History of Davis County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., Part 42

Author: Iowa Historical Company, Des Moines, pub
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Des Moines, State Historical Company
Number of Pages: 774


USA > Iowa > Davis County > History of Davis County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc. > Part 42


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Putoriuo vison, common mink.


ermineus, weasel. vulgaris, least weasel.


Vespertilio, little brown bat.


noctivagans, black bat.


cinereus.


Atalapha crepuscularis, twilight bat. Rare here.


noveboracacnsis. Common.


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IHISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY.


Corynorhinus macrotis. Donbtful.


Sciuropterus volucella, flying squirrel. Sciurus niger, fox squirrel. Common. carolinensis, gray squirrel. Abundant.


66 hudsonius, chickaree. Common.


hudovicianus, western fox squirrel.


Tamias striatus, chipmunk. Everywhere.


Spermophilus tridecemliniutus, striped gopher.


franklinii.


(?) Arctomys monar, wood-chuck. Zapus hudsonius, jumping mouse. Hesperomys leucopus, deer mouse.


michiganensis. Common.


Ochetodon humilis, harvest monse. Arvicola riparius, meadow mouse.


austerus, meadow mouse.


Synaptomys cooperi, Cooper's mouse. Blarina brevicauda. Scalops argentatus, silvery shrew.


Condylura cristata, star-nosed mole.


Castor fiber, beaver. Lutra canadensis, otter. By tradition.


Taxidea umericana, badger.


Fiber zibethirus, muskrat. Common.


Erethizon dorsatus, porcupine. By tradition.


Lepus sylvaticus, hare. Common.


This list comprises the major part of the mammalian fauna of the county. Further study will correct it, perhaps, by the addition of a few species. This simple enumeration of varieties may aid the future student in the deter- mination of the county's animal resources.


THE RED MAN.


The red men of the forest. whom the Norsemen of the north, Genoe's adventurer, the Gallic explorers, and Anglo-Saxon Puritans, found upon the American continent, is a race whose origin and ancient traditions are yet matters of mystery. Theory and speculation have offered us all the light we have concerning this wild, uncivilized people, who were thus found in posession of the North American Continent, as far back as the tenth cen- tury, when the Northmen landed upon its northeastern coasts.


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HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY.


Since the Mayflower, in 1620, brought to Plymouth Roek, the advance of the Anglo-Saxon raee, which was destined to achieve the mastery of the conti- nent over its native ocenpants, and build up a grand civilization, though at the cost of conquest, and the probable ultimate extinction of the red man, it seems to have progressed. From stride to stride, as the inereasing An- glo-Saxon race needed more of the wild domain of the Indians, he was pushed on to the rear, and thus the rear has well nigh ended; and the prob- lem, which to-day, vexes the statesman and the philanthropist of the Nation, is the " Indian Problem." For over a hundred years its solution has taxed the genius of the Anglo-American people, and it bids fair to tax them for generations to come. His condition and treatment have, from time to time, awakened the sympathy of philanthropists, and various humane plans have been devised to ameliorate his savage nature, and bring him under the in- fluenee of the laws and civilized teachings. This plan now seems to be the poliey of the government, and will doubtless eventually be adopted.


From the elose of the revolution, and the treaty of peace with the mother country, the Anglo-American population increased rapidly, and reached ont for domain, until about half a century-1832-brought them to the great river of the continent-the Mississippi. Iowa then belonged to the Iowas, and the Saes and Foxes, whose original titles acquired by the right of posses- sion, were secured by various treaties dating from 1832 to 1842, which last eession ineluded Davis county, and all their territory west of the Mississippi river. These were the tribes that onee roamed over the prairie in the buffalo chase, and eamped along the Des Moines. But in 1846, the last of them were removed beyond the western limit of the State. They left no tradition in this eounty for historical record.


Should the younger generations of this mysterious race of people follow the wild footsteps of their ancestors, and extinction should be the final re- sult, the semi-civilized tribes of the Indian Territory will likely be the only ones to perpetuate the race, which now number some eighty thousand per- sons. They were tribes from the Southern States.


" Whether the red man has been justly deprived of the ownership of the New World, will remain a subject of debate; but that he has been deprived, eannot be denied. The Saxon came; and his conquering foot has trodden the vast domain from shore to shore. The weaker race has withdrawn from his presence and his sword. By the majestic rivers, and in the depths of the solitary woods, the feeble sons of the bow and arrow will be seen no more. Only their names remain on the hill, and stream, and mountain. The red man sinks and fails. His eyes are to the west. To the prairies and forests.


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HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY.


the hunting grounds of his ancestors he says farewell. He is gone! The cypress and the hemlock sing his requiem."


Before the pioneers of advancing civilization had crossed the Mississippi river, a young chief was growing up, in the Sae tribe of Indians, whose name was destined to become immortalized in the history of Iowa. It was Black Hawk, whose birth place was near the month of Rock river, in Illinois. He won his commanding influence with his tribe, and with the Foxes, with whom they were allies, in a great battle between those tribes and the Iowas, in which he executed a flank movement and surprised the Iowas in a de- fenceless position, and massaered almost the entire village; the few who escaped, did so by swimming the Des Moines river and taking refuge in the Soap Creek hills, in the north part of this county. The commanding chief in this battle, on the part of the Sacs and Foxes was Pash-a-pa-ho, chief of the Saes. This taste of blood, as well as his naturally vindietive disposition, rendered him a dangerous and deadly enemy to the early pioneers. It fin- ally required the intervention of the United States troops, and volunteers from the Western States, and the loss of many lives, in the Black Hawk War. before he was completely subdued. He was then for a while exhib- ited over the Nation as a enriosity, then settled down and spent his old age with his tribe on the Des Moines river, north of this county, and at his death was buried in the northeast corner of this county, according to the enstom of his tribe.


As there are conflicting statements in eirenlation in regard to the death and burial of this great Indian chieftain and warrior, we shall give the evi- dence of this old settler, James H. Jordan, an eyewitness of these events, as the best evidence. He says:


About the latter part of August or the first of September. 1838. Black Hawk was taken dangerously ill with fever, and after the Indian medicine men had expended their skill and failed, then the old chief sent for bis pale-face friend, Mr. Jordan, and requested him to send to Fort Edwards (Warsaw, Ill ), at the mouth of the Des Moines River, for a white physi- cian: but before noon of that day, October 3, 1838, the great chieftain was no more. Before his death he requested his friend to select the spot for his burial and prepare his burial clothes. He was buried as he requested. on the spot where he held a council with the "Iowas " (on section 2. Salt Creek township): and in the uniform presented to him by Presi- dent Andew Jackson: having solid gold epaulets, and a beautiful military hat with ostrich plnmes. His sword a beautiful one, with a black morocco scabbard, thickly covered with silver bands, and three solid silver medals, one presented by the British Government (with $5,000 worth of blankets), to get him to join them against the United States: one by Presi- dent Madison, and one by Andrew Jackson, were buried with him. He was buried in Octo- ber, 1838, by his family and friends on the farm now owned and occupied by Jas. H. Jordan, on the banks of the Des Moines River. The body was placed on a slab rudely hewn by the Indians, and set up in an inclined position, with the feet placed in a shallow ditch, and the


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HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY.


head elevated above the ground about three Feet. This was enclosed by setting two stakes in the ground with a pole across them, and slabs with one end resting on the ground and the other on the pole, making a roof which was then neatly soded over, forming a kind of vault. This was enclosed by a wide picket fence made by diging a trench four feet deep, and setting long timbers in it on end. Here the remains remained undisturbed till July, 1839, when the head was stolen, and the following February the body disappeared. On the complaint of Black Hawk's sons the matter was investigated, and the theft traced to a Dr. Turner, who then resided in Lexington, Van Buren county, who had sent them to Quincy, Ill., to be ar- ticulated. On the earnest solicitation of Black Hawk's family, Gov. Lucas cansed them to be returned, and at his solicitation they were placed by the family among the Territorial Arch- ives at Burlington, where they were destroyed by fire, with a mass of other valuable matter.


The treaty in which the Sacs and Foxes ceded to the United States, that portion of Iowa known as the " Black Hawk Purchase," was made on the west side of the Mississippi River, where Davenport is now situated, September 21,1832, by Gen. Scott and Gov. Reynolds, of Illinois, commissioners on the part of the United States, with Keokuk, Pashapaho, and some thirty other chiefs and warriors of the Sacs and Foxes, and took effect in June following. This treaty gave to the government a strip of land fifty miles wide, west of the Mississippi River, running north and south. This limit ran through the cast part of the present county of Davis, and, therefore, a part of this county was subject to settlement in 1833, but no advantage seems to have been taken of it, for a number of years by any one except Indian traders.


Another treaty ceding to the government an additional strip of territory, was made October 1, 1837, and on the same date, in consideration of $160,- 000, the Sacs and Foxes gave up all their territory between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. The last treaty was made with the Sacs and Foxes, October 11, 1842, ratified March 23, 1843. It was made at the Sac and Fox ageney (Agency City), by John Chambers, commissioner on behalf of the United States. In this treaty the Sac and Fox Indians " eeded to the United States all their lands west of the Mississippi, to which they had any claim or title." By the terms of this treaty they were to be removed from the country at the expiration of three years, and all who remained after that were to move at their own expense. Part of them were removed to Kansas in the fall of 1845, and the rest the spring following. A great many of the old settlers can very well remember these remnants of the once great and powerful Sac and Fox tribe of Indians.


After the red men had surrendered possession of the soil of Iowa to their Great Father-Uncle Sam-there was a remnant of the Pottawattamies whc refused to entirely leave their old grounds, and for several years, from 1849 to abont 1854, they camped along the streams in this county, under the


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HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY.


chieftainship of John Green. They were harmless and friendly; always begging, and always hungry enough for a hearty meal, and however amply they were supplied, they never left anything upon the table from which they partook; they would invariably hide away under their filthy wraps whatever they could not devour.


When curious visitors dropped in upon them at their wigwams, they were friendly, and especially so while their visitors' tobacco lasted. When the white settlers first began to visit them, they would, when asked for tobacco, hand out all they had, whether it was a full paper or a whole ping, and would expect when they had filled their pipes, or taken a chew, they would hand baek what remained. But this was contrary to their rule of social life; and instead, they would slily slip the balance in their bosoms, and wink at their red companions, at their cheeky trick, as much as to say, " white man heap good." This trick was short lived, however, as their white neighbors soon learned how to manage them. Whenever they took occasion to visit the " hazy sons of the forest " ever afterward, they would take the precaution to ent their tobacco into small pieces, and thus avoid those wholesale levies upon them.


The Indian is an inveterate beggar; and the white people devised a plan to check his too frequent calls upon this mission. They would refuse to give them anything, but they would offer to sell them what they asked for, upon their promise to pay for it the next time they came. The next time would never come, and thus the white settlers would invariably get rid of the dusky beggars.


THE PIONERS-THEIR SETTLEMENTS AND CAREERS.


Pioneers are those who go before, and clear the way. They are usually brave, hardy and ambitions people, who are prompted by various motives, and governed by varions eireumstances, to break away from the haunts and associations of their old homes; where, perhaps, civilization has outgrown them, and made them restless and discouraged in their efforts to realize their dreams of, and ambition for, wealth and distinction. They are not usnally those who are settled in their eastern homes, surrounded with wealth and the comforts of life; nor the children of those who have been reared in homes of luxury and ease. But they are those who prefer the free and unconventional ways of frontier life. The rigid rules and usages of an ac- complished civilization are nneongenial to them, and seeing the opportunity to build up homes of their own, and mould social communities after their own taste and standard, they push out to the front. Among these are the chil-


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HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY.


dren of many well-to-do people, but who are unable to "give them a start" in life, where they are. They, too, with brave hearts, and bnoyant and am- bitious spirits, go forth to build for themselves in the wilds of the frontier; to emulate the example of their fathers before them, whose industry and economy had enabled them to rear comfortable homes upon the roeky hill- sides of New England, or in the forests of New York, Pennsylvania, Vir- ginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio, or npon the prairies of Illinois. They bade adieu to homes, comforts and loved ones, and pushed out for the land which the red man had surrendered for their coming. They seleet from the wild domain the acres upon which are to be carved their future homes and secure them to "themselves, their heirs and legal representatives for- ever." Rude abodes are constructed for the time, and frontier life com- mences. Neighbors are few and far between, but they become neighbors in the full and trne sense of the term, who stand by each other in sympa- thy and assistance, like true brothers of a household; sharing each other's pleasures and sorrows, they aid each other in their plans and purposes for the future. Buoyed with ambition, with the prospects and hopes of future prosperiety, they toil on. Their nights are passed in their rude cabins where they dream of the homes and comforts they have left, and of those their imagination pietnre for the future; startled to intervals of wakefulness now and then, by the howling wolf, or the tread of some wild intrnder. Thus, the solitude of pioneer days pass on; and they toil on changing their primitive surroundings into productive fields.


The first summer is past, antumn is at hand, and the single young man conelndes to return to his old home and friends for the winter; and there- fore places his new possessions, his future home, in charge of his nearest neighbor, some miles away, who had come with his family-with his all, to stay. With gladdened heart, he takes the trail leading from his western ยท wild into civilization, thenee on to greet relatives, friends, old seenes, and- one dearer still, into whose ears he uttered the story of his frontier adventures together with his hopes and prospects of the future. In these utterances she had a profound regard-a personal interest. With the the courage of a true woman she consented to share his fortunes, be they where or what they might Winter passed with all its pleasures and delights with friends, and among the seenes of their young manhood and womanhood days. Prepara- tions being completed, and the nuptial ceremony prononneed, the happy twain leave for their future home-their little eabin on the western frontier. The two or three families which had gathered and formed the settlement the spring before, were gladdened by the return of their young neighbor; and he and his bride were greeted right heartily to their pioneer home.


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HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY.


Though toil and privations were theirs, yet they enjoyed their new life. Crops were planted, improvements were made, and their new home soon began to wear a homelike appearance. Besides, it was their own, around which their hopes and aspirations were entwined, and which nerved them to labor and gain for themselves the surroundings, comforts and enjoy- ments, equal to, if not better than those they left behind them.


This year brought additions to the settlement, which rendered it less monotonous, and social intercourse soon became cordial. Unlike that of to-day, there were no rivalries, no jealousies, no meaningless expressions of civility, no unkind criticisms of each other's ways or dress, and no hypo- critical manifestations of interest in each other's prosperity and welfare, or of sympathy for each other in their reverses and misfortunes. There are ties of fellowship existing between the pioneers of a settlement which are rarely disregarded-ties of common interest and common sympathy. They form a little empire all their own, so far removed from the conventionalities of social life in the older and more pretentious communities, that they are not affected by them. New arrivals were made welcome, assisted in con- structing their cabins, and were always lent a ready and willing hand, with- out invitation, in anything that would add to their comfort and cheer them in their new homes-in short, they were cordially admitted to their pioneer brotherhood. In this brotherhood there was a common interest-an interest not peenliar to one frontier locality more than another, but in all such localities alike, from the earliest times of our country's settlement-from the landing of the Puritans upon the eastern shores of our continent, to the present time. There were grave reasons for these ties of brotherhood; the very nature of the situation created a spirit of unity for self-protection. The people of these new frontier settlements had come beyond the safely- established reign of law-where local eivil authorities had not yet been created. Hence, they must rely upon the law of nature-self-protection. This was their only protection in those times, and to make it effectual, it was essential for each one to have the friendship and good will of his neigh- bors. For a man to be in ill-repute in a pioneer settlement was general- ly more detrimental to him, than to be an outlaw under the civil authorities. Hardened characters often found their way into frontier communities- characters who had little fear of the penalties of the law; but, who stood in terror of the aronsed indignation of a frontier brotherhood.


Though this be but a picture of general ontline of pioneers in their frontier settlements, that genius of the forest,* who, for many years was a living exemplification of pioneer life beyond the Sierras, and whose songs


*Joaquin Miller.


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HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY.


of Nature are unexcelled, gives a still more grapic picture of "The Pioneer," as he saw him:


THE PIONEER.


Lo! here the smoke of cabins curled,


The borders of the middle workl: And mighty, hairy, hatt-wild men Sat down in silence, held at bay By mailed horse. Far away The red man's boundless borders lay,


And lodges stood in regions there, Striped pyramids of painted men. What sturdy, uncommon men were these,


These settlers hewing to the seas; Great. horny-handed men, and tan: Men blown from any border land: Men desperate and red of hand, And men in love, and men in debt.


And men who lived but to forget,


And men whose very hearts had died, Who only sought those woods to hide Their wretchedness, held in vain! Yet every man among them stood Alone, along the sounding wood. And every man somehow a man. A race of unnamed giants these. That moved like gods among the trees,


So stern, so stubborn-browed and slow.


With strength of black-maned buffalo, And each man notable and tall. A kindly and unconscious Saul, A sort of sullen Hercules. A star stood large and white awest,


Then time uprose and testified;


They push'd the mailed woods aside, They toss'd the forests like a toy, The great, forgotten race of men,


The boldest band that yet has been Together since the siege of Troy, And followed it-and found their rest.


What strength! What strife! What rude unrest! What shoeks! What half shaped armies met! A mighty nation moving west, With all its steely sinews set Against a living forest. Here, The shouts, the shots of Pioneer! The rended forests! rolling wheels, As if some half checked army reels,


Wst, Shelton MQ


PULASKI, 10WA


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HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY.


Recoils, redoubles, comes again, Loud sounding like a hurricane. Oh bearded, stalwart, westmost men, So tower like, so Gothic built! A kingdom won without the guilt Of studied battles, that hath been Your blood's inheritance. Your heirs


Know not your tombs. The great plowshares Cleave softly through the mellow loam Where you have made eternal home, And set no sign.


Your epitaphs Are written in furrows. Beauty laughs While through the green waves wandering Beside her love, slow wandering, White starry hearted, May time blooms Above your lowly level'd tombs; And then below the spotted sky She stops, she leans, she wonders why "The ground is heaved and broken so, And why the grasses darker grow And droop, and trail like wounded wing. Yea, time, the grand old Harvester, Has gathered you from wood and plain. We call to you again, again: The rush and rumble of the car Comes back in answer. Deep and wide The wheels of progress have pass'd on; "The silent Pioneer is gone, His ghost is moving down the trees, And now we push the memories, Of bluff, bold men who dared and died In foremost battle, quite aside. Oh perfect Eden of the earth, In popies sown, in harvest set; Oh sires, mothers of my west; How shall we count your prond request ? But yesterday you gave us birth; We eat your hard earned bread to-day, Nor toil, nor spin, nor make regret, But praise our pretty selves and say How great we are, and all forget The still endurance of the rude Unpolished sons of solitude.


Prior to the year 1843, the soil of Davis county belonged to the red man. Over it he hunted, and fished in its streams; and by his camp-fires his peo-


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HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY


ple danced and sang their songs, unmolested by the white man, save now and then an invader within their wild domain as a trapper. But such in- vasions were speedily repelled, and the intruders driven back to their fron- tier cabins, with a menace that assured the pale-faced trespasser of severe treatment if his incursions should be repeated.


Bat subsequent to 1843, this beautiful domain passed, by treaty ratified March 23d of that year, to the ownership of the United States. By the terms of that treaty, the aboriginal occupants were given three years in which to remove beyond the Missouri River. Hence, while Iowa was yet a territory, and after the red man had been forced on toward the setting sun, and relinquished possession of the territory now covered by Davis county, and in fact by all the State west, which he had occupied from a time to which the record of history nor tradition do not extend, the white man fol- lowed immediately upon his trail, and assumed possession of the coveted lands.


As early as 1837, a number of persons had located along the southern border, and within the limits of the present county, and they and their de- scendants soon became well known all over the frontier as the " HAIRY NA- TION," on account of their long hair and general nondescript appearance. This nick-name still clings to the residents of the entire county, humorously applied by " funny " (?) journalists.


James H. Jordan, also established a trading post near a village of Sac and Fox Indians, on the Des Moines River, and in 1836, permanently located in the county at the place afterwards known as Iowaville, his cabin being only abont ten rods from that in which Black Hawk died. Van Caldwell and a few others settled near the same place in 1839 and 1840. Van Caldwell be- ing the first man to whom the authorities of this county ever issued a ferry license. At the time Mr. Jordan came here, the chief Keokuk also lived in this county, about a mile further down the river.


JAMES H. JORDAN, is said to be the oldest living pioneer of Iowa, and is the oldest resident of Davis county; was born in Mercer county, Kentucky, September 29, 1806, and is a son of GENERAL PETER JORDAN. His early life was spent assisting his father and attending school. He left home and went to St. Louis, when it had only a story and a half tavern, called the "Green Tree," kept by the "widow Farish," and only four or five groceries. He was soon after licensed by the government to trade with the Sanks and Fox Indians, Governor Clark, of Missouri, issuing the license, for which he gave bond for $10,000. His trade with them amounted to over $100,000 a year; buying nearly 60,000 furs a year. He was with Black Hawk, at his cabin in the northeast part of this county, an hour before his death, and




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