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 9
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The first court house was built in 1848, at a cost of $2,000,-the cost in strik- ing contrast with that of the present court house, which was not far from a half-million dollars. McMullin received forty-five dollars for the lot. upon which it was erected.
As illustrating the primitive life of the late Forties, Judge Casady in his old age was pleased to recall the good old days when even professional men were not ashamed to work with their hands. One time he showed a Register reporter two poll-tax receipts signed by E. R. Clapp, street commissioner, certifying that P. M. Casady had performed labor "upon the streets and roads of the corpora- tion of the town of Fort Des Moines to the amount of $2."
Mr. F. M. Posegate, of Kirkwood, California, in a letter, read at the semi- centennial celebration held in Des Moines in 1896, said he was the carrier boy for the Iowa Star in 1849. He vividly recalled the kind, homely face of his first employer, Barlow Granger, and the kindly offices of Drs. Vaughan and Dewey, who occasionally took a hand at editing the Star. Vaughan wrote his first carriers address and Dewey the second. From the first he made $7; from the second, $14.75. The first foreman in the Star office was "Charley" Winkler ; the first pressman, William Buzick.
M. L. Morris, afterwards foreman, at Posegate's instance, sent to Iowa City for firecrackers, thus giving Posegate the right to boast that he was the first boy to usher in the Fourth of July in due and ancient form.
Mr. Posegate, related that "old chief Keokuk, with a band of Indians, had been in town the day before [The Fourth of July, 1849,] and was then encamped just beyond the residence of Judge Mckay. As the night-capped heads ap- peared at the windows of Martin Tucker's hotel, each face carried with it an
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expression of fear as though Keokuk and his braves had suddenly taken to the war path."
He tells of "the wolf trap on the point between the Des Moines and the Coon," "the wild turkey trap just up beyond Fuller's blacksmith shop," "the splendid deer that frequently sped across the parade ground," the hunting par- ties in the fall that followed the river as far as Fort Dodge, "where bear and elk abounded," and their return "with sufficient game almost to feed the village all winter long."
He relates the story of Bob Campbell's return from a hunt, leading a cub bear, his clothes torn to ribbons and his body covered with scratches. When asked how it happened, Bob answered, laconically "I caught the bear!" 'Asked why he didn't let go, his ready answer was, "let go! Hell, I wanted to let go, but the bear wouldn't !"
His modest fish story is of a thirty-two pound pike caught by him at Hall's mill-dam, and sold to Charley Good for forty cents.
Mr. Posegate says the material used in printing the Star was old and worn. But Hoyt Sherman's brother, Lampson P., came on from Cincinnati bringing with him new type and new material throughout. Posegate soon became "the fastest compositor in the Fort." He pays high personal tribute to Mr. Sher- man, affectionately referring to him as "kind, gentle and considerate," adding, "and with him I remained until my father's return from California located me in Missouri."
He closes with the memory of "that splendid October day in 1848," when he first gazed upon old Fort Des Moines from the point near where the Capitol now stands, and of the satisfaction with which he settled down on the site of the abandoned fort, "notwithstanding the 'Barrack House' over in 'Coon Row' was leaky and rations were not over plentiful."
In her response to Major Sherman's invitation Henrietta A. Cole writing from Fort Smith. Ark .. recalled. among the many incidents of her childhood in the late Forties, picking blackberries on what is now known as Brown's ad- dition to Des Moines, above Pleasant street, and gathering wild plums along what is now known as Grand avenue.
In the interchange of speeches in the General Assembly in February, 1886, the veteran Gen. William Thompson, of Dakota, ex-member of the territorial legislature and an ex-congressman from Iowa, made this reference to Fort Des Moines in '46: It was not quite thirty-nine years ago that he had the pleasure of first seeing the site of the city. He found in the whole city of Des Moines "at that time eight men and one woman !" He made there a speech, as a candi- date for Congress, and found "an attentive audience." Evidently the entire populace did not turn out to hear the General speak !
Hon. R. M. Burnett, of Muscatine, "went him one better," for he remarked that when he came to Iowa, early in the Forties, "Des Moines was simply a dot on the map."
The first and last territorial election held after the organization of Polk county was on October 26, 1846.
In that election. "Desmoines" township cast 107 votes for senator-51 for Thomas Baker, democrat, and 56 for T. K. Brooks, whig. For representatives, it cast 55 votes for John N. Kinsman and 54 votes for Simeon Reynolds, demo- crats, and 54 votes for Stanford Doud and 53 for C. H. Hamlin, whigs.
The township vote for delegates in Congress was : Stephen Leffler, 56; A. C. Hastings, 52-both democrats. and Joseph H. Hedrick 57; G. C. R. Mitchell, 53-both whigs.
The vote for territorial governor was Ansel Briggs, democrat, 55; Thomas McKnight, whig, 54. The rest of the territorial ticket followed their respective heads as to the number of votes received. It was clearly a strict party vote. It is evident that at the commencement of Fort Des Moines' political career, the two parties were about evenly divided.
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For several years Dr. James Campbell was mentioned as the oldest settler in Des Moines. He came to Fort Des Moines in 1845, at the time the last pay- ment was made the Indians. He returned to Van Buren county for the winter and in March, 1846, took up his residence in Fort Des Moines. He was not permitted to settle on the garrison side of the river. He therefore joined a little coterie of settlers on the East side. Dr. Brooks offered him the hospitality of a blacksmith shop until the West side should be opened. To a Register reporter a half century afterward, he described the town as it looked to him when he ar- rived in March, 1846. He found "only a few log huts beside the barracks. There was one where the Savery House now stands, another on the corner of Walnut and Third streets, and a sutler's store down about Third and Vine streets, a little south; just where Third and Vine streets cross was the guard house, a log cabin of two rooms. The rifle range was laid out from there to the present site of the Diagonal depot, on Fifth street, where the big target was set up. The present location of the Morgan House was a big pond."
Dr. Campbell described the inrush of settlers after the departure of the In- dians. Most of the settlers were "young married men, who brought their fam- ilies. The country wasn't surveyed then, or for several years after- ward, so we just went out and marked out our claims as best we could guess. Each man was entitled to take 160 acres of timber and the same amount of prairie. When a man had marked out his claim, by staking it out or blazing the trees, his title was just as secure as if he had a warranty deed. If he com- plied with the law by eating and sleeping on his claim at least twice a year, no one could take it from him. The settlers stood by each other. If any squatter came along and tried to get a man's claim away from him, the settlers just went to work and moved his things off and if he made any fuss, he got a good thrash- ing and was glad to get off with that. These titles were so permanent that afterward when the land was surveyed, and of course the original lines were changed so that the claims were overlapped, there was a general deeding of one settler to his neighbor for the land that lapped. I had a claim of 54 acres, at that time lying northwest of Eighth and Mulberry streets, which was what I had left after deeding the overlapped land to my neighbors, whose claims reached into mine. I opened a dry goods and grocery store here shortly after I came. Goods had to be hauled from Keokuk most of the time, where they were brought from St. Louis in boats. In the summer the steamboats came up the Des Moines river with goods. I have seen four steamers unloading here at one time. That was in 1851. Men used to go down to Keokuk with ox teams and haul big loads up here, for which they got $2 a hundred. It is 202 miles to Keokuk by the Des Moines river, and only about 165 by road.
"People came here from north and west 80 miles and more to buy what few groceries and dry goods they had to have. There was no settlement west of here -as late as '50 there were only three houses between here and Council Bluffs, and nothing between here and Fort Dodge. They would come in the fall to get the goods, get trusted till spring and pay in hides, etc. Fur of all kinds was very plenty and brought very poor prices, but there was very little money in the country.
"It was nothing at all for a man to go out and shoot a few deer, or elk, or bear. I had a park here, and we used to go out and capture young elk and put them in the park. At one time we had nineteen in the park. They were very easily tamed and I had harnesses made to fit and broke a pair of' buck elks to drive to a light wagon. . The only trouble with them was that they stopped to look around too much.
"O, but this was .a garden spot then! There never will be another country like it. Timber, water, prairie land, all of the best, and full of game and fish. The prairie was covered with the richest growth of blue grass you ever saw- as high as a man's head. Those were the days for young men."
Alfred D. Jones, the surveyor who laid out Des Moines in 1846, in a letter
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to the State Register dated Omaha, February, 1887, gave some interesting mem- ories of old Fort Des Moines in 1846, called forth by the publication of the reminiscences of E. R. Clapp. He wrote that Perry D. Crossman was appointed clerk of the courts, and he (Jones) was appointed deputy clerk. They started together from Oskaloosa. They landed at the Meacham Hotel, on the East side, a double log house similar to the officers' quarters at the Fort. At the same time came Major McKay, a young lawyer from eastern Iowa, who as he himself re- lated, came to his title from being the leader of a mob at his former home. Crossman and Jones crossed the river next morning to find a location for their office. While sauntering along the parade grounds, they saw a number of men gathered about a small house. They entered the house and there found a county convention in session. Before he had been in the room two minutes he was nominated county surveyor ! Tom Mitchell had chosen "Brookline" ("Brook- lyn") for the county seat, and the Brookliners were making a ticket thought to be favorable to their town. They put up a "straw man" against Jones who at the polls beat Jones by three votes. Jones contested the election and won. Thus it happened that he had the honor of laying out the new county seat at Fort Des Moines. Later, he was elected justice of the peace, and the Brookliners at the same time elected him constable, which office he declined because he was not able to buy a horse with which to serve papers. He assisted in organizing the county of Polk. Town lots were auctioned off. Clapp paid $160 for his store lot and Jones paid $105 for his office lot. Lots on Walnut street sold for $10, and lots on Second went begging almost. Mr. Jones speaks feelingly of the preva- lence of ague in that early day.
Long before Lyon & Allen made things lively in general merchandising in Fort Des Moines-away back in the spring of 1846-Reuben W. Sypher, better known as "Rube" Sypher, cast in his lot with the little community gathered about the Fort. He first occupied a log cabin with the Phelps Fur Company, on the east side of the river. In 1846 he opened a general store in one of the cabins at the Fort. . He next put up a frame store building on Second and Vine, ad- joining his rivals, Lyon & Allen. As he prospered, he branched out, establish- ing branch stores at several outside points. The big floods of '51, cutting off the community from Keokuk and Burlington, its bases of supplies, compelled heroic treatment, the details of which are given in another chapter.2 Suffice to say that after a perilous canoe voyage down the river, Sypher and his assistants landed at the Fort on the 5th day of July, with a steamboat load of much needed sup- plies-greatly to the relief of the community.
Sypher went on prospering and helping others to prosper until the hard times of '57 overtook him. The climax of reverses came when a trusted clerk robbed him of a large sum of money, compelling him to close out his business. Later, in 1874, he became a coal-miner. He operated a shaft on the south side of the Raccoon, until his death in 1879. Sypher lived on Fourth street, on the well known site of "the Brinsmaids," and his home was famous for its hospitality.
W. W. Clapp and Addison Michael were the first grocers in Fort Des Moines. In those days a license from the county commissioners was a prerequisite to opening a store. The cost of the license was $25 a year, or $6.25 a quarter. In the list of first things published by Turrill, Michaels is credited with having built the first frame house ever erected in the town. It was on the east side of Second street. above Market.
The remoteness of Fort Des Moines from the Capital in '48 is brought vividly to mind by a remark made by Judge Casady,3 that when he was a member of the First General Assembly in 1848, he lived thirty-five miles farther west than any other member of the General Assembly, and the district he represented included Madison. Warren, Marion, Dallas, Polk, Jasper, Marshall, Story and Boone, and the country north and northwest.
2 Hoyt Sherman's account of the expedition down the river for supplies.
3 Proceedings Pioneer Law Makers' Association, 1892.
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At one of the reunions of the "Early Settlers" Association, at the Agricultural hall on the Fair Ground, Hoyt Sherman read a pleasing paper on "Trade and Commerce in the Early Days of Fort Des Moines." He described "the Fort" as he found it in 1848, when there were few buildings except the log cabins which "Uncle Sam" had used for shelter of troops, and bequeathed to Polk county when the soldiers moved west. "Wal." Clapp had put up a shanty at "the Point," in which he "dispensed groceries." James Sherman, Hoyt's brother, had taken the little log cabin office vacated by Captain Allen, filling it with "a very queer assortment of dry-goods." R. W. Sypher was moving his stock of merchandise from the old agency to the corner of Second and Vine, and Camp- bell & McMullin were putting up a store on the opposite corner for "groceries wet and dry." Cole & Winchester had started business on Second, below Mar- ket. For a time elections were held in their store. Dr. P. B. Fagen, whig, and P. M. Casady, democrat, were running for State senator, and Casady was elected, leaving a vacancy in the village post office which he, the Major, was chosen to fill. "The noble red man" was much in evidence still.
Major Sherman describes the prevalence of the treating habit with its perni- cious effect upon community life. The drink of that day was whisky, retailed at fifty cents a gallon. He describes a mishap to those who attempted, just prior to the Fourth of July, 1849, to substitute ale for the stronger drink. Abe Shoe- maker, groceryman, ordered from Keokuk a ten-gallon keg of ale to aid the reformers to celebrate the Fourth in a safe and sane way (?). By II o'clock the "moderate drinkers" were all intoxicated. The explanation was that to prevent the ale from fermenting on the long overland journey, the Keokuk merchant had drawn off half the ale and filled the keg with whisky!
A great hindrance to trade was the difficulty and danger of crossing the Des Moines and the Coon during high water. Insecure rope ferries were used at such times and were far from satisfactory.
Vol. I-5
CHAPTER V.
PIONEER NEWSPAPERING IN FORT DES MOINES.
The Fort Des Moines Star.
A file of the Iowa Star, the pioneer newspaper of Fort Des Moines, from July 26, 1849, to August 17, 1854, is one of the mostly highly valued treasures in the newspaper collection in the Historical Department of Iowa. It is yellow, torn and patched, and might easily be cast aside as valueless by one not con- versant with the fact that, lightly as they are regarded at the time of their ap- pearance, the newspapers are the most valuable and oftenest used of all our first- hand historical material.
Behind the newspaper, in the background of the memory, Barlow Granger can be seen sitting at his rude desk; or standing at the printer's case, printer's stick in hand; or pulling the lever of the old "Washington hand-press"-of precious memory,-the quaintest, shrewdest, most genial and quick-witted of all the old-school printer-editors who in the pioneer days dictated party politics and stirred self-centered communities to their opportunities. Tall, slender, awkward, rugged in features, plain-even careless in dress, Barlow Granger was so sunny in disposition and clever of speech that, to those who were wont to meet him often, his eccentricities of dress were forgotten and the man behind the manner, became positively good-looking! Granger was a democrat of democrats, in the days when the democratic party was in power in the young State of Iowa, and he never changed his politics. When he turned his attention, in part, from law and real estate to newspapering, he at once became a political force that had to be reckoned with by politicians and statesmen.
The financial backer of Granger in his newspaper enterprise was Curtis Bates, who later ran for Governor on the democratic ticket against James A. Grimes. Bates bought the plant of the Star at Iowa City, and shipped it across country to Fort Des Moines. The office of the Star was in one of the log houses vacated by the garrison. It stood on Second Street near Vine.
In a note to subscribers, on the second page, the editor gives his reasons for delay in publication, adding: "Our next will not, therefore, appear under two weeks, after which we will issue every Thursday." The "therefore" refers to the circumstances under which Granger became the publisher. One Blair had, early in the Spring, issued a prospectus and solicited advertising for a paper which he proposed to start in Fort Des Moines. It was to be styled the Upper Des Moines Republic, to be published by A. W. Blair & Company, with Granger as its editor. "But the almost impassable state of the roads, for loaded wagons, during the whole spring, and the protracted absence from home of a partner of Mr. Blair, rendered it impossible to get to this place early in the season the establishment contracted for. Believing a newspaper at this point a desideratum, after consul- tation with those most interested in the publication, a new arrangement was entered into, and the most convenient press obtained." He therefore presented to the public "The Iowa Star," in lieu of the "Fort Desmoines Star," 1 and trusted 'that this simple change in the name of the luminary" would "not change the
1 Granger explains the change of name as follows: There wasn't enough of the head- ing letter ordered to set up "Fort Desmoines," so the shorter word "Iowa" was chosen.
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intentions of those who attached their names to the Prospectus." The two weeks' delay was to find out how many subscribers he could count on.
While he regarded his views as "purely individual," and while the Star would be "firmly, decidedly, radically democratic," the editor purposed to hold himself "responsible to no party, sect, creed or clique."
The editor purposed to discuss all public questions, promising not to forget that "a newspaper is a record of passing events." Nor would he omit to do his part in advertising the region in which he was primarily interested-"in the very heart of the most attractive country in the world, and having within itself all the resources necessary to sustain a dense agricultural and commercial population. This favored region had "settled up more rapidly than any other, with an intelligent, industrious and thriving people."
With pardonable pride he concludes his salutatory with this complacent out- line picture of the start the town had made in 1849: "But three years since, Fort Desmoines, where now is a flourishing town, containing eight or nine stores, two well kept hotels, twelve or fifteen lawyers, five or six doctors, and a fair supply of mechanics, was occupied by U. S. troops in the midst of an Indian country; and this country, where the red man then hunted, free as the prairie wind, is now dotted with farm houses, surrounded by well cultivated fields smiling at a plentiful prospect."
As this highly creditable pioneer newspaper marks the beginning of an epoch in the history of the little unincorporated community of Fort Des Moines, let us follow its history in brief outline, and along with it that of its two local contemporaries, both of which it survived. The history of these brave attempts to found a representative newspaper in the ambitious community at "the Forks" is a chapter filled with high hopes and bitter disappointments,-a chapter re- produced, in its essentials, within the experience of many a pioneer newspaper man still living,-many of whom, as were Granger, Bates, Finch, Sherman, Darwin, Williamson, and others of Fort Des Moines, successful in after years in spite of, or possibly because of, their early failures.
The historical value of the advertising pages of a newspaper is seen in this first issue of the Star. Turning to the 2 1-3 columns of advertising, the reader finds the professional cards of the following named pioneer attorneys: Perry & Whitten-John M. Perry and Lewis Whitten; Andrew Jackson Stevens, Aemilius Reynolds ; Casady & Tidrick-P. M. Casady and R. L. Tidrick; Ezra Droun ; (Fairfield) Barlow Granger ; William H. Seevers and William Smith, both of Oskaloosa; and Lysander W. Babbitt, of Knoxville.
The hotels advertised are: the Franklin House, New York, the National Hotel, Fairfield; the Marvin House, Benjamin Lucas and William T. Marvin, proprietors, Third and Walnut, Fort Des Moines ; the Sherman House, Chicago; the Crummey House and Swan's Hotel, Iowa City; and the Oskaloosa House, Oskaloosa.
General merchandising is represented by James Campbell, dealer in dry goods, groceries, liquors, hardware, queensware, boots, shoes, hats and caps; Lyon & Allen, dry goods and groceries; Lauer & Co., dry goods and clothing ; and R. W. Sypher, general merchandising. Mr. Sypher thanks his friends in Polk, Dallas, Boone and Madison for favors past and favors to come! J. H. Posegate advertises his gunsmith shop, on Second street, between Vine and Market, and as a "slogan" quotes the words, "Shoot, Luke, or give up your gun." Elias Feller, advertises his shoe shop on Third and Vine. The late firm of Campbell & McMullin want their debtors to call, settle and save costs. James Mackintosh, an Iowa City book-binder, solicits trade; William Busick an- nounces the sale of 122 village lots in Circleville, Polk county, nine miles be- low Fort Desmoines, "on the Desmoines river, on what is called Keokuk Prairie," near the confluence of the "Desmoines" and North rivers. Barlow Granger advertises a general land agency; John H. Perkins wants to sell, "very cheap for cash," lots in Block 6, Fort Desmoines.
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In the next issue of the Star, September 7, the editor notes the surprise of the Crawfordsville, Ind., Review that a paper the size of the Star should be published "away out west here in this new and thinly populated country." He thus explains the fact, as many another pioneer editor accounted for it. "Noth- ing less would have done in this country. We have large prairies, large farms, tall corn, large crops, large streams, large children, large papers, large everything."
The Star devoted most of its space, and its editorial ability, to reports of conventions and to comments on political questions and the twin questions of the period, navigation of the Des Moines and the extension of railroads from the Mississippi to the Des Moines. Instead of following these now obsolete discussions, let us study the Star along the "human interest" side of its history.
The Star of November 23, 1849, notes the prospectus of the pioneer Whig paper, the Fort Des Moines Gazette, and remarks: "It tells well for the pros- perity of this town-only three years old-that two papers can be established with even a hope of being sustained."
On January 7, 1850, the editor apologizes for the issuance of a half-sheet only, owing to a freeze-up which compelled him to stop the press, all of which, he philosophically remarks, is part of "the trials incident to carrying on business in a new country."
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