USA > Iowa > Marion County > Down on the ridge : reminiscences of the old days in Coalport and down on the ridge, Marion County > Part 1
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NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES 3 3433 08192085 6
DOWN ON THE RIDGE
MICROFILMED
DATE 10 - 3 - 79
1. Marion Co 1 5
2. Contient, Da.
1012
Marion County
IVO
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Alfred B. Ac Coun Down.
DOWN ON THE RIDGE,
1
1
REMINISCENCES OF THE OLD DAYS IN COAL- PORT AND DOWN ON THE RIDGE; MARION COUNTY, IOWA.
BY
ALFRED B. MCCOWN. 1
[ Des Moines] 1909. EMB
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 376355A
ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS R 1999 L
DEDICATION.
To the friends of my youthtime, the boys and girls down in that old homeland, those bright joyous spirits who lent sunshine to the morning twilight of my exist- ence; to those who shared with me the hardships, the toil, the gladsome hours in the home, the schoolroom, the field of sport and play, and to the sacred memory of those who ministered to our wants and fain would have guided our young feet in the paths of right, this little volume is dedicated.
ALFRED B. MCCOWN.
Des Moines, Iowa,
May 28, 1909.
FOREWORD.
This little book has not been thrust upon the world to bring the writer into prominence. Such an attempt would and should meet with dismal failure.
Prompted by the memory of the goodly people who were the pioneers of that far off time, and the pride we all feel in the great work they did in the life they lived and the splendid examples left behind to guide succeeding generations, the fond hope that even the coming people in that goodly land down there may know something of the heroes and heroines, the kindly Christian fathers and mothers who played their parts so well in that homeland, that the children and children's children of those early toilers may not forget who planted and harvested and labored and prayed in the struggling days of the olden time, this little book has been given to the interested ones as a memorial of loved ones long since gone to their reward.
In bringing up the scenes of the past and in touching the lives of, and the parts played by these pioneers, the writer, so needful of charity of thought, has dropped the mantle of love over every life and every act and every deed, making up the story of the old world's work in that old community so full of history and love and disappoint- ment and joy.
It is altogether proper we should have some kind of a record of this people, their struggles, their service to the world, a word of praise so oft denied when in the midst of life and struggle and toil.
This brief story, though coming from a mind un- trained and a hand unskilled, may be the last and only tale of the places, of the people, of the incidents coming in the morning of life, to the boys and girls of fifty years ago, of the vanished hands that so gently led us along the way when life was new, and the old world so strange.
A. B. M.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I Reminiscences 1
II The Strenuous Life 14
III Notable Pioneers 23
IV Pioneer Preachers 33
V About the Old Boys 44
VI Ridge Boy Life 50
VII Old Familiar Scenes 62
VIII Two Uncle Billies 75
IX Aunt Minerva Reynolds
86
x The Boys and Girls 97
XI Two Pioneer Families 109
XII Reuben and Julia Coffman 121
XIII Other Notable Characters 134
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DOWN ON THE RIDGE
CHAPTER I
REMINISCENCES OF THE OLD DAYS IN COALPORT AND DOWN ON THE RIDGE
More than a half-century ago, when Iowa, the "Beautiful Land," was new I came with my parents, when a little boy, from our home town in the sunny southland to Marion County, this state, there to begin an untried and unknown future in what was then the new west.
Then the beautiful prairies spread out before my youthful gaze, and also the great forests of timber in all their primitive grandeur, the same as gladdened the hearts of the untutored children of the forests years and years before.
The Sac and Fox tribes not many years before had taken down their tepees and departed from the scenes that were fragrant with the recollections of the hunt and the chase. In many places their beaten pathway could be traced, telling of their journey from the hunting- grounds where their camp-fires had gone out forever ; telling of the sad, sad look upon the place of their last war-dance and upon the bleaching bones of their dead, strewn here and there as solemn witnesses of the advanc- ing tide of the white man.
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In those good old days we had Coalport in the valley and Coal Ridge on the hill. The former was a little steamboat town situated on the west bank of the Des Moines River, as at that time it pursued its course seaward bearing upon its silvery bosom the burdens of men; the latter was a seat of learning, situated in the midst of a small settlement of God's noble men and women, driven there no doubt by the flood of the Des Moines River, which flood has never been equaled since the time Noah made that memorable voyage to the top of the mountain in that far away eastern land.
Coalport was a famous village. It had one little store, a saw and grist mill, a potter shop and a black- smith shop. It had no postoffice, because of the strange stories that had reached the department at Washington that wild Indians were still in the neighborhood and that an occasional white man was burned at the stake. So the rural delivery man, like the priest and Levite, passed by on the other side.
But this town had a very rich bank in which very large deposits were made several years before, and, the depositors having long since died and their heirs been gob- bled up by the Indians, some enterprising settler conceived the idea of drawing upon this bank for the benefit of the steamboats that twisted their way up the river from Keokuk to Fort Des Moines during the high stages of water following the rains incident to the early spring months. Hence these little steamers "coaled up" in the spring. During the summer months the banker sat on the bank and fished, and in the winter months he supplied the limited demand and filled in the time coon-hunting.
The notoriety of this little place was a matter of pride to its population, which consisted of about a half- dozen families, each of which boasted its large accumula- tion of children; for, in those good old days, there was
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little else to do. The women had no clubs or reading circles, and so far as cards go not one of them knew the jack from the king; their only diversion was a wool- picking or a quilting bee, and as a rule one of these functions invariably ended in a fight, and a special meet- ing followed for the purpose of " churching " the principals in the scrap.
As to the male population they had no lodges to attend, and the only clubs they were familiar with were those with which they killed rattlesnakes that crept out of the "Snake Den" on the approach of warm spring days. If they ever went to a shooting match or a house- raising the event was sure to close with prayer.
Oh, the charm of a steamboat town ! The Des Moines Belle, Ad Hines, Clara Hines, Charley Rogers and the Defiance-how their long hoarse whistles used to echo over hill and dale! To the young generation the music of these whistles was as sweet as the notes of the dinner horn. How the boys, big and little, used to run the old path from the schoolhouse over the hill and down the beaten trail, passing the old potter shop on the way to the landing, when they heard the "steamboat blow." They always yearned for a landing during the noon hour.
Time, and the railroad train ! Time, and the shining mouldboard of the farmer's plow that tore loose the sod from the virgin soil, aided by the weeping clouds above, so filled the channel of God's highway that these floating palaces ceased to disturb the waters. It was then this struggling town lay down and died, since which time it stands like a candle with the light blown out.
Even the old river has now deserted its well-worn path that curved around against the big coal bank. It has stolen quietly away from the historic grounds of other days and years and centuries, and has taken a
DOWN ON THE RIDGE
shorter road on its way to the old ocean that surrounds our land .
Though the swift-running waters may forsake the scenes of other days, yet every inch of that old way, with its sand-bar and willow growth above, its deep bank below, with bar and dense old forests just over the way, its ferry-boat securely fastened to a great cable secured to either shore, the rocks and steep-faced hill below, the pottery under the hill, where good old Uncle Tom, a friend to every boy, fashioned tiny jugs for us, to add to the gladness of our boy life-all these tell a sad and joyous story of the coming and going, here and there, of those who played their part in this wide world's work.
They tell of the old swimming hole where we boys held clandestine gatherings and performed the most daring stunts. There we used to crawl out on the sunny bar and dry our hair before returning home. Among those old rocks when a little boy I lured the shy and cautious sunfish from his haunts. There on more than one occasion have I seen that goodly current transformed, as it were, into a modern Jordan, and it seems even at this distant day I can see a little company of God's people standing on the shore, and hear their glad songs go up to heaven, while one after another goes calmly out into the stream and gently and reverently lay themselves down with the Christ, and come up out of the water into newness of life.
There, fifty long and eventful years ago, a wondering boy, I saw my father and mother, together with several others, in a watery grave typify the burial and resurrec- tion of the Master. There they stood in the middle of life. To me life was an untried road. To-day, of that little company, both on the shore and in the stream, every one of adult age has passed form the scenes of earth. A mother, patient and good and kind, surrounded by strange dead, sleeps in the midst of the mountains of
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Montana : a father who labored and toiled and prayed, together with others of that little company, is resting near the scenes of his struggles; one, a little further on, clothed in his country's blue, went forth in defense of its flag twenty-five years later and, after an eventful life, full of tragedies, met a violent death and now sleeps in Kansas' southern soil.
Those scenes along that well-remembered bank came and went, until one day in the early springtime, a beauti- ful April morning, a harbinger of May-time with her sun- shine and flowers and singing birds, another generation, save here and there those to whom God had been kind, gathered at the river where the same good old songs were sung, while one after another with whom we had lived and loved, and played " hide and seek, " and " ring around rosy, " and all those innocent games which go to brighten and sweeten the life of the young, yet unscarred in life's battle-they, too, waded out into this typical Jordan while glad hearts sent their prayerful songs to God.
O, the changes since that beautiful scene ! The long, long story of toil and laughter and tears, a funeral here, a wedding there, far-away scenes in strange and distant lands. tired hands and hearts struggling in the fierce heat of life's hard battle must not be told by me. It may be some day, sometime and somewhere, when there are no hearts to ache nor eyes to weep, the story will be told how those boys and girls, so full of fun and love and ambition, drifted apart, drifted into joy, drifted into sorrow, and, I hope, drifted into heaven above.
I said awhile ago that Coal Ridge was a seat of learn- ing. The very name is associated with a little frame building about eighteen by twenty feet. It was made of native lumber. In the center of the room stood a wood stove which at that time was up-to-date, but in this day and age would be crude, indeed. I remember that on cold
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days the boys were kept busy chopping wood, which they did by turns, like going to mill. The writing desks were wide boards attached to the wall by hinges and, when the copies were all "set" and the hour for writing had arrived, these boards were elevated to their proper positions where they were supported by sticks, leg fashion.
I shall never forget one copy my teacher prepared for me. He was always original, but his originality on this occasion almost provoked me. It ran like this: "Alfred Brown Mccown: Do you do your work up brown ? " That little sentence meant more than our youthful minds could comprehend. The boys and girls looked upon the whole proposition as a joke. So did I.
There is one thing I learned trying to write after copy. The first line or two was a pretty fair imitation of the original but the farther away I got from the copy the worse the writing, so by the time I had reached the bottom of my foolscap sheet the work was so poorly executed that a blind man could see that my work lacked a whole lot of being "brown." Just so in life's requirements and life's work. The farther we get away from those high ideals which shine out like beacon lights to guide our wandering feet into a better and sweeter life, the greater and more miserable our failure to do the things that bring joy and gladness into the heart.
For seats in this "deestrict " college we had slabs, flat sides up. These slabs were held up with legs, a la bench. For backs we employed the ones God gave us when we came into this forest. These seats and benches were made of the same height for both large and small. We little fellows climbed upon our benches where we sat humped up like Texas steers in a blizzard, our feet swinging in space. The big boys and girls sat with their chins on their knees. In this pitiable and torturing posi- tion these boys were expected to shoot paper wads at the
SYLVESTER MCCOWN.
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teacher when his or her back was turned, or for diversion write notes to their best girls. I venture to assert that that old schoolhouse sent out more curved spines into the busy world than any seat of learning in Marion County.
We always had our Friday afternoon "doin's"_ recitations and stand-up-and-spell-down, etc. It was remarkable how many Marys had little lambs, while the number of boys who stood on the burning decks would make a small army, and
Twinkle, twinkle, little star ; How I wonder what you are ; Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky,
was repeated by every boy and girl who had courage to pass through the ordeal.
My first and perhaps last great oratorical effort was pull- ed off in the presence of a large number of invited guests, they being the fathers and mothers and grown brothers and sisters in the neighborhood. Having inherited a timidity that would drive a full-grown man through a knot hole, it required every ounce of sand I could muster to bring myself into the performance of the stunts assigned me. However, I finally gained the platform on this occasion, when I proceeded to let these lines loose :
You'd scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage ; But if I should chance to fall below Demosthenes or Cicero, Don't view me with a critic's eye, But pass my imperfections by .
I could go no further. With this effort I collapsed and sought refuge in a neighboring hazel brush. And now, more than forty years have come and gone, even a bloody
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war came and went. leaving a trail of blood and tears, broken homes and wounded hearts; I have wandered in strange and distant lands, and still I am asking that the mantle of charity be thrown over my imperfections.
Sometimes we had commencements at the close of school. That is, after school was out we commenced to swim every day but Saturdays. I verily believe those little swimming holes, yes, even the leeches that lived in the mud, got lonesome when the gang was lured to other haunts. I know they were green with rage at times, because we had to make a hole in the skum to dive through.
I could even mention girls who were strangely infat- uated with these old swimming holes. Many times we boys have watched them, at a safe distance, slide, otter fashion, from the top of the bank to the green scum below.
That old Coal Ridge schoolhouse could have told a long, long story ; told how the young people came together to sing, when Jim and "Brud" and Nellie and others sang and whiled the joyous hours away; how they, like others before them, and in the good old days since, walked two by two, sometimes a long ways apart, down to the old "Snake Den, " not to kill snakes, not to draw close to the great kingdom of nature, not to look with one broad sweep over a great stretch of country and with wonder contemplate the mighty handiwork of God, but with Cupid's fateful and sometimes fickle arrow to wound and kill an unsuspecting heart; to draw close together and with the strong arm of youthful love and the nimble fin- ger of devotion weave the warp and woof of a new and untried existence, full of the sweet flowers that help to make the world a place where man can dwell, that cheer the life that would be only hard and toilsome, that awaken and cultivate and sweeten human existence, that
MARIETTA A. MCCOWN.
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bring the bridal hour away up into the higher and more beautiful ideals of home, or bring a long, long train of disappointments, of sorrow, and more than a single share of the earth's woes and the old world's tears.
No days like those old days, no trysting place like the old "Snake Den," no more lovers strolling two by two, hand in hand, along the old, well-worn road ; but, high up on the rocks are the chisled names of some whose mission there was for the purpose of killing the snakes that so frightened their sweethearts when the good old Sunday came.
The old schoolhouse could have told of God's harvest of human souls. O, the prayers that went to heaven there! O, the flood of tears because a wandering soul re- fused that salvation so free, and yet purchased at such a fearful cost! Even now at this far distant day I can almost hear those pitiful petitions that went up to the hill of God and see those bitter tears that so long ago made sacred the very ground upon which the little house stood. When the prayers were all made, and the tears all shed, and the benediction had fallen over all, the big boys lined themselves up near the door, waiting for the girls to come out, so they could go home with them. Sometimes they did, and sometimes they got left, right in full view of the whole crowd. Poor boys !
And there was the literary society, with its paper edited by some wise "guy " who was supposed to tell all the happenings and some things that didn't happen in the community. Then a few of the orators took up these propositions : "Which is the most useful to man-a dog or a gun ? " The dog usually won out, because when all else in this big wide world forsakes us God and the dog are our friends. Then again: "There is more pleasure in pursuit than in possession." Then it was that posses- sion gained the day, for some of the very best debaters
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were in red-hot pursuit of some pretty girls whom to win would be heaven, indeed. So finally the meetings closed and the boys went home with the girls, if they could, and if they couldn't at the next meeting of the society they took the other side of the question.
And then when the war-dogs were let loose, when the shriek of shot and shell brought human woe to the homes of the north and the south land, too, a soldier, dressed in the uniform of a captain, stood up in that old schoolhouse the and told the story of the country's needs. Then young men yet in their "teens" and bound to homes by the strongest ties between earth and heaven went forth to de- fend their country's flag. It was then that the military spirit seized every boy in the school. Some one of the mothers made a flag, and I, being the son of a coop- er, made a little barrel, open at both ends, over which I stretched a sheepskin. This served as a drum. We elect- ed a little fellow ( who afterwards became my brother-in- law ) captain, all because of his wonderful knowledge of military tactics, and then it was march, march, to the music of a home-made drum, a home-made fife and behind a home-made flag. It was march, march, and charge on an imaginary foe, until many a "Johnnie came marching home, " feeling that he had been shot in the leg.
Little we appreciated the dread ravages of real, cruel war; little we knew what was doing under the southern skies. And then when Appomattox had come, and the returning soldier boys were welcomed home, how little we knew how torn and sore were the hearts whose very hopes and loves reached over a great country until they hovered like a wounded dove over the lonely graves of the ones who would never return.
That old schoolhouse long years ago gave way to another near by, but my school days were now over. The old schoolhouse ! Even the ground on which it stood is sacred to me. There I have seen weddings and won-
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dered what they meant; there I have heard funeral sermons and my boyish heart could not comprehend why those tears. But a time was reserved for me, when the arrow of desolation pierced my own heart and let loose as it were a crimson flood of grief. Then I could see and know that this old world is indeed a vale of tears and this earth is full of woes.
This little schoolhouse by the roadside was to me my alma mater. In it I passed through the primary branches, then out into the field of strife for clothes, for food, for seven long years, when I returned to its friendly shelter to finish up in geography and the "three R's reading, ยท 'riting and 'rithmetic, " two months one winter and three the next. No grammar, no rhetoric, no burnt wood, no foot ball ; my school life was over.
Since then the world has been my schoolhouse and its people my teachers. For me strange but friendly hands have planted rich and fragrant flowers in the gar- den of my heart. Though it may be that I have received from ungrateful hands instead of the rose, the sharp thorn and the cactus, yet God and this big old world have been kind to me. I have an army of friends among whom I number men of standing and influence. I have a happy home, children and flowers and music, and when the springtime comes in addition to all of these I have the green fields, the pleasing foliage of the forest and the singing birds. After all, God is good.
I could go on, telling of a struggle here and a battle there in the world's wide way; of how we could almost hear the cannon's roar on the southern battlefields where men and even boys had gone, leaving boys and girls and mothers to till the soil and gather the corn. I could tell of many joyous seasons; the little parties where "Blind Man's Buff," and "Frog in the Meadow, " brought joy and laughter from boy and
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girl, while the mother dropped here and there a silent tear because of an absent one dressed in blue far away under the southern sky. I could tell the story of our growth as boys and girls; of how we grew into friendship and love ; of how we in after years took our sweethearts to the " Fourth of July " at Knoxville, where we gave them red lemonade, fed them on crackers, dried apples and cheese, and watered them at the town pump, and watched them grow. I could tell of how the fateful hand led one here and another there, up and down this wide, wide world ; of estrangements and affections, some of which have been blessings in disguise, while others came to wound and make the heart cry out in its desolation.
I could take you along with the rushing years and permit you with me to behold the havoc that time has wrought. The girls and boys, the heroes and heroines of those days, so full of tender and loving recol- lections, are boys and girls no more. Streaks of gray are here and there, telling of the rushing tempest of years. Even some of them are grandmas and "granddaddies." Some have drifted away out on life's sea and their little ships are lost to the world, while some have floated away and away into the summer land of God. Yes, the graveyards grow, but they are God's. Who is it that shall read these lines that does not recall some buoyant, engaging friend- ship of long ago? There were hours of sweet, confiden- tial, heart-thrilling converse, when each was strong in the hope-inspiring friendship of the other, and when each be- lieved that this happy state would never end. Alas for the evanescence of all earthly things! Some of these friendships long ago have died, and those who were such warm and loving friends have drifted apart. Love that came in radiant with the heart's gentle, softening dew ; love that like the morning dawn gilds life's horizon and sends floods of light into every recess of the heart! Even some of those who one sweet day swore that love should live
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forever find in the coming years that it does not endure. Even the old trysting places are forgotten, and the happy hours that sped so swiftly by in the old, old days are no longer cherished.
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