USA > Iowa > Jackson County > Annals of Jackson county, Iowa, Vol 1-6 > Part 39
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At a cabin on Farmers Creek I was advised not to speak on religion in the next cabin, or I might be put out, as the occupant had told a Methodist minister who called there, that he would throw him into the fire if he spoke
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a word on the subject .. It was a rough region. Nature appeared ill-shapen in "Rocky Hollow." Coming to a large log house I found a friendly Scotch family living cheerily, no floor but mother earth. Mr. Sage was away at mill, but his wife made me welcome, and called in a few neighbors to whom I preached. She told me she had heard Thomas Chalmers and Edward Irv- ing in Glasgow. A little distance north was another Scotch family (Alex- ander), but there was trouble between the two families over their respec- tive claims. They were the only Presbyterian families I found in this vis- itation, and it grieved me to find them at odds.
I was perplexed on being informed that a member of the Andrew charge had fallen into shame. It was made my duty to seek the recovery of the woman to a correct life, and I was relieved to hear profession of sorrow and purposes of amendment. I at once spoke to her husband, who was out at work, but he turned upon me with abuse and threats to the church.
One family that attended my services were used to "tokens" on sacra- mental occasions, and would not come to communion without them. While visiting at their house a young man, seventeen years of age. called, who said he was on a pedestrian tour. He had read Captain Cook's Voyages and Peter Parley, and told me that he knew a little Latin and Greek, and had learned the Hebrew alphabet from the 119th Psalm. He had walked from his home thirty miles west of Philadelphia and was still westward bound.
I spent the last week of 1843 at Bellevue, making acquaintances, and preaching in the schoolhouse, and in the house of Alexander Reed, three miles south. where one said it was a "divilish" sermon. Bellevue is beau- tifully situated. When Wisconsin Territory extended to the Missouri river, 1836, it was proposed as a central site for the capital, in rivalry with Dubu- que. The town was discredited by a sanguinary mob (April 1, 1840). or "war, " as it was called, several persons being killed on both sides, and the county seat was moved to the geographical center, the people voting 208 for Andrew, 111 for Bellevue. The Dyas family, who said they were the first family to make a home in the county, gave me a hearty welcome. They had lived in Galena and were warm friends of the Rev. Arastus Kent, pio- neer missionary there. Many of the first settlers about Bellevue had worked in the lead mines, and had been in Col. Henry Dodge's battalion in the Black Hawk war. Wm. A. Warren, sheriff of Jackson county, was a native of Kentucky, came to Bellevue in 1836, had served in the Black Hawk war, took an active part in the Bellevue "war," was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1857, and I resumed my acquaintance with him in July, 1864, at Stevenson, Alabama, where he was U. S. quartermas- ter, and I was in the service of the Christian Commission, and he gave me his kind offices. As Sheriff of Jackson county, he had collected taxes in coon-skins at fifty cents, and sold them in Galena at seventy-five cents.
At Bellevue, Thomas Cox and John Foley were at home for the Christ- mas vacation from the Territorial legislature of which they were members. On their return to Iowa City, Colonel Cox was elected President of the Council. He had been an influential member of every previous legislature of the Territory but one. He promoted the removal of the capital from Burlington to Iowa City, and gave the name to the new capital. He was
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also one of the surveyors who selected the site on the Iowa river. and laid out the town. He invited me to visit his family which I did later. Mrs. Cox was a native of Rhode Island of Quaker stock. She came in her youth with her parents to St. Genevieve, Mo., and was a lady of gracious manners. Upon the death of her husband, Nov. 9, 1844, she sent for .me, and I officiated at the funeral in the presence of a large concourse of peo- ple. The grave was under a hickory tree near the house. In a few years the land passed into other hands and was a plowed field. Sixty years later the Jackson County Historical Society had the grave unearthed, and the bones were interred in Hope Cemetery, Maquoketa, where they set up a large and smooth faced boulder, and had his name inscribed thereon as "Pioneer Lawmaker." By invitation of the Society, I took part in the ceremony and made a prayer at the unveiling of the monument, July 4, 1905. A full account of the life of Colonel Cox, with his portrait, is given in this volume.
On the first day of May. 1845, I officiated at the marriage of Cordelia, daughter of Thomas Cox, to Joseph S. Mallard. It was the first marriage ceremony I performed. They went overland to California in 1849, and were among the early settlers of Los Angeles.
John Foley was a polite Irish gentleman, had been sheriff of Jo Daviess county, Ill., a member of the First Legislative Assembly of Wisconsin Ter- ritory, two sessions of which were held in Burlington, 1837-'8.
I also visited George Cubbage and preached in his cabin. He was a na- tive of Delaware, and an intense Protestant He had been clerk to Felix St. Vrain. U. S. agent for the Sacs and Foxes, whom they foully murdered at the opening of the Black Hawk war. Mr. Cubbage had himself been a captive in their hands. He taught the first school in Dubuque, was door- keeper of the Legislative Assembly of Wisconsin Territory at Belmont, 1836, and one of the commissioners, under an act of Congress, to lay out Dubuque, Burlington, and other towns, 1837-38.
A few weeks later I visited every family in Charleston, now Sabula. They were a friendly people, mostly from New England and New York ; James Leonard from Griswold, Ct., Benjamin Hudson from Lynn, Mass., Mr. Marshall from Goffstown, N. H. A gray-headed man, learning I was from New York, asked me if I knew Dr. Joseph McElroy, pastor of the Grand Street, Presbyterian church in that city. I told him that he was an eloquent preacher, and I had heard him preach. "He is my brother," he said. And I saw a resemblance in their features. His name was Hugh McElroy. He came to Iowa in in 1838, and made a claim west of Sabula ; he had a large family and his oldest child was named Joseph.
I preeached in the Exchange Hotel at Sabula, and had a larger congre- gation than in any place before in the county. A church was organized there by Oilver Emerson, Dec. 14, 1845.
North of Bellevue, I preached in Mr. Potter's house on Tete des Morts creek. I found some German families in the settlement, with Luther's translation of the Bible in their cabins. Some were beginning to learn English. I regretted that I could not preach to them in their own tongue.
The new year, 1844, opened with a heavy snow, and I was unable to fill my appointment for the evening at Andrew, my first failure of the kind. During the following spring there were many freshets, and I could not al- ways make my circuit. In March I vi ited the people in the Forks. They had made clearings in the timber, thinking crops would be surer than on the prairie. One who came to my meeting told me that he had not heard a sermon for ten years. A young man of the house where I preached offered to conduct me to a wonderful cave and a natural bridge four miles away. The bridge is thirty feet long, about twelve feet wide, of limestone, solid, massive, covered with deep soil. Cave creek passes under it. We clambered up the sides of the bridge and walked over it. I then turned with admiring gaze to the arch that from a height of more than a hundred feet slopes smoothly in a grand curve to the mouth of the cave. Descending to the creek, we heard the waters madly rushing through, and saw ice pillars of transparent beauty. A mass of rock had fallen from overhead, warning us of danger, and having an appointment at a distance of twelve miles, I hurried from the entrancing scene. Later in the season I visited the spot again, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Holbrook, and my classmate, Ebenezer Alden, of Tipton. The creek was then dry, and we went sever- al hundred feet into the cave, finding stalactites and stalagmites in pro- fusion, and seeing subterranean marvels.
On visiting Galena and Dubuque I preached for Mr. Kent and Mr. Holbrook in their churches. Mr. Kent said to me that Mr. Peet had told him of his desire and intention to get me into Wisconsin.
In April, I made a long missionary tour in the adjoining counties of Jones, Cedar and Clinton Near the Wapsipinicon I found a good settle- ment of United Brethren. At Red Oak grove I was entertained bv Robert Cousins, an intelligent and warm-hearted Christian, deeply interested in Sunday schools and devoted to the use of the Psalms in public worship. At Tipton I enjoyed the hospitality of Paterson Fleming, clerk of the court, and of Addison Gillett. merchant, who had come the previous year from Hudson, N. Y. I was disappointed, not finding my classmate Alden; he had gone to Denmark, to arrange for sending Asa Turner east, to raise funds for the purchase of lands on which to establish a college. After a dreary ride over the prairie to. DeWitt, thirty-five miles, I found Oliver Emerson shaking with ague; at his request I went to Camanche to fulfil his appointment for a funeral sermon, the second time I performed such a ser- vice. From Camanche I crossed the Mississippi and preached at Albany, Ill. Later in the month Julius A. Reed visited me He had been on an exploring tour in Delaware and Buchanan counties for a site for the propos- ed college.
Receiving an invitation from John Lewis. my classmate in the Univers- ity of the City of New York. and in Union Theological Seminary, to attend his ordination at Fairplay, Wisconsin Territory, I crossed the Mississippi at Bellevue the last day of April, and was two hours in getting over, the river being higher, it was said, than since 1828, and the islands and low- lands on the Illinois shore under water. In his examination by the Mineral Point Convention, Mr. Lewis stated that when a clerk in a boo store in
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Boston he attended Lyman Beecher's church and that on several successsive mornings when sweeping out the store, Dr. Beecher came there and gave him wise and heplful counsel. Mr. Kent preached the sermon, and I gave the right hand of fellowship. In obtaining his education Mr. Lewis had been aided by Christopher R. Robert, the founder afterwards of Robert College, Constantinople.
My Andover classmate James J. Hill, arrived at Dubuque, June 7th, and I went to see him ; hitching my horse to a small wagon, I took him through rushing creeks and over Turkey river to the field assigned him in Clayton Co. He received a warm welcome at Jacksonville, the county seat. from James Watson, whose brother, Cyrus L. Watson, had preached in Duf buque in 1836, the first Home Missionary in Iowa; they were natives o- North Carolina.
Urgent invitations coming to me to visit Mineral Point and Potosi, I did so, and the church at Potosi gave me a call, and it was said, "You must come." I referred the matter to the Home Missionary Society, and the following letter decided the matter:
Rooms of the A. H. M. S., 150 Nassau St., N. Y., August 3, 1844. Rev. W. Salter,
Dear Brother: I lose no time in saying that the reasons which seem to have influence with your own mind in favor of your remaining in Iowa seem sound and weighty. The "lowa Band" have awkaened a good deal of interest in the East, and have a character that is drawing around them more and more the affections and confidence of the good, and it is very desirable that this character should be sustained. There would be some misgiving in regard to the results contemplated, if one of your number should return to this side of the Mississippi; the chain would be broken, the charm in a measure dispelled, and the brethren there would be in danger of being dis- heartened; it would be easier for one and another to yield to discourage- ment. You might be more useful in Wisconsin at once. but I think it would be in appearance only. You have made a good beginning, getting acquainted, and acquiring influence, and it would be difficult to supply your place. Wisconsin can be easier provided with ministers than Iowa. You have given yourself to that Territory, and I think you had better say to all this side the river that you cannot come down or over.
Your Iowa brethren would all, I know, give you this counsel, and, I think the disinterested everywhere would do the same. I hope you will by all means stay in Iowa and lay the foundations. Your communications have all been of deep interest to us, and you will ever have our tenderest sympathy and our fervent prayers. Yours truly,
MILTON BADGER, Sec.
Brother Holbrook wrote me: "I hope you will not see it to be duty to leave Iowa. Still I want to see poor Potosi supplied, and you to decide as the Lord would have you whether to go there or not. May he guide you, and make you useful wherever you may labor. " Shortly afterwards I preach- ed three Sundays at Dubuque for Brother Holbrook, he going east to solicit funds for removing an encumbrance on his church. Meanwhile I visited Clayton county to attend the organization of the church which Brother Hill
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had gathered. I met there the Rev. A. N. Wells, U. S. chaplain at Fort Crawford, a very genial and friendly gentleman, and of much historical int- erest. I went with him to Prairie du Chien. He was a graduate of Union college, N. Y. ; studied divinity with Dr. Eliphalet Nott, was a man of his spirit, was the first Protestant missionary at Detroit and pastor there twelve years.
In October I rode horseback, via Tipton and Muscatine, where Brother Robbins joined me, to Brighton, Washington county, and attended an As- sociation meeting. The church there was composed of excellent families from the Western Reserve, Ohio. On returning. I attended a meeting of the Iowa Anti-Slavery Society at the county seat of Washington county. Aaron Street, Jr., and other Quakers from Salem, and Mr. Vincent, a Se- ceder minister, was active and zealous members. At Iowa City I visited the capitol, and listened to some of the proceedings of the Constitutional Con- vention then in session; I made the acquaintance of Robert Lucas, the first governor of Iowa Territory, of Shepherd Letfler, president of the Con- vention, and other members.
Through the winter of 1844-45 I kept up my work at Maquoketa and An- drew, and in the various settlements of Jackson county, holding some reviv- al meetings, aided by my brethren, E B. Turner, Emerson, and Holbrook, and sometimes aiding them in their fields. Brother Holbrook wrote me from Dubuque :
"An Episcopalian minister has arrived here, and will for the winter preach in our old meeting house half of the time. Consequently, I shall have some leisure Sabbaths, and could help you in a protracted meeting at Andrew, Bellevue or Charleston. He had previously aided me at Maquoke- ta. It would be necessary to provide a conveyance for me to and from the places. as I have no horse, and could not afford to hire for so long a time. Let me hear from you as I am anxious to improve the winter. The meeting at Charleston should be when the river is closed, to admit of the Savannah people crossing. We have exchanged our form of govern- ment for Congregational, and expect to build a new meeting house the next year."
At Maquoketa we organized a Temperance Society with one hundred members, and kept the liquor traffic out of the settlement. We were not so successful at Andrew, though a society was organized there with fifty members. A subject of the reformation wrote me a pathetic letter:
Andrew, Feb. 22, 1845.
Friend Salter:
I have been a wretch for the last year, have sinned against God and man. I have made one more resolve, one which I shall never break. I am determined by the help of God never to taste liquor, that which has been almost my ruin. I feel that I have been a guilty wretch, but will sin no more; I put my trust in God, and ask him to sustain me in my determi- nation.
I write these few lines to you to ask an interest in your prayers. I want you to call and see me when you are in town, if you have not given me
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up as lost altogether, as I have made promises and broken them so often; but this resolve, Mr. Salter, is firm, is not to be broken. I am determin- ed once more to be a man, and not a brute. I love you and all the peo- ple of God, and wish you to call and see your unworthy friend,
G. W. S
Impressed with the necessity of better advantages in the cause of edu- cation, I secured the co-operation of Mr. Goodenow, Mr. Shaw and Mr. Current in measures for the establishment of an Academy at Maquoketa. Mr. Goodenow offered five acres of his land on a commanding site; others made subscriptions of material and labor, and, contemplating a visit East, I proposed to solicit aid from friends there. After attending a Presbyter- ian and Congregational Convention at Detroit in June, 1845, I went to New York and Boston, and collected three hundred dollars. My brother, Benja- min Salter, was the largest contributor; among others were John Mace, A. L. M. Scott, who had been my Sunday school teacher, W. M. Halstead, R. T. Haines, Calvin W. Howe, Fisher Howe, Bowen & McNamee, Wiley & Putnam, Wm. Scribner, George Lockwood, S. B. Hunt, W. A. Booth, C. R. Robert, J. A. Robertson, I. Van Cleef, etc., of New York, and E. P. Mackintire, of Boston. The Academy was incorporated by an act of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory, Jan. 15, 1846. The money I collect- ed was expended in the purchase of brick, and in payments to the contract- or, D. Jones of Dubuque. The building was completed in 1848, and was ded- icated with an address by George F. Magoun, the pastor of the Second Presbyterian church in Galena. Mr. Shaw had previously written me, April 8, 1848:
"Our Academy is completed. I wish you could see it It is a splendid building, I think much better than you expected. I think it will not be long before we shall add what we contemplated. My subscription is paid and over. When I signed I did not know any way to pay. The Trustees have settled with Mr. Jones, so the building is out of his hands. The dedi- cation of the Academy will be on the 4th of July next. I hope you will be here certain. Mr. Gale, founder of Galesburg, Ill., and Mr. Blanchard, president of Knox college, will probably be here.
"We shall not have the county seat here. It will be for our benefit. In my mind the evils attending a county seat are more than the benefits of a Court House."
Jerome Allen was principal of the Academy for two years. He was a graduate of Amherst College, and married a daughter of John Wesley Windsor, pastor at Maquoketa 1849-54; he became eminent for his zeal and ability in the work of education and as a teacher of teachers. both in Iowa and in the state of New York (Iowa Nomal Monthly, xii, 356). The property of the Academy, including Mr. Goodenow's donation of land, was eventually turned over to the public schools of Maquoketa.
In the fall of 1845 the people of Jackson county were advised of an approachhing sale of the public lands on which they had made their claims. The United States had delayed the sale of these lands for sever- al years as in the mineral district, where lands were subject to rents, and not for sale in fee simple. That policy was changed. There was much
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excitement and anxiety to secure the necessary funds, and to protect one another in their claims, and there were some disputes about claims that embittered the future; but harmony and order generally prevailed, and, becoming secure in their titles, the people built better homes and made more permanent improvements.
I now felt somewhat encouraged in my work, and, looking forward to making a home, I built a little frame house on a gentle rise of land south of Mr. Shaw's house, and moved into it. I was there enjoying such op- portunity as I had not had previously for retirement and study, with my books conveniently arranged and was especially enjoying a new book I had purchased in New York, "The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Ar- nold," when word came of the serious and probably fatal illness of the pastor at Burlington, and that he had resigned his office, and I was request- ยท ed to come there. I made the journey in February, and was delayed in crossing Iowa river by running ice. I found my brother, Horace Hutchin- son, near the end of his days. We had come to the Territory together. He was then in vigorous health, ardent in his work, his life full of promise. Now his countenance was changed, and it fell to me to close his eyes in death. Brother Robbins came from Muscatine, and preached at the funeral service, which was held in "Old Zion" church.
After spending three weeks with the church in Burlington they invited me to become their minister. Returning to Jackson county, I reviewed the situation, and, not without reluctance to leave my friends there. I ac- cepted the invitation from Burlington, which the Missionary Society ap- proved. I had preached 326 sermons in Jackson county, 100 of them in the sod covered school house in Maquoketa, 40 at Andrew, and 186 in other parts of the county. I now preached farewell sermons at Andrew and Ma- quoketa, and early in April removed to Burlington, "not knowing the things that should befall me there."
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GOV. ANSEL BRIGGS.
First Executive of the State of Iowa.
(Written for the Jackson County Historical Society by Hon. W. O. Gregory.)
The early istory of Jackson County has been enriched by the fact that it was the home of Ansel Briges, the first governor of the State of Iowa.
It is a commendable trait of human character which prompts and engen- ders a reverence for the sturdy, heroic characters, who laid the foundations of our great commonwealth, or who built thereon or in any manner assisted in its marvelous and most wonderful development, and I therefore cheerful- ly respond to an invitation to speak of the public and private life and char- acter of Gov. Briggs.
He was a native of the State of Vermont, and was born on the 3rd day of February, 1806 His boyhood was passed in his native state, where he attended the common schools and received a fair education, and later took a term in Norwich Academy. He moved in the year 1830 to Cambridge in the State of Ohio, where he engaged in the business of establishing and maintaining stage lines. Here he also embarked on his political career by becoming the Whig candidate for the office of County Auditor, but he suf- fered defeat. A short time thereafter he changed his political views and identified himself with the Democratic party.
The alluring reports of beautiful groves and fertile prairies of the Terri- tory of Iowa prompted hin to cross the "Father of Waters" in the year 1836 and locate at the town of Andrew. Here he engaged in his former business of establishing stage lines and contracting for carrying the mails. He made several contracts with the government for carrying the mails from Dubuque Lo Davenport and to Iowa City, thus opening up and carrying on a very im- portant enterprise in the new country. He labored to make this business a success and to that end was frequently seen driving his own stages. He in- vested in lots in the town of Andrew and secured farming land in that vi- cinity, and thoroughly identified himself with the community and became an active participant and an earnest worker in all public enterprises for the good of the community. Such was his prominence and recognized ability as a leader, not only in that community, but in the political affairs of the county, that he was elected in the year 1842 to represent Jackson County in
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the Territorial legislature. We have no record of any special legislation that he was the author of at this session of the legislature, which brought him into prominence, but the fact is that his honesty of purpose to serve the entire people of the territory was so manifest that he became prominent in the counsels of his party. Subsequent to this service in the legislature, he was elected Sheriff of Jackson County. He was also engaged in the mer- cantile business in the town of Andrew, as a partner of S. S. Fenn, soon after he located there, their store being one of the first established in the place.
He was also the owner of a printing press, and established a newspaper in the town of Andrew in an early day, the date I am unable to state, which was under the editorial management of Joseph B. Dorr, subsequently Colonel of the 8th Regiment Iowa Cavalry.
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