USA > Iowa > Monroe County > An illustrated history of Monroe County, Iowa > Part 3
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"The northeast corner of the county being more thickly settled than the south, but not likely to be so in the future, serious inconvenience will necessarily be suffered by future population. The center of the county is in Cedar Bottom. consequently not suitable for a town. Your Commissioners
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
located Princeton on the center line of the county running east and west, and the north-and-south line on the west of the town is just three miles from the center. .
"Again, the quarter of land Princeton contains is worth at least double, to the county, what the quarter at Clarksville is worth, from the situation of both. Clarksville is a nar- row, crooked ridge, interrupted by sloughs, while Princeton is a beautiful, level prairie.
"We oppose the unnecessary expense for the county to make an election on the subject.
"Your petitioners, therefore, request your honorable body to let the county seat of Kishkekosh County remain at the town of Princeton, according to its location, for which your petitioners would ever pray."
To this remonstrance were attached the following signatures:
F. R. S. Byrd, Aliathan Newton, Noah Bonebrake, John Bonebrake, Geo. W. Bethards, Wm. Olney, Josiah C. Boggs, L. M. Boggs, Jeremiah Wilson, A. M. Walker, John Walker, Michael Lower, John Lower, Jas. McRoberts, Wm. Scott, Jas. R. Boggs, Joseph Lundy, Wm. Bellsland, Eliphalet John- son, Abram Tilley, Lawrell Tyrrell, Creath Renfro, John Renfro, John B. Gray, John A. Massey, Abraham Webb, Andrew Gillespie, Andrew Elswick, Jonathan Elswick, Calvin Elswick, John Walker, F. New, Jabez Tuttle, Thorn- ton F. Chapman, Thos. R. Barbour, Christopher K. Wilson, Abner Harbor, Jas. T. Bradley, Horace I. Tyrrell, F. Healy, Robt. M. Hartness, Oliver Tyrrell, Philander Tyrrell, I. Beebe, G. Judson, Joseph Bruce, John Midlain, Wm. Mc- Bride, George Anderson, Job Rogers, John Gunther, Israel Green, Oliver P. Rowles, David Rowles, James Hardestay, Reuben Mock, Thos. McSouth, Ira Beebe, Peter Miller, Andrew Barber, B. F. B. Bates, Chas. Anderson, Wm. H. McBride, Wm. Buchanan, Geo. Day, Jas. Gordon, Jas. McIn- tyre, Jacob Zigler, John M. McIntyre, John R. Bruce, Mesach Pluffs, Lawson Bradley, Orwin Judson, Wm. Bone- brake, A. Dorothy, Smith Judson, Harry Miller, Chas. Bates. Joseph Franks, John Webb, Wm. Lower, Jacob Bonebrake. M. Cross, Alfred Marvin, Geo. Marvin, Foster Marvin, John Mock.
To the petition calling for an election to reestablish the county seat, and in behalf of the town of Clarksville, there were 149 signatures, and to the remonstrance were attached
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
88 names, among which Ira Beebe and Win. McBride each subscribed his name twice. The names of Andrew Gillespie, Ira Beebe, Philander L. Tyrrell, and B. F. B. Bates occur in both petitions.
An election was held in April, 1846, and it was decided, by a bare majority of 4, to allow the county seat to remain at Princeton. Accordingly, on January 19, 1846, the Legisla- ture passed a bill permanently locating the county seat at Princeton, or Albia, as it was named in the bill-an act hav- ing been passed the same day changing the name.
At the county-seat election there was considerable polit- ical wire-pulling. At the same election some officers were to be elected, among which was a delegate to the constitutional convention called for the purpose of adopting a State consti- tution. Wareham G. Clark, W. H. H. Davis, and Mr. Leigh- ton were the aspirants. The Princeton crowd were Whigs, and Clark and Davis were Democrats, but the Whigs entered into a compact to support Davis if he would use his influence in behalf of Princeton. He did so, but the Whigs went back on him and voted for Leighton. Mr. Clark, on the other hand, was elected delegate by a good majority.
The county-seat question now being settled for all time. the Board of Commissioners, consisting of Smith Judson, Wm. McBride, and Andrew Elswick, met on the 17th of August, 1846, for the purpose of arranging plans to erect a court-house. According to specifications, the structure was to be 20 feet square and 14 feet high, and constructed of hewn logs 7 inches in thickness and hewn on two sides, and the cracks between the logs were to be not more than 3 inches wide at the corners. The roof was to be composed of clap- boards 3 feet in length and nailed to rafters hewn on one side. The gable ends of the building were to be weatherboarded in the prevailing architecture of the period. The architect undertaking the erection of this edifice was placed under a bond of $160 to secure its completion by the 25th of September.
Another session of the Board of Commissioners con- vened in extra session on the 1Stli of August, to consider plans and proposals for the chinking and daubing of the court-house, and the transaction of other matters of im- portance.
In 1847 the subject of liquor trafic came up, and at the April election a vote was taken on the proposition to issue
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
a license for the sale of intoxicants; 82 votes were cast in favor of license, and 42 against the measure.
When the court-house was finally completed, and the contractor paid for the job, which amounted to $75, the Board of County Commissioners next began to canvass the question of erecting a county jail. In April, 1848, arrangements were made to build a jail 16 feet square. The walls, loft, and floor were to be composed of hewn logs 1 foot square, and there was to be one window 14x16 inches, secured by suit- able fastenings. Alpheus Miller and Doster Noland were awarded the contract for building the jail. The cost of the structure was $174.
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
CHAPTER IV.
Early Political Methods.
As early as 1848, Empire's evil star began to flit her fit- ful beams upon the political organization of Monroe County. The Democrats had attained the zenith of power, but the aggressive and rapidly increasing Whig element had be- come so formidable a rival that to maintain the ground held by one, and to advance the line of pickets of the other, polit- ical aemmen was taxed to its utmost. At that period the polit- ical fabric was not so intricately interwoven as at present, and it was almost impossible for the politician to get in his "fine work" without detection. Yet, to offset this disadvan- tage, the manipulator of party interests was not so greatly hedged in by the law as he is now ; and however unscrupulous his methods, the statutes offered little remedy for correcting the abuses of partisanship.
At the time we speak of (1848) a Congressional campaign was to be waged in the First Congressional District, of which Monroe County was then a part. Monroe County had a Democratic majority over the Whigs, but the eastern coun- ties of the district had a large Whig following, who exhibited a burning desire to defeat the Democrats, by methods doubt- less equally questionable if necessary.
The Whigs brought into the field Daniel F. Miller for Congress, and the Democrats nominated Wm. Thompson, of Mt. Pleasant.
At this time many of the Mormons of Illinois, in making their hegira from Nauvoo, had located temporarily in dif- ferent localities in southern Iowa, to rest and recuperate be- fore proceeding onward across the plains to the Salt Lake valley, whither Joseph Smith, their saint and leader, had prophesied they should be gathered under the immediate supervision of the Lord.
As before stated, all the territory lying directly west of Monroe County, as far as the Missouri River, was attached to Monroe County for election and judicial purposes.
This unorganized territory comprised the tier of coun- ties now consisting of Lucas, Clark, Union, Adams, Mont- gomery, and Mills. Several small settlements of Mormons -3
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
were made in one or more of these counties; one was at Garden Grove, in Lucas County. The Mormons were the first to settle Lucas County, and, indeed, many of the early settlers of Monroe were Mormons, but they had lost faith in their doctrine and made up their minds to embrace the belief of their "Gentile" neighbors, and remain.
In this connection it will be of interest to state that some of the most conspicuous and highly esteemed families resid- ing in Monroe County at the present day were apostates from the Mormon Church. That branch of the "Hairy Na- tion" locating in Mantua and Urbana townships was largely composed of ex-Mormons; but, as the extravagant doctrines of the "Latter-Day Saints," as they chose to style themselves, and their sometimes predatory exploits among their "Gen. tile" neighbors, have attached considerable odium to the Mormons as a church organization, those who apostatized and are now living in Monroe County are a little reticent about speaking of their connection with the Mormon Church. In this digression it is but just to add that these apostates had joined the Mormon Church before the doctrine of polyg- amy had been ingrafted into their creed; consequently none of them either sanctioned or practiced polygamy, as they withdrew from the church as soon as Brigham Young began to inculcate polygamy in the doctrines of the sect.
The Mormons of Nauvoo had always been Democrats. and it was but reasonable to suppose that in their exit to the west they had brought along with them their political as well as their spiritual convictions. They had formed a settle- ment on the Missouri River in Pottawattamie County, at a place called Cainsville, which occupied the present site of Council Bluffs. There were a considerable number of Mor- mons at this settlement, and if their votes could be secured in the Congressional canvass of the First District, their strength would constitute a balance of power.
In furtherance of this scheme, the Board of County Com- missioners, consisting of Andrew Elswick, Wm. McBride, and Geo. R. Holliday, and Dudley C. Barber as clerk, all Democrats, made the following order for the establishment of an election precinct in Pottawattamie County, "which lics directly west of Monroe County":
"Ordered by said Board. That that portion of country called Pottawattamie County, which lies directly west of Monroe County, be organized into a township, and that
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
Cainsville be an election precinct in said township, and that the election be held at the Council House in said village; and that Chas. Bird, Henry Miller, and Wm. Huntington be ap- pointed judges of said election; and that the boundaries of said township extend east as far as the east Nishnabatna."
This order was promulgted by the Board on July 3, 1848. Pottawattamie County, as everyone knows, does not "lie directly west of Monroe County," being one tier of counties north of the Monroe County tier. The geography of western Iowa was not very well known at that time, and for the pur- pose of ascertaining whether the Mormon settlement at Cainsville was included in the territory directly west of Monroe County. Judge Mason and Judge Weber, the latter a surveyor, were sent west on a surveying tour to ascertain the exact geographical location of the precinct of Cainsville.
Notwithstanding the fact that the location of Cainsville is at least twenty miles north of the northern line of Monroe Couny (Mills County lying between), these gentlemen re- turned with the information that the Cainsville precinct fell within the jurisdiction of Monroe County. It seems that they had also made a survey of the political sentiments of the Mormons, for they reported them as solidly Democratic.
This was encouraging news to the party, but when the matter leaked out, and the design of the scheme became fully apparent to the Whigs, the latter were thrown into great consternation. Emissaries were dispatched by both par- ties to the Mormon stronghold to negotiate for the Mor- mon vote. Their woes and persecutions were duly com- miserated by the agents of each party. They were petted and fondled and pitied and cajoled like the laboring class are to-day. by political demagogues. But the unexpected was destined to occur at that day as well as at the present. The Mormons, at the election on the 7th day of August, 1848, voted solidly for the Whig candidate.
Whether this sudden and altogether unlooked-for change in the political convictions of the "Latter-Day Saints" of Cainsville was attributable to the use of money cannot be definitely stated. It is charged that the Democrats offered but one thousand dollars for their votes, while the Whigs raised the amount to twelve hundred, and thereby secured the vote. While this assertion may be true, it is equally prob- able that the Mormons had lost faith in the Democratic party, and wanted to experiment on a change of administra-
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
tion. Under the existing administration they had been driven from place to place and had failed to secure the rights of religious liberty, as they claimed was guaranteed them under the Constitution, and in their exasperation they probably voted the Whig ticket through mere caprice, or through a desire to experiment with the Whig doctrine.
J. C. Hall, a prominent Democrat of Burlington, on hear- ing of the disaster to his party at Cainsville, mounted his trusty horse and set out for Albia to take counsel with his party in Monroe County, and possibly devise some means of preventing the canvass of the vote of Cainsville. He arrived in Albia in advance of the Cainsville poll-book.
The Board convened to canvass the vote on the 14th day of August. The canvass was made at the log cabin of Dudley C. Barber, the clerk of the Board of Commissioners. Among those present was Dr. Flint, a brother-in-law of Barber, and an intensely zealous Democrat. Israel Kister, of Jefferson County, was also present. A heated discussion arose as to the validity of the Cainsville returns. Mr. Mark, who was afterwards postmaster at Albia, was also present, and championed the cause of the Whigs. After considerable wrangling, it was concluded to make another examination of the returns, when the Cainsville poll-book could not be found. It had miraculously disappeared from the table, where it had quietly rested a few moments before. It finally became apparent that the book had been surrepti- tiously concealed or stolen. A row ensued, and pistols were drawn, but no blood was shed. It is not definitely known who stole the poll-book, but it was strongly surmised that Kister spirited it away from the room and carried it off in his saddle-bags. It is at least claimed, by a gentleman whose statements cannot be impeached, that Kister ad- mitted the purloining of the book. Some say it was thrust through a crack in the "puncheon" floor and afterwards fished out.
The Democrats had a majority in the Congressional District, and Miller, the Whig candidate, contested his seat, on the grounds of fraud in the poll-book incident. The case was sent back from Congress to be decided in the courts. The case was tried at Keokuk, and in the trial which ensued further light was shed on the stealing of the Cainsville poll-book. It transpired that either Kister or Dr. Flint had secretly deposited the book in the saddle-bags of Judge
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
Mason, the gentleman already referred to in this incident, and that that gentleman was unaware that it was there until he had gone to his home at Agency, and opened the saddle-bags. In the trial of the case, Thompson, the Demo- cratie nominee, got Mason to defend his case. Miller called upon Mason to show his authority to act for Thompson; whereupon Mason drew from his pocket what he supposed was the authority, but it proved to be the missing poll- book. Miller then stated to the court that he had just come into possession of what he had been looking for for a year- the missing book.
The District Court decided that the returns from the Cainsville precinct gave a majority to Miller, the Whig candidate. and Miller was admitted to his seat in the thirty-first Congress.
Thompson, in the meantime, had taken his seat at the opening of the session, but when the case went to Keokuk for trial, he returned from Washington to defend his claims.
The final adjustment of this Congressional dispute was not made until after the State election of 1850, in which Bernhart Henn, of Fairfield, was elected to Congress, and took his seat in 1851. Henn was a Democrat of the Buchanan school.
During the last session of the thirty-first Congress the Thompson-Miller case was taken up and disposed of in the District Court. It was ordered that another election be held in the district in September, 1850, to fill the vacancy- the court holding that neither party to the contest had been duly elected. In this election the Democrats carried Monroe County, but the district was carried by the Whigs; and Miller was elected and served during the last session of the thirty-first Congress.
This Congressional contest was so bitter that it en- gendered a spirit of party acrimony which did not subside until the Whig party was superseded by the Republican party, at the opening of the Civil War.
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
CHAPTER V.
Miscellaneous Topics.
The early settlers of Monroe County were composed mainly of people from Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio,
Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Pennsylvania. There are to-day probably a greater number from Indiana than from any other State; and there are no doubt more people in the county to-day from the States of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio than from all the other States in the Union.
The Missourians never showed much partiality for Mon- roe County, nor to the State at large, for during that period when the migration of settlers from adjoining States was at its highest point, the breach which was gradually widening between the North and South seems to have placed a check on Northern emigration as early as the period of Buchanan's administration.
Later, the' intense sectional hatred aroused by the border warfare still further impeded emigration from Missouri, and the term "border ruffian" seems, even at this late day, to occasionally stir up a long-dormant feeling of reproach in the recollections of the pioneers of southern Iowa.
It is probable that the enactment of the famous Kansas- Nebrsaka Bill also had something to do towards discourag- ing emigration from Missouri to Iowa. On the enactment of this bill, Missouri poured a flood of emigration westward, for the purpose of augmenting the pro-slavery sentiment in Kansas and Nebraska, and also of acquiring homes.
The "Sucker" of Illinois was Inred here by the mag- nificent stretches of prairie. In going from east to west, one first encounters the border of the great prairie region of the continent in western Illinois and Iowa. This transi- tion is very marked in Monroe County. To the east of Monroe, the Des Moines and Mississippi valleys interrupt the uniformity of the surface by their broad wooded valleys and the narrow ridges between their innumerable tributaries.
To the west of Monroe, a complete change takes place. The river valleys are narrower and shallower, and the upland tracts of timber disappear. The prairie region then rolls away unbroken to the Rocky Mountains.
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
A line drawn north and south through Monroe County presents much the same characteristic. From the rolling prairies of Mahaska County to the grassy steppes of Minne- sota and the Dominion territory is one expanse of prairie.
Our southern neighbor, Appanoose County, with her wooded ridges and brushy pastures, may be said to define the physical limits or mark the boundaries, in a physical sense, of the North and South. The surface of Missouri is broken by the Chariton, Grand, Nodaway, Missouri, and other rivers; and, indeed, this line of demarcation may be located six or eight miles south of Albia, on Soap Creek. From that point south to the Gulf there are no natural prairies of any considerable extent.
Those who settled in Monroe County in the early days, and who had come from Pennsylvania, North Carolina. Virginia, and other mountainous localities, did not consider the beautiful grass-grown prairies of the county fit for human habitation. They scouted the idea that crops would grow where the wild prairie grass waved in a sea of emerald. They selected the densely wooded creek bottoms and made their clearings in the forest. They were ac- customed to the rock-strewn hills of their native States. and were instinctively lured to those localities which most closely resembled their own, which they had left.
It will seem strange at this day that the beautiful prairies (the word "prairie" in French means "meadows") of Monroe County, growing in grass and studded with wild sweet williams, asters, and golden rod, and a profusion of other flowers, should for several years remain untenanted by those who had come here to acquire homes.
Those who were a little slow about making choice (?) selections of claims were obliged finally to settle on prairie tracts like what is now the farm of Hon. O. P. Rowles, and that of John Collins, a few miles south of Albia, and other magnificent estates within the county.
The ox-team and the break-plow were the two most potent factors of pioneer civilization. The plow was con- structed as follows: the settler would remove the two front wheels from his wagon and place them on a rudely con- structed axle made from an oak sapling 6 or S inches in diameter and about the length of an ordinary wagon axle; the plow, which had a very long moldboard and a prodigious wooden beam, was partially suspended between the two
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
wheels of the trucks by an upright frame resting on the axle; a long lever extended from the front end of the plow- beam back to the upright frame, where it was secured by a wooden pin; there was a series of auger-holes in the upright frame, and the depth of the furrow could be regu- lated by simply removing the adjusting pin from one of the holes and lifting or bearing down on the lever. There has never been a plow manufactured since then so suitable for turning under wild sod and hazel-brush as this rudely constructed break-plow of our fathers. It could not rise out of the furrow when it struck a root; it could be set to any desired depth, and it would stay there; with two or three yoke of oxen attached, it would cleave its way through almost anything; when it encountered a "running-oak," it did not "pass by on the other side," like the Levite, but it went through it and turned it under.
When the county was first settled there was little under- brush. The hazel, which some years later became so abundant on the prairies, grew very sparsely. Prairie fires for ages had swept the prairie whenever vegetation was in condition to burn, and these kept down hazel and other shrubbery; but when the settlers began to take precautions against the ravages of fire, a dense growth of oak and other varieties of trees began to grow into low upland thickets, much to the detriment of the farmers in after years.
In the early days of Monroe County the forests supplied an abundance of fine saw timber, and even at the present day there are several good bodies of white oak in Urbana Township, in the vicinity of Elisha Leech's saw-mill.
There were originally, along the streams, many mag- nificent walnut-trees, which at the present day would have yielded a handsome profit by shipping them to Eastern cities. They were thoughtlessly chopped down and split into fence-rails or sawed into plank.
The oak predominates in this county, and there are at least eight different varieties-viz., white oak, red oak, black-jack, yellow oak, post-oak, burr-oak, and a low shrub variety, known as chincapin-oak, or running-oak. There are also a few chestnut-oak, which grow more plentifully along the streams in western Iowa.
The white oak and burr-oak are the most valued for lumber and building purposes, owing to their greater lasting qualities. Yellow oak decays in a short time. Red oak, while
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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, IOWA.
not quite so lasting as white oak or burr-oak, makes good saw timber, owing to its straight growth. Black-jack is more abundant throughout the county than all the other varieties combined. The tree does not grow as large as some of the other varieties and it is of little value for lumber or building.
The chestnut-oak is closely allied to the burr-oak, and is rarely found within the county.
The post-oak grows on the uplands and occurs in dense thickets. This variety seldom attains a greater diameter than 6 inches.
The running-oak is in the form of a shrub; and also grows on the uplands. It is a great annoyance to the plowman, since its roots are hard to remove. It bears a nutritious acorn.
There are two varieties of elin, the slippery-elm and the water-elm. The former is nearly as lasting as oak if kept above ground; the latter is absolutely worthless for any purpose.
There are also two varieties of hickory, the shell-bark and the soft-shell, or pig-nut.
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