USA > Iowa > Dickinson County > History of Emmet County and Dickinson County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 10
USA > Iowa > Emmet County > History of Emmet County and Dickinson County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 10
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In arranging for the mustering in of the Iowa regiments, Governor Shaw ordered them to be numbered to follow the last regiment of infantry furnished by Iowa in the Civil war. The First Regiment of the National Guard therefore became the Forty-ninth; the Second, the Fiftieth; the Third, the Fifty-first, and the Fourth, the Fifty-second.
FIFTY-SECOND INFANTRY
This regiment was composed of companies raised in the northwestern part of the state. Company K was made up of men from Palo Alto and Emmet counties. Its commissioned officers at the time of muster in were: Peter O. Refsell, captain; Claude M. Henry, first lieutenant; Charles F. Grout, second lieutenant, all from Emmetsburg. The following Emmet County men were enrolled as privates: Leonard Anderson, Hans Gilbert- son, Charles E. Hawk, William O. Mulroney, Thomas M. Pullen, Oscar A. Quinnell (promoted corporal), Charles E. Ridley and Charles R. Rose.
The regiment was mustered into the United States service on May 25, 1898, with William B. Humphrey, of Sioux City, as colonel. Three days later, under orders from the war department, it broke camp at Des Moines and entrained for Chickamauga Park, Georgia. Upon arriving there it was assigned to the Third Brigade, Second Division, Third Army Corps, commanded by General Wade. On August 8, 1898, orders were received to move the regiment to Porto Rico, but before embarking a telegram came revoking the order. Immediately following this there were a number of cases of sickness among the men of the regiment, which the surgeon said was largely due to their disappointment. The regiment remained in camp at Chickamauga Park until August 29, 1898, when it was ordered back to Des Moines. There the men were given a thirty-day furlough and per- mitted to visit their homes. The furlough was afterward extended to October 30, 1898, when the companies were reassembled at Des Moines and the regiment was mustered out. In his final report Colonel Humphrey says: "Had the opportunity presented, the regiment would have ac- quitted itself with honor and credit to the state."
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CHAPTER V SETTLEMENT AND ORGANIZATION
VARIOUS JURISDICTIONS-TERRITORY OF IOWA-STATEHOOD THE ORGANIC ACT-THE FIRST SETTLERS-AN EARLY DAY TRAGEDY-INDIAN SCARE OF 1857-ORGANIZING EMMET COUNTY-THE FIRST ELECTION-LOCATING THE COUNTY SEAT-REMOVAL TO SWAN LAKE-BACK TO ESTHERVILLE- THE FIRST COURT-HOUSE-THE PRESENT COURT-HOUSE CORRECTING THE RECORD-INCIDENTS OF EARLY DAYS.
VARIOUS JURISDICTIONS
When President Jefferson, on March 1, 1804, approved an act of Con- gress providing for the exercise of sovereignty over Louisiana, the terri- tory now comprising the County of Emmet came for the first time under the official control of the United States. That act provided that from and after October 1, 1804, all that part of the province lying south of the thirty-third parallel of north latitude should be known as the Territory of Orleans, and the country north of that parallel as the District of Louisiana. In the latter was included the present State of Iowa. The District of Louisiana was placed under the jurisdiction of the Territory of Indiana, of which Gen. William H. Harrison was then governor.
On July 4, 1805, the District of Louisiana was organized as a separate territory, with a government of its own. In 1812 the Territory of Orleans was admitted into the Union as the State of Louisiana and the name of the upper district was changed to the Territory of Missouri. In 1821 the State of Missouri was admitted into the Union with its present bound- aries, and the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase was left without any form of civil government whatever. No one seems to have given the matter any serious thought at the time, as the only white people in the territory were a few wandering hunters, trappers and the agents of the different fur companies, all of whom were most interested in the profits of their occupations than they were in establishing permanent settle- ments and paying taxes.
The first white settlement within the border of the present State of Iowa was founded in 1788 by Julien Dubuque, where the city bearing his name now stands. Eight years later Louis Honore Tesson received from
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the Spanish governor of Louisiana a grant of land "at the head of the Des Moines Rapids of the Mississippi," in what is now Lee County. About the close of the Eighteenth Century French traders established posts along the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers. In the fall of 1808 Fort Madison was built by order of the war department where the city of that name is now located, and in the early '20s a trading house and small settlement were established upon the site of the present City of Keokuk.
The titles of Dubuque and Tesson were afterward confirmed by the United States Government, but with these exceptions no settlement was legally made in Iowa prior to June 1, 1833, when the title to the Black Hawk Purchase became fully vested in the United States. A few settlers had ventured into the new purchase before that date, and Burlington was founded in the fall of 1832, soon after the treaty with the Sacs and Foxes , ceding the Black Hawk Purchase. On June 1, 1833, a large number of immigrants crossed the Mississippi to establish claims. It therefore be- came necessary for the national administration to establish some form of government over a region that had lain beyond the pale of civil authority for some twelve years.
On June 28, 1834, President Jackson approved an act of Congress attaching the present State of Iowa to the Territory of Michigan, which then included all the country from Lake Huron westward to the Missouri River. By this act Iowa came under the jurisdiction of Michigan. The first counties in Iowa-Dubuque and Des Moines-were created by an act of the Michigan Legislature in September, 1834. The former included all that portion of the state lying north of a line drawn due west from the foot of Rock Island, and the latter embraced all south of that line. The present Emmet County was therefore once a part of the County of Dubuque.
On April 20, 1836, President Jackson approved the act creating the Territory of Wisconsin, to take effect on July 4, 1836. Gen. Henry Dodge was appointed governor of the new territory, which embraced the present State of Wisconsin and all the country west of the Mississippi River for- merly included in Michigan. Hence, on Independence Day in 1836, Iowa passed from the jurisdiction of Michigan to that of Wisconsin. Pursuant to Governor Dodge's proclamation, the first election ever held on Iowa soil was held on October 3, 1836, for members of the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature.
TERRITORY OF IOWA
Early in the fall of 1837 the question of dividing the Territory of Wisconsin and establishing a new territory west of the Mississippi became a subject of engrossing interest to the people living west of the river. The Vol. 1-6
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sentiment in favor of a new territory found definite expression in a con- vention held at Burlington on November 3, 1837, which adopted a memorial to Congress asking for the erection of a new territory west of the Miss- issippi. In response to this expression of popular sentiment, Congress passed an act, which was approved by President Van Buren on June 12, 1838, dividing Wisconsin and establishing the Territory of Iowa, the boundaries of which included "all that part of the Territory of Wisconsin which lies west of the Mississippi River and west of a line drawn due north from the headwater or sources of the Mississippi to the northern boundary of the territory of the United States."
The act became effective on July 3, 1838. In the meantime President Van Buren had appointed Robert Lucas, of Ohio, as the first territorial governor; William B. Conway, of Pennsylvania, secretary; Charles Mason, of Burlington, chief justice; Thomas S. Wilson, of Dubuque, and Joseph Williams, of Pennsylvania, associate justices; Isaac Van Allen, district attorney. The white people living west of the Mississippi now had a government of their own, though by far the greater part of the new terri- tory was still in the hands of the Indians.
STATEHOOD
During the ten years following the opening of the Black Hawk Pur- chase to white settlement the pioneers extended the field of their operations rapidly westward and in 1843 Fort Des Moines was built upon the site of the present capital of the state. On February 12, 1844, fifteen years before Emmet County was organized, the Iowa Legislature, acting under the authority and with the consent of the Federal Government, passed an act providing for the election of delegates to a constitutional convention. The convention met at Iowa City on October 7, 1844, and finished its work on the first day of November. The constitution framed by this convention was submitted to the people at an election held on August 4, 1845, and was rejected by a vote of 7,656 to 7,235.
A second constitutional convention assembled at Iowa City on May 4, 1846, and remained in session for two weeks. The constitution adopted by this second convention was submitted to the people at the general election on August 3, 1846, when it was ratified by a vote of 9,492 to 9,036. It was also approved by Congress and on December 28, 1846, Pres- ident Polk affixed his signature to the bill admitting Iowa into the Union as a state.
In quite a number of the older counties of the state settlements were made before the boundaries of the county were defined by law or a name adopted. Not so with the County of Emmet. At the time of the admis- sion of the state in December, 1846, there were but few organized coun-
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ties west of the Red Rock line as established by the treaty of October 11, 1842. In December, 1837, while Iowa was still under the jurisdiction of Wisconsin, the Legislature of that territory created Fayette County, which was probably the largest county ever erected in the United States. It extended from the Mississippi River west to the White Earth River and north to the British possessions, embracing nearly all the present State of Minnesota, Northwestern Iowa and all of North and South Dakota east of the White Earth and Missouri rivers, with a total area of 140,000 square miles. Emmet County was by that act made a part of the County of Fayette.
THE ORGANIC ACT
On January 15, 1851, Gov. Stephen Hempstead approved an act of the Iowa Legislature creating fifty new counties out of the unorganized territory in the western part of the state. Section 47 of that act reads as follows :
"That the following shall be the boundaries of a new county which shall be called Emmett, to wit: Beginning at the northwest corner of township 97 north, range 30 west; thence north to the north boundary line of the state; thence west on said boundary line to the northwest corner of township 100 north, range 34 west; thence south to the southwest corner of township 98 north, range 34; thence east to the place of beginning."
The boundaries as thus defined are identical with the boundaries of the county at the present time. The county was named for Robert Emmet, the celebrated Irish orator and patriot, though it will be noticed that in the organic act the name is spelled with two "t's." This form of spelling was continued for several years before the present and correct form was adopted.
None of the counties created by the act of 1851 was organized for some time after the passage of that act. Scattered over the vast territory .of the fifty new counties was a solitary settler, here and there, but in none of them was the inhabitants numerous enough to justify a county organi- zation. For judicial and election purposes the unorganized counties were attached to some of the older and regularly organized ones, Emmet County being attached to Webster. But a tide of immigration was pouring into Iowa and on January 12, 1853, Governor Hempstead approved an act con- taining the following provisions :
"Whenever the citizens of any unorganized county desire to have the same organized, they may make application by petition in writing, signed by a majority of the legal voters of said county, to the county judge of the county to which such unorganized county is attached, whereupon the said county judge shall order an election for county officers in such unor- ganized county.
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"A majority of the citizens of any county, after becoming so organ- ized, may petition the district judge in whose judicial district the same is situated, during the vacation of the General Assembly, whose duty it shall be to appoint three commissioners from three different adjoining counties, who shall proceed to locate the county seat for such county, according to the provisions of this act."
THE FIRST SETTLERS
At the time of the passage of the above mentioned acts of 1851 and 1853, respectively defining the boundaries and providing for the organi- zation of the new counties, there was not a single permanent white set- tler within the borders of Emmet County. In June, 1856, Jesse Coverdale and George C. Granger located in what is now Emmet Township, taking claims for themselves and four of their friends whom they expected within a short time. These four were William Granger, Henry and Adolphus Jenkins and D. W. Hoyt, who arrived before the summer was far advanced and began the work of establishing homes. The first house in the county was built by George. C. Granger, who brought a small stock of goods, con- sisting of such staple articles as were most likely to be needed in a frontier settlement, and opened the first store.
Not long after these six men came Robert E. and A. H. Ridley, from Maine, and the Graves family from Winneshiek County, who settled in the vicinity of the present City of Estherville. About the middle of August, 1856, John Rourke located at Island Grove, in what is now High Lake Township. His wife is said to have been the first white woman to become a resident of the county, and his son Peter, born on January 4, 1857, was the first white child to claim Emmet County as his birthplace.
James Maher and the Conlans came shortly after Rourke and settled in the same locality. It seems that a Frenchman had previously attempted to establish a settlement at Island Grove, or at least had a rendezvous there. What became of him is something of a mystery. It is supposed that he was killed or driven off by the Indians, but at any rate he left there a number of implements, among which was a grindstone. This was found and mounted by James Maher and proved quite a boon to the pio- neers. The southern part of Island Grove was sometimes called "Robbers' Grove," from the fact that a gang of outlaws had a camp there. Disguised as Indians these bandits would make raids upon the settlers and carry off their property. On one occasion they robbed Patrick Conlan, but Pat pos- sessed the true Irish fighting blood, so he armed himself with an old "pepper-box" revolver, made a descent upon the outlaws' camp and forced them to disgorge. A little later the gang departed for a more congenial climate.
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A man named Harshman settled in Emmet County in the fall of 1856, and his son, Joseph Harshman, was the only resident of Emmet killed at the time of the Spirit Lake massacre in Dickinson County. On March 8, 1857, the youth went to the settlement at the "Lakes" with a hand sled for some flour. That day Inkpaduta and his band of bloodthirsty savages made their descent upon the settlement and Joseph Harshman was one of those who lost their lives.
The winter of 1856-57 was one of great severity and the few settlers in Emmet County suffered hardships that can hardly be described. Fort. Dodge was the nearest point from which supplies could be obtained. Wearing snow shoes and drawing hand sleds, some of the pioneers made the long, dreary trip of seventy miles, through an unbroken country, to procure a few of the necessities of life. People of the present generation, who can find such supplies within easy reach, can hardly appreciate the heroism of those men of 1856.
The first postoffice in the county was established at "Emmet" and George C. Granger was appointed postmaster. At that time there was a mail route running from Mankato, Minnesota, via Jackson, Emmet, Spirit Lake, Peterson (then known as the Mead Settlement), Cherokee and Mel- bourne to Sioux City. Mail was received by the offices along the route once in every two weeks. Mr. Granger soon resigned and Henry Jenkins was appointed. He held the office until it was discontinued. Emmet County was then without postal service until the office at Estherville was established in 1860, with Adolphus Jenkins as postmaster.
AN EARLY DAY TRAGEDY
In the fall of 1857 two men came from Mankato, Minnesota, bringing with them a number of traps and supplies for the winter, for the purpose of trapping along the Des Moines River. One of these men was named Dodson and the other was known as "Dutch Charley." Soon after they established their camp, near Emmet Grove, they were joined by a young Englishman named Metricott, who was something of a mystery. He was well educated, dressed well, but never said anything of his past or why he came to America. He might have been a "remittance man"-that is, a scion of some wealthy family in England who received money regularly from his relatives at home.
A little later another camp was established farther down the river, in what is now High Lake Township. Early in the spring of 1858 Metri- cott left the camp at Emmet Grove, where he had been living with Dutch Charley, to take some supplies to Dodson at the lower camp. He was seen passing the settlement where Estherville now stands, in his canoe, and that was the last time he was ever seen alive. When Dodson failed to
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receive the supplies, he went to the upper camp and learned of the Eng- lishman's disappearance. He and Charley sought along the river banks for some trace of their associate, but found nothing to indicate the manner of his disappearance, and came to the conclusion that he had either been killed by the Indians or had gone on down the river. Metricott had left all his clothing and effects at the upper camp, which rendered the theory that he had deserted the two trappers hardly tenable.
Several weeks later A. H. Ridley, Adolphus Jenkins and another man found the body of Metricott on a knoll some distance from the river about two miles south of Estherville. Further search revealed his canoe hidden in a clump of willows. An inquest was held-the first in Emmet County- and efforts were made to solve the problem of the Englishman's death. There were rumors of quarrels having occurred among the three men, but nothing definite could be learned from either Dodson or Dutch Charley, though the latter was suspected of having been Metricott's murderer. Both the trappers insisted that the deed had been committed by Indians or horse thieves and the mystery was never solved.
Dodson and Charley left the county in June, 1858, with their furs and never came back. The latter was killed by the Indians in the uprising of 1862. Dodson entered the army and served as a scout until his death near the close of the Civil war.
INDIAN SCARE OF 1857
Inkpaduta's raid into Iowa and the massacre of the settlers in Dick- inson County in March, 1857, caused a number of the settlers of Emmet County to leave the frontier and seek safety in the older counties of the state, some of them leaving Iowa and returning to their old homes east of the Mississippi. A few remained, however, among whom were R. E. Ridley and his wife, who are still living in Estherville. Mrs. Ridley did not see the face of a white woman for more than four months. Gue, in his History of Iowa, says a strong stockade was built near the river to protect the settlers from the Sioux Indians and a company of soldiers came up from Fort Dodge. That spring the pioneer farmers kept their trusty rifles within reach as they planted their crops and "kept one eye open" for the Indians. But the spring and summer passed without an attack and toward autumn some of those who had been frightened away returned to their homesteads.
ORGANIZING THE COUNTY
Late in the year 1858, the people living in Emmet County grew tired of being attached to Webster and a petition was circulated asking for the *organization of Emmet County, according to the provisions of the act of
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January 12, 1853. The petition was signed by a majority of the legal voters and was presented to the county judge of Webster County, who ordered an election for county officers to be held on Monday, February 7, 1859. The available authorities differ as to the officers chosen at that election and the destruction of the records by the burning of the court- house in the fall of 1876 renders it impossible to get the official returns. Gue's History of Iowa and an old Iowa atlas (from which Gue probably copied) say that Adolphus Jenkins was elected county judge; Jesse Cover- dale, clerk of the courts; R. E. Ridley, treasurer and recorder; A. H. Rid- ley, sheriff ; R. P. Ridley, school superintendent; Henry Jenkins, surveyor. A writer in the Estherville Vindicator, under the pseudonym of "Anon Y. Mous," gives the list of the first county officers as follows: Adolphus Jenkins, county judge; Jesse Coverdale, clerk of the courts; Stanley Wes- ton, treasurer and recorder; D. W. Hoyt, sheriff; Henry Jenkins, sur- veyor; Robert Z. Swift, drainage commissioner; R. P. Ridley, coroner. There were two tickets in the field at that election, but in the presidential election of 1860 Abraham Lincoln received every vote in the county.
LOCATING THE COUNTY SEAT
The next step after the election of county officers was to secure the location of the county seat in the manner provided by law. Application was therefore made to Judge A. W. Hubbard, then judge of the district in which Emmet County was situated, to appoint commissioners to select a site for the seat of justice. The act of 1853 provided for the appointment of three commissioners from three adjoining counties, but two men per- formed the duty in the County of Emmet .. They were Lewis H. Smith, of Kossuth, and Orlando C. Howe, of Dickinson. After looking over the county, they decided that Estherville was the most suitable location for the county seat, and the recently elected county officers established their offices in that village.
REMOVAL TO SWAN LAKE
Some of the people living in the eastern part of the county were not satisfied with the selection of the commissioners. They believed that the seat of justice should have been located nearer the geographical center of the county, but before they could take any action in the matter the author- ities entered into a contract for the erection of a court-house at Esther- ville, as told later on in this chapter. The county was young and in not very good financial circumstances, and the advocates of a county seat nearer the center did not feel like putting the people to the expense of removing and building a new court-house.
The burning of the courthouse in October, 1876, gave these people an
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opportunity which they were not slow to grasp. On July 7, 1879, at an adjourned session of the board of supervisors, a petition was presented asking for an election to submit to the voters the question of removing the county seat. At the same time a remonstrance was filed and both petition and remonstrance were laid on the table. The matter was taken up by the board on July 26, 1879, when it was found that fourteen persons had signed both the petition and remonstrance. Striking out these names there were 165 signers to the petition and 151 to the remonstrance. The board then adopted the following :
"Resolved, That the board of supervisors, being satisfied that the said petition is signed by a majority of the legal voters of the county, and that the requirements of the law have been fully complied with, it is therefore ordered that at the next general election to be held in Emmet County, Iowa, the question of relocation of the county seat shall be submitted to vote. And the county auditor is instructed and required to publish the necessary notices required by law to make such election legal and proper."
This resolution was introduced by J. H. Warren. Those voting in the affirmative were J. H. Warren, Matthew Richmond, A. Christopher and Henry Barber, Jesse Coverdale being the only member of the board voting in the negative.
The site selected to be voted upon at the election on October 14, 1879, was the northeast quarter of Section 25, Township 99, Range 33, in the southeast corner of Center Township and on the northwestern shore of Swan Lake. On October 20, 1879, the board of supervisors declared that the new site had been selected by a majority of the voters, and the next day the following order was issued :
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