USA > Iowa > Des Moines County > History of Des Moines County, Iowa, Volume I > Part 16
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called out about five thousand of the militia, which was under the command of Gen. J. B. Clark, whose instructions were "to exterminate the Mormons or drive them out of the state." General Clark executed the orders given him without any compassion either for the old or young. Destitute almost of food or clothing, in the month of November, without tents or anything to protect them from the driving storms of rain and snow, they were driven out on the bleak prairies to find a shelter, they knew not where. In their march, women and children sick- ened and died for want of food and clothing. Mothers carried in their arms their starving children and in agony listened to their cries for food. More than twelve hundred of them, weak and emaciated, came to the banks of the Missis- sippi, their Jordan, over which they crossed into Illinois. Their pitiful condition awakened the sympathy of the people of lowa and Illinois, who treated them kindly, and furnished them food and shelter. Their expulsion from Missouri took place in the fall of 1838. Dr. Isaac Galland, who was a Mormon elder and who was one of the first settlers in Lee County, took an interest in his fellow brethren upon being assured by Governor Lucas of Iowa that there was no law against their living in Iowa, and being so informed many of them with their families located near Keokuk, Nashville and Montrose, but the greater part settled across the river north of Montrose in Illinois. At this time there existed a small town on the Illinois side of the Mississippi nearly opposite Montrose called Commerce, which was founded by some New York speculators. This town site and adjoining lands "the Saints" purchased and changed the name from Commerce to Nauvoo. Prophet Joseph Smith, who had been incarcerated in jail at Independence, was released, came to Nauvoo, joined his people and continued the propagation of the Mormon faith. They had sent missionaries at this early period throughout the country, even so far as England, strengthened by the oppo- sition against them and the appeal of the new faith to their love of the super- natural. The converts to the new faith were increasing rapidly and most of them came to Nauvoo, their Jerusalem. So great was their increase in numbers that, from 1838 to 1846 the Town of Nauvoo had a population of near twenty thou- sand souls. Nothing of moment had taken place to render them inimical to the surrounding people until July, 1843, when it was claimed a revelation had been received permitting a plurality of wives. One can imagine what a storm of indignation would be raised by the announcement of such a belief in the present in any community of Protestant or Catholic religionists. The propagation of this belief raised a storm of indignation among their neighbors. When an ox or horse had been stolen belonging to a non-Mormon, it was laid to the Mormons. If a burglary had been committed, the Mormons were charged with the crime. They were an industrious and frugal people, and in a short time had acquired consid- erable wealth, so much so, that they were enabled to build a temple which cost in the neighborhood of one million dollars. To illustrate the temper and feeling of many people at the time is the fact that some of the best people of Union and Augusta townships in Des Moines County met at Augusta and passed resolutions denouncing Mormonism and abolitionism as "dangerous to the peace and safety of society." In these early days, the Mississippi River was infested with a large number of renegades, thieves, murderers and cut-throats, who made Nauvoo their headquarters, many of them claiming to be Mormons. The charges against Smith and his people were that they harbored criminals. Their prophet, Joseph
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Smith, with other leaders in the church, were arrested by the order of Governor Ford of Illinois in June, 1844. They were charged with riot and lodged in the jail at Carthage. June 27, 1844, a mob of over two hundred persons disguised as Indians, attacked the jail, overcame the guards, broke through the door of the jail, shot and killed Joseph Smith and his brother Hiram. Brigham Young suc- ceeded Smith in apostleship, gathered his followers together and commenced to make preparations to emigrate to the far West, there to start again to build a city, another "New Jerusalem." In the fall of 1846 they crossed the Mississippi, more than sixteen thousand, and commenced their journey westward through Lee County. Their caravans consisted of 16,000 men, women and children, 3,000 wagons, 30,000 head of cattle and other stock. We will not follow them in their cold, dreary march through Iowa or relate their sufferings amidst the winter storms on its bleak prairies.
THE KILLING OF MILLER AND LICEY
We quote from Annals of Iowa, Vol. VIII, page 303. "On the 25th of August, 1845, John Miller with his son-in-law, by the name of Licey, with their families, emigrated from Ohio, and stopped in Lee County, where they offered to pay cash for a good farm; and from this circumstance, it was soon reported through the neighborhood that they had a large amount of money. Miller, Licey, and another man were the only male inmates of the house. On the night of the Ioth of May, the family as usual retired to bed for the night. About 12 o'clock at night, they were aroused from their slumbers by three men entering the house with a dark lantern, and demanding their money. The old man and his son-in- law, not being disposed to quietly give up their possessions, did not readily comply with their demands, but undertook to drive the robbers from their house, while the third man, being frightened, hid himself under the bed clothes. There was a desperate struggle between the robbers and the old man and his son-in-law. Miller was stabbed in the heart, and immediately breathed his last. Licey, being first shot with a pistol, and then receiving several deep gashes upon the head and back from a bowie knife, fell helpless on the floor. The assassins, being disheartened at the fatal resistance with which they had been received, and, probably fearing that the disturbance they had made might arouse the neighbors, made a hasty retreat without securing their booty. The rumor of the bloody tragedy spread rapidly, and the whole neighborhood became alarmed for their own safety. Every imaginable effort was made to discover the perpetrators, but for a long while nothing could be obtained which threw any light upon the dark transaction. A cup was found (we think this is an error in print, as it has been stated by others it was a "cap" which was found) near the house, which was supposed belonged to one of the murderers which he had probably dropped in his haste to get away from the scene of carnage. A man by the name of Edward Bonney, who resided at Montrose, and well calculated to find out dark deeds, having heard of the cup, undertook to ascertain the owner. He found by stratagem the owner of the cup, and became satisfied that two young men by the name of William and Stephen Hodges and a Thomas Brown, who resided in Nauvoo, must have been the men who committed the murder. Brown made his escape, but the two Hodges were arrested and taken before Licey, who was still living, though he died soon after
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from his wounds, and they were identified by him as being two of the men who entered the house." The above is incorrect in some of its statements. Mr. Edward Bonney of Montrose, through whose efforts the Hodges were arrested, in "Bandits of the Prairies," of which he is the author, says: "About 12 or I o'clock, May 10th, three men entered the house of Miller, and after a desperate struggle, Miller succeeded in pushing his antagonist from the house, and as he passed the door, was stabbed and fell to the ground. Licey succeeded in throw- ing one of the ruffians on the floor, and while choking him, the other desperado was inflicting deep gashes on his head and neck. Maddened with pain, Licey with one effort freed himself from their hold, forced them through the door, and while closing it was shot." The news of the murder reached Montrose on the morning of the day on which it was committed. Parties in searching the prairies, found a cloth cap, trimmed with fur. When Bonney heard this, he recollected of seeing a young man in Nauvoo some three weeks before, who wore a cap of similar description. On the afternoon of the 12th he left for Nauvoo to find the owner of the fatal cap. On the morning of the 11th, one of the Hodges was seen going to his home bareheaded. On the 11th Stephen was seen in a grocery with blood stains on the bosom of his shirt, and being questioned, retired home and returned with a clean one. At 2 o'clock on the morning of the 13th with a posse Bonney proceeded to the place where they resided and arrested three brothers, Amos William and Stephen Hodges. Thomas Brown, the third man at Miller's, hearing of their coming, at once fled. There being no evidence against Amos, he was discharged. The territorial court was then in session at West Point, and after indictment he proceeded at once, and on requisition they were taken and lodged in jail at Fort Madison. Change of place of trial was taken to Des Moines County. The trial was set for June Sth. Hall and Mills of Burlington were employed to defend them, their fee being $1,000. L. D. Stocton prosecuted. An affidavit for a continuance was filed sworn to by the Hodges to obtain the evidence of the following named witnesses : John and Aaron Long, Judge Fox and Henry Adams of St. Louis, John W. Broffert, Henry Moore, Samuel Smith, Lydia Hodges, John Bliss, Caroline Moore, Samuel Walters, Sarah Ann Wood, Thomas Morgan (son of the author of the disclosure of Masonry), Mrs. Campbell, sister of the Hodges, Harriet St. John and a Miss Hawkins of Nauvoo. That these witnesses then not present would swear, that the accused were in Nauvoo at the time the murder was committed. On the filing of the affidavit the case was con- ยท tinued until the 15th of the same month." It will be seen that John Long and Aaron Long were the murderers of Colonel Davenport at Rock Island on the 4th of July following, and with Graville Young were hanged on the 19th of October, 1845. With the circumstantial evidence produced on the trial, backed by the dying declaration of Licey, and the testimony of the widows of Miller and Licey, who swore they were the perpetrators of the deed, the state made out a clear case. which was strengthened rather than disparaged by the attempt to prove an "alibi," for on this one point the witnesses disagreed, which was, as to the place where the brothers were on the night of the murder. Some testified they were at one place, others at another. Lydia Hodges, wife of Amos, was absent from the courtroom, and as one of the counsel of defendants was about bringing her in the room, she burst into tears, and exclaimed, "Must I go to court?" "If you can swear the boys were at home that night." "They were out that night." "Do you
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know where they were?" "They left home in company with Tom Brown and said they were going over to Iowa." "When did they return?" "Early next morning." "What did they say?" "They had been unsuccessful," etc. "What is their business?" "Robbery is the only one I know." "Who are engaged with them?" "All their family, and leaders in the Mormon Church encourage them in it and share their spoils." "You know all this, or is it merely rumor?" "I know it, and am now brought here to swear them clear. They have been kind to me, and yet I cannot swear my soul to eternal perdition, and destroy all my hopes of happiness both here and hereafter, to save them. I cannot go to court, will not do it. I cannot swear for them and will not swear against them." Other conversation was had, and the attorney returned again to court convinced of the hopelessness of his case. Still he struggled to the end. The above is taken from "Bandits of the Prairies," by Edward Bonney, pages 48-49. The court sessions were held in Old Zion Church over which Judge Mason presided. The trial com- menced June 16, 1845, before a jury consisting of David Leonard, Robert Mickey, James Snow, Isaac Chandler, Vincent Shelley, Eli Walker, William Bennett, Joel Hargrove, Moses B. McNutt, John Smith, Thomas Stout and John D. Cameron. On the next Saturday after being instructed as to the law, the jury retired to consider what their verdict ought to be. On Sunday morning the jurors returned into court and announced their verdict. The jury was then discharged, the court adjourned until 3 o'clock P. M. of that day, when, with both prisoners present and standing, Judge Mason addressed them as follows: "The trial on which your lives depended has now terminated, and to you, that determination is fatal. After a full and fair investigation, that jury to which you had intrusted your fate, and which, from the privileges extended to you, may almost be said to have been your own selection, have declared you have been guilty of murder, a murder which, in point of atrocity, may almost be said to be unparalleled in the annals of crime. With scarcely an apparent inducement for the commission of the most trivial of offenses, you have been guilty of the greatest ; you have not only with sacrilegious hand invaded the sacred fountains of life ; but with apparent, deliber- ate purpose, nearly akin in malice to that of the arch fiends, you have entered into the little Eden of love and contentment, with which a quiet and unoffending family were surrounding themselves-cut off in the bloom and maturity of man- hood, ties of their chief support ; desecrating their very hearth stones and their life's blood, and brought desolation and unutterable woe into that house, which but for you would have been the abode of all the sacred and innocent pleasures . of domestic life. Nor are the consequences of your crime confined to the imme- diate sufferers. Though lessened in intensity, they have extended to the whole community a feeling of apprehension and insecurity, which has been communi- cated to every cottage throughout the country. Where a blamelessness of life which creates no enemies-a mediocrity of condition which excites to envy- where an almost entire absence of that motive which addresses itself to the sordid love of gain, cannot secure the slumberer from the assaults of the midnight assassin, well may the indweller of every cabin feel that anxiety and consterna- tion which must so greatly augment the aggregate evils of human existence. For all these evils, immediate and remote, the law holds you responsible, and is now about to apply all that there is of remedy within its reach. Blood for blood, is its stern demand, and never was the sanguinary requisition more righteous. Unable
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to restore the dead, it accords such vengeance to the living. Your lives, too, are regarded as incompatible with the safety of society, and in the bloom of youth and health, you are by the hands of your fellow mortals to be consigned to the gallows and the grave. As an example also seems to be called for, to deter others from a repetition of like offenses, and you are about to be exhibited as an awful beacon to warn all others from a course like that which has resulted in your ruin, etc. You need not be reminded of the awful condition in which you are now placed ; of the blackness of that gulf which is now opening beneath your feet, etc. Look, therefore, for mercy only from Heaven. Expect pardon from none but the good God. In the discharge of the solemn duty which is now imposed upon me, I feel almost overwhelmed with awe, as I become one of the instruments by which the lives of two human beings are about to be extinguished-for life, how much soever it may have been perverted from its original purpose, is still an emanation from the divinity. But, as the irresponsible organ of that law which requires your death, I here pronounce its final sentence: I direct that you, William Hodges and Stephen Hodges, be taken from this place to the jail of the County of Des Moines, there to remain until Tuesday, the 15th day of July next ; that on that day, you be taken by the proper officers of this county, to some con- venient place within the same, and there, between the hours of 10 o'clock A. M. and 4 o'clock P. M., that you be hung by the neck until you are dead, and may God have mercy on you." The sentence of the court was carried out, on the 15th of July, 1845, at which time they were hanged by John H. McKenny, sheriff of the county. They were hung in what is now called Patterson's Hollow.
The late William Henry Smith, who was present when William and Stephen Hodges were hanged, writes the Hawkeye of May 8, 1910, as follows: "The place where the gallows was erected was on Mount Pleasant Street, about one hundred yards west of the railroad track, at the foot of the slope of the hill on which is the Lincoln Schoolhouse. The Northwestern Cabinet Company's building now covers the spot and the gallows must have stood near where the frame office build- ing stood and near to the southwest corner of the establishment. The gallows was built of timbers and planks. A white oak tree perhaps five or six inches in diameter was utilized for a post to support the platform at the northwest corner. Posts four or five feet in height were placed at the three other corners, and stretchers nailed to them to support the platform. I think the platform was about eight or nine feet square ; possibly twelve-foot planks were used in the longest direction north and south. On a line with the center of the platform two higher posts were erected ; one at the north, the other at the south end, and upon those rested a crossbeam to which ropes were tied. The trap door was composed of planks running longitudinally north and south and was hinged at the north end. The south end was held in place by a rope fastened to it, and extending upward a short distance, and then passing through a hole notched in the post, then was carried down on the south side of the post below. and there fastened. To release the trap all that was required was to cut the rope. There were steps at the east side on which to ascend to the platform. At the rear of the platform was a bench with a crosspiece for a back. Great crowds of people came from town and from the surrounding country and towns; some from a distance of fifty miles or more. A steamboat loaded with people came down from as far north as Muscatine and one from Keokuk. The ferry boat from Nauvoo brought
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a crowd. Many stood around, near the gallows. There was a tree near by, which some boys climbed to get a good view. The bulk of the crowd were on the hill sides south of the gallows, where some were seated and some standing.
"The prisoners were brought in a two-horse lumber wagon from the jail to the gallows. There was a muffled drum to add to the solemnity. Their hands were manacled and an armed guard accompanied them. The prisoners descended from the wagon and then went up the steps to the platform, taking their seats on the bench on the west side of the platform and faced the east. They were accom- panied by Sheriff McKenny and a preacher whose name I do not remember, I think he was a Mormon priest. The prisoners were asked if they had anything to say. William, the youngest, said nothing. Stephen made a good speech. His handcuffs being connected with a short chain, he had to raise both arms in his gesticulations. He quoted largely from their attorneys' speeches made in court at the trial. In conclusion he said: 'You are now putting two innocent men to an ignomanious and shameful death. Hang us. We are Mormons.'
"William stood at the north end and Stephen at the south end of the drop. The sheriff put on the heads of each of them a black cap, then put over their heads and around their necks the dangling nooses and fitted them closely around their necks. Then he stepped to the south end of the platform and picked up a hand axe, and called out 'Once! Twice! Thrice!' Then struck the rope with the keen edge of the axe. The drop fell.
"Their bodies were taken to Nauvoo for burial.
"The Hodges once lived in Burlington. I at one time attended school with William and his sister, and this is one reason which made the execution one of interest to me."
There cannot be any doubt but the above account written by Mr. Smith is correct in every respect. When their ecution took place he was at that age when the memory of the event would lasten itself on his mind. When he wrote concerning it. he was nearing his eighty-fourth year of age. All know it to be a fact that in the later part of an aged man's life the early events come back into consciousness and he sees them as if they had taken place but yesterday.
CHAPTER XV
HOTELS OF BURLINGTON
In all countries of the world, where there are cities and towns and public highways have been established, are places of public entertainment. Each country gives to these places a name.
In the earlier days of England and in this country they were called taverns, or inns. At the present the general name for such places is the word "hotel." Strictly speaking, a tavern was a public house for the supply of food and drink. The same could be said of an inn, and generally of a hotel. At the present they supply food fully as liberally as in former times, but as to drink (intoxicant) the kind supplied is in many states limited to the softer kind. It will not be contended in the earlier days such limitation existed. It is a matter of as inuch interest to us of the present and those who follow us to know who kept the first tavern at Flint Ilills or Burlington, as the one who kept the first store.
William Henry Smith says: "The first hotel I remember was the 'Black Hawk.' It was on the site of the present Harris House. It had a good view of the river. There was an oval sign on a pole in front of the house bearing the portrait of an Indian and the words 'Black Hawk.'"
Mr. Smith says the Oregon Hotel, kept by George W. Hight, was the next. It stood on High Street where the gas works are located at the present time.
In addition to those mentioned we find in 1840 James Morgan kept the Burlington House. That at the corner of Columbia and Main streets D. and T. B. Hammers kept the Mansion House ( formerly the Wisconsin Hotel). In the advertisement concerning the merits of their hostelry they say: "The bar and cellar have received the special attention of the proprietors."
Mr. J. C. Fletcher (1840), who subsequently became known as one of the leading hotel keepers of Burlington, established what was known as the National Hotel. He announces he had leased and at great expense had prepared for hotel purposes the commodious building of Cameron and Pierce, situated in the lower part of Burlington. He says in proclaiming the merits of his house, "Due atten- tion will be given to the appetites of the guests and boarders." Without doubt no hotel keeper in Burlington has gained the reputation of Mr. J. C. Fletcher in the matter of cuisine connected with the houses he has kept for the entertainment of the public.
The only hotel keeper in Burlington who at any time approached him in this respect was R. C. Deming, who kept the Barrett House in 1857, etc.
James W. Neally went into the hotel business in 1843. He established the Western Hotel, which was situated on the southwest corner of Fourth and Jeffer-
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son streets. That corner was used for hotel purposes until the erection of the present building on the same by Mr. Hedge.
Mr. William M. Walbridge was the proprietor of the Iowa House, situated on the corner of Water and Court streets. This was in the year 1844. How long Mr. Walbridge continued in the hotel business we do not know.
We come now to the most famous of the early hotels of Burlington, the Barrett Ilouse. This house was erected on the northwest corner of Third and Jefferson streets, and was opened in August, 1845. J. C. Fletcher, proprietor. The Barrett House was to Burlington from that time for as much and more than a third of a century what the Burlington is to Burlington today. If the walls of its rooms were standing, and had a tongue to give utterance, they could tell a story of political intrigue, of counsel for what was wise and good, of hate and love, of joy and sorrow, as no other tongue could tell of those early times. The building with additions built to it covered near a quarter of the block in which it was situated. In June, 1850, Mr. D. K. Garman seems to have been the proprie- tor. Mr. Garman operated the hotel not quite one year, for in April, 1851, Mr. J. C. Fletcher is installed as its proprietor. Mr. R. C. Deming had it in his charge in 1857.
Omitting the wine list, which is as full if not larger than the dinner bill in comparison to the importance of the two, we herewith set forth :
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