USA > Iowa > Jackson County > Annals of Jackson county, Iowa, Vol 1-6 > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64
01
-6 -09 269
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ODLIV LIDNANT
3 1833 01081 2680
7+79
NUMBER ONE
ANNALS
Jackson I JAVUJE &FELELO County
Towa
. Reprinted From the Magankete P .. cord.
Maquoketa, Iowa.
Published by
JACKSON COUNTY HISTORICAL. SOCIETY V. 1-60
Von: 1-6
?
1005- 06 -
1832269
1613113
GRAVE OF COL. THOMAS COX Section 15. Maquoketo Township -
COMMITTEE OF OLD SETTLERS' SOCIETY. Jos. W Ellis, W. C Gregory cod Harry Reid Standing on site of grove.
ed .6-3-75
·
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013
http://archive.org/details/annalsofjacksonc16jack
J, W. ELLIS.
Secretary and Curator of the Jackson County Historical Society.
Recollections of Early Days.
Personal recollections of early days by J. W. Ellis, witten for the Jackson Conuty Historical Society.
My, father, Jesse Ellis, though not one of the early pioneers, cathe to this counts in time to carve ont a home from an almost unbroken forest. He was born in Kentucky, near Frankfort, Feb. 2, 1310. His father, Joseph Ellis, came to Kentuckyabout the year 1800 from Pulaski county, Va, where he was born Jan. 12. 1763. HIA was married to. Frankie Wond, who was born in the same place Dec. 23, 1774. My father's grandfather, whose name was also Jos- eph, was born in 1;30. My father grew up on the Keineky farm and when about 16 years old was employed as nu over seer by his brother-in-law, Eli Rogers, who owned several shapes. At.
tor he reached the age of 20 years he made several trips to New Orleans, and later he became possessed of the secret chart of the famous Swift silver wing in the Kentucky mountains.
He spent nearly two years in the mosotains trying to find the mine Swift and two other ine : wade haating in the wildest, roughist part of the mountains, discovered a rich veit of silver ore, they kept the discovery- a secret, and precariag tools took ont a considerable quantity of the ore, and si: led it, as the mine wis far from any settletuent they could not carry away very much of theis balling, bat barried it in the groand, making a chatt de- scribing the location and laud. marts and blazing trees, one of the men sie! - ened and died nel it was believed the Swift and the other maa full out oyet the secret treasure and in a finish fight Swift was victor, at least he alone came to a settlement with a portion of the silver bulliou, which he converted into cash with which he bosghir sapphes and made other trips, but finais after a se- vere illeess he went entirely blind. It was said to be a pathetic sight to see the Hind man trying to dinet mica to the treasure of which he sloae koow the secret by the aid of the chart. search was a failure, and broken in health and spirits he did not survive long. After his death, my father be- came the owner of the chart and searched nearly two years in the woan. tains for the hidden treasure. He found the blazed trees described in the chart and found the gulch in which the mine was located, but could not find the open- ing to the cavern and he always believed that a 2 ndslide had covered the tn. trance ro the cavern and obliterated the minst inviortant signs on the chact. Af- ter endoring inmanerable hardship:, deniny on the ground in the open ai: and living entirely on such primus as they could sương with their rites, bear doer and will tagkeys being quite plen.
1
tiful in the mountains at that time, the Search was abandoned. Father often entertained visitors with stories of his adventures while searching for the Swift silver mine in the Kentucky mountains.
James Anderson, who formerly lived in Maquoketa and was a frequent visi- tor at our home, became very much in- terested in the silver mine and hidden treasure, and after several interviews on that subject father gave him the chart and all the information that he could, and that was the last I ever heard of Swifts treasure until about 1505, when I saw an article in the Cincinatti En- quirer claiming that the old mine had been found.
Grandfather Ellis and members of his family that were still at home, includ- ing my father, removed to Putman county , Indiana, about the year 1833. Grandfather secured a tract of land with a land warrant received for revo- lutionary services.
Jesse Ellis married Ailsea Jeffers in Hendricks county, Indiana, in 1537, she was also a native of Kentucky. I still have a government patent to a piece of land which fathe: parchased in 1 -37 aud on which he lived until the 20th of $.pt. 1852, when he started overland for Iowa.
I was but four years old at that time but remember many instances of the journey, one that made a lasting im- pression on my mind was that of meet- a circus at the crossing of some river in Illinois. There were two or more ele- phants and some camels and the large animals were fording the stream, the elephants seemed to enjoy very much sucking up che water in their trunks and deluging the other animals as well as their own bodies with it.
After leaving the state of Judiana my father had a great deal of trouble with his wagon which was built on the wide laack and would not fit in the ruts of the western wagons.
Our first stop in Iowa was at the home of Thomas Flathers, a relative of ours who lived four and one-half mile; south of Maquokera. Mr. Flathers kuew that father had considerable mon- ey and tried to get him to enter some of the rich land in that locality, which was still held by the government and could have been had at $1.25 per acre. But father had always lived in a tim- bered country and would not believe that a mau cond live in a praire country 5 or 6 miles from timber and be able to get up enoagh fuel to keep from freez- ing to death.
He next visited his brother William, who had secured a piece of land about one mile west of Fulton, with his land warrant received for service in the war of 1812. He had fought with Jackson at New Orleans. He came to lowa sov - eral years prior to our coming and had the pick of the country, but had ser led on about as poor a tract as could well be found. Needless to say my father did not like the land in that neighborhood. He visited with Willis, William and Edward Plathers and Jos Anderson, all relatives, and all living within a few miles at each other, within the forks of the Maquoketa rivers and finally pur- chased 100 acres of land in section 11, South Fork township, on which he re- mained until hisdeath, in 189. In 1853 there was a double log cabin and a large frame barn on the land which was well watered, having two spring branches with numerous springs, and with the exception of 10 or 12 acres of cleared land it was covered with the fines body of timber I ever saw.
I will make an assertion here that will seera incredible to my readers, but it. is actually true, there were as many families in this part of South Fork township in 1852 as there are today, ex- cludiag Hurstvillo. Bat there are very few representatives of the original fam. ilias left. Levi Role, a veteran of the war of 1812, lived in a cabin on the
north side of the creek on our land, but soon bought a piece of land in the neigh- borhood and moved onto it. Daniel Frazier, coming from Ohio about that tine, moved into the cabin vacated by Rolfe, but soon afterwards bought the Willis Flathers place, in section 10, and moved to it, aud Walter Watrous, fresh froui the Scioto bottoms, moved into the cabin. Thomas Frazier was our nearest neighbor, owning the quarter section west of our land, but at that time had not returned from the California gold- fields, where he went in company with D. C Clary in 1850, but returned soon a'ter our arrival and had a goodly share of the yellow metal, some of ir as I re- member was octaigoual $50 pieces.
There was at that time three cabins, all occupied, on the Frazier land, one by the Frazier family, one by Frazier's brother-in-law, Henry Hammel, and the other by the Sherwood family. Two of these cabins were old buildings.
In 1552, a daughter of Sherwoods mar- ried a Dr. Martin, who for some years lived in Maquoketa, and I think that Charlie. Martin, the carpenter, is their son. They had buried two small chil- dren on our land, the stones marking their graves, stood for many years, but have long since disappeared.
There was quite a French settlement on land adjoining ours in 1652. A man by the name of Bywaters lived in a log cabin which I believe is standing yet on A. Hurst's land near his farm house. Peter Jerman, another Frenchman, whose wife was a Fiathers, and a rela. tive of ours, had been killed in a well that had caved in on him on the land now owned by A. J. York Another Frenchman by the name of Daviels, lived in a cabin ou land adjoining the Jerman land, and still another French- man named Fredrick, lived about 80 rods north of Dubbels and taugh school in what is now known as the Hurstville district, in 1833. Josiah Eaton lived then near where the John Davis hoasu
now stands, being the nearest to the schoolhouse. The school was known as the Eaton school. Nathanial. Woods lived ou the place that Groif lived on when he killed his neighbor, Davis, in 1839, now known as the Fitch farm. A brother of Jason Pangborn lived on land now owned by A. Hurst, north of Hurstville, near the river. Isaac Hight lived on the farm now owned by Asa Struble. Joseph Jackson Woods lived for several years on the farm he sold to Asa Davis at about the beginning of the war. Afamily by the name of Beck lived ou the laud now owned by Baum- gartner, adjoining the Davis land and John Woods lived in 1852 in the same house that his son, C. L. Woods, lives in now. The old place on the Iron Hill road four miles west of Magnoketa, now owned by Williams, was owned in 1552 by a Dr. Mckenzie, and I think he sold to William Sears. A half mile south of ns stood a cabin, which was old when we came here. It was called the Woods place and after it rotted down, garden vegetables would grow up in the cleared space and the spot was known for many years as the Woods garden, James Armstrong, whose wife was a cousin of mine, lived near where George Coleman now lives.
Lowell was quite a thriving village in those early days, among the families living there was a Mr. Wolfe, a native Kentuckjan, and I think my father ad- mired hua ou that account as much as anything else. The land in Lowell was considered so valuable that the lots were made very small, only 25 fest front. In addition to the grist-mill, saw mill and woolen mills, there was an ita. posing mansion on the highest point of land, with three cottages on the north . and three on the south, and cast of the brick house there stoed a shop in which it was said Ben Bears was building a wonderial wagon, that, when complet. ed, wola run by steasi on any kirl et roads and would revolutionize the Hawk
-
5
of travel and do away largely with the demand for horses. I often tried to get a view of this woudeful wagou, but . never succeeded.
The early promise of greatness for Lowell was a delasion and her glory long since departed. One of the great est draw backs in the early diy's was the often impassible roads. The roads were generally a single track through the great forest, and it was many years before the trees were cut to let the san in to dry them. Another difficulty was the bridges. The rain fall was heavier than of late years and it seemed that no matter how high we made the bridges the water would get high enough to take them out. There was a wooden bridge over the river in Maquobeta part of the time, and it was ont a good part of the time. When the bridge was out and the river low enough we would ford it. But in the spring there was much of the time the road through the river bottoms would be under water so we could not reach the bridge.
I remember that for a time there was a toll bridge kept by a Mr. Parker, and I probably remember it because Mr. Parker had a parret that helped him to watch the bridge. The bird would call Parker, Parker, every time it saw any- one approaching the Bridge.
.
The schools in the early days were kept up by subscription, that is, the head of a family would pay an agreed amount to the teacher and furnish a share of the fuel and board the teacher a share of the term, although some of the teachers I went to schoot to had families and lived in the neighborhood. The first teacher I went to school to regular- ly was Jacob Whistler. I think that he taught abont three years, the next was John Orr, and after him A. U. Parmer. I went for a time to Rhoda Jones, bat. my mind was on the teacher much more than on the studios.
The great forests between the forks of the Maquoke'a was foh of game in the
early fifties and there was deer and wild turkeys here until about 1570 fand the river was full of fine fish. I will d --- scribe one fishing excursion which . Was permitted to attend when a small boy. My father and big brother, Thomas and Benton Frazier. Theo. Eaton and I think Heury Hammel went fishing to the mouth of what is now called the Hurstville branch. They to k axes with them and arriving at the river by. gan catting down willows and trimning off the fine brush, this brush they made iuto a long role of aboa. 50 or 60 feet and aboat 3 feet thick and bound to- gether with bark, with long bars ropes tied to each end. When completed this crude seie was rolled into the water and while some of the men pulled it through the water with the ropes of bark, others walked behind and held the ssia down This was hard to handle but was a com- plete success. Every haul made brot . a lot of nice fish, and in one heut thes had two large pickerel in the catch, fully three feet long. One of them went out over the top of the sein like a bird, but one of the men secured the other with a spear. When they had caught all the fish they wanted, they divided them in as many piles as there were sharers in the party. My father was then blindfolded and with his back turned to the piles of fish he was asked who should have the pile designated by one of the men by putting his hand ou the fish, father would call out the name, and the last pile went to father.
J. W. ELLIS.
2
In the early fifties the farms in the forks of the Maquoketa were very small and but few of the settlers raised grain suffleient for their needs Many of them would exchange fence posts and rails with the prairie farmers for grain and hay. Flour was more of a luxury than a necessity those days. Corn bread was the staple article. At least once each week my father would bring in a sack of corn in the car, in the evening the wash tub would be placed on the floor in front of the fire place and we would all gather around and help shell a grist of corn. The next morning father would throw the sack of corn on one of the horses and put one of the boys on top of the sack and start him to mill. Some- times we would go to Lowell and some- times to Pinhook or McCloys. Arriving at the mill, the miller would help the boy down and take charge of the corn, and the boy would try to catch a mess of fish while waiting for the grist, when the corn was ground the miller loaded it ou to the horse, toss the boy on top and started him home.
Pork was raised very cheaply in those days, the woods were full of mast on which hogs would thrive. Each settler had his private mark for his hogs, they would put that mark on the hogs in the spring and turned them out into the woods and they thrived very well, un- til fall unless as sometimes happened they strayed across the river, when they would be gobbled up and sold as estrays, then it would cost all they were worth to redeem them. We had considerable trouble on account of a family living in Lowell, who we believed took pains to drive our stock across the bridge where they would be pounced upon and put in in the pound aud sold for expenses.
One of our neighbors had a flock of sheep running out and they strayed too far away and were shut up in Lowell. The owner heard that the sheep had been shut up and a ransom demanded for them, but instead of trying to raise
the ransom he shouldered his shot gun and went for his sheep, and he got them by simply opening the fence and tura- ing them out, and gave the mau to ou- derstand that if he interferred with his stock again he would have to be picked up in pieces and carried home in a bas- ket and that eld fellow's stock was nev- er molested in that way again.
Every body kept sheep then aud most of the settlers made their own clothing. The first suit the writer had, ofher than home spon, was a soldier uniform. My mother and sisters spun the yarn and wove the cloth for the clothing of all members of the family.
Iu our immediate locality the settlers depended upon what they could grow in their little cleared patches, and upon their timber. But farther west alnost every settler was either a cooper or run a cooper snop. Flour at that time was put into barrels, of which there were many thousands made in the forks cach year for many years. Whiskey barrels, pork barrels and lard tierces were also manufactured very largely and sold for the most part in Galena. This industry furnished employment to hundreds of men for many years. The coopers and wagou makers had the first choice of the fine timber that once grew in the forks; the roilroads had the next whack at it, and the lime manufacturers have about consumed what was left There is but little remaining of the great forest that was such an attraction to emigrants in the early forties and fifties.
Those who settled in the forks had one advantage over their neighbors on the prairie side, they could manufac- ture all the sweets they cared for with- out any expense aside from their labor. Nearly every settler had his sugar bush and made enough maple sugar in the spring time to last until the next season. The woods were fell of bees and the sut- tlers could have all the honey they wanted by cutting a bee tree and taking out the honey.
10K-5
1
From the time that I arrived in the country in 1852. there was not much de. privation aud hardships to encounter. We always had plenty of corn for bread an abundance of pork, potatoes, maple sugar and syrup, and honey, and when we wanted them wild plumbs. black- berries, raspberries, and gooseberries were a never failing crop and the woods were full of them.
Our immediate neighborhood was'al- ways peaceable and quiet. We had spelling school, singing school and de bating societies, but no great tragedy ever occurred in our midst, although Montgomery killed Brown within less than two unless of our place, and it was bat 6 or 7 miles to the scque of the kill- ing of Ingles by Alex Grifford, which was the immediate cause of the forming of a Vigilance committee at Iron Hills, of which I am collecting material from survivors for a more complete write up than has ever been given to the public.
In looking backward and trying to re- call the names of friends and associates of other days we almost feel that we are out of place, that we have out lived all of our acquaintances of early days. Of my father's. family of eleven, there is only sister Mary and myself remaining in the state. Of the Eaton family, con- sisting of eleven members, there is not one left in this part of the country! | Of the Joseph Anderson family, which I think had also eleven members before the war, there are three of the children still living in the county. The Fraziers all left the neighborhood many years ago. Of Nathaniel Woods and his large family who lived in our school district in 1852, Mrs John Johnson of Andrew, now only remains Thomas Thompson, another neighbor with a large family, fonud an early grave in the south-lind. The wife and oldest daughter were car. ried off with a malignant fever and the youngest children were scattered and lost tracks of. C. L. Woods still ownes the farm his father acquired in 1:30 and
my sister and myself still own a part of the land our father purchased in 1832. All other ands in the locality have changed hands, some of it many tiuns since the early fifties. If there is auy oce living that can tell us, we would like . to know who removed and what became of the old mill frame that stood on the branch near the Eatau school house when the writer was a very sinall boy. It had been built by Joe Henri in a very early day, but was bev. er completed Mr. Henri thor he owned the land when he undertook to build the mill. but Jearning before it was comple- ted that his title was not good, he aban- doued the work and the old frame stood withour roof or siding for many years. My recollection is, that it was pulled down about the beginning of the war, and couverted into another building.
.J. W. ELLIS, .
Some of the Old Mills
EDITOR OF THE RECORD: [ read with pleasure J'itnes Ellis' articl. on early bistory, in last week's Record. I think a great d. al more should be pub- lished while yet possible to coll-c as I find it already hard to do with a posi- tive certaluty as to facts, we will con. tribute this "'mite" which we have been at some pains to gather and hope it will be found true.
In 1844, David Stars, A pioneer of Maquoketa, built a water sax mill on the South Fork. fthe Vago ,keta river ob land in section 13, Sonto Fork Twp. This mill cut lumber from the M .quo- keta timber, for use by the early set- tlers. Lumberyard: and pine stock was nearly, if not quite unknown in eastern lowa during the A st few years of settlement, and the native lumber was a great factor in the development of the country Oik generally hing Used for framing and shingles, whil . black walnut wa- much used for ride- iug and finishing lun. ber. I can a.gut
G
old houses yet standing, built fifty years ago or more with enough black walnut lumber in them to bring a good- ly sum today, 1905, if it was in proper form for market. Th's old David Sears' mill,after running several years, burned aud was rebuilt b Wm. Sears, son of David, in 1550. The Searses seemed to have been natural mill men for I dad iu 1864 Benjamin Sears built a saw mill on the south fork of the Maquoketa also on section 13 aud about one-balf mle above where his father . David built one in 1841. This lat. r S. ars' mill was in operation about eleven years.
In a much earlier day, 1837, Accord ing to record, Jost ph Henry built a saw mill on Millor P Drie creek, in sec- tion 36, South Fork Twp., perhaps a half mile (according to tradition) up stream f m : we Joseph McCloy built in 1841, the first er s' mill that bolted fl ur .. Jackson conrty. This early saw mill built by Henry, for some reason or other prav din failure, ac- cording to recorded Jackson county history, doing but little. if any sawing, which was a serious drawback for the few earliest setlers in the Maquoketa country, for I do not fi da- there was any other saw mill in Jackson county except the one built by 3 :Il and Sub- lette at Belle vue in the year 1836. I And records differ as to the Bell-Sub. le'te mill, giving two dates, 1836 and 183S. Dr Little arquived title to this early m ", or else built on orn ar this mill site Hud after several years time movediteast of Maquisketa on Mul creek and perhaps a quarter of a mile or h reabont- down stream .form where Joseph Willey built a stone mill, whech was afterwards purchased, and operated for a number of years by Sen- eca WAPams, situated on the S. W. quarter of section 20, Maqu kota Twp his stone grist mit in 1867
In the early f . tes the iaflax of em- ig:an.sinto Jucks. n. county was quite
large and it seems those early day saw mills were extremely necessary to the country for they app ar to have followed in rapid succession. The next saw mill built on the south fork of the M.quoketa above where Ben Sears' mill was built in 1834. was built. in about 1945 by Jesse Wilson. Two men by name of Stimpson and Fairbrother, or at least Fairbrother, had an interest in it. This mill done a great business for some time, running day and night. Later, I understand,it passed into the hands of Poff and Nickerson, who ad- ded a flonring mill and woolen factory. Those in Ils were the Pin Hook mille. Some years ago they burned down and never was rebuil ;. Three miles west of Pin Hook; on the river and .. on, or near the S E. quarter of section 17, South Fork Twp., John Ball built a saw mill in or about 1855. This mill was in operation for nearly a score of years. It was at this old mill dam where the writer and other young set- tlers of bis age, on the pleasant sum- mer boyhood days, when the outer world and all the opposite sex was sunt out from view by the bluffs and woods, used to be clothed in garments cut so low in the neck they made tracks in the sand. About one mile and a quarter up the stream on the N. W. quarter of sec 18,South Fork Twp., Crowell Wilson previous to this, built another water saw mill in or about 1552. This mill was short lived for soon after it was built a find on the river took out the dam and undermined the mill so it toppled into the stream The logs iu the yard was rafted down to the Pin Hook mill. We trace ou the Magokets river, west of the line of Main street, M.,quofreta. within adistance of 5} uales west as the chain goes, five saw mills, two Bering mills and two wooten maills Including the Lovel mills erected iu the early forties by Sunes. Dochttle and Wilght. . All these mills and the oth. ers mentioned in this account wero
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.