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 52
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Yes, sir, I have followed the frontier all of my early life and know well its hardships. I was born in Indiana, but moved westward with my parents in the advance of civilization. I was within 8 miles of the great massacre during the Black Hawk war and moulded bullets for the settlers during that war.
LOUISA MURDOCK
First-Born White Children-Mr. William Walker, who kept the ferry from the mouth of Turkey river over to Cassville, lived on the Iowa side of the river. He had a child born in 1837. A family by the name of Parks had one born before 1840, and there were two children in the Jones family born before that year. My brother, Lewis, now living in Denver, Colorado, was born March 23, 1838, near where Millville now is, in Clayton county, Iowa Territory. Julius, my youngest brother, was born in Prairie du Chien, Wis., October 1, 1840. I believe the Springer family had two children born before 1840, and the Henry Redmond family had small children also, I think. Dr. Griffeth lived on a small farm near Millville. I do not know whether he had children born in this county or not. His daughter, Nancy, was- married to Joseph Quigley after we moved to Cassville.
The Oliver family, who lived on Turkey river, also had children.
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It will be remembered that Oliver was hung in Cassville about the year 1839 for the shooting of a man that had worked for him, by the name of Jack Courtwright. Both men lived in Clayton county but the shooting took place in Cassville. As there were no stores in those days on the Iowa side of the Mississippi river, trading had to be done in Cassville. G. M. Price, a brother-in-law of Ben Forbes, kept the first dry goods and grocery store there. The town was composed mostly of eastern people and the society was good.
The young men of the place were : Ben Manahan, Charles Wister, Ira Libby, and two brothers, Cloves and Charles Lagrave.
REMINISCENCES OF GUY KINSLEY
"I believe I have split more rails than Abraham Lincoln ever saw. In early days rails and hoop poles were legal tender. The hoop poles were in demand by the flour mills and the rails for fences. The first homes were built in the timber but in the fifties the settlers began venturing out on the prairie a little beyond the woods. They dared not go further than two or three miles for, with well drills an unknown quantity, they were obliged to stay close to water. Hogs and cattle were free commoners and if you wanted to raise a crop it was neces- sary to fence. So we who lived in the timber as we cleared our land, split rails and sold them to the settlers out from the woods and we could sell all we could make. It was a huge undertaking to haul rails for fences and that was another reason why the settlers stayed near the timber." It was partly because his father had been given a quarter section of Iowa land in recognition of his services in the War of 1812 that Mr. Kinsley when a young man left the stony Vermont farm. "I crossed Lake Champlain by boat, then journed down the St. Law- rence and the Great Lakes to Chicago and up to Waukegan, Wiscon- sin. There I shouldered my gun and set out on foot for Iowa, going first to Clinton where father's land was located. I asked the county surveyor at Clinton what the piece was worth. He answered, 'Oh, about $500.' I wrote this back to father, saying I would pay him that much for it and stay and try to farm the land if he wanted me to. The news that a quarter section of Iowa land was valued at $500 seemed almost incredible to Vermont people and I so had a letter from father saying if it was worth that much he guessed he'd keep it. A year later he sold for $1700 that quarter section that $40,000 couldn't probably buy today."
From Clinton the young emigrant went over into Wisconsin again and at Lancaster took up his tramp along the famous old trail which terminated at the mouth of the Wisconsin river. At the end of the road on the bank of the Mississippi he found a pole and a long horn. Two miles up the river a boat was to be seen tied up at McGregors Landing. Taking the hint Mr. Kinsley tied his handkerchief on the pole and blew several loud blasts on the horn. While he waited for the boat he tells how he bathed his weary feet in the waters of the Mississippi and gazed with fascinated interest at the great river and the hills opposite, little dreaming of the greatness of the State he was to help found and make his home for over sixty years. The Alexander McGregor ferry was a big flatboat propelled by horses. It was in
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great demand in the fifties to carry immigrants from the Wisconsin road to McGregor's Landing where they could take the trail for northern Iowa and southern Minnesota. Often a caravan of wagons came to- gether over the road and sent a man ahead on foot to signal the ferry. The boat's captain carried his fares in his boot leg and charged Mr. Kinsley ten cents for the service of himself, mate and two horses for three hours.
The following spring Mr. Kinsley bought 240 acres in the woods near McGregor for $600. Twelve acres had been cleared on the piece. There was a log cabin on it and an old Indian had tapped 900 of the maple trees for sap. The next spring the wife came and the home in the woods was truly founded. The old military road from the Mississippi to Fort Atkinson, one of the best travelled trails in the state passed the cabin. It soon became noised abroad that the Kinsley house was a fine place to eat and spend the night and the little cabin became a favorite stopping place for travelers. No one was ever turned away though it often meant personal sacrifices to the family to share with them. Mr. Kinsley tells how they took care of fifteen men and hoys and 500 hogs one night. "In those days they used to trail hogs to McGregor for many miles inland," as he tells the story. "It was quite common for a herd of them and their drivers to pass along the road. They couldn't drive them horseback but had to do all the herd- ing on foot, at the best never making more than ten miles a day. A couple of wagons were always carried along. The herders watched the hogs carefully and as soon as one showed signs of weariness he was loaded into a wagon and given a ride.
"A funny thing happened one day. A couple hundred hogs came down the road and just as they got to the turn by our house a bunch of hogs made a sudden run toward them grunting loudly. Quick as a flash the whole herd stampeded, got away from their drivers and scattered in the timber. A good many of them never were found. Hogs were very wild in those days running in the timber all day, only coming home at night to sleep. The woods were full of acorns and they throve well on them. They did lots of good also in their ranging, because they killed great numbers of rattlesnakes. Many of the acorn- fed porkers and quantites of beans raised by the settlers in the clear- ings, were taken up river on the steamers to the lumber camps in the pineview."
Mr. Kinsley threshed his first wheat with a yoke of oxen, put- ting the bundles in a circle on the hard frozen ground and driving the animals over them. In this manner he threshed out eighty bushels in four days and he claims this is the cheapest threshing he ever did. This primitive method of threshing was not very novel to the Iowa pioneer, for he had never seen grain threshed in New England other than by hand. In telling of the little school that he and the neighbors established in the woods for their children, Mr. Kinsley relates how they paid their first teacher $1.50 a week and board. One man teacher was given two young steers for a winter's term of teaching. The settlement that grew up around the Kinsley home is now known as Pleasant Ridge, and has developed into one of the best agricultural sections of the county. A fine farm in the vicinity is the Jersey Stock
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farm of Frank Kinsley, Mr. Kinsley's eldest son and a member of the Iowa Animal Health Commission. The old military road along the ridge is now a finely kept highway and very popular for motor travel. At one point a grass grown trail branches off through the timber and descends abruptly to the banks of the Mississippi terminating at the site of the government buildings which in early days were erected for the use of the soldiers at Fort Crawford in looking after the Indians on the Iowa side. A barn with accommodation for 100 cavalry horses and an officer's home were there at the time Mr. Kinsley settled beside the military road. In the forties the soldiers used to patrol from the landing for fifty miles west of Fort Atkinson.
In 1857 the first railroad built to the Mississippi north of Dubuque was completed between Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien. Prairie du Chien immediately became the market point for all the wheat, hogs and other products of northeastern Iowa and Minnesota. Part were brought down by steamer from Minneapolis and St. Paul and intermediate points to Prairie du Chien and there transferred to the railroad. The rest were teamed to McGregor and taken across on boats in the summer and on the ice in winter. On the completion of the first railroad west of the Mississippi from McGregor to Calmar and later on up into Minnesota, the amount of produce to be transported from McGregor to Prairie du Chien grew enormously in bulk. To facilitate handling it, John Lawler, agent for the Milwaukee, Prairie du Chien railway, had barges built with railroad tracks extending from end to end of them. Approaches were constructed on either shore from the railroads to the river. Down them freight cars were run on the barges, four or five to each barge. The ferry took the car- laden boats in tow and carried them over the river. This scheme worked all right during the open season, but how to manage it in winter was another problem. To solve it John Lawler of Prairie du Chien built a pile bridge between the two towns, leaving two open spaces in the channel for passage of boats. When navigation closed in the fall a temporary bridge was thrown across these openings and through train service was established for the winter.
However, the temporary bridge had to be torn out each spring which made it inconvenient. Necessity proved once again the mother of invention and Mr. Lawler devised the scheme of lashing barges together and putting them in these openings. They were supplied with a cable and drum so that they could be swung open to allow boats to pass through. So was fashioned the first pontoon between McGregor and Prairie du Chien. Though some changes have been made since the bridge is still practically the same model as that Mr. Lawler built forty years ago.
May 11, 1871, rails were laid on the Dubuque-La Crosse division of the C. M. & St. P. as far as McGregor and the first locomotive rounded the hill and sent its shrill whistle echoing up to the joyful crowd of McGregor people who had gathered to welcome it. It was pulling the construction train which was to carry the line north along the Mississippi river from this point. During the summer of J371 the grade was completed to Yellow river. Work was resumed early in the spring above Yellow river and the road completed to La
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Crescent by the fall of 1872. The first train was a combination passenger and freight and required eight hours to make the run between Dubuque and La Crosse.
ELIPHALET PRICE
Eiboeck, the enterprising editor of the Elkader Journal, is pub- lishing a series of articles relating to the history of our county. Judge Price, of Guttenberg, finds some errors in the history, and he writes to his long time friend, Thomas Updegraff, Esq., as follows :
Guttenberg, April 6, 1869.
Friend Tom :- In the History of Clayton County, which is being published in the Journal, the author has fallen in to an error in regard to the locality of the first blacksmith's shop on the south side of Turkey river. There were three smiths' shops in operation upon the south side of the Turkey river at least two years before there was any inhabitant residing in the immediate vicinity of Elkader. The first smith's shop on the south side of the river was erected in August, 1836, upon the south bank of the river, near the mouth of the Hender- son branch, in the northwest corner of Millville township. The logs for this shop were cut in one day by Dudley Peck and E. Price ; and on the same day Captain William D. Grant made the clapboards for the roof. On the next day Thomas Van Sickle hauled the logs together, and on that day we raised the building, put on the roof, cut out the doorway, and built the furnace. A few days after Captain Grant placed in the building a full set of blacksmith's tools, and shortly after Cyrus Henderson was duly installed as the first black- smith upon the south side of Turkey river. A day or two before the installment of "Si" took place, and Captain and myself visited the shop, which was distant about one mile from residence, and dis- covered that a scouting party of the racoon family had made an attack upon the building since our previous visit. The sledge hammer, the vise, and the anvil appeared to have come out of the conflict with- out injury, but the bellows had received a wound which had penetrated its bowels, at a point where some tallow had been placed for the purpose of softening the leather. The "Cap," who never swore except on extraordinary occasions, regarded this as one of them, and the result was the bellows was rendered invulnerable to all future attacks of the coon by an impenetrable blue streak that settled around it during the time the Captain, in a prairie-like attitude, was examining the incision.
"Si," who was about 17 years old, had acquired a literal theoretical knowledge of the Vulcanian art by blowing and striking the army shop of Colonel Taylor, at Prairie du Chien, and the earliest display of his artistic skill in the new shop was brought to bear upon a bull-plough, so-called, the first agricultural implement we had owned, and which needed a new lay. The work was commenced early in the morning, "Si," engineering and singing, and we blowing and striking, and there was no difficulty in holding the plough by the bar with the naked hand when heated, until near the close of the day, when, what remained of it, was found necessary to hold with a pair of tongs.
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At length, the borax having given out, and the lay still stubbornly refusing to adhere to the plough, "Si" seized it with a herculean grasp, and whirling it around his head, sent it sparkling through the air across the shop. Then, stepping back with folded arms and sooty face, he stood and silently gazed upon the charred and mutilated plough, like Vulcan contemplating the shield of Achilles. A few stones that mark the ruins of its furnace is all that remains of the first blacksmith shop on the south side of the Turkey river. In the winter of 1836 fol- lowing, a shop was opened at Elkport, and one at Millville, all of which were on the south side of the Turkey river, and were in opera- tion three or four years before the shop was started in Elkader. Besides the three shops I have named on the south side of the river, there were two upon the north side, both older than the Henderson shop. One was erected by Robert Hatfield in the spring of 1835 and one by a manufacturer of counterfeit coin in the fall of 1834; this was the first shop in the county. The owner professed to be a blacksmith and gunsmith, but was in fact a manufacturer of bogus coin of the denomination of 50 cents. There is not now a fragment of these five shops remaining ; but, what is remarkable, it is believed the five black- smiths who first worked them are still living, and are named as fol- lows: William Morris (bogus), Robert Hatfield, Cyrus Henderson, Robert Campbell and Frederick Hodge.
Your friend, Eliphalet Price.
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CHAPTER XIX
HISTORICAL WRITINGS OF HON. ELIPHALET PRICE, HON. B. W. NEWBERRY, AND OTHERS.
THE ORIGIN AND INTERPRETATION OF THE NAMES OF THE RIVERS AND STREAMS OF CLAYTON COUNTY-NAVIGATION ON THE TURKEY-HIS- TORY AND TRADITIONS OF CASS TOWNSHIP-EARLY HISTORICAL IN- CIDENT-THE OLD DUBUQUE ROAD-THE STORY OF BLOODY RUN.
BY HON. ELIPHALET PRICE.
W HEN time shall have thrown around the remembrance of the early settlers of Iowa, its impenetrable veil of forget- fulness, when other generations shall appear, and look out upon the natural and enduring scenery of the state, there will be inquir- ing minds then as now, that will seek to discover the origin and the interpretation of the names of our rivers, creeks, runs, brooks, branches and streams. And, should the antiquarian of that future period, while searching for information of this kind among the thrown-aside and mouldy volumes of some haunted attic chamber, accidentally dis- cover this number of the annals of Iowa, he will acquire from a perusal of its pages, a knowledge of the origin and the interpretation of the names of the water-courses of so much of the state as is located in the county of Clayton, which we proceed to give by commencing at the northeastern corner of the county, with what is known as "Bloody Run." This stream is about nine miles in length, flowing in nearly an eastern direction, and emptying into the Mississippi at North McGregor. The origin of its name is as follows: Lieutenant Martin Scott of the United States Infantry, who was stationed from 1821 until 1826 at Fort Crawford, in Wisconsin, directly opposite the mouth of Bloody Run, was not only a great sportsman, but was regarded as the best hunting shot in the country, by both the white and the Indian hunter. This stream and the country adjacent to it, was his favorite hunting ground, particularly at that season of the year when the deer were mossing in the water. Before leaving the fort to cross the river, he would often observe in a jocular manner, "I am going to make the blood run today over on my hunting ground." From this circumstance, the officers and soldiers at the fort bestowed upon the stream the name of "Bloody Run," which it still retains. Lieutenant Scott, who was stationed at Fort Snelling in Minnesota, for some time previous to the Mexican war, often when recounting
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his hunting adventures on Bloody Run, spoke of the stream receiving its name in the manner we have given. He was a brave and gallant officer, and was killed at the battle of Molino Del Rey.
About six miles southward from McGregor, flowing in a south- easterly direction, the "Sny Magill" discharges its waters into a slough of the Mississippi, after winding through the country a distance of seven miles. This stream takes its name from the slough into which it empties, which was originally called by the French voyageurs "Chinaille Magill," which in English would express Magill's channel or slough. Donald Magill, a Scotchman, and an Indian trader, built a trading house upon the bank of this slough near the mouth of the "Sny Magill" in the year 1814, where for several years he carried on a trade with the Sacs and Musquakee Indians. The Spaniards called this slough "The Sny Magill," and the inland stream that empties into it has taken and preserved the name. This stream is often improperly called the Sly Magill. Magill died at St. Louis about the year 1820.
Farther down the Mississippi, about six miles below the town of Clayton, "Buck Creek," after flowing a distance of nine miles in a southeasterly direction, discharges its waters also into a slough of the Mississippi. This stream received its name from William Grant in 1837. Grant was an Englishman by birth, and a millwright by trade, and while exploring the creek in search of a mill site for Robert Hatfield, who afterwards built a mill and located upon the stream, he discovered and killed a large doe while mossing in the waters of the creek, and from this circumstance called the stream Doe creek, but soon after he killed a large buck that was standing at bay against a wolf that had driven him into the creek, when the men working upon the mill suggested to him that as the buck was the larger animal, the stream ought to be called Buck creek, which he adopted, and conveyed the name of Doe creek to a small tributary near by. Grant was an ingenious mechanic, a hunter, and a bachelor, and was never more delighted than when engaged in the trapping of otter along the creek. The capture of one of these animals always furnished him with a hunter's yarn, which of a winter's evening would often stretch itself out far away towards the midnight hour. He was much respected, and died upon the creek that he had named.
About three miles below this stream, Miners' creek discharges its waters into the Mississippi, within the corporate limits of the town of Guttenberg. About 500,000 pounds of lead ore has been raised upon this stream, where mining operations are still being carried on. The discovery of lead ore here was made by Neham Dudley in 1835. The stream received its name from Daniel Justice, who erected upon it the first cabin and engaged in mining. Very soon after Mr. Justice had become permanently located thereon and bestowed upon the stream the name of Miners' creek John Murry, a rival miner, also located upon the creek, and not being upon friendly terms with Mr. Justice, endeavored to have the stream called Coon creek, and for a time it was known by both names, when, the parties meeting at Prairie la Porte under the influence of liquor, agreed to settle the controversy by a fight. Mr. Justice proving to be the victor, Miners' creek was at
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once recognized as the permanent name of the stream. (Mr. Justice died at Denver City a few years since.)
About six miles below the town of Guttenberg, Turkey river discharges its waters into the main channel of the Mississippi nearly opposite the town of Cassville, Wisconsin. This river is about ninety miles in length, flowing by trunk and tributary through the counties of Howard, Winneshiek, Chickasaw, Fayette and Clayton. From the earliest acquaintance of the white trader with the different Indian tribes of the upper Mississippi, this river was recognized as being in the possession and occupancy of Saw-kee and Mus-qua-kee Indians, until the year 1832, when it passed into the possession of the United States by the treaty of Rock Island. In the treaty relations of the government of the United States with these united tribes, they are called "Sac and Foxes," which is not their national name. The Saw- kee does not call himself Sac, but Saw-kee; the word Sac has no mean- ing in their language, while Saw-kee signifies "the man with the red badge or emblem," red being a national or favorite color in the adorn- ment of their persons. The Hebrew of Biblical history placed ashes upon the head when mourning for the dead. The Saw-kee during the period of mourning for the dead, covers his head with red clay, or clay colored red. 'Mus-qua-kee means the man with the yellow badge or emblem. These tribes could formerly be readily distinguished by the color of the adornments of their person.
The name of Fox by which the Mus-qua-kee is more generally known originated as follows: James Marquette, the Jesuit chief of a French missionary post at Green Bay, in June, 1675, started from that station in search of the Mississippi river, being accompanied by a roving French gentleman in search of adventure, by the name of Joliet, together with five French voyageurs and two Indian guides. While ascending the rapid current of Fox river with his companions in bark canoes, he found the shores of that stream inhabited by a numerous tribe of Indians calling themselves Mus-qua-kees, and the adroitness of these Indians in stealing from our worthy missionary articles of small value, prompted him to bestow upon them the name of "Reynors," from which circumstance the river acquired the name of the "Rio Reynor," and is so recorded upon the French and Spanish maps of the day. The country afterwards falling into the possession of the English the name "Reynor" assumed its English translation, which is Fox, and now without further digression, we resume the subject of this article, by saying that the name of Turkey river in the Saw-kee and Mus-qua-kee language is "Pe-na-kun-sebo." "Pena," turkey; "sebo," river.
The Winnebagoes who came upon the river from the Wisconsin after the white man had begun to settle upon it, were aware of its name in the Saw-kee language, which they translated into their own language and called it "Ce Ce Carrah-ne-bish." "Ce Ce Carrah," a turkey ; "nebish," river or water. At the time the white man came upon the river in 1834, it abounded with game of every kind peculiar to the country ; so numerous were the wild turkey, they were often shot from the cabin door.
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