USA > Iowa > Carroll County > History of Carroll County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 5
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On the last day of December, 1855, Judge Cain, the newly elected head of the county administration, convened court in one of the rooms of his log house on the North Coon. The office of county judge has long ceased to exist, but for the time it was an important one, having for its chief duties the labors which now fall upon the auditor and board of supervisors. The county court also had jurisdiction at the time Judge Cain was elected over certain minor criminal and civil matters. Of these it was shorn before the office was finally abolished in 1859, when its only scope as a court consisted in a limited degree of authority over the work of administrators of estates and probate affairs. It is said to have been the practice of many of the county judges to usurp such authority as the law failed to provide and rule over the people and their affairs with a single and iron hand. Complaints were made that the Czar of all the Russias would have paled into a shadow in the presence of an Iowa county judge before he forced himself to be abolished ; but this character of judge was certainly not that of Judge Cain, who was honest, fat and jolly and of whom his constituents had no rea- son to complain as an official. But it seems the judge was somewhat given to deep potations and inclined to neglect business for the sake of betting on his ability with the rifle and taking financial risk in other forms of skill and chance upon which the moral sense of the community was disposed to frown. Let this be as it may. So far as there is a record by which to be guided the judge presided over his court with necessary dignity and dis- posed of such business as came before him with diligence and equity. His first official act was to allow James White four dollars for hauling the laws of Iowa, a small volume of about four hundred pages, from Iowa City and delivering it into the hands of the court. The service was worth the money, as Mr. White was occupied for three weeks in making the round trip and was so harried by storms and difficulties that much of his other freight had to be abandoned along the way. At the same session an order was made allowing the same person, James White, $12.50 for his services as treas- urer and recorder. The judge granted himself also $12.50 as salary for his first quarter at the rate of $50 per year, and ordered a warrant drawn in favor of Levi Thompson for $16 for services in full to date as clerk of courts. In the following February Judge Cain again convened court and such proceedings were taken as to legally apportion the county into two
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY
equal townships to include the northern and southern halves and to be known respectively as Jasper and Newton townships and to provide for an election of township officers. No county seat existed up to this time. It had a nominal place of abode under Judge Cain's roof, but the location was not satisfactory to the settlers and in the spring of 1856 a petition was cir- culated and generally signed requesting the appointment of a commission to investigate and decide the question. The document was signed by most of the voters of the county, when it was presented to Judge E. H. Sears of the Sixth Judicial district, who, on the 7th day of April, 1856, appointed the commission as requested. The judge named the commissioners to find and locate the county seat of Carroll county as follows: William L. Hen- derson, of Guthrie county ; John Purdy, of Crawford county, and Dr. S. M. Ballard of Audubon county. They were directed to perform their duty within two months. Dr. Ballard failed to act, but the other two were qual- ified and on June 4th made the following formal report of their inspection and conclusions :
"Whereas, we, the undersigned, were appointed by Hon. H. E. Sears, district judge of the Sixth Judicial District of the State of Iowa, on the 14th day of April, 1856, commissioners to locate the seat of justice or county seat of Carroll county, in the state of Iowa, we therefore, in con- formity to said appointment, after having duly qualified according to law, and after mature deliberation and carefully reviewing and examining all and every proposed site within the bounds of the said county of Carroll, having due regard for the welfare and prospects of the people of the said county, also the welfare, prospects and convenience of the future as well as the present population of said county, do hereby, by the power vested in us, locate the permanent county seat of said county of Carroll, in the state of Iowa, on the north fractional half of the northeast quarter of section one in township eighty-two north of range thirty-four west of the fifth prin- cipal meridian, and on the south half of the southeast quarter of section thirty-six in township eighty-three north, range thirty-four west of the fifth principal meridian, and on which the town of Carrollton is now laid out, and also such additional territory as may be donated on either side of the premises aforesaid, or that may be purchased by the proper authorities of said county at any time and added thereto without limit."
The townsite of Carrollton was donated to the county by the real estate firm of Lease & Harsh of Des Moines and the proceeds of the sale of lots were covered into the county treasury. During the spring of 1856 there was a thin immigration to Carroll county, most of which was attracted to the county seat, and among the newcomers was Dr. I. P. Miller, who was the county's first poor physician. To him fell the task of treating the county's first pauper, John Salisbury, for whose care he was first allowed a bill of $24 and afterwards granted a fee of $50 additional. The follow- ing items taken from old records may be of interest as indicating the business of the county at the time: Robert Floyd was allowed $3.50 from the treasury for surveying the blocks in the new town of Carrollton. L. S. Loomis was allowed $1 for dividing the blocks into lots. C. R. Babbitt
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY
was allowed $34.00 for assessing Newton township. The proceeds from the sale of lots in Carrollton, belonging to the county, were loaned at interest for a time. Samuel L. Loomis was a borrower of $262.50; Thomas Mc- Curdy, $190; Robert Morris, $25. On August 5th the county officers as- sembled and passed a settlement of their accounts, when it was found that the county owed Judge Cain for services, $19.25; James Anderson, sheriff, $5.00, and Levi Thompson, clerk of courts, $12.50. The salary of the more important officers was fixed at $50 per year and the lesser at $20. Pay- ment of salaries in these proportions was made from time to time and the compensation remained the same for several years. It does not ap- pear that the earlier officials ever overstepped these modest boundaries, but of a time which occurred later there is a different account to give. That, however, is another story. A state law of the period made it optional with the county to forbid the running at large of certain kinds of live stock. Upon a petition to Judge Cain he called an election to decide this matter and a vote was taken in the fall of 1856. By the decisive majority of 27 to 6 hogs and sheep were forbidden the open common and the result was followed by an immediate proclamation of the court forbidding such animals to be at large on pain of severe costs and penalties.
The first tax levy made after the organization of the county (some time in 1856) was as follows:
State tax, one and one-quarter mills; County tax, six mills ; School tax, one mill; Road tax, three mills ; Poll tax, $2.00; County Poll tax, 50 cents.
The proceeds of this levy are not to be found, but it is safe to say that the total income for the next year, as was the case in the immediately en- suing years, was not over a few hundred dollars. The sum was not large, but with honest expenditure it was sufficient.
The first marriage license issued in Carroll county was granted to Joseph Ford and Sarah Ochempaugh and bears date of September 16, 1855. They were not married, however, until a year had elapsed, when we find that their union was solemnized by A. J. Cain, county judge, on the 23d of September, 1856. The first estate administered upon was that of Wesley H. Blizard, who died May 3d, 1858, and whose estate was settled by James Colclo, the first administrator. The first deed was made by Thomas Ford to Nancy Ford for the east half of section 17, township 85, range 33, and bore date of September 3, 1855. The instrument was acknowledged by A. J. Cain, county judge.
E. M. Betzer as clerk on March 24, 1873. issued the first papers of naturalization to a foreign born citizen and by this document Harm Kruse, a native of Germany, was made a citizen of Carroll county and the United States of America.
From 1856 to 1860 the tide of life ran calmly in Carroll county. The obscurity of the few public records that remain and the fact that many of the documents of the time were lost, mislaid or burned puts out of the question any exact accounting for the period. As has before been mentioned the census of 1856 gave to the county at the outset a population of 251. Four years later this number, according to the national census of 1860, had in-
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY
creased to 281, an increase of thirty or at the ratio of less than eight souls per year. The period was one of great depression all over the United States, and it is fair to assume that in a general way life was hard and unproduc- tive in the homes of the pioneers. Their isolation forced them into a posi- tion of sufficiency to themselves. Their remoteness from markets and the fact that their farms brought them little beyond what was necessary to supply their own needs that it was possible to sell at a profit or indeed for ready money protected the fiscal virtues of the community. The mammon of unrighteousness found no place to enter, and the personal virtues were safeguarded, if not by the angels which keep ward over the few foregath- ered in distant places, then by the cleanliness of a life in the open near to nature and the incessant toil commanded of both men and women who have no needs but those they are forced to supply by the skill of their own hands. The period in these phases is dismissed in the belief that it was not without its compensations to the people of Carroll county, though it may have been a bit dull.
The first state court was held at Carrollton in 1858. The legislature of the preceding year had told off Carroll and fifteen other counties of the north- west to the extreme limits of the state, and of this area was formed the Twelfth Judicial district. The district at an election April 6th of the same year elected Marshall F. Moore of Woodbury county to be its judge, and it was he who presided at the term which initiated lawful justice in Carroll county, opening at Carrollton on the 23d day of November, 1858. The only licensed attorney practicing at the bar of Carroll county at this time was Noah Titus, concerning whom this fact is all that is known. The first case on the docket was that of Nehemiah Powers and James Watson vs. Cornelius Higgins, and this and three other causes constituted the business of the term.
The first grand jury summoned, and which was an adjunct of this court. was composed of Cornelius Higgins, Benjamin Teller, Mathew Borders, Lafayette McCurdy, Crockett Ribble, Robert Morris, William Short, Robert Dixon, Elijah Puckett, Cyrus Rhoads, James Colclo, David Scott, David Frasier, Samuel Lyon and Amos Bason. This jury elected James Colelo for its foreman. Its deliberations were raised after a brief conference and it reported to the court that its survey of the situation had been without result.
The petit jury of the term consisted of the following citizens: S. L. Loomis, Conrad Geiselhart, Ribert Hill, John Conrad, Jacob Cressinger, J. Ferguson, C. R. Babbitt, Wm. Ochempaugh, Nelson Moore, Alphus Stev- ens, Levi Thompson, J. Y. Anderson, George Ribble, Wm. Gilley, H. L. Youtz.
The poll books from which these juries were drawn show that but thirty- five votes registered at the preceding election. As the two juries contain thirty of them the lists give us the names of practically all. The absentees were probably county and court officers.
An act was passed by congress in 1850 giving to the several counties of the state, organized and to be organized, an equal right and part in the swamp lands of the state. and a grant was made to the state for this pur- pose by the national government of all of the lands of this description found
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY
within its boundaries. The granted lands were to some extent indicated in the field notes accompanying the original surveys. These limitations, however, were not final. Authority was given into the hands of the counties to verify these swamp land districts and to add to them such lands not included in the original descriptions as would properly fall under the desig- nation of swamp lands, or on the other hand remove from the inventories lands found not to be of a swampy nature.
The findings by the county authorities were made subject to correction by the interior department at Washington. It may be taken for granted that nothing was taken away from the swamp land tracts by the counties which were to profit by the grant. Naturally the area was increased as much as possible and the Washington authorities would allow. In the first place thousands of acres had been set aside as swampy or wet lands that were in reality as high and as dry and as fit for agricultural uses as any other portion of the surface. Indeed, during a rainy season much of the surface of a wild and tenantless prairie country would have the appearance of a marsh flat. The streams, instead of running along narrow channels, spread out over wide beds, matted with prairie grass, a thatch which admitted water slowly, but which, when water once entered and the soil underneath became saturated, was converted into a morass-a condition very deceptive as to the real nature of the country and which did not require a wet season to lead to wrong conclusions.
Suffice it to say that under the swamp land grant the state came into the possession of a modicum of swamp and great areas as valuable as any of the lands of the public domain from which it was separated. Moreover, at this time the best of the prairie land was regarded as worthless and it was generally held that only the land along the streams would ever be occupied. The congress and the state could afford to be lavish with something that was of no value. The plan of distribution was fair, however, the state hold- ing the lands in custody for the counties, and distributing to them, when they were prepared to receive it, not their own swamp or waste land only, but the proportionate part to which each county was entitled of all of the lands conveyed by the grant. In other words and to illustrate, Carroll county was far short of its proportionate share of swamp lands. Less than three thousand acres of its area were thus designated. It was entitled to much more than this, and the excess to which it was entitled was at liberty to be found in any county in which swamp lands existed to the value or number of acres which fell to its share. Thus Carroll county at the time of the distribution was granted by the state three thousand acres or its own swamp lands-the figures are approximate, not exact-together with thirty- five to thirty-seven thousand acres in other counties as located by a com- missioner of the Interior department. The swamp lands ceded to Carroll county by the state in this manner amounted to about 38,000 acres or its equivalent in land certificates. The intent of the parent government in making this liberal cession to the counties was in every way commendable. It was believed that a wise use of the property would provide them with court houses, jails and the other improvements and thus give them help during the period of their struggling growth. It is unfortunate that a
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SACRED HEART CHURCH, SCHOOL AND PARSONAGE AT TEMPLETON
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY
benevolence so commendable should prove so wide in its miscarriage. It is but fair to say that in practically every county in the state gross frauds were employed to dissipate this property and divert it from public uses. Carroll county was not alone in this profligacy. But, as we have already stated, that is another story.
We are able to give at present the following particulars from authentic sources : On March 1, 1858, County Judge Morris appointed Robert Hill and Noah Titus surveyors to select the swamp lands of Carroll county. Hil! was assigned the townships in ranges 33 and 35, and Titus those in ranges 34 and 36. This proceeding followed the arrival from Washington on March 1, 1858, of Congressman James Thorington, the first Republican representative of the state, with a commission from the interior department to select and secure to the county all swamp lands belonging to the county by act of congress passed September 28, 1850. The incident may be closed for the present by saying that, whatever may have been the report of the Titus-Hill survey, which was most negligently performed, all of the swamp lands of the county approved by the government as such, were located in Range 33, the eastern tier of townships, some two to three thousand acres in extent.
Vol. 1-3
CHAPTER V.
THE GREAT DEBT PILED UP AGAINST THE CARROLL COUNTY PUBLIC BY MAL- ADMINISTRATION-STATEMENT OF DEBT-DIRECTIONS IN WHICH FUNDS HAD BEEN DISSIPATED-O. H. MANNING'S DESCRIPTION OF TIIE SITUATION IN 1870-ILLEGAL ACTS OF COUNTY OFFICIALS-BOUNTY AND AID FRAUDS -CARROLLTON COURT IIOUSE TRANSACTION-THE SWAMP LAND TRANSAC- TION-GRANTS OF BACK PAY-TREASURER'S STATEMENT OF 1866-SAME, 1867-BRIDGE TRANSACTIONS AND COUNTY LOANS-LEGALIZING ACTS OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS IN VACATION-THE "PEACE AND IIARMONY PACT"- HOW OFFICIAL ACTS WERE INVESTIGATED-THOMAS ELWOOD'S LITHIO- GRAPHIC MAP-THE OLD COURT HOUSE AT CARROLLTON-OBSERVATIONS IN CONCLUSION-CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY.
In 1870 the Iowa Railroad Land company brought suit in the United States Circuit court at Des Moines to set aside judgments which had been obtained against Carroll county in that court. At the time the Iowa Rail- road Land company was the owner of 111,000 acres of land in the county of the value of $600,000, in addition to which John I. Blair, one of the members of the company, was the owner of town lots and lands valued at $50,000. In the petition on which the suit was founded it was stated that in 1865 the debt of Carroll county was $5,516.53, an amount which had grown five years later, January 1, 1870, into a debt of $160,135.43. The purpose of the suit was to mitigate the rate of taxes assessed against the company in the years coming between the dates mentioned, and also to ob- tain relief from the future liability of being assessed for a debt which the company plaintiffs claimed to be reeking with fraud. In addition to this certain school district and township debts were taken into consideration in making a summary of the financial condition of the county, recapitulated in the following terms :
Judgments in the United States courts against the County. $ 71,048.34
Judgments against the county in state courts. 16,868.43
Suits pending in U. S. court on county warrants. 26,000.00
County warrants known to be outstanding, unpaid and not in judgment
28,218.66
Estimated debt created in 1870 and warrants of which no rec- ord has been kept.
20,000.00
Accrued interest and costs. 18,000.00
Total county debt. 180,125.43
Judgments against the district townships 35,171.5I
Accrued interest and costs.
15,000.00
Warrants outstanding, estimated.
20,000.00
Total
$260,306.94
35
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY
On further analysis this is found to be 26 per cent of the fair assessed value of the real and personal property of the county, or about $180 per capita of its population.
Many statements are made in the petition relative to the nature of the debt and the manner in which it was contracted, the matter evidently having been prepared with a great deal of care and was as close an approach to a true statement of affairs as could be drawn from the county records in the chaotic condition in which they existed at the time. The following extracts will serve to illustrate :
"Carroll, Newton and Union school districts have issued fraudulently over $100,000 of the warrants of said districts, of which amount $55,171.51 are now in judgment."
"Actual cash value of the bridges of the county, $10,000; actual cost, $46,362.06."
"Value of the school houses in the districts of Carroll, Newton and Union, $18.100; actual cost of the same, $102,248.74."
Numerous cases are cited in which warrants were fraudulently issued. and the total amount of such items as bear the mark of fraud is set down as $120,043.95. It is stated also that after warrants were issued the board fraudulently passed resolutions validating their issue and also legalizing the acts of the clerk done in vacation. There were also warrants issued without authority, and in some of these cases the records were interlined with fraud- ulent entries pretending to legalize the acts.
A year or two later O. H. Manning, in writing of the fiscal condition of the county in 1870, says :
"At this time the politics of the county were in a chaotic state. The party responsible for the creation of the burdensome debt sought to retain power by the use of favoritism and patronage based upon the illegit- imate use of public funds. The people were stupefied by the charges of fraud, waste and extravagance made against the county officers in their deal- ing with the public funds. The collection of taxes was not faithfully en- forced, and those collected were not faithfully disbursed. The people be- lieved the rumors of fraud and charges of corruption in many instances where there was no ground whatever and where they were created by de- signing persons to subserve private ends or influence political action. In other cases they refused to believe where the truth showed malfeasance, gross dishonesty and criminal misconduct. It could scarcely have been otherwise. The facts were practically inaccessible to the public. Each individual citizen must believe rumor as it flew or must himself investigate the voluminous rec- ords under which were buried the transactions of the various officers-coun- ty, school and township-having in charge the disbursement of the people's money."
Mr. Manning summarizes the frauds as follows:
"Reckless expenditure of money and issuance of warrants without au- thority ; fradulent school house contracts ; fraudulent bridge contracts ; con-
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY
spiracy and collusion between county and township officers." "The frauds are not confined," continued Mr. Manning, in another article, "to the last three years. ( 1867-70). They extended far back of that. The swamp lands and funds have been swept away without leaving-or that magnificent fund -enough to build a bridge. Not content with stuffing their own pockets the officers gave the balance of it to the American Emigrant company. Our taxes are enormous and unless some relief is obtained they must continue so for many years. People are afraid to settle in the county on account of the finan- ciał ruin which stares us in the face."
The deplorable state of misgovernment which brought about this condi- tion, or the condition itself, does not seem to be misstated or exaggerated in the quotations which have just been made. This was at a time before the word "graft" had entered the popular nomenclature, but in spite of the lack of the language of those days to express dishonesty in a terse and graphic term there is proof piled upon proof that graft existed in the most scandal- ous and aggravated form from about the time of the organization of the county to the early seventies, when the knowledge of its presence and mag- nitude burst upon the public like an explosion. A debt of a quarter of a million dollars, at the time this is written, against the wealth of the county, while it would be a serious matter, would be a mere cypher compared with the resources then within the reach of the public. Half of the lands were not occupied ; the population of the entire county (2,471) was more than a thousand less than the present population of Carroll. The debt did not represent public improvements, for there were none that were worthy of the name. The substance of the county had been spent in extravagance and in practices that would seem incredible but for the fact that enough of the record still remains as a basis from which one with even small powers of penetration can learn the whole sordid story. To attempt to assign a rea- son for these scandals of the early days would not be profitable even if it could be done successfully. It is sufficient to state the facts. Having the facts this writer hopes that the optimist who reads will read in them the sign that the world is growing better ; and that the pessimist will cease repining for the good old days, now no more, so much better than the present.
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