USA > Iowa > An illustrated history of the state of Iowa, being a complete civil, political, and military history of the state, from its first exploration down to 1875; > Part 45
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mettled stuff which once did duty in the shape of man, and was truly fit for nothing but "to lie in cold obstruc- tion and to rot." This should be an age of supreme mental and moral ef- fort.
We have given more time and at- tention to this admirable college than would have been advisable, but for the fact that it was, in a peculiar sense, the harbinger of enlightenment in a dark age and among a people bitterly impatient of the only means which could assist even themselves, against the wrong which must have proved fatal to the wrongdoer as certainly as to his victim.
The people of Tabor colony and its vicinity have raised $41,000, cash and value in various forms, an endowment, compared with which the wealth of an English university is as Wall street to an orange, but it may be frankly as- sumed that the values are much near- er to equality than the money outlay would prepare one to assume. The college has a valuable geological cabi- net, enriched by contributions from every quarter of the globe; a good li- brary is established, the curriculum is first-class and every year is expected to add something to its efficiency.
The railroad facilities in any country may be taken as the index of its pros- perity, consequently a little space must be given to a brief review of those features in the sociology of Fremont. The Kansas City, St. Joseph and Coun- cil Bluffs Railroad follows the course of the Missouri river through this county, passing through East Nebras- ka City and Hamburg. From St. Louis on one hand and Sioux City on the other, the connections are the Mis- souri Pacific from St. Louis to Weston, thence to St. Joseph by the Missouri Valley, to Council Bluffs by the Coun- cil Bluffs and St. Joseph, thence to the destination named by the Sioux City branch of the well known Union Pa- cific Road.
Fremont county has several stations on the line of the Council Bluffs and St. Joseph Railroad, and everywhere the best disposition has been exhibited to meet the wants of the community, such as shelter for live stock awaiting shipment, and good depot houses, which, as far as human foresight can assist, must largely secure shippers against loss.
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Another road has been completed through this county, the Nebraska branch of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, which joins the main line at Red Oak Junction. The scope thus offered to the traveler will secure to many tourists, bold enough to step out of the mill-horse circle in which so-called travelers have been content to move, such sights and sounds as will inevitably give them new views of men and nature.
The Iowa and Missouri State Line Railroad may not come beyond the limbo of aborted schemes, but there is no reason why it may not become a brilliant success, considering the terri- tory through which it may travel and the facilities required to develop wealth in areas rich as any yet touched by the hand of man, yet shut off from all the best markets by the want of the iron horse of commerce. Should that line be constructed, the junction with the Council Bluffs and St. Joe will be at Hamburg, and Fre- mont will be better spanned by the iron road than any other county in Iowa.
SIDNEY, the county seat of Fremont, is placed very near the geographical center, three miles west of the Nishna- botany, on well drained prairie land of a great elevation, with a beautiful and variegated country, comprising prai- rie, valleys and hills stretching in all directions a limitless perspective, un- til the country melts away in the haze of the atmosphere. The town was surveyed in 1851. The best building yet erected in Sydney is the court house, which cost $40,000 when com- pleted in 1860. The edifice is very highly commended by competent judges of architecture, and the least tu- tored eye takes in at a glance its suit- ability in "the eternal fitness of things" for the position which it occupies. The sale of swamp lands provided most of the funds expended for this building.
The motives which prompt miscre- ants to the committal of crime, can- not be imagined by sane men, and a rascal has been shrewedly described as " a fool with a twist in him." Some person or persons, in 1863, having stolen several kegs of gunpowder from a local merchant, secreted the plunder in the court house, and eventually used it to blow up that building, whereby a
considerable expense was imposed upon the people of the county ; but the building is once more in good repair. The county seat is possessed of a valua. ble paper, which is published weekly and has quite a large circulation.
HAMBURG is ten miles from Sidney, on the west side of the Nishnabotany, three miles from where it falls into the Missouri. In the southwest corner of this county, the river just named and beautiful valley through which it flows, breaks its way through the line of bluffs and gives an unwonted aspect of loveliness to the banks of the noble stream. The bluffs seem to stand back in amazement, rather than to have been broken by force, so bewitching is the sight. Just within easy reach of this scene stands Hamburg, itself a pic- turesque object in the field of vision To the west, beyond the town, rises bluff or ridge, which serves as an em. erald back ground to the picture, grandly towering to a height of three hundred feet from the town level. From the dizzy heighth, when atmo- speric conditions are favorable, as they very commonly are, portions of three states and of one territory can be seen, and the broad Missouri, with its isl ands looking like floating forests, its borders of cottonwood, its bordering valleys, and a thousand other charms A broad and muddy stream, seen near at hand, may have no poetic thought by which to allure the imagination; but the same river, seen from a dis- tance in its grander aspects, has an en- chantment which few men can resist- and very few, who care to climb the height and stand on the elevation back of Hamburg, fail to realize this impression from the Missouri. But we must come back to the town, from which we have wandered somewhat at large.
The Nishnabotany flows through a valley lovely as nature can be. Be- yond the margin of that valley and the timber which fringes the course of the river, beyond the busy town to the east and the northi are the farms which give food and employment to so many thousands, here to break the soil, and sow the seed, and gather in the harvest, then to prepare and ship to distant markets, to feed hungry mouths, giv- ing a grip on life to every man eu- gaged in the traffic, and to many the ve- ry means by which their children shall
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be fed, clothed, lodged and schooled, ; until they are armed for the battle of life, to which they come with an added zest, because of the " grit" which they have procured for themselves with the food of the new world.
In the year 1847, a German desirous to trade with the Indians, wandered to this locality, and to see was, of course, to admire. Admiring, he desired also to possess, and after ten years of wait- ing, he located the town of Hamburg where it now stands, with its popula- tion of over two thousand. There is a very fine flouring mill, and a large brick making business is done in this locality. Various additions have been made to the town since it was first platted, and it is now a city.
The town was not incorporated till the year 1867, ten years after the first beginning of settlement, twenty years after the blissful dream of such an event dawned on the mind of the roam- ing trader. In that year the first rail- road traversed the valley to take hold upon Hamburg, and to drag it out into the busy world. The Council Bluffs and St. Joseph, now merged into the Kansas City, St. Joseph and Council Bluffs Railroad, had the honor and profit of leading the way to an era of prosperity. Next came the Nebraska City branch of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, three years later, and a junction being made at this point, a network of interests con- verged to make Hamburg a growing and prosperous city.
The natural advantages of the posi- tion needed only this aid to compel immediate expansion. The depot for one of the richest valleys in the world, sustained by prairie lands which could furnish employment to a nation of farmers, graziers, stock raisers, and artificers, it must be seen that all that has been accomplished to this time is but a promise of a future far more glorious. Whether for beauty, conve- nience or the business like fitness which the city possesses, Hamburg is highly favored.
The main street of the town is nearly two miles long, and it will by and by fill the outline which it now pre- sents, until all its promises have reached fruition. Steam flouring mills and elevators, machine shops and foundries, cheap fuel, cheap tood, and a large demand for labor, what more
can be necessary to build up the strug. gling hamlet by steady accretion until the measure of its prosperity is filled, its mission finished.
The school system adopted at Han- burg has the merit of thoroughness. The buildings are excellently adapted to this purpose. Graded in five depart- ments, all the public schools are worked into a compendious whole, which embraces the educational inter- ests of the entire city. The manage- ment is good, the schools are prosper- ous in a pecuniary sense, and in other respects are very reasonably approach- ing perfection. Private schools, some- what narrow and sectional in their main features, supplement the work effected by the public schools.
There are three newspapers pub- lished in Hamburg, seeking their main circulation among the agricultural community.
The other towns, villages, and post offices in this county are very promis- ing and, of course, useful, but it would be superfluous to enlarge upon their merits ; it will suffice to mention them as their names occur, and to wait for some evidence of what will be tlie future for them all before saying more in their praise. The list includes Bartlett, Deer Creek, Eastport, Farra- gut, High Creek, McPaul, Percival, Plum Hollow, Riverton, Tabor and Vaughan.
Greene County is the middle tier of counties in the state, fourth east from Missouri river, embracing an area of twenty-four miles square, and contain- ing five hundred and seventy-six square miles. The North Raccoon river flows from the northwest to the southeast of the county, and witli affluents too nu- merous to be particularized; that stream drains and waters an immense area.
In the extreme southwest of Greene county, Mosquito and Willow creeks, well known tributaries of the Middle Raccoon, complete the work which the North Raccoon so well com- menced. The North Raccoon's prin- cipal tributaries come from the north- ern part of the county, Burrick, Hardee aud Cedar creeks, are among the chief. Greenbrier creek, which joins the main river just below the boundary of Greene county, owes its origin to the southern townships. There are nu-
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merous springs of pure water found in this county, issuing from gravel beds overlying the drift clay in the slopes which overlook the streams. Wells are easily obtainable in the uplands, where the clays of the glacial period are comparatively near the surface, and all but impervious to water, un- less where some fault occurs. Streams, springs and wells give to stock breed- ers an unlimited supply of water for every season of the year. Down on the hardpan of glacial clay the wells hold their treasure beyond the reach of an ordinary frost, whence the cus- tomary appliances will bring it to the place of consumption at a temperature well adapted for use. Hyperborean winds may blow upon the face of the earth, and all things appear to be locked in the embrace of winter, but a score or so of feet down in the earth's crust, and the heat of the cooling world wells up continuously to maintain life and feed the fountains of vitality. The central fires may not be expected to last forever; indeed a calculation re- cently made shows that the motion of the globe itself, and the tidal action upon its face, going in opposite direc- tions, must gradually decrease the speed of the planet, until in about three hundred and sixty hundred thousand million of years from this time, or within a few hundred thous- and million of years thereafter, a bag. atelle hardly worthy of mention, we shall have become so slow, that it will take more than a month for the earth to turn once upon its axis, and that thereupon the sun, indignant at such reluctance to do a fair day's work, in the customary twenty four hours, will swallow us up into the old vortex, to feed the greater central fire, whence we originally came. This reflection supports the idea of certain men who preach the destruction of this globe by fire, but the parties differ some- what as to the dates when the cata- clysm may be expected.
dulations hardly great enough to re- lieve the monotony of the broad prai- rie. The North Raccoon has made a channel of from fifty to one hundred feet deep in the drift deposit, and that breaks the surface effectually where the river flows, but the surrounding scenery is hardly more changed than it might have been by cutting a canal through the samue territory. The les- ser streams have not abraded the rock formation to like depths, and in most cases the valleys being shallow, have broadencd out, changing the aspect of the country much more considerably. So much for the water courses in Greene county.
Loam mixed with gravel is the prev- alent soil on the uplands, the color dark, the substance mainly vegetable deposit, varying from two feet in depth to eight feet in some cases, with a sub- soil of clay. No wonder that this sec- tion of the state is becoming famous for the returns it gives to the skillful agriculturist. Century after century, unless when fircs swept over the plain, licking up everything in its course, and leaving charred cinders as the only re- sult, the native grasses seldom kept down by wild herds of cattle, fell and rotted where they had grown, until a soil practically inexhaustible remains ready to the hand of the farmer. Fires, when they came did but change the form of deposit, giving quickly a rich deposit which might, under the slow influence of atmospheric change have been much longer in becoming availa- ble, and from such surfaces the succu- lent grass sprang up in rich profusion, as soon as the rain came again to start roots and seeds to new life. Every kind of grain, root crops, vegetables, grasses flourish here, but trees for fuel, for building and for shelter are scarce. ly to be found. The winds sometimes sweep over parts of Iowa, come with resistless force upon cattle, which have no groves in which to find shelter, and the agriculturist will do well to rem- edy this fault in the economy of the county without delay. There are many woods of rapid growth which could be planted out in extensive groves at very slight cost, and once that work was done the improvement of the country would be in the hands of nature, a guardianship that may be trusted, sleeping or waking, to go on
The streams in Greene county are not calculated for running machinery, al- though some excellent powers can be improved. The North Raccoon is al- ways ready for such operations. The surface of the country is more level than most portions of central Iowa, the con- figuration of the county being in some portions almost as smooth as a bowling green, and for long distances the un- | with the benificent operations which
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enrich mankind. Some low, wetlands | elevations in the bottom on the west can be found at long intervals inter- secting the uplands, but there is no difficulty in draining all such parts with very small outlay of labor. For- ests are only found in the valleys and immediately adjoining, chiefly along the course of the North Raccoon and its several branches. Many of the framers are supplementing the native supply of timber and shelter by ope- rations in planting, on an extensive scale. Where woods are to be laid out, groves are more likely to give profit than belts of timber, as every tree in the mass gives and receives protection for its neighbors.
Fruit trees have not been cultivated here largely, because of the lack of shelter, which must destroy or dwarf all but the hardiest varieties and in any case deteriorate the fruits in quality as well as in quantity. In favored spots there are some few orchards, and the results have been very satisfactory. Small fruits under like circumstances come to great perfection, many are in- digenous and nearly all can be attend- ed to with considerable profit.
Coal can be mined in some parts of the county, indeed the possibility has been realized already, but the coal bed does not cover the whole area in which it is found, nor is the quality very good ; the layers that crop out on the surface are thin and decidedly poor. The state geologist thinks that when shafts are put down, very much better quantities will be found, and in that event there will be an immense advan- tage gained for all kinds of industries in this comparatively woodless region.
There are shallow deposits of peat in some parts of the uplands, but ad- mixtures of sand render it valueless as fuel unless more care is bestowed on preparation than the result would compensate. Building stone is scarce, the sandstone of this region where there are quarries, being too easily disintegrated to be of value to the builder. Clay will be the main de- pendence of the masonic fraternity, practically not speculatively consid- ered, and that material can be found to almost any extent, enough to cover the whole county with first class brick work for dwellings, places of business and substantial manufactories.
The mound builders seem to have left some of their strange symmetrical
side of the North Raccoon, in some of which human remains are said to have been found. Wherever such monu- mental works are discovered, some department of historic science should immediately be notified, in order that systematic researches should be under- taken until we have been enabled to amass materials from which to con- struct a history of this very singular people. The largest of the mounds just mentioned, about seven miles from the town of Jefferson, now stands about twelve fcet high, and its diame- ter is seventy-five feet. The original elevation was beyond doubt very much greater when the vast pile was first erected.
The Chicago and Northwestern Rail road passes east and west through Greene county, near the centre; the Des Moines and Fort Dodge runs north and south through the eastern townships, and the two lines cross at Grand Junction.
The first white settler came to the site of Greene county in 1849, near the spot where the village of Rippey now flourishes, and there he sought a per- manent location, Other men of the pioneer order followed in rapid succes- sion, but their work was surrounded by difficulties requiring superior ener- gy. Their nearest postoffice was fifty miles from their habitations, and a journey to the mill which was most convenient involved a journey of from fifty to one hundred miles, besides car- rying all their provisions over lines of country unsurveyed, without roads or bridges, where the rivers might render a return impossible for weeks at some seasons of the year. But pioneers are accustomed to master obstacles as great, and although some go under in the struggle, there are always men ready in abundance to fill the breach. Some of the hardships endured by early settlers and their families in Greene county would make an interest- ing book; but now, since the perils and privations have ceased, they are food for cheerful reflection. In one instance, while the head of the family was absent at Des Moines and detained by swollen streams, the scanty supply of food at home gave out; nearly all the soap grease had been eaten, and but for the advent of a friendly red- skin, who brought deer for the con-
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sumption of the group, the whole of | "jeweler's shop " in the " reet " or the the little colony must have died of starvation. Some instances, of course, occurred where there was no provi- dential Indian, and in such cases ouly a few bleached bones remained to tell the story of death in such painful isola- tion; but the life of the pioneer was not without its charm, and in every station "the whirligig of time brings round its revenges."
Game was very plentiful in this re- gion until the winter of 1855-6, when a very deep snow fell, and the swift footed elk and deer were incapable of making their escape from the slowest pursuers, so that they were wantonly destroyed; and since then such game has been scarce in the country which used it so badly. None need to have been astonished that game ceased, after that year, to be an available resource for the settler in Greene county. He had lived part of one year on his prin- cipal, and was lavish in wasting what he could not consume, and there was no investment remaining upon which interest could afterwards be procured.
Organization commenced in 1854, and there was quite a display of public spirit, politicians being eager for nom- inations to office, as they could have been had the emoluments been large and the opportunities for fingering, congressional. There was a rumor in 1858 that a gold field had been discov- ered twelve miles west of Jefferson, and every man rushed to become a miner. Those who have seen a rush to new diggings in Australia or in Cal- ifornia may imagine the anxious, laughing, husy scene that ensued; but after many holes had been bottomed on wash dirt that would not pan out worth a cent, some hody ascertained that the color which had deluded the whole population was due to mica. The result was a gain to all parties, and they speedily returned to their several industries, each more profitable than gold digging. The experiences of many lands go to show that mining for gold and silver, where such pur- suits engross the major part of the pop- ulation, impoverishes a community. Gold in California and in Australia has always cost to the general community a much larger sum per ounce of the yield than the most satisfactory possi- ble sales will realize; but, of course, the few who find a "pocket" or a
" placer," become marked men, while the thousands who were denuded of every cent, and tramped off wearily, unable to pay their board bills, are soon forgotten. The storekeeper was ruined, perhaps, the merchant calle l a meeting of creditors, the loss was distributed by a hardly observed gen- eral average over a district or a coun- try, and the few lucky men remain as the only landmarks on the ever shift- ing sea of the miner.
JEFFERSON, the county seat of Greene county, is built ou high table land -a kind of " divide " between North Raccoon river and Hardin creek -near the geographical center of the county. The town stands sev- enty feet or more above the level of the river. The town was laid out in 1854, when money was at a very low ebb in that locality, as well as elsewhere, and the first building was erected in 1855. When the town lots were sold, there was a friendly wrestling match be- tween two competitors to determine who should have the honor of buying the first lot. Two years later, the first mail route touching this town was established. For many years the growth of the place was very slow in- deed. The town was named after the author of the Declaration of Independ- ence, but the postal authorities'insisted on a change, as there was already a Jefferson in Iowa, in Dubuque county ; so the name was made New Jefferson, the prefix being abandoned in daily use, after the purpose to be served had been secured. Now that the town has uuexceptionable railroad facilitles, it commands all the attention that could be desired, and is a thriving town, likely to be one of the most important locations in the western part of Iowa. The court house is a very fine building, and the school house is truly elegant. The prosperous agricultural country, in the center of which Jefferson has grown up, is an indication of the fu- ture which intellectual, enterprising men can make for themselves when- ever they are seconded by good nat- ural advantages.
GRAND JUNCTION owes its main im- portance to the fact that here the two lines which traverse the state from the cardinal points of the compass cross each other. The Chicago and North- western line and the Des Moines and
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Fort Dodge do a large average of busi- ness here, and the new town grows apace.
SCRANTON is on the Chicago and Northwestern, about nine miles from Jefferson, in the west of the county, and is a shipping place very much favored by the farmers, in a well set- tled country. The growth of settle- ments as we have seen, depends upon railroads as much as upon prosperous surroundings in other respects.
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