USA > Iowa > Early settlement and growth of western Iowa; or, Reminiscences > Part 3
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CHAPTER II
A LOCATION SOUGHT FOR
RIDE ON THE RIVER
W E PASSED a night in Cincinnati, and availed ourselves of the earliest oppor- tunity to take passage for St. Louis. We were several days in making the trip, and failed to reach St. Louis that week. The water in the Ohio river was low, and we were obliged to use the portage canal at Louisville to get around the rapids. To persons accustomed to active life the time seemed long. After the novelty of the new relations had worn away, and all had found their proper places and settled into them, the tedium attending a long river ride became more marked, and methods of whiling away the time were re- sorted to according to individual opportunities and preferences. Some amused themselves with a game of cards while others looked on. Some had sup- plied themselves with a stock of interesting reading matter. Others resorted to the upper deck to gaze upon the shifting scenes on either shore, as the steamer floated along. Others still, more socially
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disposed, managed to make new acquaintances, and sustain animated conversation.
Breakfast over each day, Brother Gaston in- vited his little company into his state room for worship, and prayer for divine guidance and direc- tion in regard to the object he so ardently cherished and seemed never to lose sight of.
One day under a feeling of languor and longing for something new to pass the time, the writer asked a fellow passenger, in whose hands he had sometime before seen "Fuller's Letters on Slav- ery," if he would lend him the volume to read. Instead of readily and cheerfully granting the re- quest, he at once began to ply him with questions, evidently for the purpose of drawing out his views on the question of slavery. Although by no means courting discussion, the writer regarded it cowardly not to be willing, when challenged, to avow his sentiments and state the reasons for the same. It was soon found that his views and those of the writer were, on the subject of slavery, directly op- posed, and into a hot discussion the parties at once plunged. The writer doesn't remember all the points touched upon, but he well remembers as- serting that the slaves in our country had a much better reason for rising and fighting for their freedom than our fathers ever had for forcibly throwing off the yoke of Great Britain. In the meantime the news had gone all over
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the boat, and passengers from every quarter were crowding into the cabin, where we two were engaged in warm controversy, and the crowd pressing us on every side. As soon as the multitude came near enough to comprehend the case, they began to cry out, "Damn the Abo- litionist ! " " Shoot him ! " " Kill him !" A Louis- iana slaveholder, more noisy than the rest, as he entered the cabin door, cried out : " The d-d Abolitionist! I wish I had him! I would swap him off for a dog and then I would shoot the dog!" At this juncture the noise and confusion had become too great to prolong the debate. The writer's friends interposed and led him into a stateroom; and the occasion of the excitement being gone, the crowd gradually cooled down and dis- persed. The book civilly asked for was not ob- tained, and the writer subsequently learned that his antagonist was a minister of the gospel from Mis- souri. Each had judged the other to be of the legal profession.
Next morning when the writer arose (as he was wont to rise earlier than most) he found the col- ored servants and waiters in the cabin busy doing up their morning work. They recognized him at once, and greeted him very cordially, and from that time onward until we reached St. Louis, no one on board was served more faithfully, or waited upon
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at table more promptly and generously, than was your humble servant.
Among the passengers on board was a young man recently from the seminary, and under ap- pointment by the A. H. M. Society to a field in Missouri, who though not pro-slavery in sentiment himself, admitted that he would be under the neces- sity of keeping silent on the subject of slavery. As we sat conversing together on the upper deck the boat rounded to and landed at Cairo, where all passengers going south disembarked. Promi- nent among these was the Louisiana slaveholder, so eager to kill the abolitionist but unwilling to disgrace himself by expending his ammunition on such unworthy game. As he mounted to the top of the levee, followed by his faithful slave in charge of his baggage, he cast his eye back, and seeing the writer on the deck, called out, " Ho, you abolition- ist, ain't you going south with us? I'll keep you a week for nothing, till they get ready to hang you." The writer replied, " That's where they do such things. I'm not going there."
Before reaching St. Louis it became apparent that the boat would not get in before Sabbath morning. As Brother Gaston had all his goods on board, he felt it to be his duty to remain on board with them. Others of us had no such excuse. When, therefore, we learned that the boat had to land a passenger at St. Genevieve, we proposed to
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land with him. It was late Saturday night, very dark and raining, and the landing some distance from the town. We went for our baggage, but the boat did not come to a full stop, but simply slowed up to enable them to shove out a plank; and we returned just in time to see the plank drawn in and the disembarking passenger scrambling up a steep bank.
FROM ST. LOUIS TO PERCIVAL
In 1848, in proportion to the amount of travel- ing done, a larger portion of it was done by river steamboat than since railroads have become so common. Few boats then ran up the Missouri farther than St. Joe, although the river was navig- able many hundreds of miles higher up. Boats were always lying at the St. Louis landing, ready to go wherever business called, and whenever they had secured a load. Boats for the upper Missouri would advertise accordingly, and as travelers usu- ally are eager to be forwarded on their way as expeditiously as possible, it is some object to take passage on the boat that leaves first for your des- tination. Consequently, as you go along the levee to ascertain when the different boats are likely to start, you will find them exceedingly accommodat- ing with promises. They are always going to start about the time you want to go, if they can find out what that time is. They fire up every day-blow
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off steam-cause their paddle wheels to revolve in the water-splash and spatter and foam, as a race horse restive to be gone. These measures are resorted to for days in succession in order to retain the passengers already engaged, and also to add to their numbers. Sometimes you may learn from the merchants that they are lying to you. Having had occasion to purchase some articles to take along, and on urging them to not fail to have them put on board by a set time, as the boat was then to start, " Why," said the merchant, " they are not going to start by that time, you may be sure, for there is freight here to be put aboard that same boat twenty-four hours later than that." There is, however, this redeeming feature in the case, as soon as you engage your passage, you can go aboard and make yourself at home, and be boarded and lodged gratuitously until you do start.
The Missouri river is always very low in the autumn. This fact, together with the many snags and sawyers which obstruct the ever-shifting chan- nel, makes it difficult to navigate. Its swift but turbid waters roll and tumble along their uneven and changeful channel, sometimes with a smooth surface and again plunging and boiling like a pot. The Missouri river boats usually carry with them two mast-like sparring poles, with rope and tackle, to help over sand bars and lift the boat off when it gets aground. So shifting is the alluvial soil
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through which the river flows that the principal channel can be determined in places only by the lead and line. One day the pilot, being in doubt as to where the channel lay, ordered out the " lead and line." As the boatman threw it he cried out, " No bottom ! " "No bottom ! " " No bottom ! " and the very next throw, "Five feet and a half ! " Of course the boat could not run at night, and the passage became necessarily tedious. Before reaching St. Joe our boat ran for miles through what we were told was a few years before a luxurious corn field. We reached St. Joe Sat- urday afternoon. As we were intending to pro- cure horses there, and proceed the rest of the way by land, we no sooner made our wishes known than plenty of horses were offered at very reasonable rates, the owners apparently eager to sell. Brother Gaston bought a span, and Deacon Hall and the writer each one horse. We took lodgings at the Edgar House, then two or more blocks from the river, but twenty-five years later a frail, deserted building on the river's brink.
Having rested on the Lord's day and attended worship with Christian friends, we arose on Mon- day morning refreshed and eager to reach our des- tination.
The wagon and buggy which Brother Gaston had brought with him were soon fitted up and goods loaded. As my horse was not broken to
-
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harness, Deacon Hall's was harnessed to the buggy to take the women and children. Thus our little caravan of ten persons set out for a hundred mile journey to Percival, Iowa. But we had not pro- ceeded far before we learned that Brother Hall's horse was not a safe buggy beast, and that some different arrangement must be made. The con- vincing evidence of that fact was as follows: We had proceeded but a short distance-the writer on horseback in front, followed by Deacon Hall, Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Gaston and Euphelia in the buggy, and after them Brother Gaston, Alexander and Alonzo in the loaded wagon, and S. H. Adams and D. P. Matthews on foot some distance still in the rear. As the buggy neared a bridge across a small stream which wended its way at the bottom of a deep worn channel, the animal became restive and fractious, and had scarcely crossed the bridge when Deacon Hall, in efforts to control it, broke one of the lines and thus caused the animal to turn short about and plunge down the bank and dart through under the bridge, throwing some of the passengers clear across the brook, breaking the buggy and leaving it bottom side up, the horse never stopping until it had torn itself entirely free; nor could it be made to go near the buggy again, and all pronounced it unsafe. Some were seriously but none dangerously hurt, although they bore the marks of the injuries for months. The whole
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catastrophe occurred in much less time than it can be told.
Accordingly the buggy and some of the lading were left by the way, and we went forward-two on horseback and the rest with the loaded wagon.
Thus we plodded on our weary way through a sparsely peopled country where conveniences and comforts were few-no nobility to cringe to, no palatial residences to covet, nor overflowing wealth to envy, but everywhere a simple-hearted generos- ity that stands ready to help in time of need. Some- times we found friendly shelter at night, and some- times we slept under the broad canopy of heaven, but in due time without any serious mishap we reached the hospitable home of Lester W. Platt and Elvira, his wife, in October, 1848. They had been expecting us, and our arrival was a mutually joyous meeting.
A LOCATION SOUGHT FOR
Having reached our destination, and while en- joying a hearty hospitality, we took it a little leisurely, resting a day or two from our long jour- ney, though never losing sight of the object in view.
From Oberlin, where there was but one church, and the people eminently a church-going people, the writer took his first pastorate in Clarksfield, where were three churches in a community not half so populous as Oberlin, and where the at-
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tendants on worship, in all three churches taken together, were not half so many as attended the one church in Oberlin. These facts deeply im- pressed the writer with the wastefulness and want of economy with which evangelistic efforts were carried on-and the importance of more union and cordial co-operation in the work of the Lord among Christians; and while it seemed impracticable to organize union, where the different denominations had already started separately, yet the folly and cost of so many divisions among God's people was so apparent that, if in the outset on the frontiers the children of God could be brought together, we might hope to secure permanent union. This con- sideration more than any other led the writer to consider favorably the proposition to come to southwestern Iowa.
Some time before, Dr. Ira D. Blanchard and family, including Miss Abbie Walton, so recently deceased (1890), located in the near vicinity of Mr. Platt's. They had come from the Baptist mission among the Indians in Kansas, but were open communion in sentiment. There were also a dozen or more families in a circuit of two or three miles radius, some of whom were decidedly partial to Methodism. Most of the latter were from Virginia, Kentucky and Mis- souri, where free schools were not prevalent, and many of them were unable to read or write.
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We soon began to search out the country, travel- ing usually on horseback, escorted by Mr. Platt, or Dr. Blanchard, and sometimes attended by both. We were taken across the bottom to the big spring, and visited Father Rector's. Again, we passed through the large body of timber, in the bend of the river. To those of us who had lived among the thick forests of northern Ohio, the tall straight cottonwoods looked very homelike and inviting, while in the uplands the trees were more scatter- ing and shorter, requiring, according to the idiom of the country, two trees in order to get a log long enough to make a fence post. Indeed, timber was so scarce in the bluffs that we did not expect to see the prairie between the Missouri and the Nish- nabotna all settled up in our lifetime. The Mis- souri bottom, with a width of eight miles, and ex- tending north and south far beyond the reach of human vision, was a beautiful level plain, whose fertility was assured by the tall, rank grass which everywhere clothed its surface. Repeatedly did we hear the saddening story of many thousands of dollars lost for want of flocks and herds enough to consume the grass. Another time we attended a political mass meeting on the Wabonsie creek, not far below the old carding mill, where Wabonsa, the old Indian chief, was said to have once re- sided. The meeting was called to take measures to urge upon the legislature the organization of a
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new county in the southwest corner of the state, as the Gentiles in these parts were restive under Mormon rule at Kanesville. The meeting was numerously attended and harmonious in its action. A form of petition was agreed upon, signed, and entrusted to Josiah B. Hall and John Todd, with instructions to leave it with the first member of the legislature they should meet as they crossed the state on their return to Ohio, which they accord- ingly did.
At another time we took a ride north as far as Trader's Point, about forty miles, left our horses on this side of the river, and crossed over in a skiff to the Presbyterian Indian Mission, which occupied the present site of Belleview. There we found Rev. Mr. Mckinney in charge of a board- ing school for Indian children, and enjoyed a plea- sant talk with him about the success of his work. As Brother Gaston had for a time lived among the Indians at that point, he was well acquainted with many of them, and we were permitted to enter many of their log cabins with him, and were intro- duced to many of his aboriginal friends in their own homes-Indian, squaw, and papoose, all in their native style and polished manners. After a hasty call and friendly chat, to most of us wholly unintelligible, we retreated across the river and mounting our steeds took up our line of march eastward along the Mormon trail. Deacon Hall
5
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and the writer set out for Ohio, and our com- panions kindly accompanied us as far as Silver Creek, where we lodged together in the unfinished house of Dr. Dalrymple. In the morning (Fri- day) we parted, Brother Hall and the writer to pursue our long and lonely way to Ohio, the others to return to Civil Bend to provide winter quarters for their families. We had found no very de- sirable location for our purpose. The uplands were ineligible because so rough, hilly and desti- tute of building timber. The bottoms, though level, beautiful, and possessed of inexhaustible fer- tility, were low, and though now dry, indicated in places that they were sometimes overflowed. On the whole, it was agreed that we had found no point preferable to the vicinity of Percival. We had heard much of the beauty and desirableness of " the three river country," and were charged to keep on the lookout as we crossed the state and visit if possible "the three river country," in the vicinity of Des Moines, and, if we found any more desirable location we should inform them by letter, otherwise the vicinity of Percival would be re- garded as the location.
CHAPTER III RETURN HOME
A THOUSAND-MILE HORSEBACK RIDE
F ROM that unfinished house of Dr. Dalrymple on Silver Creek, on Friday in October, 1848, Deacon Josiah B. Hall, a native of New England, and myself turned our faces east- ward and struck out for Ohio. We had traveled on the " Mormon trail " from near Trader's Point. This was at that time the only road connecting the settlements in eastern Iowa with the Missouri slope. As there were thousands of Mormons who, dissatisfied with their treatment at Nauvoo, had decided to make Salt Lake valley their home, per- sons were sent in advance to look out a practicable route, build bridges, and prepare the way. Six- teen months or more before, the mass of them passed over this road on their way from Illinois to Utah. In order to avoid famine in that wild and uncultivated region, many of them stopped temporarily by the way, so that the first settlers along that road, in the Missouri valley, and along the way by groves and streams, were chiefly Mor- mons.
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Setting out then from Silver Creek our course lay by Indiantown in Cass county, of which we heard frequent mention; and as it would be diffi- cult to get grain for our horses on the way, we purposed to give them a good feed at Indiantown. Our own provisions we carried with us, also two blankets and a buffalo robe. On we went, stopping only to lunch and graze, till the sun had far de- scended the western sky, when on looking forward we discovered a log house and deemed that we were coming into the vicinity of Indiantown, but as that house was several rods from the track of our road, we concluded to pass on until we came to the town before feeding. That house stood in the forks of Indian creek and the East Nishna- botna, where we saw also poles, crotches, and bark, arranged in Indian style, for lodges. These doubt- less gave rise to the name Indiantown, for we saw no more houses in that region. We fed no grain, for the good reason there was none to feed. Still on we rode, until darkness closed down around us, and the pressing, practical question was, " Where shall we lodge? " On looking ahead we discerned, as we descended a hill to cross a stream, a fire of logs in a grove on the opposite bank, and a num- ber of people gathered about it enjoying them- selves apparently. On asking them if we might share their fire with them for the night, they re-
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fused, and we rode on. They had their teams out in the direction we were going, grazing. When, therefore, we passed on, they followed us, until we were quite by, evidently judging us to be horse thieves, and deciding to give us no chance to steal theirs. On we went several miles further in the dark, then turned down in a hollow, several rods from the road, where we camped, if camping it could be called, when we had neither tent nor wagon-not a tree, or stake, or bush to tie to- the blue concave above bespangled with stars, and the howl of the prairie wolf in the distance, from different points of the horizon. We had not learned to tie our horses, each to the other's tail. There seemed no alternative but that one of us hold the horses, while the other slept. Arranging the saddles so as to ward off the wind, and the blankets and robe for comfort and warmth, my comrade was soon in dreamland, while I kept vigils. About midnight we exchanged places; but as the moon rose at two or three in the morning, it was thought best to push forward, as we would with difficulty reach a resting place for the Sab- bath. So we packed up and mounted, finding, as the day dawned, both frost and ice. We journeyed on through all that day with scarcely the sight of a human being, until we were glad to see and speak with any man, be he Mormon, horse thief, or In-
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dian. The road seemed long. We traveled hours in the morning by moonlight-all day long with as little stop as possible-and to 9 o'clock at night, always supposing that we went not less than sev- enty miles. We came upon campers by the way- side sometime before we reached our destination, and sweeter music the writer never heard than was the tinkling of that first cowbell that Saturday evening. The place was called Pisgah, and we took quarters with Elder York of the church of ยท Latter Day Saints, until the following Monday. We were well entertained although we were not treated to all the luxuries of a Boston market. From our Pisgah we were more desirous just then to see the land of Nod than the land of Canaan. Whether this settlement has a place or a name on modern maps I know not, but my remembrance of it was that of a little valley among hills by a small stream, in which were a few log dwellings, with a small, plain house of worship on higher ground. After seeing our horses cared for, and satisfying the inner man, we were prepared to test Solomon's truthfulness when he said, " The sleep of a labor- ing man is sweet whether he eat little or much." Surely the Sabbath is a godsend to weary mortals ! So dark was the night, that not until the morning dawn could we form any adequate conception of either the place or the people.
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A SABBATH AT PISGAH
Many utterly refuse to hallow or keep holy God's Sabbath, yet comparatively few fail to be benefited, even by their very imperfect observance of it. To most persons it breaks in upon the mo- notony peculiar to other days, and by change brings rest. There may be no thankful, prayerful, wor- shipful heart-no reading or study of the Bible- no going to church or joining in public divine wor- ship-little thought of God, and less of obliga- tions to Him, and yet the Sabbath is to man, as an animal, a blessing-a rest as it is to his horse or his ox. The day is by most persons treated rest- fully. They lie longer in the morning-are freer from care through the day-business presses less heavily-fathers renew their acquaintance with their families-children return from toil, and gather around the home circle-flurry and hurry are wanting-a leisurely, deliberate gait attends every movement. This itself tends to lengthen life, and promote health. The Sabbath evidently brought a change in Pisgah.
As we entered the common apartment in the morning our host greeted us with a hearty " good morning," and sat down to entertain his guests by conversation, while the breakfast was in course of preparation. Among other things, the writer in- quired of him the views of Mormons in regard
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to the Sabbath. He replied that they believed in the Sabbath just as Christians generally do-that they regard it as of divine appointment-a day of rest and worship, but that they had been so unset- tled that they had not been able to observe it so strictly as they otherwise might have done. Some of them, he said, took the liberty to hunt prairie chickens on Sunday, and justified themselves by saying, " Anyone having domestic fowls would think it no wrong to go to his hen house and get a chicken to satisfy hunger on the Sabbath. The prairie is our hen house. The only difference is ours is less convenient." As we passed out of the gate to go to church, some of the boys were play- ing ball in the street. The Elder ordered them into the house, and asked, "Where is John?" They replied, " He is gone hunting." The whole tone and manner of the boys showed very plainly that they were not used to having their play broken up in that way. The meeting house, a small very plain structure, stood on the top of a hill or bluff near by, where were gathering the residents of the settlement, and travelers camping near. There were present that day two Elders who had just returned from the valley of Salt Lake to inform the brethren on the way of the prospect that awaited them there, and encourage them to go for- ward. The first speaker, among other things, commented on some passages of scripture in the
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