USA > Iowa > Black Hawk County > History of Black Hawk County, Iowa, and its people, Volume I > Part 15
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50
After the speaking all adjourned to the bountiful dinner. My father, who never partook of a meal without asking a blessing, stood at the end of the table and said grace.
After dinner the people strolled along the river. The young men ran foot races and pitched quoits, then all gathered about the stand and had music and songs.
At 5 o'clock a supper was served to all and by this time the wagons were loaded up to start home.
Mr. Hale and Mr. Balcom broke ranks, leading off playing the fife and drum. Everyone was happy and filled with patriotism. It was a very primitive affair, but we all thought it a grand success. I have seen from time to time different statements as to the date of the first celebration held in Waterloo. Some said in '54 and others in '55 but I believe I am authority on this one question, the FIRST celebration in Waterloo. That year of '53 I was a girl at my father's home and helped mother bake and brew for this Fourth of July dinner. Before the next Fourth, '54. I was the wife of Nelson Fancher, living on a farm four miles east of Waterloo.
THE INDIAN SCARE OF '54
Along in June of the next year there was a big Indian scare up at the Big Woods and about fifty families picked up and left in the middle of the night and waked us up by calling out the Indians were on the war path. Some of the men got on their horses and went to see what the trouble was and found out that a boy and an Indian had exchanged shots and that was all there to it. About the middle of the week the people began to return home and we housed and fed any number of them.
Vol. I-8
114
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
The following month my brother Isaac and Eliza May were married at the home of her father, Samuel May, on the west side. Some young men thought to have a little fun by giving him a charivari. They fired guns and made a lot of noise which frightened a Mr. Glidden living back on the hill. He thought Indians were killing off the people, so he routed his family out of bed, hitched up, threw a feather bed into the wagon and a grindstone, so the story ran, and went off at a gallop, giving the alarm at each house he passed. Finally he got stuck in a slough and went to Abe Turner's house for help. Mr. Turner did not believe there was any trouble and told Mr. Glidden to bring his family in and he would go up and see what was the matter, but Mr. Glidden was thoroughly scared and started on as fast he could until he reached Miller's Creek. Mr. Turner found on riding to town a charivari instead of a massacre. After Mr. Glidden's return the men joked him so much about his Indian scare he sold out and moved away.
FIRST CHURCHIES AND HOTELS
The first hotel on the east side was built by Samuel May and was sometimes used for Methodist meetings. In the winter of '54 my husband and myself attended a quarterly meeting there. When Elder Coleman was ready to admin- ister the sacrament it was discovered that the wine for the occasion had not been provided, so John Benight was sent on foot across the ice in the river to a drug store to get some. It was a bitter cold day and his face was badly frosted by the time he returned.
The first hotel in Waterloo was built on the west side on the river bank at the head of Second Street, by Seth Lake. There were many funny stories about the Lake House. At that time these crude hotels made no pretensions to brass beds, wire-woven springs and felt mattresses, but a tick filled with prairie hay and cotton pillows were graciously accepted as beds.
Mr. Lake was a very economical man and as the story goes, considered one pound of cotton sufficient for four pillows. One of his boarders tired of folding his coat every night for a pillow thought to have some fun out of it. So one cold midnight when all were sound asleep he rung the cow bell vigorously, which was provided for emergencies. Mr. Lake got up in a hurry, lighted his tallow candle, climbed the ladder and poked his head through the opening into the loft and asked what was wanted. The boarder, looking very serious, said: "Mr. Lake, I'm afraid to go to sleep for fear these pillows will work into my ears." Mr. Lake muttered something and descended his ladder.
While speaking of hotels, the Sherman House was established in 1854 on the west side. I do not give exact locations now or dates and I would be entirely lost myself in Waterloo these days, but I remember his hotel was a log structure and as his business increased he built on to it. His wife, an enterprising woman, at once opened up a millinery shop in a little room off the kitchen. We had to go through the kitchen to reach the shop. I distinctly remember this as I bought my wedding bonnet of her. It was a combination of white straw and horse hair lined with pale blue silk, with ribbons and flowers to match, a very pretty bonnet, noth- ing like the freaks people wear nowadays.
I remember well when the first paper was published in Waterloo, the Iowa State Register, by William Haddock, and how proud we felt and thought what
.
115
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
progress the town was making. My husband took the paper as long as it was published.
Doctor Mckinley was the first physician in Waterloo, arriving in '53. He had pretty good success in his profession and was also a good violinist and some- times gave the young people a dance at his house. In '55 he moved to Texas. Doctor Harper came the same year, I believe, and soon Doctor Barber.
My brother, John Virden, was the first sheriff ; Charles Mullan the first post- master and surveyor and was identified with nearly all the enterprises connected with the early development of Waterloo.
SPRING OF 1853
The spring of 1853 stands out very vividly in my memory. It was that spring I met my future husband.
One late afternoon in April two men drove up to my father's house and asked my brother, Isaac, if they could stay all night. Isaac came in and said: "Eliza- beth, can we keep a couple of travelers tonight?" I said very emphatically, "No. we can't because we are going to have meeting here and the preacher will stay over night."
In early times preachers were scarce and when one passed through the country he was always asked to preach and word was sent abroad throughout the neigh- borhood.
Isaac was a very kind-hearted man and said : "Well, it's raining and you know how far it is to the next place where they can stay over night," and as a final word added, "You know what the Bible says about entertaining angels unawares."
I went to the window and looked out and thought they did not look much like angels sitting under their dripping umbrellas but relented and said: "Tell them they can stay." They came in with their baggage and I got another supper.
At the supper table, they and my brother kept up quite a conversation, the latter telling about the new country and its prospects. The strangers said they were looking the country over with a view to buying land. They were brothers from Ohio by the name of Fancher. One was tall, broad shouldered and fine looking ; the other smaller, fair complexion, blue eyes, talkative and bubbling over with jokes and laughter. He said, "I am married and have two fine boys but my brother, Nelson, here is an old bach. He's too bashful to ask a girl to marry him." Nelson blushed and said: "Don't pay any attention to my brother's jokes." Instead of staying one night, they remained a week looking the country over and finally decided on a tract of 460 acres lying along Cedar Valley about four miles east of father's farm. Then they had to go to Dubuque to enter the land.
PIONEER COURTSHIP BEGINS
The morning of their departure, after they were in the buggy, Nelson came back to the house and asked for a glass of water. Nothing strange about that, for their road led across a stretch of prairie twenty-five miles without a house. The water pail was empty and I said I would go to the spring and get some. Nelson reached for the pail and said he would get it. I laughed as I looked the six-footer over and replied: "You are so small, I'm afraid you will fall into the spring."
116
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
lle laughed and answered : "Well, I'll go along to keep you from falling in." Like many other settlers, we had been slow about digging a well and we carried the water from a good spring at the bottom of a hill about fifty yards from the house. We walked leisurely back up the hill. Nelson carrying the pail of water. The morning was fine and the rolling prairies with their wooded borders were beautful enough to captivate any newcomer.
In those days of log cabins and blazing hearth fires, friends were easily made and they were true friends, and this new friend lingered a minute at the door and then said: "If 1 get my land we shall be neighbors," and then shook hands and was gone. We used to laugh over that pail of water he carried up the hill and called it the beginning of our pioneer courtship.
They were gone two weeks. When they returned they had a fine span of large bay horses, Dick and Ned, a new farm wagon and many necessary farming tools. They went right to work to build a cabin and with the neighbors' help soon had a house to live in and began keeping bach.
WATERLOO'S FIRST STORE
Mr. Fancher went to Dubuque soon and brought back a stock of dry goods and filled up his cabin with men's ready-made clothing. boots, shoes, hats, caps, muslins and all sorts of small articles. That was the first store in the country. llis goods went off like hot cakes. The settlers were glad of the chance to buy ready-made clothing and necessary things so near home and he soon had a big trade.
Mr. Fancher had but recenty returned from California, where he had been successful in gold mining. The story of his journey by wagon to California would make a thrilling chapter by itself. He came back by the Isthmus of Panama.
In the winter of '53 it was decided to move the stock of goods to West Water- loo and a large stock of groceries was added to it.
I remember the store was a typical log cabin with one door and one window and was the first store in Waterloo.
Mr. Fancher put his brother, Joe, in as manager while he turned his attention to improving his large farm. Keeping store was new business to Joe and being of a jovial nature as well as a generous disposition, he made friends fast though they were not always paying customers. When a customer came in and said : "I want a pair of boots or an overcoat and will pay for them when I get the money," Joe would say: "All right." Few of those credit debts were ever paid. If a woman considered the price of muslin or calico too high Joe would tell her to set her own price, which would. of course, be much lower than the price marked. If a customer came for a dollar's worth of sugar and Joe was busy he would say: "There's the barrel and there's the scales. Help yourself." And the man would say: "Well, I'll take a few pounds extra for waiting on myself and just charge it." The store was soon doing a big credit business. Mr. Fancher would go up once a week, straighten out the books and look over matters, but as he found running a store and farming was too much, he sold out his store in the summer of '54 to Wash Hanna. That same spring a Mr. Capwell opened a store on the west side and a Mr. Kent a drug store.
NELSON FANCHER Waterloo's first merchant.
117
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
AN OLD-TIME WEDDING
By this time Mr. Fancher and myself were pretty well acquainted. He had given me references to his family and a friend knew his family in Ohio and said there wasn't a finer family living than the Fanchers. His word then, as ever after, was as good as gold and I believed in him. My family all liked him and he declared he fell in love with me when I poured his coffee that rainy evening in '53. So to make a long story short, we were married at my father's house in East Waterloo by Judge Jonathan Pratt of Cedar Falls, the 25th day of May, 1854. Three years previous, on the 25th of May, I started on my journey to Iowa and now I had started on this matrimonial journey for life. We were to have been married by Rev. S. W. Ingham, but he was called suddenly to Tama County and told us not to delay the wedding as it was uncertain when he could return.
The ceremony was at two in the afternoon. My brother John was the best man and Miss Maria Aldrich stood by my side.
Nowadays the first important item of a wedding is the description of the bride's dress and I must not leave mine out. I was married in a white mull, made with a full skirt with a broad hem at the bottom. The waist was tight fitting in the back with a full front and sewed to the skirt. The sleeves were very full and hung loose at the wrists and the under sleeves were very fine and embroidered to the elbow. A broad white satin ribbon tied in a double bow in front and falling to the edge of my skirt finished my bridal gown. I wore white satin bows in my hair and white gloves and had white open-work stockings and bronze slippers.
Mr. Fancher's wedding clothes were made at Dubuque and instead of being sent to Waterloo went by mistake to Farley and he received them just a few days before the wedding. They came in a little hair trunk which is still in my posses- sion. His suit was fine black cloth with a black satin vest. He wore a blue satin handkerchief tie like all the men wore in those days and the most elaborate of the twenty-one shirts he had made at the same time.
THE WEDDING FEAST
Our wedding for those primitive times was quite a grand affair. After the ceremony and congratulations were over my brother Isaac, who was master of ceremonies, invited all the young people to take a walk down by the river.
While we were gone the tables were set in the front room and the fireplace with its shining brasses was filled with wild crabapple blossoms and their fra- grance filled the room. In the center of the table was a huge pyramid pound cake about two feet high, frosted over and a frosted cedar branch decorated the top. This was the bride's cake and on each side of it were bouquets of wild prairie flowers and at the ends flowers from mother's garden.
We had a bountiful old-fashioned dinner-roast beef, roast chicken, vege- tables, pies, cakes galore, nuts, raisins, fancy maple sugar cakes, coffee and tea.
Mother used twenty-five pounds of butter in making cakes. There was plenty to send to friends and neighbors and to last a while.
118
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
After dinner was over the guests went out on the porch and into the yard; there was some singing and by that time the bright day began to fade. The last of the young people went away in the moonlight and as we watched them drive off we looked out upon a moonlit world full of happiness and hope.
There were no railroads in lowa at that time, so we did not take a wedding tour, but I daresay we were just as happy then as people nowadays with all their fine presents and wedding trips.
I stayed at mother's until the following Monday; then my husband moved me and my belongings to our cabin home. A heavy rain came up about noon so we started at 4 in the afternoon. When we reached Elk Run it was booming. I was afraid to cross but my husband assured me he would see me safely over. In the middle of the stream the faithful horses swam a few strokes and the wagon box swayed around, but with a determined bound the horses landed safely on the opposite bank.
I had a big feather bed, pillows, bedding, a high four-poster corded bedstead, a new roll of rag carpet, a set of dishes, table linen, a clock and rocking chairs. My father gave me two cows and some money and this was my wedding outfit.
NEW LOG CABIN HOME
We reached the house about 6 o'clock and I found the house in apple-pie order for a bachelor's home. I did not get entirely settled that week as the men were building a log kitchen which was 16 feet square when finished. The living room was twenty feet long, with a fireplace in one end. My new kitchen stove had an oven on top and there never was such an oven for baking bread and biscuit. It was a pleasant contrast to cooking over a fireplace.
That fall my husband went to mill at Independence, twenty-five miles away. The wagon trail across the prairie was so bad that it took two days each way. When Mr. Fancher was loading up to start home a man asked to ride back to, Waterloo with him. Nelson never refused a favor, so this man stayed all night with us, had supper and breakfast. In the morning when he picked up his survey- ing instruments to set out for Waterloo he said he had no money but was obliged for the favors shown him. We assured him he was very welcome to all. This man was John Leavitt, the rich banker in after years. I often wonder if all the kind deeds Mr. Fancher did for others were ever passed on.
We lived in that log cabin two years and then built our new house half a mile away from it, near the main traveled road. All the timber was cut on our farm and prepared at the Waterloo sawmill. The house was 32 by 40 and two stories high and all the siding and window sashes and doors were of black walnut. There were three fireplaces in the house, which was a large one for those times and soon got the name of being the Methodist Tavern, as we entertained so many preachers and their families.
PASTIMES OF EARLY SETTLERS
We had our country friends and our town friends, our strawberry and apple friends and the sleigh ride friends in winter. We worked hard but had time for enjoyment. No one stayed away from the neighborhood parties on account of
119
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
the weather. A dozen or more neighbors would gather in and we would have a big supper about nine, then sing and play games.
Mr. Fancher gave an acre of ground and the timber for a schoolhouse and helped build it. This served for a school and church. Our first teacher was a Miss May Harrison of Waterloo. We had services and Sunday school regularly.
Picnics were very popular. I remember at a Sunday school picnic a young man named Phifer was asked to sing. Instead of a hymn, he astonished the elders with a song called "Daisy Deane" and a negro melody called "Old Black Shady." The class leader, Joe Ellis, thought he ought to be turned out of church but the young people thought it was fine.
During the winter we always had singing school and met once a week at the schoolhouse, which was quite a social center. The singing teacher, John Glover, always stayed with us. I recall one stormy night as we sat around the fireplace that the singing master dozed off. My nieces, Louise and Elizabeth, filled his folded arms with rows of cookies and stole away to bed.
THE HARD WINTER OF '56-7
We moved into our new farmhouse on the 27th of November and there was snow on the ground then. December the first was bright and clear. Brother John walked down from Waterloo to bid us good-bye, as he was going to Nebraska. By night a fierce blizzard was blowing which lasted three days. The snow was eight feet deep in places and we could drive over the field fences. The first snow fell before the corn was gathered and we had to leave the rest in the fields all winter. The stables and sheds were made as warm and comfortable as possible. One day about two hundred sheep, which were housed in a log cabin, got out and going before the storm, kept on until the creek was reached. They followed the leader into the stream full of slush ice and thirty-three were drowned before we could head them off and nearly a hundred died from exposure.
A TERRIBLE BLIZZARD
One Sunday, when people gathered for meeting at the schoolhouse, it was found that there was not enough wood, so services were adjourned to our house, about a quarter of a mile away. In a little while a heavy snow began to fall and the wind blew a gale. A few near neighbors went home, but the rest waited for the storm to abate. The minister, John Kirkpatrick, ate some lunch and started home. In- stead of taking the road, he went through the river timber until he reached a spot in the woods which he knew was directly opposite his farmhouse, a short distance away. With the aid ,of a pocket compass he reached his home, but was badly frozen.
About 3 o'clock in the afternoon the storm reached its climax. The air looked blue and there was a humming sound. Two peddlers drove up, and we took them in, as it was sure death to go on.
We had thirty-two guests that night. I found beds for all the women, but the men had to bring in their buffalo robes and sleep on the floor in front of the fireplace. Ropes were stretched to the barn so the men could find their way back
120
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
after feeding the stock. After the storm passed it was intensely cold. I remember we had to cut the ham for breakfast with an ax.
During the winter of '56 there was no time for extra work, as it took the men all the time to feed the stock, cut wood and dig out the drifts. We thought we could never spend another winter there, but we went to work with renewed courage when the baby spring opened.
CIVIL WAR BREAKS
We were getting along nicely until the war broke out. Crops had been good and money plentiful. Neighbors began to enlist, and my husband wanted to go. but was refused on account of a slight lameness in his knee, caused by a gunshot wound received in an Indian skirmish in California, but he took care of more than one family while the father was gone. Three of my brothers went to war, and two of them. Isaac and William, lie in Southern cemeteries. Mother was at our house when Isaac came to bid us good-by, and she put her arms around his neck and said: "Isaac, my boy, I'll never see you again," and he said: "Oh, yes, you will, mother. I'll come back," but he never came home again. His wife and three children came down and spent the winter with us. She was a brave, good woman, and in spite of her sad trials, reared her children to lives of usefulness and honor. The spring after William enlisted his daughter, Louise, came to live with us. Five young men who helped on the farm enlisted, and never came back. We can never forget those heart-breaking times.
The women everywhere formed societies to help the soldiers, and we in our neighborhood sent off box after box of clothing. bedding, food, and all sorts of canned fruits.
The next two years the crops were very poor and everything was dear and scarce. Coffee was a dollar a pound. We tried all sorts of substitutes ; used rye, wheat, bran mixed with molasses, and sweet potatoes chipped and browned in sugar.
We went to town one day and found muslin 75 cents a yard, so we got two bolts, thinking it would go higher, and it did reach $1.00 a yard.
When the war closed, people began to brighten up a little. Then came the news of Lincoln's assassination. It was received with uncontrollable grief by all. That morning one of our neighbors came in at the gate, tears streaming down his face, and called out, "Our President is killed. Lincoln is shot." It was a terrible shock. I remember Mr. Fancher was setting out trees that morning, and he brought a maple tree and set it by the big gate, saying it was a memorial to Lincoln. It grew to be a splendid tree and was a beautiful sight when the leaves turned in the fall. The next Sunday we held a memorial meeting in the schoolhouse for Lincoln. Almost everyone present had lost dear ones in the war, and it was a most affecting scene.
When we settled on the farm we fully expected to spend our lives there, and in the quiet of old age welcome our children and grandchildren back to the old home. But alas for human expectations. In fourteen years we sold the farm to our good neighbor. George Ellis, and built a new home in Waterloo, where the children could have good school advantages. My husband then embarked in the grain business, and the firm was known as Fancher & Son.
121
HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
I might relate some interesting experiences of the following years, but already my story is too long. Pioneer days are over for the thriving, beautiful City of Waterloo, and the early scenes are more and more but a memory. Loved ones have passed away, and few of the old friends are left, and I seem to almost stand alone in this generation with my happy recollections of pioneer days.
AN OLD SETTLER'S STORY
From the manuscript of Capt. R. P. Speer, read before the Old Settlers' annual picnic in 1903, the following story is taken, relative to the pioneer life of the county :
"I will call your attention to the general condition of our county when I came to it on September 16, 1853, and to some of the most interesting facts connected with its settlement and growth since the time.
"Then the improvements in Cedar Falls consisted of fourteen log cabins and rough one-story frame houses, one very small dry goods and grocery store, a small drug store, a small saw mill and a very small grist mill in which two dressed prairie boulders were used for grinding corn. But shortly afterward five other cheap one-story houses were built and occupied. At that time many jack-oak trees and stumps were found on Main Street between Third and Eighth streets and nine- tenths of the ground which had been surveyed and platted for a town was thickly covered with hazel bushes and small timber.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.