USA > Iowa > Buchanan County > History of Buchanan County, Iowa, and its people, Volume I > Part 73
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This club continued a few years and then died out.
BASEBALL
Baseball has always been more or less popular in the local eye. The first baseball club organized in Independence was on April 29, 1864, at the office of J. M. Weart, who was the leading spirit in the enterprise. Just what this organization accomplished on the diamond remains a guess. So many baseball organizations have existed in Independence that it would be utterly impossible to record all the glorious victories or the gloomy defeats which have periodically and temporarily exalted the devotees of the game with enthusiasm or submerged them in unmitigated despair.
Independence has been known to have six baseball teams at one time. The hospital had a league consisting of three teams, the Y. M. C. A. one, the high school one, and the clerks still another.
Independence talked baseball, thought it, dreamed it and literally devoured it; interest in the game has waxed and waned and now largely centers in the big league games.
Probably the best team that Independence ever boasted of was the one of which Tom Moore was captain and which won an almost unbroken series of vietories.
Among those who reaped fame on the diamond and acquired initial training and experience here were George Cobb, who played in one of the big California leagues for several years ; Al Wengert was made manager of the Austin, Minne- sota, Baseball Association after proving himself a brilliant catcher; Rolfe Chamberlain, who played in some of the big Texas leagues and in Mexico; Tom Moore gained an enviable baseball reputation as a pitcher; Earnest Bantz was phenomenal in the field as well as at the bat; Will Jayne was signed on a National League team and would have qualified but for a bad knee, and many others would have won fame had their inclination been to follow the game.
At different times Independence had a team of some consequence.
OFFICER DOXSIE SHOT
The ordinary quiet of our town at midnight was suddenly broken about 15 minutes to 1 o'clock on Sunday morning, October 24, 1897, by a pistol shot which was followed by a veritable fusillade, which did not cease until some twelve or fifteen shots had been fired. The streets were soon filled with excited citizens and in front of Stout & Woods's cigar store, on East Main Street, was found the inert form of P. M. Doxsie, the official night officer, profusely bleed- ing from a severe wound in the leg. The particulars of the affair were as follows :
Mr. Doxsie was making his regular nightly rounds and had gone up the alley between the W. H. Littell clothing store, what is now the Tidball Depart- ment Store and the Marble Works. The street lights were turned off, it was very dark, but he was able to see two indistinct forms at the south door seeking
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to obtain entrance. He called to the parties, demanding what they were doing and was answered by a revolver shot. Doxsie pulled his gun and the battle commeneed. lle carried a watchman's dark lantern, which made a mark for the burglars, while he had nothing to aim at but the flash from their revolvers, and the second shot struck him in the right leg below the knee, severing an artery. He fell to the ground but kept up the fight until his gun was emptied. When the misereant's revolver was emptied, they broke and ran from their hiding place and Doxsie managed to drag himself in front of the cigar store but could go no further. Marshal Higher was soon on the scene. The injured man was taken to his home on West Main Street, where he lingered until Tues- day afternoon and died.
Mr. Doxsie was a great favorite with the business men of Independence, who appreciated his close attention to duty and his well-known fearlessness. Through some misunderstanding or fearful negligence, the sheriff was not noti- fied for more than three hours after the shooting and in this time the criminals were allowed to escape. The town had been undergoing a siege of criminal depredations, scarcely a week passed but chronicled several burglaries commit- ted and there were supposed to be several gangs of thieves operating in the city. There were many vicious individuals in town who, if they were not the real erimmals, were innocent simply from lack of courage.
The city afterwards employed a detective from the Pinkerton agency to ferret out the crime, but his work was so crude that nothing resulted therefrom except the arrest of two local characters, who were discharged at the preliminary hearing from the lack of evidence. The supposition of those who gave the case most thought and consideration was that the crime was committed by a person who went by the name of lowa Fred. lowa Fred was arrested in Independence a few weeks before the murder for some misdemeanor and was fined $100. Hav- ing no means, he was sent to jail, but before the sentence expired a confederate of his appeared at the office of J. H. Williamson, justice of the peace, and paid the fine in order that Iowa Fred might be released. Mr. Williamson's office was up-stairs in the building in which the robbery was attempted at the time of the assault on Doxsie. He used one room, which he occupied for a sleep- ing room. The night just prior to the attempted robbery and assault on Doxsie he was awakened by some voices in the hall. He claimed that the voices wore familiar to him but he was unable to place them until he had pondered over the matter for a week or ten days, when he became convinced that they were the voices of lowa Fred and the confederate who paid his fine. Mr. William- son's supposition was that Iowa Fred and his confederate were examining the building with the view of ascertaining a meaus of escape should they be de- teeted in making the robbery and that was the reason for their being in the building the night he heard them talking. The detective who was sent here paid no attention to this information and the elue was never followed up. Iowa Fred was afterwards sent to the penitentiary in Anamosa for burglary in that city.
THE STEAMBOAT IOWA
On the 12th of April, 1898, was launched another craft whereby the people of Independence, who have always been advocates of the gay and festive life.
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might enjoy themselves. This was the launching of the steamboat Iowa. This was a relic of "auld dacency." which had seen years of service on the Cedar River, but nevertheless a steamboat on the Wapsie was a luxury which, though not of palace-like completeness, was greatly enjoyed for the several seasons it was in existence. It made regular trips up the river to the "Big Tree," and nearly every time carried a load of happy picnickers. In 1897 a corporation known as the Independenee Steamboat Company was organized, with Jaeoh Wackerbarth president, Albert Leytze treasurer, and Will Yeager as superin- tendent. The boat was purchased and thoroughly overhauled and for several seasons enjoyed great popularity, but one spring the high water carried it over the dam and totally demolished it.
COMPANY L GOES TO ST. LOUIS
In September. 1904, Maj. and Mrs. H. A. Allen and Capt. and Mrs. R. A. Campbell, in company with thirty-five men belonging to Company L, visited the St. Louis Exposition. A special car took them and at Cedar Rapids they mobilized with the companies from Charles City, Waterloo, and Vinton, being the four companies of the Fifty-third Regiment to go at this time. In Oe- tober the Fifty-fourth Regiment would be represented at the fair.
The companies were allowed railroad rates, were charged but one gate ad- mission of 50 cents, and the exposition company furnished them rations at the rate of 25 cents a meal, and quarters within the grounds were provided at no expense to the company. For all these benefactions they were to appear on dress parade every evening for less than an hour and no further drills were required during their stay. After a ten days' outing they returned home, enthusiastie over their fine time and the generous hospitality accorded them by the fair association.
Company L, which since its organization had always ranked high in the regiment in drill and at the rifle practice shoots, was more than surprised and delighted when in April, 1905, after inspection of the company at the armory on March 20th, by Maj. John R. Prime, inspector general, Maj. F. E. Lyman, assistant inspector, and Maj. J. W. Ohinstead, the official report was received that Company L had secured first honors, an average ranking of 93.2 per cent. The Governor Greys of Dubuque had ranked first almost without exception for many years and Independence felt justly proud of this first distinction of the kind ever won by an Independence company which reflected great eredit on the proficiency, untiring efforts and excellent discipline of Major Allen and Captain Campbell.
KING'S OPERA HOUSE
King's Opera House, situated on East Main Street, at the corner of Main and North streets, was the principal place of amusement for many years, but long since was turned into a mercantile establishment. It was built by Charles King in 1876 at a eost of $9,500.
'At the time it was built it was considered one of the finest opera houses in this part of the state. It is 125 feet long, 56 feet wide, and the stage was
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24x53 feet, was furnished with gas footlights and suitable drop eurtains, wings and backgrounds for ordinary entertainments. The gallery at the front of the building was 22 feet deep, under it was the entrance and ticket office. The building seated about eight hundred persons.
After the building of the Gedney Opera House, King's fell into disuse for this purpose and for several years was used for various purposes. For some years the Y. M. C. A. and Company E, National Guards, occupied it as their headquarters, and after that it was ocenpied by the Iowa Wholesale Grocery Company and for the past two or three years by the People's Supply Company.
THE GEDNEY HOTEL
In March, 1892, Mr. C. W. Williams purchased of J. S. Woodward the property on the corner of Chatham and Mott streets, a half block north of Main Street, and then occupied by the Fifield Lumber Yard, and paying there- fore the sum of $10,000. Upon this site, the area of which is 154 by 160 feet, he proposed to erect a large and elegant hotel and opera house combined. G. W. Sunderland, a Chicago architect, was employed to draw the plans. The work on the structure was immediately begun and a double force of hands worked day and night for the purpose of having the building ready for occupancy by the time of the August races. The building when finished, exclusive of the site, cost not less than fifty thousand dollars. The hotel fronts on Chatham and Mott streets, is three stories in height and built of pressed brick. The hotel when finished was considered the most elegant, roomy and completely equipped hotel in the state, in a town of the size of Independence, and the opera house was of like eharaeter, spacious enough for any probable emergency and in every detail of excellent quality and was considered the most beautiful, if not the largest, in the state.
At the time of building, the hotel was the finest and most complete in its appointments of any to be found in any town of this size in the United States. The interior decorations were the best that money could buy and Mr. Williams spared no effort to secure the latest conveniences.
The flooring of the office was handsome tile and in the dining room was a floor of the same material, with a fine ornamental grate, this latter room being of hunting lodge style. The parlors were on the second floor immediately above the office. They were finished in mahogany, carpeted with Axminster and fur- nished in the most elaborate style. The main chandelier in the ladies' parlor cost $175. Among the specifications for furniture are a number of chairs at $18 each, a settee at $100, four mahogany sets for the best suite of rooms and bird's-eye maple bedroom set for the bridal chamber. The rates for the bridal chamber were $10 a day. There were 100 hair mattresses purchased at $10 each. There were seventy-three guest rooms. The suites of rooms are carpeted with Axminster and Wilton and the other rooms with Brussels. Five of the suites have bath connections. Besides this there are three general bath rooms.
At one time all of the rooms had hot and cold water and were heated with steam.
The Gedney Hotel received its first guests on Sunday, August 21, 1892. The first name enrolled on the register was that of J. L. MeCarthy, the starting
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THE GEDNEY HOTEL Erected in 1892
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judge of the races. Three cooks were brought from Chicago to take charge of the kitchen. J. W. Gardner was the first elerk, assisted by Ed H. Semple. A large number of guests were entertained at this opening. The festivities ended with a banquet in the evening.
THE GEDNEY OPERA HOUSE
The Gedney Opera House, located in the Gedney, was considered one of the best of its size in the country. Its seating capacity was 825. There were four boxes and two loggia, parquet, a balcony and gallery making up the sam total of floors. The height from the orchestra floor to the ceiling is sixty-six feet.
The drop curtain was one of the finest in the country, representing a land- seape entitled " Apple Blossoms." The interior was finished in delicate tints, the ceiling being an especially fine piece of decorative work and the parquet, and balcony are furnished with elegant opera chairs and the gallery is fitted with benches.
On Tuesday evening, August 23, 1892, occurred the opening of Mr. Wil- liams's new opera house. This was an occasion for the gathering of the most brilliant assemblage of the history of Independence. The boxes, parquet and balcony were decorated profusely with flowers and banners.
At 8:30 Judge Toman opened the dedieatory prologue with brief remarks to introduce Charles E. Ransier, who gave the address. Judge Toman next introduced Mr. Stephen Tabor, who recited a dedicatory ode.
After the speaking the orchestra played overtures and then the Andrews Opera Company presented "Fra Diavolo." Miss Roe was the leading lady. Ed Andrews took the comedy part and George Andrews played the heavy.
The scenery was handled under the direction of Mr. Toomey, of St. Louis.
OPENING OF THE ST. JAMES HOTEL
Some of the leading citizens of Independence, deeming the opening of the new St. James Hotel a fitting occasion for an evening of festivities which also should partake of the character of a welcome and benefit to the proprietors, Messrs. Pettengill & Company, called a meeting accordingly to make prepa- rations.
The features of the occasion were a banquet given by the new proprietors, a dance at one of the public halls, music by the Manchester Band, and other amusements of a social character suited to the tastes of those who did not dance, and invitations were extended to parties from a distance and a large erowd and agreeable time proved the affair to be a great success.
THE FOOTLIGHTS
Mr. and Mrs. M. Gibney, with the Hoeffler Dramatic Company which often appeared in Independence, were both formerly residents of Independence. Mr. Gibney was an elocutionist and actor, eame to Independence in 1881 to put on the Merchant of Venice with the aid of local talent. Vol. I-38
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Mrs. Gibney, then Miss Nellie Wilkins, was selected for the part of Portia, and the acquaintance thus formed resulted in their marriage the following year. Both were very successful in their chosen professions and created a most favorable impression when they visited here with the Jack Hoeffler Com- pany during fair week in 1904. In 1905 word was received that she had died very suddenly of apoplexy after her splendid portrayal of Camille. Mrs. Gib- ney had a sister who was an actress of some note. Karolyn Kenyon is another actress of note who was formerly a resident of Independence, traveled as leading lady with Clay Clement, afterwards as second lady to Grace George, and re- cently starred with Robert Hilliard.
TIJE CARDIFF GIANT
Among other things for which this city was noted, and one that was par- tieularly interesting to the older inhabitants, was the Cardiff Giant which was peacefully interred in this city for over twenty years.
Not only was this a giant stone man, but it was also a giant fraud of its day and its conception was the fraud of a genius that received a liberal com- pensation for its cunning. Geologists and students have delved for years in the bowels of the earth in quest of the borrowed secrets of ages and their work has done much to reveal to us the history of the past and of the creatures who inhabited the earth at the time that history begins. Fully appreciating the gullibility of these searchers for antediluvian pointers and marble cutter, whose home was in Lockport, New York, came West to view a great gypsum deposit discovered at Fort Dodge. The massive pieces that could safely be handled gave the marble cutter an idea. lle conceived the idea of carving a giant man from an enormous piece of gypsum and then work the susceptible geologists and the ever willing public. Accordingly, he selected a rock perhaps sixteen feet long, two feet thiek, and four feet wide, loaded it onto a car and shipped it from Fort Dodge, lowa, to his brother's farm near Lockport. After letting his brother into his schemes, together they built a shed and placed the rock in it and for days and weeks and months, under lock and key, the marble cutter carved and chiseled and worked with the will born of genius and determination.
In the course of time the huge roek was transformed into a perfect man, but a monster in size, and to all appearances he had died a peaceful and natural death and his gigantie and noble physique had been preserved by the laws of petrufaction. Fifteen feet beneath the surface of the earth, under the shed, he was buried and all marks of the artist's work were removed. The shed was torn down and the giant's grave seeded.
At the expiration of three years, the farmer brother eame to the conclusion that he wanted a well dug on the spot where the giant reposed. After digging down the fifteen feet, the petrified man was exposed. It required some labor to clear away the dirt from the colossal heap of this ancient giant, but it was a profitable expenditure of labor. The farmer built a Fence around the spot and sent to Philadelphia for his brother, opened up an exhibition charging 50 cents admission and without raising the giant from his grave, they reaped a financial harvest that went way beyond their most sanguine expectation.
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Such an exeitement did the exhuming of this Cardiff Giant create that P. T. Barnum, then running his great museum in New York City, went to Lockport to see him and before he returned purchased the giant for $20,000, arranged for its removal to his New York establishment where for a long period it was kept on exhibition and viewed by the most noted scientists, statesmen, military men and scholars of the country. P. A. Older, the Independence man, took the first P. T. Barnum Circus on the road. He also took the giant but its ponderous weight proved difficult to handle, although its popularity had not decreased.
The following winter, 1872, Older had a papier-mache cast made of the giant and he was left here in Independence where for over twenty years he has not seen the light of day.
Even now this great frand, for it was nothing less, would be a curiosity, and a great one, for the simple reason that it was in its day the gigantic fraud of all frauds and a great many people would like to see the humbug that P. T. Barnum claimed was one of his most successful humbugs.
CHAPTER XXXII REMINISCENCES
THE PIONEER LIFE-INTERESTING NOTES
In a book published and written by A. C. Fulton in 1898, called "A Life's Voyage," and depicting in a peculiar and unique style his life as a sailor on sea and land, jotted down during a seventy-years' voyage, is a somewhat different version of the early settlers.
Mr. Fulton was a man of extensive travel and wide experience, having en- gaged in numerous occupations and enterprises both on sea and land, having been a sailor on board numerons trading vessels and a rover on the high seas. Later he became very prominent in the pioneer life of Davenport and vicinity and in the early political life of the state, being elected as state senator from Scott County in the early '50s. After traveling pretty much all over the West- ern Hemisphere by water. he concluded to drop anchor and try the prairie schooners a while. He came up the river from New Orleans with an immense stock of merchandise which he landed at Davenport and opened up a general store.
He had been on the frontier just two weeks when a petty little adventurer, a genuine speeimen of the frontier stripe, called on Mr. Fulton. He said his name was Lambert, that he was born and reared in the big potash timber region of Northern New York, that he had purchased from William Bennett a half interest in a valuable water-power claim on the falls of the Wapsipinicon River, in Buchanan County, and they desired to get an advance in goods and money on the prospective water and land (when the land came into market) or they would sell half interest to someone to aid them. Mr. Bennett had no money but had a bunch of cattle that would bring money at the end of the grass season. Lambert had a little money and had been to Dubuque to get aid but failed. He thought the property possessed great value. Bennett had named the coming city Quasqueton. On his word, without writings, or security, Mr. Fulton furnished Bennett and Lambert $240 in building material, hard- ware, and other goods, also ordered from St. Louis bolting cloths and machinery for the prospective mill. Two hundred and forty dollars was considered a large sum in those days. At that time the word of a sailor or frontiersman was good for all he possessed, at least, and Mr. Lambert gave his word that Fulton should be half owner in the Buchanan County Water Power and Land Company, or get his money back if he would furnish the sum necessary to develop the water power and to make the land purchase.
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On July 28, 1842, he visited Buchanan County and found the population to number nine persons, six of whom lived in Bennett's log house. On August 5th, of the same year, the census taken by Mr. Bennett gave the population as fifteen persons, an astonishing increase. Some forty acres had been broken and cultivated, some sod corn, oats, potatoes, and garden vegetables planted and looked remarkably well for a raw sward crop. In October, 1842, Bennett and Fulton visited the present site of Independence. They already possessed the splendid location at Qnasqueton, but they desired all they could get and would have taken legal possession of these upper falls but upon reconnoitering the surroundings they discovered on the west side of the Indian line of 1837, and even then the smoke of the Indian campfires of the good and peaceable Sac and Fox could be seen eurling above the tree tops from their camps on the west bank of the river. At Quasqueton they erected a warehouse and a blacksmith shop and a dam made of logs, brush, stone and earth, and were the proud pos- sessors of a splendid water power and unsurpassed site for a vast, unbounded city in the center of an expansive district, a healthy location unsurpassed for its fertility, and they had every hope of being the founders of the metropolis of the Great West.
Mr. Fulton claims that the first death of a white person in Bnehanan County was when Oscar Day, a young workman on the mill, was shot by a man called Big Bill. Day had taken up a claim of 160 acres of splendid prairie land within a mile of Quasqueton and had erected a one-room log house on his land.
Mr. Day went for a few days' visit with his fiancee, she who was to be the mistress of his domicile when completed, living near Dubuque. When he returned a man from the Michigan woods, called Big Bill, a noted claim jumper, with his man "Friday," had taken possession of his house, and had put a prairie grass roof on his unfinished stable for their horses. When Mr. Day approached his house, they ordered him to make tracks or suffer the consequences, and he saw that they had knocked out some of the chunking from between the logs to make loopholes to fire through and had virtually made a fort of his house, in which two men could easily shoot down a dozen assailants. Mr. Day was not one who would tamely submit to such a wrong. His em- ployers advised no hasty action and risk of life and promised to help him gain possession of his property. They had planned to build a breast-works on their home-made log wagon and run it close up to Big Bill's fort the first dark night and take the fort by strategy, but to this Oscar protested, thinking such ma- nenvers would be a lasting disgrace. He believed that this was a question of honor that could only be settled by the etiquette of the gun, so time and again he reconnoitered near his home ; at length he saw Big Bill at a distance from his stolen quarters, endeavoring to get a shot at a large elk (well known as the lone elk of Buchanan County). This big elk was the last of his race, and had been pursued and shot at by dozens of both whites and Indians for months. Day waited and watched for Big Bill's return from the fruitless chase, and hailed him with the question if he would surrender the house immediately. ITis defiant reply was, "No, never! I have that claim for sale." Both instantly raised their rifles and fired. Poor Day fell shot through the heart. The whole proceeding was witnessed by a citizen of Quasqueton who was on his way to
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