USA > Iowa > Black Hawk County > History of Black Hawk County, Iowa, and its people, Volume I > Part 20
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The first families had Indians for neighbors, but Mrs. Hanna seems never to have been afraid of them. She became quite well acquainted with the squaws and she related that eventually many of them came to her cabin and while she taught them English, she gradually acquired a portion of the Indian language.
There was in that time plenty to eat and only occasionally did the farmers want for the substantial things which adorned the early table. The Indians in this county then were the Pottawatomies, Musquakies and the Winnebagoes, all peaceful tribes, and north of here Sioux, which Mrs. Hanna said, "were the bad Injuns." The Indians annually made sugar in the immense sugar tree groves, which wooded the hills along the river to the northwest of Waterloo. It was the custom for the white settlers to trade flour for sugar.
There was a post at Clarksville and when the Indians drew their rations and supplies it was their custom to break for the white settlements, where blankets. calico, and articles of clothing, etc., were exchanged for foodstuffs and different articles of barter. The Indian women were proficient in the art of making mocca- sins, trimmed with beads and bright cloths, and these they traded to the white settlers.
Mrs. Hanna recalled one winter when about all they had to eat was cracked corn. The weather had been mild and the duty of going to the mill at Cedar Falls for flour had been delayed. There came one of the heaviest snows ever known in the country and it was then impossible to replenish the flour bins. Mr. Hanna was compelled to make his way to the timber, cut a large tree, hollow out a portion of the trunk and in this the corn was cracked. The spirit of hardihood and free acceptance of whatever might be their portion is illustrated by a statement made by Mrs. Hanna in connection with this experience. Some of the families forced to eat the cracked corn constantly were prone to complain, but, said Mrs. Hanna, "We regarded it as something funny and I told my sister in a letter after that we had pound cake every day that winter, but I did not tell her what kind of pound cake it was."
"I was never afraid of the Indians," said Mrs. Hanna, "although one time I remember they tried to play a joke on me. The men folks were away from
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home, when two or three Indians came from the north where they had got some whiskey and were half drunk when the reached our cabin. They marched in the door, carrying their guns, something they had never done before. They or- dered me to get some supper and get it pretty quick, intimating that they would shoot me if I did not obey them. My little Johnny was with me and of course he was frightened half to death, but I told him to keep quiet. I told the Indians that I would not get them any supper, and reaching for my husband's rifle hanging on the wall I told them I would shoot if they did not get out. At this they commenced to laugh fit for anything and told me I was a good squaw. I told them I was not a squaw, but a white woman. They went off through the woods toward Waterloo. A short time after they had left Jack Taylor, a trapper, who lived on Dry Run, south of Cedar Falls, came to the cabin to see if I needed any help. He had seen the Indians pass his place and knowing that they were drunk feared they would harm me.
Mrs. Hanna's recollections of the stirring scenes during the seven or eight years she was a resident of Waterloo was a prolific field of research. She was intensely patriotic. Her great-grandfather was in the Revolutionary war and from time immemorial members of the family were aligned with the abolitionists. Her father left West Virginia, then a part of Virginia, to escape from the slave state. Mrs. Hanna remembered the Fremont Presidential campaign in 1856. Opposite their house on Park Avenue the republican party was organized in Waterloo and as the election approached a flag staff from which floated the Stars and Stripes was a pleasant sight. The night before election this flag was torn down by some men and trampled in the mud. The next morning Mrs. Hanna rescued the flag from the mire and carrying the bedraggled bunting on sticks to her wash tub, pumped water on it and washed it clean, afterward drying and ironing it. She gave the flag to some men of the new republican party, with strict injunction to repair the staff and float the flag above the polling place during election day. At the polls that day there were several fights, but the flag remained on the staff. After the day was over, or the hard part of it, word was brought to Mrs. Hanna by lawyer Rawson, a democrat, that the men at the polls were cheering madly "for the woman that washed the flag."
After the family returned to the farm the mother sent her boy, John, to town one day .and he returned with the news that an officer was here taking enlist- ments and adding a request that he be permitted to enlist. The reply of the mother was characteristic : "Go, my son, go. If I did not have any sons to send I would enlist myself. I could at least carry water to the soldiers on the field and help care for the dead and dying."
Through her whole life there ran that patriotism and willingness for self- denial when principles were and are involved.
She spoke with love and reverence for one Brother Collins, who was a traveling evangelist in the early years, but the family resided here. Reverend Collins came to this county in the year 1847. The Hanna log cabin was home, church and courthouse to suit the needs of the time and the deed. Mr. Hanna was the first justice of the peace in the county and his court was conducted in the home. Religious services were held there every Sunday. Mrs. Hanna related that on one occasion, when Brother Collins had arrived from the Southland, footsore and weary, she provided the good man with a pair of socks which she had knit
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and also with moccasins which she had made. The reverend gentleman, in com- pany with Mr. Ilanna, left on Saturday evening, traveling over the crusted snow on snow shoes they had got of the Indians, going a distance of some fifteen miles into the "big woods" country in Bremer County, where the Tibbitts and Messen- gers had located. A meeting was conducted there the next morning and as the two men were a mile from the meeting place, making the journey home, they heard the people shouting in the joy of "finding themselves born again." The two men made the trip home in time to conduct services the same evening in the Hanna home, which was crowded with seekers after the true light. There were three beds in the room, the children were perched on the backs of the beds. the women sat along the edge and the men stood up.
AN INDIAN SCARE
Mrs. Charles E. Wilcox came to this county with her father, William Koch, at an early day and located four miles south of Waterloo. They were four weeks coming by ox team from Ogle County, Illinois. She relates the following :
"One of the interesting things that happened in the early life at Waterloo was the wedding of a young couple at a home up the Black Hawk Creek. A man by the name of Glidden living some distance from the scene of the wedding, hearing a charivari which had been tendered the young couple, became terribly frightened, thinking the noise made was by the Indians. He loaded his family into a wagon and started south, telling the people on the way that the Indians were coming. Glidden and his family came to the Abe Turner home and reported that the Indians were in close pursuit, bent on murder and pillage. While they were running bullets and cleaning guns for the expected fray, a drove of colts ran against the fence and startled the people, who were prepared to sell their lives dearly. Looking out, they thought it was the Indians fairly upon them.
"They started out from there on foot and went through the sloughs, down to the Pint place on Miller's Creek. There the water was up and Mr. Pint would not let them cross. The colts had followed Glidden and his party and they came on to the Pint's. Mr. Pint realized that the expected Indians were nothing but colts, hitched up his team and took some of the party back over the prairie.
JOHN LA BARRE'S STORY
John La Barre came to Waterloo in 1855. The following reminiscences were compiled by his family :
"John La Barre was born in Clinton County, New York, on the 20th day of February 1834. In September, 1855, he decided to go West and started from Ogdensburg, New York, taking a second-class ticket by boat to Niagara Falls, thence by rail to Chicago, intending to go to Freeport, Illinois. In those days parties traveling second-class were compelled to ride in special emigrant trains and as the time consumed in making the trip across the water from the old country consumed several weeks, instead of days as at present, the average emigrant had an extra "loud smell," so that fifteen miles out from Niagara was all that
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Mr. La Barre could stand and exchanged his ticket for a first-class passage to Chicago.
"At Freeport he found that his brother Charles, who had gone West two years previously, had gone still farther West and was at Waterloo, Iowa. Mr. La Barre took the next train for Dunleith, Illinois, opposite Dubuque, Iowa, crossed the Mississippi on a ferry boat and took a stage for Waterloo, there being then no railroad west of Dunleith. The stage journey occupied three days and the hotels along the route were filled and Mr. La Barre had to sleep on a bench in the barroom, for which privilege the landlord made no charge, collecting only for supper and breakfast.
"Mr. La Barre arrived in Waterloo on Sunday afternoon, October 1, 1855. The next morning he went to work in the old sawmill which stood at the west end of the dam back of the present Y. M. C. A. building for so many years and but recently condemned and torn down. He worked about four weeks at $1.50 a day and then he and a companion took the contract to saw lumber by the thou- sand feet and often they made $3 and $4 a day each.
"When Mr. La Barre arrived in Waterloo there was a log house on the corner where the Black Hawk National Bank now stands, owned by John Elwell. There was also a log house where the Iowa State Bank now stands, one on the Lathrop corner, Fourth and Jefferson streets, and three on Jefferson Street between Fourth and Fifth streets. There was also a log schoolhouse on the ground now occupied by the Lathrop buildings, 517 Jefferson Street. Another log house farther up at the head of this street and this structure was still standing a comparatively few years ago. There were several other log houses scattered about the village.
"There were not many buildings on the east side of the river at that time. There were three small log cabins on the present site of the Illinois Central pas- senger station and a few board shanties, boarded up and down. There was no bridge across the Cedar, but a ferry above the dam, which was a brush dam, and a ferry down near what is now known as Eleventh Street.
"At that time, 1855, the postoffice was located in the old brick building, 712 Commercial Street, and the old brick building near the west end of the Fifth Street bridge was built and occupied as a hotel for a number of years.
"In 1856 there were four sawmills in operation in Waterloo and one three miles down the river. There was a large steam sawmill located on the site of St. Joseph's Catholic Church and at times the log yards covered several acres, as farmers hauled logs from all the surrounding country, coming as far as from 'Six -mile Grove' in Tama County. Another steam sawmill on Washburn's pond and two waterpower mills, one at each end of the dam, completed the list.
"A bridge was built across the river in 1859, the piers being constructed of logs laid pen fashion and filled in with stones, quite a contrast with the cement piers of today.
"As a sample of real estate prices in early days, Mr. La Barre could have bought the Lathrop corner, Fourth and Jefferson streets, two full lots, 60 by 142 each, with a log house on them for $400. This log house was built by a Mr. Field, a brother of Mrs. Emma and Elizabeth Field of Waterloo.
"In 1863 he was offered the one-half block now occupied by the Rock Island or Union Depot, five full lots, 60 by 140 each, for $25.00 a lot, but declined the offer as Bluff Street and especially across the lots mentioned was overflowed
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whenever the river was high, there being no levee to protect the village at that time. He could have bought the Forry lots, corner of Fourth and Washington streets, at $150.00 cach. He declined them and finally after the war bought the lot located at No. 515 Washington Street, with a fair-sized house built of native lumber, at $850.00.
"In the late '50s Mr. La Barre bought a lot on Commercial Street near Twelfth and built a small house thereon, which in June of 1862 he traded, receiving in exchange 100 acres of the J. J. Budd farm in Orange Township, a span of horses, two cows, six hogs, 100 bushels of corn, twenty-five bushels of wheat, and two acres of timberland of the total value of about six hundred and fifty dollars. The land being put into the trade at $4 per acre.
"Mr. La Barre worked in the old sawmill until August 13, 1862, when he en- listed in Company C, Third Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and from that time until December 1, 1862, the company was occupied in drilling and part of the time was spent in the barracks at Dubuque. The Waterloo drill ground was located near the corner of Fourth and Randolph streets, which was all prairie then.
"In 1856 Judge G. W. Couch built a house from native timber on the site now occupied by the west side flouring mill, for a boarding house for the mill hands. Mr. La Barre boarded there and slept in the mill. That house stood on the site for a number of years and was then moved to Randolph Street at the head of Fourth and was occupied by the late Dr. C. P. Artman for a number of years, or until Doctor Artman built a new house, when the old structure was moved to Fifth Street, between Allen and Locust, and is now owned and occupied by George Merrill.
"That house and the one built by the late J. H. Leavitt on the site of the present Leavitt home, are the only ones still standing built from native lumber, sawed by hand, that Mr. La Barre can remember. The old Leavitt home was moved to make room for the present fine building to the site now occupied by the Westminster Presbyterian Church, the old home being moved to somewhere in the outlying additions. Both of these old houses have been changed and re- modeled in the moving so many times that they have lost all appearance of their early day architecture.
"Mr. La Barre served full time in the war, returning to Waterloo in the latter part of 1865 and in March of the following year he removed to Cedar Falls to take charge of the Ford and Zeising sawmill. He remained there until 1870, when he returned to Waterloo."
JOHN SMELSER'S STORY
On September 15, 1852, in company with my wife and a younger brother. we left Central Indiana for Iowa, then thought to be the Far West. Our traveling outfit consisted of a common farm wagon with cover, one yoke of steers and one yoke of cows, with a tent for sleeping purposes. We were better off in some respects than many other movers at the time. We had fresh milk and butter every day, the butter being churned by the action of the wagon while traveling.
We traveled through the State of Illinois, crossing the Mississippi River at Muscatine, Iowa. We stopped for the winter at Parker's Grove, twelve miles this
1
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side of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, arriving at our destination October 15th, being one month on our journey.
On March 10, 1853, the following spring, we came to Black Hawk County, locating in what is now Big Creek Township, two miles southeast of La Porte City, on the farm now owned by Calvin Jones on Rock Creek. Our cabin was a rudely constructed one, 12 by 14, 6 feet high, and Mother Earth was our floor, taking very little scrubbing to have it retain its original color. Our bed con- sisted of wooden pins being driven in the side of the wall in the cabin; ropes were used to hold the bedding in place; a forked stick was used for a support and the thing was complete. Our other household effects were in keeping with the house and bed. Our nearest neighbor was six or seven miles distant. With them we seldom quarreled ; had no trouble about line fences or stock trespassing. Vinton was our postoffice ,thirteen miles away. The mail was carried on horse- back. We had mail three times a week. We had to go to Cedar Rapids for flour and some of our groceries. It took three days to make the trip with my team of oxen.
The first spring here I planted three acres of corn which was destroyed by blackbirds, causing me to have to go twenty miles with my ox team to get seed corn to replant my ground.
What was to be the future La Porte City was without a house of any kind in the fall of 1853, being clothed with hazel brush as it came from the hand of nature. That fall I helped to build the first house ever in La Porte City. A man by the name of Cook built it, and consequently he was the first man to live in the town.
Late in the fall of 1853 I moved my shanty over the line into Benton County and enlarged it somewhat. I should have said before that I had quite an expe- rience with Indians. One day while at dinner five buck Indians came into the yard calling for bread and water. They seemed friendly. The same afternoon 300 put in their appearance. Pretty soon I found myself surrounded by seventy- five buck Indians. It was needless to say that I felt a little timid as it was my first acquaintance with the red men of the forest. They camped three days near our home, but gave us no trouble.
The fall of 1853 and the following year brought several permanent settlers which greatly broke the monotony of the early pioneer's life. Among them I call to mind John Cotten, John King, Jack King, F. J. Sefton, William W. Hamilton, Joseph Husman and Hiram Parks.
J. Q. ROWND
The men and women who have helped to make the history of Black Hawk County are among the best and strongest citizens to be found in any part of the United States. The wisdom of their first efforts has been proved by the later developments of the country and the laws that they originated and enforced have been the foundation of the present successes and inevitable reputation throughout the great State of Iowa.
James Q. Rownd of Cedar Falls was one of these pioneer residents. His children are: John Henry, William S., Esther A. King, Charles W., Walter M., Albert M., Oscar W., and Jennie R. Babcock. Five children he has buried.
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The following brief sketch of himself was written by Mr. Rownd in 1896:
Perhaps I had better go back a little over eighty years ago on the 19th of June, 1810, when I first opened my eyes on this beautiful world and made my appear- ance on the stage of action in Barnesville, Ohio, then a forest. I commenced business by ordering my folks around. I spoke then in an unknown tongue or language, but they soon learned to understand it and obeyed to the letter. They knew they had to or there would be trouble in the camp.
I was born in a hewed log house, with a shingle roof, cracks chinked and plastered over with mortar, on Chestnut Street, used to be called Marietta Street.
The first thing I recollect was an uncommonly large chestnut stump close to our door ; I think that six or eight children could play on that stump at the same time. I wish I could give dates. When I was quite a small boy 1 moved with my parents to Lexington, not far from Summerfieldl, Noble County, Ohio, and there we saw quite a hard time. We had to go three miles to mill and it was a mill at that ; maybe wait all day for our return, then it was tug, tug at that old mill. I could not do much. I was not strong enough to run a grist mill. We had to carry it, father a half hushel, Sammy a peck and I a gallon.
One winter morning we had half an allowance of hominy and nothing else for breakfast and through the night the snow had fallen about three feet deep and our doorsill was three feet from the ground. My little brother John was just in his shirt and I told him that he could have my share of the hominy if he would jump out in the snow, and out he went; it was worth two shares to see him floundering there in the snow.
Finally I moved with my parents back to Barnesville and from there over near Fairview, Guernsey County, and into Fairview, and was there perhaps two years. We returned to Barnesville. My father took charge of the tanyard, as partner with Messrs. Gibson and Davenport. I worked about the tannery. but my principal work was to see after the bark grinding. I went to school some in the winter. When I was near seventeen I went to Wheeling. West Virginia, and learned the potter's trade. After finishing out my apprenticeship I went over to St. Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio, and worked about six months. From there I went home to help father work the old stock, preparatory to giving up the concern to a new firm.
On the first day of December, 1831. I went out into the Harmony settlement to teach school. I got along nicely and soon after I went to Wheeling, West Virginia, and took boat on the Ohio River and went down to the mouth of the same river, up the Mississippi 125 miles above St. Louis to a little town called Louisiana, Pike County, Missouri, to visit some of my father's relatives. After making a fair visit I fixed up to cross Illinois, Indiana and Ohio on horseback. Think of it. In 1832, through that thinly settled country. I got to Jacksonville, Illinois, but my horse was sick and I had to stop. I went to work and stayed three months and then started for home. The second morning I fell in with a man going across Illinois. Soon after I left him and met with others; we kept together until we got to Columbus, Ohio, and there we parted and I went home. I went to work in a potter shop and boarded with the Tannyhinis.
The next move was to get married. I married a girl by the name of Mary Ann Lawvey, a daughter of Mrs. Nathan Johns. I worked out in the country
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in the potter's shop, the clay seemed to run out and I went back to town and worked for a man named Robert Mills in the tanyard at the corner of Main and Chestnut streets and in ups and downs and wanderings I had got myself seventy-five acres of land in the woods near Summerfield, Ohio. I went down and moved onto it. When we got fixed up I had the land, my wife, a child, now Lizzie Cunningham, an ax, a mattock, three shillings in money and owed the man $6.00 for moving us, and yet I thought I was rich and so I was. I had a home, no horse, no cow, no pigs, no chickens, nothing but what I have named and my hands in good health and a will to use them. I soon had up a pot- ter's shop and kiln, passed on until the fall of 1840. My wife took sick and in a few days died and went to her reward. She was a good woman, a Christian in the fullest sense of the word. There never was a harsh word passed between us while we lived together. I was left with four children. I worried along for eighteen months when I concluded to get married again and did so to a very excellent young woman by the name of Caroline Brown. I took her to my old home and we lived there until the spring of 1846. On April 2d we drove out of Summerfield to our new home in Iowa. We had a very pleasant trip. Thirty- seven days on the road. When we got to Davenport, Iowa, we took a team which another man had driven that far and loaded the wagon with clothes, a stove and other things. When we got to Cedar Falls we went to work to put in some crops and built up our home. We built a very good house, 24 by 42, well finished. My wife and I lived on the farm about twenty years and then moved into a house in town.
REMINISCENCES BY HIRAM LUDDINGTON
Fifty-two years ago, in 1852, I came to Black Hawk County. I have hunted buffaloes and deer near Hudson and I may add I climbed a tree one day a great deal quicker than I could now to get out of range of a stampeded herd of buffaloes, which took a notion to come my way. I built the first house that was erected on the town plat of Waterloo and forty-two years ago I left here.
I came to Black Hawk County from Knox County, Illinois, in 1852 with my wife and four children. I located at first where Hudson now stands and I built the first house in Black Hawk Township. It was of course built of logs and was located on the little knoll about thirty or forty rods east of where the creamery stood later. We lived there during the winter of 1852 and 1853 and in the spring of the latter year we moved to Waterloo after selling my place in Hudson to Adams Shigley. At that time. as I remember, Charles Mullan lived in a log house near where the house subsequently built now stands. Lewis Hallock lived outside the town plat on an eighty-acre piece and on the east side James Virden and his father also lived in log houses above where the town now is located, for the east side had not at that time been platted. Mr. Mullan had surveyed the town plat of the west side, but had not filed the plat and when he gave me a quitclaim deed to a block of land in the town plat he was not able to give a clear title until the entry had been completed.
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