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 31
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DIVISION INTO TOWNSHIPS.
The first division of the county into townships was made in October, 1854, and it resulted in giving it four, namely, St. Charles, Floyd, Rock Grove and Union. March 3, 1855, Cerro Gordo County was set off from Floyd County by Judge John M. Hunt, and July 2 following, Cerro Gordo County was ordered to be organized by Judge John Ball, the election of officers to take place in August. March 3, 1856, Cedar Township was formed; in March, 1857, Rockford and Riverton were made; March 6, 1858, Niles was set off; and Ulster was formed the first Monday of the next month. At the June session of 1861, the Board of Township Supervisors detached township 95, in range 18, and the south tier
327
HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
of sections of the same Congressional township from Union. At this time they also made twelve townships in the county; but there was some opposition to this measure.
Further accounts of township boundaries are given in the respec- tive histories of the townships.
THE COUNTY SEAT.
In 1854, when there were about a hundred legal voters in the county, most of whom were in St. Charles and Floyd and their immediate vicinities, a determined effort was made to locate the county seat. A petition was then presented to Hon. D. S. Wilson, District Judge at Dubuque, for the purpose of securing the ap- pointment of commissioners. Joseph Kelly, who was then inter- ested in the town plat of St. Charles (now Charles City), took a team and drove to Dubuque with this petition, presented it to the judge and asked for the appointment of commissioners. Judge Wilson appointed Joseph Hewitt, of Clear Lake, William Hurley, of Chickasaw County, and C. L. Claussen, of Mitchell County, who, in the fall of 1854, located the county seat in the public square at St. Charles. A jubilation was had on this square, and after they drank success to the seat of justice, they broke their glasses, which were subsequently buried on the spot, where they remain to this day. It was soon afterward discovered, however, that Floyd County was not within Judge Wilson's judicial district.
In 1855, Floyd County was made a portion of a new judicial district, numbered the Tenth, of which Samuel Murdock, of Clay- ton County, was the Judge. Application being made to him, he appointed as commissioners to locate the county seat, Martin V. Burdick, of Howard County, and Daniel E. Maxson, of Mitchell County, who located the county seat at St. Charles, the precise spot being the site of the present court-house, which is block 28 (if numbered) of Kelly & Co.'s addition. This transaction was done in a quiet manner and was unattended with incident. After this it was discovered that the counties of Mitchell and Howard had not a constitutional extent of territory, and the acts of these gentlemen were therefore considered premature and unsatisfactory; but the Sixth General Assembly, by an act approved Jan. 24, 1857, legalized this transaction, and provided that it should take effect after being published in the Intelligencer, at St. Charles, and in the Iowa City Republican, without expense to the State.
328
HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
A few days after the above act was passed, namely, Jan. 29, 1857, an act was approved appointing D. W. Poindexter, of Mitchell County, Lorenzo Bailey, of Chickasaw County, and James. P. Mckinney, of Winneshiek County, as commissioners to locate the seat of justice of Floyd County, and repealing the act whereby the action of Messrs. Burdick and Maxson had been legalized. This act provided that it should " be the duty of the commissioners to locate the county seat as near the geographical center of said county as is consistent with the present and future convenience of the inhabitants of said county." These commissioners were re- quired by the statute to " meet at St. Charles on the first Monday of June [1857], or within sixty days thereafter, and to locate said seat: of justice as they, or a majority of them, may determine."
After the location of the county seat by the Commissioners Bur- dick and Maxson, to wit, Nov. 28, 1856, A. L. Collins, then County Judge of Floyd County, made a contract with Ira Brackett for the building of a court-house on the block aforesaid in St .. Charles, the building to be of stone, and to be fifty feet front by seventy feet flank, and to be two stories high, each story to be fifteen feet in the clear, with a cupola and steeple upon the building, the cupola twelve feet square and twelve feet high above the ridge of the roof. The stone-mason work and stay lathing to be com- pleted by August or Sept. 1, 1857. For this work the county agreed to pay him $7,284. The town proprietors of St. Charles. furnished to the contractor the stone in the quarry and the stand- ing timber to be used for the joists and in the completion of the building. Judge Collins himself drafted the outline for the build. ing, and Theodore Mix carried out the details.
In the winter of 1856-'7 the timber was cut and hauled out to. the mill ready for sawing; and in the spring a flat-boat was built, and a quarry opened where the fair grounds now are.
At the time appointed by the statute, D. W. Poindexter, of Mitchell, Lorenzo Bailey, of Chickasaw, and James P. Mckinney,. . of Winneshiek County, arrived on the ground and proceeded to locate the county seat. At this time the walls of the court-house. were high enough for the window sills to be set in the first story,. and the first tier of joists was laid. The commissioners, after ex- amining every contested point, entered the lower hall-way and drove a stake in the hall between the joists, in the center of the building and in the center of the block. During the season of 1857 work on the building progressed steadily and the walls were com-
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
pleted within the time specified by contract, and Mr. Brackett, the contractor, was paid in full for his services.
At the regular session of the County Court, January, 1857, the two petitions concerning the removal of the county seat were considered and denied. Proof was wanting that "at least one-half of all the voters in the county,"-the number required by law,- had signed the petitions. The total number appearing upon the petitions was 347, fully half the voters in the county, but there was doubt as to the genuineness of some of the names. Other formali- ties were also absent or irregular
In August, 1857, David Ripley, of Riverton Township, was elected County Judge to succeed A. L. Collins. He was interested in property at the geographical center, with one Jeremiah Eaton, an early settler in the county, and was elected by the opposition to St. Charles, with the avowed purpose of changing the location of the county seat to the geographical center, five miles west of St. Charles .. Judge Ripley was of course sometimes absent from the county seat, and by a law in force at that time, the prosecuting attorney could act in his absence, ex officio. S. B. Starr was then prosecuting attorney, and in the absence of Judge Ripley he had a final account- ing and settlement with Mr. Brackett.
During the winter of 1857-'8 a determined effort was made by the people of the county residing outside of St. Charles to re-locate the county seat, and for that purpose some parties rode over the county with a petition, addressed to the county judge, for the sig- natures of voters, asking that the question be submitted to the peo- ple, whether the county seat should not be removed to the geo- graphical center. Among the gentlemen engaged in this arduous task during an inclement season of the year was one James Gilpin, of Floyd Township, who froze off all his toes one cold day! This petition was signed by 471 persons, and March 3, 1858, Judge Rip ley issued a proclamation for an election to be held in April follow- ing, when the question should be submitted to the people whether the county seat should remain at Charles City as then established, or be removed to the geographical center of the county.
Then began such a civil strife for supremacy as was never be- fore known in this county, or since. Sectional strife concerning the location of the county seat culminated in a newspaper contro- versy between Judge Ripley and others, occasioned by the claim of Ira Brackett, of St. Charles, for services as contractor and
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
builder on the court-house, the main issue in court being the justice of Mr. Brackett's claim. The other newspaper writers assumed noms de guerre, as " Wilberforce," Webber," " A Resi- dent of Floyd County," Unus Puerorum," "Justice," "A Sub- scriber," etc. Some parties in the county had feared that a tax of $30,000 or $40,000 would be levied for the new court-house; but it was proposed to build one to cost not more than $12,000 or $14,000, and for this purpose the county already had $5,000 on hand, and the people of St. Charles had promised more than $7,000. Every voter in the county was rallied to the polls, and many, probably, who were not legal voters. The cannon fired and the smoke cleared away, when it was found that the respective townships voted as follows:
Townships.
For Charles City. For Geographical Center.
St. Charles
274
8
Floyd. .
23
179
Rock Grove.
16
74
Union . .
2
83
Riverton
37
13
Ulster
ยท
32
Niles
40
6
Cedar
26
9
Rockford
16
49
434
453
Nineteen majority for the geographical center.
Immediately after this vote there was some trouble concerning the canvass made. Judge Ripley called to his assistance, to canvass this vote, Samuel Clark of Riverton, and Samuel Hackley, of St. Charles, two justices of the peace, to canvass the votes; but Mr. Hackley declined to serve, and Chester Butterfield, of Floyd, was appointed in his stead. After the canvass, and the announcement made that nineteen majority had been given for the geographical center, the boys at St. Charles had a torchlight procession, with transparencies upon which were depicted in vivid colors a land- scape view of a geographical center. It delineated a swamp, with several large and healthy bull-frogs, turtles, etc., which were evi- dently engaged in their usual avocations; and in the distance a sturdy yoke of stags were hitched to a conveyance called a " stone- boat," making herculean efforts to convey the public records to the new location. On some of the transparencies were also portrayed some two or three of the eight voters of St. Charles Township who cast their ballots in favor of the geographical center. One
FLOYD COUNTY COURT HOUSE.
.
333
HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
transparency illustrated the canvass of the vote; it depicted a table, on the corner of which were piled the several ballot boxes, and the honorable board of canvassers were represented as engaged in a game of old sledge! This procession marched on Main street, and wended its way to the public square, where bonfires were lighted, speeches made, and an effigy of the honorable County Court, which had been borne in the procession, was suspended on the limb of a tree and burned.
There was also a mock funeral oration. The court and one or more of the canvassers during this demonstration were in their office, which was then where F. A. Roziene's office, or the Charles City Savings Bank, now stands, and could easily have witnessed the procession and its antics; but their windows seemed closed with curtains.
In the midst of this excitement, Judge Ripley, on the 9th of May, 1858, ordered "that the office of treasurer and recorder, together with the records, books and all things thereto belonging be removed to the store of Silas Smith in the town of Floyd,"- which order was partially carried out. This was supposed by the St. Charles party to be a part of the understanding had with Floyd in consideration of their assistance in locating the county seat at the geographical center,-that is, that she should have the records during the interval required to erect the county buildings at the cen- ter, there being at this time not a single building within a mile and a half of that point.
Undaunted by defeat, the friends of Charles City appealed to the courts on the question of the legality of the vote for removing the county seat to the geographical center, on the ground-
1. That the notice of election specified section 12, township 95, 16, instead of section 12, township 95, 17,-the former being where Charles City is located, while the latter is the geographical center of the county.
2. That the petition for the election to determine the removal of the county seat was not sworn to as the law required.
3. That the petition was not presented at the regular session of the County Court, but, on the contrary, three days after adjourn- ment.
4. That the affidavit attached to the petition did not show that the signatures were all genuine and made only by legal voters of Floyd County.
21
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
5. That the names of many of the signers to the petition were obtained by fraud and misrepresentation.
This petition was finally passed upon by Judge D. S. Wilson, of the Ninth Judicial District, at Dubuque, who decided that the act of the county judge of Floyd County in calling a special election and the vote there-under locating the county seat at the geograph- ical center were legal and binding. From this decision St. Charles took an appeal to the Supreme Court of the State, and Judge Wil- son's decision , was reversed, and the county seat remanded to St. Charles.
On the 4th of July, 1858, friends of the geographical center from all the extremes of the county assembled at the spot made sacred by their votes, and celebrated their ballot-box victory. The orator on that occasion was Hon. W. P. Gaylord, who dwelt largely upon the great future of the geographical center of Floyd County ; but before that magnificent future became visible, the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa returned the county seat to St. Charles, and the geographical center was changed from a prospec- tive city to ordinary farms. However, soon after this, a piece of ground at the point was platted and named "Ripley," in honor of the County Judge.
If geographical centers can be selected in season, they can generally be made both the metropolis and the seat of government, as is the case with most of the interior counties of any State. A remarkable exception to this is known to the writer. Knoxville, Ill., is near the center of its county, and for many years the largest village in the county, and also the seat of justice; but in 1835 a few Eastern capitalists proposed to establish a college at that point, and the owners of eligible sites asked so high a price for them that the capitalists went a few miles west, near the western line of the county and established their college in the clean, grassy prairie, around which grew up a city that eventually obtained the county capital by popular vote. Soon becoming the largest town in the county, the railroad companies found it more to their interest to make Galesburg a point than Knoxville; hence it soon became more convenient of access to the majority of the citizens.
It is a rule, also, that navigable waters develop ports around them which necessarily become the metropolis of their respective districts, and, therefore, generally the seat of government for them.
.
335
HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
As to the integrity of the transactions of the various parties who had to deal with the delicate and vexatious question of locat- ing the county seat of Floyd, of course we can enter into no investigation here. All we can do is to record the prominent facts as they occurred.
Jan. 24, 1855, an act was passed by the Legislature to give Mitchell and Howard Counties their constitutional requirement of territory, as mentioned on a preceding page. This was done by taking off a three-mile strip from the north sides of Chickasaw and Floyd Counties; and as it happened during the contest for the county seat at the geographical center of Floyd, and made St. Charles more central, it naturally enough awoke suspicions in the minds of many that the whole transaction was a scheme on the part of St. Charles citizens.
At the expiration of David Ripley's term of office as County Judge, in the autumn of 1859, he had the regular Republican nomination for re-election; but the friends of St. Charles substi- tuted the name of David Wiltse, a Democrat, upon the ticket, and succeeded in electing him by a majority of 174, while the regular nominees on the rest of the ticket received over 200 majority. During Judge Ripley's term no work was done on the court-house; but immediately after Wiltse entered the office work was re-com- menced. Soon afterward a meeting was appointed at St. Charles by those who were in favor of the geographical center, and dele- gations from Floyd and all the townships of the west side of the county assembled en masse around the court-house with the avowed purpose of tearing it down. The principal leaders in this proces- sion were Moses Conger, of Floyd Township, W. P. Gaylord, of Rock Grove Township, R. N. Mathews, of Rockford Township, Wm. H. Johnson, of Union Township, and Wm. Dean, from what is now Rudd Township. Citizens came with horse teams, ox teams, and afoot, assembling at the court-house about two o'clock. After several conciliatory speeches had been made by residents of Charles City, William Dean called for "the man who had the audacity to let the contract for the erection of that building;" whereupon A. L. Collins, being in the crowd, stepped up on the run-way to the structure over which mortar and other material were carried by the workmen, and addressed the assembly. Among other things he said:
" Fellow citizens: I understand from report that your purpose here to-day is to tear down these walls. I see among you many
336
HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
men whom I recognize as tax-payers from all over the county; and we should recollect, as tax-payers, the source from which the money came for the building of these walls,-that it came from the pockets of the tax-payers. In other words, this is your build- ing; your money paid for it. If you tear it down, your money will have to rebuild it, if not on this site, then on some other site. Now my advice to you to-day is to tear it down, not to leave on e stone upon another; and then return home and tear down your own houses, every one of them. They are yours, and your money has paid for them the same as for this."
This was the last speech made on that occasion, and was ap- parently effective, as the assembly then coagulated into small knots for awhile; next they crossed the river to the east side to partake of refreshments, and finally dispersed quietly to their homes. The workmen on the court-house proceeded steadily un- til it was finished.
There was no more agitation until Feb. 4, 1881, the very day that the court-house was burned down, when the old strife for the county seat was revived in all its fury. Enthusiastic meetings were held in all the other villages of the county, speeches made, petitions circulated, resolutions passed, and every practicable measure adopted that could be designed. The votes taken at these various mass meetings were of course nearly unanimous for re- moval of the county seat from Charles City; but when it came to settling on the precise point to which it should be taken,-ay, there was the rub. By way of compromise the lot fell.upon Floyd, which point was rather more inconvenient to the western and southern portions of the county than was Charles City, and the result was a collapse. Meanwhile the friends of Charles City were on the alert to save their little ship of state. Particulars are given further on, under the sub-head of "Burning of the Court-house."
During the vicissitudes "of Floyd County's capital, it will be interesting to notice the itinerant career of the county records, which essentially constitute the county seat. They were first kept on block 22, in St. Charles, in a log building called the "Bigelow House;" next, in the "red store," Goddard's, on the west side of the river. In 1855 the records were divided, and the county judge's records were kept in the Collins building, and the re- corder's in the Jackson building, in the rear of what is now Dr. Smith's block. The recorder's and treasurer's office was next located on Reiniger's lot, in block 15, near the corner of Clark and
337
HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
Wisconsin streets, while the county judge's office was removed from the Collins building into the stone building of Cheney & Brackett, now a part of the Union House; next it was removed to Col. Root's building, where the Floyd County Savings Bank now is. The re- corder's and treasurer's records were moved to Floyd a short time, as described elsewhere, and returned to St. Charles, and finally all the books and papers were placed in the first court-house, when it was completed. Thus it will be observed the county records were generally kept at the residences or stores of the principal county officers until the court house was erected.
The "Collins building," or store of Collins & Blunt, so often referred to in these pages, stood where Olive O. Cheney's milli- nery store now is; and after it was vacated by them, Carl Merckel made a tin shop of it for a while, and then it was torn down and removed.
THE COURT-HOUSE.
As early as 1856, such was the intense anxiety for the erection of a court-house that at this period, nearly three years before the final location of the county seat by the courts, and when there were less than 1,000 legal voters in the county, an order was made by A. L. Collins, then County Judge, to receive sealed proposals for the construction of a stone building for that purpose, the dimensions to be 50x70 feet and two stories high, and to be com- pleted by Aug. 1, 1857. The advertisement for the proposals appeared in the Intelligencer from Sept. 28 to Nov. 1, 1856. Proposals were received, and a contract was made, Theodore Mix being the architect. Work on the building was commenced the following March, and went briskly forward. The estimate of the cost was $15,538, only $6,000 of which was necessary to be raised by tax, the town company and the citizens of St. Charles agreeing to donate the balance in material and labor. This act, while it pleased the citizens of St. Charles, greatly enraged many of the citizens of the county more remote. The friends of Charles
City declared that the county-seat question was already practically settled, that there was a necessity for a court-house, and that then was the time to build it and put an end to further suspense. The rivals of Charles City declared that the county was too young and too poor to erect the proposed building; that it would be at one side of the county; that it was not fair that the east side of the county, which was placed in market by the Government nearly
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
four years earlier than the west side and was more generally set- tled, should prematurely determine a question of so much impor- tance for all future time.
At a session of the District Court held in St. Charles in Novem- ber, 1856, Moses Conger, of Floyd, introduced a petition from a large number of the voters of the county, praying that the county judge be enjoined from proceeding with the building of the court-house at St. Charles. Although the citizens of this place would gladly pay a large tax for the location of the court-house in their village, yet it seemed that a majority of the voters of the county would have to borrow the money to pay the tax; and the petitioners further claimed that it was not certain that the seat of the county government would remain at St. Charles. However, inasmuch as no illegality was charged against the proceedings of the county judge, the District Court decided that it had no juris- diction in the matter.
But the war went on, and so did the court-house, until, in August, 1857, the work ceased, as Hon. David Ripley was elected county judge in opposition to the court-house interests of Charles City. At the October (11th) election, certain parties in Charles City, by distributing Republican tickets throughout the county with the name of David Wiltse, Democrat, at the head, for county judge, succeeded in electing him, and work on the court-house was accordingly resumed. At this election, also, the proposition to raise a five-mill tax for completing the court-house, was voted down almost unanimously,-eleven yeas to 628 nays. Had the proposition been to raise a moderate sum, sufficient to enclose the building and save it from going to ruin, it would probably have carried almost without opposition. It seems that the county judge submitted the above proposition without being asked by any petitioner.
The new stone court-house was finished during the last week of May, 1861, "amid the tocsin of war's alarms." It was a magnifi- cent building. The entire cost, including the large fire-proof stone vault, was less than $18,000. The dome, and the spire with its weather-vane, added much to the outward beauty of the struct- ure. No part of the work was slighted, and great credit is due Mr. Brackett, the contractor for the stone work, and Mr. Mix, the architect and contractor for the carpenter work, for faithfulness. The self-supporting roof was a master-piece of mechanical skill
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