USA > Iowa > Jackson County > Annals of Jackson county, Iowa, Vol 1-6 > Part 52
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The mystery that surrounds the sudden presence of petroleum in that old alluvial hole has never been solved. After boring in the Johnson well
IT
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had ceased, a local company obtained permission and proceeded to excavate around the hole in an attempt to compel it to reveal the secret. After re- moving about seven or eight feet of minged clay and soil, lime rock was encountered of irregular contour, the "up-hill" side being the highest. This was blasted out to a total depth of about twenty feet. The soft ' mud nearest the hole was found to be perfectly saturated with oil, but the solid walls of the excavation showed no discolored seams or crevices which would indicate seepage of oil from the sides in either the earth or rock. At the bottom a cavity of several inches in height appeard, from which water flowed and drops of oil could be detected in the water dipped out. That, however, might have been squeezed out of the saturated mud handled in excavating. It is possibly significant that no oil appeared in the nole in quantity suffi- cient to be dipped out after workmen arrived with the drilling outfit. If any evidence existed pointing suspicion to any one as having carried oil and poured it into the hole, the theory of such an origin for its appearance would account for every phenomenon in connection with it. But not a scintilla of such evidence has ever developed, and we can only pronounce its presence a scientific puzzle of remarkable perplexity.
The country rock is a hard, dense, dolomite (or magnesian limestone) of the Niagara series, in practically level strata, and 209 feet in depth. Next comes 215 feet of the Maquoketa shales of the Ordovician series a large proportion of this being plastic clays, impervious to fluids, whether, water or oil. Professor Norton finds that the lower member of the Maquo- keta formation, a chocolate brown shale, ten feet in thickness is petrolifer- ous. "fragments burning with strong flame." He says in a letter accom- panying the report: "You will note, what the drillers failed to discoverl the oil-bearing shale, ten feet thick in the Maquoketa at 430. If the surface oil came from below this apparently is its source. In this case, no large amount, warranting dril ing could be expected, since wherever the oil es- caped from the source diffused in the shale, it would reach the surface of the ground for want of any cover to the reservoir rock, the Niagara lime- stone."
The greatest surprise in the geological formations disclosed by the well underlies the St. Peters sandstone of the Ordovician for 241 feet and is class- itied by Professor Norton with a question mark (?). He says in his letter : "The red sand below the St. Peter is an extremely interesting formation, and while we have some reports of the same from other wells, we have noth- ing approaching the depth at Maquoketa." Farther east, near the shores of Lake Michigan, deep wells find a "red mail" underlying the St. Peters sand, as described in W. C. Alden's report on the Milwaukee quadrangle. The deposit here seems to be of a more sandy nature, than that in Wiscon- sin, but both indicate an unconformity, or erosiion of the Prairie du Chien formation before the St. Peters sand was laid down. It should be said that the seam of petroliferous shale found here lies in. or on top of the Trenton series which has proven so prolitic of oil and gas in the Indiana and Ohio fields.
11
0
9.0-111071-b9
10
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2
Oil Well No 1 as it looked when in operation.
Following is Professor Norton's report :
[The quotations are from drillers' log. ]
Thickness Depth
29-Soil
11%
11%
28-Clay, hard yellow
412
6
27-Dolomite, first water between 155 and 215 feet.
209
215
26-"Sand and shale in seam, Second Water".
21514
25-Shale and limestone shale. light blue and limestone blue gray, hard, close textured, slight effervescence in cold dilute HCL
6334
279
24-Shale, sample shale and limestone, limestone, dark gray sub-crystalline, pyritiferous, with large clayey residue. Sample also of shale from 279
131
410
23-Shale, blue.
20
430
22-Shale, chocolate brown. lissile, rather hard, petroliferous. fragments burning with strong flame.
21-Dolomite, porous, sub-crystalline, gray, in lcg called "hard white shale"
20-Dolomite, light buff, cystalline; log. "mixed lime and shale hard"
10
440
46
486
79
565
1108 -- 08 Imoloch -- TE
18
-- 86-
19-Dolomitte, light buff, cherty, in angular sand.
130
695
18-Shale, bright green, fissile, fossiliferous, with dark gray fossiliferous non-magnesian pyritiferous limestone.
15
710
17-Limestone, gray, earthy, compact, non-magnesian.
5
715
16-Limestone, brown, non-magesian, hard in flaky chips ... 15-Limestone, light gray, soft, earthy
7 722
28
750
14-Shale, blue, plastic with some brown limestone chips ...
6
756
13-Sandstone, clean, white, grains well rounded, moderately coarse, many grains being a mm, or more in diameter ...
59
815
12-Sandstone, fine, brick red, with considerable red argil- laceous or ferric admixture. When washed in hot wat- er, drillings remain pink owing to films of ferric oxide on grains. Grains rounded, many broken. Said by drillers to contain seams of red shale.
211 1056
11-Dolomite light yellow gray,, with much dark red shale and dark brown hard fine grained shale, some light green shale, a hne yellow quartz sand, a fragment of red, fine grained sandstone set with pieces of green shale, all ex- cept the dolomite probably from above, at
1056
10-"Shale, soft gray." Sample consists of sandstone of St. Peter facies, but with an occasional grain showing sec- ondary enlargement, rather fine, with considerable red and light green shale and some chert and chips of dolo- mite
54 1110
9-"Sandstone, soft water" at 1125 sandstone sample with some chert and dolomite, some grains with secondary enlargements Sample said to represent the stratum consists for the most part of angular sind of light gray dolomite with some arenaceous admixture.
80
1190
7-Dolomite, purple-brown
20
1320
6-Dolomite, light gray
68
1388
5 -- Sandstone, soft, white, grains well rounded, fairly uni- form, maximum s ze of one mm rarely reached.
208
1596
4-Marl, in buff sand with the facies of the dolomite, but seen under the microscope to cons st of microscopic grains of crystaline quartz with dolomitic cement, with some fine rounded grains of quartz and some of chlorite,
1596
3-Sandstone, buff, hard, in angular fragments consisting of minute particles of crystalline quartz and small round grains, with imbedded grains of chlorite or glanconite. Samples contain some particles of green shale ..
2-Sandstone, light buff, tine grained, chiefly in minute detached grains of quartz, with some angular fragments as above. Many grains stained with films of ferric oxide.
1 .- Saandstone, white, clean, fine Grains imperfectly round- ed and from .01 to .0075 inch in diameter.
54 1650
45
1695
21 1716
8-Dolomite, light yellowish gray
110
1300
Drin
00
9700
-87-
SUMMARY.
No. Formation
Thickness Depth Above
,
Tide
29-28.
Residual and Recent
6
6
754
27. Niagara
209
215
545
26-22. Maquoketa
225
440
320
21-14. Galena-Platteville (19 Decorah shale, 15 Glen- wood shale)
316
756
4
13. St. Peter
59
815
-55
12.
?
241
1056
-296
11-6. Shakopee, New Richmond and Oneota, (or Prairie du Chien group)
332
1388
-628
5-4. Jordan
208
1596
-836
3-1. St. Lawrence
120
1716
-956
[No. 1 in the new nomenclature of the Geological section of lowa in Vol. XVII of the Iowa Geological Survey must be Dresbach sandstone.
It seems possible from the character of the rock that Nos. 2 and 3 are also Diesbach leaving for the St. Lawrence an uncertain thickness below the Jordan as described in No. 4. - Reid. ]
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THE SUMMER'S FAMILY.
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· Compiled From Different Sources by J. W Ellis for the Jackson County Historical Society.
In the territorial days of Iowa, and during the first decade of statehood, but few names were more familiar in Jackson, Clinton and Se ti counties than that of Summers. In 1837 Laurel Summers, who, it appears, was a man of much more than average ability, came to Scott county and settled at LeClaire where he spent all the remaining years of a long and useful life. In 1840, Redmond and Shelton, brothers of Laurel, came to Clinton county and settled in the town of Camanche, the first town founded in Clinton county, and according to John Seeley, who wrote an interesting article on the Summers' family, was there in 1844 when the first torpado passed thiu that village. Mr. Seeley sa d: "The house of Redmond Summers stood in the line of the tornado. Seeing the storm approaching and having no pro- tection in the way of a cellar or dugout, Mr. Summers told his wife to take the baby, now Mrs. Amanda Littell, and get under the bed, while he would hold the door, trusting that the stout logs of which the house was compos- ed would withstand the storm. The house was blown down and Mr. Sum- mers found himself lodged in a tree, and not much injured. He also found his wife and baby unhurt."
In 1845 Redmond and Shelton came to Jackson county, Redmond set- tling on section 29 South Fork township, and Shelton on section 19 of same township, where both gentlemen spent the remaining years of their lives, living to a good old age, honored and respected by all who knew them. An- other brother, Caleb, who came later, has always resided in this vicinity, and is still living in 1908 in the vicinity of Maquoketa. Sheldon, or Shel- ton Summers, was married to Martha Johnson of Indiana, and by her had several children, viz: Mary Jane, John. Samantha and Nancy. Redmond was married in 1842 to Miss Vashti M. Blakey. By this union was born Amanda, heroine of the cyclone and mother of our townsman, Harry Lit- tell of Maquoketa. There also came to Jackson county in 1856, the second daughter, Adaline, who married Ezra Dutton of Iron Hills. Annie, the third and last child of Redmond. married John Littell, who for many years owned a farm near the Morehead bridge.
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When the Summers brothers first came to Iowa Territory they came with ox-teams, and their first markets were Dubuque and Galena. Red- mond Summers died in 1896, and his wife in 1906. Their three daughters, Mrs. Amanda Littell, Mrs. Addie E. Dutton, and Mrs. Annie Littell, still survive them.
Shelton Summers died many years ago, but his widow and two daugh- ters, Mary Jane Fortner and Samantha Smith, still reside in Maquoketa. Caleb Summers also has three daughters, Helen, Eva and Mamie, and one son, James, on the old home farm in South Fork township. The following biographical sketch of Laurel Summers is copied from the Port Byron Globe, dated May 10th, 1901 :
Among the pioneers of Iowa the name of the late Hon. Laurel Summers of LeClaire well deserves conspicuous and honorable mention in the history of this great commonwealth. For he was among the first of the early set .- tlers who began the work of transformation of a wilderness into one of the richest and most progressive states of the American Union, and through the territorial era and the period of statehood, covered by the passing of more than a third of a century, he was a zealous, active and efficient co- worker with his fellow citizens in the marvelous development of lowa, which the annals of the state so well portray in record of its progress.
Laurel Summers was born in Montgomery county, Kentucky, October 2, 1812. Thence he removed with his parents in 1823 to Morgan county, Indi- ana, where he remained until 1830, when he located at Indianapolis, where he learned the bricklayer's trade. In 1837 he came to Iowa, and soon de- cided to locate in Scott county, which throughout his life remained his home. At that time, as the historian records, Iowa was a part of Wiscon- sin Territory, but by act of congress June 12, 1838, the then future Hawk- eye state acquired a territorial organization of its own. At the first elec- tion thereafter, September 10, 1838, Mr. Summers was elected to the house of representatives of the first general assembly of the new territory, and he continued to represent the people of Scott county therein in 1839 and 1840. In 1845 he was chosen a member of the territorial council, corresponding to the state senate, in which body he retained membership until statehood was attained, December 28, 1846. In August 1850, he again became a mem- ber of the legislature, having then been elected to serve in the lower house.
During these years Mr. Summers resided in the part of the present town of LeClaire then known as Parkhurst, so named in honor of an esti- mable family of pioneers, among the first settlers of the locality. A daugh- ter of this family, Miss Mary Parkhurst, born in the state of New York, January 11, 1822, was united in marriage to the subject of this sketch in May, 1841, and in this first year of the twentieth century she is blessed with good health, and exhibits lightly the weight of nearly four score years. Five children were born of this union: Mrs. Helen L. Whitford of Beloit, Wis. ; Mrs. Elsie A. Curtis and Mrs. S. 1. Headley of LeClaire; Augustus D. of Dallas county, Ala., and Lewis Cass-the last named deceased in in- fancy.
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In 1853 Mr. Summers was appointed United States Marshal for Iowa by President Pierce, and in 1857 he again received the appointment, his last commission for an additional four years tenure of the office having been signed by President Buchanan At that time Iowa comprised but one Unit- ed States judicial district, and as there were no railways in the state prior to 1855 and but little railroad trackage within its borders later during his term of service, Mr Summers mainly traveled by stage or steamboat in attending sessions of the Federal courts. In 1860 he conducted the United States census which exhibited the remarkable growth from 1840 of 43,000 population to 684,000 but a score of years later.
Shortly prior to his retirement, from the position of U. S. Marshal in 1861, after eight years' service therein, he was chosen by his fellow-towns- men to serve them as Mayor, and in later years he was thrice more called upon to serve them in the same capacity. In 1858 he had been a member of the city council, and in these positions of municipal trust he demonstrat- ed the qualities of efficiency and devotion to the public interests that had characterized his course as a legislator in the pioneer legislative assemblies of lowa. In 1874 he was designated by the Governor to serve as trustee of the Iowa Agricultural College at Ames, and there superintended some im- portant building improvements, for which trust his excellent business ca- pacity and his skill as a mechanic well qualified him. His last public ser- vice, not many years before his decease, was that of chief deputy for Sher- iff Howard Leonard, and at various times he was called upon by Mr. Leon- ard to discharge the full functions of the office.
At the dawn of a spring morning, April 15, 1890, Laurel Summers was called away from earthly scenes. From the press of the state and from be- yond its borders, from citizens of his county and state, and from many in other states there came eloquent ard touching tributes to his memory. They were merited. He was a man whose nature drew toward him a feel- ing of warm personal regard, whether inside or outside of his own political fellowship. After the close of a heated political contest political opponents who had referred to him unkindly became his warm, personal friends. His unselfish nature, his able, genial manner and his strong intellectual and moral worth rendered it impossible for any one to retain a feeling of resent- ment toward him. He was optimistic but never visionary. Hle entertained a feeling of intense pride-well justitied-in the great state whose founda- tion he had assisted in placing. His perceptive sense enabled him, in early years, to foresee the coming greatness of this region, and he was ever earn- est and outspoken in advocacy of any measure that could contribute toward its more complete development. An irstance is here given upon the auth- ority of the late Hon. J. H. Murphy. Mr. Murphy many years ago inform- ed a well known and respected citizen of LeClaire (C. P. Disney) that Laurel Summers was the first man to suggest that the island of Rock Island be reserved for the building of a government arsenal, and that he urged that the legislature memorialize congress to that end.
It is not improbable that Iowa City owes to Mr. Summers the historic interest attached to that municipality as having been the capital of the
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territory and state from 1841 to 1857. In 1840 the subject of removal of the capital from Burlington was agitated in the legislature, Mt. Pleasant hav- ing been a contestant for its location, when, after many fruitless ballots, during which Burlington strove to retain it, Laurel Summers turned the scale in favor of Iowa City by announcement of his vote thereof.
In official position Mr. Summers well exemplified the illustration, "A Public Office is a Pubile Trust," in the zeal, efficiency and strict integrity which characterized his fulfillment of its duties. He was not an orator, but his public addresses were clear and impressive, and no hearer could doubt the perfect sincerity of his expressed convictions. He was an able and highly entertaining conversationalist, and a most interesting corre- spondent. The large accumulation of letters left by him from men distin- quishing public life as well as from others gifted in literary attainment fully testify to the appreciation vested in correspondence with him. In pu lic life he was contemporaneous with such eminent men as Senators Jones, Dodge, Harlan and Grimes; Governors Briggs and Hempstead ; Con- gressmen Leffller, Cook and Vandever, and Judges Love, Mason, Grant and Dillon, with many other men of distinction in the annals of Iowa. But the correspondence of Mr. Summers was not restricted to fellow citizens of his own commonwealth; it included men famous throughout the republic, in and out of the public service, at the national capital and elsewhere.
Such men as Laurel Summers are a benefaction to any community in which they cast their lot. They are as an inspiration intellectually and morally, for they afford a noble example to those who come within the rad- ius of continued association with them, and thus it is that their influence becomes apparent as a halo to all within their vicinage. It was, therefore, but natural that the neighbors and towns-people of Mr. Summers should feel and manifest a keen sense of personal loss when they realized that he was no more on earth.
No more deserving, no more appropriate inscription was ever placed upon a monument than the brief one engraved upon that erected in the LeClaire cemetery which marks the grave of Laurel Summers : "An Hon- est Man is the Noblest Work of God."
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JOHN BROWN AND HARPER'S FERRY.
Written for the Jackson County Historical Society by Jas. W. Ellis, Curator.
In October, 1902. the writer attended a national encampment of Union Veterans in Louisville, Kentucky. On the evening of the first day of the encampment a reception was held in Music hall, at which several hundred more or less prominent citizens of Louisville were introduced to the Com- mander-in-chief and his staff, of which I had the honor to be a member. Immediately after the reception a prominent citizen of Louisville, a Ken- tuckian born and bred, and who was a Union veteran of the Civil war, af- ter assisting his wife in a duet, said : ""'I want the audience to join me in singing a song not popular in Kentucky, let us sing John Brown." While his good lady accompanied on a piano, he led and a large portion of the audience joined in singing the old war-time song. The next day the Couri- er-Journal came out in big black headlines, giving an account of the sing- ing of "John Brown" by the veterans, dwelling particularly on the refer- ence to hanging Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree. I felt at the time that it was an uncalled for insult to the people who had shown us the greatest hos- pitality on ur arrival in the city, but it was suggested by a very promi- nent citizen of that city and carried out. However, the veterans got very few pleasant smiles or friendly greetings during the remainder of their stay in the Gate City of the South.
The query came to my mind that night, and I have often wondered since, how many people would sing "John Brown" and help to make a martyr of him, if they knew just what kind of a bloody minded brutal old wretch he in reality was. But the public knew but little about this man whose career of arson and murder was perhaps never excelled. and who had no more claim to be canonized as a martyr than Booth, Guiteau, Zolgos, or Harry Orchard. Born in 1800 and dying an ignomimous death on the scaffold in 1859, we are led to wonder and speculate as to why, during his tr'al and during the investigation of the United States Senate committee appointed to inquire into John Brown's raid in Virginia, that he should be referred to in almost every instance as Old John Brown. Why Old? He was only 59 years old.
WHOT
Jool notits W
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His career of blood began in 1855, when he induced Amos Lawrence of Boston, Mass., treasurer of the Emigrant Aid Society, to furnish means to go to Kansas, accompanied by several sons and sons-in-law, where a great conflict had been in progress for two years or more between certain organ- ized societies in New England and the slave holders of Missouri and some other Southern states, to determine whether Kansas should be a free or slave state. Societies were organized all over the eastern and most of the northern states and thousands of dollars raised to assist men from the free states to settle in Kansas. Any one from the north or east could get assist- ance to take his family to Kansas, would be assisted after reaching that country, was furnished arms of the best pattern to protect himself and fam- ily with. But the intention of those back of the movement to make Kan- sas free territory professed to a strict regard for and an observance of the laws of the United States while doing so.
Lawrence, Kansas, was founded by the Emigrant Aid Society, and was named in honor of Amos Lawrence who did so much to make it a free state. Although not an abolitionist in the sense that Wendell Phillips and · his class were, he was willing to work and give of his means to prevent the spread of slavery, but wanted to keep within the scope of the laws of his country. Brown was of an entirely different state of mind.
Amos Lawrence, in speaking of the Emigrant Aid Society, said: "This society was to be loyal to the government under ali circumstances. It was to support the party of law and order, and it was to make Kansas a Free State by bona fide settlement, if at all." Coarles Robinson, Lawrence's agent, had the requisite qualities to direct this movement. He had had experience in the same kind of work in California. He was imprisoned, his house burned, and his life threatened, yet he never bore arms nor omitted to do what he thought was right and h's duty. He sternly held their men to a strict observance of the law and to loyalty to the government.
But Lawrence says: "What shall we say of Brown? His course was the opposite of Robinson's. He was always armed. He was always disloyal to the United States government, and all government except what he called the higher law. He was always ready to shed blood, and he always did shed it without remorse, 'for without blood,' as he often said, 'there can be no lemission.' "
"In the night of May 23, 1856, Mr. Doyle and his two sons were taken from their beds at Pottawatomie and caused to walk one hundred yards from their house, when the father was shot dead by Brown, while the sons were stabbed and hacked to death with navy swords in the hands of Brown's sons Mr. Wilkinson, who was taking care of a sick wife, was obliged to leave her and go with the midnight party who brutally murdered him not so far from his wife but that she could hear the struggle and the shot. William Sherman was another victim of these midnight assasins who were not then known, but who are now known perfectly. The evidence is com- plete.
He further says in his Kansas crusades, page 193: "John Brown had no enemies in New England, but many admirers. Ile was constantly re-
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ceiving money from them. They little knew what use he was making of it for he deceived everybody. If he had succeeded in his design at Harper's Ferry of exciting an insurrection of slaves, the country would have stood aghast with horror. His would have been anything but a martyr's crown."
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