USA > Iowa > Polk County > Des Moines > Des Moines, the pioneer of municipal progress and reform of the middle West, together with the history of Polk County, Iowa, the largest, most populous and most prosperous county in the state of Iowa; Volume I > Part 3
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"I caused a canoe to be made in which Lieut. Lea, with a few soldiers de- scended the Des Moines, to its mouth, to examine the practicability of navi- gating it, and the means by which supplies could be obtained there. I send you his Report. Unless some obstructions are removed the navigation of the Des Moines to the Raccoon, by boats sufficiently large to carry stores, etc., for a Mili- tary Post, I am convinced will be at all times uncertain, and but for a very small portion of the year, practicable."
The report quotes Lieutenant Lea as favoring a point near the mouth of the Cedar, 96 miles by water below the Raccoon. Unacquainted with "the views of the Department as to the object to be obtained by the establishment of a mili- tary Post at the Raccoon," Colonel Kearny confesses he "can imagine nothing to make it necessary or advisable." If the department would interpose a barrier be- tween the Sacs and the Sioux, he deemed a fort at this point quite unnecessary since the Sacs were disposed to peace and adequate restraints could be imposed upon the Sioux. The two Indian villages on the Des Moines were within fifty- five to seventy-five miles of the mouth of the river and could easily be reached by troops.
If a military post were still thought necessary, "then," the Colonel guardedly added, " a post at the Raccoon is not sufficiently advanced-it should be about
1 Fort Des Moines, No. I. near the mouth of the Des Moines river.
10
STEPHEN WATTS KEARNY
Appointed from civil life first lieutenant in the regular army March 12, 1812, and rose to the rank of brigadier and brevet major general
(From an engraving in the Midland Monthly, Des Moines )
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100 miles above there, viz: at the Upper Fork of the Des Moines." If the De- partment would protect the frontiers of Missouri, then "one at the Raccoon would be altogether too far advanced."
Colonel Kearny concludes by stating that "all the Sauk Indians (and they were many) who spoke to me, of the probability of a Military Post being established near the Raccoon, were strongly and most decidedly opposed to it, giving as one of their objections, "that the whites would drive off the little game that is left in their country.'
Colonel Kearny was accompanied on this journey by "about 150 men -- Company B, commanded by Brevet 2d Lieut. Turner ; 2 Company H, by Cap- tain Boone,3 and Company I, by 2d Lieut. Lea." 4 Assistant Surgeon Joseph J. B. Wright,5 accompanied the expedition.
2 Henry S. Turner; adjutant, 1836; later, Acting Asst. Adj. Gen. to General Kearny, on march to California; Captain, Ist Dragoons, 1846; Brevet Major, for gallant conduct in battle of San Pasqual; resigned, 1848; died in St. Louis, 1881, aged 70. (Army Register.) 3 Nathan Boone; Major, 1847; Lieut. Col. 2nd Dragoons, 1580; resigned, 1853. (Army Register. )
4 Albert M. Lea; resigned, 1836. (Army Register.)
5 Joseph J. B. Wright; Major and Surgeon, 1844; Col. and Surgeon (brevet Brig. Gen.), 1876; retired 1876; died; 1878. (Army Register.)
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CHAPTER VI.
COLONEL CROGHAN EXAMINES "THE FORKS" AND REPORTS FAVORABLY.
Another early report 1 on the region covered by this history is of unknown origin, but is supposed to have been written by Col. George Croghan. While no accurately authenticated report of Colonel Croghan covering the proposed abandonment of Forts Armstrong and Des Moines No. I is on file in the War Department, yet the Adjutant General of the United States, in a letter to Curator Aldrich of the Historical Department of Iowa, in 1908, stated that from a comparison of the manuscript with records on file, "it is believed the handwriting of the manuscript is that of Colonel George Croghan, formerly Inspector General, United States Army."
The Fort Des Moines referred to was the original fort near the mouth of the river. The Second Fort Des Moines was not established until more than seven years later. This writer favors the abandonment of the original fort; but, prior thereto, the establishment of an agency on the Des Moines river. He finds both Lieut. Colonels Davenport and Kearny opposed to the selection of a site on the Des Moines, Davenport favoring "Ioway" river and Kearny opposed to the erection of any new forts. He finds all agreed in that Ft. Arm- strong should be abandoned, "but they cannot so readily fix upon a point on the Des Moines to which its garrison shall be sent, being unacquainted with the navigable character of the river."
Left, then, to his own judgment, and required to designate some place for a military location, he writes, "I will fix upon the mouth of the Raccoon fork as combining perhaps more advantages than are presented by any other point on the river. It is very nearly, if not equally accessible by water as Cedar Point, and is besides much farther removed from the Missouri state line than that point, a circumstance not to be forgotten when recollecting that the In- dians when not upon their hunting grounds will most generally be about the agency and trading horses, be they near or at a distance from the white settle- ments and it should be a care to keep them as far as possible separated. You will perceive by the accompanying map that Raccoon fork is 50 miles N. of the Missouri line."
"The Upper fork of the Des Moines," he adds, "is not without its ad- vantages and could it be provisioned as easily as the Raccoon fork (and it might be for ought I know) it might be esteemed the most eligible situation of the two from its admirable location with respect to Council Bluffs and St. Peters, being directly in line between the two and not more than 125 miles from either, and more than this it lies within the neutral ground separating the Sauk and Sioux upon which both tribes wish that a garrison should be located. Keokuk has already expressed great unwillingness to the erection of a fort upon the Des Moines unless it be upon the neutral ground as above stated. . If your sole object in erecting a fort upon the Des Moines be the preservation of the peace between the whites and the Sac and Fox tribes of Indians, I should advise its location lower down so as to interpose between the white settlements and the Indian towns, but believing that peace with the Sioux
1 Annals of Iowa, v. 8, pp. 495-99.
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is also considered by you it is therefore that I have located at the Raccoon fork as a point, as more likely to be properly considered by that tribe."
Colonel Croghan doubting the expediency of establishing a post anywhere on the Des Moines river, contented himself with a recommendation that, should one be established, five or six companies of infantry should be ordered to assist in the erection of the necessary buildings, adding that "in all probability" the fort proposed would "not be occupied beyond a few years." He predicted that in a very short time the only posts needed on the frontier between the two rivers would be those at St. Peters and Council Bluffs.
While many settlers had pushed on farther west, the reservation around the junction of the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers still remained the hunting grounds of the Sacs and Foxes. These tribes were extremely jealous of the settlers who invaded their possessions, and not without good reasons for jealousy.
CHAPTER VII.
SIDE LIGHTS THROWN ON THE PICTURE BY A SON OF DANIEL BOONE, ALSO BY GENERAL PARROTT.
Another distinguished name has an incidental connection with the region covered by this history. Captain Nathaniel Boone, son of the great Daniel Boone, after whom a neighboring county was named, came to Fort Des Moines [No. I,] at the head of one of the three companies of dragoons sent up the river from St. Louis. In pursuance of instructions from the department, Col- onel Kearny sent Captain Boone with his company on an exploring expedition into the wilderness above Raccoon Forks. Boone started June 6, 1835. He followed the ridge between the Des Moines and the Skunk river till the 22nd of June, when he arrived at the mouth of what is now known as the Boone river. He pursued his journey as far as the Trout river, thence to the Mis- sissippi in about latitude 44. Thence he pursued a southwesterly course, finally reaching the present northern line of the State of Iowa, near the Sandy, or east, branch of the upper Des Moines, where on the 30th of August, near evening, he was attacked by a party of Sioux. A fierce fight ensued. . The encounter seems to have changed the Captain's course, for from this time on he hastened southward. He crossed over to the west side of the Des Moines, and by forced marches reached the Raccoon fork of the Des Moines river on the 8th of August, 1835, where he camped, a short distance up the Raccoon, rest- ing there for a day. He thence proceeded by easy marches back to the Des Moines.1
Gen. James C. Parrott, of Keokuk, contributes through the Annals of Iowa 2 his reminiscences of the expedition to the northwest to settle the difficulties between the Sacs and Foxes and their old enemies the Sioux, in June, 1835. The General was then a sergeant in one of the three companies sent on this expedition. On the return of the detachment, they reached the headwaters of the Des Moines and followed the river down to the Raccoon Fork. Gen- eral Parrott says: "They crossed the river at a point where it was very deep and as smooth as a canal. It was full of shrubbery that formed a thick tangle and was alive with leeches. The horses and mules succeeded in swim- ming across, but the men relied on the aid of ropes stretched from bank to bank. Their wagon beds, constructed like boats, were easily managed. They moved down to the place where the capital city now stands, and went into camo on the east side of the river, opposite the mouth of the Raccoon."
Lieut. Albert M. Lea, the talented engineer, was with the company. General Parrott was his intimate friend, and when the Lieutenant was suffering from a long illness in Camp Des Moines, he used regularly on Sunday mornings to write for him the letters that were forwarded to the beautiful Baltimore woman whom he afterwards married.
"The soldiers while encamped at the mouth of the Raccoon built a canoe from a huge cottonwood tree, axes being their only tools. In this canoe, Lieut. Lea, with one other white man and two Sac Indians, embarked and floated
1 Negus-Early History of Iowa. Annals of Iowa, January, 1872.
2 Annals of Iowa, v. 3, pp. 364-83.
14
I.b. Para
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down the Des Moines river to the point where Keokuk now stands. They made the trip in about twenty days. Many times they were obliged to portage their boat over the shallows. This expedition was for the purpose of locating a new fort, and no more suitable spot could be found than near the Raccoon, where, later, Fort Des Moines No. 2 was built."
The regiment followed by land reaching Camp Des Moines in fine condition after.a tour of 1,100 miles.
CHAPTER VIII.
LIEUTENANT FREMONT EXPLORES THE UPPER DES MOINES TO "RACKOON FORKS" AND REPORTS.
A valuable addition to the history of the region included within the scope of this work is the fact 1 that in 1841, Gen. John C. Fremont, "the Pathfinder," and the first nominee of the Republican party for the presidency, began his career as explorer and scientist with an exploration of the Des Moines river, making Raccoon Forks the objective point of his journey. In John Bigelow's Memoir of Frémont,2 the author mysteriously intimates a connection between this journey and the suit of Lieutenant Frémont for the hand of Jessie, daugh- ter of the great Missouri Senator, Thomas H. Benton. Says Mr. Bigelow :
"During the summer of 1841, and while the poor young officer was strug- gling as best he might with the obstacles which his suit had encountered, he received a mysterious but inexorable order to make an examination of the river Des Moines, upon the banks of which the Sacs and Fox Indians still had their homes, Iowa being at that time a frontier country. He sat out to the discharge of this duty with such spirits as he could command, finished it, and returned to Washington, when shortly after his return, and on the 19th October, 1841, the impatient lovers were married."
Turning to the Executive Documents of Twenty-seventh Congress,3 we find, first, a long report by Captain W. Bowling Guion, of the Topographical Engineer Corps, as to the rapids in the Des Moines river, in which report dated St. Louis, October 1, 1841, he states that at the trading establishment of the American Fur Company, about a hundred miles from the river's mouth, he "procured a very small and light draught keel boat, moved up that stream an estimated distance of 17 miles above the mouth of Rackoon Fork, one of its principal tributaries." Here the funds in his hands, with due regard to an examination of the Iowa river, were so depleted that he turned about and descended the river to the Mississippi. In support of his report as to the navigability of the Des Moines, he states that "a heavily laden keel boat has been taken up nearly to the mouth of Rackoon Fork." He does not hesitate to assert the propriety of making the improvements indicated in an accompany- ing estimate, the total cost of which he places at $29,000; "for," he adds, "the Des Moines is a beautiful river, 220 feet wide where I ceased operations, and increasing in width from 440, below the mouth of the Rackoon Fork, to 630, at the trading house, whilst its banks present one of the most fertile and lovely countries nature ever presented to the view of man, abounding in immense fields of bituminous coal from Rackoon Fork nearly to its mouth." He pre- dicts that, with the varied temptations which this region offered, it would "no sooner pass into the hands of the United States than it" would "be crowded with whites."
Immediately following the report of Captain Guion, appears the report of "J. C. Frémont, 2d Lieut. Top. Engs," to Colonel "J. J. Albert, Chief Topo- graphical Engineers." Lieutenant Frémont, writing under date, "Washington, April 14, 1842," states that pursuant to orders received in Washington in June, 1841, he left Churchville, on the Mississippi, on the 27th of the month, evidently
1 Not even noted in any previous history, local or general.
2 Published in 1856.
3 Third Session, Document No. 38.
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JOHN C. FREMONT Pioneer Explorer of the Des Moines
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overland and on horseback. He minutely describes the flora of the region traveled. Crossing the Des Moines at Portland, he rode along the northern bank of the river to Iowaville, on the line separating the Indian lands from those to which their title had then been extinguished. "After leaving this place," he writes, "we began to fall in with parties of Indians on horseback, and here and there, scattered along the river bank, under tents of blankets stretched along the boughs, were Indian families; the men lying about smoking, and the women engaged in making baskets and cooking. Late in the evening we arrived at the post of Mr. Phelps, one of the partners of the American Fur Company."
Most readers of history associate the name "Frémont" with soldierly ad- venture: but the reading of Lieutenant Frémont's reports confirms the state- ments made by his biographers, that he was a man of scholarly attainments. It will interest the student of botany at this point to read his observations on the flora of the Des Moines valley before it was modified by the seeds of civilization.+ He found "the psoralia onolaychis,5 which prevailed in the bottom near the mouth of the Des Moines, gave place on the higher prairies to a species of causalia, which was followed, on its disappearance further up, by parthenium integrifolium.7 The prairie bottoms bordering the river were filled with lyatris pycnostachya;8 and a few miles above Portland, on the north bank of the river, were quantities of lyatris resinosa,9 mingled with Rud- backia digetata."10 On the bluffs he found the growth to be "principally quercus alba,11 interspersed with tuictoria12 and malrocarpa,13 and sometimes carya alba.14 All these now and then appear in the bottoms, with carya olivæformis15 and tilia."16 In the river bottoms subject to inundation, he saw groves of populus canadensis17 and salex;18 and everywhere, the celtis accidentalis.19
On the. Ist of July, 1841, supplied with a guide and other necessaries, he left the quarters of the fur company, and late that evening reached the home
4 The botanical terms which follow will not be readily identified by the general reader, and some of them might easily confuse even the trained botanist. The author is indebted to. Dr. L. H. Pammel, professor of Morphology, Physiology, and Systematic Botany (Iowa State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts), for the notes which follow, correct- ing the botanical names when found to be incorrectly printed in the report, and translating the same into the vernacular, for the benefit of the unscientific reader. Dr. Pammel, to whom this chapter was submitted with that end in view, writes: "The names used in the report are in part obsolete. The spelling is bad, doubtless due to the carelessness of the printer, or the indistinctness of the copy, or both. Hence any one not very familiar with the terms used would have trouble in identifying the plants mentioned."
5 Psoralia onolaychis [Psoralea onobrychis]. The common name of this happens to be Psoralea. It is related to the old pomme blanche or pomme de prairie of the old voyagers. This plant, however, does not occur in the vicinity of Des Moines. Its distribution is more southward.
6 Causalia [Cacalia]. This is common everywhere in the state and there are several species. The common name is Indian Plantain. It is probable that the species Frémont mentions is the C. tuberosa.
7 Parthenium integrifolium. This plant is known sometimes as Feverfew, or Feather-
few. It is found also to the south of Des Moines. "I do not think it occurs in the vicinity of Des Moines."
8 Lyatris pycnostachya [Liatris pycnostachya]. This is known as the "Blazing Star," or "Button Snakeroot." . It is common in Iowa.
9 Lyatris [Liatris] resinosa. This is another "Blazing Star."
10 Rudbackia [Rudbeckia] digetata. [Lepachys pinnata.] Prairie Coneflower.
11 Quercus alba. White oak.
12 Tuictoria [Tinctoria.] Black oak. Now know technically as Q. velutina.
13 Malrocarpa [Macrocarpa.] Bur oak.
14 Carya alba. Shell bark hickory.
15 Carya oliveformis. Pecan in southeastern Iowa. Tilia. Basswood.
17 Populus canadensis. [P. deltoides.] P. monolifera cottonwood.
Salex [Salix.] Willow.
19 Celtis accidentalis [occidentalis]. Hackberry. Vol. I-2
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of Mr. Jameson, an agent of the fur company, about twenty miles farther up the river. On the morning of the 3d, in conformity to instructions, he pro- ceeded to study the topography of the southern side of the river. With his instruments and provisions in a canoe manned by five men, he forded the river and proceeded by land toward the "Rackoon Fork," to determine the position of which was, he says, one of the principal objects of his visit to this country. He reached "Rackoon Fork" on the evening of the 9th of July, 1841. He "found the whole region densely and luxuriantly timbered." The uplands on the east, an open country, were covered with "innumerable flowers and copses, of hazel and wild plum."
The engineer did his work faithfully. He not only determined for all com- ing time the astronomical position of "Rackoon Fork," but in the course of his survey from this point, the mouth of the Des Moines, he was enabled to fix four additional positions along the river.
The engineer in our explorer never permitted the botanist to neglect his opportunities; and since this exploration of Lieutenant Frémont, in 1841, is undoubtedly the starting point for the history of the flora of the Des Moines, even the formidable Latin terms which came trippingly from his pen are full of interest. He found "acer saccharium 20 of extraordinary size, inglans 21 cathartica and nigra,22 with celtis crassifolia,23 flourishing as well on the broken slopes of the bluffs as on the uplands." Almost the only open land he found was "between the main tributaries of the Des Moines. On the northern side of the Des Moines, the ridge appeared to be continuously wooded, but with a breadth of only three to five miles, as the streams on that side are all short creeks."
The survey made by Lieutenant Frémont from the Forks to the mouth of the river extended from the 9th until the 22nd of July. The explorer esti- mated a fall of about one hundred feet from "Rackoon Fork" to the river's mouth. He estimated that about one-third of the supply of water in the Des Moines came from the Raccoon. He reported the Des Moines "350 feet wide between the perpendicular banks at the mouth of the Rackoon;" and the Rac- coon "200 feet wide a little above the mouth."
The one allusion made by Frémont in his fragmentary "Memoirs" to the Raccoon forks expedition is the following : 24
"In the surveys that had been made during his [Nicollet's] last expedition, the upper part only of some of the larger rivers had been embraced. The Des Moines was one of these; and at his request I was sent, in July, to make such a reconnoissance of its lower course as would nearly complete it. Whether or not this detachment of myself from Washington originated with Mr. Nicollet. I do not know, but I was loath to go.
"I had again with me on this survey one of my companions of the former expedition in Mr. Charles Geyer, who accompanied me as botanist. I estab- lished the course of the river upward from its mouth about two hundred miles, which brought the survey to the Racoon Forks; and Mr. Geyer did all that the season and time allowed for botany. There were many snakes along the river and botany became a hazardous pursuit. As had been proposed, our examination was confined to the immediate valley of the river, but we fre- quently ranged into the woods, where deer and wild turkey were abundant; and the survey was a health-giving excursion, but it did not cure the special complaint for which I had been sent there." 25
20 Acer saccharium. Hard maple-Acer nigrum.
21 Inglans [Juglans] cathartica. Butternut-Juglans cinerea.
22 Nigra. Black walnut-Juglans Nigra.
23 Crassifolia. Hackberry. Probably Celtis occidentalis.
24 Volume I, p. 68.
25 A reference to his love affair with Jessie, daughter of Senator Benton, with whom he soon after eloped.
CHAPTER IX.
CONDITIONS LEADING DOWN TO THE FOUNDING OF FORT DES MOINES- CAPTAIN ALLEN . VIEWS AND REPORTS.
Unlike most other cities in the Middle West, the capital and chief city of Iowa owes its origin to the military arm of the service.1 An act of Congress in 1833 provided for the better defense of the frontier by the raising of a regiment of dragoons to scout the country west of the Mississippi. Lewis Cass, then Secretary of War, in his report to President Monroe dated No- vember 29, 1833, stated that about six hundred men had been enlisted under this act, and that in the following spring the entire body would be moved "to the extensive Indian regions between the western boundaries of Missouri and Arkansas and the Rocky Mountains." The ill-fated expedition to the country occupied by the Pawnees, led by Col. Henry Dodge, in the early sum- mer of 1834, compelled a reorganization of the regiment. Of the ten original companies, three, under Lieut. Col. S. W. Kearny 2 were dispatched to "the Indian country near the mouth of the Desmoines." Here, at the present site of the small town of Montrose, Iowa, the first "Fort Desmoines" was erected. It received its name from Secretary Cass, in recognition of the river upon whose bank it was located.
In 1841, two years before the founding of Fort Des Moines, a party of Sioux surprised a hunting camp of twenty-four Delawares in the bottom lands of the Raccoon, and only one survived to tell the tale. The survivor fled to "the Forks," swam the Des Moines and appeared before the astonished Pash- e-pa-ho, a veteran chief of the Sacs, who with a party of his warriors was encamped near the present site of the Capitol. Notwithstanding his eighty years, "The Stabber," thirsting for revenge, mounted his pony and made the circuit of his tribe and their allies, the Foxes. Led by their chief five hun- dred braves followed the trail of the retreating Sioux for more than a hun- dred miles. Finally overtaking the enemy, with a fierce war-cry, they charged upon the camp. A sanguinary battle ensued, lasting several hours. The de- feat of the invaders was overwhelming. It is reported that while the Sacs and Foxes lost but seven, the retreating Sioux left more than three hundred on the field.3
The chief significance of this narrative is the fact that the present city of Des Moines, with about a hundred thousand population, with its proud position as the capital and chief city of a great State, and the acknowledged head and front of the Twentieth Century movement for local self-government, -that Des Moines is less than seventy years removed from undisputed Indian occupancy. It is hard to realize that less than sixty-eight years ago, one early spring day, a squatter near Tool's Landing looking up from work on his log cabin, was astonished to behold the stars and stripes floating in the breeze from the mast-head of a steamer and on its deck caught a glimpse of the soldiers
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