History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 13

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 574

USA > Iowa > Buchanan County > History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 13

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the prairie toward Thomas Barr's, and up Otter creek, but so faint as to be scarcely discernible. There was neither road nor track up the river, except an Indian trail ; and not even that across the prairie to the west, nor to the east beyond the timber, nor out toward Bran- don or Buffalo Grove. To venture two miles west on the prairie, was about as dangerous as to venture to sea, out of sight of land, without a compass. The mail was carried once a week to Cedar Falls, on an Indian pony. But there were no marks of any kind to guide the car- rier; and if, by careful observation, he kept within a mile of the direct course, it was quite a feat of prairie craft. The mail came once a week from Dubnque to Indepen- dence, via Quasqueton, in a one-horse wagon; but there was not a bridge in the county, nor across any stream between Independence and Dubuque, nor any regular ferry. If streams were too deep to be forded, they must be crossed in canoes, or by swimming, or upon rafts. Such were the means and methods of intercommunica- tion between the different parts of the county, as late as 1849.

Several county roads, however, had been regularly surveyed and established, and travel in their several di- rections was becoming chiefly confined to them. At their very first meeting, October 1, 1847, the county commissioners had received and granted three petitions for the establishment of as many different roads within the county. The first was for a road from Independence east to the county line, in the direction of Coffin's Grove, Rufus B. Clark, James Collier, and John Boon were ap- pointed viewers of the same, to meet on the first Mon- day in November. The second was for a road from In- dependence to intersect the State road from Marion to Fort Atkinson-John Obenchain, Edward Brewer, and Elijah Beardsley being appointed viewers, to meet on the date last mentioned. And the third was for a road from Quasqueton to Independence, on the west side of the Wapsipinicon river-the viewers, Rufus B. Clark, Levi Billings, and John Cordell, being also directed to meet on the first Monday in November.

At the same meeting it was "ordered to employ a sur- veyor to do the surveying on the above roads, and to lay off a town at the county seat." And at their next meet- ing, November 3, F. J. Rigand was appointed county surveyor.

The next petition for a road was presented and granted at a meeting of the commissioners, April 10, 1848, the route being from Quasqueton to Otter Creek settlement. The viewers appointed were James Collier, B. D. Springer, and John Obenchain, who were ordered to meet at Quasqueton, on Monday, May 1, 1848.

From that time down to the present, the laying out of new roads has occupied much of the time of the county commissioners, and, after them, of the supervisors; so that now, roads have been established on a large majori- ty of the section lines-besides a great many that do not follow those lines. Some of these are kept in very good condition the year round. Others, in the rainy seasons, and at the breaking up of winters, are still well-nigh im- passable.

HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY, IOWA.

The happy era of good roads has not yet dawned up- on the county-an era which abundant gravelbeds and outcropping ledges of friable limestone are waiting im- patiently to usher in. Let us hope that it will not much longer be delayed.

CHAPTER VI. EARLY COMMERCE.

THE beginnings of commerce in a rural district, newly settled, are usually marked by much rudeness and sim- plicity. The pioneer merchant has not the capital or the credit which would enable him to import a large, diversified, and elegant stock of goods; and his custom- ers are too few and poor to purchase them, if he had. Groceries, embracing only the commonest necessaries of life (among which pioneers too often reckon a supply of whiskey) take the lead ; and dry goods, drugs, and hard- ware follow as settlements increase-for money begins to come in with the later settlers. There cannot be exten- sive imports without exports to counterbalance them; and for the first few years, pioneers have little or nothing to export.

The beginnings of commercial enterprise in Buchanan county were no exception to the general rule. At first there was no attempt to separate, as now, the different classes of commodities; since no one class could com- mand sufficient custom to support a separate dealer. It was, therefore, not unusual to find even hardware and drugs associated with the inseparable "dry goods and groceries." The earliest dealers purchased their supplies in Dubuque. Later, trips were made to Chicago and New York for the purpose of making purchases. Some bought their goods in St. Louis, from which place they came to Dubuque by the river. From Dubuque they were hauled to this county in wagons. The merchants themselves often kept one or more teams, which were constantly employed in hauling their own goods. The independent teamsters, however, constituted quite a large class of laboring men.

The round trip from Quasqueton or Independence to Dubuque and back consumed an entire week. Most of the vehicles were covered two-horse wagons; though in bad weather, four horses were often attached to one wagon. The teamsters always went in companies, not only for the sake of mutual assistance in case of necessity, but because there were so many of them that they could not well go otherwise. When it is borne in mind that before the railroad was built the population of Buchanan county had reached seven or eight thousand, that Delaware and Dubuque counties, between here and the city were still more populous, that several other counties west of here were rapidly filling up, and that the supplies for all these people-largely the lumber for their dwellings, and their household goods and furniture, as well as their groceries

and dry goods, were hauled over the same wagon route; when all this is borne in mind, it will not be difficult to fancy the number of men and teams and wagons that must have been employed in this extensive carrying trade. And no one will regard as extravagant the com- mon statement that the lines of canvass-covered vehicles often looked like the supply trains of an army.

For a long time most of the wagons went to Dubuque empty, since there were no manufactures to ship to the east, and the surplus products of the farms were either consumed here or shipped to the settlers further west. For a few years, however, before the railroad was built, flour from the mill at Independence (and perhaps also from the one in Quasqueton) and corn, wheat and pork from the farms began to be sent to Dubuque in wagons, but never in large quantities.

The usual price for freight was one dollar per hundred weight. This, of itself, made the cost of heavy com- modities very high. The freight on a barrel of salt was three dollars; and the price of the article (including freight) six or seven dollars. The best salt, as at present, (and in fact, almost the entire supply) was brought from Syracuse, New York-one of the principal salt centres of the world.

Financial matters were managed quite differently then from what they now are. There being no banks to fur- nish exchange, large sums of money were sent east whenever goods were to be paid for. Dealers, paying for their supplies in Dubuque, would often send money by teamsters. And when they went to New York or other eastern cities to make purchases, large sums were taken with them-not to pay for the goods then pur- chased, but to settle former accounts, For goods were purchased upon four or six months' credit, instead of thirty days, as at present.

The first bank (not of issue, but only for deposit and exchange) was established in the old Brewer block on Main street by Beemis, Brewer & Roszell, about 1856. From that time remittances began to be made by mail; and merchants going east, began to take with them drafts instead of cash, or else leave their money on deposit, subject to check.

THE PERSONNEL OF BUCHANAN'S EARLY COMMERCE.

If men need not be ashamed to own, according to the teachings of Darwin and company, that they have been developed from the monkey, the present dignified race of Buchanan merchants need not blush to be informed that they have been developed, so to speak, from "Bill Dick," sometimes called William Richards for long, who opened the first store ever seen in the county, at Quasqueton, in 1843. His stock was not extensive, nor was his supply of the minor necessaries of life always abundant; but his barrel of whiskey, like the better barrel of the widow of Zare- phath, "failed not."

We need not regret that this peculiar variety of the genus merchant did not perpetuate itself. Unfortunately the barrel of whiskey still lasts, and seeks to maintain a respectable alliance with drugs; but it was, years ago, cast off as an unfit associate for dry goods, groceries or hard- ware.

HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY, IOWA.

D. S. Davis and S. V. Thompson were the first regular merchants in the county, commencing their successful career at Quasqueton about 1845- a couple of years he- fore the first beginnings at Independence.

The first merchant at the county-seat was Charles Cummings, who had his store in a log building near the lower end of main, just east of Chatham street. Wil- liam Brazleton came next, in a store on the corner where the First National bank now is. He put up the first building on the corner south of the bank, and there kept the first hotel of Independence, which was afterwards changed to the Montour House.

Among those who may properly be called pioneer mer- chants, the only ones (except R. R. Plane, to be mentioned further on) who are still engaged in mercantile business are the two brothers, A. H. and Orville Fonda, the former of whom has a news stand and variety store in the Hage- man building (Bulletin block), and the latter a dry goods and grocery store at the corner of Main and River streets, west of the bridge. Orville Fonda came from Janesville, Wisconsin, in 1853. He was for sometime engaged in the preparation of the buhr stones for the flouring mill, then in process of erection. A. H., the elder brother, came from the State of New York in 1854, and opened a store in a wooden building, on the same corner where the stone store of O. Fonda now stands. About 1856 the two brothers went into business together, at the same place. For some six years they were associated under the firm name of A. H, Fonda & Co.

In 1860 the old wooden building was moved east to the bank of the river, where Mr. Clark's building now is, and the present stone building was erected in its place. After this Orville was out of the business for some years ; but, in 1860, he bought out his brother, and has been doing business there by himself ever since.

Among the merchants who were in business in Inde- pendence when the Fonda brothers commenced, was James Forrester, who, in the spring of 1852, opened a general store (groceries, dry goods, hardware and drugs) in the place where the "wigwam" now stands. He still lives near the city limits, on Main street, east, where he has a fine farm and attractive residence.

E. B. and P. A. Older also had a store at this time, on Main, between Chatham and Walnut streets. They, too, are still living in town, but have retired from business.

R. R. Plane is the pioneer hardware merchant of the county, coming to Independence from Belvidere, Illi- nois, in 1854. He began in a small way on Main street, where Davis' meat market now is. He was there about ten years, then two years in the Wilcox block, then pur- chased a lot in front of Chatham street, on which he built a fine store. He was burnt out in 1874, and re- built on the same lot the store he now occupies. His business amounted to about eight thousand dollars the first year, last year about forty thousand, and has reached as high as seventy-five thousand dollars a year.

Mr. D. Smith, still living on the west side, commenced the hardware trade about a year after Mr. Plane, but he has been out of the business for several years.

The early commerce of the county embraces, besides

the mercantile interest, thus far mainly considered, the milling interest and the shipping of grain and live stock. The milling interest has from early times been largely represented by a single name-that of Samuel Sherwood. He came to the county in 1847, from Janesville, Wis- consin, with Stoughton and his co-pioneers. He had previously been engaged in the milling business, a mill- wright by trade, having served his apprenticeship under T. B. Hall, of Vermont. He came to Independence to put up a saw-mill for Mr. Stoughton. The saw-mill was built nearly upon the same ground where the present flouring-mill stands. Two years later another was built, a short distance lower down. These mills sawed a large amount of lumber, all of which, of course, was used in the immediate vicinity.

The first flouring-mill, the "old mill," as it is now called, was built at Independence in 1854. The name by which it was known in its own day and generation was "The New Haven mills"-New Haven being the name first given to that portion of the town west of the river. Previous to this the people of Independence had procured their flour mainly from Quasqueton, at which place a custom mill had been in operation for several years. The old mill, like the one at Quasqueton, did for the most part a custom business, though it did at differ- ent times ship considerable flour to the west, and occa- sionally a little to Dubuque. The mill built in 1854 did a fair business for about fifteen years, being owned dur- ing all that time by Sanford Clark and Samuel Sherwood, who then thought it advisable to pull down and build larger. The present fine structure of stone and brick was begun in the summer of 1868 and completed in two years. It was built and has always been owned by a stock company, the Hon. P. C. Wilcox, now deceased, being at first the principal stockholder. A few years ago the mill at Quasqueton (unfortunately burned last fall) was purchased by the Independence company, and the entire stock was increased to one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Of this, Mr. Sherwood is now the largest owner. The property has always been lucrative, realizing in one of its best years a net profit of eleven per cent. to the stockholders. During the existence of the old mill the supply of wheat was obtained entirely from this county. But since the failure of wheat here, their supplies have been obtained principally from Min- nesota, but largely also from Dakota, from which terri- tory the best wheat is now obtained. Their best market is Chicago, the next St. Louis, and after that New Orleans.

Thomas Scarcliff is probably the oldest representative of the grain trade in the county. He came through this part of the country, on a prospecting tour, in 1851. At that time he entered two hundred and forty acres in Washington township; one hundred and sixty acres adjoin- ing the original town plat of Independence, on the north, and now called Scarcliffs's second addition; the other eighty acres one half mile east. He came from England in 1847, spending two years in the State of New York, thence two years in Janesville, Wisconsin, from which place he joined the caravan of immigration to Buchanan county.

HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY, IOWA.

Having returned to Janesville, after locating his land he came again in the spring of 1852; but there was so much sickness (chiefly fever and ague) that he remained only ten days. The next year he came and spent the entire summer, but he did not locate himself here permanently till 1854.

In 1856 he began grain buying in a small way-his first operation being the purchase of five hundred bushels of oats in Linn county, which he sold here at a price ranging from ninety cents to a dollar a bushel. The very next year the price dropped down to about ten cents a bushel. During that year he made a nice little speculation on two hundred bushels of oats, purchased here at twelve cents a bushel; shipped by wagon to Earlville, then the terminus of the railroad; thence taken to Dubuque by rail, and thence by river to St. Louis, where they were sold at seventy-five cents a bushel Two years later (1859) when the rails were extended to this place, he had two thousand bushels of wheat, and as many of oats, ready for shipment by the first freight train east.

The wheat crop began to fail about seven years ago -- and for the past five, very little has been sowed. Yet, from the increased production of other kinds of grain (chiefly corn, oats and flax seed) the grain trade is now about as good as ever ; while the profits of agriculture, as a whole, from the more diversified pursuits upon which farmers have entered (especially in the raising of cattle, horses and hogs, and the manufacture of butter) have become greater than ever before. Mr. Scarcliff now ships about two thousand car-loads of corn per year; whereas, during the wheat years, corn was hardly taken into the account. He estimates the amount of corn now annually shipped from this place, at a hundred thousand bushels, that of oats two hundred. Flax seed began to be raised, on a large scale, about three years ago. The quantity shipped from here in 1879 is estimated at forty thousand bushels-in 1880, at one hundred thou- sand.

Mr. Scarcliff owns two warehouses, just east of the Illi- nois Central Railroad station-both of them taken down and brought here from the east, on the completion of the railroad to this point-one from Dyersville, and the other from Earlville. He thinks that, on the whole, thesc warehouses, though involving much greater amount of hand labor, have been more profitable, during the transi- tion through which the grain trade has passed, than an elevator "with all the modern improvements;" since they, easily adapting themselves to the fluctuations of the trade, have been kept constantly open and doing business; while the elevators, owing to the heavy expense involved in running them, have had to be shut up a good deal of the time. Encouraged, however, by the revival of business, he has recently purchased the elevator just west of the depot.

William P. Brown, entered into the grain trade here, about the same time with Mr. Scarcliff; and, like him, has been a very successful dealer. He owns a fine ele- vator next east of Mr. Scarcliff's warehouses.

The pioneer dealer in live stock, in this county is

E. Cobb, who came to Independence in 1853. from Illinois The first business he engaged in, after coming here, was hotel-keeping in the house which he built and still occu- pies, on Main street, west side, opposite the present public school building. He continued in that business about six years. Before quitting it, however, (that is to say, in the year 1857,) he embarked in the business of buying, feeding and selling cattle and hogs. His farm, which is now mostly in grass for pasturage and meadow, consists of nearly three hundred acres, adjoining the town on the west. His cattle barn is a comfortable and commo- dious building, forty-two feet wide by two hundred in length. At first he dealt about equally in hogs and cat- tle, but since about 1870 he has dealt in cattle mostly. He shipped the first car-load of cattle that was taken from here over the Illinois Central road, in 1859; and also over the Burlington road, in 1873. He transported no live hogs before the railroad was built, but many large droves of cattle were driven cast previous to that time, sometimes being taken across the river on the ice, and sometimes by ferry boat.

He has an effective and ingenious method of enrich- ing his meadows and cultivating the grass, by a process called "brushing," by which their productiveness is con- tinued year after year without re-seeding. One of his largest meadows has been constantly in grass for twenty- six years.

J. D. Myers, now living in Nebraska, was connected with Mr. Cobb in business for six or seven years, from about the year 1860.

William A. Jones is also a pioneer in the live stock trade in this county, commencing in that business about two years later than Mr. Cobb-that is to say, in the year 1859 -on the completion of the Dubuque & Sioux City rail- road. Like Mr. Cobb, he had been in the hotel business ; not, however, in this county, but Fayette. He came to Independence from the State of New York in 1855; was engaged for a few years in general merchandise, including lumber; then opened a hotel in Fayette, which he con- ducted for about two years more. Then he returned to Independence and engaged in the live stock business, which he has followed ever since. He was at first in partnership with the late P. C. Wilcox, who, we are told, "furnished the capital and shared the profits." These, however, for the first transaction, were "a total loss to the firm of about fifteen hundred dollars." But, on the whole, the partnership proved successful; continuing from 1859 to 1865, since which time Mr. Jones has carried on the business alone.

His first shipment was of hogs, late in the fall of 1859, about a thousand in number, filling thirteen cars. The weather turned suddenly cold about the time they reached Dubuque, and, in forty-eight hours, the river was frozen over with ice sufficiently thick to be safely crossed with teams. Over this natural bridge the whole herd of swine were driven, and, as it was very smooth and slippery, it had to be sprinkled with sand to enable the "porkers" to keep their perpendicular. At the close of his partnership with Mr. Wilcox, Mr. Jones had real- ized sufficient money to pay off, dollar for dollar, some

HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY, IOWA.

heavy debts incurred by previous losses, and to begin business on his own account "with just one hundred and fifty dollars in money."

He has dealt chiefly in hogs, but sometimes quite largely also in cattle. He commenced shipping the lat- ter in 1860, the number that year being only two hun- dred. The largest number since, in any one year, was about five thousand. The largest number of hogs shipped in one year was thirty thousand, in 1877. For the first twelve years his average business was about sev- enty-five thousand dollars annually; since then, about two hundred thousand a year.

A more full biographical sketch of Mr. Jones (as of some others mentioned in this chapter) will be given elsewhere, those facts only being given here which serve to illustrate the history of the early commerce of the county.

CHAPTER VII. HUNTING, TRAPPING AND FISHING.

BUCHANAN county constitutes a part of the great game region lying between the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers, whose plentiful supply of game, and fur animals, and fish, won for it, in early times, the sobriquet of "The Paradise of Hunters." Portions of this region may still claim the old title as their chief glory ; but Buchanan, perhaps not without some regret, has given it up-for a better.

THE GAME QUADRUPEDS,

(that is, the quadrupeds hunted for their flesh as well as for their skins) that were found here at the first advent of white men, were the elk, buffalo, bear, dear, rabbit, and squirrel. Of these all have disappeared, except the two last named, which, on account of their small size and their habits of self-concealment, will doubtless resist suc- cessfully all exterminating causes. The buffaloes had already become somewhat "few and far between" when the county was first settled, and the same is true of elks. They were, however, quite plenty no further away than Blackhawk county and throughout the northwestern por- tion of the State. It is reckoned only about fifteen years since the buffalo disappeared entirely from Iowa, and the elk followed but a little later.

Asa Blood, jr., shot a fine elk on what are now the cemetery grounds in Independence, on the second of October, 1848. Mr. Blood was the only male adult left in the settlement, all the others having gone off on an elk hunt, which he was prevented from joining by an attack of fever and ague. It would almost seem as if the animal referred to, out of poor compassion for the young hunter's privation, had come of its own accord to give him a chance for a little sport, in spite of "Old Shaky's" interdict. Be this as it may, when he heard that the animal had been scen in the neighborhood he shook off the shakes, seized his gun and went out in

pursuit. He had not been gone many minutes before he came across his game in the locality just mentioned, and succeeded in bringing it down. It was a doe, and weighed, when dressed, six hundred pounds. By the help of the boys who discovered it he managed to get it up to the village and distribute it among the few families which then constituted the population. The flesh of the elk is said to be a very savory meat, resembling the best two-year old beef.

It was during the same fall that Asa Blood, sr., pur- chased of the Quasqueton hunter, Rufus B. Clark, a herd consisting of seven buffalos and seven elks, for about five hundred dollars. Clark had captured them when calves two or three years before, some twenty or thirty miles west from here. His mode of operating was to go out in the early part of the season, when the calves were young, and on finding a herd, whether buffalos or elks, to follow them till the calves got tired and lagged behind, and then capture them with a lasso. He would take cows with him on which the calves were suckled till they were old enough to feed upon grass. After a few days they would follow the cows wherever they went, and so he would bring his captives home, where they soon became as tame as their foster mother. Mr. Blood drove his herd to Milwaukee and there put them upon exhibition. To drive them across the country it was necessary to lead in advance a couple of the cows with which they were familiar. While in Milwaukee they were fed upon malt from a still-house. This, although tolerably nutricious food, contained more or less alcohol which intoxicated them if they were permitted to eat too much of it. One of the Buffalo cows leaped upon a platform on which were standing several open barrels full of this food, and ate so much that she became furious, broke through the fence into the pen in which the elks were confined, and actually killed three of them before she could be got away. From Milwaukee they were taken to Racine and there exhibited four weeks. The avails of these exhibi- tions fully defrayed all expenses, and the animals were subsequently sold for one thousand one hundred dollars to a Mr. Officer who took them east. Arriving in Chi- cago at the time of some great political gathering, he slaughtered one of the buffalo cows, which was very fat, and gave a public dinner at which buffalo meat fried, stewed and roasted was one of the principal attractions. It is said that the sale of tickets to this entertainment amounted to more than enough to replace the eleven hundred dollars paid for the herd.

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History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 13

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902 Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers Number of Pages: 574

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 574