USA > Iowa > Floyd County > History of Floyd County, Iowa : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens > Part 27
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
succeeded after a struggle of many years against the adverse tides, let the records and tax-gatherers testify ; let the broad cultivated fields and fruit-bearing orchards, the flocks and the herds, the pal- atial residences, the places of business, the spacious halls, the clat- tering car wheels and ponderous engines all come into court and testify.
" There was a time when twenty miles intervened between the old settlers of Nora Springs and the nearest store, the entire contents of which might have been at a single time rolled on a wheelbar- row. There was a time when thirty miles were measured between Rock Grove and the nearest postoffice, mails once a week, and in times of storm and flood only semi-occasionally. There was a time when pioneers waded through deep snows, over a trackless prairie, across bridgeless rivers, and through bottomless sloughs, a hundred miles to mill or market. These were the times when they cooked by their camp fires and slept under their prairie schooners and when more time was required to reach and return from market than is now required to sail from New York to Liverpool. These were the times when our palaces were constructed of logs and cov- ered with 'shakes' riven from the forest trees. These were the times when our children were stowed away for the night in the low dark attics, amongst the horns of the elk and the deer, and where through the chinks in the 'shakes' they could count the twin- kling stars. These were the times when our molasses and our sugar were made from the sugar trees that stood in the streets of Nora Springs. These were the times when our chairs and our bedsteads were hewn from the forest trees, and tables and bureaus constructed from the boxes in which our goods were brought. These were the times when nine yards of calico made an all-sufficient dress for the mother or her grown-up daughter; when the workingman worked six and sometimes seven days in the week, and all the hours there were in a day from sunrise to sunset.
" Then there was neither trouble to borrow money or confidence, nor danger to lend. Then the word of every man, whether secured by a chattel mortgage or pledge of honor, weighed sixteen ounces to each pound. Then our log school-houses were our churches, our halls and theatres. One preacher preached for all. All read alike from one Bible, and sang from one book of hymns. When one said, ' Amen,' it was an amen for the whole house. There were no jealousies nor rivalries then, no mean and contemptible slanderers with perverted visions, marvelous imaginations, cankering tongues and maelstrom ears, to go like a pestilence through the settlements,
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. destroying the characters of their superiors. Then everybody gave their attention to their own business, and found plenty of employ- ment in doing it. Instead of fiery steeds and gilded equipage, the wives and daughters of the pioneers were drawn in lumber wagons by the stubborn ox to our places of public gathering with as much satisfaction and a greater independence than those who now recline on their cushions of velvet and rockers of steel.
"The Old Settlers' Band has had a severe and exciting experience, and whilst many of their working bees have swarmed and gone to other and distant hives, enough yet remain to form a colony of workers, with honey in store for the dreary days of the winter of life and the misfortunes of old age. We have had our exultations, and our times of sorrow. We have had our concords and our dis- cords over our local affairs, but all this was the inevitable result of · the beginning of a new life. Collisions and collusions are unavoid- able where strange faces, strange language, strange laws and strange interests are suddenly thrown together in promiscuous confusion.
" Whether all have succeeded in what they have undertaken is not a question to be asked and answered now. The question now to be determined is whether as a multitude, the old settlers have gener- ally been successful, and are more successful than those of their class whom they left behind them. Fortunes and misfortunes be- long to the human race. While some go up, others go down, and sometimes those who are up come down with a crash. Not every man can have a school-house on the corner of his farm. Not every man can have a bridge over a stream that flows by his dwell- ing. Not every man have a railway depot on the borders of his plantation nor a city in its center; and while these things are desir- able in some respects, their advantages are oftentimes outweighed by the almost perpetual presence of the foreign beggar, the dreaded tramp, the fear of fire and conflagration, and the insecurity from the presence of the midnight burglar, and the bold bad men and women who lurk in ambush and infest the villages.
"The good things of this earth are not all to be found in any one place, but if more is to be found in any one place than another, that place is in our rural retreats-our quiet homes outside of the clamor and turmoils of a village life. The old pioneers brought with them to Iowa the laws and customs, language and logic, which characterized their fathers. To harmonize these, and to satisfy and secure all against conflicting and rival interests, has been the work of more than a day. But we have lived to see order established
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and recognized everywhere. We have lived to see boundless prai- ries converted into cultivated fields and happy homes. We have lived to see thrifty villages spring up on every side. We have lived to see printing presses established in our midst, and impor- tant lines of railway threading our land in all directions. We have lived to see churches and school-houses and spacious halls, and all the adornments which art, civilization and refinement can bring, erected where once were heard the wild yell of the savage, the hoot of the owl, and the howl of the wolf.
" But how many of us will be here when another quarter of a cen- tury shall roll around? Who of this Old Settlers' Band will clasp hands at the gathering here twenty-five years from to-day! What a change of faces and circumstances will be here then! Many eyes that now sparkle with life will be dimmed. Many voices that now ring with music will be hushed in a silence everlasting. Many a family circle which now stands unbroken will be shattered by an invisible and irresistible power. Many a mariner, now gliding smoothly over the sea of life, with sails unfurled and prow to the breeze, before the moving finger of time shall point to the end of another quarter of a century, will be wafted over the rolling billows and dashed upon the beach of shores eternal.
" And whilst we eye the rolling tide, Down which our flowing moments glide Away so fast, Let us the present hours employ, And deem each future dream a joy Already past.
" Let no vain hope deceive the mind, No happier let us hope to find To-morrow than to-day. Our golden dreams of yore were bright; Like them the present shall delight, Like them decay.
" Our lives like hasting streams must be, That they to one engulfing sea Are doomed to fall ; The sea of death, whose waves roll on, O'er king and kingdom, crown and thorn, And swallow all.
" Alike the river's lordly tide, Alike the humble rivulets glide, To that sad wave. Death levels poverty and pride, And rich and poor sleep side by side Within the grave."
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
The following toasts were then responded to : "Nora Springs and the Shell Rock Valley," John Bell; "What of the future?" Jackson Gaylord; "Our Schools," D. W. Adron. After singing by the choir the meeting adjourned, all feeling abundantly repaid for their trouble and time.
CHAPTER II.
SCIENTIFIC.
TOPOGRAPHY.
The principal features characteristic of the surface do not apper- tain to this county alone, but distinguish nearly the entire upper portion of the valley of the Cedar and its tributaries. The eleva- tions and depressions in the face of the country are comparatively slight. The valleys of the streams are not very much lower than the adjacent uplands, although they are defined in many places by bluff lines or limestone ledges not high but distinct. At other points the valleys rise by gentle slopes until they blend al- most imperceptibly with the general surface of the country. It is common to find the valley thus abruptly defined on one side, while upon the other the distinct boundary is absolutely wanting. A short distance above or below, the same order will be observed, on one side a low ledge or bluff line, on the other a gently sloping surface, but upon opposite sides of the streams. Sometimes the ledges are wanting altogether, and at some points, but less frequently, they are found upon both sides. The face of the country presents no very bold or striking features. The general surface is gently un- dulating, and the broad expense of prairie often appears to be more nearly level than is really the case. East of Cedar River, groves of young oak and poplar, surrounded with tracts of brush land, are quite common. West of the Cedar the area between the valleys is almost uniformly " clear " prairie, that is, prairie unsprinkled with brush or trees.
The surface of the county lies at an average elevation of about five hundred feet above low water mark in the Mississippi River at McGregor, or nearly 1,200 feet above the level of the sea. It has a considerable inclination toward the southeast. From meas- urements taken in the different railroad surveys, it appears that the highest point in the line of the Illinois Central Railroad, near the county line between Charles City and Nashua, is 492 feet above the Mississippi at Dubuque, Nashua Station and Charles City, both situated in the valley of the Cedar, being respectively 383 and
(288)
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
427 feet above the same point. Marble Rock Station, in the valley of the Shell Rock in the southwest part of the county, has an eleva- tion of 440 feet. Floyd Station, upon the west side of the Cedar, and about on a level with the surrounding country, has an eleva- tion of 540 feet. Passing northward from Rock Grove, the highest point before reaching Flood Creek is 554 feet, while the water in Flood Creek, upon the same line, is 542 feet, and the highest point in the prairie between Flood and Rock Creeks, near the north line of the county, is 638 feet above low water at Dubuque. It therefore ap- pears that the descent in the plane of the surface from the north- west to the southeast parts of the county is nearly one hundred and fifty feet. This may account for the singular uniformity in the direction of the streams that traverse its limits, and must also have considerable influence upon the surface drainage. where the undulations are so slight as they are here, in giving the soil the dry character, free from surplus water, for which this region is noted.
DRAINAGE.
The principal streams passing through Floyd County are Cedar River, Little Cedar River, Shell Rock River, Flood Creek and Lime Creek. The first four named flow almost parallel with each other from northwest to southeast, affording admirable drainage to every portion of the county. The largest is Cedar River, which is re- garded, in size and importance, as the second of the interior rivers of Iowa. Here it has an average width of about sixty yards, with continuous rapids, affording a succession of water-power that must prove exceedingly valuable in the near future. The source of this stream is nearly one hundred miles north, in Minnesota, and in a section of sixty-five miles in a direct line from Mary's Ford, in Mitchell County, to Cedar Falls, in Black Hawk County, its total fall is no less than two hundred and seventy-one feet. Along its banks in this county are numerous springs of pure and excel- lent cold water, flowing from the ledges of the rocks, through which the channel has worn its way. The Little Cedar, crossing the northeast part of the county, is also a stream of considerable importance, affording some good water-power. The second stream in size and value to Floyd County, is Shell Rock River. It enters some four and a half miles south of the northwest corner, and passes out near the middle of the south line. It gives to the county a water line of nearly thirty miles, with some of the finest
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
mill-sites to be found in Iowa. It is supplied by numerous springs, and the water is nearly always pure and clear. Lime Creek is a. tributary of Shell Rock River, flowing in from the west. Further- south is Coldwater Creek, flowing in on the same side. Flood Creek, which enters at the northwest corner of the county, and passes out some eight miles west of the southeast corner, drains a large belt of beautiful territory between the Shell Rock and Cedar Rivers. All of the above-named streams have numerous tributaries, supplying water and drainage to every part. Pure well-water is obtained easily by digging, say from fifteen to thirty feet, while springs abound in many places, especially along the principal streams. The principal water-courses have eroded their channels entirely through the drift and into the limestone strata and run usually upon rock-beds. To this cause, and to their rapid cur- rents, is owing their peculiar charms and beauty. The valleys- in many places expand into tracts of considerable width.
GEOLOGY.
In the year 1848, the Treasury Department of the Government: employed David Dale Owen, of New Harmony, Ind., to make a geological survey of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. He soon after took the field in person, and in 1852 the Government pub- lished his report in a large volume, accompanied with maps, all of which contains a mass of highly valuable and interesting matter.
He was the pioneer geologist of the Upper Mississippi Valley, and his great labor and work have formed the foundation for all who. have, or who may, succeed him.
He was a native of Scotland, educated in Switzerland, and with his father came to America and settled in Indiana. He also made a geological survey of his adopted State, Kentucky and Arkansas, and he died in 1860 greatly lamented by all who knew his value. and worth as a man and a scientist.
By an act of the Legislature of Iowa, approved Jan. 23, 1855, the Governor of Iowa, by the advice and consent of Senate, was author- ized to nominate a person competent to make a geological survey of the State, and in accord with the provisions of this act, James Hall,. of New York, was appointed, and during the years 1855-'56 and '57 completed the survey, and in 1858 the State published his re- port in two volumes.
This report contains many new and valuable additions to that ot:
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
Mr. Owen; particularly in regard to the coal measures and palæ- ontology of the State, and is full of highly interesting matter.
By another act of the Legislature of Iowa, approved March 30, 1866, Charles A. White, of Iowa, was appointed State Geologist for two years, and he also proceeded to make another geological survey of the State, and his report was also published by the State in 1870, in two volumes.
This report also contains much valuable and interesting matter, and is a valuable addition to that of its predecessors.
Since then nothing has been done by the State to require any morejknowledge, either of her mineral wealth, her palæontology, or of the remains of the silent pre-historic races that lie entombed in her soil.
The end and aim of all these surveys were to give a general out- line of the geology of the State, and from the means and time to which they were confined, it was impossible for them to give an extended local survey to each county, and we must be content with what we have from them, together with what observations have been made by private parties.
The topography of the county, consisting of its surface, its trees, roads, streams, bridges and towns, has all been given in our his- tory under different heads, together with its physical geography, and it is, therefore, only necessary for us in this article to describe- and point out its rock formations.
Beginning on the Mississippi River at the northeast corner of our State, and running west until we strike the northwest corner of Howard County, thence southeasterly through that county and the west part of Winneshiek, so as to include the valley of the Tur- key therein, thence along the south bank of that stream, crossing the Volga about one mile above its mouth, and on to the northeast corner of Delaware County; thence diagonally through Dubuque County to a point on the Mississippi near Bellevue in Jackson County. We have then, here and there exposed to view, and crop- ping out over this wedge-shaped tract, all the different members of what geologists call in Iowa the "Lower Silurian," together with de- tached portions of the lower beds of the "Upper Silurian," crown- ing the highest hills; and beginning at the same point as before, and following down the Mississippi, and carefully noting where one after another of its lower formations dip out of sight, to a point. below McGregor, and thence westward up and along the valleys of the streams, and commencing with the lower rocks, it includes and.
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
exposes within this local belt, 1st, A rock on which stands the city of Lansing, consisting of sand, lime shale and magnesia, and in alternate beds, in which Judge Murdock has found the Trilobite, the Singula and the Orthis.
At Lansing this rock rises up to about 100 feet above the river, and dips from that city both north and south, and for several miles the great river has cut its bed through it, and by none of the geol- ogists we have mentioned is it noticed as a distinct rock in Iowa geology .
2. Rising higher in the series we come to the Potsdam sand- stone, which rests upon the former, and attains at Lansing a thick- ness of not over eighty feet, and this rock, like the other, has a north and south dip from the same point, and its southerly dip throws it below the bed of the river a little below McGregor, and this may be said to be the first rock of the "Lower Silurian " in the ascending series that is exposed in the county of Clayton, and no fossil remains have ever been found in it, and, as its name indi- cates, is a great mass of sand, almost crumbling to the touch.
3. As we pass above it we find resting on it what is generally known as the "Old Magnesian lime rock," having a striking re- semblance to the Galena, and in many locations in Clayton and in Allamakee is "lead bearing," but never in sufficient quantities to pay for working. It is also in many localities rich in fossiliferous remains, and furnishes a most excellent building rock, and it dips out of sight a little above Guttenberg.
4. In passing still higher and resting on the former is what is called " the St. Peter sandstone," which, like the Potsdam, is a loose, friable mass of sand, contains no fossils, but its extreme whiteness in places makes it a valuable rock for the manufacture of glass, and many tons of it have been sent away from Clayton for that purpose. In several localities the red oxide of iron percolates through it, giving to the mass a beautiful variegated appearance, from which it has been called in places, "the picture rocks," and having the same southerly dip as all the others, it also passes out of sight within the limits of Guttenberg.
5. Still passing upward, we have exposed the whole length of the county on the Mississippi, and extending to Eagle Point in Dubuque, as well as up and along all the western tributaries of . that river, what is called "the Trenton limestone," and with the exception of some of its lower beds, is totally unfit for building purposes, but makes the very best of lime.
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
If during the long ages of the turbulent and sedimentary seas that deposited the preceding St. Peter sandstone, marine life did not exist, then upon the very first inch of the Trenton deposi- tion that life began in the greatest profusion, and continued on until the end, showing it to be the richest in fossiliferous remains "of all the members of the Silurian age.
6. Above and resting on the Trenton, is the Galena, or as it is sometimes called, the " Upper Magnesian," lime rock, composed of sand lime, magnesia and chert, and this is the principal lead- bearing rock of the world, whenever it attains a degree of thick- ness and compactness to hold its minerals. It must be noticed that (with įperhaps the Potsdam sandstone as an exception) all these members of the Silurian age, become alternately, and in their order, the surface rock, and grow thinner and thinner as they arise from their southern dip until they finally cease; and in the case of the Galena it enters the southeast corner of our county with con- siderable thickness; and where it is pressed down by the shales and the Niagara of the Blue Belt Hills becomes in detached basins the surface rock, but never reaches the northern limits of the ·county.
CONCERNING NORTHERN IOWA.
Prof. Owen, the great geologist, said: "Along the course of ·our route no symptoms were observed of important axes of disloca- tion and disturbance. The surface is comparatively level, the ledges of rocks lie low and horizontal without any abrupt uplifts or sudden faults, as if beyond the sphere of active action that has fissured and filled with metallic matter, the magnetism lime- stones lying to the northeast, nearer the Mississippi. The soil which overlies the sandstones of the coal measures is of that warm, quick, silicious, porous character which rapidly advances vegetation. Immediately north of the mouth of Mud Creek, the stiff, dark, calcareous soil marking the transition to the limestones of Cedar Valley appears. Through less forcing in its character than the other, this soil is much richer and more retentive, storing up the successive acquisitions and infiltrations from organic decom- position until the proportions of heine yumus and organic principles rise from ten to thirty per cent. For wheat, and small grain gen- erally this soil is well adapted. Although timber is scarce, it is easily propagated and rapidly grown."
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
Concerning the region including Floyd County, we extract the following paragraphs from Prof. Hall's "Geological Survey of Iowa:"
The reconnoisance of the district comprised in the counties of Howard, Mitchell, Chickasaw and Floyd, was made by Prof. Hungerford, and the following brief notice of their geology is derived from his notes, and from the examination of specimens collected by him:
This region is drained by the head waters of the Turkey, Wap- sipinicon and Cedar Rivers. The Turkey heads in the center of Howard County, and the Upper Iowa pursues a winding course through the northern tier of townships, running with a generally eastern direction. The south fork of the Turkey, or Crane Creek as it is generally called, is a clear, rapid stream, furnishing good water-power, which has been improved at several points. It flows through the center of Howard, and the northeastern corner of Chickasaw County, pursuing a very direct southeasterly course. The central portion of Chickasaw and the borders of Howard and Mitchell are imperfectly drained by the head waters of the Wap- sipinicon which flow through a level and rather marshy region. The streams through this low country are quite heavily skirted with timber. The larger portion of Mitchell and Floyd, as also of Cerro Gordo and Worth Counties, is drained by the Cedar and its branches, of which Lane and Shell Rock creeks are the most im- portant. These are all beautiful and rapid streams, skirted with timber, and furnishing good water-power at numerous points. There are also many rock exposures in the banks of these streams, although no high bluffs occur, the ledges of rock not usually ex- ceeding ten or twenty feet in height. The region between the valleys of the streams is mostly gently rolling timber, which is almost exclusively confined to the edges of the streams; the soil is usually highly fertile. The settlements are chiefly in the neigbor -. hood of the rivers, where timber, water-power and building materials are abundant, and where the flourishing condition of most of the towns, which have only been very recently settled, attests the pres- ence of an industrious population, possessed of unusual advantages of position and soil.
The larger portion of this extensive region, which embraces. over 3,000 square miles, if we include in it Worth and Cerro Gordo. counties, appears to be underlaid by rocks of the Hamilton group, which, although differing considerably in lithological character at.
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
different exposures, are still characterized by the same fossils which have been collected in this group at numerous points farther south. The details of some of the sections measured by Professor Hungerford are as follows: In passing from Jacksonville to Brad- ford, in Chickasaw County, a distance of eighteen miles, across a region drained by the three forks of the Wapsipinicon, not a single exposure of rock was found. The whole district is one vast ex- panse of low, level prairie, excepting the fringes of woodland along the courses of the streams.
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