USA > Iowa > Crawford County > History of Crawford County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > 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
LIBRARY Brigham Young University
M YOUNG
UN
NIVERSITY . MY
PROVO, UTAN
GIFT OF June Bagnell
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Brigham Young University
https://archive.org/details/historyofcrawfor00meye
HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY IOWA
A RECORD OF SETTLEMENT, ORGANIZATION, PROGRESS AND ACHIEVEMENT
By F. W. MEYERS
Local history is the ultimate substance of national history -WILSON
VOLUME I
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO : THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING CO.
1911
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the mingled memories of J. Fred Mlepers and Frederick Louis Alepers; to the one, who stood for many years as the champion of the great Brothehood of Man, in which he had such faith and for which he hoped so much; and to the other, who during the short pears God gave him, well earned the title, "Little Friend of all the World."
HAROLD B. LEE LIBRARY BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY PRO 1, UTAH
PREFACE
Patriotism is the best asset of a nation. It is patriotism that makes men law- abiding; that urges them to pay their share for the support of government; and that, in times of stress, compels them to go upon the field of battle and lay down their lives for the flag they love.
Love of home is the mother of patriotism. Our lips may sing "My Country," but our hearts sing, "Home, Sweet Home." To the New Englander, patriotism tells of whispering pines and granite hillsides; to the man of the southland, it brings the scent of sweet magnolia blooms, and snowy cotton fields, and live oaks, draped with Spanish moss; to the plainsman, it tells the story of the wide sky line, the sweeping plain, the abrupt, cloud-reaching mountain; to us, it means the rolling, dimpled hills; the tree-clad streams, the fields of waving corn, the happiness and heart-throbs of our own hearthside. It is to foster this pa- triotism, this love of home, this pride in those who have gone before us, that this history is written.
It is the desire to picture forth the life, the hopes, the aspirations of those pioneers who left the old homes and the old associations and planted themselves upon this wilderness, where Indian bands had roved at liberty, where the wild things of nature abounded, and where only the fullness of God's bounty gave promise of the good that was to come.
It is the purpose to tell of the early struggles of these pioneers; to narrate how the log cabin gave place to the frame dwelling; how the sparse settlements became thriving villages and cities; how the untrodden prairie was made to yield and give forth fruit; and, above all, to give some insight into the hearts of the men and women who made this county what it is today, a happy, pros- perous, well contented, law abiding part of the greatest nation that God has given to men.
It was the first intent to write this history as best suited ourselves, but, as we tried to grasp the subject, we found that it grasped us, and we have been content to let it write itself; to follow the trail rather than to lead the way. And how that trail has led us back-back to the days of De Soto and Marquette; back to the Indian camp; through virgin forests with French traders; on to the almost superhuman wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, when he purchased from the warlock Napoleon a mighty empire; along the courses of the great Missouri with the expedition of Lewis and Clark; following the track of Mormonism, until the
3
4
HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY
iniquitous doctrine of polygamy divided its forces and inspired the best part of its believers to leave the west-bound pilgrimage and to settle in the sweet fields of this, a then new land; on to the promoters, the canny Rhode Islanders, who planned a great city in the very heart of our county ; on to the coming of this tide of Eastern emigration; to the Indian scares; to the fevered period of the Civil war; to the building of the railroad; and then to the establishment of schools and churches, and townships and towns, and the upbuilding of our county as we know it today. The trail leads us back to the icy fjords of Sweden; to the Emerald Isle; and to the placid plains of imperial Germany.
The history of this county is a mosaic, composed of the lives, the heart beats, the misfortunes, the successes, the iniquities, the well doing, the hopes and despairs of thousands of men and women. The best that can be hoped for this history is that it, too, shall be a mosaic; that it shall contain not simply the editor's idea of what the history should be, but that it shall be the result of in- formation drawn from a hundred sources; an intimate history; a history that shall get close to the ground, as did the early settler when, with plodding oxen, he turned the virgin soil. Viewed from the telescopic range of the universe, Crawford county is but an ant hill, one of the ninety-nine counties, of one of the forty-eight states, of one of the thousand nations, of one of the myriad globes that rest under the hand of God. It is but an ant hill, but it is our own. Viewed with the microscope of love and sympathy and fellow feeling, it be- comes alive with all the tragedies and all the glories and with the essence of all the great accomplishments the son of man has ever known. It is the purpose of this history to inspire each reader with a greater love of home, with a greater love of the civilization of which he is a part, and thus to inspire him with a greater patriotism, a deeper devotion for the Stars and Stripes.
CONTENTS
THE BACK TRAIL
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
E PLURIBUS UNUM
I7
CHAPTER III.
.
21
IOWA TERRITORY
29
CHAPTER V.
THE BIRTH OF CRAWFORD COUNTY
THE PIONEERS
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
REMINISCENCES OF THOMAS DOBSON 43
CHAPTER VIII.
REMINISCENCES OF THOMAS DOBSON-(continued) 53
CHAPTER IX.
REMINISCENCES OF THOMAS DOBSON-(concluded ) 57
CHAPTER X.
REMINISCENCES OF B. F. WICKS.
63
CHAPTER XI.
COUNTY GOVERNMENT
77
CHAPTER XII.
POLITICAL HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY . . 109
ELECTIONS
CHAPTER XIII.
. . II3
CHAPTER XIV.
LEGISLATIVE, JUDICIAL AND CONGRESSIONAL HISTORY . . 125
9
No MAN'S LAND.
CHAPTER IV.
33
37
4
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XV.
BEGINNINGS OF DENISON 131
CHAPTER XVI.
LIFE OF J. W. DENISON CHAPTER XVII.
I35
EARLY DENISON DAYS
I4I
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SECOND DECADE
.15I
CHAPTER XIX.
THIRD DECADE (1870-1880) .163
CHAPTER XX.
A YEAR BOOK OF HISTORY ( 1880-1900) . 18I
CHAPTER XXI.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
(1900)
.215
CHAPTER XXII.
DENISON ORGANIZATIONS
.237
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHURCHES
CHAPTER XXIV.
CRAWFORD COUNTY SCHOOLS .. . . 295
CHAPTER XXV.
THE SOLDIERS OF CRAWFORD IN THE CIVIL WAR. 329
CHAPTER XXVI.
PATRIOTIC ORGANIZATIONS
.343
CHAPTER XXVII.
SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
347
CHAPTER XXVIII.
BANKS AND BANKING
35I
CHAPTER XXIX.
359
THE OLD SETTLERS' ASSOCIATION .
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE DEATH ROLL OF THE PIONEERS. .375
251
THE PRESS
CHAPTER XXX. 369
CONTENTS
5
CHAPTER XXXII.
A CHAPTER OF TRAGEDIES
381
CHAPTER XXXIII.
ACCIDENTAL DEATHS
385
CHAPTER XXXIV.
391
CHAPTER XXXV.
ARION
403
CHARTER OAK
CHAPTER XXXVII.
DELOIT
413
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
KIRON AND THE SWEDISH SETTLEMENT.
417
CHAPTER XXXIX.
NISHNABOTNY AND MANILLA
423
CHAPTER XL.
SCHLESWIG AND THE GERMANS.
CHAPTER XLI.
433
UNION TOWNSHIP AND DOW CITY
439
CHAPTER XLII.
VAIL AND VICINITY
457
CHAPTER XLIII.
WEST SIDE
465
CHAPTER XLIV.
OTHER TOWNS OF THE COUNTY 473
CONCLUSION .475
MISCELLANEOUS
CHAPTER XXXVI.
. 407
Humeyero
History of Crawford County
CHAPTER I.
THE BACK TRAIL.
"And that was a million years ago, In a time that no man knows."
"CRAWFORD, a co. in w. Iowa, intersected by Boyer river, and the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad ; 720 sq. m .; pop. 1890, 18,894. Co. seat, Denison." -International Cyclopædia, p. 437.
Let us start at the beginning, and what better beginning than the accurate and complete information contained in the encyclopædia? Surely, if humility is a virtue to be cultivated, nothing could be more conducive to its growth. And yet, if this were all, there would be but little need to write a history, and while from the cyclopædic view this may be all to which we are entitled, we feel that we have earned a larger place; that the men who have sent forth, the civiliza- tion we have developed, the part we have taken in the progress of the United States is worthy of more extended comment. Nevertheless, it is well to be humble; well to consider ourselves as but a part of the great whole. It is for the purpose of thus identifying ourselves, of attaching ourselves to the great movement of the ages, that we take the backward trail.
While the English, whom we are proud to recognize as the first cousins of this county, were striving to gain a foothold upon the shores of the At- lantic, the continental nations were not idle. Spain followed the discoveries of Columbus with many gallant expeditions. Magellan sailed through the straits that bear his name and was the first to circumnavigate the globe. Their chief pursuit was gold. They were bent on deeds that bordered 'twixt war and piracy. They sought the gold of the Incas, the riches of the Monte- zumas, the fountain of perpetual youth. It was while on some such quest that De Soto discovered the Mississippi river in 1540 and thus was the first of Caucasian blood to set eyes upon the waters that had laved the valleys of what was later to be known as "CRAWFORD, a co. in w. Iowa."
The French, who followed the Spaniards in the quest of the new world, were of a more sedate type. They were not adventurers, but traders and mis- sionaries; again differentiated from the English, who were settlers. It was thus that in 1673 Father Marquette, a missionary from France, a member of the Society of Jesus, and Joliet, a typical Canadian trader, glided down the
9
10
HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY
wide river in their birch canoes and, reaching the Father of Waters, first saw the shores of Iowa. They passed down the Mississippi, stopping at an Indian village near the mouth of the Des Moines river, and were welcomed by the red men who inhabited the land. There is something pathetic in this welcome, when the squaws hastened to build the fires before the tepee doors, when the venison steaks were broiled, when the pipe of peace was presented, and, in the name of the Great Spirit, the chiefs welcomed their white brothers to their homes. Could Manitou have told them what the future had in store, what would their reception have been? Could they have foretold that their proud tribes were to be scattered, that their council fires were to be quenched, that the wild deer were to be driven from their hunting grounds and that, at last, they were to remain a beggarly, ill kempt, despised remnant, living, without hope, upon the generosity of a conquering race, what would their reception have been ?
And all this carries us back. Can you picture an Iowa without a house ? A vast rolling prairie with the tall grass waving higher than the heads of man, with virgin forests, with herds of buffalo and droves of deer, with only the curling smoke of the wigwam to show that man was near? Yet such was the land primeval. Such was Iowa, almost within the memory of man. The In- dians receded from the tide of encroaching whites, ever driven westward, fighting on the one hand with their new come oppressors and on the other hand with their own brethren to gain a foothold and a place of habitation.
The Sioux were the first known who used what was eventually to become Crawford county as their hunting ground. They established no villages and gave no evidences of any settled claim upon the land, save perhaps in some mounds, intrenchments, or lookouts which were found years afterward near where the county home is now being erected, a few miles down the Boyer valley from Denison. The Omahas and the Otoes followed, driving the Sioux to the plains of the Dakotas and Minnesota, there to become the terror of the white inhabitants for many years, and even to head thieving and marauding raids as far south as this county a number of years after the first white set- tlements were made. The first official mention which we have of the Potta- wattamies, after whom our neighboring county is named, was in a treaty in which the western line of Pennsylvania was mentioned as the eastern boundary of their domain. But the Pottawattamies were crowded westward, ever west- ward, until for a short time they were domiciled by a beneficent government in western Iowa, and the southern portion of Crawford county was in their reservation. The Ayowways (Iowas,) the Sacs and Foxes, and the Winne- bagoes were other Indian tribes, driven by the white hand of fate from the woodlands of the north and east to the open prairies beyond the Mississippi. These tribes occupied at one time eastern and central Iowa and it was from the first of these that our great state has its name, but the roving bands of red men, chasing the buffalo and the deer, snaring the birds, trapping the mink and the otter, in this part of Iowa were Sioux, or their immediate fol- lowers, the Otoes, the Omahas, and later the Pottawattamies.
The French had in the meantime made discovery and settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi. Through this they laid claim to all the country tributary to
11
HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY
that great stream, and this was reenforced by their discoveries and settlements to the north. For a long time it was a question whether this region came under the jurisdiction of Louisiana or of New France, with its seat of government at Quebec. In fact the first seat of government, to which a white man in this part of the world might have appealed for redress for his wrongs, was at the northern fortress, and Quebec may be styled the first capital of Iowa. Later it was conceded that the territory now included in Iowa came within the juris- diction of Louisiana, with its seat of government at New Orleans.
Speaking of the Indians at this time, Rev. William Salter, to whose well written work, "Iowa-the First Free State in the Louisiana Purchase," we owe much, speaks as follows:
"Rivers were the Indian highways of transportation in canoes of birch bark. These were of graceful construction, built without hammer or nail, but strong, of large carrying capacity, yet so light as to be easily carried over a portage from one river to another."
The aborigines were in a low state of barbarity. They had no arts, or trades. They knew nothing of writing or numbers beyond the ten fingers. Their tools, or implements, were shells, fish bones, the bones of wild animals, clubs and spears of wood. They knew not the use of stone in building, or of lime and sand, or how to construct a chimney. Their tents were put up with poles and sticks, covered with skins, or with mats made of bark and rushes. Their clothing was of skins. At feasts and on show occasions they smeared the face and body, put feathers on their heads, and strung bear claws about the neck. They had no iron, wax, or oil. They made fire by rubbing sticks. They had no horses, cows, sheep, hogs, chickens; only dogs. They knew not the use of milk. Their subsistence was from fishing and hunting in which they were expert, and from little cornfields and melon patches, cultivated by the squaws. The men hated labor. Nothing roused them to action but war and the chase. To hunt, fish, and pursue and scalp an enemy, was their life. On marches the squaws carried the pack burdens; on hunting expeditions they dressed the skins, jerked the buffalo meat, and put up the lodges at night. "The savages had hardly a conception of property, or it was limited to a few things that were held in common rather than as personal belongings. They had no idea of money, or sense of value. In their wandering life they knew nothing of land ownership. The earth is our common mother, they said, and land and water are free as air and light. When we speak of the Indians selling their land, or of our people buying their land, we use the language of civilization, not that of the savages."
Is it to be wondered that these wild, irresponsible children of nature failed to understand the orderly, property-loving French and English, and that they hated them with a hatred that was only tempered by their fear? While the discovery of the northern reaches of the Mississippi by Marquette, and the subsequent discoveries which led to the opening of lead mines by Perrot in the vicinity of Dubuque, gave the French nominal control over all this terri- tory, it remained an abyssmal wilderness.
We speak of the Italian, the French and the Spanish as Romance languages. Much of this Romance shows itself in the French as well as in the Spaniards.
12
HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY
They, too, were largely on a quest for gold and silver. The grosser metals, the · fine spun gold yielded by the dark rich loam of the Mississippi valley, did not appeal to their hardy, adventurous spirits. In 1700 a party of French miners, headed by Le Sueur, sailed up the Mississippi where they encoun- tered Canadian traders and trappers coming down the great river. The French held possession of this territory for nearly a century. Louis XIV dreamed vague dreams and squandered fortunes for the establishment of a mighty em- pire in the western world, but he was hampered by the great and growing unrest in his own country and by continual war with other countries, so that at one time all the stations on the Mississippi from the south were abandoned and even the traders returned to their far Canadian homes, leaving this terri- tory in the undisputed control of the Indians. Nevertheless France did not relinquish its theoretical claim, and it was in 1764 that Laclede established a settlement at St. Louis, from which point traders and trappers penetrated all the vast wilderness of the upper Mississippi and lower Missouri.
We do not know, but we have imagined that a certain man named "Bowyer" was among his followers. We can almost see him, with his suave French manner but partly concealing his intrepid spirit, the rifle upon his shoulder, the buck-skin trousers, the cap of skin upon his head, the mocassins upon his feet, as he led his little band of soldiers towards the sources of the mighty stream, Missouri. We say we do not know, and it is true, but there must have been such a man and he must have traveled through this very country at, or about that time. Whether he was French, or English, we cannot know of a certainty ; whether he came from the south or the north, or the east, we know not for a fact. But this we do know, that in 1801 a French writer speaking of his "Travels in Louisiana" tells that he passed up the Missouri river, pass- ing the mouth of "Bowyer's river" and proceeding thence to the mouth of "Soldier's river." He speaks of these rivers not as discoveries, not as rivers to which he gave nomenclature, but as rivers which had already been named. Again, in 1804, the annals of the Lewis and Clark expedition tell us that these great explorers who gave the knowledge of a mighty empire to the world, camped for the night at the mouth of the Boyer's river, and they, also, speak of the river as one which had already received its name. Here is the link, if any be needed, which binds us to an adventurous past; which tells us that our own streams, which were the sources of so many stolen delights in the days of our youth, the peaceful, little, muddy streams known to us every day, were named and known of white men even while the thirteen colonies of which we are so proud were bending beneath the yoke of England's imbecile Kings.
In passing, let us quote from the records of the Lewis and Clark expedi- tion, for they are the first English words written concerning the rivers upon which we live:
All preparation being completed we left our encampment on Monday, May 14, 1804. On July 28, 1804, having gone one mile, this morning, we reached a bluff, on the north, being the first highlands which approach the river on that side since we left the Nadawa (Nodaway.) Above this is an island, and a creek about fifteen yards wide, which, as it has no name, we called Indian Knob creek, from a number of round knobs bare of timber, on the
13
HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY
highlands to the north. (This stream is what is now called Indian creek, running through the city of Council Bluffs, near the present Chicago and Northwestern station.) "A little below the bluff, on the north, is the spot where the Ayauway Indians formerly lived. They were a branch of the Otoes, and emigrated from this place to the river Desmoines. At ten and three-quar- ter miles, we encamped on the north, opposite an island in the middle of the river. The land, generally, on the north, consists of high prairie and hills, with timber; on the south, low, and covered with cottonwood.
Sunday, July 29th, having sent an invitation to the Indians to meet us above on the river we proceeded. We soon came to a northern bend in the river, which runs within twenty yards of Indian Knob creek, the water of which is five feet higher than that of the Missouri. In less than two miles we passed Boyer's creek on the north, of twenty-five yards width. We stopped to dine under a shade near the highland on the south, and caught several large catfish, one of them nearly white, and all very fat. Above this highland we observed the traces of a great hurricane, which passed the river obliquely from the northwest to the southeast and tore up large trees, some of which, perfectly sound and four feet in diameter, were snapped off near the ground. The Missouri is much more crooked since we passed the river Platte, though, generally speaking, not so rapid; more of prairie with less timber, and cot- ton wood on the low grounds, and oak, black walnut, hickory, and elm.
July 30. We went early in the morning three and a quarter miles and encamped on the south in order to wait for the Otoes. The land here con- sists of a plain above the high water level, the soil of which is fertile and covered with a grass from five to eight feet high, interspersed with copses of large plums, and a currant, like those of the United States. It also furnishes two species of honeysuckle, one growing to a kind of shrub, the other not so high; the flowers grow in clusters, are short, and of a light pink color; the leaves, too, are distinct and do not surround the stalk as do those of the com- mon honeysuckle of the United States. Back of this plain is a woody ridge about seventy feet above it, at the end of which we formed our camp. This ridge separates the lower from a higher prairie, of a good quality, with grass ten or twelve inches in height, and extending back about a mile to another elevation of eighty or ninety feet, beyond which is one continued plain. Near our camp, we enjoy a most beautiful view from the bluffs of the river and the adjoining country. At a distance, varying from four to ten miles, and of a height between seventy and three hundred feet, two parallel ranges of high- land afford a passage to the Missouri, which enriches the low grounds between them. In its winding course it nourishes the willow islands, the scattered cottonwood, elm, sycamore, linn and ash, and the groves are interspersed with hickory, coffeenut and oak.
July 31. The meridian altitude of this day made the latitude of our camp forty-one degrees, eighteen minutes and one and four-tenths seconds. The hunters supplied us with deer, turkeys, geese and beaver; one of the last was caught alive and in a very short time was perfectly tamed. Catfish are very abundant in the river, and we have also seen a buffalo-fish. One of our men brought in yesterday an animal called by the Pawnees chocartoosh, and by
14
HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY
the French, blaireau, or badger. The evening is cool, yet the mosquitoes are very troublesome.
We waited with much anxiety the return of our messenger to the Otoes. The men whom we despatched to our last encampment returned without hav- ing seen any appearance of its having been visited. Our horses, too, had strayed; but we were so fortunate as to recover them at the distance of twelve miles. Our apprehensions were at length relieved by the arrival of a party of about fourteen Otoes and Missouri Indians, who came at sunset on the second of August, accompanied by a Frenchman who resided among them and inter- preted for us. Captains Lewis and Clark went out to meet them and told them that we would hold a council in the morning. In the meantime we sent them some roasted meat, pork, flour and meal, in return for which they made us a present of watermelons. We learned that our man Liberte had set out from their camp a day before them; we were in hopes that he had fatigued his horse, or lost himself in the woods, and would soon return; but we never saw him again.
August 3. The next morning the Indians, with their six chiefs, were all assembled under an awning, formed with the mainsail, in the presence of all our party, paraded for the occasion. A speech was then made, announcing to them the change in the government, our promises of protection, and advice as to their future conduct. All the six chiefs replied to our speech, each in his turn, according to rank; they expressed their joy at the change in the gov- ernment; their hopes that we would recommend them to their great father (the President), that they might obtain trade and necessaries; they wanted arms, as well for hunting as for defense, and asked our mediation between them and the Mahas, with whom they are now at war. We promised to do so, and wished some of them to accompany us to that nation which they declined, for fear of being killed by them. We then proceeded to distribute our pres- ents. The grand chief of the nation not being of the party we sent him a flag, a medal, and some ornaments for clothing. To the six chiefs who were present, we gave a medal of the second grade to one Otoe chief and one Mis- souri chief ; a medal of the third grade to two inferior chiefs of each nation- the customary mode of recognizing a chief being to place a medal round his neck, which is considered among his tribe as a proof of his consideration abroad. Each of these medals was accompanied by a present of paint, garters, and cloth ornaments of dress; and to this we added a cannister of powder, a bottle of whiskey, and a few presents to the whole, which appeared to make them perfectly satisfied. The airgun, too, was fired, and astonished them greatly. The absent grand chief was an Otoe named Weahrushhah, which in English degenerates into Little Thief. The two principal chieftains were Shongotongo, or Big Horse; and Wethea, or Hospitality; also Shosguscan, or White Horse, an Otoe; the first an Otoe, the second a Missouri. The incidents just related induced us to give to this place the name of the Council- bluff ; the situation of it is exceedingly favorable for a fort and trading fac- tory, as the soil is well calculated for bricks, and there is an abundance of wood in the neighborhood, and the air being pure and healthy. It is also central to the chief resorts of the Indians; one day's journey to the Otoes;
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.