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 53
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The necessary buildings have since that time been provided, and Sigour- ney, now a town of some importance, continues to be the county seat. The court house now in use is the the sec- ond crected in Sigourney, in 1859, and its cost was $17,200. It stands in a spacious square adorned with forest trees, and with its surroundings, the building is an ornament to its location.
The south branch of English river drains about one-fourth of Keokuk county, with the aid of numerous trib- utaries. The forks of Skunk river, North and South, uniting in the east of the county, assisted by affluents and tributary streams, drain and water the rest of the territory. The margins of the rivers have broad, level valleys, but otherwise the descent from the superior watershed is very abrupt, and the country is in consequence some- what broken. On the uplands there is not much timber, only here and there an occasional grove, but along the water courses wood land is abundant. The few facts, thus cursorily glanced at, show that there is a great variety in scenery and soil to be found in this county. The surface of the country is underlaid by the drift formation, and upon this the soil is found, black and very rich in some portions of the county, light brown but moderately productive in others, answering to pe- culiarities in position. The custom- ary productions of this state can be raised here advantageously, as the fer- tile bottom lands abundantly compen- sate for whatever shortcomings are found in the broken country and in a few exceptional locations.
Coal has been found and worked in some places in this county, but it is anticipated that mines will be limited chiefly to the southern parts of this
region. Excellent stone for building purposes and for the manufacture of quicklime have been found. Good clay for the manufacture of brick has been found in the drift deposit.
There are excellent water powers, waiting to be improved, on both branches of the Skunk river, conse- quently the county is ready to meet the wants of manufacturers, and along the banks of the streams in question, quarries can be opened to supply all the stone that is required to construct the most extensive works and attend- ant dwellings.
The school houses in this county, one hundred and thirty-four in num- ber, are estimated at $95,000, the per- manent school fund amounts to $22,686, and the annual expenditure in main- taining the efficiency of the schools is $40,000. Such provision is ample for the limited population of Keokuk county.
The agricultural population turn their attention to sheep farming very successfully, and nearly half the area of the whole county is under cultiva- tion, producing corn, oats, wheat, har- ley, and much live stock, besides fruits and vegetables.
SIGOURNEY, the county seat, has a population of more than fifteen hun- dred, and inasmuch as there are good railroad accommodations here to ship whatever quantity of produce may come in from this fertile farming county, in the center of which it is located, the probabilities are great that there will be a steady and considera- ble increase for many years to come.
The city stands about three miles from Skunk river, on the north of that stream, on a beautiful site, high and well drained. The western terminus of the Muscatine branch of the Mis- sissippi and Missouri Railroad has been established at this point for many years. The road which is now being completed to Oskaloosa is to be known henceforth as the Sigourney branch of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad; the last named company have gone on from operation to possession in the case of their weaker defendant.
The shipping business incidentat to the large area of cultivated country for which Sigourney is the center almost necessitates a large retail and local trade, and there are several flouring
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mills, some woolen mills, besides a considerable trade in lumber, to build up the prosperity of the city. There are several newspapers, a good nation- al bank with a capital of $50,000, and ample school accommodations to vouch for the future of this enterpris- ing county seat.
RICHLAND was a town before Sig- ourney was dreamed of. When the county seat was located, Richland was indignant; but the central city has left its old rival far behind, not because of the county seat being there located, but for the reason that the position and the railroads make a place prosperous or the reverse, irrespective of such small matters of administration. The town was platted in 1840, and may re- alize a more considerable prosperity when its claims have been considered, and acted upon by the railroads. There are some good buildings in Richland.
KEOTA is a town built up in effect by the railroads in the eastern part of the county, between Sigourney and Washington. There is good farming country around this little village, and the duties of shipment give a fair av- erage of business to the population. There is a newspaper published in Keota with a good country circula- tion.
HARPER lies between Keota and Sigourney on the railroad, doing an excellent shipping business, with a good local trade. The village is quite young.
TALLEYRAND, so named in honor of the bishop of Autun, who threw down his sacerdotal robes, and died a prince, is in the eastern part of Keokuk, one of the oldest villages.
SOUTH ENGLISH will be a great place. A line of railroad has been projected upon which this will be one of the sta- tions, and the village stands on South English river.
LANCASTER stands between the two rivers or branches of one river, the North and South Skunk, in the town- ship of Lancaster. The village is handsomely placed and very well laid out in excellent country which grows more and more prosperous every year.
There are several other villages, but nothing particular can be said con- cerning them, than that they are vil- lages in Keokuk county, waiting for some fairy slipper or magician's wand,
or better than both, some railroads, to lift them into the sunshine of prosper- ity. Ioka, Petersburg, Martinsburg, Springfield, Coal Creek, Baden and Webster, are the principal in the list.
Kossuth County owes its name to a laudable admiration for the great Hungarian who dared so much for the liberty of his Fatherland. This is the seventh county west of the Mississippi river, and it contains a superficial area of nine hundred and sixty-eight square miles.
The east fork of the Des Moines river, with many tributaries, drains and waters nearly two-thirds of the county. The northern townships are drained and watered by the Blue Earth river which flows into Minnesota. Timbered land is at a premium in Kossuth county, as the whole area contains only about ten thousand acres of woodland. The Des Moines river and some of its tributaries are toler- ably well supplied; but the northern part of the county is almost bare.
The bottom lands of the Des Moines river are extensive and very rich, and there are some few valleys of smaller extent, through which the tributaries flow; but generally the character of the surface is rolling prairie. Vege- table loam slightly mixed with sand, enough to give warmth and to facili- tate working, with slight variations on the uplands, gives land which can be converted into a mine of wealth by the husbandmen. Over large areas of country the soil described may be found several feet decp, with a clay subsoil, and an underlying deposit of gravel usually.
The drift formation has distributed over the surface an immense assort- ment of boulders, samples thrown around loose of all the rocks in the world, by way of compensation for the absence of stratified rocks in this part of the country. The boulders are re- sorted to largely by builders in Kos- suth county, and some of them furnish very good quick-lime.
The earliest white settlement in this region dates from 1854, when the site of the town of Algona was occupied by two brothers. The land belonged to the government, but was not com- pletely surveyed. The surveyors had been driven off by Indians only one 1 month before these adventurous men
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came on the ground. Years afterwards | local business. There is a postoffice their location was referred to in the more settled districts, as away some- where in the Indian territory, a place that nobody knew anything about.
County organization was effected in 1855, but not Kossuth county; this district was part of Humboldt county until two years later, when the town of Algona was made the county seat. The town was laid out in 1856, but of course the buildings thereon were not numerous or extensive. In the year 1861, a newspaper was started in Al- gona, and although it was suspended after struggling two years, there was soon afterwards a succession in journ- alistic life that found, or made, a better result.
ALGONA, the county seat, stands on high ground, and is well drained east of the east fork of the Des Moines. The town is surrounded by groves on the north, west and south sides; and beyond these, and to the east, fine prai- rie lands extend as far as the eye can reach. The situation is very beautiful, and the lands have, for many years past, been under cultivation in the hands of very intelligent farmers.
Although the town was first laid out in 1856, and became the county seat in the following year, it was not until 1870, when the Iowa and Dakota divis- ion of the Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad established a station here, that there was any considerable pro- gress. Two years after that event the county authorities erected a very hand- some court house, one of the hest in northern Iowa, and the town began to assume a metropolitan air. There had been a flouring mill here some years before, but increasing growth demanded larger and more exalted developments, which came in the form of a bank and a college, and a second newspaper, a rival to that which dated from the earliest days of the county. The town has good schools adapted to the requirements of the time, graded and well conducted under a staff of teachers, whose services are far in ad- vance of the remuneration they enjoy.
WESLEY is a village on the line of the Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad (Iowa and Dakota division), in the east of Kussuth county, surrounded by very fertile country, from which a large shipping trade is effected, with the customary result in building up
here, and also at Buffalo Fork, Green- wood, Darien, Hale, Center, Irvington, Kossuth Center, Divea, and at Seneca; at all of which places some few resi- dences have been erected, and stores, on a small scale, are beginning to make their appearance, but their day is not yet.
Lee County occupies the southeast angle of the state, having an area of five hundred squre miles. This was one of the three greatest counties in the state five years ago, and its agri- cultural and business interests have been increasing ever since.
The earliest settlement effected in this county was due to a Frenchman, who made his home six miles above Keokuk, in the year 1820. The French- man was a trader in some repute among the Indians, and perhaps he had gained from them some inkling as to the value of the country in which he built his cabin. Other men fol- lowed him, dotting the neighborhood with huts, but none near enough to rob solitude of its charms. After 1836, there was a more rapid influx of pop- ulation, as we find no less than ten thousand, eight hundred people there two years later, and in 1840, there were more than six thousand persons settled within the territory.
The state of Iowa was organized in- to counties in 1836, and Lee county was one of the counties named, the survey being proceeded with immedi- ately. The territory had been attaclied to Michigan, and it now became part of Wisconsin territory. Numerous changes have to be recorded in their several places from and after this date, but for the present it will suffice to say that Fort Madison is the county seat, and that Keokuk has courts of concurrent jurisdiction, the last named town being considered as possessing branch offices.
Long before the Black Hawk pur- chase, several times referred to in these pages, had thrown open the country for settlement in 1833, the Sac and Fox Indians had been in possession of the land, and among these people many traders and others had found squaws with whom they had reduced the the- ory of miscegenation to practice. The half breed families of these marriages were but partially civilized, but in con-
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sideration of their peculiar claims up- [ city, destined to hold a very high posi- on the soil, one hundred and nineteen tion among the metropolitan centers in the state of Iowa. There is a sub- stantial bridge across the Mississippi at this point, which combines the sev. eral advantages of the railroad, the carriage road, and fullest accommoda- tion for pedestrians, which was made ready for use in 1871. The general government has now in the course of completion an important work, known as the "Des Moines Rapids Improve- ment," which, when finished, will place at the service of steamboats en- gaged in Mississippi navigation, a ca- nal nine miles in length, avoiding the annoyances and perils which have heretofore, during low water especi- ally, made this locality an eyesore to mariners. Keokuk will be very ma- terially enhanced, as a place of busi- ness, when this national undertaking has been completed. thousand acres of land in this county were reserved for their use, in 1824, without the power to sell. They had in law the user of the soil, but they had not the land in fee simple. This arrangement was secured by treaty at the date mentioned. Ten years later, congress passed an act giving to the half breeds their lands in fee simple, and like the gift of the white elephant, the benevolent act was ruinous. Per- sonal rights, which crossed and an- nulled each other, legal definitions which defined nothing, boundary marks which seemed to have locomo- tive powers, and savage quarrels which arose out of all these entanglements, rendered it necessary for the Wiscon- sin legislature to adjust disputes in accordance with the spirit of the law, whose letter was causing so much an- noyance. The commissioners had a great capacity for their work, but un- fortunately when one quarrel was end- ed, two were commenced, and in the end, after twenty years of litigation, as tedious and destructive as the world famous chancery suit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, the United States supreme court gave a decision supporting the state laws, and most of the lands were allotted among strangers, whose rights had accrued upon the ruins of the original possessors, after nearly all the early memorialists and litigants had departed to the happy hunting grounds of their Indian forefathers.
KEOKUK was first settled in 1820, and slowly aggregated to itself a popula- tion during many years. The town is situated on the Missssippi, just at the foot of the well known rapids, little more than two hundred miles above St. Louis. The river gives large facili- ties for commerce, such as no inland town can hope to possess. Even rail- roads, beneficent as they are in their operation, cannot compare for cheap- ness of transit, where time is not an object, with the river road which never wears out, and which causes such trivial friction on rolling stock. Keo- kuk has long enjoyed the advantages of both systems; the fast train for the business man whose minutes must be coined ; the stream for freight which can be provided for months ahead of actual demand, and the resultant of all these forces is a large and growing
The American Fur Company had a trading post where Keokuk now stands in 1831, but when the Indians came to hard knocks with the forces of the United States, and eventually ceded their last hold upon the territory to white men, the company moved off to more congenial regions, where they were more likely to find peltry. The town was laid out in 1837, and incorp- orated ten years afterwards. The pres ent population is slightly over fifteen thousand, and the amount of business transacted in lumber, in pork pack- ing, in shipping produce by the rail- roads which are here interlaced, and in numerous manufactures which are well established, cannot fail to con- tinue a steady growth to the place, as long as Iowa contains fertile acres to offer attractions to an industrious, en- terprising people.
While the material resources of the town have been rapidly advancing, the higher interests of education and culture have not been neglected. A college of physicians and surgeons was established here in 1850, and it has long been recognized as among the very best of such institutions avail- able for the study of pathology, in all its phases. Very many of the ablest practitioners in both branches, now in this and neighboring states, owe their status and efficiency to their studies in this college, and the Dean of the institution is a man of rare attain- ments.
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The city of Keokuk, while careful as to the highest culture of specialists, has also considered the claims of the young for whom general training of the best description has been provided. There are six public school buildings and they are presided over by a very able body of teachers of both sexes, selected with praiseworthy discrimi- nation by a board comprising many of the best educated, as well as most suc- cessful citizens. The buildings for school purposes, the substantial col- lege edifice, and the numerous church- es, make an architectural display of which the city is proud, and beyond all doubt the mere insignia of culture exercises an influence upon minds which are seldom opened to the printed page, or the most eloquent appeal in words.
The Keokuk Library Association was established in 1863, and already its shelves are adorned with more than seven thousand volumes which circu- late rapidly from hand to hand, multi- plying the efficiency of individual thought as evolved from the few origi- nal powers that constitute the leaders of our race. There are smaller insti- tutions of a sectional character estab- lished in the city doing much good in limited spheres.
There are three newspapers estab- lished here, and besides those lights of the world, whose value no writer will doubt, the city is illuminated with gas, and possesses the usual concomi- tants of civilized life too numerous for our catalogue.
FORT MADISON was once a military post of great importance, but since 1853, it has never been used l'or such purposes, and the Indians who had long felt its presence as a standing men- ace, removed every vestige of the old block houses by fire as soon as they found it would be safe. This is now the county seat of Lee county, occu- pying a very pleasant position on the west side of the river Mississippi. The first settlement that is recorded, after the soldiers had been withdrawn, was made in 1832, and the town was incorporated by act of congress four years afterwards. In the same year the act of the Wisconsin territorial legislature located the county seat at this spot, where it now remains, al- though some of the powers pertaining to the administration of justice are held
in common with the city of Keokuk, as already stated.
Before Iowa had been admitted to the honors and responsibilities of a sovereign state, the general govern- ment ordered the erection of a peni- tentiary here, and that work was com- pleted in 1841, having been three years in progress. The state is now the di- rector of operations in that establish- meut, and so great are its attractions for a certain class, that the place is never empty.
In 1848, Fort Madison became a city by special legislation. The public schools maintained in this place are very efficient, the buildings plain and substantial, but sufficient for all pur- poses, and the corps of educators equal to any in the state. There is, in addi- tion to the general provision just men- tioned, a special opportunity in Fort Madison for those who aspire to col- legiate honors, as the academy which prospers here gives a classical course in addition to its primary and acade- mic training. There are two news- papers published in this city.
Manufacturing timber is somewhat of a specialty with the people of Fort Madison. Pine lumber is shipped from here by millions of feet annually, and it would be perilous to attempt to enumerate how many millions of laths and shingles are here made ready for transportation. Planing mills are in full blast, and manufactories of vari- ous kinds abound more and more every year. The facilities for shipment from Fort Madison are not so numerous as the like privileges enjoyed by Keokuk, but they are such as to command a good local and general trade, whichi will not be allowed to retrograde as long as the citizens and men of busi- ness on the spot continue to be wise and energetic.
WEST POINT is a thriving village, pleasantly situated in a very flourish - ing agricultural district, with which a good local trade is maintained. The town was platted in 1840.
FRANKLIN came to be recognized about the same time when it was selected as the location for the county seat of Lee county, but no courts were ever held in this village. The sur- rounding country is very beautiful and fertile.
DENMARK, not the place where Ham- let committed several murders, and
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eventually died of duelling, was found- ed in 1840, and is chiefly remarkable for the excellent academy which is here located, and has won consider- able prominence. The country round Denmark is very good, although it is sometimes remarked in general litera- ture, that " there is something rotten in the state of Denmark," it is fair to say, that the place is not a state, al- though it is in a very flourishing state for a village, without anything rotten to attract notice.
MONTROSE is a village which com- menced its career in 1853, and occu- pies a very good position in the midst of a prosperous farming community, doing a fair local trade and enjoying some commercial privileges which will, in a few years, probably, make the place more widely known.
There are several other small towns and villages which are, for the present, dwarfed by comparison with Keokuk and Fort Madison, but which, in a short time, will be found marching on like John Brown's spirit. They are now in high repute, as good places for agricultural settlement and quiet trade.
Linn County first began to be peo. pled by white settlers in 1838. The soil being good, the country admirably watered and drained, and the climate bright and cheery, there were many inducements for new comers to settle down and take a new start in life. The surface of the county undulates very considerably, and in some places pre- sents the aspect of short waves and eminences which have been before mentioned in describing the topo- graphical features of Jones county. The numerous irregularities in which the little hills rejoice give to Linn county many small valleys, in which the streams turn and turn again in in- numerable curves, and all these wind- ings assist to drain and irrigate the very fertile land.
The general inclination of the coun- ty would be described, in nautical phraseology, as "southeast and by south," the Wapsipiuicon river run- uing nearly parallel with the water- shed for a considerable distance. Well water of the choicest kind can be pro- cured with little trouble almost any- where in this region, and every agri- cultural pursuit that succeeds any-
where in Iowa, can be prosecuted here with reasonable profit. The natural result of this condition of affairs is found in the cheerful and busy aspect of the population and the general pros- perity of the community.
The first settler in this county, or the man for whom that distinction is claimed, built a small flouring mill and was doing a good business among the early residents here, when his mill was carried away by a flood in the early part of the year 1851, and the miller was unfortunately drowned. Many persons came in to occupy the country, and there was quite a furore to lay off towns and villages which should become world-famous after making the fortunes of the projectors. Columbus was thus staked off on the site of the city of Cedar Rapids, but the faith of the founder was infirm, and he abandoned his location before fame became conscious of his good intentions. Ivanhoe was another town so placed, but it has now neither a lo- cal habitation nor a name, and may be classed with other " airy nothings."
Still the surface of the country was being dotted with farms, stores and habitations, and letters from home at long intervals told of emigrants on their way to assist in building up a station in the new territory won for the purposes of civilization. Popula- tion increased to more than thirteen hundred in 1840, aud the growth in numbers and wealth was visible to every eye. The county was defined by the territorial legislature of Wiscon- sin, in 1837, and organization speedily followed. The character sustained from the very first by the settlers, was such that thousands lacked only the means to follow in their footsteps, and as their wealth multiplied they were not slow to lend a helping hand to needy men at a distance with whom they sympathized. Very few men know, unless they have come in con- tact with the hardy pioneers of a new conntry, how readily they give of their substance to enable others to emulate their own hard earned prosperity. Many such deeds are at the base of the fortunes of Linn county.
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