Proud Mahaska. 1843-1900 ...

Front matter

Ohap..r.(?::;_|. copyright No._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

i\i^

Chapter I

The minds of children and young" people generally are so much taken up with the present that they are not greatly interested in things that happened and the people who lived long ago. Mahaska county's boys and girls are no exception to the rule. But to some of them a time will come when they will have become mature men and women, and will have lain off childish things and childish thoughts. Now when they hear old people tell of their early experiences it sounds old fogyish and uninteresting; they wonder why father and grandfather and other old folks want to be forever talking about living in log cabins and breaking prairie, old looms and spinning wheels; but where is the man or woman forty or fifty years old who would not sieze with delight and read with intense interest any true account of their ancestors, especially if they were good people? How they would like to know what kind of looking people their great grandfathers and their great grandmothers were, what their habits were, how they lived, how they got married and how they buried their dead.

Every school boy and girl has heard much of the early life,' habits, struggles and ])rivations of Lincoln and Garfield and others who have risen to great eminence, but know nothing of their own grandfathers and grandmothers. Many a good honest man or woman "who could not find it in their nature to do a mean or dishonorable thing, never think of how much they ought to thank the Lord that they sprang from God-fearing, honest, honorable and industrious ancestors. Perhaps Timothy had never thought of his indebtedness to his grandmother, Lois, and his mother, Eunice, for the gifts within him until Paul called his attention to it. Solomon said: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will npt depart from it." They often depart from their parents' training when they are young, they sow wild oats, but after a while they find the crop not profitable; they begin to be dissatisfied; in fact, they have been dissatisfied all along, so when they find themselves growing old they begin to look back, to admire, and finally fall into the faith and habits of their old fathers and mothers.

I once knew a young man whose parents were honest, industrious farmers — not rich, but well-to-do. They were old-fashioned Methodists. This young man, when about twenty, left home and went west to make a fortune. He was energetic and shrewd, and from a hired laborer he rose to a great contractor, made much money and sent many handsome presents to his parents and sisters. On one of his visits home, after being absent many years, he called to see me. He was a fine, gentlemanly-looking man, with the manners of one who had seen much of the world. I was rejoiced to see him, and after telling- him how glad I was to see him and how well he looked, 1 said: "Now^ David, tell me about some of your experiences and some of the sig'hts you have seen." "Well," he began, "I have made and lost several fortunes, have been from Alaska to Terra Del Fuego, have seen nearly every principal city on the continent of America, have been among- the coffee plantations of Brazil and the sugar plantations of Cuba. I have been associated with every kind of people in the western world; have been in all climates, have wandered throug-h orange groves and vast vineyards of California. Well, it's not worth while to try to tell of half I have seen and experienced. But whether among the great cities or vast plantations of the western continent, my thoughts ever and anon, would dart back to the humble, peaceful, unpretentious Christian home away back in Iowa, where I knew my old father and mother, brothers and sisters, morning and night gathered around the family altar and with simple faith asked God to give them their daily bread and watch over the wandering one so far away; and now, after wandering up and down, and seeing so much of the world, I have come to the conclusion that much of it is vanity and vexation of spirit, and I would have been happier if I had have settled down in Iowa and lived more like my parents have lived. In my intercourse with men and affairs I have learned much which I would not have obliterated from my mind,

''I love to think of the oceans, islands, valleys and mountains which delight the vision. The luxuriant tropical foliage and flowers are pleasant to remember, but nothing now gives me the pleasure that the thought does that I sprang from and had the example of honest, honorable, Christian parents. I have had in my employ hundreds of men, have dug down hills and filled up valleys, have tunneled through mountains and spanned chasms, have had conflicts without and conflicts within, but amidst it all I never quite lost my faith in God and the religion of my old father and mother. These thoughts come to us when we begin to discover that time is fleeting and we are nearing the place where we will begin to go down the hill of life.'"

Some one has said that "forty is the old age of youth and forty is the youth of old age."

I remember a time when every man or woman I knew was older than myself; now nearly every mau and woman I know are younger than myself, (^nly here and there a feeble, bent and white-haired man or woman who have seen the snows of more winters or the waving corn and green meadows of more summers than I have.

I have seen a time when I thought a person old at forty. I have lived to see the time when men and women who are not beyond forty seem hardly to have arrived at mature manhood or womanhood.

Three score and eleven years seem a time late in life to undertake the task of writing for the perusal of the present generation my recollections of the early settling of Mahaska County, and their ancestors w^ho were the early settlers, but that is what I propose to do if the Lord spares my life and mental faculties.

Many of my friends and acquaintances seem to think that I have a clearer recollection of the early days and

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events than some others who have been here quite as long-, and have urg"ed me to write, until I have finally "screwed my courag'e up to the sticking" place."

So many thing's come looming" up in my mind I can hardly decide on what to tell first. x\way back in the forties and early fifties I knew nearly every man, woman and child in and around Oskaloosa. A few of them are left here and there, but only a few, and if I don't tell the story of the times when everybody lived in log" cabins, who will?

Oskaloosa has grown to be a considerable city, but there is another considerable city not far away, a silent city, many of whose inhabitants are the men and w^omen who with honest purpose, courag'e and pluck helped to make this g"rand and glorious country what it is to-day. Here and there a block of g'ranite or a marble slab have carved in them a few- letters and fig"ures, telling" their names, when they were born and when they died. Some haven't even that — only a little mound overg"rown with g"rass. I wish I could tell to this g"eneration the heroism, hardships and self-denial endured by many of the inhabitants of that silent city. As I drive about the streets of that city I seem to be living" in the past. The friends of my youth are lying on every hand. I stop and make them a little visit, and think of the times we laughed and talked and ate and sometimes wept tog"ether.

I dislike very much to have the pronoun ''I" appear so often in my story, but don't know how to avoid it and tell my story at all. I am mixed up with mucli of it in one way or another, and in telling of other people's affairs I must of necessity tell some of my own. The capital "I'' business has been worrying me ever since I began to think seriously of writing this story. I have tried to think of some way to tell my recollections of the people and unwritten events of the early days without using the obnoxious "I,'" but have not succeeded. So I have given it up, and concluded to let the "I's" come in wherever they seem to be needed. My object is to tell a true story of the early days and make things as plain as I can. I have great respect and admiration for the people who first settled this wilderness. When I think of the character of those early settlers I feel that they were chosen of the Lord to lay the foundation of things in this goodly land.

The greater number of the earliest settlers of Mahaska County were from Ohio and Indiana; some were from Illinois, a few from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky iind Tennessee. Ohio furnished the greater number. The Ohio people are proud of their native State, and with good reason. Some of the best people I ever knew are from Ohio. Virginia is called the "mother of presidents,'' but the way things look now they will soon be calling Ohio ''the mother of presidents."

The old Hoosier State is not very far behind in brains and good citizenship, though I can remember a time when Indiana was the subject of many jokes and uncomplimentary remarks. But since Morton was governor and the Hoosiers acquitted themselves so honorably in the civil war, and General Lew Wallace wrote "Ben Hur," and James Whitcomb Riley has cliarmed the Englishspeaking world with the incomparable products of his brain and pen, Indiana has gone several steps higher on the social ladder. Indiana never did deserve the scoffs and sneers and unkind epithets which used to be heaped upon her. ''Posey County'"' was a by-word much used by persons who were altogether ignorant of the beauty of its scenery, richness of its soil, and the grand old hero for whom the county was named. But that is the way of the world. States, like people, are sometimes thought to be of little account until they by accident or otherwise perform some heroic deed. Many a wordy battle have I had with those scoffers, trying to defend my native State. My first recollections are of the little gravelly creeks, springs of clear, delicious cold water rushing out of hillsides and forming little brooks and tiny waterfalls, then meandering away off" through meadows or woods, and finally losing themselves in the greater creek.

The great tall poplars, sugar trees and beech, and the paw-paw bushes growing along its banks; the old log school-house where I first went to school when I was only three years old. I can shut my eyes and see the old Webster spelling-book with its pictures of the boy in the apple tree and the milk maid and her pail of milk, spilled and running all over the ground. Iowa is a grand State, with charming" kuidscapes and many other splendid qualities, but where is the man or woman living in Iowa whose childhood and youth were spent in Indiana or Ohio, who does not sometimes long for the sugar-making times in the spring, and the gorgeous red and yellow foliage of the sugar trees in October? I don't suppose they would thank me for my sympathy, but I sometimes feel a X'eal pity for the boys and girls who have never known the supreme delight of gathering around a kettle of sugar oiit in a camp when it is just ready to "stir ott'," armed with a tin cup of cold water and a paddle. We didn't mind mud and slush and wet feet, which always went along with sugar-making.

Indiana was new in my childhood, but not too new to have big apple trees and peach trees and pear trees. Every farmer had an orchard, but if they had a big crop of fruit there was no market for it worth naming unless they dried their fruit. What a splendid time the young people used to have at apple cuttings and apple butter boilings. No well-regulated family was without their barrel of apple butter. Ai^ple butter was made by boiling down cider made of sweet apples to about one-third of the original quantity, then peeling and quartering and coring great mellow rambos and pippins, then putting them in that condensed cider, which was kept boiling continuously until the mass was done. The apples could not all be put in at once, but had to be added at intervals and stirred every moment from first to last. If the stirring was neglected for ever so short a time it was sure to stick to the bottom of the big copper kettle and burn. Some of those kettles held fifty gallons. It was considered a great calamity to have one burned, for they cost an immense sum. I knew an old Pennsylvania German who was the envied possessor of one of those great kettles. He was a kind neighbor and would lend it all around, but always with the injunction, ''be sure and not let the butter stick.'' An apple butter stirrer always went with the kettle. This stirrer consisted of a handle many feet long, with a board with many big auger holes in it, firmly fixed at one end in an upright position and long" enoug"h to reach from the top to the bottom of the kettle. By this means the persons operating it could stand several feet away from the fire and smoke.

Usually at these "functions" a boy and girl would take hold of that long handle and stir together, and when one couple would stir awhile another couple would relieve them. What an opportunity that w^as for we boys and girls to talk ''nothings.'''' We talked as learnedly as we knew how about the last spelling school, who was the best speller, and who was g(^ing to "choose up" at the next one. I mean the boys and girls of my age, from twelve to fifteen, were the ones most interested in spelling schools. There was a set a little older who, perhaps were engaged in more serious conversation.

I attended a country school once whose teacher was a young man who enjoyed spelling schools as much as any of us; he allowed us to choose up and spell every Friday afternoon. The boys played ball every day during the noon recess; they chose up to play ball as well as to spell. There was a big, good-natured boy in that school whose name was Jordan Pike. Jordan was always first choice in the ball game, but in spelling school was alwavs last.

Chapter II

The time I am writing- about was in the early forties. The country had not recovered from the financial crash of thirty-seven. Many families who had been accustomed to the comforts of life were reduced to poverty. Merchants were frequently sold out by the sheriff, and many distressing things happened. I was too young" and full of hope and bu(^yant spirits to comprehend or be much worried over the state things were in, and another reason was, I had never been used to anything like affluence. But I had, what I think now was better than wealth — I had health and energy and an intense desire to be educated. I had great reverence for scholars and people who knew things. I was not afraid of anything but disgrace. My people were of Quaker stock who believed in justice. In my childhood I was taught that nothing- was disgraceful but actual meanness in one's self. Opportunities for acquiring an education were ]ioor, especially for poor people, though the poor were not very poor nor the rich very rich in Indiana fifty-seven years ago. The rich could send their daughters away off to boarding-school, but the poor had to do as best they could. I never had the benefit of a public or free school. Not many years after the time of which I am writing" many of the young people I used to know in Indiana were sent to Earlham, but when I left they were just talking about building Friends' Boarding School, which was afterward called Earlham. But now from Maine to California and from the great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico can be found persons who at some time in their lives have been students at Earlham.

In 1839 the citizens of the little town not far from where I lived built what was thought to be a very im^")osing structure — brick and two stories high. It was adorned with a portico with immense doric columns reaching from floor to roof. The first story was used as town hall and public assembly room, for almost any kind of meeting — literary, political or religious. The upper story was one great big school-room; this edifice was called a "Seminary." As soon as the Seminary was completed a gentleman by the name of Samuel K. Hoshour opened a school in that upper room. Mr. Hoshour's fame as a teacher had reached our ears before he came. He taught all branches usually taught in that day, and many which were not usually taught in that region. His teaching ranged from the Third Reader to Higher Mathematics, Latin, Greek, French and German. I never heard any one say that he was not master of all. I was wild to go to that school. I lived a little too far away to walk, and to hire my board in town was out of the question. Tuition alone was ^1.50 a term, and that seemed an immense sum. A dollar then was as hard to raise as twenty is now, much as people talk ab(Hit hard times in th's year of our Lord 1898.

It was finally agreed upon among us to have me work for my board in some family, if one could be found near the school who was willing" to take me in. I was less than fifteen years old, but was healthy and strong and willing to do any kind of drudgery to pay my way if I could only have the privilege of going to that school. I found a family w^illing to board me for the amount of work I could do morning's and evenings, Saturdays and Sundays. This family lived only three blocks from the school. They were very respectable and proper peo})le, but not much given to }Kirting with their worldly possessions wdthout receiving full compensation for the same. I was given a comfortable bed and good food, for which I thought then, and liave thought ever since, I fully compensated them. I washed the dishes after every meal, did the washing an:l ironing, fed and milked the cow, carried the milk down cellar and carried it up again. I did all the scrubbing and carried the water uj) a long flight of steps. Besides tlie things I have named, I performed fully half the labor in making thirty yards of rag carpet. I never had the nerve to attempt to carry my books home and study in the evening, for the carpet rags were always awaiting my attention when the supper dishes were disposed of. The lady was an excellent housekeeper, and everything had to be done at the proper time. How I (hd want to study my lessons in the evening, but she managed me so adroitly I never dared by word or hint to suggest the thought. The family retired regularly at half-past nine o'clock. I would have been

REMINISCENCES. 2o

glad to have had the privileg-e of studying- my lessons after the work was done, but the lii-e was covered up, and to have burned a candle after that hour was an extravagance }iot permitted in that house,

I would carr}^ my books and slate home on Friday evenings and study as much as I could on Sunday, but sometimes I wanted to see my mother and little brothers so much that I would take the "near cut" and walk home on Sunday. I say ''widk, "' l)ut it was run a good deal of the way. This "near cut'' was through fields and woods and meadows, and necessitated climbing many staked and ridered fences. I didn't mind that, for I never knew in those days what it was to be tired.

I can see, even now, how pleased my mother looked when I came Hying in; how^ interested she \yb^ in everything I had to tell. I wotdd tell her how well I was getting on in school, keeping up with my classes, and what a wonderful man Mr. Hoshour was, and the many things he told us about which I had never heard spoken of in a school before. And then I would tell her how well I was getting on with the housework at Mr. Nero's; they treated me kindly and found no fault with my work.

Once she said to me: "Child, thee studies at night, don't thee?''

I said: "No, we are making a rag carpet, and work at that of nights."

I remember well the look of pain which came in her face. She sat a little while without saying anything; then with a look of tender sympathy she only said, "well, child, do the l)est thee can and thee will come out all right."

How fast those Sunday afternoons would fly, and how soon the time would come when I would know I must hurry l)ack to milk the cow.

Some of our iieig"hbors found fault with me— said I was selfish. They said I ought to stay at home and help my mother instead of fooling- my time away at school. I remember one woman in particular who took it upon herself to give me a piece of her mind on the subject. Having gone to her house one day on an errand, I found her in the yard vigorously stirring something in a large iron kettle hanging over a fire which was sending out huge volumes of smoke seemingly in every direction. As I drew near I saw that '"Melinda" (as we called her) was making soap, mid that vigorous stirring was to prevent its boiling over. Melinda didn't see me until I was at her side, for her face was hidden in the depths of a long slat sun-bonnet. When she looked up her eyes were red and streaming with tears, from the efl:'ects of that "contrary fire," as Melinda called it. She didn't stop to say "how de do," but in a sharp tone sang out:

"Take that gourd luid bring me some lye, quick!'' I didn't Jose any time in snatching up that big crooked-handled gourd and flying to the ash-hopper and dipping up about two quarts of lye and handing it to Melinda. She siezed and dashed the whole of it into that boiling soap, which immediately settled down to more gentle motions, when Melinda remarked, ''I believe this soap's done, and you take hold and help me lift it off." I did as she desired, but as soon as the kettle was safely deposited on the ground Melinda began a tirade which I have not forgotten, although it has been nearly sixty years ag^o. Melinda was one of those persons who believed in saying" just wliat they thoug'ht, reg"ardless of anybody's feelings. She had the reputation of being" able to accomplish more work in a g"iven time than any woman in the neig"hborhood. She spun and wove the cloth for all the winter clothing" for her family, the flax and tow for all the sheets, tablecloths and tow^els they used. She tended the g"arden herself and raised hundreds of chickens. She enjoyed tlie distincti(m of having" the first peas, new potatoes and fried chicken of anybody in the neig"hborhood. She didn't pay much attention to raising" flowers, but g"ourds were a specialty with her. Every Summer, gourds of all sizes and lengths of handle could be seen growing on vines trained over her garden fence. Melinda would divide her gourds with her less thrifty neighbors. I think she even delighted in being generous in that respect, but at the same time would snap out the remark: "If you was any account you could raise 'em yourself."

I used to think Melinda could make gourds serve more purposes than any woman I ever saw. She used one enormous gourd for holding salt, another for soap, another for storing away her garden seeds; a beautiful long-handled, clean gourd w^hich would hold about a quart was always to be seen in the water bucket, and another like it was always hanging at the spring, and one of convenient size for dipping lye when slie made soap; which brings me back to what I was going to tell about the lecture Melinda gave me. She never stopped her work when a neighbor called, but w^ent right on with anything she happened to be doing. Work never interfered with her talkmg". As soon as the soap settled down and stopped boilini^', she took up a gourd and commenced dipping" it out and pouring" it into a barrel. At the same time she commenced talking to me in this wise:

"See, here, my girl! They say you are going to town and go to school in that big Siminary, where a lot of proud, lazy, stuck-up boys and girls are trying to get smarter than their parents. I thought you had more sense than to fool your t'me away going to school. You had better stay at home and help your mother spin and weave, for I would like to know what good it is going to do you or any other girl to study all the nonsense I hear they do in that school."

"You can read your Bible, can't youV" "You can read writing, can't you?"

"You can write a letter can't you?"

"What more do you want?"

"I think you ought to be ashamed to go away and leave all the work for your mother to do."

If I had been disposed to answer her questions I could not have found an opportunity, she ])lied them in such haste. And then, she didn't expect a reply.

Melinda's scoring didn't effect me one way or the other, not even to make me angry. The neiglibors used to say: "Melinda's bark is worse than her bite."

I kept watching the soap-dipping, and w^ondering if she would stop talking when she stopped dipping. She did stop long enough to take a breath after straightening up from her work, but just then the baby, that had been asleep in his cradle in the house, began to scream.

That seemed ta sug"g"est another idea, which was a clincher to her other arg'uments, so she Ijroke out a^^ain and her last thrust was:

''Now, I'd like to know what g^ood g^eography and grammar is going to do you when you get married and have a lot of children to take care of."

I couldn't think of anything' else to say, so I replied* "if that should ever happen I might be able to teach my children.""

When I was ready to leave, Melinda gave me a handsome straight-handled gourd to take to my mother.

Melinda was something of a "Mrs. Poyser/' '*One of those women as is better than their word." And as Bartle Massey remarked, "Sound at the core, but sets one's teeth on edge."

Chapter III

I had more faith in my mother's opinions than I had in the opinions of all the neighbors put together. I finished that term of school, and the next winter went another term, making altogether six months I attended Mr. Hoshour's school. I have been glad every day for more than half a century that I had that privilege and blessing, even if it was brought about through great tribulation.

How well I remember everything that came within my sight and hearing in that long ago time. The William Henry Harrison campaign, with the "Tip and Tyler" shouts and songs.

About the time of the presidential election I visited some relatives who lived about twenty-five miles from my home. The journey nearly all the way was along the national road. That road was lined with houses, many of them log cabins, nearly every one displaying some emblem or devise, supposed to represent General Harrison's heroic battle at Tippecanoe, or some other scene of Indian warfare or pioneer life. What was most in vogue was a miniature lo|4" cabin, miniature hard cider barrel on which was hung" a miniature gourd, and all placed where the traveling public could not fail to see, generally on top of the house. I don't think we were out of the sound of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too'' the whole twenty-five miles.

When I arrived at my uncle's home I found visitingthere the loveliest young Quaker lady, Mrs. Kenworthy, with the prettiest little baby in her arms; he had great blue eyes and red cheeks, and had on a long white dress. As soon as I disposed of my wraps I asked Mrs, Kenworthy if I might take the baby. She handed him to me and he was not one bit afraid. I carried him about the room and out in the kitchen, sat down and rocked him, held him up to the window and let him look out at the chickens — did all the things that girls at the age I was then, usually do in such cases.