USA > Iowa > Black Hawk County > Historical and biographical record of Black Hawk County, Iowa > Part 53
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
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grade. This property is known as the El- well & Babcock Roller Mill, of La Porte City, Iowa. Mr. Elwell continued to reside in La Porte City till his death, which oc- curred August 17, 1878. He was a highly esteemed citizen, and much respected in business circles for his fair dealing and sterling business qualities, and his death was a loss to the community.
EV. THOMAS F. O'BRIEN, the resident pastor in charge of the Catholic church in Eagle Town- ship, was born in Rock Island Coun- ty, Illinois, November 29, 1855. His parents, John and Ann O'Brien, were both natives of Ireland, coming to America early in life, being married in this country. They are at present living in Dubuque, Iowa, having been residents of that city since 1857. Father O'Brien received his early education in the schools of Dubuque, where he grew to manhood. He pursued his classical studies at the seminary of Our Lady of Angels at Niagara, New York, and his theological studies at St. Mary Seminary at Montreal, Canada. He was ordained priest by Bishop Hennessey, at Dubuque, in the year 1880, since which he has been in charge of his present church in Eagle Township, which under his able ad- ministration is in a flourishing condition. Father O'Brien is a young man of much ability, and is possessed of courteous and affable manners which have made him many friends during his sojourn in this county.
A NDREW MOORE, farmer, section 30, Big Creek Township, was born in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, September 23, 1833, a son of Charles and Harriet (Young) Moore, natives of Pennsylvania and Connecticut re- spectively. His parents now live in Mich- 50
igan, his father aged eighty-seven and his mother eighty-four years. He was reared a farmer, and has always devoted his attention to that industry, at which he has met with success, owing to his industry and close at- tention to his business. His fine farm of 200 acres was a wild uncultivated tract when he bought it, but is now one of the best farms in the township, and is valued at $40 an acre. Mr. Moore has been twice married, first in Michigan in 1861, to Jane Edwards, a native of New Jersey, born in 1835. She died in 1864 leaving three chil- dren-Samuel W., Joseph M. and' Eva C. In 1870 Mr. Moore married Lavina Vore, who was born"in Stephenson "County, Illi- nois, in 1843. They have four children- Harriet, Jessie M., John H. and Frederick G. Mr. Moore is an active member of the Masonic fraternity. In politics he is a staunch Republican. His paternal grand- father was a soldier in the war of 1812.
EORGE DEEMING, one of the representative farmers of Mount Vernon Township, owns 120acres on the northeast quarter of section 27. His improvements are among the best in the township. His farm is all well fenced; his residence and farm buildings are large and comfortable and in good repair. He is a public-spirited citi- zen, and has assisted materially in advanc- ing the interests of his town and county. Mr. Deeming was born in Melton-Mow- bray, Leicestershire, England, August 8, 1836, and was fourteen years old when his father came to the United States. He lived in Lockport, Illinois, till 1857, when he went to Nebraska and lived a few miles from Sioux City a few months. In 1858 he came to Black Hawk County, Iowa, and worked by the month till the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion, when, August,
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HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY.
1861, he enlisted in the Third lowa Bat- tery. They went into camp at Dubuque, and from there were sent to Benton Bar- racks, St. Louis. Their first battle was at Sugar Creek, Arkansas. Subsequently they participated in the battles of Pea Ridge and Helena. At the battle of Pca Ridge the battery lost twenty-three horses and three guns, and eighteen men were wounded and three killed He re-enlisted in 1864 and served till the close of the war; was mustered out October 24, 1869. He then returned to Black Hawk County, and located on the farm where he now lives, which he had bought while in the service. The land was wholly unimproved and it is due entirely to his industry and energy that he is now the owner of one of the best farms in Mount Vernon Township. Mr. Deeming was married April 4, 1864, to Margaret E. Noll, a native of Jackson County, Ohio, born May 16, 1841, the youngest of ten children of Isaac and Jane (Snodgrass) Noll. Mr. and Mrs. Deeming have had eight children five of whom are living-Freeman, born October 27, 1872; Isabella B., born October 15, 1874 ; Guido H., born August 20, 1876; Georgia M., born May 30, 1879; Jesse, born July 21, 1882; Anna, born August 31, 1868, died March 13, 1869, and two died in early in- fancy. In politics Mr. Deeming is a Re- publican. In religion he adheres to the faith of the United Brethren church. He has served his township as school director and road commissioner, and in all the du- ties imposed on him has been an efficient and reliable public servant. Mrs. Deeming's father was born in Ohio, August 2, 1805, and her mother in Virginia April 25, 1805. About 1844 they moved to Fulton County, Illinois, and eight years later to Waverly, Bremer County, Iowa, where they lived eleven years. In 1863 they moved to Black Hawk County, and settled in East Waterloo Township, where the mother
died October 27, 1868, and the father March 1, 1873. Mr. Noll enlisted in the war of the Rebellion, in Company G, Thir- ty-seventh Iowa Infantry, in what was called the "Gray Beard Regiment," and served two years, when he was discharged on account of disability, the result of an injury received by a fall at Rock Island.
WEN FRANKLIN MILLER, onc of the pioneers of Black Hawk County, was born in Coshocton County, Ohio, December 25, 1823, the second son of Otha and Ellen (Porter) Miller. His parents were both born and reared in Maryland. They were carly settlers of Coshocton County where both died in their eighty-fifth year. They reared twelve children to maturity, and at the time of their death had over sev- enty grandchildren and great-grandchil- dren. Owen F. attended the schools of his neighborhood three months during the winter terms, and during the summer months assisted his father with the work of the farm, remaining at home till twenty years of age when he commenced life for himself. May 29, 1844, he was married to Eliza E. Casteel, daughter of Thomas and Ruth Casteel, of Coshocton County, Ohio. They have had eleven children born to them of whom eight are still living. Mr. Miller followed farming in his native county till the fall of 1855, when he removed with his family,which then consisted of his wife and five children, to Black Hawk County, Iowa. Shortly after coming here he purchased eighty acres of raw prairie land,and there the family lived in a log shanty for twelve years when it was burned down. He then erected a good house which was carried about a mile away by a cyclone about July, 1873, the family narrowly escaping with their lives. After buying his eighty acres here
BIOGRAPHICAL ' SKETCHES.
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Mr. Miller had but $5 left, but by industry and persevering energy he has met with success. He has added to his original purchase till he now owns 150 acres of good land on section 6, East Waterloo Township. When he first came here he had no neighbors, and for several years there were no schools in his neighborhood. He endured many of the hardships and pri- vations incident to the life of a pioneer, and
has lived to see the country around him grow into thriving towns and villages. He is now in his sixty-second year, and is yet strong and hearty. Mr. Miller has now a good residence and out buildings. The soil on his farm is of sandy loam, and is well adapted to the raising of all kinds of grain. In politics Mr. Miller has always voted the Democratic ticket. He has served many years as road supervisor.
GENERAL
HISTORY
INTRODUCTORY.
495
INTRODUCTORY"
ITHIN one brief gener- ation a wild waste of unbroken prai- rie has been trans- formed into a cul- tivated region of thrift and prosperity, by the untiring zeal and energy of an enterprising people. The trails of hunters and trappers have given place to railroads and thoroughfares for vehicles of every description; the cabins and garden patches of the pioneers have been succeeded by comfort- able houses and broad fields of waving grain, with school-houses, churches, mills, postoffices and other institutions of conven- ience for each community. Add to these the prosperous cities of Waterloo and Ce- dar Falls and numerous thriving villages, with extensive business and manufacturing interests, and the result is a work of which all concerned may well be proud.
The record of this marvelous change is history, and the most important that can be written. For fifty years the people of Black Hawk County have been making a history that for thrilling interest, grand practical results, and lessons that may be perused with profit by citizens of other regions, will compare favorably with the narrative of
the history of any county in the Northwest and, considering the extent of territory in volved, it is as worthy of the pen of a Ban- croft as even the story of our glorious Re- public. While our venerable ancestors may have said and believed
" No pent up Utica contracts our powers, For the whole boundless continent is ours,"
they were nevertheless for a long time con- tent to occupy and possess a very small corner of it; and the great West was not opened to industry and civilization until a variety of causes had combined to form, as it were, a great heart, whose animating principle was improvement, whose impulses annually sent westward armies of noble men and women, and whose pulse is now felt throughout the length and breadth of the best country the sun ever shone upon- from the pineries of Maine to the vineyards of California, and from the sugar-canes of Louisiana to the wheat fields of Minnesota. Long may this heart beat and push forward its arteries and veins of commerce.
Not more from choice than from enforced necessity did the old pioneers bid farewell to the play-ground of their childhood and the graves of their fathers. One generation after another had worn themselves out in the service of their avaricious landlords. From the first flashes of daylight in the morning till the last glimmer of the setting
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HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY.
sun, they had toiled unceasingly on, from father to son, carrying home each day on their aching shoulders the precious proceeds of their daily labor. Money and pride and power were handed down in the line of suc- cession from the rich father to his son, while unceasing work and continuous pov- erty and everlasting obscurity were the heritage of the workingman and his chil- dren.
Their society was graded and degraded. It was not manners, nor industry, nor edu- cation, nor qualities of the head and heart that established the grade. It was money and jewels, and silk and satin, and broad- cloth and imperious pride that triumphed over honest poverty and trampled the poor man and his children under the iron heel. The children of the rich and poor were not permitted to mingle with and to love cach other. Courtship was more the work of the parents than of the sons and daughters. The golden calf was the key to matrimony. To perpetuate a self-constituted aristocracy, without power of brain, or the rich blood of royalty, purse was united to purse, and cousin with cousin, in bonds of matrimony, until the virus boiling in their blood was transmitted by the law of inheritance from one generation to another, and until nerves powerless and manhood dwarfed were on exhibition everywhere; and everywhere ab- horred. For the sons and daughters of the poor man to remain there was to forever follow as our fathers had followed, and never to lead ; to submit, but never to rule; to obey, but never to command.
Without money, or prestige, or influen- tial friends, the old pioneers drifted along one by one, from State to State, until in Iowa-the garden of the Union-they have found inviting homes for cach, and room for all. To secure and adorn these homes more than ordinary ambition was required, greater than ordinary endurance demanded, and unflinching determination was, by the
force of necessity, written over every brow. It was not pomp, or parade, or glittering show that the pioneers were after. They sought for homes which they could call their own, homes for themselves and homes for their children. How well they have succeeded after a struggle of many years against the adverse tides let the records and tax-gatherers testify; let the broad culti- vated fields and fruit-bearing orchards, the flocks and the herds, the palatial residences, the places of business, the spacious halls, the clattering car-wheels and ponderous engines all testify.
There was a time when pioneers waded through deep snows,across bridgeless rivers, and through bottomless sloughs, a score of miles to mill or market, and when more time was required to reach and return from market than is now required to cross the continent, or traverse the Atlantic. These were the times when our palaces were con- structed of logs and covered with " shakes" riven from the forest trees. These were the times when our children were stowed away for the night in the low, dark attics, among the horns of the elk and the deer, and where through the chinks in the "shakes " they could count the twinkling stars. These were the times when our chairs and our bedsteads were hewn from the forest trees, and tables and bureaus constructed from the boxes in which their goods were brought. These were the times when the workingman labored six and some- times seven days in the week, and all the hours there were in a day from sunrise to sunset.
Whether all succeed in what they under- took is not a question to be asked now. The proof that as a body they did succeed is all around us. Many individuals were per- haps disappointed. Fortunes and misfort- unes belong to the human race. Not every man can have a school-house on the corner of his farm; not every man can have a
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INTRODUCTORY.
bridge over a stream that flows by his dwelling; not every man can have a rail- road depot on the borders of his plantation, or a city in its center ; and while these things are desirable in some respects, their advantages are often times outweighed by the almost perpetual presence of the foreign beggar, the dreaded tramp, the fear of fire and conflagration, and the insecurity from the presence of the midnight burglar, and the bold, bad men and women who lurk in ambush and infest the villages. The good things of this earth are not all to be found in any one place; but if more is to be found in one than another, that place is in our rural retreats, our quiet homes outside of the clamor and turmoil of city life.
In viewing the blessings which surround us, then, we should reverence those who have made them possible, and ever fondly cherish in memory the sturdy old pioneer and his log cabin.
Let us turn our eyes and thoughts back to the log-cabin days of a quarter of a cent- ury ago, and contrast those homes with comfortable dwellings of to-day. Before us stands the old log-cabin. Let us enter. Instinctively the head is uncovered in token of reverence to this relic of ancestral be- ginnings, early struggles and final triumph's. To the left is the deep, wide fire-place, in whose commodious space a group of chil- dren may sit by the fire, and up through the chimney may count the stars, while ghostly stories of witches and giants, and still more thrilling stories of Indians and wild beasts, are whisperingly told and shudderingly heard. On the great crane hangs the old tea-kettle and the great iron pot. The huge shovel and tongs stand sentinel in either corner, while the great andirons patiently wait for the huge back-log. Over the fire- place hangs the trusty rifle. To the right of the fire-place stands the spinning wheel, while in the farther end of the room is seen the old-fashioned loom. Strings of drying
apples and poles of drying pumpkins are overhead. Opposite the door in which you- enter stands a huge deal table; by its side the dresser whose pewter plates and "shin- ing delf" catch and reflect the fire-place flames as shields of armies do the sunshine. From. the corner of its shelves coyly peep out the relics of former china. In a curtained 4 corner and hid from casual sight we find the mother's bed, and under it the trundle- bed, while near them a ladder indicates the loft where the older children sleep. To the left of the fire-place and in the corner op- posite the spinning wheel is the mother's work-stand. Upon it lies the Bible, evident- ly much used, its family record telling of parents and friends a long way off, and tell- ing, too, of children
"Scattered like roses in bloom, Some at the bridal, some at the tomb."
Her spectacles, as if but just used, are in- serted between the leaves of her Bible, and tell of her purpose to return to its comforts when cares permit and duty is done. A stool, a bench, well notched and whittled and carved, and a few chairs, complete the furniture of the room, and all stand on a coarse but well-scoured floor.
Let us for a moment watch the city visit- ors to this humble cabin. The city bride, innocent but thoughtless, and ignorant of labor and care, asks her city-bred husband, "Pray, what savages set this up?" Honestly confessing his ignorance, he replies, "I do not know." But see the pair upon whom age sits "frosty, but kindly." First, as they enter, they give a rapid glance about the cabin home, and then a mutual glance of eye to eye. Why do tears start and fill their eyes? Why do lips quiver? There are many who know why; but who that has not learned in the school of experience the full meaning of all these symbols of trials and privations, of loneliness and dan- ger, can comprehend the story that they
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HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY.
tell to the pioneer? Within this chinked and mud-daubed cabin we read the first pages of our history, and as we retire through its low doorway, and note the heavy battened door, its wooden hinges and its welcoming latch-string, is it strange
that the scenes without should seem to be but a dream? But the cabin and the palace, standing side by side in vivid contrast, tell their own story of this people's progress. They are a history and a prophecy in onc.
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EARLY AND CIVIL HISTORY.
DO
EARLY AND CIVIL HISTORY.
HE Indian title to the territory in Iowa west of the Black Hawk purchase and south of the neutral ground at Winne- bago Reserve was not extinguished until 1837, and the beautiful valley of the Red Cedar, a portion of which is now embraced in the limits of Black Hawk County, was the favorite hunting-ground of the Sacs and Foxes. Nor did they relinquish it entirely when they ceded "the beautiful land" to the United States. For years wandering bands roved through this region, and were occasionally very troublesome to the few white settlers who ventured to establish homes in the smiling wilder- ness.
The first "pale-face " to enter the do- main of the Sacs and Foxes, in that portion of the valley of the Cedar now embraced within the limits of Black Hawk County, was G. Paul Somaneux, a Frenchman, who located at the falls of the Cedar in the spring or early summer of 1837, and com- menced trafficking with the natives. For some reason, probably not caring to spend
the winter alone, surrounded by no gentler neighbors than Indians, he left his en- campment in the autumn of that same year. Although his first stay was so brief, Soma- neux must probably be considered the pio- neer settler of Black Hawk County, for he returned ten years after his first visit, or stay, and in the winter of 1847-'48, in com- pany with A. J. Taylor, trapped above Sturgis Falls. During the following sum- mer of 1848 Somaneux worked for Over- man & Company. In the autumn of that year he trapped along the Shell Rock, and early in the winter of 1848-'49 made a claim and built a cabin where the village of Cedar City now stands. He is said to have been a very devout Catholic, hav- ing been reared by a Catholic priest of Detroit, Michigan, and very rarely uttered a profane word. He died at his cabin in the autumn of 1850, and was buried on the bank of a slough near by. Leaving no known heirs, his estate was administered by John T. Barrick.
Somaneux was not the only white man who came to the Cedar Valley in 1837. Rob- ert Stuart, an elderly man, said to have been a surveyor, spent the summer of 1837 in the vicinity of the falls, engaged in trading with the Indians. Stuart's testi- mony remains, that the summer of 1837 was extremely wet. The river, according
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HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY.
to his statement, rose to higher water than it has ever reached since that time.
In 1855 Stuart was at Cedar Falls; while there an evangelist visited the place and held meetings in the school-house every evening during the week, and announced three discourses on the Sabbath. He drew large audiences, and it was understood that a collection was to be taken up in his be- half on Sunday afternoon. The house was crowded as usual; Bob Stuart, the pioneer of 1837, was among the audience; the sermon was long and Stuart got tired. He was near the door and determined to leave; he rose to his feet and deliberately marched up the aisle toward the preacher. Every eye was upon him, for he was over six feet high, gaunt, stoop-shouldcred, griz- zly, and dressed as a frontiersman; he halted at the desk, thrust his bony hand deep into his trousers, fished up a ten-cent piece, which he turned over on the open Bible with a muscular slap, and exclaimed, " Here's my sheer," turned on his heel and passed out of the door, leaving both preacher and congregation paralyzed with astonishment.
A man named Osborn, who afterward set- tled in the southern part of Cedar County, hunted at the forks of the Cedar prior to 1845, but in what year is not now known.
From 1837 to 1844, a period of seven years, there are no traces of white occu- pation of any portion of the territory of this county. It does not seem probable, however, that this beautiful valley could have been so long overlooked by the rov- ing frontier traders and trappers known to have had their tramping-grounds in this region. Although the Sacs and Foxes had ceded this region to the United States in 1837, so that south of the neutral line it was open to white occupation, they had not left their old hunting-grounds. The south line of the neutral ground, starting from a point on the left bank of the Des Moines
River, thirty-seven miles seventy and one- half chains below the second or upper fork of the same, and running a course north, seventy degrees fifteen minutes east, passed very near the forks of the Cedar, and very near the northwest corner of the county of Black Hawk, as subsequently laid out.
This line was surveyed by James Craig, under instructions from the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, April 9, 1833. North of this line, from 1833 to 1848, the Winnebago Indians had their reserve, a strip forty miles wide, from the Des Moines River to the Mississippi. Along this line Indian traders and an occasional settler located. In 1840 Franklin Wilcox, with his family and his brother Nathaniel, settled just south of the line surveyed by Craig, in Fayette County; and a few miles east on the Volga, in 1841,. George Culver built a log trading-post that is still standing.
With these facts in view, and with the knowledge that white men lived on the bank of the Cedar in 1837, it is difficult to believe that from that date to 1844 this lovely valley was untrodden by any save Indian feet. It seems almost certain that other traders lived in succeeding summers where Somaneux and Stuart tarried in 1837; but there are no evidences remaining to verify this belief.
In the spring of 1844, however, William Chambers, a genuine specimen of the West- ern frontiersman, from Louisa County, es- tablished himself at the falls of the Cedar, built a cabin and engaged in trading with the Indians. The cabin which he occu- pied (whether he or some previous trader built it, is not so clear) stood on the south bank of the Cedar, at the head of the falls. The south end of the Dubuque & Pacific Railroad bridge at Cedar Falls is very near the spot where Chambers lived " monarch of all he surveyed," in the summer of 1844. It is not known whether Chambers made any " claim," as understood by Western pio-
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EARLY AND CIVIL HISTORY.
neers. If he did, he abandoned it in the autumn, when he is said to have returned to his home in Louisa County, and never returned to make any permanent settle- ment.
The next visitors at this point were destined to make a more permanent loca- tion. In March, 1845, William Sturgis, a farmer from Michigan, and his wife, and Erasmus D. Adams, a cabinet-maker from Ohio, then living in Johnson County, made a trip up the valley of the Red Cedar, in search of homes aud a desirable water- power. Arrived at the point where Cham- bers had lived the previous year, they were charmed by the romantic beauty of the spot, and, with an eye to business, appreciating its adaptability for a town site in the future, they determined to remain and make claims. Mr. Sturgis claimed the north part of the present town of Cedar Falls, including the mill site, and Adams selected his claim far- ther south, near what is now called Dry Run.
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