USA > Iowa > Jackson County > Annals of Jackson county, Iowa, Vol 1-6 > Part 12
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To-day the multiplicity of inventions that have drawn men nearer to each other in communication, the centralizing of individual workers into multitudes depending one upon another to complete the machinery now ne- cessary to life's maintenance; the more uniform system of education, and the demands of commercialism, have knocked off the sharp corners of the natural man, smoothed his personality, and to some extent, obliterated his individuality, made him much a creature of policy and of business men in general, diplomats, with much of individual action submerged in a common dependence upon a system that crystalizes custom, and is the autocrat of man's orbit.
As a rule the pioneers of this country owned what education they had to uniform system, and they were so much the product of their own architect- ure; so much the creators of their own resources; so close to the soil and moulded by the half savage altruistic influence of nature; so self-dependent upon and so much a law unto themselves; so free from the adhesive qualities of a system; so little bound by the chains of commercialism ; so strengthen- ed by the hardships of existence that each man was a clearly defined unit. He was a stranger to policy, and a friend to principles that were rock bound shores of independence of thought and action, and gave him a personality so clearly defined and so different one from another, that he seemed more like an especial creation to found a separate and distinct race of people. But the "Village Blacksmith" has gone and so have the earliest of the pioneers.
Henry Mallard seemed to be one who loved the old things best, for a reaper or mower never was seen on his place unless brought there by some- one who had land on rent and he never used a double corn worker in his life. He tended his corn with a five tooth cultivator drawn many seasons by a
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cream colored horse, he called "Dobbin." The animal seemed to be a great crony of his. for he would talk to that old horse by the hour and follow him down a corn row with all the pomp an officer of the day might assume, and command him as he might a troop at drill. It Dobbin didn't "hay foot, straw foot," to suit the captain, and got a little out of the ranks, it would be 'Hey Dobbin, haw, there sir, what you doing on that - corn? You know better than that, you old rascal."
Henry Mallard never adopted any religious creed that we ever knew of, except that of "good will tward all men and malice toward none." But Mrs. Mallard was a strict Baptist, not only on the seventh day, but seven days in the week. She attended the first Baptist meeting held in the Ma- quoketa valley region of Jackson and Clinton counties, Aug. 31st, 1842, at the house of Wm. Y. Earle, with Elder C. E. Brown (who was appointed missionary to the Forks of the Maquoketa) as minister. At that meeting. .the first Baptist church organization in this country was perfected and Mrs. Mallard was one of the fifteen who enrolled themselves as members at that first meeting. The others were C. E. Brown and wife. Esquire Taylor and wife, Jason Pangborn and wife, Wm. Y. Earle and wife, Levi Decker and wife, C. M. Doolittle and wife, Mrs Mitchell and Walter Woodworth.
On account of an accident early in married life, there was no issue to perpetuate this branch of the Mallard family An adopted daughter, Matil- da, found fond foster parents in Mr. and Mrs. Mallard. After Matilda mar- ried and moved to Oregon, there was, while they both lived, an extra plate on the table at every meal. We have seen Mrs. Mallard place it there many a time. and once asked her why she did it. Her answer was. "Oh, some one might come hungry and it would save me from getting up." What a lot she left unanswered.
JOSEPH MALLARD AND FAYETTE MALLARD.
Besides Henry Mallard, there came to Jackson county in the same year, 1838, two brothers of his, Joseph S., and Fayette Mallard. The Mallard's were from New York City, where Joseph and Fayette had been in the mer- cantile business. Failing in business there through some stress of the times, they concluded to come to the far west. Early in 1838, we find the three Mallard brothers here in Jackson county, and active in pioneer work.
Joseph Mallard got a claim in section 29 South Fork township and built a log house on it near the west line of the forty and twenty rods north of the south line of the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of said sec- tion. This house was built just south of where now runs the Maquoketa and Anamosa wagon road, nearly on the site of the present building known in the near past as the Arch Atherton house. We find Joseph Mallard was on the first grand jury of the district court of Jackson county, held at Belle- vue beginning June 18th, 1838. This court was presided over by Chas. Dunn, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin territory. The other jurymen of that court were James Wood, Benjamin Hudson, Thomas Parks, Samuel Draper, James Burtis, John Stuckey, John D. Bell, Wm. Smith, J. S. Kirkpatrick, David Bates, Daniel Brown, James McCabe, W. H. Vandeventer, Chas. Harris, Webster McDowell, Wm. Phillips, Obediah
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Sawtell, James Kimball. Shaderac Burleson, M. Seymore, R. G. Enoc and H. G. Hinkley. Joseph Mallard was also clerk of the second commissioners court, the board of which was elected in the fall of 1838. Joseph Mallard also was commissioned by Gov. Lucas, Catpain of Company 6, 1st Regiment, 1st Brigade, 3rd Division Infantry of the Territorial Militia of 1839.
This country in those days was evidently quite a military region for Maquoketa prided itself on being more or less military, also George Mit- chell, Jim Fairbrother and a few more raw recruits marched up Academy hill and Dave Anderson and one of Uncle John E. Goodenow's girls march- ed up to the Hymenial Altar-which is a darn sight steeper hill, for there the real battle begins to see whether the victory shall rest with pantaloons or petticoat. We don't know where in 1839, could be found men enough in marching distance of Buckhorn for two companies. Joseph and Henry Mal- lard being captains, one of Co. 3 and the other of Co. 6, same regiment; and we don't know why Buckhorn wanted so many captains. But we sup- pose as every other man in Kentucky was a colonel. that it was considered unpretentious for nearly every body around Buckhorn to be captain. Dur- ing the Civil War-if a war can be civil-we used to be captain too. We gave mother no peace until she sewed some white rags on our blue demings jumper and overalls, when with a good broad sword made out of a lath, we led a band of bold spirits up and down wishing we could meet Jeff Davis and the whole southern Confederacy.
Through the research of Harvey Reid in the Col. Cox history, we learn that Joseph Mallard was married ( we believe by the Rev. Salter) to Cor- delia Cox, daughter of Col. Thomas Cox, at Richland, Iowa, May 1st, 1845, and that eight children were born to this union. Mary, who married Col. Isaac R. Dunkleberger, a retired military commander of Los Angeles. Cal. Augusta who married Benjamin C Truman, Josephine who remained single Henry named after Captain Henry Mallard heretofore mentioned, Walter and Clarence Stillman Mallard besides two who died in infancy whose names we do not know.
Personally we know nothing of the personality of Joseph Mallard as he after eleven years residence in Jackson county emigrated in 1849 to southern California at or near Los Angeles with the Cox family and others. That was four years before I was born and I ought to be excused; having a poor mem- ory anyway, for not remembering the personality of the man. It is said though, by those who did know him, that he like his brother Fayette, was a man of education, retinement and culture, and the fact of his being so quickly chosen to till importanht public positions, bears out that version of the matter.
Since going to California, the Joseph Mallard family all became wealthy and prominent. We do not know in what year Joseph Mallard or either of his brothers died, but it was well along in old age.
Fayette Mallard, as we have before said, came here in 1838 from New York City. He claimed land in section 29 joining that of his brother Jo- seph, and built his first house of logs-as all the earliest settlers did. His house was built near the site of the present buildings of Walter Miller on the hill south of the east line of the Waterford cemetery, and in the north-
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west quarter of the northeast quarter of section 29 South Fork township. It was there on that hill near Fayette Mallard's house, that history teils us the first American flag raised on Jackson county soil was unfurled to the breeze, July 4th, 1840, by Ans. Wilson, who bought the cloth and Thomas Wright, Jr. who painted on the stars and stripes. The cemetery, which to-day is so densely populated by our pioneers and their descendants, was a part of the Fayette Mallard claim. His sister was the first person buried therein, and his wife was, if not the second, the third or fourth per- son buried there. The cemetery is the northwest six acres of the north- west quarter of the northeast quarter of section 29, and was purchased for a public cemetery at a meeting held for that purpose on or about 1851. At that time about two acres was purchased by each one putting in one dollar. Thirty dollars we think, was raised which Mr. Mallard thought. was too much, as he did not want any more than the actual land value at that time.
Land isn't selling around there for $15.00 to-day.
There was a little incident connected with that meeting which perhaps we had better relate. Some transient stranger from the east attended the meeting out of curiosity, and after the rest had put in their dollar he walk- ed up and put in one also. It created quite a bit of surprise among the set- tlers, who no doubt found a dollar mighty hard to get in those days, to see a total stranger chipping in equal with the rest. Their surprise was plain- ly discernable to the stranger who said, "Gentlemen, you need not be sur- prised. We are all going to need a grave yard and I have no doubt some one has bought one for me somewhere."
About 1851, or '52, Mr. Mallard sold out his farming land in section 29, and bought a small parcel in the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 20, across the road from S. Burleson's (of whom we expect to speak in another article), and built thereon quite a pretentious frame build- ing for those days, and opened a hostelry for the traveling public. A year or so later, 1853 we think, he built a two-story frame for a store building near the east end of the tavern stand that was known as the "Waterford House." It was some time between 1851 and 1853, that Mr. Mallard began to take his beer, by marrying the widow Beer. She had two girls by the name of Lucy and Grace, and by the grace of luce they were both peaches.
Fayette Mallard kept the Waterford postoffice for many years and was known far and near as Esquire Mallard, being justice of the peace and no- tary public, a long while. He was a gentleman of the old school, polite, dig- nitied and courteous to all and well liked by his fellow citizens. His family, if we remember right, consisted of two boys and six girls. Wm. and John, Henrietta who married Kinsey Karland, Anna, wife of Wm. Burleson, Eliz- abeth, who was Perry Moulton's wife, and Janie, who married Al Need- ham, all of whom were by his first wife. By his second wife there were a pair of twin girls, nick-named "Bose" and "Dod."
In 1863 Fayette left Buckhorn, or rather Waterford, and with Perry Moulton, Wm. Moulton. Wm. Denniston, Walter Woodworth and others with their families, went overland to California. The Mallards, Woodworths, and Perry Moulton and family remained there. Wm. Moulton and Denniston. after serveral years, returned by the way of the Isthmus and New York City.
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The Buckhorn Country's Territorial Pioneers and Where They Built Their First Houses. The Wilcox Families.
(Written by Farmer Buckhorn for the Jackson County Historical Society.)
Some time about 1842, John Wilcox bought a claim consisting of 160 acres, the northwest quarter of section 29, and also a twelve acre tract of Shade Burleson in the southwest quarter of section 20. and built a log house thereon. This house, which was the first house built by Wilcox in Jackson county, Iowa, was erected thirty rods east of north of where the highway crosses the creek and eleven rods east of creek and just north of where now stands what is known as the old Robert Haines house. all in southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 20 South Fork township. Later Wilcox built a large frame house and barn on his land in section 29. A part of the lumber for these buildings was sawed at a water mill on the Maquo- keta river, and a part hauled from Lyons by team. They were built some time about 1855 and are apparently as good as ever after fifty years and are owned by J. E. Shirk.
Wilcox came to Iowa in 1840 and first settled in South Grove just over the line in Clinton county. He came from Canada-he and his wife-by team, leaving there February 16th, and arriving here March 28th being thirty-five days on the road. He was a native of Montgomery county, New York, where he spent the first 18 years of his life, dating from April 26th, 1808, when he was born. Mrs. Wilcox also was a native of York State. hav- ing been born at Plattsburg. Her maiden name was Maria Caswell.
. Mr. Wilcox was not a man to take any very active part in public affairs. though he had been town trustee, school director and for a while postmast- er, and for many years deacon of the Baptist church here. He and his wife were life long and steadfast disciples of that faith. During revivals Mrs. Wilcox semed to be a willing slave for from two to six preachers, as the Wil- cox home was always headquarters for the cloth of the Baptist denomina- tion. Aunt Maria would trot trot looking after every little detail for their comfort and some of them not half so old as she, (or half so religious either and looked as though they had pastured on clover during the summer and been corn fed in the fall), seemed very willing to let her. Hudson, one of the Wilcox boys, said he always liked to have the preachers come, for Ma always had so many good preserves then.
John Wilcox was below the average man in heighth, and slow but meth- odical. industrious and being nearly always at work accomplished much.
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His honesty and his word never was questioned and his paper for any rea- sonable emount was giltedge. (He never was known to put out any unrea- sonable amount. ) He was a temperance man of the strictest kind, never using either liquor or tobacco in any form and never was guilty of what Roosevelt would call "Race Suicide," having born to him eight children- tive boys and three girls. Hudson, Warren, Columbus, Ferdinand and Leon- ard, his last boy died in infancy. The girls were Sarah, who married Wm. Moulton, Mary, wife of Geo. Frank, and Lenora, who married Horace De- lano. The Wilcox geneological tree had many branches, all more or less fruitful, and was transplanted into this country before the American Revolution, and was rooted deep in pariotism. Politically John Wilcox was a republican and strong abolitionist, as was all of his brothers.
If blood tells, they couldn't have been otherwise than imbued with a love of human liberty for it is claimed that among their ancestors there was revolutionary stock, and we learn from the historical researches of Harvey Reid, (a painstaking local historian), that the father of John Wilcox, Eben- ezer Wilcox was in the Canadian revolt under Wm. Lezon Mackensie, 1837 and 1838, against the British government. After Mackensie's defeat near Toronto, Dec. 7th, 1837, Ebenezer Wilcox was taken prisoner and kept in prison for ten months when he was pardoned, after which he came to the States with his family and headed for the Black Hawk purchase in Iowa, and in 1839 (a year previous to the coming of his son John of this sketch) settled on land in section 23 Monmouth township, Jackson county, and built a log house on a rise of land close to the south bank of Bear Creek at a point in the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of said section and . township, and spent his remaining days there in as beautiful a natural loca- tion as Iowa can furnish. His house overlooked the clear rippling waters of Bear Creek that came down from the southwest and led awa; to the north- east with its banks timber fringed with scattering stately old oaks and elms and its bottom land a shady natural pasture that in early days was a satistying retreat for the red deer and elk.
He, Ebenezer Wilcox was born in Glenn, Montgomery county, New York, March 13th, 1786, and died June 7th. 1855, where he settled in Iowa sixteen years before. He, like his son John, was of the Baptist faith and the father of quite a large family several of whom were nearly life long citi- zens of Jackson county, Iowa. Those of his children who lived to be old and died here were John, of which much has already been said, and William who was nearly a life long resident of Mill Rock, owning a farm near there and for many vears proprietor of a general store there and postmaster and justice of the peace. Also Abner, who many years owned and lived on the farm joining his father's on the south, until he sold out to his son, Noble, and moved to Baldwin where he died and where now lives his widow whose maiden name was Lydia Chandler, daughter of Gen. Samuel Chandler, who was one of three-Col. James Morreau and Benjamin Waite being the others-who led an invasion of Canada by a force organized in America in 1838 and was made prisoner and sentenced to be hung, but had his sentence commuted to banishment on Van Diemon's land but escaped after four years by the help of a brother mason who was the master of a Yankee vessel, and
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in 1843 came with his family to Jackson county, Iowa., There were nine children in Ebenezer Wilcox's family. It will be noticed the Wilcox's were all here in territorial days.
It is not our intent to write so fully of the Wilcox family to eulogize them members of one particular house as it is to illustrate the type of men who first peopled this country. Nearly all of them were men of force and iron wills- or, they would not have been here hewing houses out of a wilderness that was only known to most men of the east as a spot on the map nearly a thousand miles toward the setting sun and beyond bridgeless streams dense for- rests almost bottomless sloughs and unbroken almost trackless prairies, still the home of wild beasts and no stranger to roving bands of Indians. It must be born in mind those who came here to settle before Iowa become a state came before the age of steam and steel and nearly all of the modern in- ventions that has made settlement comparatively a picnic, had scarcely be- gun. Once in a while a steamboat that traversed the Ohio and Missis- sippi rivers was the only link between the frontier and the older civiliza- tion of the east and the south. Lo, now, after sixty years of statehood here centers an agricultural empire that is Godfather to the east, nurse to the south and granary for the whole world.
When John Wilcox came here in 1840, he came poor as nearly all the early settlers came, and endured his share of the hardships incidental to pioneering in those days. Although the country had already began to take on life and there was some grain and other produce to be had necessity did not compel him to live at first by the chase as was the case of those who .came as early as 1836 and 1837. In the first several years of his settlement he hauled dressed hogs to Galena about sixty miles and has sold them as low as one dollar the cwt., and taken bis pay in trade. He. for some time, went to Cascade to mill, twenty-five miles distant. For many years he, like all the early settlers, hauled grain to points on the Mississippi and hauled pine lumber and many necessaries home. A round trip consumed three days, weather and all things favorable.
For over thirty years after Iowa first began to be settled there was no law in Jackson county to restrain stock. except hogs and sheep, from run- ning at large and all tilled land had to be fenced. There was no wire fence then and during the first few years of settlement no board fences, the only kind of fence the earliest settlers knew of was fences made from rails split from logs and laid up worm fashion with a stone under each corner and staked and ridered. As it took a log ten feet long by about two feet through to furnish rails and stakes for one rod of fence one can gain a faint idea of the amount of timber and work it took to fence even forty acres of land. As the settlers first house and fences all had to be the hand wrought pro- duct of the forest, we can understand why our pioneers could not exist far from timber And as all well water for stock and house use had to be lifted by rope and bucket we can see why near springs and streams were favorite places of settlement.
When we take into consideration all the inconveniences and the lack of nearly all the useful and labor saving inventions of later days, we begin to know what manner of men the pioneers of this country must have been.
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Though John Wilcox, like most of our early settlers, came here with scarce- ly a dollar and never was a speculator in any sense of the word, but what he had he wrought out by hard labor, had as early as 1855 his farm well fenced and nearly all under cultivation and a house and barn erected that would do credit as ordinary farm buildings to any age or stage of civiliza- tion. About the same time several others of our early settlers including Burleson, Pence, Finton and Haven's had substantial frame buidings erect- ed, all of which yet stand fit monuments to the architects of other days who took the lumber rough from the saw and hand planed all necessary to be dressed, and made by hand all mouldings, rabbet and panel work. Some of the joist in the S. Burleson house was worked out with a whip saw.
When we compare the finish on some of those early houses built in the early fifties (like the old Eddy house in Maquoketa for instance) with many of later build severely plain-even unto meanness-it gives one a profound respect for those who wrought by hand so well in other days. As we have the record of three generations of Wilcoxs' before the John Wilcox of this narrative to show how much of the spirit of Roosevelt they possessed, and for the benefit of any who in the future cares to know, we will record it here.
John Wilcox, Sr. was born in Connecticut, April 15th. 1732, and married Anna Stephens who was born Jan. 6th, 1734. They begot Ebenezer Wilcox born June 5th, 1760; John Jr. born Jan. 12, 1762; James born Feb. 18, 1764; Wm. born Feb. 18, 1766; Anna born March 17, 1768; David, born Jan. 18, 1770; Levi born Dec. 17th, 1772; Amy born Feb. 28th, 1774: and Dinah born March 14th, 1776.
John Wilcox, Jr. born Jan. 12th, 1762, married Lois Anger born Feb. 17th, 1758, and their issue was Ebenezer, born March 13, 1786, Elizabeth born March 19, 1788; David born Dec. 23, 1790; Anna born Oct 19, 1794: Prudence born Aug. 1, 1796; Lois born April 5, 1798; and Mary born Jan. 21, 1800.
Ebenezer, son of John Wilcox, Jr., was born March 13, 1786, and mar- ried Jael Hanchet, who was born Sept. 30, 1790. Their offbears were John Wilcox III. born April 26, 1808: Anna E. born Aug. 24, 1809; David H. born Feb. 2, 1811; Maria born June 10, 1813; Nelson born July 8, 1815: Harmon S. born Dec. 16, 1817; Abner T. born July 16th, 1820; William born Oct. 7, 1823; and Ebenezer Jr. born Nov. 15, 1829. As there was a child born into these three Wilcox generations on an average of one in about two years, and there were eight in the family of John Wilcox III of the fourth gener- ation, it will be readily seen that the Wilcox's were race propagators and the Wilcox geneological tree was quite a thicket.
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A Brief History of the Life and Military Services of Cap- tain Andrew William Drips.
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