors have attempted to describe in the following pages.

LUTHER A. BREWER BARTHINIUS L. WICK

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XLV. ODDS AND ENDS OF HISTORY AND REMINISCENCE 479

FOOTNOTES End of document

ILLUSTRATIONS

LUTHER A. BREWER Frontispiece

B. L. WICK 4

LEWIS FIELD LINN 8

A SCENE ON THE CEDAR RIVER AT CEDAR RAPIDS IN THE FIFTIES 12

RESIDENCE OF ISAAC CARROLL IN 1839 12

AN EARLY LAND DEED 16

SHEPHERD'S TAVERN 20

GEOLOGICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 24

THE ASTOR HOUSE 28

DOUBLE LOG CABIN BUILT BY WILLIAM ABBE 32

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN CEDAR RAPIDS IN 1851 36

RESIDENCE OF WILLISTON JONES 36

DANIEL SEWARD HAHN 40

LINN COUNTY SCENES 44

GOING SHOPPING 48

INDIAN SCENES 48

FORMER PASTORS UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH, LISBON 52

SAMUEL W. DURHAM 56

SOME EARLY MEMBERS UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH, LISBON 60

PRESENT DAY SCENE 64

AN OLD LAND RECEIPT 64

STEAMBOAT ON CEDAR, 1887 64

DR. JOHN F. ELY 68

JOHN A. KEARNS 72

A. J. REID 72

C. S. HOWARD 72

WILLIAM STICK 72

THE VARDY HOUSE, CEDAR RAPIDS 76

FRANKLIN BLOCK AND RESIDENCE OF P. W. EARLE 76

THE LISTEBARGER CABIN, CEDAR RAPIDS 76

MR. AND MRS. GODFREY QUASS 80

MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM GIDDINGS 80

MR. AND MRS. ISAAC MILLBURN 80

MR. AND MRS. W. A. LACOCK 80

J. P. GLASS 80

F. A. HELBIG 80

PROF. H. H. FREER 84

REV. GEO. B. BOWMAN 84

JOSEPH MEKOTA 84

W. F. SEVERA 84

DR. J. S. LOVE 88

J. H. VOSMEK 92

FR. T. J. SULLIVAN 92

DR. E. L. MANSFIELD 92

HON. JAMES URE 96

JUDGE J. H. ROTHROCK 96

J. J. DANIELS 96

L. J. PALDA 96

BRIDGE AT THE PALISADES 101

THE PALISADES OF THE CEDAR 101

BARNEY MCSHANE CABIN 104

CABIN IN "CRACKER SETTLEMENT" 104

UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH, LISBON 108

MAIN STREET, MOUNT VERNON 108

ALEXANDER LAURANCE 112

OLD M. E. CHURCH, MOUNT VERNON 116

STREET SCENE IN LISBON 116

SCHOOL AT FAIRFAX 120

METHODIST CHURCH AT FAIRFAX 120

THE CHAPEL, CORNELL COLLEGE 124

CARNEGIE LIBRARY, MOUNT VERNON 124

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AT SCOTCH GROVE 128

WOOD-BURNING ENGINE, 1879 128

MAIN BUILDING, CORNELL COLLEGE 132

SOUTH-HALL, CORNELL COLLEGE 132

HENRY BRUCE HOUSE, SPRINGVILLE 136

FIRST SPRINGVILLE BAND 136

THE "OLD SEM" CORNELL COLLEGE 140

BOWMAN HALL, CORNELL COLLEGE 140

BUTLER PARK AT SPRINGVILLE 144

BUSINESS DISTRICT AT SPRINGVILLE 144

PICNIC AT HOME OF GEO. L. DURNO, SPRINGVILLE, IN 1884 148

ILLINOIS CENTRAL DEPOT, CENTRAL CITY 148

METHODIST CHURCH, CENTER POINT 152

SOUTH MAIN STREET, TROY MILLS 152

M. E. CHURCH, TROY MILLS 156

MILL AT PRAIRIEBURG 156

AT OLD SETTLERS' REUNION, MARION 160

A PARK SCENE IN MARION 160

COURT HOUSE, MARION 164

WAPSIE RIVER AND MILL AT CENTRAL CITY 164

ISAAC BUTLER 168

PUBLIC SCHOOL AT SPRINGVILLE 172

METHODIST CHURCH, SPRINGVILLE 176

HOME OF J. F. BUTLER, SPRINGVILLE 176

METHODIST CHURCH AT PALO 180

SCENE AT SPRINGVILLE 180

EARLY VIEW OF SPRINGVILLE 184

FIRST STORE IN SPRINGVILLE 184

LUTHERAN CHURCH, LISBON 188

MAIN STREET, LISBON 188

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AT SPRINGVILLE 192

THE BUTLER FARM AT SPRINGVILLE 192

CORNELL COLLEGE IN 1865 200

A STREET SCENE IN MARION 204

THE DANIELS HOTEL, MARION 204

REV. SAMUEL M. FELLOWS, A. M. 208

COMMERCIAL HOTEL, CENTER POINT 212

BRIDGE OVER THE CEDAR AT CENTER POINT 212

W. F. KING, LL. D. 216

MAIN STREET FROM THE NORTH, FAIRFAX 220

MAIN STREET LOOKING WEST, CENTRAL CITY 220

AN OLD GRAVE AT SPRINGVILLE 224

REV. J. B. ALBROOK, D. D. 224

PROF. HARRIETTE J. COOK 224

MRS. MARGARET MCKELL KING 224

BAPTIST CHURCH, CENTRAL CITY 228

OLD BARN AT CENTRAL CITY 228

JAMES E. HARLAN, LL. D. 232

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, CENTRAL CITY 236

CHRISTIAN CHURCH, CENTRAL CITY 236

SCENE AT TROY MILLS 240

MILL AND DAM AT COGGON 240

HIGH SCHOOL, CENTRAL CITY 244

BRIDGE OVER WAPSIE AT CENTRAL CITY 244

T. S. PARVIN 248

WEST ROWLEY STREET, WALKER 253

MAIN STREET, PRAIRIEBURG 253

MAIN STREET, SPRINGVILLE 256

QUAKER MEETING HOUSE AT WHITTIER 256

WHITTIER 256

MAIN STREET, CENTRAL CITY, FROM THE SOUTH 261

GENERAL STORE AT COVINGTON 261

UPPER WAGON BRIDGE, CENTRAL CITY 264

HENDERSON BRIDGE, CENTRAL CITY 264

BAPTIST CHURCH, PRAIRIEBURG 268

MILWAUKEE BRIDGE, COVINGTON 268

THE "OLD SCHOOL," COGGON 272

SOUTH SIDE MAIN STREET, COGGON 272

SCENE ON THE CEDAR AT CEDAR RAPIDS 276

BIRDSEYE VIEW LOOKING EAST, CEDAR RAPIDS 276

CEDAR RIVER DAM, CEDAR RAPIDS 276

QUAKER OATS PLANT, CEDAR RAPIDS 280

STREET RAILWAY STATION AT BEVER PARK, CEDAR RAPIDS 280

VIEW OF CEDAR RAPIDS FROM THE ISLAND 288

RAILROAD YARDS AT CEDAR RAPIDS 288

FATHER FLYNN, CEDAR RAPIDS 296

PUBLIC AND COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS IN CEDAR RAPIDS, 1910 300

BIRDSEYE VIEW OF CEDAR RAPIDS IN 1868 304

FATHER SVRDLIK, CEDAR RAPIDS 307

BIRDSEYE VIEW OF CEDAR RAPIDS IN 1889 312

FEDERAL BUILDING, CEDAR RAPIDS 320

AUDITORIUM, CEDAR RAPIDS 320

PART OF ZOO IN BEVER PARK, CEDAR RAPIDS 328

A SCENE IN BEVER PARK, CEDAR RAPIDS 328

SIXTEENTH AVENUE BRIDGE, CEDAR RAPIDS 336

FIRST STREET, CORNER SECOND AVENUE, IN 1869 336

FIRST U. B. CHURCH WEST OF MISSISSIPPI RIVER 344

COE COLLEGE BUILDINGS 352

SINCLAIR PACKING PLANT, CEDAR RAPIDS 360

BLACK HAWK 366

A WINNEBAGO INDIAN 366

THE SLAVE DANCE OF THE SAC AND FOX 366

CEDAR RAPIDS COUNTRY CLUB HOUSE 368

GEORGE GREENE SQUARE 368

RIVERSIDE PARK, CEDAR RAPIDS 368

CEDAR RAPIDS IN 1856 369

THE OLD BLAIR BUILDING 371

MONTROSE HOTEL, CEDAR RAPIDS 376

S. C. BEVER 384

THOMAS GAINER 384

E. D. WALN 384

REV. ELIAS SKINNER 384

J. M. MAY 392

CAPT. A. BOWMAN 392

E. M. CROW 392

FATHER LOWRY 401

ST. WENCESLAUS CHURCH, CEDAR RAPIDS 404

ST. WENCESLAUS SCHOOL, CEDAR RAPIDS 404

THE LATE VERY REVEREND DEAN GUNN 408

QUAKER OATS TRAIN 412

SCENE ON CEDAR RIVER 412

ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH, CEDAR RAPIDS 412

MERCY HOSPITAL, CEDAR RAPIDS 416

JUDGE N. M. HUBBARD 422

VIEWS ALONG THE CEDAR RIVER 424

PARK VIEWS IN CEDAR RAPIDS 432

IN AND AROUND MT. VERNON 436

R. D. STEPHENS 440

ADDISON DANIELS 440

J. B. YOUNG 440

I. M. PRESTON 440

S. S. JOHNSON 444

THOS. J. MCKEAN 448

N. W. ISBELL 448

WILLIAM GREENE 448

O. S. BOWLING 448

INDEPENDENT HOSE COMPANY, CEDAR RAPIDS, 1875 452

CITY RESIDENCES, CEDAR RAPIDS 456

VIEW OF MARION, 1868 460

JAMES E. BROMWELL, SR. 464

T. M. SINCLAIR 468

J. O. STEWART 468

COL. T. Z. COOK 472

SOME EARLY CURRENCY 476

STREET VIEWS IN CEDAR RAPIDS, IN 1910 480

MAPS

LINN COUNTY 1

SHOWING BLACK HAWK PURCHASE 184

SHOWING DES MOINES COUNTY SUBDIVIDED 185

AFTER THE SAC AND FOX CESSIONS OF 1837 190

LATE DIVISION OF BLACK HAWK PURCHASE 191

SHOWING THE TWO CESSIONS AS AT PRESENT DIVIDED 197

REPRODUCTION OF THE FIRST MAP OF CEDAR RAPIDS (Part 1) 316

REPRODUCTION OF THE FIRST MAP OF CEDAR RAPIDS (Part 2) 316

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Chapter I

The Birth of Iowa

Iowa is known as a prairie state. Prairie is a French word and signifies meadow. It was the name first applied to the great treeless plains of North America by the French missionaries who were the first white men to explore these regions.

As yet scientists have not been able to explain the origin of the prairies. Different theories have been advanced, but the interesting problem is without satisfactory and conclusive solution.

Agassiz, the scientist, maintained that America is not the "new world." "Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters," he wrote; "hers the first shores washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth besides; and while Europe was represented only by islands rising here and there above the sea, America already stretched one unbroken line of land from Nova Scotia to the far West."

Iowa, also, was born, had a beginning sometime. Just how many years ago this interesting event took place it is difficult to approximate. Prof. Samuel Calvin, state geologist, says that "geological records, untampered with, and unimpeachable, declare that for uncounted years Iowa, together with the great valley of the Mississippi, lay beneath the level of the sea. So far as it was inhabited at all, marine forms of animals and plants were its only occupants."

The soils of the state were produced by the action of the ice in what is known as the glacial period. We are told how by Professor Calvin:

"Glaciers and glacial action have contributed in a very large degree to the making of our magnificent State. What Iowa would have been had it never suffered from the effects of the ponderous ice sheets that successively overflowed its surface, is illustrated, but not perfectly, in the driftless area. Here we have an area that was not invaded by glaciers. Allamakee, parts of Jackson, Dubuque, Clayton, Fayette, and Winneshiek counties belong to the driftless area. During the last two decades deep wells have been bored through the loose surface deposit, and down into the underlying rocks. The record of these wells shows that the rock surface is very uneven. Before the glacial drift which now mantles nearly the whole of Iowa was deposited, the surface had been carved into an intricate system of hills and valleys. There were narrow gorges hundreds of feet in depth, and there were rugged, rocky cliffs, and isolated buttes corresponding in height with the depth of the valleys.

"To a person passing from the drift-covered to the driftless part of the state, the topography presents a series of surprises. The principal drainage streams flow in valleys that measure, from the summits of the divides, six hundred or more in depth. The Oneota, or Upper Iowa River, in Allamakee county, for example, flows between picturesque cliffs that rise almost vertically from three to four hundred feet, while from the summit of the cliffs the land rises gradually to the crest of the divide, three, four or five miles back from the stream. Tributary streams cut the lateral slopes and canyon walls at intervals. These again have tributaries of the second order. In such a region a quarter section of level land would be a curiosity. This is a fair sample of what Iowa would have been had it not been planed down by the leveling effects of the glaciers. Soils of uniform excellence would have been impossible in a non-glacial Iowa. The soils of Iowa have a value equal to all of the silver and gold mines of the world combined.

"And for this rich heritage of soils we are indebted to great rivers of ice that overflowed Iowa from the north and northwest. The glaciers in their long journey ground up the rocks over which they moved and mingled the fresh rock flour from granites of British America and northern Minnesota with pulverized limestones and shales of more southern regions, and used these rich materials in covering up the bald rocks and leveling the irregular surface of preglacial Iowa. The materials are in places hundreds of feet in depth. They are not oxidized or leached, but retain the carbonates and other soluble constituents that contribute so largely to the growth of plants. The physical condition of the materials is ideal, rendering the soil porous, facilitating the distribution of moisture, and offering unmatched opportunities for the employment of improved machinery in all of the processes connected with cultivation. Even the driftless area received great benefit from the action of glaciers, for although the area was not invaded by ice, it was yet to a large extent covered by a peculiar deposit called loess, which is generally connected with one of the later sheets of drift. The loess is a porous clay, rich in carbonate of lime. Throughout the driftless area it has covered up many spots that would otherwise have been bare rocks. It covered the stiff intractable clays that would otherwise have been the only soils of the region. It in itself constitutes a soil of great fertility. Every part of Iowa is debtor in some way to the great ice sheets of the glacial period.

* * * * *

"Soils are everywhere the product of rock disintegration, and so the quality of the soils in a given locality must necessarily be determined in large measure by the kind of rock from which they were derived.

"From this point of view, therefore, the history of Iowa's superb soils begins with first steps in rock making. The very oldest rocks of the Mississippi Valley have contributed something to making our soils what they are, and every later formation laid down over the surface of Iowa, or regions north of it, has furnished its quota of materials to the same end. The history of Iowa's soils, therefore, embraces the whole sweep of geologic times.

"The chief agents concerned in modifying the surface throughout most of Iowa since the disappearance of the latest glaciers have been organic, although the physical and chemical influences of air and water have not been without marked effect. The growth and decay of a long series of generations of plants have contributed certain organic constituents to the soil. Earth worms bring up fine material from considerable depths and place it in position to be spread out upon the surface. They drag leaves and any manageable portion of plants into their burrows, and much of the material so taken down into the ground decays and enriches the ground to a depth of several inches. The pocket gopher has done much to furnish a surface layer of loose, mellow, easily cultivated and highly productive soil. Like the earth worm, the gopher for century after century has been bringing up to the surface fine material, to the amount of several tons annually to the acre, avoiding necessarily the pebbles, cobbles and coarser constituents. The burrows collapse, the undermined boulders and large fragments sink downwards, rains and winds spread out the gopher hills and worm castings, and the next year, and the next, the process is repeated; and so it has been for all the years making up the centuries since the close of the glacial epoch. Organic agents in the form of plants and burrowing animals have worked unremittingly through many centuries, and accomplished a work of incalculable value in pulverizing, mellowing and enriching the superficial stratum, and bringing it to the ideal condition in which it was found by the explorers and pioneers from whose advent dates the historical period of our matchless Iowa."

The last invasion, we are informed, was from 100,000 to 170,000 years ago--somewhat prior to the recollection of the "oldest inhabitant."

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Chapter II

The First Inhabitants

Who were Iowa's first inhabitants is a question of some interest. Archeologists tell us that there have been found in the Mississippi Valley the remains of two distinct prehistoric races. The first human skulls discovered resemble those of the gorilla. These skulls indicate a low degree of intelligence. The first inhabitants were but a grade above the lower animals. They were small in body, and brute-like in appearance.

Next came the "mound builders." There are evidences that these had some degree of intelligence. Copper and stone implements have been found in the mounds. Whether they built towns and cities or tilled the soil is not known. Pieces of cloth discovered in the mounds would indicate some knowledge of the arts. Their number, their size, color, customs--all are lost to us. We know they existed, and that is all. Several of these mounds have been explored in Iowa. They are found in the eastern parts of the state from Dubuque to Burlington. Many interesting articles have been found in them--sea shells, copper axes and spools, stone knives, pottery, pipes carved with effigies of animals and birds. Skeletons and altars of stone were unearthed a few years ago in some of these mounds, and in one were discovered hieroglyphics representing letters and figures of trees, people and animals.

These mounds have also been discovered in the central part of the state, the valley of the Des Moines river being especially rich in them. Sometimes they are in groups, as though built for defense. It has been suggested that probably the conquerors of the mound builders were the immediate ancestors of the Indians.

When on June 25, 1673, Marquette and Joliet fastened their frail craft to the west bank of the Mississippi river where the Iowa enters it in Louisa county,[A] the only people living in what is now Iowa were the American Indians. When these venturesome explorers came ashore and ascended a slight eminence they beheld a scene of rare beauty. As far as the eye could carry they looked over an expanse covered with green grass waving in the gentle wind like the billows of the sea, with here and there a grove of oak, elm, walnut, maple, and sycamore. All was peaceful, calm, and restful; the stillness of the desert prevailed. That the country was inhabited was indicated by a thin column of smoke which arose some few miles inland from a small grove. The travelers soon reached the spot. There they found a small company of Indians in a village on the banks of the stream. The Indians were probably the more astonished of the two parties. They looked with wonder upon the strange beings who had come among them so unceremoniously and unannounced. It was probably their first view of the white man. Recovering somewhat from their astonishment, they made overtures of friendship by offering the pipe of peace.

It was soon discovered that the band was a portion of the Illinois tribe. Marquette had enough acquaintance with the language of this tribe to enable him to hold an intelligent conversation with his hosts. He told the Indians who their visitors were, and why they were there. He expressed the great pleasure he and his companions took at meeting some of the inhabitants of that beautiful country. They in turn were given a cordial welcome by the Indians, one of the chiefs thus addressing them:

"I thank the Black Gown Chief [Marquette] and his friend [Joliet] for taking so much pains to come and visit us. Never before has the earth been so beautiful, nor the sun so bright as now. Never has the river been so calm or free from rocks which your canoes have removed as they passed down. Never has the tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it today. Ask the Great Spirit to give us life and health, and come ye and dwell with us."

This was an eloquent speech and demonstrated the sincerity of the welcome.

Marquette and Joliet were then invited to a feast which meanwhile had been made ready by the squaws. Afterwards Marquette wrote a description of this banquet, and it is of interest to reproduce it here:

"It consisted of four courses. First there was a large wooden bowl filled with a preparation of corn meal boiled in water and seasoned with oil. The Indian conducting the ceremonies had a large wooden spoon with which he dipped up the mixture (called by the Indians tagamity), passing it in turn into the mouths of the different members of the party. The second course consisted of fish nicely cooked, which was separated from the bones and placed in the mouths of the guests. The third course was a roasted dog, which our explorers declined with thanks, when it was at once removed from sight. The last course was a roast of buffalo, the fattest pieces of which were passed the Frenchmen, who found it to be most excellent meat."

The Frenchmen were so delighted with the beauty of the country and the hospitality of the Indians that they remained with their friends six days. They explored the valleys, hunted and fished and feasted on the choice game they captured. The natives did all they could to make their stay one gay round of pleasure. They welcomed the coming guests with genuine hospitality, and when they could keep them no longer speeded them on their way in the true spirit. Six hundred of them escorted Marquette and Joliet to their boats and wished them bon voyage.

This discovery attracted but little attention at the time in Europe, and many years passed before what is now known as Iowa appears in history.

THE MOUND BUILDERS

The Mound Builders, from what information we have been able to obtain, must have lived in the Mississippi valley and at one time or another way back in some remote age they must have resided on what later became Iowa. Chronology is not definite as to when or how the Mound Builders arrived in the new world. It is merely speculation when one says that traditions point to a time two or three thousand years ago when the Mound Builders resided in the Mississippi valley and lived in villages and towns. It is true, that in various parts of the old world records have been found of other races which have preceded the races of which history has any definite record. As the North American Indians had no written language prior to the arrival of the Europeans, their traditions, consequently, go back but a short time at best.

It is true that there have been found on the American continent various bones of animals which no longer exist, and there have been found relics of a race of men who were far different from the Indians as the whites found them on their arrival. In North America these pre-historic races have been called Mound Builders, and they have been the first inhabitants of the vast plains of what later became the United States. Still, it may be possible that the Mound Builders may have driven out or exterminated some other preceding race of people, who had dwelt in this country for ages before the Mound Builders made their entrance into what is known as the New World. Who knows?

In Johnson's Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, page 125, one finds the following: "Remains of the Mound Builders are spread over a vast extent of country. They are found on the sources of the Alleghany, in the western part of the state of New York, and in nearly all the western states, including Michigan and Iowa. They were observed by Lewis and Clark on the Missouri a thousand miles above its junction with the Mississippi. They lined the shores of the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Florida, whence they extended through Alabama and Georgia into South Carolina. They are especially numerous in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Texas. Many of these remnants were evidently designed as works of defense or as large towers in war. No inconsiderable number appear to have been formed as sepulchre monuments or as places of burial for the dead, while others seemed obviously to have been constructed as temples or places of worship or sacrifice."

While Linn county and Iowa have not as many mounds of as much interest as, for example, the Circle Mound in Ohio, still there are a number of mounds found in eastern Iowa and a number in Linn county which would appear to have been constructed by Mound Builders, or, at least, by some pre-historic race long since extinct. Some mounds found near Palo would indicate that they must have been constructed a long time ago, for even trees of large dimensions have been found growing on top and around these mounds. The remnants certainly give evidence in places as though they had been constructed for religious purposes, which evidently is true of nearly all such remnants which have recently been discovered in Yucatan and Mexico.

Some stone implements and ornaments have been found in some of these mounds. These implements are all flint spear and arrow heads and have been worked with much care and skill. Some pottery has also been discovered, at times ornamented and at other times very coarse. Some copper implements have been found of a kind and quality as discovered in the copper region of Lake Superior, which, undoubtedly, have been worked by the Indians and perhaps by the Mound Builders. No bones have so far been discovered to indicate that the Mound Builders had the use of any domestic animals. Very seldom have human skeletons been found, which might attest to the fact that these had been dug ages and ages ago. No tablets of any kind have been discovered, which might indicate that the Mound Builders had at no time a written language.

Science has held that the Mound Builders were an agricultural people and compared with the Indians much more civilized, and that the Mississippi valley was densely populated until the arrival of the Indians. Whether the Indians exterminated them or they were driven away, or they voluntarily removed from this part of the country is still a debatable question.

"If it is really true that there were pre-historic peoples, then the oldest continent would be, in all probability, the first inhabited; and as this is the oldest continent in the formations of the geological period, and as there are found relics of man in England in identically the same strata as are shown in Linn county, why may we not reasonably expect to find relics of man--relics as old as any--in Linn county? If man once existed here, why may he not have always existed here? It is certainly unreasonable to think young Europe should alone have early relics of man.

"What place the Mound Builders are entitled to in the world's history, since they have left no relics but mounds of earth, which mounds are probably funeral pyres or places of sepulchre, we can simply conjecture. We believe some rude carvings on slabs have been exhumed at Grand Traverse, Michigan, Davenport, Iowa, and Rockford, Illinois. These carvings may have reference to the sun, moon and stars; we believe the savants favor such an interpretation. As to where he lived, careful geological study of his mound may some day determine. He was a link in the chain of man's existence; tracing it to its source we may discover some hitherto unknown facts regarding man's origin, or the ancient history of America. This continent may have been more intimately connected with Asia than is at present considered....

"Compare the average life of these nations with the age of the Cedar valley; compare historic age with Cedar valley, whose channel has been cut down through the rocks between one and two hundred feet. Look at these old Devonian rocks, with their fossils as fresh as of yesterday. Look at the clay soil that overlies the rocks. Has it been changed in fourteen hundred or in six thousand years? Now look at those mounds that are on the crests of so many ridges, and say how old they are! Forests of giant trees have come and gone over them, how many times? Those mounds were built by the people known as the Mound Builders. What of their life? What of their age? What of their history? We have the mounds, and substantially the mounds only. But these mounds are an interesting study of themselves. We have not observed these mounds only in the valley of the Cedar river, above and below Cedar Rapids; our observations find them in positions as follows:

"LOCATION OF MOUNDS NEAR CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA

Number of No. Location Sec. Twp. Range Mounds

1 N. W. 1/4 S. W. 1/4 35 83 7 11 2 S. 1/2 S. E. 1/4 16 83 7 14 3 S. 1/2 N. W. 1/4 16 83 7 11 4 N. W. 1/4 N. E. 1/4 17 83 7 3 5 N. 1/2 N. W. 1/4 20 83 7 11 6 E. 1/2 18 83 7 11 7 W. 1/2 18 83 7 11 8 N. W. 1/4 N. W. 1/4 24 83 7 12 ------ Total 84

"No. 1 has eleven mounds, situated on the crest of a divide. The general direction of locations is from north to south, or south to north. The correct location, I believe, is from south to north; that is, they point to the north. These mounds are now raised about three feet above the level, and are uniformly thirty feet in diameter. Counting from the south, the sixth and seventh are generally within a few feet--come very near touching each other; the others are as near as, may be, two diameters apart. These remarks will apply to No. 2, No. 3, No. 5 and No. 6. No. 2 has eleven in a line (as No. 1,) and then three mounds to the east appear to be parallel, and may have had the remaining eight removed by cultivation. No. 4 is on the bottom--second bench land; are a little larger in size; the others, to make out the eleven, may have been destroyed by cultivation. No. 7 has eight in position, and then a valley intervenes, and the three additional, making the eleven, are on the ridge next to the north. No. 8 has twelve. They are on the crest of a divide which passes around the head of a deep ravine, and follow the divide at the angle. Most of these mounds (No. 8) have been lately opened, but we think no relics were found. We have been careful to find the place that the earth composing the mounds was taken from. Generally, the banks of a near ravine indicate, by their shape, the place. Under the strongest sunlight, in a mound cut through the center, we could detect no indication or difference in the clay to show that it had been removed or disturbed, or that there had been any remains in it to discolor the clay in their decomposition.

"Let it be observed that the mounds are substantially north and south in line of location. They are eleven in number, uniform in size, and, I believe, cover every ridge in the vicinity of the rapids of the Cedar having the direction sufficient in length on which the mounds could be placed. They are built in the locality the least likely to be disturbed, and in the shape and of the material the most enduring. There certainly was intelligence displayed in their location and in the selection of the material of which they are constructed, as well as in the design of their form and positions. There may have been more mounds than these, but these are all that are left--all that are left of that race which might have sent from their number emigrants to people the new land, to the far west, the last continent, fresh and vigorous from the ocean, the newest born, the best then adapted for man's material and mental development."--History of Linn County, 1878, p. 319.

J. S. Newberry, in Johnson's Cyclopedia, says:

"From all the facts before us, we can at present say little more than this, that the valley of the Mississippi and the Atlantic coast were once densely populated by a sedentary, agricultural and partially civilized race, quite different from the modern nomadic Indians, though, possibly, the progenitors of some of the Indian tribes; and that, after many centuries of occupation, they disappeared from our country at least one thousand, perhaps many thousands of years, before the advent of the Europeans. The pre-historic remains found so abundantly in Arizona appear to be related to the civilization of Mexico; and the remains of semi-civilized Indian tribes now found there are, perhaps, descendants of the ancient builders of the great houses and cities whose ruins are found there."

Researches concerning ancient mounds have been carried on in a most scientific manner by Dr. Cyrus Thomas. His chief work and research have been embodied in a monograph of over 700 pages and found the 12th Report of the government publications.

Major J. W. Powell, whose studies of this subject have been considered authoritative, in his Pre-historic Man in America has the following to say:

"Widely scattered throughout the United States ... artificial mounds are discovered which may be enumerated by thousands and hundreds of thousands. They vary greatly in size. Some are small so that half a dozen laborers with shovels might construct one of them in a day, while others cover acres and are scores of feet in height. These mounds were observed by the early explorers and pioneers of the country.... Pseud-archeologists descanted on the Mound Builders, that once inhabited the land, and they told of swarming populations who had reached a high condition of culture, erecting temples, practicing arts in metals and using hieroglyphics.... It is enough to say that the Mound Builders were the Indian tribes discovered by the white men. It may well be that some of the mounds were erected by tribes extinct when Columbus first saw the shores, but they were kindred in culture to the peoples that still existed.... Pre-Columbian culture was indigenous, it began at the lowest stage of savagery and developed to the highest and was in many places passing into barbarism when the good queen sold her jewels."--J. W. Powell, quoted in Larned, Vol. I, p. 45.

Thus scientists do not agree whether or not the Mound Builders were closely akin to the Indians. However recent investigators seem to agree with Thomas and Powell that the early inhabitants were much like the later denizens of the American prairies in their mode of life and means of subsistence, in their weapons, arts, usages, and customs, in their institutions and physical characteristics, they were the same people in different stages of advancement.

John Fiske, one of the scholarly writers on American history, has the following to say on the early races in the United States:

"Whether the Indians are descended from this ancient population or not, is a question with which we have as yet no satisfactory method of dealing. It is not unlikely that these glacial men may have perished from off the face of the earth, having been crushed and supplanted by stronger races. There may have been several successive waves of migration of which the Indians were the latest."--Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. I, p. 15.

"The aboriginal American, as we know him with his language and legends, his physical and mental peculiarities, his social observance and customs, is most emphatically a native and not an imported article. He belongs to the American continent as strictly as its opossums and armadillo, its maize and its golden rods, or any number of its aboriginal fauna and flora belong to it."--Ibid., p. 20.

An Iowa investigator, C. L. Webster, some years ago examined several mounds on the banks of the Cedar river near Charles City and "found the skulls small which would show an extremely low grade of mental intelligence."--American Naturalist, Vol. 23, p. 1888.

This may go to show that the early inhabitants were different from the nomadic Indians that the first whites saw as they landed on the bleak shores of New England in the eleventh century.

Most writers on this subject are led to believe that we have conclusive evidence that man existed before the time of the glaciers and that from primitive conditions he has lived here and developed through the same stages which may correspond to the development of primitive man in Europe and Asia. Whether the first settlers in Iowa then, were Mound Builders, or Indians, or some other race may never be known, for a certainty. It is enough to say, that man existed and lived on what has become known as Iowa many, many centuries ago, and he left few if any remains which can testify to his stage of development or to his mode of living. This is no doubt true, that man existed in Linn county countless ages ago, but whether it was a different race, or simply the Indian race at a different stage of development may never be known and thus will always remain a mystery.

INDIANS

When the first white settlers located in Linn county the Red Men still occupied the land, and even after treaties had been fully ratified, Indians were slow to give up these choice hunting places along the Red Cedar and the Wapsie. It is needless to say that the rights of Indians were not protected and they invariably were set aside and driven away as fast as possible. Still nearly all of the early settlers were very friendly toward the Red Men, and in return received many favors from their hands. Of course, the Red Men were jealous of the whites, who gradually kept coming in and drove the Indians away. The Indians who most frequented this part of Iowa after the settlement by whites were the Sac and Fox and Winnebagoes. The Winnebagoes were a remnant of a warlike tribe, and at one time in Wisconsin were very powerful. These joined with the Sac and Fox in the Black Hawk war and were driven across the Mississippi river after the signing of the treaty of peace.

The pioneers in this county from necessity had to be friendly with the Indians. Many of the early settlers were able to speak the Winnebago language, such as the family of William Abbe, the Edgertons, the Usher family, the Crows, and many others. The Winnebagoes lingered around in this part of Iowa in the thirties and forties, when they were finally removed to Minnesota, much against their own wishes. But the Indians, rightly in this respect as in many others, were not considered, for the white men ruled and looked out for their own selfish interests and did not consider the side of mercy, justice or the rights of the weak as against those of the strong.

The Winnebagoes were considered a hardy race and respected by the whites, who showed them many favors. While the Winnebagoes had fought in the war of 1812 under Tecumseh and had sided with Black Hawk, perhaps reluctantly, in the war of 1832, they were rather friendly toward the whites, although they very much objected to disposing of all their lands east of the Mississippi river by the treaties of 1825 and 1837, when they were removed to Iowa. In Linn county they remained for a longer or shorter period of time along the rivers such as the Cedar and the Wapsie, and especially around Cedar Lake, along the Palisades, in Linn Grove, Scotch Grove west of Cedar Rapids, and in other places where there was much timber. While they were at times heartless and cruel, their relations on the whole with the early settlers in Linn county were those of friendship, and they showed the whites many favors in the early days when the scattered pioneer families were unable to acquire sufficient food during the winter months to subsist upon. The Indians always helped the whites, and frequently went out hunting, bringing back a deer, fowls, or prairie chickens, which they divided among their own people and the whites. They early became fond of the dishes made by the white women, such as hominy, honey cakes, johnny cakes, and other delicious dishes found in the homes of the early settlers on the frontier. In no instance has it been reported that any white woman was ever assaulted by any Indian in this county. In many of the cabins of the early settlers there could be found only women and children, the husbands having left for the river towns to bring back provisions, and this fact was frequently known to the Indians. The early pioneer women used to say that they feared the rough border ruffian more than they did these traveling bands of Indians, who never assaulted anyone or ever carried away property by stealth, as the border ruffians were frequently accused of doing.

The story of the Winnebago tribe of Indians can not be passed without some notice. The name Winnebago is said to mean "the turbid water people," and they are closely related to the Iowas, Otoes, and the Missouri tribes. They used to call themselves the Hochangara, meaning "the people using the parent tongue," thus, perhaps, intending to convey that they were the original people from whom others sprang. They are first mentioned in the Jesuit Relations of 1636 and 1640. It is said that they were nearly annihilated by the Illinois tribes in early days and that the survivors fled back to Green Bay in 1737 and that they resided on the banks of Lake Superior but once more drifted back to Green Bay and towards Lake Winnebago, stretching southwest towards the Mississippi river. On one of the islands in the lake which bears their name they made their abiding place for a number of years and here they buried their dead and dwelt in peace around their fire places.

In 1825 the population was estimated to be 6,000. By the treaties of 1825 and 1832 they were compelled to cede their lands to the government, certain tracts of land being reserved on the Mississippi river near what is now known as La Crosse. Here they suffered from several visitations of smallpox, which plague is said to have carried off nearly one-fourth of their number.

From 1834-35 they were removed to Iowa and lived along the many rivers in the northeastern part of the Territory as far as the banks of the Cedar and the Wapsie rivers. White settlers came in, driving the Red Men out: hunting became poor and the Indians could not subsist and they were again removed to the Blue Earth reservation in Minnesota in 1848. On account of the Indian outbreaks in 1863, committed by the Sioux tribe, and in which the Winnebagoes took no part, they were again removed to the Dakotas, where several hundred perished from cold and hunger. There are now only about 1,200 under the Omaha and Winnebago agency in Nebraska, and about 1,500 in the state of Wisconsin.

The Sac and Fox were also the early neighbors of the whites in this county. The Fox was an Algonkian tribe, first found on the lakes, and who were driven south by the Ojibwa where, for self protection, they united with the Sacs and have been since known as Sacs and Foxes. They were always friendly to the British, joining them in the Revolution as well as in the war of 1812. After the Black Hawk war they were removed to Iowa and from here removed again to the Indian Territory from 1842-46. Many of the tribes kept coming back to their old hunting ground and finally they were permitted to remain on the Iowa river and provision for them was made by the legislature. About 400, known as the Muskwaki, are still found, survivors of some of the early wanderers in eastern Iowa in the early thirties. The Sacs and Foxes and the Winnebagoes were always on friendly terms with the whites and were sworn enemies of the Sioux.

Mrs. Susan Shields, a daughter of William Abbe, was on intimate terms with the Winnebago Indians, who used to gather at her father's home on Abbe's creek frequently. She learned to speak the Winnebago language, and remembered seeing many wigwams, or tepees as they were called, at the lower end of what is now Cedar Rapids. She speaks of the Indians as being kind to her and that her first playmates were Indian girls of her own age. Her brothers also played with the Indian boys and they learned to ride Indian ponies and to shoot with bows and arrows. No trouble ever arose among the young of both races in these days; rather the white boys were envious to see the liberties granted the Indian boys and how they were permitted to roam any place at pleasure, never having any chores to do.

Robert Ellis understood more or less of the Indian jargon, and still speaks of his many escapades among the Sioux, the Winnebago, and the Sac and Fox. At one time, about 1839, some 300 Winnebagoes were camped on what is known as McCloud's Run. It was late in the fall and very cold; word came in the night that the Sioux were coming to exterminate the tribe. At once they broke camp and forded the river near the mill dam, first getting the women and children across. The white settlers were frightened. By nine o'clock the next morning the camps were up on the west side of the river and the gay young bucks had brought in thirty-eight deer which had been shot during the early morning, which were served to the hungry lot who had worked all night. While the Sioux had been in the neighborhood no attack was made upon the Winnebagoes at this time.

Mr. Ellis also relates that he and two friends camped one night on the Cedar above Waterloo, where they were hunting. One morning in mid-winter a party of Sioux came to the cabin. They could do nothing but invite the Red Men in and offer them provisions and anything they had. While the Indians kicked against the whites killing their game, the friendliness of the whites seemed to satisfy them, and they left their new found friends in possession of their camps. After this discovery by the Sioux Mr. Ellis and his friends made a hasty retreat, not wanting to meet their dusky companions again when they might return in larger numbers.

Mr. Ellis relates another incident of his life among the Indians. He came to an Indian camp near Quasqueton on his way to Ft. Atkinson and had to spend the night in the camp. Unfortunately nearly all of the Indians were drunk and insisted on killing every one. The squaws, who were sober, and a few of the old men, got Mr. Ellis to help, and all the drunken bucks were tied so they could scarcely move. Mr. Ellis then retired, and in the morning all were sober and untied, and then the squaws and the old men who had been sober started in to get gloriously drunk. Mr. Ellis wanted to hire an Indian to show him the way to West Union, but the Indian shrugged his shoulders and replied, "wolf eaty you." Mr. Ellis started out alone afoot over the snow covered prairie on a cold winter day and finally reached a cabin late at night, nearly overcome from cold. He still believes he would have perished if it had not been for the words of the old Indian which kept ringing in his ears all day and which added courage to his exhausted spirits.

At one time a large number of Muskwaki Indians were camping near Indian creek, and as the winter was severe and snow deep the Indians were out of food. They came to the home of Susan Doty, who gave them the best and only thing she had--hominy--which she warmed on the fire and gave to the Red Men, who expressed their thanks by grunting and continually asking for more, till the entire supply was exhausted. From that time, when the Indians returned from the hunt with a deer or two Mrs. Doty was always remembered with a good share of game.

When the Indians lost ponies they would go to the old settlers like Usher, N. B. Brown, the Hunters, Oxleys, or Dotys, asking them to assist in catching the thieves. One day Usher and Brown came to Doty's with an Indian chief who had lost his pony. Hunter was also called in, and off the party started in pursuit of the horsethief, who was caught near Viola and who made himself scarce at once, for he was branded as an outlaw by the Indians, who would shoot him at sight. The Indian was more than happy in getting back his pony. These men who were willing to help the Indians were sure to get anything they cared for which could be procured by the red brother. A white man who would help an Indian to recover stolen property was forever a friend of the Indians of the tribe.

The Indians in Linn county during the thirties and forties dressed in skins, lived in tepees, and owned ponies; all wore government blankets and had guns, also procured from the government. The men and women dressed much the same. The women carried home the game, looked after the tepee, made maple sugar, which was traded to the whites for sugar, flour, and woolen goods. Flour especially was much relished by the Indians. The localities much frequented by the Indians were along the Red Cedar and Wapsie rivers, Cedar lake, Indian creek, the Palisades, Linn Grove, Scotch Grove, and Prairie creek. In these places they would remain for weeks at a time, when they would all pull up and leave on some hunting trip, not returning till in the fall or spring of the year. Where they went to no one knew, and where they came from no one inquired. But the Red Men in early days in this county were all treated with due courtesy by the whites, who, in turn, were spared by the Indians. The best of feeling always existed among the whites and Indians.

The Sioux very seldom came into this part of Iowa. William Abbe and Robert Ellis were the agents for the government in supplying the Winnebago Indians at Ft. Atkinson with food, thus these men were well acquainted with the Winnebagoes, who, in turn, were on terms of friendship with the Sacs and Foxes. The Winnebagoes, like the other tribes, became addicted to the use of fire water to such an extent that they would sell their guns and ammunition for whiskey. One of the early experiences of W. H. Merritt as a young store keeper at Ivanhoe was to clean out the store single-handed of a crowd of drunken Indians who intended to take possession of the store for a sufficient length of time at least till they could consume the large quantity of whiskey stored therein, but they had not figured on the courage of the young man who later distinguished himself during the Civil war. Young Mr. Merritt drove out the intruders and saved the store, as well as the property of the company for which he worked.

Many of the old settlers tell stories of the quantity and variety of food these wandering tribes of Indians were capable of consuming, which seemed to be beyond the comprehension of the white man. Mr. Ellis relates how he and William Abbe were notified to forthwith procure beef cattle for an Indian conference at Ft. Atkinson. These men promptly drove a large number of young cattle to Ft. Atkinson from Linn county, and the Indians consumed in a very short time rations which were expected to have lasted for several weeks.

Others have left records of straggling bands of Indians who were fed at some pioneer cabin and consumed quantities of food at a sitting several times more than the ordinary white man could eat in a week. But then it must be remembered that these Indians did not have their regular meals three times a day, by any means. They seemed to go for days and for a week without eating much of anything, and when a feast was set before them they did full justice to the repast.

The Indians had an abnormal fondness for sweets. The making of maple sugar, especially in Wisconsin, had been one of the industries of the aborigines; a little was always made in Iowa. The season for sugar making came when the first crow appeared; this occurred about the first of March, while there was yet snow on the ground. As a substitute for sugar the Indians were very fond of honey, and it was said by the early settlers that the squaws could smell a bee tree further than anyone else. These bee trees were claimed by the Indians, and woe to the white man's son who by stealth or otherwise would encroach upon the Indian's rights in this regard.

While the Indians were called cruel and merciless during the Black Hawk war and later, the pioneers of Linn county found them friendly, hospitable, devoted and loyal friends. Many instances have been cited how the Red Men risked their own lives even to assist their white friends. While they never forgave an injury, they never forgot a deed of kindness.

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Chapter III

Iowa Historically

We take the liberty of quoting here a chapter from "The Louisiana Purchase," by C. M. Geer, in The History of North America, Vol. VIII, edited by Guy Carleton Lee, and published by George Barrie & Sons, Philadelphia, 1904. It gives in brief space the more important historical facts connected with the formation of the State.

"The governmental experiences of Iowa before its admission into the Union as a State were many and varied. Its discoverers were the missionary priest Jacques Marquette and the explorer Louis Joliet, who were living at St. Mary's, the oldest settlement in the present State of Michigan. On May 13, 1673, with five Canadian boatmen, these two men left on an exploring expedition, and on June 25, 1673, landed near the mouth of Des Moines River.[B] By right of discovery France claimed jurisdiction over the country thus visited until 1763, when the Territory was ceded to Spain. On October 1, 1800, it was ceded with the rest of Louisiana Territory from Spain back to France. On the 30th of April, 1803, it was in turn ceded to the United States by France as a part of the Louisiana Purchase.

"These changes of government had little effect upon what was to constitute the future State of Iowa, because the Indians remained in almost undisputed possession. Although discovered and claimed by France in 1673, no attempt at settlement was made until 1788, when Julian Dubuque, a Canadian, obtained from Blondeau and two other Indian chiefs a grant of lands. This claim was twenty-one miles long and extended from the Mississippi westward nine miles. The grant was confirmed, in a qualified way, by Carondelet, Spanish governor at New Orleans. Dubuque engaged in mining and trading with the Indians, making his headquarters at the place which now bears his name. The question of the validity of his claim to this great tract of land came before the United States Supreme Court in 1854, and the decision of that body was that his grant was only a temporary license to dig ore.

"In 1799, a trading post was established on the Mississippi within the present territory of Iowa. This settlement and the one at Dubuque were abandoned, so that Iowa was practically an unknown and undesired country at the time when it came under the control of the United States in 1803. It was at that time Indian territory, occupied by the Sacs, Foxes, and Iowas, with the still more warlike Sioux on the north and east.

"On the 31st of October, 1803, a temporary government was authorized for the recently acquired territory. By Act of Congress, approved March 26, 1803, Louisiana was erected into two Territories and provision made for the administration of each. The upper part was known as the District of Louisiana and included Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa. This was placed temporarily under the jurisdiction of the Territory of Indiana. On July 4, 1805, all this northern district became the Territory of Louisiana, with a separate Territorial government. The legislative power was vested in the governor and three judges to be appointed by the President and Senate. This condition continued until December 7, 1812, when the Territory of Louisiana became the Territory of Missouri. In 1821, Missouri was admitted into the Union, and this admission of Missouri carried with it the abolition of the government of Missouri Territory, so that for a time Iowa was without any government. It is a question how much law remained in force in Iowa after the admission of Missouri. It is probable that the only civil law in force was the proviso of the Missouri bill, which prohibited slavery north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude. No provision was made for that portion of the Territory of Missouri until June 28, 1834, when Congress attached the present State of Iowa, together with other territory, to the Territory of Michigan.

"On July 3, 1836, it was included in the newly organized Territory of Wisconsin. On June 12, 1838, the Territory of Iowa was constituted by Act of Congress. This Territory included 'all that part of the present Territory of Wisconsin which lies west of Mississippi River and west of a line due north from the sources or headwaters of the Mississippi to the territorial line.'

"From the time of the purchase in 1803 up to the date of the organization of the Territory in 1838 there had been a gradual increase in the knowledge of this land and a growing appreciation of its value. There had been parties of hunters and trappers who made temporary settlements on the banks of the Mississippi in the period from 1820 to 1830. It was not till steam navigation was established on the Mississippi that there grew up a demand for Iowa lands. Southeastern Illinois and northwestern Missouri were settled and the pioneers naturally looked to the equally desirable lands in Iowa. Various exploring expeditions also contributed to a desire to settle in the territory. Lewis and Clark added to the knowledge of its western borders by their expedition in 1805. Pike in the same year traversed another part of the Territory, and these explorers brought back accounts of its great fertility and of its desirability for settlement.

"The government established a broad strip of neutral ground between the Sioux in the north and the Sacs and Foxes in the south to keep these tribes at peace, and in 1830 acquired lands on the Missouri to be used as Indian reservations. Here and there in the Iowa Territory were white men who had gained the friendship of the Indians and lived with them. There were trading posts of the American Fur Company and miners at Dubuque, who were licensed by the government to work at that point. Iowa remained the home of the Indians until the close of the Black Hawk War, when General Winfield Scott, on September 15, 1832, concluded a treaty of peace with the Sacs and Foxes, by which the Indian title was extinguished to that part of land known as the Black Hawk Purchase. This was the eastern part of Iowa and extended along the Mississippi, from Missouri on the south to the 'Neutral Grounds' on the north, and westward a distance of fifty miles. It contained about six million acres and was to be surrendered by the Indians on June 1, 1833. This gave the first opportunity for the legal settlement of Iowa by citizens of the United States.

"June 1, 1833, was fixed as the day on which the Indians were to be removed from the Black Hawk Purchase and the lands opened for settlement. The would-be settlers came in large numbers to the banks of the Mississippi, ready to cross and get the choice of the land. United States troops kept guard on the western shore of the river and prevented any persons from entering the Purchase before the appointed time. At precisely twelve o'clock, midnight, June 1st, there was a wild rush of settlers from East and South and the settlement of Iowa was begun.

"There was a rapid increase in population until the separate Territorial government was established, June 12, 1838. The first capital was Burlington, and the place of meeting of the legislature was in a church. Robert Lucas was appointed Territorial Governor, and William B. Conway, Secretary. The Territorial Legislature met on November 12, 1838. Burlington continued to be the seat of Territorial government till 1841, when Iowa City became the capital.

"The Territory of Iowa had a heated dispute with the State of Missouri over the boundary line between the two. Missouri's northern boundary was the parallel of latitude passing through the rapids of the river Des Moines. There were two rapids, eight or ten miles apart, and the dispute was as to which of these was meant, Missouri insisting upon the northern and Iowa on the southern one. Each government tried to enforce its authority. In the attempt to do this, Governor Boggs, of Missouri, called out the militia; then Governor Lucas, of Iowa, called out his soldiers. Five hundred men were under arms. On the petitions of Iowa and Missouri, Congress authorized a suit to settle the controversy, which resulted in a decision favorable to Iowa.

"Further treaties were made with the Indians by which additional land was gained for settlement. A large tract of land was opened to settlers on May 1, 1843, and on the preceding night there was a rush of land seekers similar to that which had occurred ten years before; over a thousand families settled in the newly opened lands within twelve hours.

"The very rapid increase in population led to a demand for statehood. On July 31, 1840, the Territorial Legislature passed an Act by which it called for a vote of the people on the question of assembling a constitutional convention. In August the vote was taken, resulting in the defeat of the proposition by a vote of two thousand nine hundred and seven to nine hundred and thirty-seven. Another vote was taken in 1842, resulting in the same way, but on February 12, 1844, the suggestion of a constitutional convention met the approval of the majority of the electors, and without waiting for a Federal Enabling Act a Constitution was adopted by a convention which met at Iowa City, October 7, 1844, and finished its work November 1st of the same year. This Constitution was submitted to Congress by the Territorial delegate.

"Here again there was the effort to balance a northern and southern State. Maine had been admitted into the Union in 1820, and Missouri in 1821; Arkansas in 1836, and Michigan in the next year. Now, it was proposed to admit Florida with Iowa. At this time Florida was much below the required population. The Congressional debate on the subject was a long and interesting one and brought out clearly the growing jealousy between North and South. This feeling was especially strong at this time because of the probability that several southern slaveholding States might be formed from Texas.

"There was furthermore a dispute of considerable importance over the general boundary of Iowa. The Constitution submitted to Congress by the Territorial delegate provided that the boundary should be as follows: 'Beginning in the middle of the main channel of Mississippi River opposite the mouth of Des Moines River; thence up the said River Des Moines in the middle of the main channel thereof, to a point where it is intersected by the old Indian boundary line, or line run by John C. Sullivan in the year 1816; thence westwardly along said line to the old northwest corner of Missouri; thence due west to the middle of the main channel of Missouri River; thence up in the middle of the main channel of the river last mentioned to the mouth of Sioux or Calumet River; thence in a direct line to the middle of the main channel of St. Peter's River, where Watonwan River (according to Nicollet's map) enters the same; thence down the middle of the main channel of said river to the middle to the main channel of Mississippi River; thence down the middle of the main channel of said river to the place of beginning.'

"An amendment was proposed in Congress which substituted the following in place of the boundary as given above: 'Beginning in the middle of St. Peter's River, at the junction of Watonwan or Blue Earth River; with the said River St. Peter's running thence due east to the boundary line of the Territory of Wisconsin in the middle of Mississippi River; thence down the middle of the last-named river with the boundary line of the Territory of Wisconsin and state of Illinois to the northeast corner of the state of Missouri in the said River Mississippi; thence westwardly with the boundary line of said State of Missouri to a point due south from the place of beginning; thence due north to the place of beginning in said St. Peter's River.'

"Of especial interest was the attitude taken by Samuel F. Vinton, representative from Ohio, in regard to the admission of Iowa. He believed that the Western States should be small in area in order that the West might not be deprived of its share in the government of the nation. It seemed to him that the policy so far pursued in the West had been wrong because the States were so large that they were sure to contain two or three times as large a population as the Atlantic States. There was at the time a provision under consideration that Florida might be divided, when either East or West Florida should contain a population of thirty-five thousand. Vinton contended that if Florida was to be divided, there should be a provision for dividing Iowa, because it was safer to give political power to the West than to the Atlantic States, for the West was the great conservative power of the Union. He stated that though the spirit of disunion might exist in the North and in the South, it could not live in the West, because the interests of the West were inseparably connected with both, and it would hold the two sections together, because it had no prejudice against either North or South and, what was of greater importance, the West was a grain growing country, and so must look equally to the manufacturing North and the cotton growing South for its market. Therefore the West must be conservative whether it wished to be or not. Vinton believed that instead of five there should have been at least twelve States in the old Northwest, and that to partly offset this injustice, small States should be formed west of the Mississippi. After considerable debate in the House, the bill for the admission of Iowa passed that body and was transmitted to the Senate, which it passed March 3, 1845.

"After a vote for admission, the constitution was submitted to the people of Iowa, who made serious objections to it. One objection was directed against the small salaries to be paid, which, it was feared, would result in getting only inferior men for official positions. The restrictions on banks and corporations proved an unpopular feature. The limitation placed upon the extent of territory claimed by Iowa was unsatisfactory to many, though the State would still have an area of forty-four thousand three hundred square miles. This reduction of area was the greatest objection, so that when the vote was taken many who were in favor of statehood voted against forming a state of such reduced area, and the Constitution was rejected by a vote of seven thousand and nineteen to six thousand and twenty-three.

"The governor called a special session of the legislature, and a bill for the re-submission of the constitution was passed over his veto. This was defeated by the people in August, 1845. On January 17, 1846, an Act was passed which provided for a new constitutional convention. This body came together in May and adopted a new constitution which did not differ greatly from the earlier instrument. The boundaries given in it were a compromise between those originally asked by the people and those granted by Congress. The matter was actively discussed in Congress when the new constitution with the changed boundaries came before that body, but the arguments were essentially the same as those previously advanced. An exciting campaign followed in Iowa, and the constitution was adopted, August 3, 1846, by a small majority. On the 4th of August the president signed the bill which settled the boundary question in accordance with the second constitution, and an Act was passed December 28, 1846, by which Iowa was admitted into the Union."

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Chapter IV

Iowa and Her People

"In all that is good Iowa affords the best."

Thus a few years ago wrote one of our state's most distinguished citizens.[C]

And his utterance found a ready response in the hearts of the men and women of our fair land, so that today the expression is an axiom. Every Iowan believes firmly in its truth.

There is no fairer land under the benevolent sun. Here plenty reigns, and prosperity has her home. Cheerful industry has redeemed the land that once was the home of wild animals and untamed savages. Iowa's waving corn fields; her meadows of luxuriant grass; her hills dotted with magnificent houses and barns; her landscape made more picturesque by the presence of fattening herds; her school houses and higher centers of learning on almost every hill; the smoke from the busy industries of her thriving cities and villages; her soil the most fertile of any known; her waste land less than that of any other equal area; her percentage of illiteracy the lowest; her mineral resources abundant; her numerous streams affording water power inferior to none--all these things and more rightly tend to make Iowans proud of their State.

Now, as a half century ago, Iowa offers "to the lawloving and the temperate; to the enterprising, the vigorous, the ambitious, a home and a field worthy of their noblest efforts."[D] She throws open to the world her exhaustless stores of wealth, her golden opportunities, and says: "Behold your reward."

N. H. Parker, writing more than a half century ago, drew this glowing picture of the future Iowa:

"As the immigrant mother leads her sons and daughters into the undeveloped paths of wealth--as civilization elevates a race out of the sloughs of semi-barbarism--as national prosperity exalts a land--or as science raises the human intellect from darkness into dazzling light--thus Iowa, with rapid strides, ascends the precipitious sides of prosperity's mountain range, bearing her sons and daughters to loftier, and still loftier peaks, and revealing to their gaze still wider and richer vistas. And the summit of this range she will never reach; for her onward progress cannot be stayed, until her arterial streams are dry--until the agricultural life-blood in her veins has ceased to flow, until her great metallic heart has been emptied. Upon the topmost summit, then, Iowa will never stand, for through countless ages yet to come, her progress--that must be forever onward--must be upward also."[E]

The people of Iowa do not stand still. Not satisfied with present achievements, they go forward, doing well to-day the tasks that are theirs, and striving earnestly to make the future better and more glorious than the past.

We can not do better here than by quoting a toast to the future of Iowa given some years ago by O. J. Laylander, a loyal son of the state:

"In the few minutes allotted to this toast scant justice may be awarded so worthy a theme. We love you, O Iowa, lusty child, resting in the mighty arms of the Missouri and the Father of Waters, laughing beneath the warm kisses and the love tears of gentle May; crying aloud to all the world: 'See how I grow! How strong I am! How happy and healthy and beautiful!'

"Iowa is glorious now. The great, green carpets, fresh from the springtime cleaning, shimmer in the glorious sun. The broad, black belts of loam await with open pockets the hiding of the golden grain. Living, glowing mines of gold stud the prairies' endless velvet folds. The countless castles of the farm are bound into great bundles by the sounding wire. Above every door that opens upon honest toil is inscribed in letters of gold the motto, 'Rich, rich, rich.'

"Such is Iowa today in its wealth of land and stock. Each year the unfailing field fills the bins to bursting and grows the meat for millions.

"Material Iowa, with great leaps, has gone forward in the world's race. Manifest destiny was misread by even the wisest of our grandfathers. Even thirty years ago no prophet dared choose the gorgeous hues necessary to a true picture of the Iowa of to-day.

"Yet not alone in industrial lines has Iowa set the pace for the states. In politics she has crowded New England off the stage, and bold Ohio sits quietly at her feet. In literature and in arts she stands unashamed. Comfort and culture walk hand in hand, and happiness is a perennial contagion.

"Some fifty years ago there came to Iowa a sturdy boy. Today he calls his own one thousand billowy acres which have risen in value in steps of ten until one hundred thousand dollars would not tempt him to yield his title. One June afternoon he sat on his piazza in sweet reverie. He reviewed the wonderful development of the grand old state, and sent his imagination in search of greater possibilities. From the hedge the thrush poured forth a song of love. The humming bees thrust their honeyed tongues into the flowers on the trellis at his side. The south wind was heavy with fragrance brushed from the blooming bushes. All nature conspired to steal the old man's senses and soon reverie gave way to sleep and dreams, and this, they say, was the dream: He dreamed that it was the year nineteen hundred and forty-one, and he was celebrating his hundredth birthday. He had seen comfort and culture become as common as the summer sun. Literature and art had countless country devotees. People had ceased to hurry, and worry was unknown: and then he dreamed that he died, and sought admission at the golden gate. To his amazement he was halted and informed that he was at the wrong place. Greatly grieved, he parleyed with the guard: 'I never wittingly did a human soul a wrong. I was rich, but it was not my fault. Why must I, who have always tried to do my duty, go to hell?' 'No one said anything about hell,' was the reply. 'To the annex--the second gate to the right. You Iowa people complain so much about celestial conditions and make so many comparisons with Iowa that we have concluded to colonize you a few thousand years and send you all back to Iowa.'

"That the future of Iowa shall be such that if you shall not wish to come back, you shall at least wish to stay as long as possible, is my sincere desire."[F]

Calhoun made the assertion on the floor of the United States Senate that he had been told that "the Iowa country has been seized upon by a lawless body of armed men." Senator Ewing, of Ohio, and Senator Clay, of Kentucky, had received similar information, the former asserting that he would in no way object to giving each rascal who crossed the Mississippi to the westward one thousand dollars if by that means he might get rid of him. And these distinguished statesmen were not alone in this view. To many in the east the first comers to the territory were "land robbers," "idle and profligate characters," "fugitives from justice," "lawless intruders," and worse. They were squatters "who feared neither the laws of God nor man."

Doubtless those who made these assertions were honest and sincere. They believed that only the most desperate characters, the outcasts of decent communities, had the hardihood to explore this terra incognita. They could not comprehend how persons living in settled communities, and surrounded with many of the comforts of life, could be so fool-hardy as to leave all these things for the sake of making a new home in a wilderness inhabited only by wild animals and wilder and more dangerous Indians.

But there is another side to the picture. Personal observation is always more to be depended upon than hearsay testimony. One of the most trust-worthy of the early writers on Iowa is Lieut. Albert Miller Lea. He had spent some years in the "Ioway District"; he had made a tour of observation across the state; he had most excellent opportunities for observing and studying the character of our first settlers. His testimony cannot be impeached, for he was a man far above the practice of deceit. In his Notes on the Wisconsin Territory, particularly with reference to the Iowa District or Black Hawk Purchase, published in 1836, he gives this vivid and truthful picture of our early inhabitants:

"The character of this population is such as is rarely to be found in our newly acquired territories. With very few exceptions, there is not a more orderly, industrious, active, pains-taking population west of the Alleghenies, than is this of the Iowa District. Those who have been accustomed to associate the name of Squatter with the idea of idleness and recklessness, would be quite surprised to see the systematic manner in which every thing is here conducted. For intelligence, I boldly assert that they are not surpassed, as a body, by an equal number of citizens of any country in the world.

"It is a matter of surprise that, about the Mining Region, there should be so little of the recklessness that is usual in that sort of life.... This regularity and propriety is to be attributed to the preponderance of well informed and well-intentioned gentlemen among them, as well as to the disposition of the mass of the people."[G]

Two years later another personal observer says: "He who supposes that settlers ... who are now building upon, fencing and cultivating the lands of the government are lawless depredators, devoid of the sense of moral honesty, or that they are not in every sense as estimable citizens, with as much intelligence, regard for law and social order, for public justice and private rights ... as the farmers and yeomen of New York and Pennsylvania ... has been led astray by vague and unfounded notions, or by positively false information."[H]

These people knew the pioneers, and their testimony is entitled to credence. As a class even the "Squatters" were not idle, or vicious, or ignorant. They were young men, strong and hardy, full of courage and adventure. "There was not a better population on the face of the earth," is the testimony of Senator Benton. "They made roads," says Prof. B. F. Shambaugh, superintendent of the Iowa State Historical Society, "built bridges and mills, cleared the forests, broke the prairies, erected houses and barns, and defended the settled country against hostile Indians. They were distinguished especially for their general intelligence, their hospitality, their independence and bold enterprise. They had schools and school houses, erected churches, and observed the Sabbath.... The pioneers were religious, but not ecclesiastical. They lived in the open and looked upon the relations of man to nature with an open mind. To be sure their thoughts were more on 'getting along' in this world than upon the 'immortal crown' of the Puritan. And yet in the silent forest, in the broad prairie, in the deep blue sky, in the sentinels of the night, in the sunshine and in the storm, in the rosy dawn, in the golden sunset, and in the daily trials and battles of frontier life, they too must have seen and felt the Infinite."[I]

No greater tribute has ever been paid to the pioneers of our state than that given by a distinguished native of the state, Hon. Robert G. Cousins, on Iowa Day at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha on Sept. 21, 1898. The following extracts from that masterly oration are worthy of preservation here:

"I have asked five of the ablest and most noted Americans what they regard as the chief thing or leading feature of the Trans-Mississippi region and they have invariably answered, 'Its men and women.' The other day I met one of the oldest settlers of eastern Iowa--one of those original, rugged characters whose wit and wisdom have lightened the settlers' hearts and homes for many a toilsome year--one of those interesting characters who never bores you and whom one always likes to meet--a man whose head is silvered and whose countenance is kind--and I asked him what he regarded as the principal feature of our Trans-Mississippi country, and he replied: 'Well, I'm no scholar, but I've been round here nigh onto sixty years and I reckon 'bout the most important thing is the folks and the farms.'

"Iowa became a separate territory, with the capital at Burlington, in 1838, and was admitted into the Union in 1846, and has been in it ever since. It makes little difference whether it was first settled by the whites at Dubuque for mining purposes in 1788, or, for trading purposes, at Montrose, in 1799, or opposite Prairie du Chien, in 1804 or 5, or in Lee county at Sandusky in 1820, or on the lower rapids at what is now known as Nashville, in 1829; or whether the first settlements for general purposes were made at Burlington and Davenport in 1832. The main fact is that it was well settled--not by dyspeptic tourists nor by invalids who had come west out of curiosity and New Jersey, nor by climate seeking dilettanti with two servants and one lung--but by the best bone and sinew of the middle states, New England and the old world. I do not know that there were any dukes or lords or marquises or duchesses, but there were Dutch and Irish and Scotch and Scotch-Irish and English and Americans, and they had home rule right from the start--at least they had it in the first school which I attended. The men and women who settled the Hawkeye state were not those who expected to go back 'in the fall,' or as soon as they could prove up on their claims. They were stayers. They were not men to be discouraged by winter or by work. They were men who knew that nobody ever amounted to much in this world unless he had to. Most of them began simply with the capital of honesty, good health and their inherent qualities of character. They built their cabins in the clearings and, watching the smoke curl up in the great, wide sky, felt just as patriotic for their humble rustic homes as e'er did princes for their castles or millionaires for mansions grand.

"To build a home is a great thing. It doesn't matter so much about the dimensions. 'Kings have lived in cottages and pygmies dwelt in palaces,' but the walls of a home always add something to inherent character. In the formation of character there are always two elements, the inherent and the adventitious--that which we bring with us into the world and that which our surroundings give us. Somebody said 'there is only a small portion of the earth that produces splendid people.' Our pioneers got into a good place. They had left doubt sitting on a boulder in the east and packed their things and started for the west. Rivers had to be forded, trees to be felled, cabins had to be built--the rifle must be kept loaded--so much the better, there was self-reliance. Corn and coffee had to be ground, and on the same mill--so much the better, there was ingenuity. Teeth had to be filled, and there was no painless dentistry. Disease and injury must be dealt with, and the doctor fifty miles away. Life must be lightened, lonely hearts must be cheered, and the old friends and comrades far back in the states or maybe away in fatherland, and the cheering letter tarrying with the belated stage coach--hold fast, thou sturdy denizen and gentle helpmate of the rich and wondrous empire, infinite goodness guards thee and the fertile fields are ready to reward.

"Ah, pampered people of the later generations, when you imagine modern hardships, think of the courage and the trials and the ingenuity of pioneers when there were no conveniences but the forest and the axe, the wide rolling prairie and the ox team, the great blue sky, the unsolved future and the annual ague! Complain of markets in these modern times and then think of your grandmother when she was a blooming bride, listening through the toilsome days and anxious nights for the wagon bringing home the husband from a distant market with calico and jeans purchased with dressed pork sold at a dollar and a half a hundred, and maybe bringing home a little money, worth far less per yard than either calico or jeans. Maybe it is all for the best, human character was being formed for the development of a great and loyal and progressive state to shine forever among the stars of the federal union....

"Civil government in Iowa proceeded with its rapid settlement. The pioneer became a model citizen. He knew the necessity for the laws that were enacted. He did not feel oppressed by government. He had experienced the losses of robbery and larceny and knew something of the embarrassment and inconvenience of being scalped. There was no hysteria about trusts and combines because they had practiced combinations themselves for mutual protection. If any one would learn the true genius and exemplification and philosophy of self-government, government of and for and by the people, let him study the records of pioneer life, the institutional beginnings, and the evolution of their laws. It would be worth our while on some suitable occasion when time permitted to talk over the interesting incidents attending the administration of justice in the early days of Iowa, the incidents of its territorial legislatures, the birth and growth of its statehood and the character of its officials. But the greatness of our state is not contained in any name. Its official history is the exponent of its industrial life and character. Its greatness is the sum total of its citizenship. In order to be just, John Jones, the average citizen, must be mentioned along with our most illustrious officials. Somebody said that the history of a nation is the history of its great men, but there is an unwritten history which that averment overlooks. The growth of a state is the progress of its average citizen. The credit of a commonwealth is the thrift of its John Jones and its William Smith, and the character, prosperity and patriotism of the individual citizen is the history of Iowa.

"The population of 97,000 which she had when admitted into the union had increased to 754,699 at the close of the Civil war. Of these about 70,000, almost one-tenth of the population, were in the war--a number equal to nearly one-half of the voters of the state. Who made the history of Iowa during that great struggle of our nation's life? John Jones, the average citizen, whether he carried a musket helping to put the scattered stars of state back into the constellation of the Union, or whether he toiled from early dawn to lingering twilight in the fields or in the shop. The best civilization is that which maintains the highest standard of life for its average citizen.

"Since the Civil war the state of Iowa has increased in population to almost 2,225,000 of people, and most of the time has had the least illiteracy of any state in the Union. Doubtless for that we are indebted to many of the older states, whose enterprising and courageous citizens constitute so large a portion of our population. With but a century of statehood and with an area of but 55,475 square miles, the state of Iowa produces the greatest quantity of cereals of any state in the Union. As long ago as the last federal census, taken in 1890, it produced more corn, more oats, more beef, more pork than any state in the Union. Not long since I was introduced to a gentleman from New York city. He said, 'Oh, from Iowa--ah--let me see, that's out--ah--you see, I'm not very well posted on the geography of the west.' 'Yes,' I said, 'it's out there just across the Mississippi river. You can leave New York about noon and get your supper in Iowa the next evening. It might be worth your while to look it up. It's the state which produces more of the things which people eat than any other state in the Union. It has more miles of railroads than your state of New York, more than Mexico, more than Brazil and more than all the New England states combined.'

"The value of Iowa's agricultural products and live stock in round numbers for the year 1892 was $407,000,000, to say nothing of her other great and various industries and enterprises. She produced that year 160,000,000 pounds of the best butter on earth of the value of $32,000,000. The Hawkeye butter ladle has achieved a cunning that challenges all Columbia. The Iowa cow has slowly and painfully yet gradually and grandly worked her way upward to a shining eminence in the eyes of the world. The state of Iowa has on her soil today, if nothing ill befalls it, ninety million dollars' worth of corn. The permanent value of land is estimated by its corn-producing qualities. Of all the products of the earth, corn is king and it reigns in Iowa.

"Industry and nature have made the state of Iowa a creditor. Her soil has always been solvent and her system of farming does not tend to pauperize. She is a constant seller and therefore wants the evidence of the transaction to be unimpeachable. She has more school teachers than any other state except the Empire state and only three and six-tenths per cent of her population are illiterates. The state of Iowa has yielded the greatest dividends on her educational investments. She has become illustrious on account of her enlightenment. She has progressed further from 'primitive indifferent tissue' than the land even of Darwin himself, and in her escape from protoplasm and prejudice she is practically out of danger. Marked out in the beginning by the hand of God, bounded on the east and west by the two great rivers of the continent, purified and stimulated by the snows of winter, blessed with copious rainfall in the growing season, with generous soil and stately forests interspersed, no wonder that the dusky aborigines exclaimed when they crossed the Father of Waters, 'Iowa, this is the place!' Not only did the red men give our state its beautiful and poetic name, but Indian nomenclature runs like a romance throughout the counties and communities. What infinite meaning, what tokens of joy and sadness, of triumph and of tears, of valor and of vanquishment, of life and love and song there may be in these weird, strange words that name to-day so many of our towns and streams and counties: Allamakee, Chickasaw, Dakota City, Sioux, Pocahontas, Winneshiek, Keosauqua, Sac, Winnebago, Tama, Nodawa, Competine, Chariton, Comanche, Cherokee, Waukon, Muchakinock, Washta, Monona, Waupeton, Onawa, Keota, Waudina, Ioka, Ottumwa, Oneska, Waukee, Waucoma, Nishnabotna, Keokuk, Decorah, Wapello, Muscatine, Maquoketa, Mahaska, Ocheyedan, Mississippi, Appanoose, Missouri, Quasqueton, Anamosa, Poweshiek, Pottawattamie, Osceola, Oskaloosa, Wapsipinicon.

"Ere long some westland genius, moved by the mystic inspiration of the rich and wondrous heritage of Iowa nativity, may sing the song of our legends and traditions, may voice in verse the wondrous story of his illustrious state. Maybe somewhere among the humble homes where blood and bone and brain grow pure and strong, where simple food with frugal ways feeds wondering minds and drives them craving into nature's secrets and her songs--somewhere along the settler's pathway or by the Indian trail where now the country churchyards grown with uncut grasses hide the forms of sturdy ancestors sleeping all in peaceful ignorance of wayward sons or wondrous progeny--somewhere where rising sun beholds the peasantry at early toil and leaves them in the mystic twilight ere their tasks are done, where odors of the corn and new-mown hay and vine-clad hedges by the shadowy roadside linger long into the night-time, as a sweet and sacred balm for tired hearts--somewhere, sometime the song of Iowa shall rise and live, and it will not omit the thought of that gifted son who said: 'Iowa, the affections of her people, like the rivers of her borders, flow to an inseparable union.'"

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Chapter V

The Geology of Linn County

BY WILLIAM HARMON NORTON, PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN CORNELL COLLEGE

It is said that a certain county in Kentucky, underlain by limestone, always goes democratic; while a county adjacent, underlain by sandstone, is as invariably republican. Certain it is that a deal of politics, economics, and history depends at last analysis more or less upon the processes past and present which belong to geology and physiography. The rocks, the minerals they contain, and the water they store, the hills and valleys into which they have been carved, and the soils to which they weather, largely control the industries, locate the cities, and outcrop even in the social, intellectual, and moral life of the people. The metropolis of Linn county, for example, owes its name and place to the rapids of the Cedar, and the rapids find ultimate cause in the fact that some millions of years ago nature stopped laying a softer rock upon the ocean bed and deposited upon it one of more resistant texture. In the eastern part of the county the Chicago & Northwestern Railway runs for very good and sufficient reasons where once rested the edge of a long tongue of glacial ice, and west of Cedar Rapids its route is determined by the course taken by the turbid floods issuing from the melting glaciers. The streets of Mount Vernon and several of the main highways of the county do not lie with the points of the compass but follow the direction of flow of ancient ice-streams. The distribution of forest and prairie is due to geologic causes. The values of farm lands are markedly affected by the same influences, and we can even point out a little area which differs from its surroundings in its inhabitants and in their literacy, language, architecture, manners, and morals, primarily because it belongs to what geologists classify as the deeply dissected loess-covered Kansan drift sheet.

The inductive history of Linn county, reasoned out from what we have learned of the lie of the land, the shapes of hills and valleys, the soils and subsoils, and the underlying rocks, is a wonderfully long one. The first chapter that has been opened to inspection in the geologic record of our area is that of the deepest rocks probed by the first deep well drilled at Cedar Rapids. At a depth of 2,150 feet from the surface--1,417 feet below the level of the sea--the drill encountered a hard red siliceous rock which may be taken as the equivalent of the Sioux Quartzite, which comes to the surface at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and at Baraboo, Wisconsin. This well known building stone is used in a number of the business blocks and private residences of Cedar Rapids, as for example in the old office building of the Republican. Belonging to the Algonkian, an era so remote that its age must be reckoned in scores if not in hundreds of millions of years, the quartzite at the bottom of the deep well tells of time inconceivably remote when Linn county was part of a wide sea floor on which red sands were washed to and fro and finally laid to rest in thick deposits of sandstone. Tilted and folded and hardened by pressure, the Algonkian rocks were uplifted from the sea to form dry land of mountainous heights. After the lapse of ages the old land sunk beneath the sea, and again and again with intervals of uplift and subaerial erosion there were laid upon it sea muds, impure limestones, and thick sandstones during a long succession of geologic aeons. Samples of these deposits can be seen in the well drillings preserved in the Y. M. C. A. at Cedar Rapids and in the collections of Cornell College. For many millions of years Linn county was thus sometimes land and sometimes sea, but neither land nor sea was tenanted by aught but the humblest of living creatures. These ancient deposits concern us because they are the aqueducts by which artesian waters of purest quality are brought to our doors from their sources far to the northward in other states.

The most recent of the formations which are pierced by the drill, but which do not come to the surface within the limits of the county, is the Maquoketa shale, reached in the eastern townships at a depth of somewhat more than 300 feet. This impervious bed of altered clay stops the descent of ground water, which thus is stored in large quantities in the overlying limestones and supplies some of the important wells of the county such as that of the town of Mount Vernon. At the time when these sea clays were laid, eastern Iowa was under sea, but so near was the low lying land to the north and east that vast quantities of mud were brought in by its rivers forming deposits nearly 300 feet in thickness.

THE SILURIAN

With the lapse of ages physical conditions changed and Linn County was covered with a warm shallow coral sea in which were laid the massive limestones which now form the country rock in the eastern tier of townships. In some of the quarries one may see the ripple marks into which these coral sands were heaped by the pulse of the waves, and one may pick out of the rocks casts and moulds of ancient sea shells, corals, and trilobites, which formed the highest forms of life then tenanting the Iowa seas.

The lowest beds of the Silurian belong to the Hopkinton stage, and are exposed along the Buffalo. At Hill's mill and at Nugent's quarries some layers are crowded with a characteristic fossil--a plump bivalve shell as large as a walnut, which goes by the name of Pentamerus Oblongus. The Gower stage of the Silurian rests upon the Hopkinton and embraces two types of rocks distinct in their appearance and uses. The LeClaire phase of the Gower is a hard, brittle, crystalline, magnesian limestone, or dolomite. Normally blue-gray in color, it is often oxidised to buff. It is well exposed at Viola and on the Cedar river from the Cedar County line to a mile or so beyond the Upper Palisades, southwest of Bertram. The LeClaire forms mounds in places reaching fifty and even eighty or ninety feet in height in which little semblance of bedding structures are to be seen. Here and there the rock is conglomeratic, consisting of rounded masses of the rock cemented by a less resistent matrix. The cavernous recess in the rock wall of the Palisades, misnamed the Blowout, is due to the solution of the weaker matrix and the dislodgement of the rounded masses. The rock may consist also of angular broken blue-gray fragments in the matrix of a buff and friable limestone sand. Again, the mounds, at least in part, may be made up of massive limestone with little trace of structure of any sort. On the sides of the mounds and merging into the conglomeratic or other structures the rock of the LeClaire often is stratified and the layers dip outward at angles surprisingly high. In places these tilted layers may show sharp folds. The rock of all structures is fossiliferous. Even the broken fragments of breccia are porous with moulds of minute fossils which have been removed by solution. The massive rock is largely made up in places of stems of crinoids--stone lilies which grew in the greatest profusion in these quiet waters--and the tilted layers may be made of casts and moulds of unbroken shells of little bivalves. Occasionally the saucer shaped tail and head-shields of a characteristic trilobite are found piled together and unbroken. Coral are very common in this ancient reef rock, a form resembling honeycomb being especially noticeable. And as one floats down stream at the base of the cliffs he can hardly fail to notice large tapering segmented shells, either straight or slightly curved, representatives of the cephalopod mollusks.

The picturesque rock walls of the Palisades, which rise perpendicular for as much as ninety feet from the water's edge, are due primarily to the great resistance of the LeClaire rock, due to its chemical composition--for dolomite weathers far less rapidly than a non-magnesian limestone--and to the fewness of those planes of weakness called joint-planes. The joints of the LeClaire are distant and vertical. The stone breaks down, therefore, in immense blocks where undercut by the river which leave for ages the scarp behind them as a vertical wall.

Because of its qualities the LeClaire is one of the best lime rocks in the country. The impurities of the clay, the iron and silica which it contains, may run as low as one-third of one per cent. The large per cent of carbonate of magnesia present makes it a cool lime, slow to slack and slow to set, and it is to such limes that architects, masons, and plasterers now invariably give preference over the so-called hot limes burned from non-magnesian limestones. The hardness and durability of mortars made from the LeClaire rock limes approaches that of cement, and after thirty-five or forty years of weathering, joints in mason work seem almost as fresh as when first struck.

The extreme hardness of the rock and the slowness with which it weathers make it specially valuable for crushing for macadam and ballast.

The Anamosa phase of the Gower limestone is typically exposed in the large quarries at Anamosa and Stone City, Mount Vernon and Waubeek. It is a light buff or yellow limestone, with constant, parallel, and horizontal or gently inclined laminated layers. The limestone is soft to work but hardens on exposure. The saw encounters no obdurate materials and the chisel finds the fracture even and regular. Bedding planes are so even and smooth as to be at once ready for the mortar with little or no dressing. Much of the stone can be split horizontally to any desired thickness, while the distant joints permit the quarrying of blocks beyond the facilities of transportation or any possible use. Many layers are so homogenous that they can be wrought into fine carvings.

As a dolomite the stone is far more resistant than a purer limestone. In the Mount Vernon cemetery tombstones of this material, whose dates run back to the forties and early fifties, have been so little affected by superficial decay that the tool marks are almost as fresh as when the chisel left them; while marbles of half their age have broken down into ruin.

The Silurian rocks of the county measure about 300 feet in thickness. They are confined pretty closely to the townships of the eastern tier, but extend beyond their limits up the valleys of the Cedar and Wapsipinicon.

THE BERTRAM LIMESTONE

As the Silurian limestones sink below the surface because of the westward dip, they are succeeded by a bed of rock, named from its outcrop at Bertram, and found along Big Creek as far north as Paralta and Springville. This is a heavily bedded gray rock which weathers almost white. At a number of places along Big Creek it forms picturesque cliffs, and hillsides covered with huge boulders of disintegration. At one point it is seen to overlie the Anamosa beds of the Silurian, and several exposures are known where it is succeeded by the Otis limestones of the Devonian. But as it contains no fossils, so far as is now known, it can not be said to which of the two ages it belongs.

THE OTIS LIMESTONES

The lower beds of the Otis, as exposed at the base of the Otis quarries, along the Cedar south of Cedar Rapids, at Springville, and at Coggon, consist of soft magnesian limestones, fossiliferous with many moulds of small bivalve shells of Devonian age. These pass upward into drab non-magnesian limestones carrying the principal fossil of the magnesian beds in considerable numbers. The upper limestones of the Otis differ within rather wide limits. The most common type is seen at the base of the high cliff at Kenwood on the right bank of Indian Creek--a hard, brittle ringing and thinly laminated limestone. Often it has been subjected to strains under which it has broken, and has been re-cemented with little displacement of the parts. Occasionally it is brown, and highly crystalline.

THE INDEPENDENCE

At the Kenwood cliff the eight feet of the Otis at the base is succeeded by thirty feet of buff shale and clayey limestones--a formation known as the Independence from its discovery in a shaft sunk at that city. The Independence is exposed at many points near Cedar Rapids both on Indian Creek and on the Cedar. On the Wapsipinicon it is well seen at Cedar Bluff (sec. 24 Spring Grove Tp.), at the "Wolf's Den" a mile up valley, and again in the railway cut north of Coggon. In the long cut of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway west of Linn Junction the Independence is seen in one place as a blue clay shale carrying a number of fossils characteristic of the shaft at Independence, but elsewhere the formation is unfossiliferous in the natural exposures so far studied.

Wherever found the Independence contains nodules of silica, which may reach a foot in diameter, and often angular fragments of the same material which may be as fine as sand. The formation is marked by irregularities of deposition, channel cutting by drift currents, lenses of calcerous material, and rapid lateral change in the form and constituents of the rock. All of these characteristics point to the deposition of this formation in a shallow sea near shore.

Indeed, some of the beds were apparently laid in marshes such as are now found along low ocean shores. Thin seams of coal formed in the Independence were once peaty deposits preserved by the presence of water from the decay which returns dead vegetable matter to the air. In 1871 such a seam of coal, not exceeding an inch in thickness, was found at a depth of ninety feet in a well on the farm of Mrs. C. Hemphill, near LaFayette. Pieces of the coal were taken to Cedar Rapids and Marion. A mining company was formed, and without seeking for any expert advice from geologist or mining engineer, and without any tests of the extent and thickness of the seam, a shaft was sunk after the precious fuel. Water was encountered in such quantities that expensive pumping machinery was used, and in all several thousand dollars were wasted in a search which any competent geologist could have told was foredoomed to failure.

THE DAVENPORT LIMESTONES

The sea over eastern Iowa deepened after the deposition of the Independence, for there was now deposited upon its floor limestones in place of shales. The lowest of these, known as the lower Davenport beds, are hard, compact, and of finest grain, and so far as known are unfossiliferous. The upper Davenport is a tough, gray, semi-crystalline limestone which contains an assemblage of fossils of many species. Highest of these are the first vertebrates to appear in Iowa so far as our records go. Fishes which swam over our area left to be imbedded in the limestones their hard enameled teeth and fin spines. The most common of the Devonian fishes was a small shark.

In several other counties the lower and the upper Davenport limestones retain the attitude of their deposition. But everywhere in Linn county they have been broken into bits and re-cemented, forming breccia. These brittle rocks could hardly give way to such immense stresses without causing sharp and violent vibrations to run through the crust of the earth, and we may therefore list great earthquakes as a part of the history of our area in Devonian times.

The best exposure of the breccia beds is that of the cut of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway west of Linn Junction. The brittle lower Davenport has here been broken and rebroken into a mass of small sharp-edged fragments, while the tough heavily bedded upper Davenport ledges have been fractured to large blocks, which sliding on each other have smoothed and grooved their sides. The breccia beds may be seen in the upper eleven feet of the Kenwood cliff, at Troy Mills, and in the cliffs along the Wapsipinicon valley as far down as near to Central City.

THE CEDAR VALLEY LIMESTONES

The Otis, Independence, and Davenport limestones form a group called the Wapsipinicon, from its outcrop along the river of that name in Linn county. The remaining limestones of the Devonian are grouped together under the name of the Cedar Valley. These consist of limestones of various types, sometimes crowded with fossils, and sometimes destitute of any trace of ancient life. They occupy the western townships of the county.

THE CARBONIFEROUS

At the close of the Cedar Valley stage the sea retreated westward from our area, and Linn county became dry land. For long ages its rocks were covered with rich soils supporting a luxuriant vegetation, probably tropical in its aspect. We know that running water channelled this ancient land, for when at last in Pennsylvanian (Coal measure) time the land sunk slowly beneath the sea, there were deposited in such channels clays and sandstones, which perhaps are only remnants of wide sheets of similar deposits now removed by denudation. A mile and a half south of Marion (southeast quarter of section 12, Rapids township) a well twenty-three feet deep penetrated a bed of dark shale which carried leaf impressions of a number of ferns characteristic of the undergrowth of the Carboniferous forests. A third of a mile southeast of Lisbon, and again about two miles south of the same village, at Bertram at the east end of the railway bridge, and on the old county road between Cedar Rapids and Marion, are exposures of sandstone which in some instances contain fragments of the logs drifted from perhaps distant uplands and water-logged and sunk in these ancient sand beds. The Bertram outlier contains many rolled coral fragments and worn bits of shells of the Devonian, included in Carboniferous deposits, much as the same fossils may now be found in the river deposits of the present age in the sand bars of the Cedar.

MESOZOIC AND TERTIARY

For a succession of geologic ages our county, in common with eastern Iowa, seems to have remained dry land, for no deposits of the sea are found upon it. On both sides of the continent mountain ranges of Alpine height were uplifted, and during the immeasurable years worn down, grain by grain, to flat and featureless plains. But no deformations are recorded in our county history and the lands seems to have remained so low that little erosion was possible. We are permitted to conceive that over our savannas in Mesozoic times there roamed monstrous reptiles of strange shapes, such as are known to have existed in adjacent states. In the later ages of this era it is not impossible that during the great submergence which brought the Cretaceous sea over the Great Plains from the Arctic to the Gulf, including western Iowa, our area also may have been inundated and huge swimming reptiles such as are found in the deposits of Kansas and Nebraska may have disported themselves where now our rich farm lands lie open to the sun, while in the air featherless cold-blooded creatures larger than any bird winged their way on leathery pinions.

During the millions of years which are included in the Tertiary ages Linn county was undoubtedly dry land. On our grass lands pastured a succession of strange and uncouth mammals evolving into higher and higher forms. Among these denizens of the county were probably herds of pig-like creatures, three toed horses little bigger than foxes, and ancestral monkeys swarming in the trees, for such are known to have existed in other states. But these chapters in the history of the county can not be written from any local records.

THE GLACIAL EPOCH

The warm climate of Tertiary times changed slowly to one of arctic cold. The winters lengthened and the summers becoming ever cooler and yet cooler failed at last to melt the winter snows. Vast sheets of glacial ice, such as that which shrouds Greenland today, covered much of the continent. The geologic panorama thus presents our area as buried beneath one after another of slow-moving glaciers hundreds of feet thick. The proofs of their existence are found in almost every cutting which goes below the soil. Any quarry will show the rock deeply rotted and pitted by long preglacial decay. Here and there upon its surface will be found remnants of the deep red residual clays, the subsoils of preglacial times. Upon these clays formed from the decaying rock rest stony clays in which clay, sand, and stones faceted as only glacier ice can facet, are mingled pell-mell together, as only glacier ice can mingle. Occasionally is found the unmistakable track of the glacier left on the underlying rock scraped smooth and marked with parallel scorings, as at the north end of the cut of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway at Linn Junction.

The glaciers also brought from ledges of granite and other crystalline rocks in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Canada the boulders which form a conspicuous feature in some of our prairie landscapes. These, the "first settlers," traveled to their destinations far more leisurely than any ox carts of the immigrant pioneers; for the glaciers can not have moved faster at most than fifty feet a day, and probably at less than a tenth that rate, judging by the rates of motion of present glaciers.

The ice sheets of the glacial epoch plastered the county thick with the stony clays which they dragged along in their basal layers. The thickness of these glacial deposits probably averages from fifty to one hundred feet. Old valleys cut in rock by Tertiary rivers were buried wholly from view, as, for example, one extending north from Prairieburg; and the farmer now plows his corn in fields which lie two and three hundred feet above the channels of ancient rivers. In places the old valleys were left to be re-occupied by the rivers. Such are the reaches of wide valley of the Cedar south of Center Point. In other places the rivers were diverted wholly from their ancient beds and made to flow in new channels which they have not yet had time to widen and deepen to their ancient measures. Such are the narrow rock bound valleys of the Wapsipinicon south of Troy Mills and of the Cedar at the Palisades.

On the final retreat of the glaciers waters from the melting ice swept over the county, leaving deposits of sand on the lower lands and in the valleys. Since the glacial epoch the rivers have cut their beds a score of feet and more below the deposits of glacial floods and in many places, as near the Ivanhoe bridge, remnants of these ancient flood plains are left as terraces or "benches" or "second bottoms." At Bertram the sands deposited by glacial waters near the mouth of Big Creek stand about fifty feet above the level of the river.

THE LOESS

A large part of the county is covered with a deposit of fine yellow silt called loess. Dry, it crumbles into powder at a finger touch; wet, it is somewhat plastic and can be moulded into brick and tile. On the hill and uplands the loess is thickly spread, adding in places at least forty feet to their elevation. Over the lowlands it is thin or absent. This yellow earth has been and is to be of greater value than mines of yellow gold. It is of inexhaustible fertility. It contains abundant mineral plant foods, partly constituent, and partly brought up into it by ground water; and these foods are so finely pulverized as to be of readiest solution and absorption by the roots. In wet weather the loess mantle absorbs the rainfall like a sponge; in months of desert drouth, like those of the summer of 1910, it returns the water to the surface, like a wick, to preserve the crops from failure.

A disadvantage of the loess lies in the readiness with which it washes. The forest which once covered nearly all the uplands protected the soil from wash by means of its mattress of roots and the thick prairie sod was equally efficient where hill slopes were grassed over. But where forests have been thoughtlessly cut down, and steep slopes turned to plow land, it is but a few years until the brown top-soil is all washed away and the fields in spring when freshly plowed are as yellow as a deep cut in road or brick yard. The foot path in the pasture or the furrow of the plow becomes a gully in a single heavy rain, and unless checked soon becomes a gulch scores of feet in width.

By accenting the height of the ridges the loess also adds to the scenery of the county. Our area lies in a part of east central Iowa where the stony clays deposited by ancient glaciers accumulated in long ridges and belts of upland rising many feet above the intervening undulating plains. Because of the alternation of ridge and lowland no part of the state except the valley of the Upper Mississippi has so beautiful and wide and varied prospects. Over more or less of their course the rivers of the county have cut their channels lengthwise in the ridges, thus giving rise to the bold scenery of the Wapsipinicon above Central City, and of the Cedar near Mount Vernon. Some of these picturesque reaches of river and cliff and forest slope should surely be converted into county parks in the near future and preserved for the gratification of all coming generations. Unless this is done we may expect that the forests will be cut down and the hill slopes gashed with countless gullies; while the lichened rocks of the river cliffs fringed with fern and tamarisk will give place to unsightly quarries.

While Linn county was sheeted with glacier ice, no life of any sort was possible within its limits. But during the long interglacial epochs which intervened between the ice invasions, forests grew and animals now extinct roamed over our hills and plains. Among these early inhabitants may be mentioned extinct horses and the giant proboscidians, the mammoth, and the mastodon. These returned to the area after the final retreat of the ice and their remains are found in the peat bogs and river gravels. In the earliest of the interglacial epochs it is quite probable that some of the gigantic groundsloths of South America made their home here, since they are known to have done so in the western counties of the state. No traces of man have been found in the glacial deposits of Iowa, nor have any indubitable evidences of his presence in glacial times been found in North America. Sometime, we know not when, roving tribes of Indians set foot within our area, and geology gives place to archeology. And when the white man appeared, inductive history ends and there begins the history of tradition and written records.

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Chapter VI

Beginnings in Linn County

The Black Hawk war, though confined to the state of Illinois, made an epoch in the history of Iowa. It was the last of the many Indian wars, and was concluded by a cession of much of the valuable lands of Iowa to the government. Reports of the war had stirred up more or less enthusiasm as to the future of the west, and settlers began to come soon after the war had ended. Many of the officers, and others who had taken part in the war, became the government agents and officials in various capacities in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The government also, through its representatives in congress, planned great things for the west in opening canals and roads, while rivers were made navigable and steamship traffic opened up.

One must not be led to believe that Iowa was the only part of the west which grew so rapidly. The growth was general, it is true, but Iowa seems to have grown more rapidly than any other of the territories between 1836 and 1846.

Illinois was admitted as a state in 1818; Missouri three years later; next came Iowa in 1846, while Wisconsin, which had been explored in 1639, was not admitted to statehood till 1848; and Minnesota, settled as early as 1680, and having a fort built in 1820, was not admitted to statehood till 1858. Thus, it would appear, that Iowa remained a territory for a shorter period of time than any other of the western states located in the Mississippi valley, but, of course, there is reason for this. It was a prairie state, in the first instance, and on the east was bounded by a great waterway and by a state teeming with an aggressive population, many of whose people soon crossed the borderland even before the government had made proper surveys and thrown the land open to settlement.

Henry Dodge was appointed governor of the new Territory of Wisconsin in 1836, Iowa at that time being a part of Wisconsin. With the exception of a few settlements of white people along Lake Michigan and in the mining region around Dubuque there were few, if any, white settlers. Governor Dodge's work was largely with the Indians, in making contracts and ceding lands to the government. Settlers were coming in constantly and a demand for a survey of the lands was made from time to time. Survey of the public lands in Iowa was begun in the fall of 1836. Great preparations for the land sales were made. These were to take place in Dubuque and Burlington in November, 1838. The settlers who had arrived on these lands for some time prior to its survey arranged among themselves to select an arbitration association, each township making a register of all claims, and choosing one representative to attend the land sales, giving him authority to bid off the lands selected by each claimant.

A. C. Dodge was appointed the first registrar of the land office at Burlington, and George W. Jones the first surveyor-general of Iowa. One of the surveyors-general in the early '40s was no other than Judge James Wilson, of Keene, New Hampshire, a son of a Revolutionary soldier, and himself a lawyer of more than ordinary ability, a judge, and at one time a member of congress. He was appointed by General Harrison, an old friend.

At the first convention which met at Burlington in November, 1837, for the purpose of organizing a separate territory of Iowa, were the following delegates from Dubuque county, which, at that time, included a part of what later became Linn county: P. H. Engle, J. I. Fales, G. W. Harris, W. A. Warren, W. B. Watts, A. F. Russell, W. H. Patton, J. W. Parker, J. D. Bell and J. H. Rose. The convention in its petition to congress asserted that there were 25,000 people in that portion of Wisconsin Territory known as "The Iowa District;" that houses had been erected; that farms were cultivated, and still people could not obtain title to their lands, and asking that the part west of the river be set aside as a separate territory. This was one of the most important conventions held on what became Iowa soil, and congress at once took action to make such provisions as were thought wise and expedient.

Linn county was established by an act of the legislature of the Territory of Wisconsin approved on December 21, 1837. The county was regular in shape, but four townships larger than its neighbors on the north and east, which were created at the same time. The boundaries received at this time have not been altered. The spelling of the name was Lynn, although it was spelled in the body of the act itself Linn; it took its name from Dr. Louis F. Linn, United States senator from Missouri, who was appointed to that office in 1833 and who was a friend and admirer of President Jackson, and much interested in the development of the west.

The eastern part of Linn county, perhaps one-third, had been part of the original county of Dubuque since 1834, the boundary line running from the southeast corner of the county in a northwesterly line a little to the west of the middle in the northern part of the county. Linn county then embraces within its limits two Indian land cessions. The eastern part was acquired from the Sac and Fox Indians by the treaty of September 21, 1832, known as the Black Hawk Purchase; the western part, or the other two-thirds, was acquired by treaty of October 21, 1837. The fourteen counties created by an act sub-dividing Dubuque county into new counties, which was approved October 21, 1837, were as follows: Dubuque, Clayton, Jackson, Benton, Linn, Jones, Clinton, Johnson, Scott, Delaware, Buchanan, Cedar, Fayette, and Keokuk. While most of these counties were established outright the wording of the act relating to Dubuque county implies that it was looked upon as the former county reduced in size, which was not correct, as this land from which these counties were laid out also included much of the Sac and Fox cession made after Dubuque county had been formed and laid out, and which county had not been ceded to the United States government.

These boundary lines were reduced in size later; however the boundaries of Dubuque, Delaware, Jackson, Jones, Linn, Clinton, Cedar, and Scott have remained as they were laid out at the time. The Territory of Iowa was created by an act of congress approved June 12, 1838.

Among the bills passed by the first legislature, which met during the winter of 1838 and 1839, was the following: "An Act to Organize the County of Linn, and establish the Seat of Justice thereof.

"Section 1. Be it enacted by the Council and House of Representatives of the Territory of Iowa, that the county of Linn be and the same is hereby organized from and after the 10th of June next, and the inhabitants of said county be entitled to all the rights and privileges to which, by law, the inhabitants of other organized counties of this Territory are entitled, and the said county shall be a part of the Third Judicial District, and the District Court shall be held at the seat of justice of said county, or such other place as may be provided until the seat of justice is established.

"Section 2. That Richard Knott, Lyman Dillon and Benjamin Nye be and they are hereby appointed Commissioners to locate the seat of justice in said county, and shall meet at the house of William Abbe, on the first Monday of March next, in said county, and shall proceed forthwith to examine and locate a suitable place for the seat of justice of said county, having particular reference to the convenience of the county and healthfulness of the location.

"Section 3. The Commissioners, or a majority of them, shall, within ten days after their meeting at the aforesaid place, make out and certify to the Governor of this Territory, under their hands and seals, a certificate containing a particular description of the situation of the location selected for the aforesaid county seat; and on the receipt of such certificate, the Governor shall issue his proclamation affirming and declaring the said location to be the seat of justice of said county of Linn.

"Section 4. The Commissioners aforesaid shall, before they enter upon their duties, severally take and subscribe an oath before some person legally authorized to administer the same, viz: I, ............, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I am not, either directly or indirectly, interested in the location of the seat of justice of Linn County, nor do I own any property in lands, or any claims, within the said county of Linn. So help me God. (Signed) A. B., etc.

"Section 5. If, at any time within one year thereafter, it shall be shown that the said Commissioners, or any of them, received any present, gratuity, fee or reward in any form other than that allowed by law, or before the expiration of six months after the Governor's proclamation, declaring the said seat of justice permanent, become interested in said town or any lands in its immediate vicinity, the Commissioner or Commissioners shall, upon conviction thereof by indictment in the District Court of the county in which he or they may reside, be guilty of a high misdemeanor, and be forever disqualified to vote at any election or to hold any office of trust or profit within this Territory.

"Section 6. The Commissioners aforesaid shall receive, upon making out their certificate of the location of the seat of justice of said county, each two dollars per day, and also three dollars for every twenty miles going and returning from their respective homes. Approved January 15, 1839."

Two of the Commissioners named in the act, Richard Knott and Benjamin Nye, accepted the trust, meeting at the house of William Abbe, two and one-half miles west of what is now Mount Vernon.

The Commissioners located the county seat in the middle of the county and named it "Marion," in honor of one of the Revolutionary generals. The Commissioners reported to the governor of the territory the completion of their work, and Governor Robert Lucas proclaimed the county of Linn duly established.

For election purposes Linn county was attached to Cedar, Johnson, and Jones, the first polling precinct being located at Westport, which had been laid out by Israel Mitchell with the expectation that this would be the county seat, Mr. Mitchell believing that the county seat should be located on the river, and that that location would be near enough the center for all practical purposes.

In October, 1838, the entire county composed one precinct, and thirty-two ballots were cast for candidates for the legislature. Charles Whittlesey was chosen for the senate and Robert G. Roberts for the house. The first county election was held in August, 1839, when three commissioners were selected at Westport--L. M. Strong, Peter McRoberts, and Samuel C. Stewart. This body had the same powers as was later conferred upon the county supervisors. This commission first sat as a body officially September 9, 1839, in the log house of James W. Willis. Hosea W. Gray was sheriff and acted as clerk of the court until a clerk was duly appointed.

The minutes state:

"The Board proceeded to the appointment of a Clerk. Thereupon it was ordered that John C. Berry be and is hereby appointed to the office of Clerk of the Board of Linn County Commissioners.

"Ordered. That the county seat of Linn County be and is hereby called and shall hereafter be known and designated by the name of Marion."

At this session W. H. Smith and Andrew J. McKean were appointed constables for the county. Jonas Martin was appointed road supervisor, his district embracing all the land east of Marion and west of Big creek and east on the Marion and Davenport roads crossing Big creek. "It was also authorized that as Linn County had no safe place for the keeping of criminals that Sheriff Gray contract with the Sheriff of Muscatine County for the keeping of one Samuel Clews, and that the Sheriff borrow funds to pay for the support and keeping of said Clews while in confinement."

It seems that the board met monthly and the county was divided into three voting precincts as follows: One at William Abbe's, known as Sugar Grove Precinct, with the following judges: William Abbe, John Cole, and John McAfferty; one at Marion, with James W. Bassett, Henry Thompson, and Rufus H. Lucore, judges; one at Michael Greene's, with Michael Greene, James Cummings, and Bartimeas McGonigle, judges.

At this time Ross McCloud was appointed county surveyor and was ordered to make the survey of the county seat and report, which he did, and also to lay out additions, which was done. A county jail was also ordered erected in January, 1840, and the contract for the building of the same was let to William Abbe and Asher Edgerton for the sum of $635.00; the first money raised by sale of lots in Marion was applied on the contract for the erection of the jail.

THE FIRST SURVEY

The first survey was made in 1838, being all of Jones county and townships 84, 85, and 86 north, in range 5, west, in Linn county. This was made public in the newspapers and many settlers came in, taking the best lands that had been surveyed and squatting on the other land which they knew would soon be open for settlement. Linn Grove was an ideal place, and here in an early day a large number settled. The sale of lands in the county was advertised to take place in January, 1840. On account of the difficulties of transportation, the settlers petitioned to have the same postponed until the summer of that year, which petition was granted. George Greene, who had been a school teacher near Ivanhoe and even at that time was a man of no ordinary ability, was asked to see what could be done in changing the place from Dubuque to Marion. Mr. Greene volunteered to go to Washington and lay the matter before congress, or the men in charge of the land department. After some time he succeeded in his mission and won the grateful respect of his fellow pioneers, saving them a great deal of money. Thus, for a time, Marion was a United States land office, and the people of Linn county who had little money to spend could claim their lands without much trouble.

THE FIRST COURT HOUSE IN THE COUNTY

The first court house built in the county was a log structure for the use of the pioneers. This structure was erected during the years 1840 and 1841. As there was no money in the county treasury and as the court house was needed, the settlers donated their labor. They cut the logs, hauled them to Marion, and constructed the building, the roof being of shakes and the floor of puncheons. Among those who helped erect this first seat of justice were James and John Hunter, the Stambaugh brothers, James and Elias Doty, and others. The first case, it is said, tried in this court house was one brought against James Doty for jumping a claim on the west side of the river, adjoining the claim of Robert Ellis, the question being whether or not a man erecting a bark building and claiming the land had complied with the law. The jury was impaneled and a trial had which lasted for some time. When the case went to the jury the judge and all vacated so that the jury could use the small room in arriving at a decision. The jury was out the afternoon and all night, and at ten o'clock the next morning they reported that they were unable to agree. During all this time they had had nothing to eat, and the water they had to drink was very poor. Upon this jury sat James Hunter, one of the first settlers of the county, who was the only stubborn one to hold out in favor of Doty. He used to tell later that he felt that he could never look James Doty in the face if he should consent to such a verdict as the other eleven had framed up against him. The case was tried at a subsequent term when the jury decided in favor of Doty, to the effect that while he was later than the claimant in making his claim he was a bona fide settler with the intention of becoming a permanent settler.

The next court house built in Marion was a frame structure still standing just west of the present brick building, and now used as a hotel. The present brick court house was erected by George W. Gray, the brick superstructure being built by Peter D. Harman, of Bertram, father of Warren Harman, of Cedar Rapids. Much of the carpenter work was done by that old pioneer, recently deceased, William Patterson, father of W. D. Patterson, of Cedar Rapids.

The first jail was erected in January, 1840, the contract for the building being awarded to William Abbe and Asher Edgerton for $635.00. The building was finished by May 1st of the same year. The first moneys raised by sale of lands were applied on this contract.

At the July session, 1849, the county was divided into three districts as follows: the townships of Washington and Fayette composed District No. 1; Franklin and Brown composed District No. 2; and Marion and Putnam District No. 3. At the July session, 1840, the board of commissioners began to discuss the question of township organizations. A vote of the county was ordered at the next election to determine the voice of the people; the election took place in August of that year and resulted in favor of the proposition.

Lists of townships are as follows: Marion, Franklin, Washington, Fayette, Putnam, and Brown established in 1841; Linn and Rapids, 1843; Otter Creek, 1844; Buffalo and Maine, 1848; Monroe, 1849; Spring Grove, 1853; Clinton, 1854; Jackson, 1855; College, Bertram, Boulder, and Fairfax, 1858; Grant, 1872; and Cedar, 1906.

THE JUDICIARY

The first records of the district court held in Linn county are dated Monday, October 26, 1840, Iowa Territory, Linn county. Pursuant to an act of the legislature of the territory, approved July, 1840, the district court of the United States and also for the Territory of Iowa met at Marion in said county on Monday, October 26, 1840. Present: The Hon. Jos. D. Williams, judge of the second judicial district for the territory; W. G. Woodward, district attorney of the United States for the district of Iowa; R. P. Lowe, prosecuting attorney for the second judicial district; H. W. Gray, sheriff of the county of Linn; S. H. Tryon, clerk of the district court; Lawrence Maloney for the marshal of the territory.

The following grand jurors were among the best known settlers: Aaron Usher, Samuel Ross, James Leverich, D. W. King, Israel Mitchell, W. H. Chambers, William Donahoo, Dan Curtis, W. T. Gilberts, G. A. Patterson, Isaac Butler, John Goudy, J. A. Gibson, Joe Barnett, Asher Edgerton, William Chambers, O. L. Bolling, Dan J. Doty, and Joseph Warford. As bailiff of the grand jury served Perry Oxley, one of the best known settlers.

The petit jurors were: D. A. Woodbridge, Isaac Carroll, G. W. Gray, B. McGonegal, John McCloud, Thomas Goudy, J. W. Willis, John Long, J. W. Margrove, Ira Simmons, John Crow, Joe Carroway, Steve Osborn, H. B. Mason, O. R. Gregory, John Nation, Thomas Maxwell, and George Yiesly.

One of the early cases of record is that of A. Moriarty vs. N. G. Niece. One of the early jury trials was that of H. C. Dill vs. John Barnett: one of the first criminal cases was that of Territory vs. W. K. Farnsworth, indicted for starting a prairie fire; the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty."

The probate docket is a very small volume but is filled with entries of much historical interest concerning the old citizens of the territory. Among a number of entries can be found the following: In the estate of A. Coles, claim filed and allowed November 8, 1842; in the estate of Thomas Gray, claims allowed in 1844; in the estate of J. Barnett, claims allowed in 1843 in favor of Israel Mitchell in the amount of $4.50; in the estate of John Crow, claims allowed 1842, as well as against the estate of Elias Doty, administered upon in 1843 by M. J. Doty and Jos. Crain, administrators. The estate of A. L. Ely takes up a number of pages.

The first default case seems to be listed for the October term, 1840, that of James D. Stockton vs. Stephen Osborn, et al, the claim being assigned by John O. Gray to plaintiff. The next case was that of Thomas W. Campbell and Perry Oxley vs. John Barnett, which was a transcript from J. G. Cole, a justice of the peace. R. P. Lowe acted as district attorney, while Isaac Butler was foreman of the grand jury.

The first entry made by a native of a foreign country to become a citizen of the United States was made by Peter Garron, stating that he was then a resident of Linn county and that he was formerly a subject of Scotland of the United Kingdom of England and Ireland, and that it was his intention to renounce allegiance to Queen Victoria and become a faithful citizen of the United States.

The first divorce action was brought by Dyer Usher against Mary Usher at the October term, 1842, but it seems that the notice of publication was not served as ordered and no decree was granted.

The first decree of divorce granted was that on the petition of Mrs. Parthena C. Hewitt vs. Abraham Hewitt, rendered at the March term, 1844.

CIRCUIT COURT

Pursuant to an act of the legislature of Iowa, approved April 3, 1868, the county of Linn became part of the second circuit of the eighth judicial district, the circuit consisting of Cedar, Linn, and Jones counties, Hon. S. Yates, of Cedar, being elected judge.

The first term was held at Marion January, 1869, when W. G. Thompson appeared as prosecuting attorney and A. J. McKean as clerk.

The legislature in a few years changed the boundaries of this circuit, making it composed of Cedar, Linn, Johnson, Jones, Iowa, Tama, and Benton counties. It was known as the eighth district of the circuit and district courts. John McKean was judge of the circuit court and John Shane, of Vinton, judge of the district court.

By an act of the legislature the circuit court was abolished and Linn county was incorporated into a district composed of Linn, Cedar, and Jones counties with three judges.

NOTED AND EXCITING TRIALS

Linn county has had its share of noted trials, and many are the pages which may be gleaned from its musty records to show how treachery, cowardice, and selfishness have here, as in many other places, played their parts. It is not best to uncover many of these pages, as it would perhaps add nothing to the general information or be of any value except as historical relics of a former age.

One of the first murder cases in the county, at least as far as known, was that of Nathan Carnagy who was brutally assaulted by James Reed in Marion in 1847. Reed had been drinking heavily and got into a quarrel with Carnagy about some old trouble. Reed was arrested, tried before a jury, and acquitted.

Another case was that of the killing of Pat O'Connell by Samuel Butler in 1865, the affair growing out of a dispute over some property interests. The parties met on a public highway, a quarrel ensued with disastrous results. The jury in this case also returned a verdict of "not guilty."

John Akers was murdered in a saloon in Cedar Rapids in 1864 by one Decklots; the jury returned a verdict of "guilty." This sad affair was due to liquor, both parties being more or less under its influence at the time the quarrel began.

There are a number of murder cases of an appalling nature on record; sometimes a conviction and sometimes an acquittal resulted.

On the civil side of the calendar can be found many cases attracting attention, sometimes on account of the charges made, at other times on account of the large amounts of money involved. In this forum magnificent addresses were heard, and no lawyer practicing at the Linn county bar was ever a miser of his eccentricities, whatever they might have been. Most of them had the thread of the attorney in their nature and took to oratory like a duck to water, and most of them in these early pioneer days went in to win the jury at all hazards, possessing the power to stir the heart and to make their personality felt.

THE ERA OF THE OUTLAW

Along the American frontier were always found the outlaws; sometimes they outnumbered the honest settler and sometimes not, depending more or less upon conditions. Outlaws preferred to hover on the frontier where courts of justice were unknown and where the sons of toil, busy with making a living, had no time to defend themselves against outlawry. Some of these outlaws had committed theft and robbery and were living upon this borderland of civilization, knowing that it would be perfectly safe under assumed names. Others came here for the special purpose, knowing it was easier to make a living by theft than by honest toil. Thus, the Linn county frontier at an early date was infested with this class of people, and for a number of years the rights of the people had to be protected by associations organized for this purpose, and made up of the best class in the community, until such a time as law and order could be enforced by decrees of court and by penitentiary sentences.

When the first white settler came into the Red Cedar valley there were only two counties fully organized west of the Mississippi, with the exception of the state of Missouri. These counties were Dubuque and Des Moines. They extended from a flag station at Fort Armstrong back into the country forty miles, and from the Missouri line to a line running westward from Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin. It was a large tract of country, and offered secure hiding places for law violators. In this wild country, along rivers where the timber was thick, hiding places for the outlaw were offered, and when settlers did come in the outlaw did not like to remove, and, consequently tormented the actual settler and frequently took by stealth or force such personal property as he wanted.

In the early day the country bordering on the Cedar river was flooded with counterfeiters, and it is stated that this counterfeit money was so well made that it was difficult to tell which was the good money and which the bad and, in fact, at times it seems that the good money was a scarce article. No one was able to tell where this counterfeit money came from, but it is supposed very little, if any, was made here but that it was imported from other places and distributed by "healers" on a percentage basis. While a cry was raised against counterfeit money, only the government could handle such cases and very little was done to start proceedings. Now and then the government attorney would bring a case or two, but as a rule the defendants were generally released by a jury, many of whom were friends of the parties accused.

It was not until horse stealing became prevalent that the people arose in arms against the outlaw and formed associations called "anti-horse thief" associations. It was a difficult thing at first to prosecute, as the gang was well organized and had a perfect system of stations, agents, signs, and signals. The members of these gangs which infested Cedar, Jones, and Linn counties in the early days dressed better than the honest farmer, were more charitable, and in the day time, at least, were looked upon as the most respectable persons in the community. They were shrewd and cunning in their business transactions, and hedged themselves in such a way as to escape detection and exposure for a long time. These "free booters" and plunderers would move from county to county and from community to community if things got a little hot and they feared exposure. In counties where they were in the majority they would intimidate and scare the actual settlers, even if these knew positively that depredations had been made. And frequently the honest settler who attacked and complained was forced to leave the country instead of the outlaw who had many friends who came to his rescue. Many a man who was known to make a complaint before a grand jury, to a prosecuting attorney, or judge would be trailed by a company of outlaws, threatening letters would be written against himself and members of his family, that his buildings would be destroyed by fire if he persisted in bringing suits or attempted to file an information of any kind against any members of the band.

A few of these men who were at least accused of being members of these various gangs of counterfeiters, horse thieves and other desperadoes may be mentioned.

Perhaps the most noted ones were the members of the Brodie gang, composed of John Brodie, and his four sons--John, Jr., Stephen, William, and Hugh--who came into Linn county in 1839 and were among the first settlers in this county. They were natives of Ohio. Some had lived in Michigan for a time, and before coming here had commenced their career of villainy. On account of some misdemeanor they were driven from Clear Ford on the Mohican river in what is now Ashland county, Ohio, in 1830 or 1831, and sought refuge for a time in Steuben county, Indiana. Here they remained for a couple of years when they became so notorious as to arouse the country against them, and they fled westward in about 1835 and found their way into what was known as the Rock river country, or Brodie's Grove, Dement township, Ogle county, Illinois. In this part of Illinois at this time the country was completely under the control of outlaws and desperadoes, and here the Brodies found congenial companionship.

Early in 1839 the Brodies gang were driven out by an organized society called the "regulators," composed of law abiding people who insisted upon law enforcement. They then drifted westward and located in Linn county. From this time on for a number of years there was scarcely a term of court but that one or more members of this family was arraigned for trial on some criminal charge or other.

Sam Leterel, Christian Gove, James Case, also known as Jim Stoutenberg, McConlogue, Squires, McBroom, and others were members of this gang. McConlogue resided for a time at Cedar Bluffs, later removing into Johnson county where Morse is now located. Stoutenberg resided at times with McConlogue and at times with Squires. A number of others associated with the gang and lived on the borders of Linn and adjoining counties and went by various names. Where they came from no one knew and they dropped out of sight if there was any danger of arrest and conviction.

In 1839 John Goudy and his son-in-law, Thomas McElheny, and a son settled in Linn county, and it was noised abroad that the family was very wealthy. To ascertain whether or not they had money, some time in April, 1840, a man by the name of Switzer was sent to visit the Goudys under the pretense of wanting to borrow money, the real object being to ascertain whether or not the parties kept money and whether or not he could obtain a pretended loan. The loan was declined for some reason or other, but it is supposed that Switzer learned enough in his talk with the Goudy family to know that they had money and there would be a chance to make a good haul. The gang went up along the Cedar river on the west side and crossed the river about where Goudy's home was. Here McConlogue had some conversation with a person who knew him. About midnight of a day in April the door of the Goudy cabin was forced open and the inmates awoke to find themselves surrounded by five burglars who threatened their lives if they did not give up their money. Old Mr. Goudy replied that he had but little money, only $40.00, and that they could find that in his vest pocket. The vest was searched and the money found. They insisted that he had more and demanded it. The old man persisted that it was every dollar he had, or that was about the house. The leader of the gang then ordered the house to be searched and directed the occupants of the beds to cover their heads at once. In the shuffle for places Mrs. McElheny, a daughter of Goudy, recognized Switzer, who had been there to borrow the money a few days before, and also another member of the gang who was well known by the family. In the search for money a purse containing $120.00 belonging to a daughter, Hannah, was found by the burglars. In an old leather belt used by Mr. Goudy there was also a $100.00 bill which the robbers overlooked or could not find in their hurry to search the house.

They became very angry at not finding any more money, having expected to find $9,000.00 which Mr. Goudy was reported to have had in the house at the time. The robbers on leaving the house cursed every member of the family, and seemed much put out at the haul they had made. Captain Thomas H. Goudy, a married son, lived near his father's cabin. He had been a captain of militia in Ohio and his uniform was hanging upon the wall. The robbers seeing this remarked "a military officer must be a rich man," and his money was demanded, but they received nothing, and after turning over everything in the house and finding only some provisions, they left Goudy and went to the cabin of William F. Gilbert, another prominent settler in the neighborhood, who was also supposed to have considerable money. On the night in question Gilbert had stopping with him three men, the mail carrier who operated a stage between Dubuque and Iowa City, and two others. In the Gilbert house, as in the other house, the cabin consisted of only one room with several beds, and on this night Mrs. Goudy and her children occupied one bed, the strangers another bed, while Goudy and the mail carrier slept on the floor by the fire. The entrance of the robbers was so sudden that before the occupants knew what was going on they were covered with guns and clubs, and their money was demanded. Goudy rallied to defend his home, and so did the mail carrier who slept near the door. Both men were knocked down and the cheek bone on one side of the mail carrier's face was smashed completely by a blow from a club wielded by one of the robbers.

The house was thoroughly searched and the drawer of a box which was supposed to be opened by a secret spring known to no one but members of the family was forced and a $50.00 bill and some $30.00 or $40.00 in change were found and taken. While all the older members were frightened Mr. Goudy's son, during the plundering, arose in bed and recognized a neighbor--one Goodrich, who lived but a half mile distant--as one of the robbers. This neighbor had up to this time been looked upon as a respectable man. It was he who opened the drawer as quickly as though he was one of the family. The robbers secured as their share of the booty this night about $240.00. A young daughter of Mr. Goudy, who remembered well that night, was later married to Judge John Shane, of Vinton, a well known jurist and a most excellent judge.

This wholesale robbery stirred the whole country, and Captain Thomas Goudy especially, being a military man, insisted that now it was high time for the people to arouse themselves and if the officers of the law refused to do anything then the settlers would take the law into their own hands and start something going. Thomas and his father went to J. W. Tallman at Antwerp and Colonel Prior Scott at Pioneer Grove for advice and counsel, and especially to apprehend one Wallace who was implicated in this robbery. Colonel Scott went among his people and organized a "mutual protective association," the settlers hunted up their rifles and shot guns, and the organization was ready to begin work. Wallace had fled, but pursuers were on his track and he was apprehended in Illinois City in Illinois, ten miles above Muscatine, by a citizen named Coleman and turned over to Thomas Goudy and his party. Coleman's reputation in the vicinity was not the best and he had been suspected of harboring outlaws, but it was stated on account of some difficulty in the division of spoils he and Wallace had had a falling out and hence Wallace's easy capture.

A warrant was taken out for the arrest of Switzer, and when Wallace was returned Switzer was also arrested and a preliminary examination was held before John G. Cole, one of the first justices of the peace in Linn county. Both of the parties were held to bail. Their cases came on for trial at Tipton at the October term, 1841, of the district court.

James W. Tallman, a resident of Antwerp, accompanied by several neighbors, started out to arrest Switzer, a large man and an ugly one. Switzer resided near Halderman's mill. At two o'clock in the morning a posse surrounded Switzer's home. He refused to open the door and they waited till daylight before he was taken in custody. Switzer's cabin was a perfect arsenal, there being guns, pistols, and ugly knives scattered all around.

Later James Stoutenberg, also known as Jim Case, was arrested at McConlogue's as an accomplice and member of the gang. He was taken into the woods near McConlogue's and examined in the court of "Judge Lynch" in order to obtain a confession from him, and he was finally tied to a tree and severely flogged. He was never seen alive again. Some assert that he left the country, and others that members of the party carried him to the Cedar river, tied him to a stone raft and left him to his fate.

McConlogue was also arrested as being a member of the gang in the robbery, but he established an alibi. Being satisfied that he was guilty of helping to plan the robbery, the pioneer settlers, duly aroused, tried him by rules not known in the ordinary law court. He was sentenced to be hanged, but finally it was agreed that this sentence should be changed to whipping, and that each one of the citizens should give him five lashes on the bare back, and if that failed to bring a confession as to the particulars of the robbery and the extent and names of the gang, then he should be whipped the second time until he died. Blows continued to fall upon his quivering and bleeding back until he implored for mercy and promised to reveal all he knew about the robbery and the operations of the "free booters." He admitted having knowledge of the Goudy robbery and that he received as his share of the booty $25.00. He also admitted that Wallace was the leader of the gang at this time and that Switzer was another member of the gang of five men who perpetrated the robbery. The members of the association after this confession let him go, but first applied a solution of salt on his lacerated flesh, followed by an application of slippery elm bark to remind him of the ordeal he had recently passed through, and which he never forgot. At this time McConlogue was under indictment in Johnson county for assaulting a man named Brown with intent to rob him; on this charge he was tried and sent to the penitentiary.

Goodrich, a neighbor of the Gilberts, who had taken part in the robbery and who had been recognized by the latter's son, was also horse whipped and gagged at the same time but he refused to answer any questions and denied having taken part in the robbery. Soon after this he removed from the county and was never heard of afterwards.

McConlogue's admission implicated McBroom, who had been known for some time previously as one of the brightest men of the gang, and who was also supposed to be a lawyer. He was also caught and whipped nearly to death near what is known as Scott's mill, without making any confession, but with threat that if anything more was heard of any attempted robbery of any kind by any member of the gang everyone, including himself, would be swung up to the first oak tree. It is needless to say that he immediately left the country and was never heard of again.

William Stretch, an old settler, many years afterwards made a trip down the Mississippi and there in one of the river cities, either New Orleans or Memphis, he met and recognized McBroom who had been so severely flogged on the banks of the Cedar river. McBroom claimed that he had lived an honest life since removing from the Cedar river and he begged Stretch not to say anything about it, at least in his new home. Stretch agreed to this, but investigated to ascertain whether or not McBroom had told the facts, and found that he was a respectable citizen, one of the leaders in that city, and had accumulated a fortune--between forty and fifty thousand dollars.

Another member of the gang, a cousin of the Brodie boys, and in many ways a bad fellow, was overtaken in Washington township, this county, while driving and there shot by a band of what was known as "regulators" or members of the "anti-horse thief association." Seventeen bullets had penetrated his body. Who had a hand in this act is not known, although the members are said to have belonged to some of the first families of the county. When Wilson was caught he was passing through the county with a team of stolen horses which had been brought from the eastern part of the state.

The trial of Switzer, who had been indicted for burglary in 1840, was transferred on a change of venue from Linn to Cedar county. It came up at the October term of the district court, Joseph Williams presiding. George McCoy was sheriff and William Knott was his deputy. The following named persons, all well known settlers, sat on this jury: C. Kline, William Morgan, Elias Epperson, Abe Kiser, Porter McKinstry, P. Wilkinson, J. S. Lewis, John Lewis, William Denny, W. H. Bolton, Peter Diltz, and Samuel Gilliland.

Considerable excitement prevailed at this trial. Switzer was represented by able counsel who put up a great defense. Mrs. McElheny and other members of the family unmistakably identified Switzer as the person who had been there before to borrow the money and who was one of the leaders on the night of the robbery. Switzer tried to prove an alibi, and had a number of people who swore that he had been at another place on the night of the robbery. It is said that the jury was out two days and two nights and during this deliberation Switzer tried to approach Knott by saying that he wanted help and that as soon as Knott found out the jury had found him guilty he asked him to give him some sign by taking a handkerchief out of his pocket. What he would have attempted then is not known. Knott refused, the jury disagreed, eleven standing for conviction and one for acquittal.

During the trial a large grey horse was hitched in front of the building used as a court house, for what purpose no one ever understood, nor did any one know who was the owner of the horse. Switzer had a number of friends who hung around the jury and around the court house during the trial. As the jury came out one of the jurors had a handkerchief protruding from the side pocket of his coat. Switzer recognized the signal. With the nimbleness and quickness of a bare back rider he jumped on to the horse and darted away like a cyclone. Knowing the proposition Switzer made to Knott there seems to be some reason to believe that this member of the jury had given Switzer the sign. When the jury reported they were unable to agree, Switzer's friends started out to find and convey to him the result, but could not find him until the day following, when they found him concealed among some of the timber along Sugar creek.

Another warrant was issued for his arrest, but there was some delay in serving this notice and in the meantime he made his escape. In 1852 William Knott was in California and there met Switzer at Carson river in Nevada territory and had a conversation with him. Switzer admitted that he had been in a very tight place when he was under arrest in Cedar county, and he asked Knott to convey his best wishes to the juror who had hung out in his favor. Mr. Knott ascertained that Switzer's morals had not changed any on account of his removal. In 1874 Judge John Shane and his wife visited California, and upon inquiry at Vallejo ascertained that Switzer lived in that vicinity, and although a very dissolute and reckless man and feared by all, he had accumulated a handsome fortune. He also discovered that the sons were following in the footsteps of their father, and that one of them was under indictment for having killed a man.

At the time of the Switzer arrest and trial for the Gilbert robbery a civil suit had also been brought against him for the recovery of the money and a judgment was obtained. Judge Shane consulted an attorney and tried to get a transcript of his judgment in order to collect the same, but for some reason the records could not be found and the judgment could not be transcripted. Switzer died in California in 1877.

One of Switzer's best friends and a hanger-on at the court, a desperado, surrounded by a number of fellows of the same type, was Christopher Burns. He carried revolvers and bowie knives and wore a gentleman's cloak of the old style thrown loosely about his shoulders. The sheriff, his deputy, and a number of men surrounding them also carried arms, and in case the jury had returned a verdict of "guilty" it was Burns's intention, no doubt, to rescue his friend and a bloody battle would have taken place. Burns left the country immediately and was shot by a neighbor in a quarrel on the upper Missouri river in 1845.

The whipping of McBroom, Case, and others, and the arrest of Switzer and his flight put a stop to these outrages, so from 1841 to 1855, while many suspicious persons still lived in the community, they were more guarded in their movements than before, and these desperate acts did not take place, although for many years after this a good horse was not always safe property to keep in the country.

EARLY SETTLEMENT

From History of Linn County, 1878

It seems that the first store was located at Westport where there was a barter trade carried on with Indians. W. H. Merritt ran a store at Ivanhoe in 1838, which was located on the government road. John Henry seems to have operated the store at Westport, but whether he bought this from Wilbert Stone is uncertain. It is stated that William, or Wilbert, Stone, sold his store or had one at Westport about 1837 where he did some trading with the Indians. He must have been there as early as 1837 because he sold out his interest to John Henry and removed further up to what became Cedar Rapids, and had been living there for some time when Robert Ellis found him on the west side of the river upon his arrival in May, 1838.

None of the land at that time had been surveyed, so all the rights the people had were known as "squatter" rights, which they sold as any other land, and which would give them the privilege of filing on it when the land would get into the market. Much of this land was handled that way. The southeastern and eastern part of the county were first settled, and then settlements were made along the Cedar river, which would be natural for the reason that people had to use the river more or less in keeping in communication with other places.

It would be impossible to give the names of all the early settlers for the reason that some only remained a short time and moved away again and the names of these have been lost. A few only can be mentioned to give the reader an idea of where and how certain towns were staked out and buildings commenced. The Linn county lands first came into the market in March, 1843, and not till then, did the settlers come in any large numbers. All were anxious to get free lands. The town sites were laid out as follows, though they were only squatter's rights: Westport in July, 1838, by Israel Mitchell; Columbus (Cedar Rapids), September, 1838, by William [or Wilbert] Stone; Ivanhoe, October, 1838, by Anson Cowles; while the town site of Cedar Rapids was laid out by N. B. Brown and others August 4, 1841. The first plat, however, recorded was by the father of Elias Doty. This was recorded after the land had come into market, when Westport was re-named Newark, and was filed November 12, 1844.

The tide of civilization gradually flowed westward from the Mississippi river. The regular chain of progress is clearly shown, and forms a portion of the history of Linn county. Young men pushed bravely ahead, claiming rights to unsurveyed lands, expecting in a short time a rise in values and big money in their holdings. Many of these men were single and never intended to make this, or any other community, their permanent home. All they wanted was to pick out the best claims, erect shacks, hold them down until men with families came, who had a little money and were willing to pay so as to get a home at once. Many of these young venturesome spirits frequently in six months or a year would pick up from $500.00 to a couple of thousand for a claim, depending somewhat upon the improvements made. At times these squatters would erect fairly good log houses and stables, and dig a well or two, and would also put in a little garden stuff--potatoes and the like--so as to keep the family partly, at least, over winter. Crops and all improvements would go with the bargain. Many of these men drifted farther westward and undoubtedly lived nearly all their lives on what might be known as the border land of civilization. They preferred this kind of life, and whenever a community was settled up it lost all interest for the original pioneer; he wanted and preferred to live among frontier ruffians; would fight if he had to, and would always defend himself against any intruder. These men enjoyed this kind of a life and thrived upon it, and all they cared for was a little money, good times, and the freedom they so much craved and which the frontier afforded.

"While it is true that those who located in this county in the years 1837 and 1838 came from the east, it is also certain that this section would not have been reached so early in this century had the lands immediately west of the Mississippi been unselected. It was, and still is, the desire of genuine pioneers to find a spot beyond the confines of civilization, no matter how crude the outlying stations may be."

The first settlement of whites in Iowa had been at Dubuque, where Dubuque and his followers worked the mines at that place. This at one time was a great center of attraction, but as the government restricted settlers from coming in, they were driven back until treaty arrangements were made with the Indians, who were the owners of the land upon which the mines were located. These men who first came as miners early saw the exceeding beauty and fertility of the Iowa lands, and thus news was spread among the people of the east before the Iowa lands were thrown open for settlement. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were by this time pretty much settled up, and so was Missouri and nearly all the land adjoining the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Thus it was that as soon as the word came from the government that part of Iowa was thrown open to settlement adventurous men and brave women soon began to cross the Mississippi and to settle in various parts of what was then so well known as the Black Hawk land. There were no roads in those days, not even trails, and consequently a person did not dare to venture out on the prairie, but he generally followed some stream so that he could find his way back to the starting place, at least.

Most of the people who came west to settle had no idea of where to locate or of the condition of the Iowa lands. They were bold, fearless, and determined, as well as resolute, and they pushed on until they found a locality which suited their fancy and here they pitched their tents and lived in their wagons until suitable log cabins were erected.

Prior to 1829 there was not even a ferry established at any regular point on which to cross the river into Iowa; even the miner, Dubuque, when he wanted to re-cross to the Illinois side had to borrow an Indian canoe. The familiar Du Bois, who came early into Illinois in Joe Davies county, trading with the Indians, had no other means of crossing the river than in Indian canoes. By the latter part of 1829 one John Barrel was commissioned to maintain a ferry at Rock Island, which at that time was within the confines of Joe Davies county, which extended for miles and miles along the river, like Dubuque county on the west side of the river. Col. George Davenport also obtained a permit to run a ferry from Davenport across the river, the ferry charges being fixed by the commissioners so that there could be no hold-up. The following charges were made, which must have been pretty high for the people of small means in those days:

Man and horse $25.00 Horses or cattle, per head, other than cattle yoke .37-1/2 Road wagon 1.00 For each horse hitched to said wagon .25 Each two-horse wagon .75 Each two-wheeled carriage or cart 1.00 One-horse wagon .75 Each hundred weight of mdse., etc. .06

To avoid paying this ferry charge a great many of the settlers started early in the spring and would cross the river on the ice and thus save this additional expense. William Abbe and his family, and many others who settled in Linn county, at least those who were familiar with the ferry charges, crossed on the ice.

George Davenport established a trading post as early as 1831 at the mouth of Rock creek, and another on the east side of Cedar river just above Rochester a short time later. Thus, gradually, there extended a system of small stores in the bayous, creeks, and rivers where trading was carried on mainly with the Indians. The settlers who came generally followed these trails and would be helped and advised where to go and where to find the best roads, and also as to whether or not the Indians in the immediate vicinity of the stores were hostile or friendly.

Block houses had also been erected near these frontier stores for protection in case of Indian outbreaks.

Another trading point was that of Rockingham which was laid out as early as 1835, and in the early forties considered one of the best villages in the territory. It was to this place the early settlers came up to 1841-42 to trade, as well as to Muscatine and Davenport.

The settlers who came late during the summer of 1838-39 were unfortunate in case they were unable to get enough hay for their stock, for the winters were very cold and there were no provisions or food to be purchased, and many a family along the Cedar river in Linn and Cedar counties during these years endured some severe trials. Money was scarce, provisions of all kinds high, and no trading posts nearer than those at Davenport, Muscatine, and Rockingham. It is said that Robert Ellis and Philip Hull came to William Abbe's on their way to Muscatine to get provisions in the fall of 1838. William Abbe gave them $15.00--all the money he had--and with tears in his eyes told them to buy what they could, for that he did not know what would become of his wife and children when that was gone, for it was all the money he had in the world. They were absent about two weeks, and brought back as much provisions as they could buy with what money they had, and by hunting during the winter they got along and helped William Abbe. In the forties William Abbe secured government contracts, and then became a well-to-do man. Robert Ellis was a partner with Abbe many times in supplying the outposts with provisions.

Many families during the latter thirties and the early forties experienced some hard times in Iowa. To make the situation and surroundings still more difficult the creeks and sloughs between the settlements were treacherous quagmires in which wagons going for or returning with provisions were sure to settle in up to the hubs, and when once in the mud there was no way to get them out except by unloading or by going to the nearest store for help, which would be many miles away. Sometimes the assistance of two or three additional yoke of oxen was secured to pull out the wagon.

The winters of 1837-38-39 and 40 began early, snow falling to the extent of a foot or two as early as the latter part of October, and it increased as the winter advanced. There was no thaw in January, and the settlers were completely shut in until about the middle of April. Then the snow all melted away and the streams were swollen so as to be impassable. Thus it was impossible to get to any place for food or for provisions until way into the summer. Consequently the settlers experienced many hardships, and much of the stock died from sheer starvation. As early as possible in the spring the settlers would unite and start off for Muscatine, Dubuque, or Rockingham for provisions, and on their return would help the needy settlers who had no opportunity to get away. Sometimes these journeys were undertaken on foot, when two or three would start off with knapsacks to get the necessary foods and medicines, and would return as soon as possible.

It is wonderful what the old settlers endured--how they walked a distance of 100 miles in less than two days. Robert Ellis walked from Michigan to Iowa; he walked to Dubuque, Muscatine, Davenport, and Burlington many times, while it is said of William Abbe that he walked easily 60 miles a day without being very much exhausted. Then, again, when roads were impassable for wheeled vehicles they would ride horseback, leading sometimes one horse to be used as a pack horse to bring back provisions.

To show with how much difficulty the early settlers toiled to get a foothold in Linn county, it might be well to state the story of the life of Edward M. Crow, who, as a young man, in 1837 came into the county to a place near where is now located Viola. He was only 21 years of age, and came west from Chicago, having previously come from Indiana. He stopped first in Illinois and having heard of Iowa, came here in search of cheap land. He was accompanied by James Dawson and James Gillilan, the latter owning a team of horses. They constructed ferry boats of their own on which to cross the river. The other two parties got tired and left. Crow later found Dawson in Illinois. They travelled over much of Iowa, back and forth, mostly on foot; sometimes together, sometimes setting out in different directions alone. Finally, both Dawson and Crow united in Jones county, staking out a claim in Linn county in July, 1837. Returning to Fox river, Illinois, again in quest of provisions, they did not come back to Linn county until in August of that year, when Ed and Garrison Crow and James Dawson began their settlement, erected a cabin and cut some hay for the winter. They were without food, and had to make another trip to the borders of civilization for provisions for the winter. The monotonous months of winter rolled by, Crow's party subsisting by hunting as best they could.

A number of settlers came into Brown township during the early years, such as Jacob Mann, David Mann, his brother, William P. Earle, Asa Farnsworth, and many others. John Crow, father of Ed Crow, John Lynn, O. Bennett, Charles Pickney, Benj. Simmons, Solomon Peckham, and Alexander Rhotan were emigrants who settled here in 1838. All those who came that year and have been definitely corroborated, or who were there as real settlers, were the following: Samuel C. Stewart, Peter McRoberts, John Afferty, William Abbe, Israel Mitchell, Will Gilbert, J. G. Cole, Hiram Thomas, Joseph Carraway, Jacob Leabo, John Henry, J. Wilbert Stone, Osgood Shepherd, wife, father and several children, Robert Ellis, O. S. Bolling, Mr. Ashmore, W. K. Farnsworth, Robert Osborn, Thomas Campbell, Perry Oxley, Will Vineyard, James Hunter, J. J. Gibson, Robert Deem, Michael Donahoo, William Chamberlain, Mr. Williams, Mr. Evans, J. B. Sargent, John Sargent, A. J. McKean, John Scott, H. W. Gray, S. H. Tryon, Anson Coles, Andrew Safely, Rev. Christian Troup, D. S. Hahn, Hiram Bales, Asher Edgerton, Peter Roland, John Stewart, J. E. Boyd, Philip Hull, John Young, Mr. Granger, L. H. Powell, John McCloud, Mr. Kemp, Listebarger brothers, and many others.

The Hoosier Grove settlement was made in 1838, being in Putnam township; Isaac and Abner Cox and John Holler, and several others, settled here that year.

During the year 1839 Otter Creek was settled by Stevens, Michael Greene, Bart McGonigle, Henry Nelson, William Chamberlain, Dr. J. Cummings, Will Sullivan and Perry Oliphant.

Dyer Usher and Joel Howard ferried people across the Mississippi near Muscatine in the summer of 1839. These men died near Covington a few years ago. Usher always claimed that he was on the site of Cedar Rapids as early as 1836 and located west of the river two years later. The young men could make no money in a new country, and while they took claims they frequently left for civilization to earn a little money. So it might have been that Usher was a bona fide resident of Linn county, while he could get no employment nearer than Muscatine.

A number of persons settled early around Cedar Rapids in the timber a few miles from town. William Knowles located on what is known as Mound Farm in 1839 and gave this up to the Brodie family, consisting of parents, five sons and three daughters. The names of the sons were Hugh, John, William, Steven, and Jesse. Rev George R. Carroll speaks of the family as having an unsavory reputation. The family removed further north when some of them at least were accused of being notorious horse thieves.

Joel Leverich next became the owner of Mound Farm, a person who had somewhat of a history in the early days of politics in the county. In 1843-44 this property was purchased by George Greene.

A number of people lived along the trail between Marion and Cedar Rapids. Among those well known not already mentioned may be named Ambrose Harlan, Dave Woodbridge, J. E. Bromwell, J. P. Glass, Rufus Lucore, John and Will Hunter, Thomas Hare, Will Willis, and many others.

* * * * *

We quote the following from directories and gazeteers published years ago. These statements may not be correct in some details, but the facts were obtained from some who were doubtless familiar with them.

Thus Wolfe in his Cedar Rapids and Kingston directory of 1869 speaks of John Mann, of Pine Grove, as the first settler in Linn county, he coming in 1838, and of the first marriage in the county as that of Sarah Haines to Richard Osborne, in 1839, and the first death as that of Mrs. Haines, an elderly lady who died from an accident in July, 1838.

He further speaks of the first store in Westport as that of Albert [should be John] Henry in 1838. It is thought that Stone also carried on some store or trade with the Indians before this. He speaks of the second store as being operated by W. H. Merritt in 1839. This should be 1838, as is seen from Merritt's letter to S. W. Durham, found in another portion of this volume.

The first claim of land in Cedar Rapids was made by William Stone, in 1838, who built a cabin on the banks of the river on Commercial street, now First street. Is this the Shepherd cabin, and was this so-called first tavern erected and occupied by Stone, who later was compelled to vacate it and give up his claim? Mr. Wolfe also speaks of the first saw and grist mill built by Brown in 1842, the second flour mill built by Alex Ely in 1845, and the first woolen factory erected by Brown in 1845. Miss Legare built a saw mill in 1851.

As late as 1869 Wolfe speaks of eight flour and saw mills being operated in and around Cedar Rapids. He speaks further of two woolen factories and the steam bakery of I. H. Shaver & Co., and of the Fish paper mill, manufacturing 300 tons of paper annually. The directory speaks of the American Express Company having an office here as early as 1859, with W. B. Mack as the first local agent.

The editor also mentions that the learned professions were represented by ten clergymen, thirteen doctors, and about fifteen lawyers.

He also mentions J. Bell's stage line running daily between Iowa City, Solon, Western, and Cedar Rapids, and also of a line to Vinton.

The following as seen by a traveller may be of interest. It is from A Glimpse of Iowa in 1846, by J. B. Newhall, Burlington, Iowa, W. D. Skillman, publisher, 1846:

"Linn county has become proverbial for the excellence of its soil, its salubrity of climate, abundance and admirable adaption of woodlands to the wants and convenience of the settler. The prairies are remarkably fertile, and of moderate extent; the timber equally and amply apportioned, generally of full growth, consisting, principally, of red and white oak, black and white walnut, linn, sugar, maple, etc. Linn county is famous for its extensive sugar orchards, from some of which 500 to 1,000 weight have been annually made. It is well watered by the Red Cedar and its tributaries, affording abundance of mill power, much of which is already improved.

"Marion, the seat of justice, is located near the center of the county, about four miles east of the Cedar, at the edge of a beautiful grove, on a gentle prairie roll. It contains several stores, a commodious hotel, postoffice, various mechanical establishments, and is a place of considerable importance."

The modern traveler speaks of broad meadows, of rich corn fields, and of large manufacturing interests. This traveler of sixty-five years ago speaks of timber which has disappeared and of maple sugar orchards which makes us wonder what they were like.

From Bailey & Hair's Iowa State Gazetteer, 1865, we gather these facts:

"The county of Linn is so named in honor of a distinguished senator of the United States, the Hon. Louis F. Linn, of Missouri. It is situated centrally in the eastern half of the state, and from fifty to sixty miles west of the Mississippi river.

"It was defined by act of the Territorial Legislature of Wisconsin, at its session of 1837 and '38; that Territory then including the whole of Iowa within its jurisdiction. The county limits were the same as they now remain, consisting of twenty Congressional townships, containing an area of 720 square miles. It is bounded on the north by Buchanan and Delaware counties, east by Jones and Cedar, south by Johnson and west by Benton. It is now divided into nineteen civil townships, as follows: Bertram, Boulder, Brown, Buffalo, Clinton, College, Fairfax, Franklin, Fayette, Jackson, Linn, Marion, Maine, Monroe, Otter Creek, Putnam, Rapids, Spring Grove, and Washington.

"The county was duly organized by the Board of County Commissioners at their first session held September 9th, 1839, at the farm house of Mr. James W. Willis, one-half mile north of the present town of Marion. The board consisted of Samuel C. Stewart, President, Peter McRoberts, and Luman M. Strong, Commissioners; Hosea W. Gray, Sheriff; and John C. Berry, Clerk.

"This Board also approved the selection of the county seat, which they ordered to be called Marion; divided the county into election and road districts; and appointed Andrew J. McKean and William H. Smith, Constables. Of the officers and persons above named, but two, Messrs. Gray and McKean, remain residents of the county, the latter being the present Clerk of the District Court.

* * * * *

"The first white settler in this county was John Mann, who erected his cabin on Upper Big Creek, in Linn Grove, in the month of February, A. D., 1838. He was an emigrant from the mountainous region of southwestern Pennsylvania. He was an honest, industrious, unlettered, rude sort of man. Subsequently he built a small flouring mill. A great flood in the spring of 1851 carried away his mill and himself together. The unfortunate man was drowned, and his body recovered only after several days had elapsed. The flood was unprecedented, and was thought to have been caused by a water spout. The Little Creek is said to have risen twenty feet in about as many minutes.

"The next permanent settler was John Crow, a North Carolinian, who made his home near the east line of the county on the Wapsipinicon river, in April, 1838. He was a very gentlemanly person, of more than ordinary intelligence, wealth and enterprise. He died about five years afterwards, much respected. His son, Edward Crow, Esq., now a member of the Board of Supervisors of this County, and other descendants remain. During the summer of 1838 the settlements gradually extended in the east part of the county. The only persons now recollected, of that early period, as remaining, are John Gibson, of Mount Vernon, and Andrew J. McKean, and Hosea W. Gray, of Marion. The first family west of Big Creek was that of Jacob Leabo, from Kentucky. The first west of Indian Creek was that of James W. Bassett, from Vermont. The first Justice of the Peace was John McAfferty, commissioned in 1838. The first Judge of Probate was Israel Mitchell, a Tennesseean, now residing in Oregon. The first Sheriff was Hosea W. Gray. The first Clerk of the District Court was Joseph Williams, a Pennsylvanian: now said to be in the military service at Memphis, Tennessee.

"The first officiating minister was the Rev. Christian Troup, a German Lutheran, who preached regularly in his own cabin near the mouth of Spring Creek every Sunday during the latter part of the summer of 1838. The first marriage was that of Richard Osborn and Sarah Haines, in the spring of 1839. The first birth was that of a daughter of Mrs. Samuel McCartney, in July, 1838. The first death was that of Mrs. Haines, an invalid elderly lady, who died from the effects of an accidental fall in July, 1838. The second was that of James Logan, an Irishman, who was killed by the caving in of a well which he was excavating in Marion, July, 1840.

"The first selected town site was called Westport, of which Israel Mitchell was proprietor. It was near the present site of the village of Bertram, and was selected in July, 1838. This was afterwards abandoned. The next in order of time, was called Columbus, built by William Stone, in September, 1838. He abandoned his town the next spring, there being only a single log cabin. The site was that occupied by the present city of Cedar Rapids. The next was Ivanhoe, by Anson Cowles, in October, 1838, since vacated. The fourth was Marion, the present county seat, in April, 1839.

"The first election was held at Westport in October, 1838, that being the only poll opened for the county. The only candidates were for members of the Assembly; thirty-two votes were cast. The first member of the General Assembly elected from this county was the Hon. George Greene, member of the Legislative Council, elected in 1840. The first store opened was at Westport, by Albert [John] Henry, in the fall of 1838. The second at Ivanhoe, in the spring of 1839, by Col. William H. Merritt.

"The first celebration was on the 4th of July, 1839, at Westport, Judge Mitchell, Orator. There was a dinner, toasts, and a ball, whereof William H. Smith, Andrew J. McKean and H. W. Gray, were managers.

"The fifth decennial census of the United States was taken in 1840, in this county, by H. W. Gray, Deputy Marshal. The population was 1,342. The influx of settlers for the next three years was quite rapid, during which time the population reached probably three thousand. The largest proportion of the emigration was of Southern origin. The early settlers were plain, honest, hospitable people, not much accustomed to legal restraints, and rather impatient of the slow process and technicalities of the law. As usual, in all new countries, they were annoyed by vagabonds, who flocked into the settlements, calculating on impunity in their depredations, on account of the inefficiency of the police regulations. A rude justice was not unfrequently meted out to offenders without recourse to legal forms, or the intervention of courts.

"In common with all frontier settlements, the first settlers here were poor; they were obliged to transport their produce in wagons mostly, to the Mississippi River, at points sixty or seventy miles distant. When reached at such disadvantage the markets were very low, consequently the accretions of wealth were slow, and were mainly invested in the homestead of the farmer. The discovery of gold in California with the resulting emigration, opened a good market for the farmers at home. Afterwards, eastern emigration, with the building of railroads, connecting the people with eastern markets, greatly accelerated the prosperity of this county as well as all other parts of the west. The financial crisis of 1857 interposed a check to this onward career of prosperity. It was but temporary, however, and the people had fully regained their former standing when the rebellion commenced.

"It is felt that a county which contributed one general, and fifteen field officers, with more than two thousand volunteers in defense of the Union, without draft or conscription, and without seriously lessening its productive energies, has an assured basis of future greatness and prosperity. A basis which nothing short of the entire upheaval and destruction of the foundations of human society shall be able to disturb."

In Guide, Gazetteer and Directory of the Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad, Dubuque, Bailey & Wolfe, 1868, we read of Cedar Rapids:

"The first settlement here was made in the year 1838 by William Stone, who erected a log cabin on the bank of the river in the rear of No. 1 North Commercial street. The same year Osgood Shepherd, a supposed leader of a band of outlaws, jumped Stone's claim and took possession of the cabin, and held it until the year 1841, when he sold three-fourths of his interest to N. B. Brown and George Greene, H. W. Gray, A. L. Roach, and S. H. Tryon, for the sum of $3,000.

"In 1842 he sold the remainder and soon after disappeared from the country. N. B. Brown came here in 1840, when Mr. Brown and Judge George Greene became proprietors of the water power.

"In 1841 the town was laid out and named from the rapids in the river. The first frame dwelling was erected by John Vardy and is still standing at 62 Brown street, corner of South Adams. The building known as the Old Postoffice Building, North Washington street, was built for a store by N. B. Brown, the same year. P. W. Earle's residence, 29 Iowa Avenue, was the first brick building, and was erected by Mr. Earle in 1849. Wm. Dwyer built the first hotel in 1847. This was destroyed by fire in January, 1865.

"The work of constructing a dam across the river, was commenced by N. B. Brown, July 4th, 1842, though much of the material had been prepared prior to that date. Mr. Brown commenced the erection of a saw mill, and also of a grist mill the same year, and both were completed the year following. A second saw mill was built in 1851.

"The second flouring mill was built by Alexander Ely in 1844-5. The first woolen factory was also built by N. B. Brown in 1847. In 1855 a city charter was obtained, and at the first charter election, Isaac N. Whittam was elected Mayor. Railroad communication with the Mississippi was opened in 1859, from which time the growth of the city in wealth and population has been rapid and constant.

"A superior water power has attracted a large interest in manufactures of various kinds. As early as 1840 one of the first settlers determined to apply his energies to the improvement of the water power, and soon after a dam was thrown across the river, a saw mill built, and other improvements followed, till now there are located here five flouring and custom mills, one saw mill, one paper mill, two woolen mills, and one fanning mill and separator manufactory."

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Chapter VII

William Abbe, the First Settler in the County

William Abbe, we believe, was the first white settler to locate a claim within the boundaries of Linn county. He came as early as the summer of 1836, from near Elyria, Lorain county, Ohio, seeking a location, coming via Rock Island. He followed the Red Cedar river as far as the present site of Mount Vernon, where he staked out a claim adjoining a little creek, which to this day goes by the name of "Abbe's Creek." He returned to his home in Ohio and in the winter of 1837 he again crossed the Mississippi with his family on the ice as early as February of that year, according to his daughter's statement, and in April reached the location he had selected the previous year on Abbe's creek. Here he erected one of the first cabins in the county, being about 12×14 feet square, and covered with birch bark, having no floor. In this little cabin the family lived all summer. In the fall he erected a large double log house with three large rooms and an upstairs which was reached by a ladder from within. On this creek the family lived for five years where Mr. Abbe owned four hundred acres. He disposed of this farm and removed a short distance south of Marion where he purchased another farm where he lived till he removed to Marion.

William Abbe was born in Connecticut April 19, 1800, being of English descent. When a young boy he removed to the state of New York. He was married to Olive Greene in 1824 and by her had four children: Lucy, Lois, Andrew, and Susan. Lois Abbe died young, Lucy Abbe died many years ago, Andrew Abbe passed away at San Juan, California, in 1902, and Susan Abbe-Shields now resides at Hollister, California.

William Abbe brought his wife and children to Linn county in 1837; his wife died in 1839 and was buried in a cemetery located near the farm on which he settled, about two miles northwest of Mount Vernon. He married a second time on September 13, 1840, his wife being Mary Wolcott, also from Ohio, and by her he had two sons, born at Marion: Augustus Wolcott Abbe and William Alden Abbe. William Alden Abbe died several years ago; his widow and one child, a daughter, reside in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Augustus Wolcott Abbe, an old soldier, resides in Toledo, Iowa, and has a family of eight children.

Mrs. Susan Shields was born in 1830 and was about seven years of age when she came to Linn county. She was married to John Harman March 16, 1848, who died shortly afterwards, and she later married John Shields, a resident of Vinton, Iowa. In an interesting letter on early Linn county days she writes as follows:

"There were no white people for a long time after we landed in Linn county; when they did come my mother used to let them come and stay there until they would find a place to suit them; it was always a free home for the immigrants. When we first went there I was but a child seven years old. The men I remember most were Robert Ellis, one of our first acquaintances, and Asher Edgerton, the former being with us a long time when the country was new. Of course we had men come in, such as horse thieves, and my father had some of them chained up in one of our rooms for safe keeping until they could be tried, as there was no jail for some time in Linn county.

"I went with my father to Marion, a little place then with one or two houses and a jail. We carried an iron trap door for the jail; it was in two rooms, one upstairs and one downstairs. There were two men in the dungeon at the time; we took the door for this jail. My father was a justice of the peace for awhile; he was also a member of the state legislature when the capital was located at Iowa City. Later father sold our place on Abbe's Creek and purchased another on the old Marion road, of about three hundred acres, further north; there was a lovely creek, a grove of maple trees was on one side and a boundless prairie on the other side. The Indians used to come in the spring of the year to camp and make sugar; I have seen as many as five or six hundred at a time camped near our house in the timber; they always made it a camping ground at our place and they seemed to be very fond of my father, who was kind to them and who spoke and understood the Winnebago language.

"I remember well the first time I went to Cedar Rapids with my father; this was in the early '40s; there were five hundred Winnebago Indians camped there at the time. I had played with the Indians so much that I could talk the Indian language as well as themselves, so they had me to talk for them. There were only one or two white settlers there at the time. By the way, I was the first school teacher they had in Cedar Rapids; I think it was about in 1846; I still have the certificate issued to me by Alexander Ely, who was superintendent at the time. After residing on this place a short time my father disposed of his farm and removed to Marion; he also lived for some time at Dubuque where he held a government position in the Land Office, I think. The breaking out of the gold fever in 1849 caused him to get excited and he left for California, leaving the family at Marion.

"My father was a born pioneer; although born in Connecticut he went to New York when the country was new, and then to Ohio, and later came to Iowa. In California he never mined gold, but teamed and speculated; he was there about two years, returning to Iowa in 1851, remaining in Iowa only a short time when he returned to California with his son, Andrew. My father died in Sacramento, California, February 15, 1854, when about to go to Iowa to bring his family to California, and he is buried in Sacramento."

This interesting letter from a real Linn county pioneer more than seventy years of age gives only an idea of the hardships of pioneer life, and what this woman has endured as a daughter and wife of the first settlers.

William Abbe's widow, Mary Wolcott, continued to reside in Marion with her family until August 27, 1861, when she died, universally respected by all who knew her.

Mr. Abbe was an old time democrat and as such was in the state senate session, having the honor to appoint Robert Ellis postmaster of the senate, as a reward of friendship and good will. Mr. Abbe also was a justice of the peace for some time, was appointed commissioner to locate state roads, had the contract for the erection of the first jail at Marion, and was otherwise a very useful citizen. He was also master of the first Masonic lodge at Marion, and one of the best known and best educated men in Linn county up to the time of his removal to California. For a number of years Mr. Abbe was the only person in the county having ready money, loaning the same to his friends for the purchase of their claims. He held government contracts for the delivery of meat and provisions to the Winnebago agency at Fort Atkinson and to the troops at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and at other places, and thus was acquainted with many of the military officers in the Black Hawk war and with the Indian chiefs and braves of the Winnebago tribe, as well as the Sac and Fox Indians. It is said that William Abbe conversed freely with the Winnebago Indians, and frequently acted as an interpreter when matters of importance came up between members of the tribe and the white settlers; he was always a friend and protector of the Indians and frequently helped them in securing their just rights when they had been robbed by the white free-booters, hunters and trappers.

William Abbe was a kind and generous man, and his home was always open to the people who came into Linn county at an early day to seek homes. It is also said that Mrs. Abbe was an excellent cook and many of the old surveyors would ride several miles out of their way to get a meal at the Abbe homestead, for the latch string of the Abbe home was always out.

Mr. Abbe rode horseback a great deal and would be gone for weeks at a time, and while he was away the family lived quietly at home awaiting for days for his return when provisions were frequently scarce and when the snow drifts generally were large. During the first two seasons there were very few crops grown, and consequently the father was kept busy earning a livelihood, the family subsisting mostly on the chase. He traded provisions with the Indians, at times bringing home large quantities of honey which was used as sugar in sweetening black coffee as well as in place of butter on the hard johnny cake.

His son, Augustus Abbe, born on Abbe's creek in 1841, later a member of the 9th Iowa Infantry, now a retired farmer residing at Toledo, Iowa, tells the following of his father's life and history:

"There was not a time in my life when I do not remember the Indian children. I played with them constantly. Those were my only playmates in the early days. I learned a little of the Winnebago language, and got along very well. My half sister, Susan, spoke it fluently, as well as my father. I remember when I was about five or six years old a number of Indians were gathered in our house and I climbed a post, sitting on the same to watch the redskins race their horses. One of the chiefs, one that had the most gaudy clothing on, rode by very fast and picked me off the post and put me in front on his saddle, going at full gallop; he rode a long ways down through the prairie and my mother expressed much anxiety, but my father came out and stood there and watched for me to return. After awhile the Indian came back and put me safely down in front of the house, to my mother's joy--I, all the time laughing, thinking that I had had a good time. The Indian said to my father, 'papoose no 'fraid.' That pony ride I shall remember as long as I live.

"I also remember my father going away for two or three weeks at a time, and my mother fixing up his lunch for the journey. He had a pair of saddle bags filled with papers and other articles. I still remember when he put on moccasins, overshoes, and a buffalo overcoat of some kind; he would bundle up securely, kiss us good-bye and start off across the prairie at full speed. Many a time I cried, as I wanted to go along, but on these long journeys I was refused this pleasure for my father would not neglect business even for the sake of pleasing his son whom he loved dearly.

"I also remember Robert Ellis, the Ashertons, Willitts, Clarks, and many others who came to our house and talked way into the night about trips they had taken over the wide prairies of Iowa. Our cabin was full of people most of the time; they would come in late in the night and in the morning, much to my surprise, I would find a number of people at breakfast, I not knowing when they came during the night. I never knew or heard of my mother making any charge for keeping anyone over night, whether they were strangers or acquaintances, whether they were poor or rich made no difference; whatever she had she would divide with a traveller or other stranger who came to her hospitable home.

"I do not know that my mother understood much of the Indian language, but she was kind to them and the squaws used to sit on our door steps more than once. She gave them food that she had prepared, sweetened with honey which they liked very much.

"I remember going to Marion with my father many times when it was a very small village with a jail which my father always pointed out as having built. He also taught me that I must do right or else I might have to stay in that jail or some other jail if I did not. These lessons were certainly deeply impressed on me for life. I remember, also, when we removed from Marion to Dubuque. I think that was in 1847, and we remained there for some time, but I think less than a year, when we removed back to Marion. My father held a government position there in the land office, I think.

"My two uncles, Charles and Eliezar Abbe, resided in Ohio, one later removing to Michigan. The latter visited my father frequently. He was related, also, on his wife's side, to Ed Clark, an early settler in Linn county. These men were much taken up with the country and we had hoped that they would come here to locate, but they did not.

"I also, with my father, visited Cedar Rapids many times, and I do not believe I was more than five or six years of age, hardly that, when I first saw Cedar Rapids, where I was much interested in the dam and the mills. The town then consisted of a few log houses along the east bank of the river. The remainder of the town was a mass of sand burrs, weeds, and timber, and along Cedar Lake and along the river large numbers of Indians were camped, especially up along the Cedar Lake and along what is now known as McCloud's Springs. In this locality several hundred Indians would camp in the winter and spring of the year, trapping, hunting, and trading skins with the whites for red clothing, guns, and ammunition. They would hang around the flour mills during the day time where there were always a lot of people gathered.

"My mother was a member of the Lutheran church, which church she now and then attended, but there were not many churches in that day. My father was not a church member.

"I remember my sister, Susan, teaching one of the first schools in Cedar Rapids, much to the satisfaction of the members of our family. In politics my father was a stanch democrat and an admirer of Andrew Jackson. He also became acquainted with most of the officers who remained in the west after the close of the Black Hawk war, on account of his government employment in which he was engaged. He was also personally acquainted with the persons who had charge of the Winnebago school, as well as those in charge of Fort Atkinson. Nearly all the people who rode horseback from Iowa City to Dubuque came by way of Mount Vernon, and would generally stop over night at our home. I remember my father and the strangers talking over politics until way into the night, and still remember many of these discussions as to the future of Iowa and as to the political aspirations of the various parties. My father took a lively interest in politics, as well as in the development of the west, and when it was settled up he had a longing for starting another pioneer settlement. He used to say when the land was pretty much taken that it was too close, he had to get away, as he wanted more room. By training and environment he was a true pioneer and full of enthusiasm for the upbuilding of a pioneer country.

"When he was away in California we were much interested in his letters and we all wanted to go. When our father returned we asked him all sorts of questions about the gold camps of the west, and what he had experienced, and we spent whole evenings listening to his conversations. He did not take us at that time, but wanted to seek out an ideal location and get settled before he took us out there. But the day never came, and we never saw him again when he left on his second trip to California in 1852. All that we knew was that my mother received a letter from a Masonic order in Sacramento that the order had taken care of him in his sickness and had seen that he received a suitable burial. He was sick only a short time and none of his old friends was with him when he died. Robert Ellis came to Sacramento looking for his old neighbor and heard to his sorrow that his friend had died only a week before. He came into Sacramento from the camps on the American river.

"After my father's death my mother resided in Marion with her family where she died August 27, 1861, at the age of fifty-eight years. As I felt downhearted at the time I joined the army and went to the front. November 29, 1865, I was joined in marriage to Cynthia Walker, daughter of an old Linn county pioneer.

"My father was also sheriff of Linn county. However, of this there does not seem to be any record, as I have been informed. He may have been appointed sheriff to fill a vacancy, or he may have been a deputy, I am not certain about that, but I know he was acting, at least, in the capacity of sheriff and caused the arrest of a number of horse thieves and other alleged criminals. My father was over six feet tall, straight as an arrow, rather slender, but very active, and I never saw a horse that he could not mount and ride at any time without the least effort.

"We used cattle for plowing, but generally kept also several horses, but these were used to drive and ride and not to work very much.

"I believe that among the early settlers of the '30s and '40s my father had the good will of all law-abiding citizens. He was affable to strangers and true as steel to his friends, and was universally respected."

William Abbe will be remembered as one of the most prominent of his day and generation in Linn county, for his kindness, his uprightness, his never wavering from the path of right. Whether amid the influences of the home circle or surrounded by the temptations of the mining camp, he was always the same sturdy, upright citizen, wanting to do right and helping his fellow men who were more unfortunate than himself.

One of his old and true friends, speaking of his long deceased friend, expressed words of deepest feeling which can be only expressed in the well known stanzas:

"Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days, None knew thee but to love thee, None named thee but to praise."

While a great many are now of the opinion that William Abbe was the first actual settler within the confines of Linn county, a number are still of the opinion that Daniel Seward Hahn was the first settler. He came here, accompanied by his wife, Parmelia Epperson Hahn. John J. Daniels, an old settler in Linn county, and a son of Jeremiah Daniels, who came to Linn county in 1844, was pretty good authority on the subject of the early settlers. In a number of conversations had with him on this subject and from what he wrote for the Annals of Iowa, Vol. VI, p. 581, and for the Iowa Atlas, 1907, it is gathered that he was of the opinion that Daniel Hahn was the first actual settler, at least the members of the Hahn family, of whom there are a number still living in Linn and adjoining counties, claim that their ancestor, Daniel Hahn, should be awarded the honor. In the Annals of Iowa Mr. Daniels has the following:

"Daniel Hahn and his brother-in-law, Charles Moberly, came to Linn county in the spring of 1837, made a claim and built a cabin upon it, did some breaking, and in August removed with wife and five children from Mercer county, Illinois. At this time there was no house in Linn county to his knowledge."

This, Mr. Daniels says, was the statement made to him and others in the lifetime of Daniel Hahn.

This may be true, that in the early day very little, if any, social intercourse was had among the early settlers and no one paid any attention to time or place, and it might be that Mr. Abbe, Mr. Hahn, and Mr. Crow might have settled at the same time, one never having known that the others had located here.

Quoting from Mr. Daniels's articles, the following might be stated:

"Edward M. Crow came to the county in July, 1837, in company with his brother, locating near Viola where they made a claim and erected a shanty; they remained there only a few days, returning to Fox river to obtain provisions, having decided to locate in the county. In the latter part of August Edward Crow and his brother and James Dawson began to work on their new possessions; about this time there came also two other pioneers by the name of Joslyn and Russell; they remained in the crude cabin during the winter and their time was spent mostly in hunting, tanning pelts and trading with the Indians. Their cabin was erected at the edge of what was known as the 'Big Woods' in Brown township."

Thus it would seem that William Abbe in point of time was the first actual white settler to locate a claim and later to settle on this claim with his family, within the confines of Linn county. True, hunters and trappers may have been here earlier, but no actual bona fide settler, as far as we have been able to ascertain. The testimony of Mrs. Susan Shields, a daughter still living, would seem to suffice as to the time when the great river was crossed and as to the time the family came to Linn county.

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