USA > Iowa > Audubon County > History of Audubon county, Iowa; its people, industries, and institutions > Part 14
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"We shall advocate the removal of the county seat from Exira to Audu- bon next fall, all reports to the contrary notwithstanding, and shall try to do it in a fair, square, manly way, excluding, as far as possible. all slang and personal abuse from our paper.
"Hoping that we may retain the present friendship and support of our patrons, we remain, etc.
"B. F. THACKER."
Mr. Thacker conducted the paper on more respectable and temperate terms. But Kimball secured a new organ-The Times-supplied by his backers, and continued his lampoons upon Hallock & Campbell to the end of the campaign. The articles and poems ( ?) by Kimball were outrageous and indecent. To have sent them through the mail would have been con- trary to the law. They were too obscene to be here repeated. The Sentinel, edited by H. P. Albert ("Pinkey"), threw its influence for Audubon. The
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only paper in favor of Exira was the Defender. It is doubtful whether They were all disgraces any of the newspapers were influential in the fight. to journalism in that affair. Kimball's character was such that he could not even believe his own word, so it was said. Several local orators harangued the people on the county-seat issue, during the campaign, notably, Melvin Nichols for the Audubon faction. It was difficult to keep track of him or determine which side he did espouse ; but he ended up for Audubon. John M. Griggs espoused the cause of Exira.
Here is some of the literature of that county-seat campaign :
"Don't! Don't! Don't! Hallock, in the last Defender, published a little of his biography, and, mentioning some gentleman he met forty years ago, says: 'Our own history since that time would make a volume; the history of those with whom we then enacted would make many volumes.'
"Holy mother of Moses! Don't publish it. Please don't. Give us something else; but, if you have any respect for the rising generation, don't publish your own history. Don't you know there is a law against the publi- cation of obscene literature ?
"And then the falsehoods in connection with your 'Great transgressions.' Only think of it. You have told lies enough during this county-seat fight to 'make a volume' larger than Webster's Unabridged. Don't attempt such a thing. It would ruin society and break your press. A man who would attempt to contaminate society by circulating such vile literature ought to be kicked into the middle of the next century by a steam mule.
"Only think of that (obscene) ; and those (obscene) ; and (obscene) ; and your conduct while at Des Moines ; and that fifty-dollar transaction with ; and your fight in the church ; and your infidelity; and your telling a lie and laying it to old Aunty Meek ; and your writing silly stories and sign- ing your name 'Aunt Gertie'; and your selling your vote to the railroad com- pany while you were in the Legislature ; and your abuse of the homesteaders while you were selling land for the railroad company ; and your abuse of the company since they gave you the grand bounce; and your lies about Drew and Van Tuyl; and your abuse of Freeman and Brown; and your forging a county warrant ; and your contemptible falsehoods about the Audubon band matter ; and your accusing the people of the north of being poor and having no teams; and your loaning your railroad pass ; and your writing to Drew and offering to sell out your friends in Exira and publish a paper in Audu- bon if he would give you a town lot ; and your sticking your dirty nose into everybody's business, particularly church matters ; and your attempt at smart-
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ness, when if your head had been an eighth of an inch nearer flat you would have been a monkey ; and your scratching tickets and then lying about it; and your misrepresentations of this town and its citizens; and your general cussedness ; and, worst of all, your villainous lies about the pious editor of the Audubon Times. And so on, ad infinitum.
"Don't attempt such a thing! Reproduce the worst immoral work extant ; publish a history of John Allen, the 'Wickedest Man in New York,' but don't, please don't, corrupt society by publishing the first volume of your own horrible demoralizing biography. Spread the yellow fever, smallpox, or any other fatal epidemic, for they will only kill the body, but such a work as you propose to inflict upon mortality would damn the very soul."
Here is another : "On Monday evening last there was a meeting of the citizens of Oakfield, called by Elder Crocker for the purpose of present- ing some of the reasons why the people of this county should not remove the county seat to Audubon, at this time and under the present existing cir- cumstances. The railroad tools and yelpers of Audubon, hearing of it, came down to wool the people into their snares. Elder Crocker generously divided the time with them. They set Elder M. Nichols, Esq., M. D., up as their spokesman (we won't say anything about how he came to be on their side) and Elder Crocker chose J. M. Griggs to close the debate. Crocker led off and gave the voters present a chain of facts and circumstances concerning the workings of this great soulless monopoly, that caused their eyes to open and set their thoughts at work. He showed them that a vote to remove the county seat to Audubon and thereby accept the cunningly-drawn lease, the deed of trust to the public square, and the bond of Audubon's forty-two citizens to build a house in that town in 1884. 'If the board of supervisors at that time required it,' was involving this county's finances in a ruinous struggle with a self-created ring, consisting of forty-two men of wealth and influence, backed by the railroad company as an interested party. Elder Crocker made many other telling points and unanswerable arguments why removal should not take place at this time.
"Nichols then followed with the piece he had prepared against Audubon and which he was to have delivered at that place last Saturday, substituting the name Exira for Audubon. His talk fell upon the ears of his hearers with the deadness of conscience-stricken, benumbed, though eliciting nothing but terse cuts from the friends of a fair vote of the actual citizens of the county on all questions of financial interest to the people.
"J. M. Griggs followed with one of his soul-stirring appeals for justice to all, showing that Exira was less than two miles further from the center
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of the county, by section lines, than Audubon, and refuting many sophistries offered by those who are hired to assist the railroad company in robbing the poor man of his lands and home. The railroad hirelings were so dissatisfied with the results of the meeting that they determined to have another at Audu- bon, where they can call in their subsidized voters and supporters to enthuse for them, and where they suppose Messrs. Crocker and Griggs dare not put in an appearance. But they will find that these gentlemen are not afraid 'to beard the lion in his den,' or the liar in his kennel."
And here is still another: "Eds. Defender-Fearing you might not hear of it in any other way (?), I write to say that Elder Crocker had an appointment to speak at Oakfield, on the county-seat question, and some of the friends of Audubon announced that D. W. Powers would answer him. Last night (Monday) when Mr. Crocker came, others came also. Audubon was represented by several of her citizens, viz: E. H. Kimball, E. J. Free- man, B. F. Thacker, M. Nichols and others unknown to your correspondent. There were present also, J. M. Griggs, Charles Van Gorder, John Crane, and a house full besides. In due time the house was called to order and Washington Bartlett was elected chairman for the evening. Elder Crocker came forward and expressed himself as ready for the discussion with Mr. Powers; but, although he was present, the railroad company were not inclined to trust their case with an untried man, and he probably, not desiring to speak, an arrangement was entered into by which a debate was had between Mr. Nichols, on the one hand, and Messrs. Crocker and Griggs on the other. Mr. Nichols opened with a very fair speech, considering he had so lately got on that side of the fence, having, but a short time since, been employing his tongue and pen in favor of Exira, on which side I believe he did better work than he is now doing for Audubon. Query: What force was it that lifted him over the fence so suddenly ?
"Mr. Crocker followed, completely refuting, as we think, the argument advanced by Mr. Nichols, who, at the conclusion of Mr. Crocker's remarks, again took the floor. His speech was of course, much like the first, but, seeing the 'cattle', as he called the opposing speakers, were somewhat stub- born and hard to handle, he 'shed his woolen' and went at them in his shirt sleeves.
"Mr. Griggs followed him with a complete refutation of his arguments. A number of happy hits were made on either side, and the speakers were all repeatedly and vociferously cheered. One or two things occurred that, to one not versed in matters of this kind, looked a little singular. Why was it that Kimball took a front seat, and occasionally, when he imagined he saw
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something funny or of particular interest to their side, clapped his hands wildly, at the same time raising them high above his head and casting 'sheep's eyes' at his Audubon chums? Was it because he was the 'bell wether,' and when he jumped they were expected to follow? They followed any way."
It appears that Kimball stirred up Elder Crocker in his paper ; but we are unable to discover what he said about the elder, which moved the reverend gentleman to wrath. But here is what Crocker said about Kimball :
"SKINNING A SKUNK!
"The Audubon Daily Times, which was probably already in process of incubation, bursts its shell and comes to life immediately after the warmth of the Oakfield discussion. The first issue of the daily wreaks its vengeance upon one J. M. Crocker, and merits only silent and supreme contempt, but, for the sake of the respectability whom he disgraces, by being their repre- sentative, we consent to answer. He proceeds to answer our arguments by his well-known method of warfare, by vomiting upon their author. He has not time to expose our fallacies but will after election; until then we must be silent by the ipsi dixit of a man who was never known before to tell the truth, when a lie would serve as well. For proof of my statements in the Defender, I refer to any correct county map. He states that in that article signed 'Goose Quill' I assailed him in an uncalled-for and ungentlemanły manner. Far from it. Everyone knows our attack was upon the only worthy and able editor in Audubon, the editor of the Advocate. We knew before that he could tell a lie ; we know now that he can't tell anything else. He says the loan agents have trouble to get their papers promptly. Anyone who knows anything about the office work of the recorder knows that the supply of work is irregular, sometimes nothing to do for days at a time, then a rush and an overwhelming amount of it for a few days. It not unfrequently happens that amid this rush of work a half dozen long loan mortgages are handed in by nearly as many different firms, each wanting his work first. Now to do all this with entire satisfaction to all is perhaps an impossibility. But I apprehend that the firm to whom we have given the greatest dissatisfaction is the one we have most frequently and fruitlessly dunned for their long-standing arrears. But my chief sin is in making county speeches. Ah, that's the rub. I was not aware that it was any worse for the recorder to attend a meeting at Oakfield (leaving Exira at dark), than it was for editors, bankers, real estate agents, et al., from Audubon; and if their unconcealed ill-humor was an index to their moral consciousness.
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they were guilty of a greater sin than those of Exira, who seemed to be well satisfied and in good humor. 'He has always been our friend.' That is the most disgraceful thing he says or could say. I flatter myself that this is also false. But at least whatever contumely we have been entitled to in the past by his friendship, we are at last relieved.
"He says we sold out to J. B. White. This is an infamous falsehood, that would stain the character of a demon. J. B. White lost his cause in Audubon county, as everyone knows, by his affiliations with the edtior of the Times. But bad and imbecile as I am, I only lack one thing of being a saint, a scholar and a gentleman, and that one thing needful is to sell out to Audubon, body and suffrage; it is a transformation process. The idiotic editor of the Sentinel became a sane and sensible man; the violent Anti M. Nop, against the most scathing vindictives were already in type, surrenders his manhood in time to save his character, the type is distributed and the editorials do not appear and he becomes at once the spokesman for the removal cause, and their orator on high occasions. Indeed it is a transform- ing process. It would cover all our remissness and convert the viper to the dove. But, alas, we are not susceptible of the change; our evil is incur- able because we cannot be bought, intimidated, nor bulldozed into favor with their lofty measures that involve our county in the liability for thousands of dollars ; because we will not pander to their whims nor be awed into silence concerning their selfish schemes ; because we dare to look with suspicion upon their proposed offers and expose the emptiness of their gulled gifts. But to sum it all up, he has told who and what we are. We will not attempt a like favor in his behalf for two reasons: First, the people of this county know him of old; second, no language is equal to the emergency; decomposi- tion has proceeded so far in his case as to render dissection impossible; we can only trim him off a little around the eyes. Who is he? The man ( for- give the false appellation) whose only aversion to farming is that his wife can't do the work; who was once recorder of Audubon county, to the sorrow of all who shall search the records, to the end of time; who left a fair picture of himself upon the records, in which the back ground of illegibility is only relieved by the abundance of palpable and glaring blunders, and but for his industrious wife, who did most and best of his work that outlived his official career, would only have been equalled by his moral lustre ; who sold out J. B. White by staining the garments of a pure man by his own putrid impurity ; who is a vulture of old upon the county treasury ; who is now seeking to leap into the realization of his long-cherished desires for rapine and plunder upon the county; who has sold himself at every opportunity and never failed to
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cheat the purchaser out of the full price paid; who is now spreading his feathers over his newly hatched daily, and would like to write an article for it if he had sufficient sense; in whom the vacuum of intelligence and refine- ment is filled with vileness and vulgarity; whose hatred of all that is lovely, excellent and pure, is only equalled by his ardent love of all that is villain- ous, vicious and mean; in whose estimation the sum of infancy is the free- dom of unfettered manhood; whose papers, daily and weekly, are a mass of maggotty rottenness, that the vultures would disdain; a stain on the history of barbarism, an insult to civilization, and a stench amid the breezes from the bottomless pit; as an encomium and abuse as our highest praise.
"J. M. CROCKER."
The local newspapers of that period were filled with this style of effusions by the respective editors, sometimes better and often worse. These samples will suffice to indicate the abuses by which people were afflicted during that unhappy period.
During the campaign one of the Audubon papers gave out the following statement : "Captain Stuart authorizes us to state that if the people of Audubon county want the county seat at Audubon he will furnish a good, subsantial building for court house purposes, much better than the county ever had, free of any expense to the county or taxpayers, and that he will enter into writings to that effect. He further says that the building shall be provided with fire-proof vaults for the county records."
But we have seen that the railroad company built the present court house for use of the county before the county-seat election came off. At the elec- tion the contest was decided by a vote of eight hundred and forty-one votes against six hundred and twenty, in favor of removal to Audubon. And the county records were immediately transferred to Audubon.
In 1905 an election was ordered to test the proposition of issuing bonds in the amount of sixty-five thousand dollars for the erection of a new court house at Audubon. It brought out violent opposition from people of various parts of the county. A number of business men of Exira executed a bond in the sum of forty thousand dollars, binding themselves to build a new court house at Exira, if the people of the county would re-locate the county seat there. The movement indicated that the memory of the old fights lingered in the breasts of the sons of the old contestants who were defeated in 1879. The bond operated as a bluff and the bond issue was defeated by nearly four hundred votes. The present year, Exira has built a costly new school house at their own expense. It is not clear what position the people of Exira may take when the time arrives for building a new court house.
CHAPTER IX.
RAILROADS, HIGHWAYS AND TRANSPORTATION.
HIGHWAYS AND BRIDGES.
The first traveled highway was the old Mormon trail, coming from the way of Des Moines, Adel, Redfield, etc. It entered the county near the "Divide," not far south of the northeast corner of Audubon township; thence down the divide between the water sheds of Troublesome and Crooked creeks, through Indian Grove (section 14, Audubon township), to Hamlin's Grove; thence down Troublesome to Grove City and Lewis and on to Council Bluffs. It was not a legally laid-out highway and ran across the country without following section lines.
It will not be amiss to notice some of the first legally established roads, which were generally laid out across the county without conforming to section lines, but conforming to the divides and highlands.
Old State road No. I was laid out by Dr. Samuel M. Ballard and Thomas Seely, as commissioners, in 1855. It commenced at the west line of Dallas county, at the terminus of a road laid there in 1849; thence by way of Bear Grove, entering Audubon county at the half-mile post on the north line of section 2, Audubon township; thence southwesterly down Troublesome to the township line at the corner of sections 7 and 18, same township; thence to Dayton (section 22, Exira township) ; thence through sections 28, 29 and 30, same township, to Ballard's bridge in section 36, in Oakfield township; thence by way of the Forks of the West Nishua river, in township 77, range 39, in Shelby county ; thence to Council Bluffs. The portion of the road east from the old town of Dayton is practically obsolete.
County road No. 2 was located in December, 1855. The petitioners were: Daniel Crane, David L. Anderson, Hiram Perkins, David Edgerton, William Pangburn, John Sifford, Reuben Kenyon, Nathaniel Wiggin, John Crane, and Bryant Milliman. Nathaniel Hamlin was commissioner and Peoria I. Whitted, surveyor. Beginning on the east line of section 1, Audu- bon township; thence to the upper grove on Troublesome, in section 4, in Audubon township; thence to David's creek (Exira) ; thence to the Shelby county line, twenty rods north of the northwest corner of Sharon township.
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County road No. I was laid out in 1855-6. The petitioners were : Nathaniel Hamlin, John Crane, Thomas S. Lewis, Isaac V. D. Lewis, O. Everett Marsh, Oliver Smith, Alonzo N. Arnold, Jonathan Decker, William Carpenter, Peoria I. Whitted, Richard M. Lewis, Daniel Crane, Robert A. Oliphant, Urbane Herrick and David L. Anderson. David Edgerton was commissioner and Peoria I. Whitted, surveyor. Beginning on the south line of section 31, Exira township; thence east across Troublesome, by Hamlin's Grove, and ending at the Guthrie county line at the corners of sections 12 and 13. Audubon township, the site of the present Lutheran cemetery.
County road No. 7 was located in 1857. Alvin Herrick was commis- sioner and Peoria I. Whitted, surveyor. Beginning at State road No. 2, in section 28, Exira township; thence north through Big Grove, Exira, High- land Grove, and termination on the Guthrie county line, eighty-five rods south of the corner of sections 24 and 25, Viola township.
County road No. 9, was located in 1859, being petitioned for by John E. McConnell, J. E. Ham, William S. Bush, Lyman Bush, William P. Ham- lin, Avery Belcher, James Eagan, Charles Wiggin, William Nelson, Leonard Earley, Stillman H. Perry and Nathaniel Wiggin. Beginning at the east end of Depot street, Exira ; thence east and ending at Judge Harris' break- ing, near to county road No. I, on the Guthrie county line.
These were the most important roads in the county up to 1860. The routes of travel were mostly confined to the high lands, across country, without following section lines in the first instance. Miles of road wound along the ridges, to avoid the streams and low, wet lands, and to avoid the building of bridges as much as possible. They were the natural ways for travel and soon became ideal highways. As the country settled up, they have been changed, mostly to conform to the section lines.
BRIDGES.
Bridges were then an expensive claim upon the limited resources of our thinly-settled county, but the people were equal to the demand. They could not build the costly structures we are erecting today; indeed, a single bridge such as we now build costs more than all the bridges built in the county for the first ten years. The first bridges were constructed by placing long, strong logs across the stream from bank to bank. the ends firmly buried in the ground, and were covered with poles and dirt. The
SCENIC VIEW. AUDUBON
WHEAT HARVEST SCENE
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upper side was lowest, in order that the high water would pass over it entirely, and the weight of the water pressed the bridge covering firmly to the stringers, and thus prevented it from being swept away by the current. Such bridges had to answer their purposes, and they were convenient and safe, except in high water. Several accidents have occurred from these defective primitive bridges. About 1873, Hiram Jellison lost a valuable horse in attempting to cross the bridge west of Old Hamlin during high water, and the same year a traveler in attempting to cross Four Mile creek, east of Exira, had a span of horses drowned, where the bridge had been swept away by high water.
The next important change in bridges was by bedding heavy mud-sells in the stream, or near the edges, and erecting upon them heavy frame works high above the water, and covering them with plank for a roadway. They were not a success and were constantly swept away by high water, resulting in heavy losses.
In 1872 Mark Frary, of Atlantic, introduced the system of pile bridges, which was adopted by the county and used extensively to the present time. In recent years corrugated metalic tubes are being successfully used for cul- verts, instead of the small wooden bridges. The county has already replaced many wooden structures with concrete and iron bridges and cul- verts, and these improvements bid fair to be continued and increased.
ROADS.
For many years roadbeds have been graded, the hilltops cut down and hollows filled. Since the advent of automobiles, roads have been vastly improved and made better and smoother by a uniform system of road drag- ging. Under recent laws, the prospects are that in the near future defective highways in Audubon county will be a thing of the past. The River to River road, through the county east and west, passes through Exira. It would require a volume to enumerate the roads and bridges in the county, a very complete record of which is found in the county auditor's office, showing four hundred and seventy-five roads, ramifying all parts of the county, aggregating eight hundred and thirteen miles of roads.
There are now in the county five hundred wooden bridges, each over thirty-two feet in length; five hundred wooden bridges and culverts less than thirty-two feet in length ; ten concrete and steel bridges, and three thou- sand corrugated metallic tube culverts.
(II)
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RAILROADS AND TRANSPORTATION.
There was not a railroad in Iowa when Audubon county was first set- tled. In 1865 the Rock Island railroad reached the town of Kellogg, and the Northwestern railroad reached the town of Boone the same year. In 1866 the Northwestern reached Council Bluffs, and one railroad got through to Des Moines the same year. At that period the people of Audubon county first began to realize that they were in touch with railroad facilities.
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