USA > Iowa > Des Moines County > History of Des Moines County, Iowa, Volume I > Part 13
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HISTORY OF DES MOINES COUNTY
at the present, and tell me, whether this earth has often witnessed instances of more rapid progress? Within the last twenty-one years, while the infant has been growing to the man, the population of our city and that of our state have respect- ively increased about fifty fold : their wealth and importance in a much greater degree. The practical distance to the seaboard cities, measured through the mails, is less than one-tenth of what it was, and not more than one-fifth to the traveler ; while the telegraph has, for some purposes, effectually annihilated time and dis- tance. The open prairie throughout our country has been transformed into a series of almost continual enclosures. The plowshare has developed the latent fertility of the soil, intrinsically more valuable than the mines of California. Comfortable homes are scattered over its entire surface. Orchards and gardens and fields, bright with the promise of abundant harvests, are blooming in every direction. The necessaries, the comforts, and even the luxuries of life, are enjoyed by us in a degree scarcely inferior to those which the people of any of the older states can boast. Such are some of the changes which a brief retrospect of what we ourselves have witnessed enables us to realize.
"Much of this improvement may be regarded as peculiar to this and some of the other new states. But very much is also due to the general progress which the whole human race has made within the last twenty-five years. Probably never since the creation has the world made so great a general advance within the same limit of time. That wonderful instrument, the telegraph, has sprung into exist- ence during that period, and given to man a faculty he never before possessed. It is not only spreading its network of nervous sensation all over the land, but is now aiming to produce a like result under the ocean also." *
"Railroads, though invented just previously. can hardly be said to have been practically known to the world prior to 1833. They were confined to a very few localities ; they have now become a common convenience, an almost daily neces- sity in all civilized and populous countries, giving to humanity an almost ubiquitous power, never before conceived of. Especially in the United States have they been constantly and rapidly extending themselves westward, checkering every state from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Onward still is their note of progress, and with a bold ambition, they are manifesting an unmistakable inten- tion of overlapping the intervening rocky barriers and formidable deserts, and of connecting the two oceans by their ligaments of iron.
"Within the same space of time has steam been successfully applied to ocean navigation. The broad Atlantic is now traversed in this manner with as much regularity as the steam ferryboats ply across the Mississippi; and other seas and oceans are fast becoming witnesses of like results. That mute, submissive power which has learned to urge these floating leviathans for thousands of miles with- out food or rest, against winds and currents, has, in numberless other new modes since the epoch we are considering, been made implicitly subservient to the will of man. The inventive genius of our race has, in fact, received a new general impulse. It has explored every portion of the wide field of human efforts, sub- stituting the labor of machinery for the far less perfect skill of human hands, and contributing in a thousand other methods to enlarge the faculties, minister to the comfort, and advance the progress of the human race.
"This is not the same world it seemed when our city was founded, nor is man the same being he then was. His capacities have become enlarged. He can
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accomplish now what would then have been entirely chimerical. He has risen one degree in the scale of being. He has commenced a new era in the progress of development. If the wonders described in the Arabian tales should become realities during the next generation, hardly will a greater change be effected than that which has taken place since the occurrence of the event we are this day commemorating. All this have we witnessed. In all this have we partici- pated, aside from our experience in relation to the development of our own body politic, in which the world at large has not shared.
"Reckoning by events and the power of accomplishing results, the day of antediluvian longevity seem almost again restored. Methuselah could not accomplish in a thousand years what we can now complete in our brief three score and ten. I doubt whether during his whole life he saw more important changes or witnessed a more substantial progress, either physically, morally, socially, or politically, than we have done within the last twenty-five years.
"We have within that time looked in upon the cradle where human institu- tions were in their swaddling clothes, and we have witnessed all their stages of development up to the period of their present maturity. We have practically been back to the days of the early patriarchs, and many of the changes which. in other instances, it has required three thousand years to produce have passed successively before our own vision. We have seen society in the very process of its first formation. Little by little have we beheld the elements organizing into regular order, crystallizing into forms in accordance with the laws of their being, and developing progressively into higher and more perfect organizations as circumstances permitted or required.
"Some of us at least have witnessed the entire absence of all the forms of civil government within our limits. More than a year elapsed after the savage had yielded to the white man before the laws of Michigan were extended over the western shore of the Mississippi. Two years later we became a portion of the Territory of Wisconsin, and the winter following regular territorial courts of general jurisdiction were, for the first time, established among us. Even then the administration of the laws was for some time extremely imperfect. Counties were organized, but their limits no one could ascertain. The course of a stream, and lines indefinitely drawn from grove to headland, were all the boundaries which the circumstances of the case permitted.
"In July, 1838, we became a separate territory, and not long afterwards, the surveys of the public lands in this neighborhood having been completed, the boundaries of our counties were fixed with precision. The public lands were brought into market, and we became possessed of the legal titles to our real estate. Regular government was soon afterwards established in the older coun- ties, and rapidly extended as civilization made its way into the interior.
"As illustrative of the novel uses to which it was necessary to adapt the limited means within our reach in those early days, and of the shifts to which we were driven by the great mother of invention. I need but remind you of some of the scenes which have been witnessed within these very walls (Old Zion Church). The main body of this edifice has now been standing about twenty years. It was the first and for many years the only church building in the City of Burlington.
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"Whoever at the present day sits within its hallowed precincts, listening to the fervid prayer, the calm discourse, the swelling anthem, or the loud hosanna, would be very erroneous in the conclusion that these were the only sounds that had ever echoed within its consecrated walls. No; other halls have witnessed more important and more tragical scenes, but where will you find those that could give a more variegated history of what had transpired within them?
"Here was embodied, for several years, the legislative wisdom of the Ter- ritory of Iowa-the 'lower' house paradoxically occupying the hall above, and the 'upper' house the room below. From these went forth those edicts which for many a year have ruled this goodly land. Here, too, the supreme judicial tribunal of the territory held its sometime session, and the regular terms of the District Court were here convened for many a successive year. Here the rights of persons and property were adjudicated. Here the felon trembled and hoped at the prospect of an inefficient penitentiary, and here the murderer received his sentence." * *
"Since the epoch we now celebrate the population of the United States has fully doubled; and wealth, power and importance have augmented in a much greater ratio. Already have we the largest commercial marine of any power on the face of the earth; with only one competitor in all the arts of peace, and with a more active and enterprising people than can be found elsewhere under the sun. At the end of another quarter of a century our numbers, judging by the past, will have doubled again-exceeding those of France or Great Britain, including all except her Asiatic dependencies; and by the commencement of another century we shall equal those of even Russia herself. Before that date the financial center of the civilized world will have crossed the Atlantic. Our limits will include all that is of essential value in the whole of North America ; our progress in science, agriculture, the useful arts, the means of locomotion, and all that gives real prosperity, shall be unequalled by any other nation, and we shall stand confessedly the leading power upon the face of the whole earth.
"Not that our military strength and appointments, either on the ocean or on the land, shall exceed those of any of the sovereigns of Europe; not that we are about to enter on a career of conquest, to subjugate by force our neighbors, either on the north or on the south. Such an attempt would be the extreme of folly, not to say of wickedness, and would lead us far away from the end at which we should be aiming.
"Our mission is, 'Peace on earth and good will to all men.' On that as a foundation our government rests. That is the source of all our real power and progress. Unless urged by some great necessity, we should not deviate from that line of policy. We have but to follow the precept of the Golden Rule, and the dictates of our own moral sense, to deal justly, kindly, generously, with each other, and with all other nations; to practice charity and moderation, but at the same time friendship, both at home and abroad; in order not only to confer on others, but also to secure to ourselves the greatest possible amount of benefits --- including territorial expansion, national growth and that moral power which as greatly exceeds physical force on the score of efficacy as on that of humanity."
'"If there is any class in all our wide domain who, more than all others, can be relied upon as being loyal to our present constitution and government it is
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the pioneers of lowa who have given a state to that very Union. In their name, and in this sacred presence, I here utter the solemn pledge that they will ever be found standing shoulder to shoulder in defence of, that great political fabric, which is partly the work of their own hands, and which they have so essentially aided to strengthen and adorn."
POEM,
By Johnson Pierson, Esq.
"OLD PIONEER :- Your deeds and toils I sing,
Progress, my Muse, the West, my fabled Spring ; And thou, "Old ZION," be my Delphic grot, Where brooding Memory pours historie thought : And ye, "OLD SETTLERS," lend a list'ning ear. That I may sing, and you, approving hear; Your deeds my theme, the burden of my song ; Rough though the verse, its notes to you belong. What more adore the old heroic times, To grace the Poet's lay, or tuneful rhymes, Than the great actions of the wise and good,- The hardy dwellers of the cave and wood.
The Alban Kings, in Rome's primeval day, Live in the Epic flow of Virgil's lay ; And I, to praise your deeds, would wake a song,
Which with this River's flood should sweep along,
Roll onward, with its ever ceaseless flow, Far as the tide of wand'ring Time shall go :- So that the Future, rising into view, Might hear my Doric myth and think of YOU. Welcome, welcome, one and all Where the bridal and the Pall Often met, as often parted, Blithe with joy, or broken hearted ;
In God's first Temple, which ye in olden time uprear'd,
With willing hands and hearts, to him your hardy Sires revered, In this vast wilderness, upon the Mississippi's shore, Where ye might cultivate the arts of Peace, and God adore. This is then your PLYMOUTH ROCK, Within the desert wild, Where the Anglo parent stock First nursed its Western Child ; Here sooth'd the little elfin's cries, With pleasant nursery tales, Conn'd in New England's placid skies, Or Shenandoah's vales : Teaching it as it grew up, Tasting Life's delusive cup,
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Words to form its tender thought, To mould aright its yielding heart, So that in Life, whate'er its lot, It still would act a patriot's part ; Eschewing Wrong, defending Right,
And chasing from the West, its Night."
VALEDICTORY BY THE PRESIDENT.
Hon. David Rorer.
In all ages and amongst every people it has been customary to commem- orate leading events by traditions, inscriptions, games or ceremonies, or by mon- uments of some sort or other. At first, monuments rude and simple, suitable to the state of the arts and the tastes of a primitive people ; but afterwards by permanent erections, some of which among the ancients rival the skill and power of modern civilization. In other instances it has been done by the institution of orders, ceremonies or anniversaries, which shall perpetuate forever the events thus commemorated.
When the Children of Israel passed over Jordan they took up twelve stones out of the midst thereof and carried them unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there; and those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, Joshua set up for a memorial, and said unto the Children of Israel : "When your children shall ask their fathers, in time to come, saying, 'What mean these stones?'-then ye shall let your children know, saying, 'Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.'"
When Saul sought the life of the boy David, it was by the stone monument in the field that he was warned of his danger.
When Columbus landed upon the New World he set up a cross there in token of Christian dominion, and bowed down with his followers and wor- shiped. That cross is now an emblem of faith all over the land, and the cer- emonial of that worship has been repeated therein, morning and evening, ever since, and will continue until the end of time, whilst the smoke from the fire- sides of fifty millions of free people ascends to heaven as a perpetual memorial of the bold navigator-a monument more honorable and lasting than the pyr- amids of Egypt, or the cenotaphs of kings and conquerors.
When the Pilgrim Fathers reached their Land of Promise, they bowed down and worshiped the rock of their deliverance upon the rock of their landing place. That rock has ever since been regarded by their descendants as a memorial of the great event, the anniversary of which is every year celebrated by processions and orations and hymns and thanksgiving.
When our common fathers achieved their independence as one among the nations of the earth, they, by common consent, celebrated the day by orations, processions, bonfires, rejoicing and the firing of cannon ; whilst the several occur- rences in the history of that great struggle have been commemorated by books, by paintings, by monuments and by traditions and names of places. Vol. 1- 9
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When Boone descended into the "dark and bloody ground" he carved his name there upon a beech tree as a memorial of the daring step; and though that humble monument has long since passed away, the town of Boonsboro now marks the spot ; and his honored name is now commemorated by the names of counties and of towns in almost every region of the West.
Everywhere in our land the progress of civilization has been marked by mementos of leading events and of leading spirits, from the footsteps of the hunter and the trail of the pioneer, to the camps of the conquerors and halls of civil rulers.
These monuments of our forefathers, and earliest pioneers, have been fol- lowed up by the more glorious one of a great confederation, spreading out, like the seed of Ezekiel's parable of the two eagles and the vine, from ocean to ocean, beside the great waters. Of this glorious monument our own Iowa forms a part. Humble as they may be, she, too, has her traditions and mementos of the past to commemorate her pioneers, and which in the brief space of a quar- ter of a century have led to the erection of a great state, with a free and happy people, with civil and literary institutions and works of art and internal improve- ments unequaled by those of any other people of the same age on the face of the globe. The germ of all this we and our contemporaries planted ; and, though no bigger at first than a man's hand, yet spreading out like the little cloud that rose up out of the sea, they extend now from river to river, and from confine to confine of our state until every homestead and every village is an institution of learning-until our land is covered with lowing herds, and our ears are everywhere enlivened with the whistle of steam and the hum of industry ; and until the footprints of the red man are wiped out by the track of the locomotive. We meet here this day to commemorate the beginning of these things, and the names of such of our fellows as have gone before us. Yes-here upon almost the very ground where the remnant of red men, within the recollection of many now present, kept up their nocturnal wailings over the bones of their fathers- almost upon the very ground, where, for years, they periodically came back to renew their wild devotions and to deplore the loss of this, their cherished spot in "the beautiful land." There, close to the foot of the lower bluff, hard by the residences of our friends Anderson and McKell, there is the enchanted ground, where the outcast remnant kept up their orgies.
Seeing, then that there is a sort of instinctive desire in the human breast to preserve some recollections of the past, it is not strange that we have met together to renew our early friendship; to greet each other as in days of old, when the stealthy glance of the red man and the wild state of the country taught us the true value of a friend : when hardships and privations surrounded us ; when luxuries, and even comforts, were strangers to us, and when our slum- bers were serenaded by the wolf and the catamount instead of by soft strains of music.
Under these circumstances we may be permitted to speak of little things and unimportant events which ordinarily do not find their way into any book.
There is a place now known as Florence, on the south bank of the Iowa River, about twenty-three miles from this. We say a place, for it can hardly be called a town, though laid out for one and named as such. There was the home of Black Hawk, and there, too, was the village of his band. They recrossed
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the Mississippi to their former homes in the spring of 1832 and commenced planting corn, and probably committing depredations on the whites. This brought on what is termed the Black Hawk war, in which there are some present who did honorable service. Our friend, Jonathan Donnell, for one, the first man who committed matrimony in our county, and the man who built the first mill. A good man and true-we are most happy to see him here this day.
That war resulted in a treaty by which this country, from the state line of Missouri to opposite Prairie Du Chien, and extending back from the river some forty miles, was ceded to the United States, except a reservation of ten miles wide on the Iowa River. By this treaty the United States got possession of the country on the first day of June, 1833. To celebrate that event we are here this day. *
In the fall of 1832 David Tothero came in with his family and settled on the prairie at a place about three miles out, since known as the farm of Judge Morgan. About the same time, Samuel S. White and family built and occupied a cabin at this place, close to the river, at the upper bluff-just above the present gas works. The dragoons came down from Rock Island next winter and drove White and Tothero over the river and burned down their cabins. White win- tered at Honey Creek and returned here and built his cabin on the first of the next June, the day of taking possession. It was rebuilt on Front street, between Court and High streets, just below the Sunderlands Mills. That cabin was removed since to Mr. Keeler's lot near Hawkeye bridge, out Jefferson street ; and finally pulled down and worked into the bank of the creek for spiling- and a spoiling piece of vandalism it was to thus desecrate the old house, the mother of all the houses in town.
The settlement increased with great rapidity, and there being no civil gov- ernment, the settlers made regulations for themselves. Some of those are inter- esting relics, and will be read:
"3. Resolved, That any person or persons allowing the Indians to have whisky on any account whatever shall forfeit all the whisky he or they shall have on hand, and likewise the confidence and protection of this association."
Surely this looks a good deal like the origin of the "Maine Law."
It also indicates very clearly that whisky was the only article in the drinking way known to the country, for there is no inhibition against any other strong drink.
Another one of these laws is as follows :
"4. Resolved, That any person harboring or protecting a refugee, who, to evade justice, has fled from the other sections of the Union, shall be delivered with such refugee on the other side of the river."
These regulations were rigorously enforced. In them there is the spirit of patriotism blended with the love of order. *
In June, 1834, Congress passed an act annexing the Black Hawk purchase to the Territory of Michigan for temporary government. In September follow- ing the Legislature of Michigan divided the purchase into two countics-Des Moines and Dubuique-the boundary between them being a line running due west from the foot of Rock Island. They also organized a county court in each county. The seat of justice was at this place for Des Moines County. The first court here was holden in April, 1835, in a log house on the hill, on lot No. 384,
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where Mr. Ritchie now lives. We will now call the grand jury for that court, and see how many, after this twenty-three years, will answer to their names. They were: Ilugh Wilson, David Hunter, James Hatcher, Mathew W. Latty, James Dawson, Solomon Osborn, William Derkins, John Chandler, Francis Redding, Daniel Chance, Enoch Wade, Jonathan Morgan, George Leebrick, Jeremiah Smith, and Arthur Ingram, foreman. None answer.
The business of the term consisted in granting three divorces, convicting one person for assault and battery, and fining one person, a Mr. John Toopes, for a contempt of the court, with an order of committal until the fine should be paid. This fining for contempt is the first entry of record. The occasion was this : While the court were empaneling the grand jury a fight occurred in open court between John Toopes and one Walters. In the rencontre they upset the table of the judges, or rather the dry goods boxes used by them as such, and that was the contempt for which Toopes was punished.
By referring to the list of Santa Fe prisoners taken by the Mexicans in Cook's expedition to annex Santa Fe to Texas, it will be found that the name of John Toopes, our hero of the county court, is among them. That not con- tent with overturning that primitive tribunal, he turns filibuster, and, Don Quixote like, goes to Mexico to fight for his rights and breaks a lance with Santa Anna. Circumstances justify the belief, however, that he was not prompted so much by a lawless purpose as by that thirst for adventure so characteristic of the American pioneer-a race of men always ready for any honest enter- prise, from the court leet to the battle field-from the cabin to the White House. Their march is ever onward, bearing the banner of manifest destiny all over our continent.
They go not for the sake of gain-but for the love of going-and are so constituted as to always still love to go. They are brave and hospitable, high minded and honorable. They are faithful friends, and dangerous but honorable enemies. Frank in their intercourse, and open in their purpose, they hold dis- simulation in contempt and never smile with purpose to deceive. They would spurn a benefit procured by crouching, and are generous to a fault. They are temperate without pledges, and practice the moral virtues without professing them. They are the truest representatives of the Cavaliers, possessing most of their virtues, with few of their faults. As points the needle to the pole, so tend their footsteps southward, or westward towards the setting sun. Their wants are few-they are always poor, but never paupers. The iron hand of the oppressor comes not near them. With the mountains for curtains, and the heavens for a canopy, they make their beds in peace, and build their log huts far from the intrigues of the busy world. Prompted by a law of their nature, their march is ever onward. Hence we find but few of ours remain.
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