USA > Iowa > Butler County > History of Butler County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 17
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streams to fill and overflow their banks. The bottoms were cov- ered with water. Suddenly, the weather changed to bitter cold and it began to freeze. The Reverend Hall and Elder Lee started for home behind a pair of colts, which, breaking through the ice, became unmanageable. Fearing for their lives and safety of the horses, the good men of the church were reluctantly persuaded by the situation to get out into the water, and make back to the cheery home of their host. Upon entering my sitting room the men presented a sorry appearance and were almost frozen. I at once supplied Elder Lee with dry clothes, but the clergyman would have none of them, preferring to sit by the hot stove and let them dry on his body. The Dumonts came over to my house before the night was over, and it seems the minister and the elder vied with each other to see who could best tell the story of their mishap to my callers.
There was no village or town in Butler county in 1867, the year of my arrival. S. B. Dumont lived on the hill at the end of the street going north, and had been there about three or four years. His son, Dr. T. A. Dumont, now a druggist in Dumont, was then fourteen years of age. When the town was incorporated I think there were about two hundred inhabitants. I lived on section 27, just east of town, sixteen years, and then moved on section 29, inside the corporation limits. The founder of the town, S. B. Dumont, has been gone to his reward a number of years; his good wife preceded him to the grave some five or six years.
CHAPTER XVII
TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION
After the organization of the county no steps were immedi- ately taken for its division into townships. As the number of settlers in various parts of the county increased it became evi- dent that some further provision must be made for local sub- division of government. Accordingly, on Feb. 6, 1855, County Judge John Paber made the following division of the county into four townships :
"The township of Butler, to consist of congressional town- ships 92 and 93, range 15, and township 92 and the east half of 93, range 16; the township of Coldwater, of congressional township 93, range 17, and the east half of township 93, range 16; the town- ship of Ripley, to consist of congressional townships 90, 91 and 92, range 17, and townships 90, 91, 92 and 93, range 18; the town- ship of Beaver, to consist of congressional townships 90 and 91. range 15, and townships 90 and 91, range 16."
By this division the four townships comprised territory now organized as follows:
Butler township then included all of Fremont, Butler and Jackson townships, and the cast half of Dayton. Coldwater included in addition to its present area, the west half of Dayton. Ripley township consisted of what are now the townships of Bennezette, Pittsford, Madison, Washington, Monroe, Ripley and West Point. Beaver township included Jefferson, Shell Rock and Albion, in addition to what is now known as Beaver town- ship.
On the 15th of February of the same year Lyman Norton was authorized by warrant to organize the township of Beaver. On February 26th, W. R. Jamison was appointed to organize Ripley township, and Aaron Hardman, Coldwater township.
On the 3d of March, 1856, the second division of the county into townships was made. By order of the county court seven
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townships were now formed as follows: Butler township, with the same boundaries as before; Coldwater township to constitute its present limits with the addition of what is now Bennezette town- ship and the west half of Dayton township ; West Point township to include with its present limits that of Pittsford as well: Ripley township was reduced to include only its present limits and what is now Madison township. Shell Rock township was formed and included Shell Rock and Jefferson. Beaver township was ent in half and the township of Monroe formed of the two congressional townships on the west, now Monroe and Washington.
There is no record of the persons appointed to organize these new townships. The names of the township officers elected at the first election held within the new limits prescribed by this order of the county court are given so far as they are able to be found in connection with the separate histories of the townships.
At the March term of the county court in 1857, A. Van Dorn, county judge, on the petition of George A. Richmond and other citizens of Shell Rock township, ordered that congressional town- ship 91 north, range 16 west, be separated from Shell Rock town- ship and organized as a judicial township under the name of Jef- ferson. George A. Richmond was commissioned to organize this township. At the same time on petition of Nathan Olmstead and other citizens of Beaver township, this township was divided and the township of Albion formed from its western half. Alonzo Ohnstead was authorized to organize the judicial township.
Bonnezette township was separated from Coldwater and given a separate organization in accordance with an order of the county court. dated March 14, 1858. At this time a warrant was issued to Samuel Overturf to call the first election in this township to be held on Monday, April 5. 1858, at the dwelling house of Samuel Overturf.
On the 11th of March, 1858, JJudge Converse authorized the organization of the township of Jackson, consisting of congres- sional township 92 north, range 16 west. A warrant was issued to E. D. Marquand directing him to call the first election in the township. April 5. 1858, at the dwelling house of John H. Van Dyke.
The organization of Pittsford township was ordered by the county comt on March 13, 1858, with its present boundaries. A. C. Needham was directed by warrant to call an election in the township for the 5th of April. 1858, at the home of Silas T. Need-
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ham, at which time the official organization of the township was to be completed. By this act West Point was reduced to its present limits and John Lash was ordered to call an election on the same date as above for the final organization of the township in its pres- ent form.
On the 5th day of September, 1859, the township of Fremont was organized by the county court of Butler county, comprising congressional township 93 north, range 15 west. This township had hitherto been attached to Butler. A warrant was issued to William R. Phillips to call the first election to be held at his house on the 11th of October.
No further change was made in the township organization until the September term of the county court in 1860. On the 3d day of September, 1860, W. H. Long presented a petition asking that congressional township No. 90 north, range 18 west, be organized into a township for eivil purposes. It was therefore ordered by the county court that this township be organized under the name of Washington, and William H. Long was directed to call the first election in this township on Tuesday, the 6th day of Novem- ber, 1860, at the home of R. R. Parriott, for the purpose of electing said county and township officers. On the same day C. Forney presented a petition asking that the township of Dayton be organ- ized with its present boundaries. C. Forney was directed by the county court to call the first election on Nov. 6, 1860, at the house of Richard Challew.
Madison township at the same time was set off from Ripley on petition of Peter Coyle and others and a warrant was issued to the said Coyle to eall the first election in the township, Novem- ber 1st, at the house of Jacob Yost. This completed the final organization of Butler county into sixteen townships with the present boundaries.
CHAPTER XVIII
ALBION TOWNSHIP AND PARKERSBURG
The civil township of Albion coincides in its limits with the congressional township numbered 90 north and range 16 west of the fifth principal meridian. It is in the southern tier of town- ships of the county contiguous to Grundy county on the south, Monroe township on the west, Jefferson on the north and Beaver on the east.
The major portion of the township is drained by Beaver creek which flows through it from west to east, traversing the south central portion. The west fork of the Cedar passes through a portion of section 1 near the northeast corner of the township. In an early day the Beaver was bordered by a belt of natural tim- ber of considerable width. Some of this still remains but the major portion was burned out and killed by a prairie fire, which has been mentioned in an earlier chapter.
The surface is somewhat more irregular and broken than that of the townships in the central part of the county and in some parts the soil has a larger proportion of sand in its make-up. However, the entire township is so constituted as to be capable of intensive cultivation. All the staple cereal crops are suecess- fully raised here, and dairying and the raising of both cattle and hogs and all the other incidental products of the farms are carried on with success and profit.
Two lines of railroad traverse the southern and southwestern portions of the township, the Illinois Central passing through it from west to east, and the Northwestern entering from the south in section 33 and turning westward through Parkersburg.
The Hawkeye Highway, a dragged road across Iowa from Dubuque to Sioux City passes through the township, entering along the line of the Illinois Central from the east and following this line of road to the section line between sections 27 and 34. From this point on, it follows the section lines until it reaches
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the limits of Parkersburg. This highway is in charge of a com- missioner known as the Hawkeye Highway Commissioner and owes its origin to the enthusiastic efforts of W. F. Parrott of the Waterloo Reporter, to secure a satisfactory automobile road through the state from east to west in northern Iowa.
The railroad crossing at the point where the Hawkeye High- way crosses the line of the Northwestern, about a half mile west of the Sinclair school, has achieved an unenviable notoriety, from the fact that within the limit of about six weeks in the summer of 1913, three persons were killed on this crossing. These deaths may in part, at least, be attributable to the fact that the approach of a railway train from the south is concealed by a cut and by cornfields on either side of the track. It is to be hoped that such tragic events as those occurring here in 1913 may not be further necessary to call the attention of the people and the legislators to the necessity of providing ample means for safeguarding the lives of people who traverse our country highways.
EARLY SETTLEMENT
The earliest settlers in Albion township pushed up along the valley of the Beaver, hence the date of its first settlement is later by several years than that of Beaver township to the east. In common with other sections of the county, there were a number of transient or nomadic inhabitants in the period, which, for the purposes of this history, may be termed pre-historie-carlier than 1850. No record has been or need be made of the sojourns of these persons, as they affected in no way whatsoever the sub- sequent history of the township or county.
The first man to locate in Albion township with the intention of making it his permanent home, was one Walter Clayton, who in the spring of 1853 staked out a claim on the southeast quarter of section 30, just east of the corporate limits of what is now the town of Parkersburg. Clayton came from Wisconsin, driving through with an ox team. After about three weeks travel he reached Butler county and finding a location to his liking, pro- ceeded to erect a log cabin thereon. Here he lived alone for six months, his family having remained behind him in Wisconsin. Not understanding the law governing the formal entry of land claims, he failed to comply with its provisions. In the mean- time, a man in Cedar Falls, named Thomas Mullarky, made for-
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mal entry of this land in the Government land office and notified Clayton that he would be compelled to surrender possession of the premises. He paid Clayton $150 for his cabin and the other improvements which he had made on the claim, and in April, 1854, Clayton moved on to the west and located in Monroe town- ship, where also he was the first settler. He will be noted in con- nection with the history of that township.
In the fall of 1853 Pireell S. Turner and his son Abel settled in Albion township, locating a claim on section 14. It is learned from the records of the land office that the elder Turner at least had made an earlier visit to this locality, for on the 22d of March, 1853, he made the first formal entry of land in Albion township, the entry being for a claim in section 14, upon which they located in the fall following. Pircell C. Turner was a native of England. He lived here with his son for a time and was later killed by the cars while on his way to Ohio, the place of his former residence. Abel Turner, the son, continued his residence on the farm where they had located, for a number of years. Portions of this claim are still in possession of the family.
The second entry of land in the township was made by J. J. Bieknell, on April 27, 1853, and was also on section 14. The third entry by George Greene, on July 1, 1853, was for land on section 24.
The fourth entry in the township was made July 6, 1853, by W. S. Peck, in section 25.
On the 6th of October, 1853, W. J. Barney, a Dubuque cap- italist, whose name appears very frequently in the early records of land entries in Butler county, made the fifth entry-two claims on sections 30 and 14.
The claim of Thomas Mullarky to the land upon which Walter Clayton had settled, as referred to above, was recorded on the 12th of November, 1853.
It would appear that the entries made by Turner and Bicknell in section 14 were the first original entries of land in any of the older settled townships to be made away from the timber or a stream of running water. Whether or not these men were farther sighted than many of their contemporaries and saw the magnifi- cent possibilities of the future in this open prairie country, or whether this was merely an incidental circumstance, must forever remain unknown.
Although this relatively large mimber of land entries was made in 1853, there were no further settlements in the township
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that year; 1854 saw the arrival of a number of settlers. In the spring of this year Wihont Wilbur, the third settler in the town- ship, arrived from Canada and settled upon the old Clayton place on section 30, apparently a peculiarly attractive location. He made no attempt to contest the prior rights of Mullarky to this land but lived here about six months and then left for St. Louis. Some time later while his wife was on her way to St. Louis to join him, she heard in some way that her husband had been murdered, whereupon she became insane and committed suicide by jumping from the car window.
In June, 1854, George Younker, W. F. Younker and Jacob Kemmerer took up claims in Albion township. The Younkers were brothers and were natives of Pennsylvania. Mrs. George Younker was a daughter of Henry B. Wemple, who also located in the township in 1854. Mr. Wemple settled on section 28. Jacob Kemmerer's first home in the township was on section 33-land which still remains in possession of the family.
Richard Daniels, Pascal P. Parker, Samuel Cramer, Michael Niece, Orlin Royce, Jacob Hall, Charles W. MeEwen, Joseph Cod- ner, August Coon, Isaac Waters and Jacob Brown were among the pioneers of 1854 in Albion township. P. P. Parker is the pioneer for whom the town of Parkersburg was named. Joseph Codner located on section 27, bringing his family from Wisconsin, with an ox team. Later several other members of the Codner family settled in the same neighborhood, where some members of the family still reside. Among these was H. P. Codner, whose son Walter is at present a prominent resident of Allison.
Most of the settlers mentioned above located in the southern part of the township. Jacob Brown was the first settler in the northern part of Albion. He came from Illinois with his family and purchased over one thousand acres lying in Beaver and Albion townships. Mr. Brown was a Methodist preacher and after liv- ing on his original holdings for about a year he sold a part of it to Elder Bicknell, a Baptist preacher.
Henry Owen is another pioneer settler of the northern part of the township, locating on section 8. L. D. Owen, an uncle of Henry Owen, came to the township at the same time and settled on an adjoining farm.
Moses J. Con came from Canada in 1855 with his family and located in the northern part of the township. He later moved to
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Monroe township, with the history of which his family has been connected from the earliest days to the present time.
Nathaniel Chesley, John Parker, Marshall Kelley, Asa Over- acker, E. W. Babcock, Mrs. Anna Jaquis, Solomon Lashbrook, William Waters, Peter Riley, Lorenzo Perry, Adam Leffler, Edward Dawson and Elijah Brown are remembered as among the settlers of 1855 and 1856. Edward Dawson was the father of William and E. A. Dawson, the former of whom has in recent years been supervisor of the county from the southern district, and the latter a leading attorney in Waverly.
Another prominent settler in the township in 1856 was Daniel Downey, who purchased his first land of Edward Dawson in sec- tion 9, Albion township. He eventually became one of the largest landowners in the township. His son Daniel is at the present time a prominent landowner and capitalist, with large interests in various parts of the county.
From 1855 on settlement in the township was very rapid, the record of entries and transfers of land within the limits of Albion in these and the succeeding years being too numerous to make it possible to make any detailed mention of the various settlers who located here at that time. In recent years large numbers of families of German nationality have settled upon farms in the township, especially in the northwestern portion. At the present time C. A. Wolf, of Parkersburg, is probably the largest landowner in the township. Among the prominent residents of the town- ship in later years may be mentioned Harm and Okke Van Hauen, L. F. Hersey, the Reints and De Vries families, the Tammens and the Leerhoffs.
OFFICIAL ORGANIZATION
By the order of the county court, Feb. 5, 1855, which first divided Butler county into civil townships, the territory now com- prised within the limits of Albion township was made a part of Beaver, which then consisted of four congressional townships. In 1856 this township was divided, Beaver thereafter being restricted to the southern half, or the two congressional townships, numbered 15 and 16 west and 90 north. On March 2, 1857, Albion was organized with its present boundaries. P. P. Parker was author- ized to call the first election which was held at the house of Stephen Morse, a little over one mile east of the present site of Parkers-
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burg. The first officers elected were: Stephen Morse and Jesse Owen, justices of the peace; J. L. Kemmerer, E. HI. Babcock and Asa Overacker, trustees; P. P. Parker, clerk; Joseph Codner, con- stable; Abel Turner, assessor.
PROCTOR'S POND
This small body of water, situated in Beaver township, is with- out especial historic interest other than the occasion which gave it its name.
The people of Albion township were a union loving, law- abiding class, yet in 1864 there were a few who preferred the success of rebel arms and were outspoken in their denunciation of "Lincoln hirelings." A number of these "brave boys in blue" chaneed to be at home on a furlough-and these expressions of dislike towards the Union cause came to their ears. They soon traced out the source, and repairing to a wheat field, found Jonas Proctor, the man they had business with, and demanded at once that he "hurrah for Lincoln and the Union." He positively refused, whereupon he was taken and given free transportation on a rail to this pond near New Hartford. On the way, a man by the name of Smith, of like tendency, was persuaded to join the interesting procession. Upon arriving at the water, Smith not desiring a bath, shouted lustily for the Union. Proctor, how- ever, remained sullen and silent, and was ducked. Still refusing to comply, the ducking was continued until he was unable to express himself otherwise than by grunts, which he did, indicat- ing also by motion of the hand his willingness. After thus expressing himself he was released. This body of water has been known from that day to this as " Proctor's Pond."
GENERAL ITEMS
The first mail route through the township was established in 1855. Mail was carried on horseback from Cedar Falls to lowa Falls and Fort Dodge until 1857, when a stage line under the con- trol of Fink & Walker was established. P. P. Parker's house was a regular stopping place on this stage route and remained such until the construction of the line of railroad.
The first birth in the township occurred in August, 1854, when twin babies christened Alonzo and Melissa were born to Augustus and Catherine Coon.
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The first marriage of residents of Albion township took place on the 7th of January, 1856, the contracting parties being P. P. Parker and Miss Martha McEwen. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Samuel Wright at the home of Adna Thomas, in Beaver township.
The first marriage within the limits of the township joined Abel Turner and Harriet Waters in the bonds of matrimony. This marriage was celebrated at the home of William S. Waters by the Rev. Jolin Connell in 1857.
The first death was that of a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wil- mont Wilbur, in July, 1854.
The first religious services in the township were held by Rev. Mr. Burleigh at the home of W. F. Younker, in December, 1854.
EDUCATIONAL
The first school in Albion township was taught by John Biek- nell in the winter of 1855-56, in a log schoolhouse at New Albion. The building in which this school was held was the first erected for school purposes in the township. It had been constructed in the fall of 1855. In the summer of 1856 the first frame school- house was erected in district No. 1. For school purposes, Albion is organized as a district township, there being at present eight sub-districts.
No. 1 is known as the Sinclair school and the building stands at the southeast corner of section 28, a little over a quarter of a mile south of the railroad station at Sinclair. Miss Clarice Savage, a teacher in this school, was killed by a Northwestern railway train at the crossing west of the schoolhouse on Sept. 12, 1913.
District No. 2, the New Albion school, has its schoolhouse on the township line at the northeast corner of section 4. For school purposes section 34, in Jefferson township, and the eastern half of section 33, south of the West Fork, are included within the New Albion district.
The schoolhouse in district No. 3 is located midway on the western side of section 8. It is known as the Fleschner school.
No. 4 is less than a mile east of the corporate limits of Par- kersburg on the Hawkeye Highway.
The DeGroote schoolhouse, in sub-district No. 5, is located on the western side of section 24.
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Schoolhouse No. 6 is the center school of the township, located a quarter of a mile from the southeastern corner of section 16.
Swanton school No. 7 stands on the eastern side of section 11.
School No. 8 is in the extreme southeastern portion of the township on the Grundy county line. Considerable difficulty was experienced for some years in regard to the collection of tuition from Grundy county pupils who attended this school. Recently this has been adjusted satisfactorily. . There are usually a larger number of Grundy county pupils than those from Albion township in attendance here.
POPULATION
1860, 339; 1863, 419; 1865, 465; 1867, 615; 1869, 769; 1870, 1,039; 1873, 961; 1875, 1,014; 1880, 1.349; 1890, 1,440; 1900, 1,689; 1910, 1.433.
NEW ALBION
A village by the name of New Albion was platted about 1856. It was situated in the north central portion of the township, lying partly in sections 3 and 4. Albion, and 33 and 34, of Jefferson. The parties interested in the project were Jacob Brown, Clifford Dawson, N. Chesley, John Barker, Dr. Wright and others. At one time it had a number of residences, with a sawmill, store, postoffice and other business enterprises. The postoffice was established as early as 1857, when Mrs. Lorenzo Perry returned from Cedar Falls with the official documents establishing a post- office at New Albion under the name of Swanton, and a commis- sion for Jacob Brown as postmaster. This office was continued until the establishment of the rural mail routes in this section of the county. A complete list of the postmasters is not available.
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