USA > Iowa > Clayton County > History of Clayton County, Iowa : from the earliest historical times down to the present : including a genealogical and biographical record of many representative families, prepared from data obtained from original sources of information, Volume I > Part 48
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Hon. Samuel Murdock-As the shades of night began to gather at 5 o'clock Tuesday evening, January 27, 1897, the light of life de- parted from Clayton County's grand old man, Hon. Samuel Murdock, of this place. On Sunday, November 1, while at Buena Vista, where he had gone to make a political address, Mr. Murdock was stricken with paralysis. He came home the next day, but being in his 80th year, there has been constant wearing out until the darkness of death closed in upon the eyes of one of the brightest brains of our county. For more than half a century Mr. Murdock has been a conspicuous personage in Iowa, as the first lawyer of our county, the first judge of the Tenth Judicial District, and as being one of the few survivors of the territorial legislature of Iowa.
His parents were of Scotch ancestry, but were born in County
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Armagh, Ireland. They emigrated to America in 1812, settling near Pittsburgh, Pa. Here near the scene of Braddock's defeat was born the subject of this sketch, March 13, 1817. Ten years later the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and located on a little farm in the town of Rockport. Here it was that the boy grew to manhood, receiving such education as the common schools of that day afforded, although later he attended a two-year's term in the Cleveland Academy. After arriving at his majority he taught several terms of school in Ohio. In his youthful years he became acquainted with the Hon. Reuben Wood, at that time one of the supreme judges of Ohio, and who afterwards became governor. With this family the lad lived several years, and is indebted to the worthy judge for many of his early lessons in history and law. In the fall of 1841 he left Ohio for the west, going by way of the lakes to Chicago. After remaining a few days he started out to cross the country to Rock river, sometimes on foot and other times in wagons drawn by oxen. On reaching Rock river he followed it to Rock Island, and then crossed the Mississippi to the small town of Davenport. After resting a few days to recruit his strength, he shouldered his pack and started on foot across the country on an Indian trail most of the way, for Iowa City. As that place had been fixed as the future capital of Iowa the young man determined to make his abode there, and was soon pursuing his study in the law office of Bates & Harrison. This firm dissolving in a few months he entered the office of Hon. Gilman Folsome, and in 1842 he was ad- mitted to the bar of Johnson County.
Before finally locating, young Murdock determined to visit Du- buque. having letters of introduction to some of her principal citi- zens, among them Hons. T. S. Wilson, Stephen Hempsted, Timothy Davis and Thomas Rogers, all of whom have gone to another shore. It was while at Dubuque that he heard of the rich prairies of Clayton County, and starting out in company with John Thomas, of Prairie du Chien with Dr. Fred Andros as guide, he arrived at Jacksonville, now Garnavillo, on the 9th day of August, 1843. Taken with the natural beauty of the locality he determined to make it his home, and with this intention staked out a claim one and a half miles south on Section 29. This farm for thirty-five years he adorned and embellished with the fir, the spruce and the pine, and from their numbers and luxurious growth, the farm was called the "Evergreens." From the time he began work on this farm to last fall, Judge Murdock has been with his voice, pen and labor disseminating useful information on the sub- jects of agriculture and horticulture. In 1845 he was united in mar- riage with Miss Louise Patch, who had come to the county from New York in 1837.
Mr. Murdock was the first lawyer who permanently settled north of Dubuque, and during his long residence on the farm he maintained his law practice. In 1845 he was elected a member of the territorial legislature from the counties of Dubuque, Delaware and Clayton, and remained in that body until Iowa passed into a state, and while in this body was mainly instrumental in securing for the state her present northern boundary. In 1848 he was elected School Fund Commis- sioner, which he held four years, during which time he sold most of the school lands, consisting of Section 16 and the county's portion of
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the 500,000 acres donated for school purposes. In 1855 he was elected the first district judge of the Tenth Judicial District, which at that time included ten counties, and in several of these counties he held the first courts, and through this large district he traveled twice each year, generally on horse back, swimming rivers and wading sloughs, and accompanied by a number of attorneys. To this day these jour- neys form the theme of many a pleasing story among the older members of the bar of Northern Iowa. During the war he visited the Gulf states and was prominent as a correspondent of several Iowa news- papers. In 1864 he was retained as an attorney for Hon. James Andrews, of Columbia, Tenn., who had been condemned to imprison- ment for the killing of a soldier of a Michigan regiment. Mr. Murdock obtained a hearing and argued the case before President Lincoln and Mr. Andrews was set at liberty.
In 1869 he was elected a member of the Thirteenth General As- sembly, in which he distinguished himself in a speech opposing the repeal of the death penalty for the crime of murder. His arguments have since been proven true many times over. In the summer of 1869 he unearthed the "Hagerty Murder," one of the most cruel mur- ders of modern times, in which, single-handed, he brought to light no less than five dead bodies, after they had been hidden away for over eight months, and he pursued the murderer until he lodged him in the penitentiary for life. Judge Murdock has been a successful lawyer and has been on one side or the other in the most important cases in our courts up to within a year or more.
He was selected by the governor to fill Iowa's department of anthropology at the centennial, and although the notice was a short one, yet in a few months he collected and shipped to Philadelphia some of the most curious and wonderful specimens of prehistoric man that had ever been unearthed on this continent. Although the collection was small yet it received from the historian of the Centennial the only compliment paid to Iowa for her part in the great show. Some time in 1876 Judge Murdock sold his farm at Garnavillo and moved to Elkader, forming a law partnership with the late John Larkin which continued for several years. On September 11, 1895, Judge and Mrs. Murdock celebrated their golden wedding, at which many friends tes- tified to their feelings of honor and respect to the venerable judge and his companion.
Hon. Eliphalet Price .- I first met Eliphalet Price in early life upon the border, where the civilized and savage commingled to pursue a common road, and for more than a third of a century he was my neighbor and my friend, and what I have here to say over past life is but a tribute I owe to his distinguished worth. He saw the country from the great lakes to the Pacific Ocean a barren wilderness, and peopled alone by the hunter and the savage, and he saw the same territory rapidly converted into states and farms and fertile gardens ; and establishing over all a government and a civilization based upon the principles of exact justice and self-government, the greatest and per- haps the grandest the world ever saw. In nearly all of this develop- ment of empire, of human progress, settlement and western civiliza- tion, with all their attendant excitements, turmoils and passions, our
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old friend was an ever constant, prominent and untiring worker, and to write the history of such a man, to do justice to his name and memory, and to carry him through all the varied scenes and struggles of the last half century of western life, in which he was connected, would require volumes.
He was born in Jersey City, in the state of New Jersey, on the 31st day of January, 1811, and as he grew up he received from his father the rudiments of a common education, and when about eight- een years of age his father took him to New York City and bound him 'as an apprentice to learn the trade of a painter. This old relic of feudal times, called master and servant, still forms one of the chapters of the law of "domestic relations," and although it has nearly vanished from western civilization, it still clings with force to the institutions of the older states, and at the time of which we speak it was in its full force and rigor in the state and city of New York, and as often made the pretense for the very worst acts of tyranny and oppression by the master over the apprentice. Here, however, was a field for the genius of our friend and he soon accomplished a thorough organization of all the apprentices of the city into a strong society, with a constitution and by-laws that taught the most tyrannical master that they had rights which he was bound to respect. This society soon raised a sum of money with which they purchased a fine library of all the leading works of that day, and it was here that our old friend laid the founda- tion of that classical and historical knowledge which made him famous in after years as a writer and a scholar of no ordinary capacity. Vicissitude and misfortune, however, overtook his old master and he absolved young Price from his indenture, and this threw him upon the world to make his own way through life.
About the beginning of the year 1831 he arrived in the city of Philadelphia, and became the local editor of a paper called the Market Exchange, and in this capacity he soon brought himself into notice by his witty and spicy articles, many of which are more witty and mirthful than those of Ward or Nasby. But he soon tired of this work, and, looking over for wider fields for his talent, in the fall of that year he repaired to Washington city. He left Washington some time in 1832, with the design of seeing the far west and exploring the valley of the Mississippi ; traveled on foot to Pittsburgh, and after recruiting his wearied limbs, embarked on a steamer for Cincinnati. After remaining in this city for a short time he took passage on a steamer for New Orleans, and when he arrived in the latter city he found a large number of its inhabitants stricken down with cholera. Here for the first time since he left New York he found himself among strangers, without a cent in his pocket, with a dangerous and fatal disease raging around him. He repaired to the wharf in hopes of finding some craft that would take him beyond the limits of that scourge. At the wharf he found a steamer with her clerk on shore checking goods that were being shipped upon her, and upon inquiry the clerk informed him that they were loading for the lead mines of Galena, and requested him to take his place at the plank and check for him a few moments while he procured a little medicine from a neighboring drug store.
This he gladly did, and very soon the captain of the boat came
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along and discovered that his clerk was absent and a new man in his place, when he immediately followed his clerk to the drug store, only to find that he had just died of the fearful disease. Returning in a few moments to his boat he immediately engaged the services of our lamented friend as his clerk for the trip. Never was a service more gladly accepted or more faithfully performed, and in due time we find our young friend in Galena looking about for some vocation that would give him a living. But to him in his youthful days, "fields always looked greener when they were far away," and he turned his steps toward Iowa, arriving in Dubuque some time in the fall of 1832. It will be remembered that on the 21st of September, 1832, the Sac and Fox Indians had ceded to the United States a strip of land about fifty miles wide, extending from the Missouri to Little Iowa. This treaty was to take effect on the first day of June, 1833, but as soon as the terms of it were known hundreds of men rushed across the great river, took up claims and began prospecting in the lead mines of Dubuque. The Indians protested against this inroad, and General Zac. Taylor, who was the commanding officer at Fort Crawford, and who was afterward elected President of the United States, was ordered to proceed to the purchase and drive out the settlers. This order he executed to the letter, and our old friend with others was compelled to leave the territory. Like all the others, he hung upon the border, and on the expiration of the time he returned to Dubuque, and was among the first white men who made a legal settlement within the limits of what is now the great State of Iowa.
In the fall of 1834 he, in company with a party of hunters, explored the valley of the Turkey, and being enraptured with its romantic scenery, its rich and fertile prairies and its rippling stream, he determined to make the valley his future and permanent home. Returning to Dubuque to fulfill a contract he had entered into with Father Mazzuchelli to build for him a Catholic church, he again, in the fall of 1835, returned to the valley of the Turkey, and, in company with C. S. Edson, a person well known to old settlers of Clayton, spent the first winter near the town now called Osterdock. In the winter of 1836 a Mr. Finly erected a sawmill on the Little Turkey, near the present town of Millville. He shortly afterward sold out his mill and his claim to Robert Hetfield and Mr. Price. In the erection of this pioneer sawmill, Joseph Quigley, still living in Highland, was the millwright, and Luther Patch, still living and now residing in Elkader, was the sawyer. After a time Price sold out his interest in the mill, selected for himself a beautiful and fertile tract of land on the north side of the Turkey, about five miles from Millville, and on this he built his cabin.
In 1839 he married Miss Mary D. Cottle, a lady of culture, educa- tion, and refinement, and his equal in liberality and hospitality. Here upon his farm they raised a family of eight children, five of whom are still living. Two of these, R. E. and T. C. Price, now reside in Elkader ; another son is now the postmaster at Colorado Springs, Colo., and still another resides in San Jose, Cal. One of his sons fell at the battle of Tupelo, and another son, a major of the Eighth Iowa Cavalry, was wounded at the battle of Fort Donelson and afterward died of
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his wounds. His amiable wife died in 1865 and he never married again, but with his youngest daughter, who still lives in Colorado, he kept the younger portion of his household together to the last. During his long residence of thirty-eight years in our county he always took an active and prominent part in State and county politics, and in the management and organization of parties he had no peer in the State of Iowa. In early times he was an ardent Whig, but upon the repeal of the Missouri Compromise he threw his whole soul and action into the Republican party, and was among the very first, with voice and pen, to arouse the people against the strides and encroachments of the slaveholder. When the rebellion broke out he took an active part in the organization of military companies, encouraged his sons to draw the sword, and from the beginning to the end of the great war his voice and pen was never idle in the cause of the Union.
In 1845 he wrote and published the thrilling and melancholy story of the "Mysterious Grave," founded upon no fact whatever, and from the statement that these words, "Erin, an exile, bequeaths thee his blessing," was found in the grave, the story was copied into Irish papers, and many a poor Irish mother wept over it as perhaps the grave of a lost and wandering son. But perhaps his most successful story, one that called forth the greatest and most numerous encomiums, and one that was read at every camp fire in the army, and in every cottage wherever the English language was spoken, is the "Drummer Boy." It was published in the Chicago Daily Tribune, and for tenderness of expression, for ingenuity of theme, for elegance of style and diction, for converting the ideal into reality, for chaining the reader's attention and calling from him emotions of sympathy and patriotism, for the ease of deception and for its perfect and consummate delusion, it is his masterpiece. No one doubted but that the story was true, and the poor little "Drummer Boy," like Charlie Ross, was found in every village and hamlet in the land.
He took an active part in the organization of Clayton County, and held the first justice court within its limits. He was the first clerk of the Board of Clayton County Commissioners, was elected the first School Fund Commissioner, and served one term as a Judge of Pro- bate. In 1850 he took the United States census of the counties of Clayton, Fayette, Winneshiek and Allamakee.
In 1850 he was elected from the counties of Clayton, Fayette, Winneshiek and Allamakee to the State Legislature, and it was at this session that he brought himself into notice as one of the most skillful and sagacious politicians of the State. He took an active part in this Legislature, in the organization of the school system of the State, and to his actions and suggestions we are today indebted for some of our best laws relating to schools. For many successive terms he was elected Governor of the Lobby, and that body received from him an annual message, that for keen wit and withering sarcasm has never been excelled.
In 1852 he was appointed by President Fillmore as receiver of the land office at Des Moines, and held the office during that administra- tion. In 1855 he was elected Judge of the County Court of Clayton County, and held the office for two years. During his term in this
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office he resurveyed the roads of the county, established guide posts and mile posts among them, remodeled the county records, and gave names to the streams and townships. When his term expired he had the satisfaction of seeing his county's records and her finances estab- lished on a safe and permanent basis, to become a foundation for those who followed him for all time. He left every official position that he ever occupied with clean hands, and with a reputation for honesty, capability and fairness. In the fall of 1864 he followed the brave General Hatch through all his military raids in Mississippi, and was an eyewitness of all the battles and skirmishes this general had with the rebel General Forrest.
He was for many years the president of the Old Settlers and Pioneers' Association of the county, organized the first meeting, and delivered before it one of the finest and most eloquent speeches of his lifetime. Long before any railroad had reached any part of the great west, he called the people of the county together at a mass meeting in Guttenberg, to discuss the propriety of giving aid to a railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and in his opening speech before that meet- ing he declared with the most prophetic vision that he would live to see Clayton County checkered with railroads, and this he accomplished with some years to spare. Shortly after this meeting he made another speech to a few of the old settlers at Littleport, in which he said: "There are men in this audience, as well as myself, who will live to see a railroad passing up the Volga," and after the road up this stream was completed he wrote to the author of this article from Colorado saying in reference to it: "My dream is fulfilled, my prophecy has come to pass, and my mission will soon be ended, but Clayton County, hail !"
One can hardly realize that giant form that towered among us so long, that mingled in all our conventions, railroad meetings, county seat courts, balls, parties and routs, is gone forever, and that his voice and pen, which once stirred the thoughts and hearts of thousands, are now silent forever. Kind, courteous and social to all, whether rich or poor, his sympathies were aroused to the highest pitch at distress and sorrow, and he was at your service, while his money flowed like water. The priest and the layman, the tramp and the trader, the lawyer and the farmer, the rich and the poor, all found a home and a resting place at his house and a seat at his table. Ill health at last forced him to take refuge in the Rocky Mountains, and in the year 1872 he sold his home- stead, took the younger members of the family, and departed for Colorado, leaving behind him the scenes of his early triumphs, ex- ploits, associations and hardships, upon which his eyes were never to rest again. In Colorado he began the same career which characterized him in his early days in Clayton County, and with the vigor of his youth he visited the camps of her miners, ascended her highest moun- tains, looked down upon her widespread plains, and with his voice and pen contributed to add to her greatness and her resources. But old age and disease were fast destroying his stalwart frame, and when the fatal hour had come his death was like the blowing out of a candle.
Hon. Timothy Davis .- This well-known pioneer of Clayton County was born in Utica, N. Y., in 1794. His parents had emigrated thither
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and carved out a home among the wilds of that then new country. It was then that Mr. Davis acquired those habits of industry and fru- gality which ever accompanied him through life. Inheriting a strong physical constitution, and imbued in early life with pluck and energy, he was well prepared in after life to meet and battle with the world. While yet a young man he left his native State, and after traversing much of this western country, he settled in the town of West Madrid, Mo., but afterward removed to St. Genevieve, Mo., at that time the capital of Louisiana Territory, embracing all of the country west of the lakes. St. Louis at that time was a small village compared with St. Genevieve.
At St. Genevieve Mr. Davis began the practice of law, a profession. for which he was evidently well calculated. Here he married, in 1823, Miss Nancy Wilson, and here his oldest son, L. V. Davis, was born. After several years' residence at St. Genevieve, during which time he took a conspicuous part in the politics of the day, he removed to St. Mary's, a town which he had himself laid out, where he remained until his removal to Dubuque in 1836. While in Missouri he was a candidate for the legislature on the Whig ticket, but that party being in the minority, he, was defeated. A like fate befell him some years after, when he was nominated by his party at Dubuque for a similar position. He was then thoroughly conversant, as he was up to the time of his death, with the political questions of the day, and his acknowledged abilities as a speaker and debater made him sought for on all public occasions.
One of the principal events of his life, and one to which his friends point with pride, was on the occasion of the timber suits in 1850, the particulars of which the old residents well remember. A number of settlers had been indicted and arrested for cutting timber on Government lands, and Mr. Davis, assisted by Platt Smith, Esq., of Dubuque, defended the cause of the settlers. It was a matter in which everybody in the Northwest was deeply interested. Almost everybody, including prominent men, made a practice of cutting and using Government timber, and it may well be imagined that when the prosecutions began there was an intense excitement that pervaded not only Dubuque but the entire Northwest. Indignation meetings were held and the newspapers were filled with exciting discussions on the subject. Mr. Davis rose to the full appreciation of his task as an attorney and as a defender of the rights of the people. In his speech on the occasion he referred to the injustice of the prosecutions in the most impressive and pathetic manner, and when he alluded to the fact that the Government would have to tear up the floors of the business houses, the seats in the churches and school houses and even the boards of which the coffins had been made, and which were constructed of timber taken from Government land, he certainly struck the most tender cord of popular sentiment ; and the result was an entire acquit- tal of the arrested parties, and immense rejoicings among the sturdy old settlers in which Mr. Davis was rightly the hero of the day. Mr. Davis was engaged in many other important suits, among which were several mining cases which excited equal interest and made him conspicuous among the bar of the country.
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In 1857 he was nominated for Congress by the Republican party and elected by a handsome majority. The State was then divided into but two Congressional districts, and Mr. Davis had a large con- stituency to represent. Though then advanced in years he was a promi- nent member of the House, and his voice and vote was ever on the right side. He had been an ardent Whig, but when that party dissolved and the encroachments of the slave power rallied the Republican party of the North into existence he became one of its first adherents, and firmly and steadfastly defended the cause of freedom. Mr. Davis, however, was not a mere politician. He identified himself with all the substantial interests of the country, and a full sketch of his life would contain a history of Northern Iowa. The settlement and devel- opment of Elkader originated with him. He was on a political tour through Clayton in 1845, and had come to Turkey River, to the present townsite of Elkader, where he found Elisha Boardman, who showed him the magnificent water power and the beautiful townsite. Im- pressed with its beauty and importance, he returned to Dubuque and soon after laid the matter before Messrs. Thompson and Sage, the latter of whom was sent up by Mr. Thompson to inspect the mill site. He returned equally pleased with it, and the result was that the property was bought of Mr. Boardman, and the building of the mill began the following year. The honor of naming the town fell to Mr. Davis. At that time there was great excitement about the exploits of the Arabian chief, Abdel Kader, and being an admirer of that daring chieftain, Mr. Davis named this place Elkader. He was identi- fied with its interests up to the time of his death. To him it was always the best place in the State. It had the best mill, the best stores, the best society and the best newspapers. He was always a warm defender when Elkader was assailed, and he lived to see the home of his adoption rise from the wilderness to one of the most important towns north of Dubuque. In 1854 he removed from Du- buque to Elkader, remaining there till 1857, but after the death of Mrs. Davis, in the spring of that year, he returned to Dubuque. In the fall of 1857 he was married to Mrs. Jane B. O'Farrell, with whom he lived happily until his death. A few years after his second marriage, he determined that he could not stay away from Elkader, so he moved back, built himself a fine residence, and passed his last years in the sunshine of his old friends and amidst those nearest and dearest to him.
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