USA > Iowa > Scott County > Davenport > History of Davenport and Scott County Iowa, Volume I > Part 9
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ROYALTY VISITS THE CITY.
Mr. Barrows mentions the stay of Prince DeJoinville and his suite at the LeClaire house in 1841. When that nobleman returned to France he printed a volume of American travels which were unusual in interest. When the company were here they told of the cupidity of the hotel keeper in Galena, the Illinois metropolis, who charged up a list of extras which made the distinguished trav- elers feel that this section was strictly abreast with the hotels of continental Europe. One item was $3, for the use of the hotel piano for one tune, played with indifferent success.
THE FIRST DUEL ON IOWA SOIL.
In an autobiography of Andrew W. Griffith, of Keokuk, written in 1882, and unpublished, hitherto in 1882, appeared the following account of a duel, probably the first on Iowa soil, of which he was an eye witness :
"During my stay in Davenport I witnessed the only duel ever fought in Iowa. There were two young men from Philadelphia rusticating between Rock Is- land and Davenport, a Mr. Charles Hegner and a Mr. Sperry. He, Sperry, was a West Pointer out rusticating. Hegner was a son of a wealthy liquor mer- chant of Philadelphia, had plenty of money and good clothes. There were also two other fine looking gentlemen wintering alternately between Davenport and Rock Island by the name of John Finch and a Mr. Ralston. Finch taught writ- ing school and Ralston was a gentleman of leisure. They all met at a party at the old Rock Island House in the town of Rock Island. The difficulty grew out of Mr. Hegner's and Mr. Ralston's being engaged to dance the same set with a young lady by the name of Sophia Fisher. Mr. Ralston held the fort and Heg- ner challenged him to fight a duel. Ralston accepted and selected pistols at
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twenty paces, the battle to be fought on Iowa soil on the bank of the father of waters one mile below what was then the town of Davenport, but now in the city, at sunrise the second morning following the challenge. Mr. Ralston selected Finch for his second and Mr. Hegner selected Sperry; Dr. Craig of Rock Is- land, surgeon. Jack Evans, of Davenport, and myself being anxious to see the fun, were on the ground at sunrise, found the combatants on the ground, thirst- ing for blood. They took their positions, when Mr. Ralston offered a com- promise, but nothing but blood would satisfy Mr. Hegner. Mr. Ralston then replied: 'D-n you, I will not kill you but I will wing you.' The word was given and both fired. Hegner was shot in the right arm and Ralston was not touched. The surgeon dressed the wound, the duelists shook hands and all went up to the LeClaire House and took a drink. Then the fun commenced with the officers of the law. They got after them for fighting on Iowa soil. The combatants flew across the river. There the officers got after them for passing a challenge. Finally they run them out of the country. The truth as to the trouble between the two belligerents was that Mr. Ralston was a little better poker player than Hegner. John Finch is now living in Dallas, Illinois. Mr. Ralston is dead. The other two I have lost track of."
NEWHALL'S IMMIGRANT PICTURE.
The rush of immigration to the Black Hawk purchase described by Mr. Bar- rows might be illustrated by an extract from a little work called "A Glimpse of Iowa in 1846, or the Emigrant's Guide," written by J. B. Newhall, an early writer who did much to attract settlers to this state. These paragraphs are his :
"The writer of these lines having frequent occasion to traverse the great thoroughfares of Illinois and Indiana in the years of 1836 and 1837, the roads would be literally lined with the long, blue wagons of the emigrants, slowly wend- ing their way over the broad prairies, the cattle and horsemen and dogs, and fre- quently men and women forming the rear of the van, often ten, twenty, thirty wagons in company. Ask them where their destination was, and they would reply, the Black Hawk Purchase. I well remember on a beautiful autumnal evening in 1836 crossing the military tract in Illinois. The last rays of the sun were gilding the tree tops and shedding their mellow tints upon the fleecy clouds, as my horse turned the sharp angle of a neighboring thicket. Here I encoun- tered a settler camped for the night. How little do the trans-Alleghanians know of such a scene. I'll try to give them the picture, not coleur de rose, but from life, breathing and real.
"The old lady had just built her campfire, and was busily engaged in frying prairie chickens which the unerring rifle of her boy had brought to the ground. One of the girls, was milking a brindle cow, and that tall girl yonder with swarthy arms and yellow sunbonnet is nailing the coffee mill on the side of a scrub oak which the little boy had blazed out with his hatchet. There sat the old man on a log, quietly shaving himself by a six-penny looking glass which he had tacked to a neighboring tree. And yonder old decrepit man, sitting on the low, rush-bottomed chair, is the aged grandsire of all; better that his bones be left by the wayside than that he be left among strangers. He sits quietly smok-
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ing his pipe with all the serenity of a patriarch-apparently as ready to shuffle off this mortal coil that night as to sit down to his prairie chicken supper. What a picturesque group for the pencil of a painter; yet these are the scenes that we frequently witness in the far West. This is emigrating. 'Tis not going away from home. The home was there, that night, with the settlers on Camp creek, under the broad canopy of heaven, by that gurgling brook where the cattle browsed, the dogs barked, and the children quietly slumbered."
In this way Scott county was settled, and of these people Willard Bar- rows wrote.
BIOGRAPHY OF WILLARD BARROWS.
In the initial issue of the Annals of Iowa appeared as a preface and intro- duction to the history a memoir by the editor which will serve to introduce to present day readers this author of the days of early Iowa. The memoir reads : "Willard Barrows, Esq., the writer of the following history, was born at Munson, Mass., in 1806. He received a thorough education in the common schools and academies of New England. In 1827 he settled in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where he taught school for several years; and was married in 1832. Selecting the pursuit of engineering and surveying he engaged in a contract with the government to finish the surveys of the Choctaw Indian purchase, in the cypress swamps and cane brakes on the Yazoo and Sunflower rivers, in the region where the northwestern army and navy of the United States have lately operated. By the sudden rise of the Mississippi river which overflowed all the country except the ridges his party was cut off from all inhabitants and supplies during the winter of 1836-7, reducing them to short allowance and even to the fruit of the persimmon tree and the flesh of the opossum for food. All other animals fled except that a hawk or an owl was occasionally killed. About the Ist of March the flood so far subsided that they went by canoes to Vicksburg and Natchez, and he proceeded to Jackson, Miss., to report there to the surveyor general.
"In 1837 he was occupied in the first surveys of Iowa by the government and spent the winter on the Wapsipinicon river. And in July, 1838, he settled with his family in Rockingham, five miles below Davenport.
"In 1840 Mr. Barrows surveyed the islands of the Mississippi from the mouth of the Rock river to Quincy, Ill. In 1841-2 the public surveys being suspended he engaged in farming, and held the offices of justice of the peace, of postmaster and notary public at Rockingham, in which he continued until 1843 when he entered upon the survey of the Kickapoo country north of the Wisconsin river. There the Winnebago Indians stole the provisions of the party, and he was compelled to go to Prairie du Chien for supplies. On his return his way was obstructed by prostrate timber hurled in every direction by a ter- rific tornado through which with the help of indolent Indians he was able to cut a passage only two and one-half miles in two days. Forced to send his provi- sions up the Kickapoo by the Indians in canoes, he followed on by land till they were past the track of the whirlwind. The supplies were landed and the Indians dismissed. He then carried the provisions a half mile and concealed them. The next day, early, he took a bag of flour and a little pork on a single
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pack-horse and hastened to relieve his men as fast as he could through the wilderness over the 'Sugar Loaves of Wisconsin' as the region is called where Col. 'Atkinson, in 1832, in pursuit of Black Hawk and his Indian warriors was obliged to leave his wagons and baggage with the loss of many horses. On the fourth day he came upon one starving man of his party, and after refreshing him he pressed on to the camp where the rest, neglecting to rescue themselves when they were able, and supposing him to be murdered by the Indians were sunken in despair. Cheered by his arrival and strengthened with food, they all started for the depot of provisions on the Kickapoo, and reached the place to find them all stolen again by the Indians. The only means of saving their lives, then, was to ascend the Kickapoo to a ford and thence go to Prairie du Chien. On the third day after they reached a settlement where they stayed a week and recruited, and when arrived at Prairie du Chien they found many articles of their clothing in the liquor shops that the Root Indians had stolen and sold. Their horses had previously been scattered during the tornado, so that the party had been compelled to eat their two dogs, at the camp, making soup of the bones and nettles, and boiling part of their harness for food instead of horse flesh.
"Afterward Mr. Barrows traversed northern Iowa, then in possession of the Indian tribes with a view to a knowledge of the region. He visited the mission school then at Fort Atkinson, where he got a passport over that sec- tion of the country from Rev. Mr. Lowrey, then in charge of the mission.
"'Barrows' New Map of Iowa, with Notes,' was published in 1854 by Doo- little & Munson, Cincinnati, and it was considered of so much importance that the legislature of Iowa ordered copies of it for the members of both houses and also for the state officers. This work together with letters published in the Davenport Democrat from California whither he went in 1850 by the overland route, enduring almost incredible hardships and returning by Mexico and Cuba, and also some communications for the press of a scientific character consti- tute along with the history that here follows the chief literary productions of Mr. Barrows, all descriptive of new parts of our country.
"At intervals Mr. Barrows has turned his attention to land business with success. His suburban residence and grounds are conspicuous to every person passing in the cars southwest of Davenport where he enjoys the fruits of his past activity and enterprise.
"In person, as is indicated by his portrait in this number, Mr. Barrows is full and portly. In manners he is courteous and genial. As a Christian, 'the highest style of man,' he is charitable and discreet. And, to use the words of the author of 'Davenport, Past and Present' to which the reader is referred for fuller particulars and from which these are drawn, 'may many years yet be his portion, as happy and pleasant as his early life has been laborious and active.'"
WILLARD BARROWS
THE WILLARD BARROWS HISTORY.
BARROW'S HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.
INTRODUCTION.
In compliance with a formal request of the curators of the State Historical society I have undertaken the task of writing a full history of Scott county, Iowa, or more particularly facts and incidents connected with its early his- tory. A residence of twenty-five years in this county has given me an opportunity for observation and a knowledge of the proper sources from which to obtain infor- mation.
Much care has been taken to gather information from the early settlers of the county, and a hearty response has come up from some parts. In many in- stances difference of opinion has arisen as to dates and circumstances. In such cases I have generally taken the decision of the majority.
It might be supposed that our existence as a county is so brief, not twenty- eight years, that the incidents connected with its settlement and growth would be fresh in the minds of all. Such may be the case with much of our history, while some important facts are lost. The early settler seldom finds time, if he has the ability to record passing events, save in the memory. The unparalleled rapidity with which the west has marched forward to greatness and power is a sufficient ex- cuse for the pioneer historian, when he fails through want of facts, to give a full and perfect account of his first struggles. The early emigrant to a new country finds that all his time and energies are required to provide even for the necessaries of life; the rude cabin must be raised, for a temporary abode at least, the virgin soil must be broken up and fenced, and numberless little requisites for the comfort of himself or family crowd upon his attention, so that the new beginner is most emphatically his own "hewer of wood and drawer of water."
In collecting the material for this work the author has often been doubly repaid for his labor in the pleasant meetings he has had with many an "old settler," from whom the whirl and bustle of life has separated him for years. Such reunions are sweet and profitable, and these hardy sons of toil, meeting after many years of separation like old soldiers retire to some shady nook, there recount the scenes through which they have passed and "fight their battles o'er again." Although the trials and hardships of the pioneers of Scott county may not compare with the early settlement of Kentucky, Ohio, or some other western states, yet there are many incidents connected with its early history that are worthy of record and should be gathered before they pass beyond our reach.
THE WILLARD BARROWS HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL REMARKS.
The county of Scott, being situated on the Mississippi river and having a water front of some thirty-five miles upon its south and eastern boundary, has many natural advantages not found in more inland counties. Upon the north it is bounded by the Wau-bessa-pinnecon Se-po, which in the Indian language signi- fies "the place of white potatoes." The name is derived from the two Indian words "Waubessa," white or swan-like, and "Pinneac," a potato, Sepo being the Indian name for river. The river was probably so named from the fact of great quantities of the wild artichoke being found in that region.
This stream is some ten or twelve rods wide with a swift, clear current and its banks generally skirted with timber. Its bottom lands are from a half to a mile or two wide and are subject to annual overflow, affording great pasturage for stock, not being in general dry enough for cultivation. The western boundary of the county is upon rich, rolling prairie extending along the fifth principal meridian, separating it from the counties of Cedar and Muscatine.
There is much in the early history of this country to interest and excite the antiquarian and lover of research. Long before the discovery of the Great River by Marquette and Joliet on the 17th of June, 1673, tradition tells us that the spot of ground now occupied by the city of Davenport was a large and pop- ulous Indian village. There can be but little doubt from the history of those early pioneers that it was here that they first landed in their voyage down the Mississippi after they entered it from the mouth of the Wisconsin on the 17th of June.
The first landing made by them on record was on the 21st, four days after they entered the Mississippi, and was upon the western bank, where say they: "We discovered footprints of some fellow mortals, and a little path (trail) leading into a pleasant meadow." Following the trail a short distance, they heard the savages talking, and "making their presence known by a loud cry," they were led to the village of the "Illinies."
There could not have been sufficient time between the 17th and the 21st for the voyagers to have descended beyond this point or to have reached the lower or Des Moines rapids, which some historians claim to have been the landing place spoken of. There having been an Indian village here from time imme-
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THE WILLARD BARROWS HISTORY.
morial, according to Indian tradition, fixes the fact most conclusively that it was at this place, Davenport, that the soil of Iowa was first pressed by the foot of a white man. The legends of the Indians are full of historic lore pertaining to this beautiful spot comprising Davenport, Rock Island and their surroundings.
Black Hawk was ever ready to tell of the traditions of his people, and often dwelt with much interest and excitement on the traditions of his fathers. He says they came from Gitche Gammee, "the big water," Lake Superior, and In- dians that are yet living say that the home of their fathers was at Saukie creek that empties into Lake Superior, and that as they traveled westward they en- countered foes whom they fought and conquered, and that in turn they were conquered by their enemies, and tribe fought tribe for possession of the land; until they reached the great river, the Massa-Sepo, which signifies "The Father of Rivers."
The tradition of the Saukies, who have always lived upon the prairies, is that their name means "Man of the Prairie," or prairie Indian.
They also aver that their friends, the Musquakies, which signifies "Foxes," were a sly and cunning people and united with them for strength to fight their ene- mies, the tribes of the Kickapoo and Illini, and that they have ever lived in peace as one tribe and one people.
These were the Indians in possession of the country when the United States assumed jurisdiction over it and of whom it was purchased.
There were many traces of the aborigines existing when the first settlers came to Iowa. Several Indian mounds or burial places of quite large dimensions were still used by wandering tribes of Indians as late as 1835 and 1836 situated on the banks of the river about two miles below this city, where was formerly the farm of the Hon. E. Cook. Indian graves have been found in excavations about this city, and relics of ancient date discovered, showing that this spot has been the home of the red man for centuries, and corroborating the testimony of Black Hawk and others as to the traditions of their fathers.
The scenery presented in ascending the Mississippi, taking in the whole view from the point of the bluff below Rockingham as far up as Hampton, on the Illinois shore, is one of unexcelled beauty and loveliness. Its islands dotting the broad expanse of waters, the scenery of the bluffs upon the Iowa side, and Rock island with old Fort Armstrong, have been admired and more sketches taken of this panoramic view by home and foreign artists than any other portion of the Mississippi valley.
Of the early history of Scott county we have a most vivid and truthful his- tory compiled from living witnesses.
At the close of the Black Hawk war in 1832, there were no settlers upon this side of the river. The purchase from the Sac (or Saukie) and Fox tribe of Indians of the soil of Scott county was made, in common with that of all the river counties on the 15th of September, 1832, upon the ground now occupied by the depot buildings of the Mississippi and Missouri R. R. Company in this city. The treaty was held by Gen. Scott.
The cholera was raging among the troops at Fort Armstrong at the time and for prudential reasons it was thought best to meet the Indians upon this side of the river.
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THE WILLARD BARROWS HISTORY.
In this sale the Indians reserved a section, (640 acres) and presented it to Antoine LeClaire, Esq., their interpreter. This reserve was located upon the river between Harrison street and Bridge avenue, in Fulton's addition to the city of Davenport, running back over the bluff to a line due east and west, a few rods this side of Locust street. They also gave Mr. LeClaire another section of land at the head of the rapids where the city of LeClaire now stands.
The treaty of Gen. Scott with the Indians was ratified by Congress at their session in the winter of 1833. Thus did the United States come into possession of the soil of Scott county.
Of the Indians from whom it was purchased and of the tribes who had been in possession in early days we should like to give a more extended notice than we are permitted in this brief history of Scott county.
The Sacs and Foxes were provided with homes in Kansas, where they now reside. They are fast dwindling away, and but a remnant is left of the tribes of the Winnebagoes, the Chippewas, Pottawattamies, Ottawas, Menominees and other powerful bands that were in possession of all the country from the Lakes to the Missouri at the termination of the American Revolution. Where the sad remnants of any of these tribes are found, they present but a faint resemblance of their former greatness and renown or of their warlike and noble bearing. A few squalid families may be found loitering about the frontier towns, made beg- gars by the low and wasting vices of the white man.
But their destiny is written. The onward march of the Anglo-Saxon race tells with unerring prophecy the fate of the Red man. Already have his haunts been broken up in the quiet dells of the Rocky mountains ; already have the plains of Utah drunk the blood of this ill-fated and unhappy race, and ere long his re- treating footprints will be found along the shores of the Pacific hastening to the spirit land, the "Great Hereafter."
We now enter upon our history more in detail, considering each township, beginning with Buffalo.
BUFFALO
IOWA
BUFFALO PUBLIC SCHOOL
POST OFFICE BUFFALO IOWA
POST OFFICE, BUFFALO
THE WILLARD BARROWS HISTORY.
CHAPTER II.
FIRST SETTLEMENT OF BUFFALO TOWNSHIP.
In 1833 Capt. Benjamin W. Clark, a native of Virginia, who had settled and made some improvements on the Illinois shore where the town of Andalusia now is, moved across the Mississippi and commenced a settlement upon the present site of the town of Buffalo, and was probably the first settler on the soil of Scott county. He had been captain of a company of mounted volunteer rangers in the Black Hawk war under Gen. Dodge. Here, in Buffalo, he made the first "claim," erected the first cabin, broke the first ground, planted the first corn and raised the first produce in the county. His nearest neighbors at this time upon the Iowa shore, then called the "Black Hawk Purchase," were at Burlington and Du- buque.
The first stock of goods ever opened in the county was at Buffalo by a Mr. Lynde, of Stephenson, now Rock Island. The first orchard planted and the first coal ever discovered and dug in this county were by Capt. Clark in 1834. The first public ferry across the Mississippi between Burlington and Dubuque was at Buffalo, and for several years "Clark's Ferry" was the only place of crossing in all this region of country. In the early part of the year 1835 he erected a pub- lic house which is still standing, a large frame building two stories high, which at that time was considered a great enterprise. He brought the lumber from Cincinnati at a cost of $60 a thousand feet.
In 1836 Capt. Clark laid out the town of Buffalo, it being the first town reg- ularly laid out in this county. He succeeded in building up quite a village, but there was much need of flouring and lumber mills, and in 1836 he erected, near the mouth of Duck creek, the first saw mill in the county, or in this part of Iowa ; and although it was on a small scale, and quite inadequate to the wants of the settlers who began to seek homes beyond the Mississippi, yet it proved of the greatest public benefit and served the people for many years.
The ferry was established at Buffalo while Capt. Clark lived at Andalusia be- fore he moved across the river. The first ferriage collected by him, after he had completed his flat-boat was attended by the following amusing circumstance. Late one evening a company of French traders, who were returning from the Iowa river to the trading post on Rock island, encamped on the bank of the river
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THE WILLARD BARROWS HISTORY.
where the hotel now stands in Buffalo. They heard the report of the captain's intention to establish a ferry across the river at this point, and feeling somewhat inclined to ridicule such an enterprise, they called loudly for the ferry boat, say- ing that they had a drove of cattle to cross, an assertion perfectly ridiculous in itself, as nothing in the shape of cattle nearer than buffalo or elk had ever ap- peared upon the western banks of the Mississippi river. But the captain was not to be trifled with. He had made ready his boat. His ferry was established, and being a man of bold and most unflinching, uncompromising sternness and perse- verance, he rallied his men, manned his boat with some eight men and boys and very quietly crossed over to answer the continued calls of the noisy Frenchmen. It was a very dark night, and as the oars were plied to the ponderous flatboat Capt. Clark stood at the helm steering his rude craft over the swelling waves of the Mississippi with nothing to guide him but the blaze of the campfire and noise of the company on the Iowa shore, meditating most undoubtedly in a frame of mind not the most serene. When nearing the shore the traders on discovering him, set up a most uncourteous roar of laughter, turning the whole matter off as a joke, called them fools, and told the captain they had nothing to ferry, and that he might return to the Illinois side. But Capt. Clark's anger was now raised to the highest pitch. He landed his boat and with his men marched into the camp of the insolent Frenchmen and demanded $10.00 as a fee for ferriage. No man who knew Capt. Clark ever wanted to parley with him when his usually mild temper was aroused by insult. The party soon became satisfied that under the circumstances it was their best policy to pay up. The great difficulty now was that they had not $10.00 in the company, but very willingly proffered two bolts of calico, which, among Indians at least, was considered legal tender. This was accepted and taken as the first ferriage ever received in Scott county. Capt. Clark and his party returned, having taught the wild traders one of the first lessons of civilization.
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