USA > Iowa > Butler County > History of Butler County, Iowa: a record of settlement., Volume 1 > Part 3
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The period of the Spanish government of Louisiana from 1769 to 1800 was one of stagnation rather than development. The only European inhabitants of the territory were of French origin and they resisted persistently the attempts of the Spanish governors to enforce the use of Spanish laws and language. Even after the close of the Revolution, Spain still held possession of the terri- tory on both sides of the Mississippi as far north as the thirty-first parallel. This enabled her to control the navigation of the river. As the only commercial outlet for the products of the Mississippi valley, its free navigation was a matter of vital importance to the settlers farther up the river. This question was one of the rocks upon which the infant republic so nearly went to wreck and ruin in those critical years following the cessation of hostilities. The apparent timidity of the Government of the United States and the constant intrigues of the Spaniards led finally to suggestions of secession on the part of the people of the upper valley. In the end wiser councils prevailed and after years of fruitless nego- tiation a treaty was concluded with Spain whereby the free navi- gation of the river was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States.
NAPOLEON AND THE TREATY OF ST. ILDEFONSO
The days of Spanish supremacy in Louisiana, however, were rapidly drawing to a close. Weakened by internal dissensions and foreign wars, disgraced by the profligacy of the queen and the imbecility of the king, the once proud Spanish monarchy was tottering to its fall. France, meanwhile, had emerged from the shadow of the great revolution and under the guiding genius of Napoleon was again the dominant world power. His boundless ambition looked forward to the reestablishment of the lost colo- nial empire of France in the new world. As a first step in the realization of this project, he compelled the weak king of Spain
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by a secret treaty agreed to at St. Ildefonso in 1800 to recede Louisiana to France upon the fulfillment of certain considera- tions to be performed by the French Republic. This agreement was publicly ratified in the following year by the treaty of Mad- rid and Louisiana became for the second time the possession of France.
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE
Before adequate provision could be made by Napoleon for the occupation and defense of his new possessions in North America, he was confronted by the armed strength of Europe in another great struggle for supremacy. In order to save Lou- isiana from falling into the hands of the English and at the same time to insure the neutrality of the United States and make it a formidable rival of England in the new world, Napoleon opened confidential negotiations with the American minister to France looking toward the transfer of the sovereignty over this territory. On the 30th of April, 1803, a treaty of purchase was concluded between the representatives of the United States and of Napo- leon, whereby for a consideration of $15,000,000, France relin- quished all her claims to territory lying west of the Mississippi and north of the Spanish possessions. Out of this vast domain, an empire in extent, embracing a greater area than all of the United States at that time east of the Mississippi river, fourteen states of the Union today have been carved either wholly or in part. And the proudest of these is our own State of Iowa.
"Our new possessions proved to be of greater value than all the territory conquered and held by Napoleon during his brilliant and unscrupulous wars of conquest in Europe and Africa. No such acquisition of valuable territory was ever before made peaceably by any nation in the world's history. The industrial, commercial, political and geographical importance of this region were colossal and inestimable. It rounded out our territorial possessions, opened up an inland water route to the sea, and at one step lifted the young republic into rank and power with the first nations of the earth."
GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORY
The first act of Congress providing for the government of the territory acquired in this manner was approved Oct. 31, 1803,
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and provided that all military, civil and judicial powers should be "vested in such persons and exercised in such manner as the President of the United States shall direct." This was followed in 1804 by an act dividing the territory into the Territory of Orleans and the District of Louisiana, the thirty-third parallel being the boundary line between these divisions. The District of Louisiana was temporarily placed under the control of the Governor and the judges of Indiana territory, which then com- prised all of the present states of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota. In 1805, Congress established a sepa- rate territorial form of government for this district, executive and judicial powers being vested in a Governor and three judges to be appointed by the President.
MISSOURI TERRITORY
Coincident with the admission of Orleans territory as the State of Louisiana in 1812, the name of the Territory of Louisiana was changed to Missouri territory and an additional department of government was established. This department comprised a territorial Legislature of two houses, a Council of nine members appointed by the President for terms of five years, and a House of Representatives with one representative for every 500 free white male inhabitants to be elected for terms of two years by the suffrage of all free white male taxpaying citizens. The power of absolute veto was vested in the Governor. Later, in 1816, Congress conceded to the citizens of the territory the right to elect the members of the Council. At the same time the area of the territory was reduced by the formation of Arkansas terri- tory. Throughout this and the following period, the capital of Missouri territory was St. Louis.
MICHIGAN TERRITORY
In 1821 by the terms of the famous Missouri Compromise, Missouri was admitted as a state with substantially its present boundaries. The remaining portion of the former territory of the same name was sparsely settled and for this reason and pos- sibly because public attention was so concentrated upon the prob- lem of the extension of slavery, now for the first time become a serious political question, no further provision was made for the
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government of the lands lying north of Missouri. It continued to be called Missouri territory but had no definite form of govern- ment until 1834 when the portion lying between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers as far north as the British possessions in Canada was joined to Michigan territory.
WISCONSIN TERRITORY
With this act, the separate history of Iowa under its present name may be considered to have begun, as from this time on the new district over which the authority of Michigan had been extended was known as the Iowa district. Events moved rapidly now toward the final formation of the state. In 1836, Wisconsin territory was set off from Michigan as a preliminary to the ad- mission of the latter as a state and the Iowa district became a part of the new territory. Two years later by an act of Congress approved June 12, 1838, Wisconsin territory was divided and the portion west of the Mississippi was given a separate terri- torial form of government under the name of Iowa territory. This in turn led in 1846 to the admission of Iowa as a state.
The act of Congress creating the Territory of Wisconsin in 1836 is significant in that it provided that the members of the legislative Council and the House of Representatives should be elected by popular vote, all free white male citizens having the right of suffrage without regard to property qualifications.
"Thus for the first time was the prerequisite of taxpaying omitted from the qualifications of voters in this territory. Hence also the first time the people of this territory elected their law- makers a property qualification to vote was not required. In no part of the country east of the western line of the State of Iowa, except in Iowa and Minnesota, has it been true that the people have always exercised the right of suffrage without the prepay- ment of some sort of tax."
IOWA TERRITORY
The first session of the Legislature of Wisconsin territory was held at Belmont, Wisconsin, in the winter of 1836. This assembly selected Madison as the permanent capital of the terri- tory but voted to meet for its next session at Burlington, Iowa, until the new capital city should be ready to accommodate them. Burlington continued to be the capital of Iowa territory after
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its creation by act of Congress in 1838 until the removal of the seat of government to Iowa City in 1841. The present capital, Des Moines, was selected by a commission appointed in accord- ance with an act passed in 1854. The final relocation of the capitol was completed in December, 1857, when the last load of material, "drawn by oxen upon a bobsled through wind, rain and snow" arrived at the new capitol in Des Moines.
ADMISSION OF IOWA AS A STATE
The Second Territorial Legislature which met in 1840, passed an act submitting to the people the question of the calling of a convention to form a constitution preliminary to the admission of the state. The proposition was defeated at the polls. A simi- lar act passed by the Fourth Territorial Legislature was also voted down. The Sixth Legislature passed an act to this effect which was ratified by the people and the first constitutional con- vention in Iowa met in 1844 and prepared a constitution which fixed the boundaries of the proposed state so as to include a large part of the present State of Minnesota. Congress in its enabling act of 1845 relating to the admission of Iowa changed these bound- aries by cutting off considerable portions on the north and west. Largely because of the action of Congress in this regard, this constitution was rejected by the people in the election which fol- lowed. After another unsuccessful attempt to secure the pas- sage of this constitution with the boundaries as they came from the convention, the matter was dropped until the meeting of the Eighth Legislature. This assembly passed an act calling for a convention which was carried by the people. The convention met in 1846 and prepared a constitution which determined the present boundaries of Iowa. This constitution was adopted by a vote of 9,492 for and 9,036 against. In December, 1846, the act of Congress admitting Iowa into the Union was approved by the President. An election had been held in October for state officers and members of the Legislature. The First General Assembly of Iowa met at Iowa City in November, 1846, and, after providing for the inauguration of the new state government. passed in January, 1847, an act accepting the proposition of Con- gress for the admission of Iowa. Thus was completed the final step by which Iowa became a member of the sisterhood of states of the American Union.
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CHAPTER IV HISTORICAL-STATE AND COUNTY
FIRST SETTLEMENT
The various changes of sovereignty and forms of government that have been enumerated in the previous chapter are significant as matters of history only. Previous to 1832 there were no per- manent white settlements within the present limits of Iowa. A few white men had settled at widely separated points and had dwelt there among the Indians. The first of these and the man to whom is accorded the honor of being the first white settler in the state was Julien Dubuque, an educated and accomplished French-Canadian, who settled at a point near the site of the city which now bears his name. Dubuque, having heard that lead had been discovered along the upper Mississippi came west for the purpose of developing this natural resource if possible. Gaining the confidence of the Fox Indians who occupied what is now the northeastern portion of Iowa, he persuaded them to grant to him the exclusive privilege of lead mining on a considerable tract of land along the west bank of the Mississippi. This grant is dated Sept. 22, 1788.
JULIEN DUBUQUE
Dubuque brought a sufficient number of assistants from Canada to enable him to develop the mines which he had dis- covered. He erected a smelter, built houses for his men and opened a trading store for the exchange of goods and trinkets for furs from the Indians. He soon became the most influential trader in the upper valley, making semi-annual trips to St. Louis with his boat loads of ore, furs and hides. The right of Dubuque to the land granted him by the Indians as well as his right to trade with them was confirmed by the Spanish government in
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1796. Dubuque and his little colony continued to occupy. these lands and to carry on his industries until the death of the founder in 1810. Shortly thereafter trouble broke out between the white successors of Dubuque and the Indians as a result of which the whites were expelled from the territory and the Indians reas- sumed possession. They erased every vestige of civilization on the site of the former settlement and revoked or denied the grant.
This became the cause of one of the most famous of the early cases of litigation in Iowa. Claimants and heirs of the Dubuque interests attempted through the United States courts to regain possession of the lost mines. In the end, however, the courts held that both the Indian and Spanish grants to Dubuque had been in the nature of leases and that no permanent title to the land involved could arise therefrom.
TREATIES OF PURCHASE AND CESSION
From the death of Dubuque to the close of the Black Hawk war, no white settlements were attempted in Iowa. The period is marked by the conclusion of a number of treaties with the Indian inhabitants of Iowa by which they were gradually induced to relinquish their claims to the lands which from time immemorial they and their ancestors had held as their own. The first of these treaties was concluded between Gen. William Henry Harrison and representatives of the Sac and Fox Indians whereby these tribes agreed to cede all their lands east of the Mississippi to the United States. The United States in turn agreed not to molest the Indians in their enjoyment of their remaining terri- tory nor to allow anyone else to do so. In strict violation of the terms of this treaty, in 1808 a fort was built on the west side of the Mississippi which was named Fort Madison and stood near the present site of the city of the same name. In the War of 1812 the Sacs and Foxes took sides with the British and compelled the garrison of Fort Madison to abandon and destroy it.
At the close of the War of 1815, treaties of peace and amity were concluded with these tribes and others occupying Iowa ter- ritory. In 1824 another treaty was concluded with the Sac and Fox tribes by which the Indian title to all lands in Missouri and in what was known as the "Half-breed Tract" in southeastern Iowa was extinguished. A year later Commissioners Clark and Cass secured an agreement between the Sioux tribes on the one
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hand and the Sacs and Foxes on the other whereby the lands in Iowa were divided between them, the Sioux agreeing to remain to the north and the Sacs and Foxes to the south of an imaginary line dividing the state from east to west. A portion of this line passed through Franklin, Cerro Gordo and Floyd counties, just a little above the northwest corner of Butler county.
"THE NEUTRAL STRIP"
This line, however, failed to restrain the hostile tendencies of the warring tribes and in 1830, the Sioux ceded a strip of land twenty miles in width extending from the Mississippi to the Des Moines river and adjoining the treaty line of 1825 on the north. At the same time a similar cession of a strip of land of the same width and length adjoining the treaty line on the south was made by the Sacs and Foxes. These two cessions comprised what was thereafter known as the "Neutral Strip." By this act the title to the greater part of what is now Butler county passed to the United States. The southern boundary of the "Neutral Strip" passes through Butler county from east to west, entering on the east a little below the northeast corner of Shell Rock township and emerging on the west a little south of the northwest corner of Washington township.
FIRST PRICE OF BUTLER COUNTY LAND
In the same treaty, the Sacs and Foxes gave to the United States a large tract of land lying in the western part of the pres- ent state. The consideration paid to the Sioux and the Sac and Fox Indians for this vast cession of territory was $284,132. It is difficult to determine the exact extent of territory affected by this transfer but it contained approximately twenty thousand square miles. The first recorded purchase price of Butler county land may therefore be considered to have been only slightly in excess of two cents an acre. .
THE BLACK HAWK PURCHASES
The defeat of the Indians under the noted chieftain, Black Hawk, in the war called by his name resulted in the cession in
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1832 of a tract about fifty miles in width extending along the western side of the Mississippi from the "Neutral Strip" to Missouri. This was supplemented in 1836 by the "Second Pur- chase" to the west of this tract. These two purchases opened the eastern part of state to settlement. Immigration spread rap- idly over the territory thus acquired. The Indians attempted for a time to retain their hold upon what was left of their original territory in Iowa. As always it was a forlorn hope, but it was not until 1842 that the Sacs and Foxes ceded to the United States all their remaining lands east of the Missouri. This cession included the southern portion of Butler county not covered by the "Neutral Strip." The purchase price of this land was approxi- mately ten cents an acre.
The remaining rights to land in the state were secured when in 1846 the Winnebagos, who by previous agreement had been set- tled upon that portion of the "Neutral Strip" to the east of the Shell Rock river in its course through Floyd and Butler counties, ceded their interest in the "Neutral Strip" and when finally the Sioux in 1851 gave title to the land which they still claimed in the northern portion of the state.
THE FIRST COUNTIES
The rapid increase of population in the new lands acquired as a result of the Black Hawk war necessitated some provision for the establishment of local governments. To meet this need, in 1834 the Sixth Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Michigan, of which, as has been explained above, Iowa was then a part, divided the Iowa district into two counties by running a line due west from the lower end of Rock Island. The county to the north of this line was named Dubuque county and that south Des Moines county.
BUCHANAN AND FAYETTE COUNTIES
In 1837 during the second session of the First Territorial Legislative Assembly of Wisconsin, an act was passed dividing Dubuque county into thirteen counties, eight of which were then given the same boundaries as now. The territory now comprised within the limits of Butler county was by this act divided between Fayette and Buchanan counties. Buchanan county under this act
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contained all of the original portion of Dubuque county lying directly west of Delaware county and extending to the Missouri river. This included what is now the southern tier of townships of Butler county. Fayette county, as originally established, was the largest county in the United States. It extended west from Clayton county to the extreme limits of the territory and north from Buchanan county to the British possessions, comprising within its boundaries most of what was afterward divided into twenty-eight counties of Iowa, all of the State of Minnesota west of the Mississippi river and all of the Dakotas east of the Mis- souri and White Earth rivers. It covered an area of 140,000 square miles, nearly three times the size of the State of Iowa.
The boundaries of Fayette county were later reduced within the limits of the State of Iowa but no further changes in form or organization were effected until 1851 when, during the session of the Third General Assembly of Iowa, forty-nine new counties were established. Among the forty-nine were Butler county and all of the counties surrounding it except Blackhawk which had been previously established by act of the Territorial Legislature in 1843.
BUTLER COUNTY
For some time after the date of the legislative act creating the county of Butler, the term remained a mere geographical expres- sion. The name Butler had no local significance but was selected by the legislative committee which prepared the bill providing for the organization of the forty-nine counties mentioned above. The Mexican war had closed but two years before this session of the Legislature and the names of its battlefields and military officers were fresh in the memories of the people. Of our neighboring counties. Hardin was named for Colonel Hardin of Illinois, who was killed in battle in the Mexican war, and Cerro Gordo for one of the famous battles fought by General Scott on his victorious march from Vera Cruz to the Mexican capital. Butler county was named in honor of Maj .- Gen. William O. Butler, another military hero of the Mexican war. General Butler commanded a division of the volunteer army in this war and achieved sufficient promi- nence to receive the nomination for the vice-presidency on the democratic ticket in the campaign of 1848. He has no other con- nection with the county's history and it is doubtful whether he
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was ever even aware of the honor that was in this way conferred upon him by the Legislature of Iowa.
The act of 1851 provided temporarily for the attachment of Butler county to Buchanan county for judicial purposes. By 1853 a sufficient number of settlements had been made in the county to warrant an attempt to organize a local government. Accordingly, Judge Roszell, of Buchanan county, in May, 1853, appointed a commission to locate a county seat for Butler county. Acting upon the instructions of the court the three gentlemen comprising this commission finally fixed upon a site in what is now Clarks- ville. This occurred about the 14th or 15th of May, 1853.
In August, 1853, Judge Roszell ordered an election to be held in Butler county for the choice of officers to provide for the organ- ization of the local government of the county. No records of this election have been preserved, but it is known that George W. Poisall was elected county judge. None of the county officers chosen at this election qualified. This first attempt to provide for the organization of the county, therefore, failed and the matter was for the time being abandoned.
Following this failure to organize a separate county govern- ment, in the same year, 1853, Butler county was detached from Buchanan county and attached to Blackhawk county for judicial purposes. In August, 1854, a second election for the choice of county officers was held under orders issued by Judge Knapp of Blackhawk county. As a result of this election, a full list of county officers was chosen, all of whom qualified except the county attorney. This office was filled by appointment and on the 2d of October, 1854, the permanent organization of the county govern- ment was effected and the separate corporate existence of Butler county became an accomplished fact.
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CHAPTER V
EARLY DAYS
Before passing on to a more or less detailed consideration of the development of the county, it may not be out of place to pause for a backward glance upon the conditions that surrounded the early settlers of this and the other counties of Iowa in the log cabin days. Here and there among us still there lingers a gray haired man or woman whose memory fondly turns back upon these days of long ago. We cannot hope to reconstruct for the young people of today the life of these early times with any degree of the vivid- ness that it has in the minds of these pioneers, but if we can in some measure indicate something of the toil and hardship, some- thing of the courage and determination that made it possible for Butler county to become what it is today we shall be content. And in so doing we shall hope to surround the lives of these honored representatives of a rapidly departing generation with a halo of love and respect and to make their journey down the sunset slopes of life a pleasant and a happy one.
The early settlements in Butler county were largely made up of men and women whose wealth consisted chiefly of youth, health, industrious habits and a determination to better their condition in life. They came from the eastern states, from the states of the Central West, from England, from Ireland, from Germany. They had little or nothing in common except the common experi- ence of having to struggle to accumulate anything of a surplus over bare subsistence and the earnest desire to leave to their children something other than an inheritance of the habit of industry. They saw in these unsettled Iowa prairies the possibilities of a great future. They were not deceived as to the price that they must pay to achieve this great ideal. They knew that it meant the severing of all the ties of kindred and association, that it meant stern privation, slavish toil and long slow waiting for the coming in later years of the advantages that their children were some day Vol. I-8
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