USA > Iowa > Cass County > History of Cass County, Iowa; together with sketches of its towns, villages, and townships; educational, civil, military, and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of old settlers and representative citizens. History of Iowa, embracing accounts of the pre-historic races, and a brief review of its civil, political, and military history > Part 34
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Edwin Gingery, a native of Ohio, came here in 1854, and worked on the farm of Doctor Ballard, lying partly in this and partly in Udubon county. He after- wards located on a farm in Pymosa town- ship, where he now resides.
A Mr. Egan commenced some improve- ments in 1854, on a farm in Benton town- ship, but was killed that same year by his team running away with him.
William Millholen located, in 1854, in the same township, upon the farm after- wards known as the L. D. Pearson land.
Renssalear Silver was also a settler of 1854, in this part of the county.
Anson Brown located on Crooked creek, in 1854.
During the year 1854, a man by the name of William Fansler, lived in a cabin in the grove, on the site of the present city of Atlantic. He owned no land, but simply lived on this property, then be- longing to Thomas B. Johnson.
A. J. and John Irwin made a settlement within the limits of the present township of Edna during the year 1854.
John A. Spoor located on section 31, on Indian creek, in Washington township, in the year 1854. He is a native of the State of Massachusetts, born in 1835.
Doctor Swisher located at Lewis in 1853 or 1854, and entered upon the practice of his profession. He remained about a year.
Doctor Henry S. Carey came to Lewis in 1853, and settled permanently. He died while there, early in the sixties.
Both of these gentlemen are noted in the medical chapter of this volume.
Joseph Northgraves built a bouse in Benton township in 1854 but did not oc- enpy it until 1855, passing the interval between the building and the occupancy, in Cincinnati, his former home. His daughter Ellen, now Mrs. Albert Wake- field, of Grove City, taught school at Hamlin's Grove, Audubon county, in the -
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spring of 1856, which was the first school taught in that settlement.
L. L. Alexander came to Cass county in 1855, and entered a claim on the north part of section 4, in Atlantic township, and 33, of Pymosa township, just north of where the city of that name is now located. He did not build any house at that time, but boarded with H. Whipple. Ile remained but a short time when he returned to Michigan and remained there until 1859, when he returned to reside permanently, and died a citizen of Cass county. Mr. Alexander, in after years, figured quite prominently in the official life of the county, being the last county judge and first anditor, and in connection with the latter office is mentioned in full detail in the Representative chapter.
K. W. Macomber and his family came to Cass county direct from Northampton, Massachusetts, arriving here on the 21st of July, 1855, and settled on the land taken up by his brother-in.law, L. L. Al- exander, on section 4, of Atlantic town- ship, and section 33, of Pymosa. He built a frame, or partly frame house in 1857, on this place, where he continued to reside until 1860, when he removed to the town of Lewis, and is a resident of that place at present. Mr. Macomber, having repre- sented this district in the legislative halls of the State, is noticed at length among the members of the General Assembly, in the chapter under the caption of National, State and county representation, further on.
Samuel L. Lorah in the early summer of 1855 came to Cass county in search of a home. On the 1st of June, of the same year, he entered a claim on the northeast
quarter of section 17, of Pymosa town- ship, where he still resides. Having had large official experience in Ohio, where. he was clerk of the court of common pleas of the county in which he lived, fifteen years, and probate judge three years, Judge Lorah was soon chosen to official position in the township and county here. His services were valuable in bringing order out of chaos, in the coun- ty's affairs, after he becanie county judge. . He continues to occupy the house he built in 1855, the lumber for which he hauled from the Iranistan saw mill. For the first few years he did his trading at Council Bluffs. His daughter, (now Mrs. Peter D. Ankeny, of Des Moines) taught the second school that was taught in Py- mosa. A biographical sketch of Judge Lorah will be found under its proper head in the chapter entitled "National, State and county Representation."
. David A. Barnett with his family took up a claim and located on the northeast quarter of section 10, in Atlantic town- ship, in 1855. He, too, is mentioned at length in connection with the office of county judge further on. He died here in 1868.
Christopher Shuart came to Lewis in 1855. He was superintendent of the Western Stage Company's line from Des Moines to Council Bluffs. He was in the company's employ twelve years. He thinks there was but one house in Lewis when he looked in upon the village first in the year named. The stages used to drive thirty miles without passing a house, and used to frequently camp on the prairie.
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W. W. Jameson and his brother, R. L., together with D. D. Morris, located on section 7, in what is now Franklin township, on the 4th of May, 1855. W. W. Jameson is still a resident of the same place. D. D. Morris lives at or near Grove City and R. L. Jameson is dead, having died in 1873.
John Rose was the first to make a set- tlement in what is now Noble township, locating there in the year 1855. He con- tinued to reside there until 1857, when he was killed in the Lewis grist mill, the scarf about his neck catching in the ma- chinery and strangling lim.
William Gardner was among the earli- est settlers of Edna township, settling there in 1855, and ranks among the first settlers of the county. He had many trials and hardships to contend with, as in fact they all had. He built one of the first (if not the first) bridges across the Nodaway and built it entirely at his own expense. He hauled his first corn and other supplies from Missouri, sometimes making trips in the most inclement weather. Mr. Gardner frequently served his township as justice of the peace, clerk, etc. In a later year he sold his farm in Edna and bought another in At- lantic township, in Turkey Grove, being the place now owned by Dr. Bruington. In 1871 Mr. Gardner was elected county auditor, and was twice re-elected. He was born near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in the year 1829.
Samuel Whisler, a native of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, came from Indiana in 1855 and located upon section 16, in Edna township, where he lived until the day of his death, in 1876.
Rev. W. F. Arnold, a clergyman of the Baptist denomination, came from Ashta- bula county, Ohio, in the spring of 1855. He engaged at once in the laudable un- dertaking of building up and strengthen- ing several organizations of that faith in this and adjoining counties.
Henry Bappy came from Indiana in 1855.
John C. Cannon, a native of North Carolina, settled in Benton township, in 1855, on section 3.
Walter F. and C. E. Marsh made a set- tlement in Benton township in 1855.
Henry Michael in 1855 took up and im- proved a farm, which he afterwards dis- posed of to Clark Byrd, and removed to Nebraska.
James Lockwood settled in 1855, in Franklin township.
Jacob Seltzer, a native of Ohio, located at Indiantown during the year 1855, and opened a blacksmith shop.
This brings the settlement of the whole county up to January, 1856, after which time immigration set in rapidly. It is unnecessary to carry the settlement any further in this chapter, as this subject is treated at length in the history of the various townships, where the most of the pioneers who have been here briefly treat- ed, and those who may have been omitted, will receive due and lengthy notice.
EARLY VOTERS.
The following is a list of all that voted in Angust, 1856, and is supposed to con- prise all the men who were in the county at that time:
W. C. Croff, G. Shannon, L. Smith, H. G. Stringham, D. Stanley, D. C. Casper,
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John Killin, Morris Albaugh, E. Parsons, D. W. Morrison, S. P. Stringham, J. Bryan, E. W. Buckwalter, II. Smith, S. M. Tucker, Thomas Hodgson; C. Soper, E. H. Gill, J. G. Warnock, William Ha- worth, J. C. Yetzer, H. Ferrell, V. P. Townsend, F. Richardson, S. E. Peck, G. M. Elsey, S. C. Vance. T. T. Rogers, II. K. Cranney, D. Chapman, P. Cranney, F. Haftich, V. M. Conrad, H. M. Wood- ward, John W. Gyga, E. Watson, C. C. Marshall, Joseph Rogers, L. F. Seague, J. White, L. L. Alexander, D. Vanhouten, William Sackett, M. Bryan, K. W. Ma- comber, George Lafler, W. B. Swisher, J. H. Coe, A. Byrd, A. Gridley, T. J. Byrd, J. A. Spoor, J. Bradshaw, H. Reynolds, J. C. Bales, J. S. Haworth, E. B. Bell, W. W. Haworth, E. G. Weigart, K. T. Murdock, J. Moore, S. Stough, William Marshall, B. Baldwin, William Chapman, J. Hodges, V. M. Bradshaw, B. Bales, T. B. Johnson, J. S. Rand, A. Lafler, James Skinner, H. S. Carey, W. Brassfield, Wil- liam Bryan, J. H. Cook, R. P. Weigart, Charles Baldwin, Jesse B. Weigart, A. J. Millslagel, William Lafler, J. Everly, G. I. Chizum. E. Manley, H. B. Jolly, R. Cotter, P. Porter, W. H. Holt, W. Spur- lock, N. B. Morris, S. K. Shields, W. Baughman, S. Mahon, O. Baldwin, A. B. Davis, H. Johnson, J. C. Northup, B. Williams, William Cluff, C. E. Wood- ward, P. Hedges, H. W. Bales, G. Sten- nett, John Blake, D. K. Bennell, R. C. Gordon, J. Barber, George Fansler, F. Hostetter, William Stringham, M. T. El- sey, W. P. Cross, Hiram Whipple, Jones Fansler, G. B. Hitchcock, William N. Dickerson. J. B. Ferrell, M. C. Gill, Wm. B. Knapp, A. Brewster, P. T. Stringham,
D. W. Wellman, James Smith, James T. Deaver, Thomas Coon, J. Fulser, N. Baer, H. D. St. Clair, James L. Byrd, Jefferson Goodale, Joseph Northgraves, William P. Hamlin, A. S. Byrd, William Cannon, Almon Goodale, James W. Brin- kerhoff, Joseph Doner, John Merryhew, John C. Cannon, S. L. Lorah, James Montgomery, Robert Rohisor, Clarke Byrd, William Millholen, Samuel Knep- per, James R. Silvers, J. B. Donnell, Wil- liam James Lockwood, Jesse Eller, Gab- riel Long, Peter Kenawyer, Charles Jack- son, Claiborne Marion, J. T. IIumeriek, J. Watson, John R. Kirk, D. A. Barnett, R. L. Jameson, W. W. Jameson, Levi Nichols, A. H. C. Lockwood, Jesse Wat- son, IIenry Michael, David D. Morris, Philip Michael, Albert Wakefield, James Stewart, Morris Hoblit, G. W. Wakefield, R. D. McGeehon, Charles McGee, A. J. Scott, V. C. Antrim, Robert F. Kirk, G. S. Morrison, William Porter, George Mc- Gee, E. Porter, Samuel Whisler, J. Bren- ton, K. H. Wilson, J. Alms, J. Irwin, R. Irwin, S. Irwin, A. T. McArthur, A. Alms, William Gardner, William F. Brenton, A. L. Brenton.
FIRST EVENTS.
The first marriage in the county, is the ceremony that united Alvin Jessup and Harriet Driscoll, which took place on the 8th day of June, 1853.
The second was that of George Shan- non and Melissa Hedges, and the third, that of G. I. Chizum and Hannah A. Bradshaw, the latter taking place Aug. 24, 1854.
The honor of being the first white child of Gentile parentage, born in Cass county,
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falls to the lot of a son of Victor M. Bradshaw. This boy was born Sept. 6, 1852, at Indiantown, and was named Jere- miah, in honor of its grandfather.
In 1850 the little daughter of a Mor- mon widow named Breeker, was playing with some embers left, from an emigrant party's fire, and was so severely burned that she died in a short time. This was probably the first death of a white in the county.
The first death which occurred among the Gentiles in Cass county, was a tragic one, and happened in the fall of 1852. The victim was a young man named Pettit, who had come a short time before, and whose family lived at the conference of Indian Creek and the Nishnabotna. David Hoopes was going out a short dis- tance to locate some land, and took a team - and wagon. Pettit and a young companion accompanied him. On arriv- ing at his destination, Mr. Hoopes got out of bis wagon, and went on his errand, looking around in the vicinity for a loca- tion. Ile had not gone far when he heard the report of a gun, and simultaneously an agonizing ery. Hastening back to the wagon, a sight met his gaze which caused the heart of even this stern frontiersman to grow faint. Pettit lay there dying, with a horrible hole in his head, and over him bent the form his young friend. The cause of the tragedy was plain. Pettit had got out of the wagon with the inten- tion of looking for game, and was pulling his gun ont muzzle first, when the ham- mer caught; that instant it descended, and Pettit bad received the charge full in the forehead. His two companions, sick at heart, put their fast expiring friend in the
wagon, and mournfully turned their course towards his home; he lived until they had got within three hundred yards of the cabin where his wife and child were, all unaware of the dreadful tragedy which had deprived them of husband and father. Word soon got 'round among the settlers of what had happened, and it was not long before they were at the scene, offer- ing their sympathy and condolence to the bereaved, and expressing their sorrow for the dead. It was the first time death had called upon them for one of their num- ber, and the scenes there witnessed, with the attending circumstances, will never fade from the memories of those who saw them, till the last one of them has been gathered to his fathers. Pettit was buried at Rock Ford, Indian Creek, about one-half mile above Stevens' mill. He was the first Gentile buried in the county.
A single man, named Taylor, came to Iranistan in the spring of 1854, and soon obtained employment at school teaching. He had been engaged at this occupation about a month, and one day in June, after he had been out bathing, he was missing. Search was instituted for him, and about eight o'clock the next day, which was Saturday, his lifeless body was found near the mill-dam, near where he had been bathing. The body was soon taken up and cared for, and preparations for the last sad rites soon commenced. A coffin was constructed of dressed boards, made as neatly as the facilities at the command of the settlers would allow; other prepara- tions went on anon, and when the hour for the burial arrived, which was ten o'clock on Sunday morning, all the people in the whole settlement (Mormons and Gentiles)
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were on hand to participate, and lend their presence to the sad affair. A pro- cession was formed to the place of burial, the school children walking behind the coffin. Taylor's death was much re- gretted, and the affair cast a gloom over the community.
The first school in the county was taught in an old cabin at Indiantown, in the winter of 1852-53. The teacher was named Hazen; he was an Eastern man. Among the first scholars were Lucy, Har- vey, Calvin and Lydia Bradshaw, Orson and Mary Conrad. The cabin in which the school was held was used for educa- tional purposes only two terms, and has long since been destroyed.
The next school was taught in the spring of 1854. A young man by the name of -- Taylor opened this school in an old building on section 8 of what is now Cass township, on the banks of the river, south- west of Indiantown. Ile taught here but one month, when he had the misfortune to be drowned, as detailed before, and G. I. Chizum finished the term, teaching two months.
The first election held in the county took place in 1849, when there were none but Mormons in the county.
The first election in which Gentiles fig- ured in what is now the county of Cass was held at Jeremiah Bradshaw's house in the fall of 1851, while Cass was a town- ship of Pottawattamie county, and was for township officers. Fifteen men voted at this election. They were: Jeremiah and Victor M. Bradshaw, Jesse and Lewis Hyatt. John and Elihu Pettingill, James, Jacob and Joseph Ferran, John D. Camp- bell, A. J. Milschlagel, W. S. Townsend,
Johnson Brandom, and Messrs. Weeks and Elliott. The election passed off with- out any incident of note occurring. The voters stayed around during the day, and had considerable amusement, telling sto- ries, etc.
The first brick made in Cass county were burned by James F. Devers. His kiln was situated just north of Lewis. He commenced operations in the spring of 1858, and discontinued the business the following year.
The first postoffice was at Indiantown, and called "Cold Spring" and was estab- lished in 1847, with John Pettengill, a Mormon as postmaster. .
The first term of the District Court in Cass county was held in Myers' Hotel, May 22d, 1854, as detailed in the Judicial chapter.
The first camp meeting ever held in the county, was conducted by the Methodists, in the fall of 1855, in the grove near the 'Botna river, north of the present town of Lewis, on what was known as the John Mills place. Elder Shinn was the main preacher, and he made a grand success of the meeting. People were there from far and near, some coming as far as eighty miles. A large number of tents were spread and the provisions were ample for all. The meeting lasted for seven days. Those in attendance are said to have been well behaved people, and no disturbance of the peace occurred. A number of the pioneer young gentlemen were there with pioneer young ladies, and one of the for. mer believes to this day that he took one of the handsomest girls home from that meeting, that the world ever produced, and before he got her bome he made her
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promise to be his wife. She kept her promise.
The first person hanged in Cass county, was in 1868, and was a victim of a judi cious Lynch law. His name was, or at least he said it was, Michael Kelly, an Irish- man, who was one of the hardest charac- ters that ever lived in the county. He kept a saloon of the lowest type-a vile doggery, on the edge of Grove City, and for some trifling offense, he shot and kill- ed a man by the name of Thomas Curran, a civil, industrious Irishman, in the door yard in front of the saloon. This without a word of warning. On the commission of the deed, he immediately ran for the corn field and hid. The citizens turned out en masse, and hunted for him two or three days, and finally caught him in Bear Grove township, where he was lying in the tall grass, in a slough. They brought him back and he had a preliminary trial before 'Squire Smith, and was bound over to appear at the next term of the District Court. This hearing was finished about midnight, and the prisoner left in the bar- room of the hotel at Bear Grove, in charge of Lewis Bigelow, and Thomas Jordan, for safe keeping until morning. In less than half an hour, about a dozen disguised and masked men appeared on the scene, and with revolvers covering the guards, made them keep perfectly quiet while others gagged Kelly, put a rope around his neck and lead him out about fifty rods west of the hotel and drew him up to the limb of a locust tree, where they let him hang. From the best information obtain- able, it is believed that Mike Kelly was but an assumed name, and that Curran was not the first victim to his murderous
instincts. As to who did the lynching, nothing certain is known to this day, but there is no doubt in the minds of the best informed people in the county, but that some of the best and most highly respect- ed citizens of that part of the county, were concerned in it, or had knowledge of who did.
RELICS OF THE ABORIGINES.
When Jeremiah Bradshaw purchased from the Mormons his three claims, on coming to this county, he got something in the transaction which his contract did not call for. On his newly acquired pos- sessions he found two Indian burying grounds, or what was left of them, and the remains of a Pottawattamie village, with some of the wigwams still standing. The burying grounds afforded to him and his friends the largest field for venting their curiosity. They found that the In - dians had taken basswood logs, cut to the requisite length, hollowed them out, and placing their deceased babes in the rude coffins thus formed, had suspended them in the air by hickory bark from the limbs of trees; about twenty of these coffins were yet to be seen, among the branches of the trees, slowly rotting away. An- other way the Indians had of placing their babes in position for their long sleep was to drive stakes in the ground, construct a platform on top of them, and on these the little infants were placed, out of reach of ghoulish animals, if not safe from the attacks of birds of prey. These remains, relics of the former aborigine owners of the soil, were even then swiftly yielding to the corroding influences of time and weather, and were also disappearing under
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the influence of the odd taste, devel- oped by many of the emigrants passing through the country, for taking along with them Indian skulls and bones, as mementoes of their journey through the former bunting grounds of the Pottawat- tamies.
Mr. Bradshaw's land was prolific of this kind of relics, and in addition to the two regular burying grounds which his tracts contained, numerous Indian graves occur- red here and there throughout his posses- sions. By turning up the ground at these spots, not only was the mortal clay of the dead aborigine disclosed to view, but usually also his war and hunting imple- ments, carefully and religiously deposited at his side, that he might not have to make his journey across the dark river shorn of the emblems of warrior and hunter.
A chief was buried on his land, and at the head of his tomb was to be seen the bottom twelve feet of a large iron-root tree, placed with the branching roots in air, standing sentinel at the grave of the sachem.
The grave of another chief, near one of Mr. Bradshaw's claims, was marked by a post, which had the face of a chief carved on each of two sides. The features of these faces were nicely carved, and war paint was profusely used in their decora- tion. The post was taken up by John Ferran, and he removed it to his place at the point where the Indian creek joins the Nishnabotna, and he there used it for a gate-post. There it stood for some years till it rotted away, and it was seen by most of the settlers of the first few years of the county. The faces represented one
of the few pieces of carving which the Indians left as mementoes.
Among the other relics of former In- dian proprietorship which remained at the first settlement, was the Indian council house, which stood on land now owned and occupied by Henry Morgan, about the northeast corner of section 8, Cass township. The description bere given of it corresponds with its appearance as seen by V. M. Conrad, on his first arrival in the county, in 1850. It was about one hundred feet in length by thirty in width, and the sides were constructed of poles and strips of bark, lapped over. The structure was about seven feet high on the sides, and about ten feet at the cen- ter. Here the Pottawattamies in times gone by had put on their thinking caps, and amid the curling smoke of pipes, made their laws and laid their plans of war.
In the summer of. 1851 the Mormons had a baptismal ceremony at the river, at which about fifteen people were received into full membership in the church. Among them was Elihu Hyatt, a Gentile. He was a rough character, and was said to have joined the Mormons to curry favor with a girl among them whom he wished to marry. Ile afterwards removed to Utah.
The oldest house now standing in the county is the one in which court was held, at Indiantown. Mr. V. M. Conrad built it on the bottom land in the summer of 1850; it was 15x32 feet in dimensions. In 1852 Mr. Conrad removed it on to the hill; in 1853 he put another story on it, and fitted it up for a place of entertain- ment. Postoffice was kept in it till the county scat was removed to Lewis. It
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was also used for dancing by the young folks, and dancing school was held there. The house is now owned and occupied by Jacob Stevens.
In 1855 and 1856, hunting parties of Pottawattamie Indians passed through the county, and seeing their old burying grounds desecrated, as they deemed it, by the settlers' farming operations among them, they did some muttering, but never committed any act of violence. In the winter of 1857 word got out among the settlers that the Indians were hostile, and there was quite a little scare at Iranistan. Philander Cranny and two or three others got on their house-tops, to watch for the Indians, and give timely warning of their approach. The scare was finally passed off as a joke.
In May, 1860, there was a short time when nearly all the men were gone, being taken with the Pike's Peak craze, and leaving their families at home. It is said there was not a storekeeper left in Lewis. During that time, Mr. J. B. Hardenbergh was going to Council Bluffs one day with a team, and a number of the women of the neighborhood took advantage of the op- portunity thus afforded to have some trading done there. He had fifty dollars' worth of goods to buy that trip, and among the rest there were nine orders for a dollar's worth of sugar, from nine differ- ent persons.
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