USA > Iowa > Cedar County > A topical history of Cedar County, Iowa, Volume I > Part 11
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J. H. Painter began improvements in the northeast corner of the township in 1849. During the two or three years following a number of families settled in this vicinity.
The Society of Friends built their meeting house near Springdale in 1851, and it is said to have been the first house for such purposes in the county. It was built of gravel and had a cement roof and was used for a number of years.105
The mail service through this section was furnished by a stage line from Davenport to Iowa City cared for by George Albin and his son, Joseph Albin, who is now a very interesting pioneer of West Branch, and his account given recently is found elsewhere. Told by himself the story is full of life, and one may under- stand how the early settlers in this township waited for their mail service from day. to day on the ten-hour trips. Much trouble was experienced by those driving heavy loads when they came to the sloughs of uncertain depth of mud and water, and the doubling of teams or unloading was often the only method of finally and surely landing on the other side. Temporary bridges were often carried away and must be returned by human effort since teams could not be brought to the point of lodgment. The neighborly nature of men was best shown in the distress of stranded loads in these swamps, which after years of settlement and cultivation of the soil have practically disappeared.
The early settlers of Springdale Township must be also the early inhabitants of Iowa Township, since at this time all the territory lying west of the river was in one division, being one of the five first organized by the county commis- sioners. John H. Painter, Ann Coppock, the mother of the boys Edwin and Barclay, who are fully spoken of in the John Brown chapter, are among the first settlers. Levi Leland and Levi Fawcett, whose name still remains among the
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present land owners of the township, Moses Varney, whose descendants still reside in the vicinity, and Dr. Gill, all came in 1850.
After 1850 the settlement was more rapid and the first store was opened in 1851 by Louis Schofield and Thomas Winn. The latter is mentioned in another connection when he went to Harper's Ferry on the mission of mercy to Edwin Coppock. Winn was the postmaster when the Albins carried the mail from Davenport to Iowa City. Jesse Bowersock settled in Iowa Township in 1844, afterwards in Springdale, where he kept a store as he had on his land in the former home. Macy and Fawcett later had a store on the same site. Thomas Fawcett still lives in the township, having been there all these years. Jonathan Maxson, now of West Liberty, also had a mercantile business. He has since been postmaster of West Liberty for some seventeen years. Thomas James, who was prominent in county affairs and the father of Jesse James, county clerk, was once in business here. His widow still survives at the age of more than ninety years. Her picture accompanies the reference. Elwood Macy, referred to above, will be mentioned in the discussion of the Cedar County members of the State Assembly.
There is an old blacksmith shop in Springdale that gives evidence of long use. This was established in an early day. The first one referred to in the place was built by Eli Heald about 1853. Ed. Manfull and Sol. Heald succeeded each other in the wagon repairing and smith work. In an early day the making of carriages was a prosperous industry conducted by D. Schooley. Then was the time that the home product was consumed on the spot and the shop that could repair and produce the entire product had the advantage. The agricultural societies offered inducements to the maker of the useful, and at this time the man who could improve upon the tools then in use was sure to have plenty to encourage him.106
The old business of cheesemaking and like products under the co-operative plan was once in order in the township, and one called the Cold Stream Cheese Factory was operated by a stock company. It was located on the southeast corner of section two and now appears on the map as a creamery. The old West Branch factory is also run as a creamery.
Springdale has not changed much with the passing years. It still has no railway service and must depend on rural delivery and the telephone for com- munication with the neighboring towns. Just now there is a movement to secure the proposed interurban from Iowa City to Davenport, which would give con- nection with the main lines of road and with the county seat. The business inter- ests of Springdale are in the hands of a few people as compared to the time when the railroad was further removed.
This part of Cedar is one of the richest and most desirable of the farming communities that are the pride of the county. Of high moral tone, distinctly religious, and sensible in all things that make for good citizenship, one can under- stand its prosperity and influence in public affairs.
A Springdale correspondent gives in a sympathetic way the sketch of a man who belongs in history under many titles. Educational interests knew him well ; church interests knew him better; government service was acquainted with his best efforts ; many articles on public questions came from his pen; but all human advancement knew him best. This man was Lawrie Tatum, who came
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to Springdale in 1844. In July, 1871, he was appointed by President Grant United States Indian Commissioner with headquarters at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The call came to him without preliminary notice and he responded, and with the assistance of his wife served seven thousand Indians for a period of four years.
For many reasons this man is known through written productions. "Our Red Brothers and the Peace Policy of President Grant" is said to be largely his work. His magazine articles are numerous and the pen was always a favorite method of his to give utterance to high ideals of citizenship. His last production was a letter to a Des Moines daily giving expression to his opposition to the Boer War. He died in January, 1900.
The landmark of Centredale is the old stone house built by Joseph Ball in 1862. Its history is about as follows: Centredale was established on the farm of Mr. Ball when the B. C. R. & N., now part of the Rock Island system, was built through there. In the year 1850 John Ball came to the vicinity of Centre- dale, two years later James Ball, and in 1854 John S. Smith and son. There was a district school house here and the railroad used it as a depot until one could be built. The school building was afterward used as a store. In 1862 the house mentioned above was erected as a farm dwelling and is for the time quite modern. The great effort it required and the time it took to get the material together is the matter of interest. The stone came from near the quarry now known as Bealer's, nine miles from the site of the house, and they were hauled with ox teams, which required the greater part of three years to complete the work of gathering the stone, sand, and lime for the structure. The land where this house stands was entered by Joseph Ball in 1840, or about that date, but the family were not destined to occupy the land nor house for any length of time, all but one being called by death. B. F. Ball, the survivor, left the county for California in 1873. Later he built a beautiful home of stone and pressed brick resembling, so it is described, the old house at Centredale, at an expense of sixty thousand dollars. Just as the story is told almost, the family is broken by death and the estate of the former owner of the old house was given as three hundred thousand dollars.
Centredale is but a small station, but the story of the old house may give it a' setting of interest.
Most of the history of Downey is told in connection with Springdale township, but its name is not mentioned only by reference to settlers in that vicinity. It is in the extreme southwest part of the county and must be reached from the other parts by means of the Rock Island through West Liberty. The name comes from Hugh D. Downey, the man who laid out the town. The land on which it is situated was entered by James B. Berryhill in .1852, and afterwards transferred to Mr. Downey, who afterwards sold the site of the town to A. B. Cornwall, when it was resurveyed. Downey has at the present time a school building of sufficient pretensions to meet the needs of a town much larger in population and has attempted to raise the standard of the schools far beyond most districts of the valuation. An elevator and bank are among the recent improvements.
The town of Durant was laid out and platted by Benjamin Brayton in 1854, a civil engineer then in the employ of the Rock Island railway. The name Brayton remained with the town for some time, but it finally took its present title from T. C. Durant, of Union Pacific railroad fame, who pledged himself to give eight
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hundred dollars for the erection of a public school building. The town is regu- larly laid out and the streets are eighty feet in width, running almost according to the points of the compass.
Durant is about twenty miles west of Davenport and is situated in one of the richest farming communities in the state. In another part of this book is found a statement of its banks which shows something to prove the assertion. Accord- ing to the records the town was incorporated in April, 1867, after it had been platted for thirteen years. H. C. Loomis and A. D. Perkins filed the petition. The first mayor was Allen Nesbitt, a justice of the peace at the time. In the sur- vey of 1854 two large squares were left for public purposes-one in the east and one in the west part of the village. In the accompanying picture the present condition of the west square is shown-filled with the shade trees put there in the early days of the town.
The earliest settlers in this vicinity were David and Geo. Walton, who opened their claims three miles west in connection with their father, David W., in May, 1836. When this was written they were said to have been the oldest settlers in the county, and this is not now disputed. The names of Walton do not now appear in the township as holders of the land which they opened to settlement so long ago, but in Sugar Creek. The change has come in the natural exchange of real property and for other reasons which cannot now be discussed.
Harrison Gray came to this neighborhood, but settled in Muscatine County and does not therefore now concern the writer, since the matter must belong to another county so far as his history of a later time goes.
In March, 1854, Joseph Weaver, a graduate of Princeton College, who had mastered the law under Judge McCandles of the United States courts in western Pennsylvania, and who had spent some time in the law, came to the vicinity and entered his farm, commencing active work upon it at once. He was not accus- tomed to the trials of the new farmer, and gives the expression to his feelings in the following : "This was my first day's work on a farm and well do I remember it. Trudging along on the plowed ground, dust flying in thick clouds all about us, when night came we looked more like the South African than office bleached lawyers. I thought as I returned from the field at evening, sore and dusty, and so weary that if this was farming in Iowa I guess I'll quit." But he did not quit and afterward was glad of it.
The first settlers in this vicinity came from New Haven, Conn., and they were soon followed by those from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and the New England states. The first building erected in Durant was one by James Young, a carpenter, for C. M. Loomis. It was a one-story structure and was used by the owner for a residence only a short time when he returned east, having been overcome with that dread disease-homesickness. No buildings of that original. time are now standing. After they served their various purposes they were re- placed and so remodeled as to be beyond recognition.
The second building is interesting for the reason that it was for the office of the first physician, Dr. Bills, and while planned for his use it was rented at once for a home by a Mr. Cunningham, and he soon found himself running the only hotel in town with a dozen or more patrons and a house twelve by sixteen feet in dimensions. When Mr. Fisher wrote the "History of Durant," from which
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RESIDENCE OF W. A. KESTER, CENTERDALE
S. SCHONBORN.
SCHONBORN ELEVATOR, CENTERDALE
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HISTORY OF CEDAR COUNTY
these facts are drawn, Dr. Bills had put this building to a more humble use, and it was the oldest building standing on its original foundation.
The third building in the town was the depot. One does not always find such a building used for so many purposes, perhaps seldom one better say, for it furnished the church for many years and here the school meetings were held when the matter of educational equipment was discussed. This is said to have been the first building erected for the express purpose of depot service in the state of Iowa. The hotel was built by the proprietors of the town, Cook and Sargent, of Davenport. It was leased by Mr. Downs, the first station agent in the town and the proprietor of the first store. In the fall of 1855 the Western Stage Company opened a line from this place to Tipton, continuing it for three months, for which they received from the proprietors of the town five hundred dollars. The same fall the railroad track was laid through here and now people came thick and fast to settle the new town. The manufacture of brick was undertaken here in the summer of '56, but owing to some difficulty with the railroad it was given up.
The post office, which had been at Centre Grove on the Hanson Farm, was moved to town in '56 and John E. Whittlesey became the first postmaster.
It is interesting to note that the first shipment of produce was six barrels of game. This was sent out on the passenger train then running from this place on January 10, 1856. The first wheat shipment was one hundred and ninety-eight bags to Hull, Purvis and Co., Davenport. The first car of wheat was loaded in February, '56, and was also consigned to Davenport. It must be remembered here that these are the very first rail shipments from this county. The first car of wheat to Chicago went out in the fall of 1857. The first car of onions was shipped to Davenport by B. P. Putnam in 1857. The first freight received was two cars of lumber for H. S. Downs in 1856. A lumber yard was established in 1857 by Allen and Williams.
The first birth in the town was a daughter of Isaac Gilbert, December 12, 1857, and she was named Mary Durant and received from the founders of the town the promised warranty deed to lot five in block ten. From inference it is concluded that the first passenger train came through or to Durant in the winter of '55. The first Sunday school was organized in 1855 and continued many years as a union school. Rev. Thomas Dutton came to Iowa as a missionary in '43, locating north of the village in 1866.107 His name is still familiar to those inter- ested in the Sunday schools of the vicinity.
Item .---- "A New Store in a New Place." We call the attention of our readers to the new advertisement of the "Farmers' Store of W. O. Ludlow of Durant. This town, it will be remembered, is the only town on the line of the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad in this county and is destined to be a place of no small note. We (Wells Spicer) passed through there on the cars. We did not have time to stop, but did have time to witness many valuable improvements ; conspicuous among these is a new church, the steeple of which can be seen for many miles across the prairies. Also the store of Mr. Ludlow, who now bespeaks a share -
of Cedar County patronage." 108
Officials of Durant at present date : E. F. Jockheek, Mayor ; W. H. Crecilius, Treasurer ; Paul Samberg, Clerk; Councilmen, Herm. Brauch, Gus. Thiel, Geo. Hamann, A. F. Schiele, Hugo Boldt.
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HISTORY OF CEDAR COUNTY
When the Clinton branch of the B. C. R. & N., now known as the Rock Island, became an assured proposition (1884), it was also certain that a new town would be platted in Inland township. Inland had been a post office and had some business, but the railroad had left it to the north, and a station in the eastern part of the county was necessary.
Nels Stanton and Dick Hill were the prime movers in the matter, and these men, in conjunction with Piatt and Carr, and Mr. Bennett, the right-of-way man for the B. C. R. & N., and for whom the town is named, constituted the commit- tee to select a site for the new town.
After some deliberation the new site was located on forty acres of the Long farm, belonging to two of the committee, Hill and Stanton. Stock shipments were begun as soon as cars could be obtained. T. S. Chapman put in the first stock of lumber and Mr. Hopkinson built the first blacksmith shop. M. G. Block- man began to buy grain in the fall. John Templeton opened the first business house, moving from Inland. Drs. Colton and Boman came from Inland and established a drug store. W. G. Bevier opened a branch lumber yard in. charge of Walter Swartzlender. Two hotels were established early in the town and all lines of business developed rapidly.
The former town of Inland has been swallowed up by the later development of a railroad town to the south, to which place the business went when Bennett was laid out in 1884. The Postens at the grove, which took their name, were the first settlers in this vicinity in 1836. The oldest living pioneer of this vicinity is "Uncle John Ackerman," now in his ninety-second year and willing and able to tell of his life with the Indians when the prairie was still without habitation and no white man near. His adventures are thrilling and his experiences full of that which makes the common events of life seem tame. Mr. Ackerman is now living a short distance east of Bennett and enjoys the telling of the stories of his early days. In 1839 a tavern was established in order to accommodate the travelers on the Davenport-Marion road not far from the present town of Bennett. This was conducted by J. C. Hallock at the suggestion of John P. Cook, a resident of Tipton. Thomas Curtis was the first settler at Inland village. Here he kept a public house and established a wagon repair shop.
Inland had the promise of any town then, but after it had attained the growth expected of such a place in the lines of business generally followed in the villages it all disappeared when the moving began. The early mail service was as in other places overland from the nearest point of general delivery, and the marketing must be done at Davenport, the point of distribution of manufactured goods. Bennett is now the junction of the Davenport branch and the Clinton division of the Rock Island, and has considerable business of railroad nature. The trains are run to make connections here, and this is a point of division of the traffic. Bennett provided for water works in 1902 and has a system with good supply, using a pressure system for distribution instead of a tower, as is the custom in most of the county towns.
The present officers of Bennett are: Mayor, H. W. Dammann; Clerk, J. B. Vaughn; Treasurer, E. P. Wingert; Councilmen, James Flater, Henry Ruser, J. H. Abraham, H. R. Chapman and H. Heineman.
BLACKSMITH SHOP, SPRINGDALE MAIN STREET, SPRINGDALE, LOOKING EAST
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HISTORY OF CEDAR COUNTY
Another town was platted west of Stanwood on the line between Fremont and Pioneer townships. This tract belonged to David Dorwart, and under the same arrangement with the railway company as other towns he secured the location of a town site about the year 1857. Previous to this in 1854 or '55 John Onstott and D. H. Comstock laid out the original town of Mechanicsville. The original plat comprised about sixty acres and lay in the western part of what is now the main portion of the town. The land between the "Iroquois" tract, as the eastern portion lying over the line in Fremont was formerly called, and the original plat of Mechanicsville was laid out in lots in order to unite the two, and thus a tract of one hundred and twenty acres was included in the town plat. The depot was then located on the western portion instead of as at first anticipated. The town being thus in two townships at one time caused some difficulty about elections, as one officer's election was contested on the grounds of votes from another town- ship being cast for him. The town gets its name from the character of the first settlers in the western part of the town, and was given the place by Mr. Onstott. They were mechanics and the owner himself was such, so the name was well taken, although it is frequently abbreviated by those using it much in correspondence.
Mechanicsville suffered from a severe fire in 1883, which destroyed the south side of the business street. No means of fighting the fire were at hand beyond the ordinary "bucket brigade," and many narrow escapes were experienced. The water system has since been established and protection is ample. The electric lighting plant was first put into service in 1899 by Helmer and Dawson, and was commended as of first-class construction. The history of the organizations of the town are given in other connections. The cuts accompanying the chapter give some idea of the prosperity of the corporation.
The original town was in the south half of section thirteen of Pioneer town- ship, and the Iroquios addition lies to the east, extending over the line into Fre- mont, the Batdorf addition lying wholly in that township according to record,109 and it would seem proper in this case to do as Lowden has done-arrange to get the entire town into one township if there is no constitutional objection. Fewer additions have been made to the original plat perhaps because the enlargement was made in the beginning when the depot was placed on the western portion after the eastern part had been platted.
The town officers reported now include: Leonard Hines, Jr., Mayor; J. H. Onstatt, Recorder ; H. E. Gibeaut, Treasurer ; Councilmen, Lines Bennett, O. J. Davison, Geo. Nagle, F. W. Leech, and L. H. Andre.
Onion Grove Station was the name first given to the stopping place of the trains on the Chicago and Northwestern railway, then known by the name as often written in the chapter on transportation, the Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska. The name is suggestive of the neighborhood of the grove two miles north of the present site of the town, where the familiar wild onion grew in abundance at that time, perhaps not now to be had at all. A similar plant may be found in the tim- ber, but the quality is far different from the prairie kind one may come upon in the open land in the northern part of the state. The post office at Onion Grove was first supplied from the route running from Iowa City to Dubuque and once to Galena, Ill., when Alonzo Shaw said he rode two hundred miles each week on horseback to carry out his contract. One may read his own words in the chapter
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on the subject of transportation. Dayton township was named at a late, com- paratively late, date, since it is on record as being made from Polk, once the fractional part of "Waubespinicon" township. The banks of Mill Creek supplied the traveler with the necessary onion portion of his meal if he desired such addition.
The Northwestern passing two miles from this post office caused its removal, and the lack of euphony in the name led in to the change in 1862. Strictly, speaking the name Clarence comes from the Latin, clarus, meaning famous, but that was not supposed to be the reason for its adoption now as some town of the same name in the parent state suggested it here to the one who selected it.
A vacant freight car served for the first station some distance east of the present station near the McNeil farm then.
The town of Clarence as now platted lies in sections 22, 23, 26, and 26 and was originally laid out by the land company organized for the purpose of controlling the town sites along the line of road then building. Joseph Ball was the owner of the forty acres on which the original plat was made, but he sold to the town company. It is not stated whether this Joseph Ball is the same one who settled early in the history of the county near Centredale, but one may suppose the two to be identical. The other part of the original plat belonged to James Laughrey, which the company also purchased.
The remaining part of the section on which the forty acres platted from sec- tion 27 lay was purchased in 1865 by Fred Hecht, M. K. H. Reed, and A. Piatt, with the exception of the northwest quarter, and that portion known as Hecht's addition was made to the town of Clarence. The school building and water works are located upon this addition. The town was incorporated in 1866, according to the records, and secured public improvements since then in the form of water works in 1890, and a municipal gas plant was voted upon in 1895, when the ladies had the rare privilege of voting. The system is pronounced a success and was the first plant of the kind in the county. Clarence enjoys the reputation also of having the only public watering fountain for man and beast in the county so far as discovered.
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