USA > Iowa > Chickasaw County > Historical and reminiscences of Chickasaw County, Iowa > Part 13
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Of course the father never came back into the office, and the son remained as deputy. This painstaking perseverence developed a natural talent, and he acquired painstaking business habits that have followed him through an active business life, and con - tributed much to his success. He is now the Mayor of the city in which he lives, and the President of a National Bank. When vol- unteers were being called for, it was sug- gested that he enlist, but he said that be might as well stay at home as any one, as some one would have to do the work, but if some one could be secured who could not enlist because of inability, he would go.
Mr. Beach at once appointed Miss E. C.
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Stebbins as his deputy, and as she was dis- qualified for enlistment, not only because she was a woman, but further because she was not regulation height or weight. being less than five feet high, and weighing less than ninety pounds. The requirements having been met, he enlisted, and subse- quently became captain of Co. C, thirty- eighth Iowa Infantry. Thus it was that Miss Stebbins was the first woman in Iowa to hold a county office. She also was the first woman in the world to be appointed a Notary Public.
At the election of 1561, Caleb Arnold was elected successor of C. H. Dore, as County Judge. This position was given him in sym- pathy for the loss of his son in the army, and not for any special qualification.
He was a native of Vermont, and had received a very meager common school edu- cation, and his life had not been such as to develop any natural talent he might have had, and the record shows that there was little in his official life to commend his fitness for the position.
He was below the medium height, square built, wore a smiling countenance. and always appeared with a stub of a pipe in his mouth.
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His industry as a farmer was not such as to bring great returns, and he left his farm and sought official honors as Justice of the Peace and County Judge.
At the election of 1S63 Henry C. Vinton was elected Representative. He came from Massachusetts and had friends in Bradford, and came West to grow up with the country. He went into the raising of sheep and erected barns and sheds and stocked his farm with sheep. He was one of those good boys, white haired, light complexion, and lacked what is so necessary to success in a new country, "vim." He was elected for various reasons, and among them was the fact that his friends stood high, and their influence was a power, and this was supplemented with the cry that he would be a representative of the farming interests of the county, especially of the new industry of sheep raising. Then again most of the men who would likely be aspirants were in the army, and all who were in the habit of shaping the politics of the county had left.
He was a good man, but had little force to impress himself upon a legislative body, and he was never heard from. only as a voter, and not making a success of his business he sold out and left.
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In 1859 J. K. Nutting came to Bradford and commenced his labors as a minister of the gospel, in the Congregational church. At this time there was not a protestant church building in the county. Nutting went to work, holding meetings in an old vacant building and hall. He was an inveterate worker, and being something of a mechanical genius, he was architect and general over- seer. I have seen him mixing mortar and doing the most laborious work, in fact there was a large amount of Nutting worked into the building. He improvised a furnace. utilizing the remains of an old boiler in its construction. As an instance of his inge- nuity, I recall his using an old mill gearing in the making of a horse power for sawing wood, locating the same on the banks of "Dry Run." adjoining his house. The bull wheel, or power wheel, run above his horse, the track for his horse being under its outer edge. He also built himself a " grout " house that still stands as a relic of the past. After much sacrifice and personal exertion, the church was completed, and on his solicita- tion, a bell was furnished by one of his eastern friends, and thus the first church had the first bell in the county that pealed fortb
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an invitation to gather for worship. The church was painted a brown color and fitted the inspiration of W. S. Pitts, who wrote that beautiful song that has been sung around the world, " The Little Brown Church in the Vale." Thus, while the " Pig's Eye " was gathering in the disciples of Bacchus, with "Stick Dodge " as high priest, Nutting was rallying the forces of morality and religion to a higher life, and laying the foundations upon which was to rest future civilization and development.
In point of numbers, the bachanalian hosts seemed to be in the ascendancy, and as their spirits run high, their triumphant hosannas were wafted upon the midnight air, to the homes of the waiting and watch- ing ones; while the followers of him "that spake as never man spake," were preparing the way for the future.
While the revels of the one are only a sad memory, the influence of the other has moved steadily on, until its power is leading civilization to a higher standard. This man Nutting had a way of his own of making a point and sending it home. His neighbors hens commenced to destroy his garden, and after calling the neighbor's attention to the
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destruction they were making, and getting no relief, he went to another neighbor and borrowed a shot gun. In a short time there was a great commotion among the hens, and the continued shooting and cackling of the hens, soon brought his neighbor upon the field of action. The words that were showered upon the divines' head were not few or mild. but still the shooting went on and no word from Nutting.
When the garden was cleared. and after he had listened to the profane denunciation of his neighbor, who declared there could be no christianity in such a man, he meekly returned the gun to its owner, with thanks. The party of whom he had borrowed the gun, felt it was a duty he owed him. and proceded to remonstrate with him for shoot- ing his neighbor's hens. In much surprise, Nutting exclaimed, "Shooting hens, shoot- ing hens, why, I have not shot any hens, I was shooting my neighbor for not caring for his hens. There was no shot in the gun and I did not hurt his hens." Of course this came to the ears of the offending neighbor, and that night he came over and apologized for what he had said and his hens were taken care of.
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Feeling that his work should be supple- mented by an educational work, he was instrumental in starting an academy, and W. P. Bennett was secured as principal and teacher. Through this instrumentality, there was developed an ambition for a higher education, and as a result of the stimulus thus engendered. a number of young people were developed and helped to advance in life's work. Among others, were the two. Grawe brothers, one of whom became a Congregational minister, and the other a school teacher, County Superintend- ent of Schools, and elected the second time in 1874.
Subsequently he became the editor of the Nashua Post, succeeding A. J. Felt. To suc- ceed the versatile Felt, was no easy matter, but in place of lowering the standard of the paper, time showed that it had hardly entered the confines of usefulness, until it was developed by J. F. Grawe. After a short labor as pastor, the brother died, and thus a prospective honorable and useful career was cut off. Another young man that received his start in this school was Hart who gradu- ated at Iowa College and who is now one of the educators of the state. His wife, Mary
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Bigger, also started here and graduated at Iowa College, but died soon after marriage. Aside from these individual and prominent examples. there has been an abiding influ- ence for good growing out of that school, and many a man and woman occupies a higher position to-day, than they would had it not existed, and many a parent is unwit- tingly singing its praises, as they give trend to the character and development of their children.
In 1864 there came into the county a cadaverous, stooping young man, driving a flock of sheep, and one observing him would conclude that the pace that he was taking, as he followed the flock, was but typical of the movements of the procession that would soon follow him to his last resting place. Subsequently he came to New Hampton as an itinerant singing school teacher. When I first saw him he was stoop-shouldered, hol- low chested, and the most marked thing about him was his mouth, which was out of all proportion to the rest of his body. He appeared to be a good singer, and the open- ing out of which cume the sound was ample, but where the sound came from, after look- ing at his shrunken body, one wondered.
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Among his songs was "Katie Lee and Willie Gray," and the soul he put into that song indelibly impressed it upon me. Seeing him as we saw him then, no one would suspect that it could be our portly townsman and banker, W. L. Darrow, yet such is the fact. IV. L. Darrow is a creature of western devel- opment, acquiring his corpulence and money here in our county.
In 1864 B. E. Morton having returned from the army, having been wounded by a bullet through the leg, at the battle of Frank- lin, was elected Recorder without opposition, and held the office for three following con- secutive terms. He was one of three brothers that went out from New Hampton, one, Alvin H., having been killed at Belmond, being the first to be killed in battle, that went from New Hampton. As a Recorder he did the work reasonably well, but he lacked the faculty to store his earnings, and at the close of his official career had saved but little, and followed the example of his father, by moving west to grow up with the country, and made his home in Kansas. His father, Jason Morton, was the first to receive burial in the New Hampton Cemetery, be- ing moved from where he was first buried,
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about two miles west of town. He was a Maine man. and started out from the land of his birth, with his young wife in a covered wagon drawn by oxen. stopping en route to Iowa, in Pennsylvania, Ohio. Indiana. Illin- ois, Wisconsin, and landed in Iowa in 1S5S with two covered wagons and a large fan- ily. He had emigrated from place to place, just ahead of railroads, and when he died had never seen one.
His aged wife went to Kansas ahead of the advent of the iron horse, and when she died a few years later, she had never seen a railroad.
In the fall of 1865, the boys having re- turned from the army, G. J. Tisdale was nominated for Representative, and D. A. Babcock run as an independent, against him. They canvassed the county together, and Tisdale was elected by a small majority. If Babcock could have had equal prestige by receiving the party nomination, he would undoubtedly have been elected.
M. C. Ayers located as a practicing attor- ney in New Hampton in 1865, being the third lawyer to open an office in that town. He was not fully equipped for his profession by a preliminary education, for he had struggled
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with the demand- of this life in the support of his family by working at the trade of lathing and plastering. He was as good a theorizer in the law as often appeared at the bar, but lacked the power to utilize his the- ories and his success was limited. Then his habit of action led him to delay what could be postponed, and he failed to secure a rep- utation for "push." I think his peculiar trait in this line was fully exemplified by his preparation for building his morning fires. It mattered not how cold and stormy it might be, he never made preparation the night before for building his morning fire. but would go out in the morning and split kindling wood with which to build it. He was an amiable, honest, reliable man and bore an unimpeachable character. He emi- grated to Dakota.
Tisdale went out in the Seventh Iowa Infantry, and when the Seventh and Ninth regiments met at Benton Barracks, St. Louis, he desired a transfer to the Ninth, and I consented that one of the men in my company who had acquaintances in the Seventh, might be transferred in exchange for Tisdale. When he came to the Ninth, I had him mustered into Company E, that
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company being composed of men unqualified to act as Orderly, and he was appointed to that position. At the battle of Pea Ridge, he was wounded, and the Captain being killed in the same battle. the First Lieuten- ant was promoted to Captain, and Tisdale was jumped to First Lieutenant. When the new Captain resigned. the Second Lieuten- ant was jumped to Captain. He was a young man of towering ambition, and pos- sessed of sufficient assurance to assert his claims, and although counted a little "fresh,' he made a very favorable impression in the legislature.
In October, 1865, Captain Gardner brought a stranger to my office and introduced him as Dr. Mixer. The wants of the town and surrounding country were discussed, and when about to leave the office, the doctor remarked that if he could find an office, he would locate in New Hampton. I told him that he might stop in my office until he could do better, and he commenced practice that afternoon, and nothing further was said about changing office for twelve years, he remaining with me for that time. As I had received some experience in attending where necessity, in the absence of a doctor, had
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required, he always took me along with him as assistant, in cases of surgery, until the advent of more doctors, when I dropped out of the practice.
Dr. Mixer attained the summit of profes- sional reputation, and became one of the most extensive practitioners in the county, being especially noted as a surgeon. While being thus pressed with professional cares. he found time to build the Opera House, and run two or three farms, and write a contin- uous series of political articles that appeared as editorials in the New Hampton Courier. So frequent and scathing were these articles, that the question was asked at each recurring election, " Who is Dr. Mixer going for now?" I recall only one instance where the question could have been put the other way, and that was at the first election of John Foley as Treasurer, when he not only pitched into his opponent, but gave Foley open and affirma- tive support. Combative to excess, the years carried many political stings under his lash- ings, and when the Dr. became a candidate for legislative honors, they were fully settled, and in some cases, paid with good ten per cent compound interest. He was naturally a strong man, ambitious to lead, unsparing
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to opponents and could brook opposition with poor grace. He did much to develop the county, and when he left in 1892 parted with many sincere friends.
At the June session of the Board of Super- visors, I went before them and urged the necessity of building a court house. In a spirit of banter they asked for plans and specifications, and I went to my office and , during the afternoon of the same day, pre- sented them with plans and specifications. They then said if I would find a contractor that would take his chances of ever getting his pay from the swamp land fund that the county might get some day, they would let the job. I told them I would take the con- tract and give bond for its performance. Still thinking it audacity on my part, they asked me to prepare resolutions for the ap- pointment of a committee to enter into con- tract with me. I set down and hastily drew the following resolutions:
Resolved, That Palmer, of Jacksonville, Haslam. of Dayton, and Woodbridge, of Bradford, be a committee to enter into agreement with, and if practicable make a contract with any responsible parties, for the erection of a county building. ac- cording to the plan and specifications now on file in the office of the clerk of the board. And if they
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deem changes or additions necessary, stipulate for the same to be paid out of the county funds, but in no case to exceed $500.00 for such last mentioned purpose.
Resolved, That said committee be empowered to offer the contractor an interest of ten per cent., payable out of the county funds on sums due for the erection of said building, and payable, out of the swamp land fund, until said fund shall be re- ceived by the county, and paid over to contractor or his order.
Resolved, That the committee report their doings in the premises together with a copy of any con- tract they may enter into for the action of the board.
The committee made the following report:
Your committee to whom was referred a resolu- tion in reference to the erection of a county build- ing would respectfully report:
First. We would respectfully recommend that the building be double plastered and painted inside and out.
Second. We would recommend that the aecom- panying contract be adopted and approved.
Third. We would recommend that to meet the first payment the county hire of the school fund five hundred dollars.
Fourth. We would recommend that the clerk of the board of supervisors be authorized to issue to the contractor warrants for the several sums dne
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deem changes or additions necessary, stipulate for the same to be paid out of the county funds, but in no case to exceed $500.00 for such last mentioned purpose.
Resolved, That said committee be empowered to offer the contractor an interest of ten per cent., payable out of the county funds on sums due for the erection of said building, and payable, out of the swamp land fund, until said fund shall be re- ceived by the county, and paid over to contractor or his order.
Resolved, That the committee report their doings in the premises together with a copy of any con- tract they may enter into for the action of the board.
The committee made the following report:
Your committee to whom was referred a resolu- tion in reference to the erection of a county build- ing would respectfully report:
First. We would respectfully recommend that the building be double plastered and painted inside and out.
Second. We would recommend that the accom- panying contract be adopted and approved.
Third. We would recommend that to meet the first payment the county hire of the school fund five hundred dollars.
Fourth. We would recommend that the clerk of the board of supervisors be authorized to issue to the contractor warrants for the several sums due
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on said contract as they become dne. drawing on the several funds as set forth in the contract.
Accompanying this report was the follow- ing contract:
This contract entered into on this 6th day of June. A. D. 1865, by and between Chickasaw county, State of fowa, of the first part, and J. II. Powers of the second part, witnesseth: that the said party of the second part agrees to erect and finish according to the specifications now on file in the office of the Board of Supervisors, a county building, the work to be done in the style of the work done on the Congregational Church in New Hampton, and the weather work to be of good pine lumber; the building to be erected in a good work-" manlike manner, finished inside and ont, and painted with two coats of paint of white lead or zinc; said building to be plastered and complete for use, the seating used being the seats now owned by the county for county purposes. The walls of the building to be double plastered by lathing and plastering between the studding; the vault to be square as platted, and the entrance to the same being under the stairs and to have double doors of boiler iron, one opening inside and one outward, with good iron hinges and iron fastenings for the same, and the walls of said vault to be at least six- teen inches thick with an opening in the same, and at least the outer wall to be of brick or stone. Said . building to rest upon a good substantial stone foundation in height similar to the one under the
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Congregational meeting-house in New Hampton; said building to be completed before the 26th day of November, A. D. 1865.
And the party of the first part agrees to pay the party of the second part, for the erection of said building as above described the following sums, and on the conditions and terms to-wit: Eight hundred and forty dollars ($840) paid down in cash. Five hundred dollars (8500) to be paid when the build- ing is raised, said payment to be made by an order on the funds in, or to come into the possession of the county as "swamp land funds," with interest thereon payable out of the county funds at ten per cent per annum payable annually, until the county shall receive money from the United States as said "swamp land funds" and until the same is paid the said J. H. Powers, or his order; five hundred dollars ($500) when the building shall be enclosed payable on the conditions, and in the manner above stated; and eleven hundred and sixty dollars ($1,160) payable as the foregoing, out of the said swamp land fund when the building is completed; and G. W. Butterfield, W. E. Beach and W. B. Grant shall be a committee to examine, and if found complete according to this contract, to accept said . building from the hands of the con- tractor, previous to his receiving his last payment.
And it is further stipulated that the said J. II. Powers enter into bonds running to the county, in the sum of thirty five hundred dollars, with surety to be approved by the clerk of the board of super-
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visors, F. D. Bosworth and A. E. Bigelow, before he shall be entitled to draw any of said money. In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands this sixth day of June, A. D. 1865.
W.M. PALMER, W.y. HASLAM, E. D. WOODBRIDGE.
We being appointed a committee to let contract for building county building; to be approved by the board.
HIRAM BAILEY, Chairman Board Supervisors. J. H. POWERS.
The recommendation of the committee was adopted with the exception of the third, which was changed so that instead of hiring "five hundred dollars school fund," the clerk to issue ten county warrants in sums of fifty dollars each. This contract was completed in the forenoon of the seventh day of June, IS65, and I filed my bond and had it approved before noon, and then went down to the hotel and traded eighty acres of land to a traveling man, for a span of horses and a wagon, eat my dinner, drove to Forest City, contracted for the square lum- ber, and such other hard wood as I could use, and before sundown delivered a load on the site of the proposed building. The same
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night I bought the stone, being a lot that had been blasted by Ernest Werner, and the next morning started with my team for Mc- Gregor, to purchase the balance of the lum- ber, and order the iron doors for the vault, and hardware. I was back on the fifth day, with a load of lumber. It was fortunate that energy was displayed at first, for it rained almost incessantly. all the remainder of the season, and some days I could only haul two hundred feet at a load, from Forest City. Of course the building was completed on time.
During the season of 1367, there was con- siderable excitement as to the disposition of the United States Land Grant for the build- ing of a railroad on the forty-third parallel. The coming Legislature was to have the disposition of this grant, and the line secur- ing the election of the most members in their interest, was reasonably certain of se- curing the grant. West Union. Fredericks- burg and Bradford, were on what was known as the southern line, and New Hampton and Chickasaw, favored by the whole northern part of the county, were in favor of having it run through the center of the county, and this line was known as the northern line.
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It was found by the southern interest that if they could secure an equal number of this County's delegates with the northern line, taking into account the number already in- structed for Judge Hitchcock, of Osage. who was pledged to their interest, it insured their success.
The delegation when elected, was equally divided. This did not look very promising, but we were bound to do the best we could. I was left off the delegation, by request. To make sure of their victory, Mcclintock of West Union, who had special charge of the southern interest, the day before the convention, sent a couple of men to New Hampton to watch my movements. I divined their purpose at once, and when they came to my office, I was as affable as possible, and chatted with them until supper time, when I asked to be excused until after supper, asking them to return and spend the evening with me. I had expected to go in the afternoon to Charles City. After supper, they joined me in my office, and I spent a very pleasant evening with them, but as it grew late I suggestd that as my wife was alone, I would be obliged to bid them good night. I went to my house, and was
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