USA > Iowa > Black Hawk County > History of Black Hawk County, Iowa, and its people, Volume I > Part 21
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I bought a block, as I say, on the edge of the bluff near where J. E. Sedgwick later lived. This house was of logs. It was one story and was either sixteen feet square or a trifle larger. It did not take long to build it and in May or June, 1853, it was ready for use and we moved into it. There was a puncheon floor
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and the roof was made of clapboards. I remember the neighbors helped put the roof on. There was only one room in it and no chimney. I had brought a stove from Illinois and when we put it up we cut a hole in the roof for the stovepipe to project through. The logs were hewn on the inside and the places between the logs were chinked in and I got some lime that was burned by Mr. Shigley and danbed up between the logs. There were a couple of windows in it and I went to Cedar Falls and bought the glass of Mr. Mullarky, who kept the store there. The house was not very attractive, but it was comfortable, at least for those days. We lived in it until the first November of that year and then I sold it to a man named May from Indiana and he traded it to a Mr. Aldrich living on the east side. We then went back to Illinois and after living there about three years we moved to Minnesota, remaining there about eight years. In 1862 we came here and stayed a few months, then moved back to Illinois and have lived there ever since.
In the spring of 1853, after I built, I remember that Adam Shigley, John Brooks, Charles Mullan, Squire Hanna and possibly others, built log cabins on the town plat.
When we came here in 1852 there were buffalo in scattered herds and plenty of beaver, otter, mink, muskrat and other furbearing animals. I killed three buf- faloes while we lived in Hudson in the winter of 1852 and 1853. It was carly in December and I remember that the first snow was on the ground. My brother- in-law, a young man named John Lang, who lived with us, and I had gone out to hunt coons. We hunted along the Black Hawk to a point about three miles west of Hudson. At that place a little creek flows into the Black Hawk and at that point we saw a drove of buffaloes on the opposite side of the creek and at first we thought they were cattle, then it struck us that they might be bears. I said to my brother-in-law, "You hold the dogs and I will investigate and see what sort of animals they are."
I went up on the ice to a place where I could crawl up on them and after I had worked myself along for some distance in the snow I raised up, but could see nothing. Finally, about ten feet away from where I was I saw a buffalo in a thicket of hazel brush. I got a shot at him and he fell. Then I loaded again as fast as I could, but the buffalo got up and finally managed to get away. By this time I got sight of a buffalo cow on a side hill and I shot her, the ball enter- Ing her eye. She fell over and rolled down onto the ice. I saw several other buffaloes about six or eight rods away and I fired at a large bull. He did not appear to pay much attention to the shot, so I loaded and gave it to him again, this time using two balls. He switched around as if he did not exactly like that dose and this time I saw that the herd was getting a trifle uneasy. Just then another one jumped up broadside towards me and I shot him through the heart. He fell and expired immediately. All this time I had failed to notice that I was directly in the trail that the buffaloes had taken to reach the spot where they were. I observed this fact, however, in a few moments when the whole herd came charging down where I stood. I saw a jack-oak tree a short distance from me and I made for it. I got there when the buffaloes were about a rod and a half away and, well, I climbed that tree and I was not very slow about it either. As they went past me I could not shoot any of them because there was no cap on my rifle. There were twenty-eight buffaloes in the herd and I got two of them.
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I found afterwards that the reason I did not get more of them was because I had been shooting too high to reach their vital parts. I had been accustomed to hunting deer and knew very little about killing buffaloes. I shot in all twenty- eight times or once for each member of the herd, though I did not shoot at all of them. Sometimes I used two balls in my rifle and sometimes three.
The next day a buffalo calf came to the place where I had killed the cow and I got that. The day after John Virden and I went up to the forks of the Black Hawk about five or six miles and we got another, but that was the last we saw of the herd and it is probable that was the last herd of buffaloes ever in this section. A few days after a party who were going from what was known as Hardin City to Cedar Falls came across the large buffalo that I had wounded. He had got separated from the rest of the herd and was so badly hurt that they killed him by knocking him on the head.
EARLY SETTLERS OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY By H. F. Adams, Prescott, Arizona
Erasmus D. Adams was born in Maine December 31, 1814. He attended the Methodist Episcopal Wesleyan Seminary and passed in the common English branches in 1832. He came West soon afterward and worked in Cleveland a while at his trade, chair making. Later he taught school for several years in Monmouth, Illinois. In 1841 he was married in Iowa City, Iowa, to Miss Cath- arine Sturgis, of Sturgis, Michigan (born in 1821), at the home of her brother, William Sturgis. They went to Monmouth, where he taught school a year or more.
In 1843 they settled on land near Solon, Johnson County, Iowa. Here their first son, John S., was born in June, 1844. Early in the next year, 1845, he went to Black Hawk County with his brother-in-law, William Sturgis, who wanted the mill site the trappers told him of, at the "Falls of the Cedar," and which he located later.
After a careful survey of the country, my father chose land for his claim that suited him better than any place he had ever seen. It was a mile or more southeast of the falls, commencing near the spring in Dry Run, now on the Waterloo road. The line running east took in part of the mouth of Dry Run and a little of the Cedar River. There among the many little springs he saw good building stone, the timber was good with many sugar maple trees and the prairie land south of the timber was rich and of good depth. He built his cabin in the edge of the timber on the south and later had breaking done and hay put up.
Then the two men returned to Johnson County and, getting their things to- gether, moved up to their cabins at the Falls of the Cedar in September, 1845.
I remember hearing mother tell of their arrival at the new home, how de- lighted they were, how father went to the spring for water and brought back a nice fish, how they found in the thickets and woods the different wild fruits and nuts in abundance, also wild honey. The river was alive with fish and easily caught. It was indeed another "land of promise." Then their first winter was mild, the oxen were turned out and lived in the bottoms. Most of the hay was left over.
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But there were drawbacks and hardships to be endured in the years ahead.
The nearest grist mill, doctor and postoffice were at Cedar Rapids, sixty miles away. There were Indians and large timber wolves prowling around ; they had "chills and fever" and lots of mosquitoes.
In order to have a near neighbor, father, in 1846, gave part of his claim on the west to .A. J. Taylor ("Jack" Taylor ), his wife being quite a competent nurse. He also let them have a garden spot on land broken the year before. Mr. Taylor told me many years after that he never raised so much on a small piece of land as he did in that garden.
The last of September, 1846, Jane Sturgis, the first white child, was born in the county. Three days later, October 3d. I was born.
In the early '50s father built an addition to the cabin for a chair shop. 1 re- member well seeing him running the lathe by footpower.
They made maple sugar every spring, and one year father said they tapped 900 trees with the help of one William Garrison, an ex-soldier, just returned from the war with Mexico. Most of the sugar was taken to Dubuque along with tubs of butter mother had made, the sale of which brought a cook stove with a real oven and doing away with the old bake kettles.
In 1851 the Town of Cedar Falls was laid out, and the next year father was given a lot on which he built a frame house, into which we moved that fall. 1852. The front room was given up, and father put in some slab benches he made, and Doctor Keeler taught the first school, at least the first I remember of. We were taught to sing the spelling lessons. It was b-a ba, b-e be, etc. We thought it great fun and will never forget the tune we spelled it by.
Father rented space in the mill for his chair shop and did a good business for several years, making enough to pay for his land.
In 1862 we moved back to the farm into a nice two-story house. In 1870. father's health failing, they sold out and went to Southwest Missouri.
In 1891 they went to McAlester, Indian Territory, to live near the only daugh- ter. Mother died there in 1899 in her seventy-eighth year. Father died in 1901. over eighty-six years old.
EARLY AMUSEMENTS
The following interesting article on early amusements was written by Mrs. E. A. Snyder, of Cedar Falls :
"As events in which young people of the early days in Cedar Falls may not have all been told I will give a few from memory's store. Cedar Falls in the early times was not lacking in warm-hearted sociability, liberality and patriotism. There were picnics, horseback riding in summer, sleigh rides and oyster suppers in the winter, entertainments by the churches, literary societies, and a lyceum held in the schoolhouse, the site of which in later years was occupied by the old Baptist Church. Under the lead of this literary organization lectures by promi- nent speakers were given: Barnum, Tilton, Talmage, and others being engaged. At the Episcopal services, held each Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock by Reverend Mr. Gifford, a bachelor minister, the young people were usually all present, union services by other denominations being held at the same place Sunday mornings. At the Episcopal Mite Society 'blind man's buff' and 'snap and catch 'em' were
H. F. ADAMS
First white male child born in Black Hawk County Born October 3, 1846
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among the chief amusements. Banker William P. Case, an elderly bachelor, had the reputation of being an expert catcher. Spelling and singing schools and sleighing parties were greatly enjoyed, particularly the last named, four-horse rigs, plenty of sleigh bells and a sleigh crowded with young people, insuring a delightful, happy time. Skating and club dances were also leading amusements in winter and the fall months a large number resorted to the hills of evenings to witness prairie fires which swept over the ground now occupied by the Iowa State Teachers' College and the farms surrounding.
"In one of these fires which so brilliantly lit up the sky, dangerous when winds were blowing, the wife of Rev. W. S. Dorwin lost her life on their farm west of Cedar Falls while attempting to save their home. In the absence of apples in those days a pumpkin-paring party was given by Mrs. George Clark. As this lady possessed the first piano shipped to Cedar Falls, good use was made of this instrument, the hostess singing and playing the first solo ever heard in town. She was also the proud owner of the first kerosene lamp that became the envy of tallow-dips, a somewhat heightened luxury with oil at $1.50 per gallon.
"One of the jokes of the time was a 'buffalo dinner' given in honor of Doctor Arnold, who had a keen appreciation of good living. He wanted to have a piece of the buffalo first, so as to enjoy this rare treat fully. He greatly relished the meat and sat back in his chair, saying that he could readily taste the wild, gamey flavor. Later Mr. Barnes and daughters, Zubetta and Anna, and others laughed heartily over the joke, as the meat was a part of Mr. Barnes' old ox, just brought over from the Little Sioux River. The doctor had so many reminders of the 'wild, gamey flavor' that he lost all enjoyment of the fun. Many in town who bought steaks cut from the old ox were victims of the joke.
"At a school exhibition held in Overman Hall, where there was a large crowd the young men, as was their custom at the close, were lined up at the exit to wait upon the ladies. Two of them, wishing to have some fun with the young men whom they knew were waiting for them, decided to leave the hall by a back entrance. Discovering that these ladies were apparently prevented by the crowd from going out the front way one of the young men, in his haste to follow, ran into a large mirror in the dressing room, breaking it into many pieces, the girls in the meantime disappearing in the darkness. After many reminders of the laugh- able event, he made free to emphatically remark, 'I think that is getting a little threadbare.'
"Horseback riding was a popular recreation, as many as fifteen to twenty ladies and gentlemen often going out in the evening, sometimes making a display of their equestrianship by riding tandem and in twos and fours up and down Main Street. At the early county fairs prizes were given to the best lady riders.
"One of the most notable of early events was the free dinner on the Fourth of July, served by the ladies and the young men, tables being set in the Overman Mill which was then in process of building. Mrs. George W. Clark roasted a pig for the occasion. Provisions were abundant, tables nicely set and great care taken to feed the hungry multitude, many of whom came from a distance. After the first tables had been served and the ladies were endeavoring to prepare them a second time everything was snatched off and eaten as fast as it could be placed and all attempts to reset were fruitless and had to be abandoned. Nothing in the line of eatables was left. The committee in charge was compelled to go to the Carter
Vol. I-11
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House for dinner, the young men footing the bills. During the excitement at- tending the scramble for eatables. Miss Mary Maggert fell through an opening in the floor of the mill, but fortunately escaped serious injuries. It was unanimously declared that this would be the last free Fourth of July dinner for Cedar Falls. Street amusements of the day were too numerous to mention. The Calathumpians were the great attraction.
"About this time a fine silk flag was given by the ladies to the brass band which had been organized. The presentation on the part of the ladies being very creditably made by Mrs. John R. Cameron, response by W. 11. McClure. An- other event was the crowning of the engine of the first train which came into Cedar Falls, Mrs. J. B. Powers and Mrs. Cameron being appointed to this honor. There was an immense crowd at the depot of the Dubuque & Sioux City, now the Illinois Central. The ladies were unable to do the crowning without assistance because of the interest and pressure from the vast assemblage of people, but the feat was accomplished through the assistance of gentlemen. The marriage of a couple from the country by Caleb May, who had but recently been elected justice of the peace, was very much enjoyed by Mr. May's gentlemen boarders and some ladies. After the ceremony the groom reminded Mr. May that it was the custom for the justice to give his first fee to the bride. This was cheerfully done, after which there was a painful silence and the suggestion to sing induced one of the ladies to start a hymn, in which all heartily joined.
" .This is the way I long have sought And mourned because I found it not.'
The happy couple apparently thought the singing was a part of the exercise be- longing to the ceremony and departed as well pleased as if their wedding had been a modern, swell affair.
"One of the events distinctly remembered by the participants was a party made up of George D. Perkins and Mary Barnard, Fred Beohmler and Libby Perkins, J. M. Benjamin and Mary Cameron. Having supplied themselves with oysters, etc., they drove to the home of Mr. Barnard, six miles west of Cedar Falls. A blinding snow storm prevented the return that night and as accommodations were ' meager all were compelled to occupy the same bedroom with only a curtain par- tition, three in a bed. After retiring the gentlemen tried to make the ladies laugh by telling amusing stories. Mr. Perkins being the leader, but in this he was not as successful as he had been in the newspaper world, the ladies with great diffi- culty keeping quiet, assuming to be soundly sleeping. Mr. Perkins and his bed- fellows did not apologize for this breach of etiquette or for reaching under the curtain and stealing a part of the wardrobe of the ladies and then eating all the pancakes while the hostess was assisting in making her lady visitors presentable at the breakfast table. The return to town, which was not reached until noon, was made in snow drifts, the absence having caused alarm because Miss Perkins was a teacher in the public schools and her vacant place became generally known.
"Many early events which come to mind must be omitted, including some of later years when meetings were held in the evenings to scrape lint, make bandages and other necessaries to send to our soldier boys in the South. What I have given are indicative of some of the pleasures, freedom of life and sociability of the early
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times, a genuine heartiness of enjoyment which to a great extent has departed with the advance of more formal affairs and fashions."
A BUFFALO HUNT
The following is from the reminiscence of James Virden :
"In the winter of 1846-7 William Virden, a brother of mine, and I were trapping for beaver and mink along the Cedar River. At that time sufficient snow had fallen to make trapping easy. One afternoon when out trapping we found a trail of what we supposed were cattle tracks. Thinking that we could follow for a longer distance with a team than on foot we went home and prepared for a hunt for the next day. We set out the next morning, driving a yoke of oxen hitched to a large log sled. After a short time we struck the trail at where now Virden's Grove is located on the Black Hawk Creek, four miles south of Waterloo. We followed the trail until we came within three miles of where Hudson now stands. We then tied our oxen and started on foot along the creek. After a walk of nearly a mile we came upon the buffaloes. They were standing in a thicket of trees. We were much surprised and by the actions of the animals we decided that they were not in the habit of being so near human life. They turned suddenly, broke cover, and started up the creek on the run. We pursued them for nearly a hundred yards, when they stopped, turned, and looked back at us to see if we were still there. But we had dropped among the tall, brown rushes and had crept forward until we were close enough to shoot one. I took aim and fired. On hearing the report of my gun they set out at a rapid rate toward the prairies. We followed them for half a mile, where in a hollow amongst the hills we saw great drops of blood on the snow. On a few feet farther, back of a cliff, we saw a buffalo struggling on the ground. It was the one I had wounded when I fired at the herd. The animal still continued to struggle, so I fired again and she fell dead. On examining the result of our chase we found it to be a buffalo cow nearly four years old. When I arose to my feet I glanced up at the sun and noticed that it was lowering in the West. So we concluded that we would not follow the rest of the herd any farther that night. Leaving my brother in care of our much prized beef I went back for the oxen and sled. By the time I again arrived on the scene William had the buffalo skinned and we loaded her into the sled and started back home, well pleased. When we reached home the wind had arisen and the air became freezing cold. My brother predicted a storm. The next morning the wind blew a gale and snow flew in every direction. We quickly decided that we would not venture out that day. And that settled our buffalo hunt."
TIMBER GROWTH
Oscar Virden, one of the early pioneers, who settled in Waterloo Township four miles southwest of the city in 1851, and who died on March 6, 1905, related in 1904 the following in regard to the timber of the county :
"When I came here one could look south over Orange and Eagle townships with nothing to obstruct the view. There was not a tree nor a shrub, only tall, waving grass. Sometimes in the summer time now, I stand on the same spot on
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which I stood fifty years ago and again look over that part of the country. So many trees have been planted that instead of the prairie I once saw I now see what appears to be a dense forest. Some people think that timber is becoming scarcer and that the forests and groves are dying out, being destroyed by the woodmen's axe. I have been here for fifty-four years and have watched with interest the changed conditions, and I say there is ten times as much forest now in the section as when I came."
AN EARLY NIMROD
Capt. G. H. Remington, an early gunsmith in the Town of Waterloo, is a native of Rome, New York. In 1872 he established a gun shop in Waterloo in a little frame building which stood at 125 Fourth Street East. In a few years he moved to the west side. In 1876, Captain Remington went to San Francisco, but the following year he returned to Waterloo and opened his shop again in a frame building at the east end of the bridge where the Union Mill elevator now stands.
At this time game birds were becoming very scarce and the wild pigeons which the captain netted were nearly extinct. Accordingly he moved to Kansas.
Prior to Remington's first appearance in Waterloo but few anglers were aware of the value of artificial bait. Remington made spoon hooks and one drizzly day, shortly after he became a resident, he spent about an hour casting with a kidney spoon in Hale's slough, as the bayou a few rods above the cast side ice houses was then called, with the result that he captured a dozen large pickerel, several of them weighing about five pounds. His spoon hooks speedily became popular. He made a spoon especially for pike fishing and would wade out below the Fourth Street dam and catch long strings of pike and bass. His shop was headquarters for Al and Jud Page, Mel and Alonzo Vaughn, and other hunters who made a comfortable living in those days shooting ducks, prairie chickens and other game. Many were the hunting yarns spun by Remington's fireside and he never forgot the mad buffalo that tried to climb a tree, according to Vaughn, also Al Page's setter dog "Nip" was another subject. Nip had the misfortune to lose a foot, but it did not interfere with his field work in the least.
Remington was an expert trapper and caught fur in nearly all the streams around Waterloo. When the first thaws occurred in February it was his custom to visit the timber between Waterloo and Cedar Falls in quest of raccoons. These animals emerge from their winter quarters during the first warm days, and when Remington found a 'coon track he would follow it for miles and seldom returned without one or two pelts. He belonged to a class of men who followed the pioneers into the West farther on and it is not strange when civilization became an encroachment upon his hunting grounds that he should move before it. He could locate a bee tree, too, if there was one in the woods and could tell days in advance when the first flocks of young teal would come down from the North.
Remington's wife died shortly after he moved to Kansas and later he married a Chickasaw Indian woman, who also died. Remington is still living in Oklahoma and has married for the third time.
CHAPTER VI
MILITARY HISTORY OF BLACK HAWK COUNTY
The County of Black Hawk is justly proud of the part played by her sons in the great drama of the '6os. Enshrined in the hearts of the people, these men who resolutely faced the terrors of the South, risking life, home, health, and everything that was dear to them in order that the Union might be preserved, truly deserve more than a few scattering words to their memory. It is true that monuments may be erected, the deeds of the brave sung in immortal verse and ennobled in the national literature, but yet the true memorial, the sanctity of the heart will enfold, and by word of mouth from generation to generation will the courage, fortitude, and sublime self-sacrifice of the "boys in blue" be transmitted in enduring form. History has a purpose; it is to preserve, fairly and justly, the records of the past, so that a guide may be rendered to the thoughts and con- ceptions of future men and women who live when these white pages have grown sear and yellow with age. Simple statement of fact is far better than fulsome narration of the big story of fifty years ago; it is by these direct, forceful means that history will serve its true purpose.
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