USA > Iowa > Jackson County > Annals of Jackson county, Iowa, Vol 1-2 > Part 16
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A. H. Wilson says the first settlers of the Maquoketa Valley experienced great difficulty in getting plows that would scour in the black loam of the Maquoketa Valley. In 1810, he and Mr. Jasen Pangborn went to Dobaque and found a man making plows that they thought, would work all right in
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the valley. They bought one for a model and came home and went to manu- facturing plows, Wilson doing the wood work and Pangborn the ironing. The plows worked to perfection and Mr. Wilson says there was never greater cause for rejoicing than when they turned out the first plow that would scour in the rich bottom of the Maquoketa.
(Written by J. W. Ellis, August 16th, 1904.)
Anson H. Wilson, the oldest pioneer of the Maquoketa Valley, who came here of his own accord, was in town today, looking hale and hearty for a man of 89 years. Mr. Wilson remarked: 'It is 65 years ago tonight since I slept in the wildest bed I ever saw. It was in the then new capitel of Iowa Territory, at Iowa City. I had the houor of holding an end gate to a wagon for Governor Lucas to write his proclamation on, announcing terms of sale of lots in the new capital. There was no table convenient so I took the end gate of a wagon and resting one end on the wagon I held the other while the Governor wrote with a red lead pencil. Colonel Thomas Cox and J. G. McDonald, of Jackson County. were surveying the new town site at the time. I started for lowa City on foot, on the 11th of August, 1839, reach- ing my destination on the 16th. Thel first day I got to the Wapise, after dark, at a point opposite the present site of Massilon. There was a cabin on the opposite side of the river, but the river was up and I was afraid to try to swim over in the dark, so I put up for the night on the body of a fallen tree, and next morning swam over, got my breakfast and a lunch to take along. My next stop was at a cabin at Onion Grove. The family had been there only two weeks and had not completed their cabin. It was with- out floor or window, but I was heartily welcomed to such fare as they had. My next stop was at a cabin at Oak Grove, eighteen miles from Onion Grove, where a man by the name of Dallas lived. He had got quite a start and had cows, milk, butter and potatoes, and here I got my first drink of buttermilk in the Territory of Iowa. I went from there to Washington Ferry on Cedar river, found the skow on the other side and the ferryman shaking with the ague, so I could get no help to cross from him. While I waited, a man came along with a team that wanted to get across. We con- cluded to make his wagon answer the purpose of a boat. We tied the box to the running gears and swam the team across, then I went on to within five miles of Iowa City, and stopped with two boys who had been there but a short time and had a very small cabin only partly built. I spent the night with them, partaking of such fare as they had and next morning completed my journey, arriving at my destination about 10 a. m.
The father of John P. Irish had made arrangements to take care of the people who came and he fed them well for so new a country. A bed bad been provided by sewing together a good many cotton licks and a bolster stuffed with prairie hay. The full length of the bed answered for a pillow. The quilts were fastened together and reached the full length or width of the bed. Nails were driven into the wall to hang clothes on, and each one hung his clothes on at the place where he crawled into bed. co slept in this wonderful bed, others slept in wagon and some stayed up and played cards all night.
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I did not meet a person on the route to the new capital, and the man I crossed Cedar river with, was the only human being I saw enroute except those at the five-mile cabin above referred to. There was not a bridge, and the only ferries on the route were an old scow on the Cedar and an old basswood log used for a ferry at the Wapsie. Walking was bad and twenty-four hours of the time while going I had but one meal, and that was sweetened water and corn meal. The settlers on the route were very hospitable and gave me something to take along, but I could not well carry mush and sweetened water. .
Mr. Wilson has lived on the same farm since 1839, is tall and straight as an Indian and has been an active business man all his life. Coming to this country in 1839 a full grown man with more than average skill and ability and with a wonderful memory. He knows more of the early days of Iowa - than any other man living. He receives marked attention when he comes to town dressed in the style of 60 years ago and wearing coat and vest but- tons that he bought in 1842. Uncle Ans. will be greatly missed when he is gone.
Capt. W. L. Clark Earliest Pioneer.
Mr. James Ellis, Curator of the Jackson County Historical Society. Dear Sir:
I see by an account in the Sabula Gazette of the death recently of Jo- seph McElroy, who came there in 1837. The Gazette claimed Mr. McElroy was at the time of his death the earliest pioneer of the State. The Gazette corrects itself by stating that Ramey Kindred informed the Gazette he came to Iowa as a babe, Oct. 10. 1835, evidently the Gazette should correct itself again, the woods are full of those who came here in 1837. Charles Burleson of Nashville, F. V. Burleson of Buckhorn, and their brother Wm., Jately moved to California, came here the spring of 1837. Captain W. L. Clark of Buffalo, Iowa, came there when a young man with his father in 1833 and still resides on the claim his father took near where Buffalo is, over seventy- two years ago. Capt. W. L. Clark as a young boy came with his father's family to Rock Island in 1828, when there was no other whites there except soldiers and George Davenport the Indian trader, afterwards called Col. Davenport and killed at his home on the island July 7th 1845. For proof of this I refer you to Capt. Clark of Buffalo, who yet lives. or did six months ago and I am sure he yet does as I am a daily reader of the Davenport Dem- ocrat and surely would have noticed the death of so prominent a pioneer. For further proof the Democrat bas on file mention of him in its souvenir edition of Oct. 22, 1905, also in an issue of the Democrat of 1904 (have for- gotten the date) an address of W. L. Clark, delivered before some club at Andalusia near Rock Island in which is an extended account of the Clark family and early history of that country. The Democrat also has a cut of Capt. W. L. Clark. Got any earlier hunt "em ' up. Yours truly, FARMER BUCKHORN.
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The Country's Territorial Pioneers. Shadarac Burleson and Some of the Incidents in His Life.
(Written by Farmer Buckhorn for the Jackson County Historical Society.)
Forty years ago no man in Jackson County, we venture to say, was bet- ter or more widely known than S. Burleson, who came here in an early day and for many years entertained the traveling public and took an active part in public affairs. He was born in Vermont, Sept. 19, 1805, and when about eighteen years old went to Waterford, N. Y., where for several years he ran a packet on the Erie canal. He married Miss Eunice Houghton, of Waterford, N. Y., in 1824. In 1836. he came west with the lead mines of Galena as his prospective destination. After wintering in Galena, he concluded to come to the Maquoketa Valley country with his family and settle. He arrived April 6th, 1837, at what is now section 20, South Fork Township, Jackson County, Iowa, then an unsurveyed, unnamed part of Dubuque county, Ter- ritory of Wisconsin. There he staked a claim and built a log cabin about ten rods west of where the Maquoketa and Anamosa road crosses the creek, known on the map as Pumpkin Run and on the north side of the present road and about where the east end of the present house owned by John Allison is situated in southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of said section 20, of South Fork Township.
Mr. Burleson was a remarkable man in many respects. Of more than the ordinary intelligence, shrewd, logical, forceful and resourceful, with a strong will and a clearly marked personality. Though the township was surveyed by Col. Thomas Cox and John G. McDonald soon after Mr. Bur- leson came here, the land was not offered for sale by the government until 1845, therefore it was eight years after Mr. Burleson settled here before the government had any knowledge in law of any settlers' rights or any settlers had any scratch of a pen from the government to protect himself in any land property rights, though by this time this part of Jackson County had nearly as large a rural population as at present, 1906.
Much of the land was already improved and many claims had changed 1 hands before the land was offered for sale at auction by the general govern- ment. The man who over bid the settler had a legal right to the premises, but in this case there was a higher law than civil law and is the divine law of the rights of man. Self preservation is the first law of nature and to pre- serve their rights of possession the settlers became a law unto themselves for the protection of each other in the peaceable possession of their claims, with the understanding that when the land came into market the settlers bid of $1.25 per acre (the minimum price) should hold his claim and woo be
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to the man who was fool hardy enough to bid over him. It will be seen it was the settlers only show to get justice for himself when pitted against the speculator, who was willing to invest money in the settlers improve- ments, leaviing him without recourse, being largely in fact, a tresspasser on government land. Moral law is the law on which civil law should be built. We find Mr. Burleson was a leader in the enforcement of that law of human rights, that was no more, no less than the golden rule made man ifest by force. It can hardly be comprehended, that no man in Iowa had any legal right to the land he occupied, improved and often bartered his squatter's claim until only one year before Iowa became a state. But such is history. 1845 found Iowa with a population of about 650,000 with all the machinery of a territorial government in force, towns and country rapidly fill- ing up and all resting on what? So far as this part of Iowa was concerned," at least resting upon the settlers claim law that afforded the poor mau the same justice as the rich and protection in his hand so long as he occupied and made use of it. It might be well if it was still in force. There would be no idle land waiting for some other man's energy to double some specu- lator's principal.
As early as 1838 we find S. Burleson identfied with the government affairs of Jackson County, then Dubuque County. He was one of the grand jury of the first district court of this county held after the country became Iowa territory, said court being held at Bellevue, beginning June 18th, 1838. The first election in what was then known as the sixth precinct, was held at Mr. Burleson's house, he being one of the judges, Jonas Clark and Wm. Phillips being the other two.
As was the case with most of the pioneers, Mr. Burleson came here poor and for the first year, at least, was compelled to live almost entirely by the chase, as there could not possibly have been any grain of any kind in many miles of here when he first came. The three Pence brothers came in the spring before Burleson (1836) and broke forty acres, but raised no crops that year, as they went back to Henderson County, Ill., after their families and did not come back until the spring Burleson came, 1837. Several fam- ilies came in a few miles west of here in 1836, but too late in the season to have raised anything. No one was in the whole south prairie country until you got well toward Davenport. No one was east of here in 1837 for many miles, except three or four families north of the Maquoketa river in the timber. Therefore it will be seen there was not much need of a grist mill in this part of Jackson county in 1837.
After 1837 settlers began to come into the country rapidly and stake claims and build their log houses and by 1810 considerable crops began to be raised so that Burleson and others could have a grist ground by going to Dubuque or Galena and could exchange pork-if they had any, for from one to two dollars per cwt., and take their pay in trade. At one time before the days of hogs in this country, Burleson bought a barrel of pork at Ga- lena aud brought it home on his sled thinking his family would have a great treat only to find upon opening it that the meat was spoiled and could not be eaten. It, was about that time Mr. Burleson had one of his wild spells of profanity and without waiting for another day he rolled that, barrel of
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pork onto his sled and headed his oxen for Galena over fifty miles away to trade pork. There is no question whatever, but the man who sold the pork knew when Mr. Burleson got back to Galena.
During the years following his settlement, Mr. Burleson took an active part in the country's development. The first school house in South Fork township was built on his land and by his help, and so was the present stone school house. He held the offices of school director, road supervisor and justice of the peace. He was one of the party of government surveyors, who surveyed Black Hawk county. About 1855 he built a large frame basement barn, about 40x60, and the large frame house still occupied by his son Frank, and opened what for so many years was known as "Buckhorn Tavern." In those days there was no railroad in this part of the country and none in the far west and this being the main road traveled by those bound for Pike's Peak and California and to settle the west, made the overland travel a steady, unbroken stream for years, and made the name of Shade Burleson and the Buckhorn Tavern familiar in many states, for Burleson was a man who made an impression on every man who had anything to do with him. He was unmistakably the head of Buckhorn so far as his business and family were concerned and was recognized as such so long as he lived. His advice and council carried weight with his grown up family and all of those around him. Even many of those outside of his household-some of them his ene- mies-used to go to Shade Burleson for council and advice and it was freely giver and wholly sound, for his business qualities were unsurpassed by any in this neighborhood. He was a first-class farmer and always abreast of the times and was about the first man to make use of modern improvements in farm machinery and breeds of hogs and cattle.
His tavern stand was a great help to him financially, but its door never shut in the face of a man without money. He was fed and slept and sent on his way. No neighbor ever came to Burleson, to my knowledge, to bor- row anything or ask a favor and was refused. He was a good conversation- alist and a great story teller and yet, Mr. Burleson, apparently, had more enemies than any other man in this part of the country. He was a law unto himself, as it were, and followed his own council and expected every man to return unto Burleson that which was Burleson's, and any infringement on what he believed was his rights met with a decided opposition from him. To make clear the nature of Mr. Burleson in this respect, we will state that he had a neighbor who persisted in letting his hogs run in Shade Burleson's corn, Mr. Burleson romonstrated, but the neighbor was too careless to heed the remonstrance, so Mr. Burleson took his rifle and shot, several of them wthout making any ado about it. To further illustrate his decisive nature. (which was the source of much of the enmity toward him) when he built his tavern stand, he employed one Wagoner with several workmen, who. we suppose, like a good many workmen, put in a good deal of time killing time. A man by the name of Mills came along and wanted a few days car- penter work. Burleson put him to work and soon saw that he did about as much as all the rest and Burleson then and there discharged all except M'ills and let him finish the job. He simply thought they were not giving him what he was entitled to and though he might not have cared a continent-
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al for the actual money loss, he would not tolerate the supposed imposition, no matter how much the work was delayed.
When Mr. Burleson was in the prime of life and the "Buckhorn Tavern" was in the hey day of its glory, the bar room, or rather what might be more appropriately called the assembly room (as Mr. Burleson never kept a bar), was quite a resort for those who came to spend an idle hour and take part in spinning the yarns that were a part of the settlers' social stock in trade of those days. As a rule, when the dinner hour came, Mr. Burleson would extend an invitation to all to come to the dining room for dinner. The man who came to loaf received as hearty an invitation to come to his table as the traveler guest who expected to pay his bill. This trait of S. Burleson's character did not always find a willing response in the cooks, who once cr twice tried to rebell against his generosity, but he told them he paid for what went onto the table and he expected it cooked for whoever he saw fit to have sit at his table and any one who was at his place when meals were ready was welcome to eat.
My recollection of Mr. Burleson is that he never leaned toward any reli- gious creed, in fact was somewhat of an agnostic, believing that the great mystery was as open to one man as another and that no man had any knowl- edge of the future life and that the Bible was not the direct spoken word of the Almighty to man, but the written genealogy of the human race and recorded moral laws that were promulgated by the wisest men of the world's earliest known history. Notwithstnding that, we have no knowledge of his ever Jaying a straw in the way of those who were workng to extend the cause of religion and several times liberally responded to the soliciting of donations for church building and work, though he would more readily have given for educational purposes, believing educatoin was more of a civilizing force than religion.
When a boy, we did not have any too good opinion of Mr. Burleson, large- ly on account of the influence of the expressed opinion of others. who on account of some real or imaginary faults of his, took particular pains to speak ill of him out of his hearing. But after coming to man's estate aud judging men by the visible evidence of what they accomplished and weighing them by the scale of justice with the good in one balance and the ill in the other, we come to have a better opinion of Shade Burleson than we have of the average man.
On account of his prominence as a pioneer settler and landlord and his strong will and peculiarly clear cut, personality, we have often wanted to write of him as we understood him by the evidence of over thirty years acquaint- ance as a near neighbor. We have already given in part our reason for not liking him any too well as a boy, the remaining reason is a story by itself. But as paper is cheap and my pencil is long to illustrate Mr. Burleson's ability to judge himself we will tell that story. At that time there were perhaps a score of boys from eight to fourteen years of age in the Buckhorn region and no swimming hole short of the river over a mile from the school house. Up stream from Mr. Burleson's land there were high banks to the creek and the boys concluded by damming the creek a short order duck could be had at any hour of the day. After a good deal of hard work, carrying
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stones and cutting rods, a good strong dam was constructed that when full would afford water neck deep to a man for a short way above he dam and enough slack water to make mighty good swimming for goslings such as we. For twenty rods up stream in those days Mr. Burleson and others depended upon the streams flow for stock water. When the water failed to come down for a day or such a matter, Mr. Burleson began to think of looking up the source of the drought. He and several who happened to be staying around the tavern, among whom we believe were Bill Deniston and John Crane, took spades and started for that dam. The water had risen to within several inches of the top and the water looked so inviting, as it was a warm day, that the younger men could not resist taking a plunge before they drained the pond. Mr. Burleson was fond of sport himself and a great athelete and after watching the others a minute or so threw off his clothes and sought the cooling waters, after which the dam was destroyed and the thirsty stock below reveled in the waters that came down-not at "Ladore", but from the boys' hoped for swimming hole.
To the writer of this, who was watching from afar it looked to the boy as a rank injustice and a flagrant violation of the rights of boys and the thought was leaven to his rising indignation and after the party of men had returned to the bar room of the hotel, the boy "bearded the lion in his den and Douglas in his hall" and standing in the middle of the room and with a force that would have done credit to Patrick Henry and in language that would do credit to no one, addressed Mr. Burleson on the rights and feelings of boys and explained to him though the boys knew the creek was gettng a little dry below, that in a few hours more there would be water to spare, and he considered it an unwarranted invasion of boyhood land for a lot of grown up men to usurp the longed for pleasures of the boys by taking a swim themselves and then blasting the fond hopes of the juveniles by des- troying the dam. In the boy's mind, there was uppermost the thought of a great injustice done him and his pals and in his voice only scorn and con- demnation for those whom he was judging. He addressed all his language to Mr. Burleson, as though he considered he was the only one of the party of whom he expected fairer treatment. Though the boy's language, smarting under the supposed wrong was scathing, mean and insulting, Mr. Burleson said not a word, but sat stroking his beard as was customary with him when in thought and seemed to be taking no note of what the boy was say- ing-but he was. He was weighing the matter in his mind according to the way he knew the boy felt about it and leaving the thirsty stock out of con- sideration. The boy thought he was only ignoring lum and after abusing him roundly walked out of the room. Perhaps Mr. Burleson would not have taken one-tenth of the abuse from any man and he knew well enough he could have sweet revenge on the boy by telling his father of the language used to the man; knew there would soon be a tannery started that would take every hair off the boy's hide. Well he did not tell him and we have thought, since we came to man's estate, that he more than half admired a boy who would stand before him and judge him according to the boy's idea of the justice in the case and condemn him in such scathing language.
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There is no doubt with us now but what the boy would have had a. strong friend in "Wucle Shade" if he had used sense enough to have left the trail then instead of leading many of an invasion against Mr. Burleson's best apples and perpetrating various little tricks to annoy him just to "make good" and thereby increasing his disgust for the ways of boys in general and this one in particular. After the passing of the years and one was man grown and the other man grown gray. they were walking side by side, chatting about the day's affairs of life, Mr. Burleson with his hands behind his back and little stooped forward as was often his wont, all at once he left the subject and remarked, "well you seem to have made a pret- . ty fair sort of a man, but you was the damndest, meanest boy I ever saw."
In the days of other years when the Buckhorn tavern was in its glory and dancing was a very popular form of amusement nearly everywhere, all- the length and half the width of the upper story of the main part of Burle- son's tavern stand was a ball room and several times during each season there would be a wide awake ball at Buckhorn. Burleson alwars took ex- tra pains on these occasions to cater to the comfort and joy of his guests. There were plenty of hostlers and stable room with mangers filled with hay ; on the tables a "horn of plenty" and in the ball room the best string band the country afforded and a hurrying of feet, and in the bar room cards and checkers and many a well spun story. The popularity of Burleson's balls used to bring many from as far away as DeWitt and Andrew and sometimes from Bellevue and there are plenty from Maine to California and Dakota to Texas, who are now grown old, who have tripped the light fantastic at the old Buckhorn tavern, while S. Burleson was the landlord and we do not be- lieve there are any who have any "kick" at the way they were treated by the Burlesons.
Burleson always was a warm friend of Nathaniel Butterworth, who kept the Butterworth House at Andrew, which might be wondered at if Burle- son hadn't have been Burleson and Butterworth hadn't have been But- terworth. For through the heat of the rebellion, Burleson was the strongest kind of an abolition republican and Butterworth was just the opposite, so much so that once when some one went into the store of an abolition fire beater at Andrew and asked "what is butter worth" he got the reply "he is a d --- ed old copperhead. " When there was a ball at Butterworth's some of Burleson's young folks were sure to go to Butterworth's ball. As we are not writing Andrew history we will return to Buckhorn and follow still further the characteristic of and the events in the life of Buckhorn's wid- est known citizen, best liked by his friends and most disliked by his ene- mies.
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