USA > Iowa > Webster County > Fort Dodge > History of Fort Dodge and Webster County, Iowa, Volume I > Part 28
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which sold at $33.00 to the Fort Dodge Company advanced the next year to $60.00.
Upon the completion of the road to Livermore an excursion was run to celebrate the completion. This was in 1879, and the Fort Dodge depot at the time was in the extreme eastern part of the city. Shortly after the first excur- sion was run from Fort Dodge to Minneapolis. Both were great events at the time and were liberally patronized by the settlers.
Shortly after the Minneapolis & St. Louis had acquired the Fort Dodge & Fort Ridgley the officers of the road concluded to change the entrance into Fort Dodge and come in around the north, west and south sides in order to allow them to continue the road south. Accordingly, they set about to secure the right of way and in doing so found that it would be necessary to pass through the south line of the Oakland cemetery near the border. Inasmuch as this land could not be condemned, the officers took up the matter with the board and practically allowed the cemetery board to name its own price and impose such conditions upon the road as were necessary, no doubt believing that all would turn out well. One of the conditions was that a platform should be built close to the main traveled road and adjacent to a main grade crossing, which would be used for funeral trains which were to be provided the town during the spring season when the roads were impassable. Another condition was that all trains should be run very slow over the grade crossing and in case a funeral procession was passing at the time the train should come to a full stop. It is needless to say that none of these conditions imposed by the cemetery board were ever respected, much less carried out, with the result that one of the mem- bers of the board, who was a leading attorney, brought suit against the road and was awarded a verdict of $300.00, which was collected. The conditions since, however, have never been enforced.
5
CHAPTER XX
THE COMING OF THE "CHARLES ROGERS"
BUILDING THE "CHARLES ROGERS -CAPTAIN BEER'S STORY-HOMEWARD BOUND -- FIRST STEAMBOAT TO FORT DODGE-PROMISE OF RIVER NAVIGATION-A "SOCIABLE SOIREE.
In the spring of 1859 the business men of Fort Dodge organized a stock company for the purpose of raising funds to build a steamboat to navigate the Des Moines river. The stock was readily taken and Captain Aaron F. Blackshere and others were sent to Pittsburgh to superintend the building of the boat. A small sternwheel boat of fifty-ton capacity, with adjustable smokestack and pilot house, so as to enable it to go under the bridge at Des Moines, was built, launched and sent by the way of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to Keokuk, then up the Des Moines to Fort Dodge. The name of this boat was ."Charles Rogers."
Captain Beers has related the story of the maiden trip of this boat as follows:
"I was sent by the Fort Dodge Navigation Company to Pittsburgh to bring back a steamboat to navigate the Des Moines river. Left Fort Dodge July 21, 1858. Went down the Des Moines river to Keokuk in a little boat that was built here; went from there to Pittsburgh by rail. Arrived at Pittsburgh on the 6tli of August ; on the 9th of August closed the contract with Charles Rogers for a steamboat with a hull seventy-six feet long, fifteen feet wide, with two cylin- ders ten and twelve inches in diameter, and a three-foot stroke.
"The boat was built according to contract, the price agreed upon being $2.259. of which $175 was paid down. and by agreement the rest was to be arranged before I left Pittsburgh. The boat was completed in the early part of October and Mr. Henry Carse came from Fort Dodge to Pittsburgh with some money and we made a payment of $1.100 all told, and left Pittsburgh with $13 for expense money, on the 14th of October, 1858.
"I hired a greenhorn for a pilot, and being a greenhorn myself did not know any better. We got aground on a glass house riffle three or four miles below Pittsburgh. It cost us two hundred bushels of coal which we gave a steam- boat, to get off. We discharged our pilot, and got a new one named Elliott. We agreed to pay him $40.00 to take us to Cincinnati, which seemed to be a very large price as we only had $13.00 in money, and were leaving Pittsburgh $1.500 in debt, secured by notes which were to run two, four and six months. These notes were secured by real estate which Mr. Carse and myself owned in Iowa.
"We were five days going to Cincinnati. The first day we earned $1.00, the second about $10.00, by carrying passengers, freight and towing, and when we
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arrived in Cincinnati had money to pay Mr. Elliott, our pilot, and made some necessary changes in machinery amounting to about $25.00.
"We left Cincinnati about the 20th of October, got aground about five miles below, which took $5.00 to get off. We had two pilots engaged to take us to St. Louis for $75.00, which also was a very risky transaction, as we did not have over $10.00 when we left Cincinnati.
"The school boys of that day all thought the 'Description of Blennerhasset Island,' by Wm. Wirt, the grandest thing ever written and I was anxious to see the place and kept a keen watch for the island. When we neared it we found it was just an overgrown piece of land that did not amount to anything at all. We passed through the locks at Louisville, which I understand they have since made a very fine work, but at that time a large steamboat could hardly go through.
"We did not have anything of interest happen until we reached Evansville. There we paid the last dollar we had for provisions. We had about a $16.00 freight bill to collect at Cairo. The freight consisted of furniture, which was on deck. About two hours before we arrived in Cairo, as we had no tarpaulin with which to cover us, the furniture got wet, having a little shower, and the consignees refused to pay the freight bill, which was a very serious disaster to young fellows without money. To add to our trouble, the fireman had burned out a grate bar and we could not make steam, and were in constant fear that the wharfmaster would come down and demand $3.00 for wharfing, a sum of money that we did not have, the failure to pay which would render us liable to be tied up for debt.
"After a little deliberation, we took the fenders off the side of the boat and . got up steam enough to leave the harbor, ran up the Mississippi about fifteen miles, when we came to a drift pile of probably an acre or two; we landed and commenced to put drift wood on the boat to use for fuel. Worked all night, left the drift pile about 10 o'clock in the morning, going up the river about eight miles an hour cheerfully. About 12 o'clock we came upon the wreck of a steam- boat, a party being on board tearing off the machinery. They were Pittsburgh men, well known to the engineer and had grate bars of the same pattern as our own, and gave us half a dozen with which to repair our furnace. We had been obliged to keep wood in the place of the grate bar and after these were given us we did not have to watch it so carefully.
"A new trouble now presented itself, our last provisions were used up for breakfast that morning. The meat fryings were considered the perquisites of the cook and kept in a receptacle called the 'slush tub;' these, with half a barrel of flour, were the only things eatable on board.
"We continued our way up the river until about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. when we passed a long, narrow island, with large quantities of cord wood lying upon it-being literally covered, in fact. I asked the pilot whose wood that was. He said it was anybody's wood, that it had drifted down from wood yards per- haps two hundred or three hundred miles up the river. I told him we wanted that wood and would stop right now and get some of it. He swung the boat into the island at the first chance to land and we commenced to throw off the drift wood and put on the cord wood in its place. I went to the engineer with the request that he go fishing immediately, as he had a fine supply of fishing tackle. He
A. F. BLACKSHERE President Fort Dodge Navigation Company, 1858
MRS. A. F. BLACKSHERE (NANCY D.)
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, IFNOX AND TILDEN FOUNDA .
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laughed at me, saying there were no fish there, but that he would fish to accommo- date me. He cut up hemp packing, picked it up fine like oakum. Mixed flour with it and made it into little balls about as fine as marbles and put them upon the hooks for bait. Inside of fifteen minutes he was having good success, catching channel cat that would weight from two to four pounds apiece. The cook quit carrying wood to prepare one of the finest dinners of fish and biscuit that any- body ever ate. The fishing continued until after dark, and we had fish enough to last us as long as they would keep. We did not get out of fish until we reached Hannibal, Missouri, which was three or four days afterwards. We stayed at the island all night, continuing our way to St. Louis in the morning.
"We arrived at St. Louis on Sunday morning, having been two weeks on the way from Pittsburgh. We made fast to the guard of the 'Prima Dona,' a large lower river boat, and settled with the pilots the best way we could without paying them any money, which was a very difficult thing to do. We kept away from the levies for fear of the wharfmaster, an officer we did not wish to see. Our pilots were going on the 'Prima Dona,' and they were very well pleased to find her in port.
"We left St. Louis in the course of an hour without a pilot : came up the river to Hannibal, Missouri. discharged our cargo of furniture from the hold of the vessel, receiving a freight bill of $75.00. As we were about ready to leave Hannibal the 'Pianola,' a large tramp steamer with a big cargo, and cov- ered with passengers, on her way from Pittsburgh to Minnesota, landed against the 'Charles Rogers,' which, being without freight, pushed about twenty-five feet out of the levy.
"The 'Pianola' made a very short stay and the mate came aboard and says, 'Boys, we pushed you out there in pretty bad shape; if you will give us the end of your lines we'll pull you off when we go out.' We passed him a line; the 'Pianola' backed into the river and piled out nearly 200 feet of slack line, which, when it came, brought out our boat into the river so quickly as to throw every man down on the boat, as we were not guarding against it, and turned the bow of our boat entirely around down stream, very much to the amusement of the crew and passengers of the 'Pianola,' whose laughter and shouts of derision were very hard to endure. We already had a good pressure of steam and were soon going up the river in pursuit of the 'Pianola.' As I never steered a steam- boat in a race before, we ran too close to the 'Pianola' and we overhauled her rapidly and the shouts and laughter ceased. The 'Pianola' being much the largest boat had a tendency to draw our boat right in alongside of them, but as we were running about twice as fast as they were, we went by without coming in contact, missing within about ten feet, and we soon left the 'Pianola' behind. We continued up the river and lost sight of the boat. For a day or two before we had been having very rainy weather, and when we arrived at the mouth of the Des Moines river we saw a big freshet coming out of the river. The Mis- sissippi river was very low. We landed at Keokuk an hour later, and immediately began negotiations with the firm of Lord & King, wholesale and retail dealers on the levies, by which they agreed to load us a cargo for Des Moines and send along a man who should pay our expense bills and take the amount out of our freight charges. We were successful in our deal, and in the forenoon the next day, we were on our way to Des Moines with a cargo worth at least $500. Mr. King
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came along as super-cargo. Frank Davidson came along as pilot-he after- wards became Captain Frank Davidson, but at that time, however, was simply pilot. We were four or five days making the round trip to Des Moines and immediately loaded again at Keokuk on our second trip. When about thirty miles below Des Moines coming up, we met Mr. Aaron F. Blackshere, who had come down from Fort Dodge in a small row boat which he had built himself. He was so elated at meeting us that he turned his boat adrift and came aboard the steamboat.
"Mr. Blackshere had an interest in the boat. He was president of the Navi- gation Company, and as long as we had money to pay postage, Mr. Carse and myself had written to him at least twice a week, right along. He also knew our change of fortune when we began to do business in Keokuk. We received him on board with cheers and many blasts of the whistle. He was the first Fort Dodge man we had seen, and we felt as though we had an experience which would last a man his natural lifetime.
"We made about three trips to Des Moines that fall, earned about money enough to pay off our crew, and send one hundred dollars to Pittsburgh.
"Mr. Blackshere was very much opposed to our running nights. He thought it was taking great risks to run at night in a river so full of snags and obstruc- tions, as the Des Moines river was at that time, but Mr. Carse and myself thought we would rather face the dangers of the river than take the chances of being overtaken by the sheriff in the spring, when our notes should come due and we would not have the money to pay them. The weather became very cold about the last of November and we were caught in a very heavy ice, and made our way very slowly from Des Moines to Bentonsport through the heavy slush ice. On arriving at Bentonsport, the engineer had allowed steam to get so low that he was unable to land through the shore ice, which extended about one hundred rods above the dam. The best he could do was to crowd the boat against the ice, and we were being slowly forced over the dam by the current. The mate and two men threw the ice boat out onto the ice and jumped after it. All broke through, but they succeeded in crawling out and crawling onto the ice. A line was thrown to them and they took it ashore, crawling one hundred feet on the ice before they could stand up, the ice being so very thin. The first line parted after they had made it fast to the shore. They came back and we gave them a second line, attaching a small line to it, and throwing it to them so that they could pull it out. They took the large line ashore rapidly, and that held. That pulled us in for twenty or thirty feet through the shore ice, and the stern of the boat was within sixty feet of the dam, over which the river was plunging with a forty-foot fall. We stretched two lines from the bow of the boat to the shore, laid plank down on the thin ice, and landed our twenty passengers, who until then were not aware of the danger they were in, and never did know how near they had been to an icy grave." Mr. Blackshere sold out his interest in the 'Charles Rogers' the next day, that being late in the fall of 1856.
"The ice all went out in three or four days and the freight was trans- ferred to a farmer's barn and the boat went into harbor six miles below.
"We laid the boat up for the winter about eighteen miles below Ottumwa on the north bank of the river. Mr. Blackshere came to Fort Dodge to see if he could raise money enough to help us out of our financial troubles. But the
BENJAMIN F. GRAYSON Early real-estate dealer
LUODOWIC MARICLE First township clerk, Washington township
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATION
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people were feeling the full weight of the panic of 1857 and the money was not to be had. On the 23d of February the ice went out of the river and we started the boat again. Mr. Carse took a school near where the boat was tied up and he did not come on the boat for a week or two after we started, as his school had not closed. We made two or three trips right up and down before the school- house, and he was pretty anxious to join us. We continued carrying freight and passengers betwen Keokuk and Des Moines until some time in May, when we loaded freight for a wholesale firm for Fort Dodge. There were two firms, Connadle & Smith, and Chittenden & McGavic, and I have forgotten which of the firms sent the cargo. We had several times endeavored to get a cargo to Fort Dodge before that, but it was hard work to convince those men that we could come up the river to Fort Dodge. It was also necessary to get a little acquainted with them in order to establish confidence in our ability to perform our contract. Fort Dodge people were very impatient for us to come up here, and I had received some very caustic letters from one or two of them because we had not come before.
"The water was high, and on our arrival at Des Moines we took off the wheel faces, so as to get under the bridge at Des Moines. We did not get below that bridge again until we had made five trips to Fort Dodge. We arrived in Fort Dodge about the middle of May ; it was a small place, perhaps five hun- dred people, but the enthusiasm with which we were received could hardly be believed by the citizens now, and it was such a greeting as no man could ever forget in his natural lifetime. They looked upon the arrival of the 'Charles Rogers,' the first steamboat that had ever landed at Fort Dodge, as their sal- vation, establishing this point as a head of navigation, and regarding this as the commencement of similar future enterprises.
"The nearest railroad station was one hundred and seventy miles away, and with steamboat conections with the commercial world, the future was bright.
"Five trips were made from Des Moines and we made two trips of thirty or forty miles below Fort Dodge after lumber for a courthouse. The lumber consisted of very long joists and heavy timbers. The water becoming low, we were warned to leave the river, and did leave on the 29th of June. We had a load of freight to come up, and did come up as far as Bentonsport. We discharged our cargo at Bentonsport on the last trip and left the river on the 29th of June, 1859. The next year the river was so low that it was not navigable."
Mr. John F. Duncombe, editor of the Fort Dodge Sentinel, in the issue of April 7, 1859. describes the arrival of this boat thus :
"Yesterday will be remembered by many of our citizens with feelings of extereme delight for many years to come. By the politeness of Capt. F. E. Beers, of the Charles Rogers, in company with about one hundred and twenty ladies and gentlemen of the town, we enjoyed the first steamboat pleasure excursion on the Upper Des Moines river. The steamboat left the landing at Colburn's ferry about two o'clock and after crossing the river and loading with coal from the mines, started for the upper ferry. All our citizens are well aware of the shallow ford on the river at the rapids at this place, which is at the head of the island at the mouth of Soldier creek, where the river divides into two equal channels. The steamer passed up over the rapids in the west
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channel with perfect ease. At the mouth of Lizard creek the boat 'rounded to' and passed down the eastern channel of the river at race horse speed. The scene was one of intense interest. The beautiful plateau on which our town is built was covered with men, women and children. The river bank was lined with joyful spectators. Repeated hurrahs from those on the boat and on the shore filled the air. The steamer passed down the river about six miles and then returned. Old grudges were settled, downcast looks brightened, hard times were forgotten. Everybody seemed perfectly happy. We had always believed that the navigation of our river was practical, but to know it, filled our citizens with more pleasure than a fortune. We felt like a boy with a rattlebox, 'only more so.' The Fort Dodge steamboat enterprise has succeeded in spite of sneers and jeers. Long may the friends of the enterprise live to remember the first pleasure excursion at Fort Dodge."
As Captain Blackshere came steaming up the river for the first time, he blew the whistle so long and loud that the citizens imagined a Mississippi river fleet had arrived, and before he could land at the levee and make fast the bow line, the banks of the stream were lined with men, women and children anxious to get a sight of the newcomer.
At a public meeting of the citizens, held at the schoolhouse that evening, Major Williams presiding, a vote of thanks was tendered Capt. F. E. Beers, Henry Carse, A. F. Blackshere and others associated with them in this steam- boat project, and the merchants were urged to patronize the Charles Rogers in preference to any other boat.
The citizens of Fort Dodge also gave a dance at the Masonic Hall in honor of the coming of the first steamboat loaded with freight for that port. The invi- tation cards for that social function were in the following form :
SOCIABLE SOIREE
WE DANCE AT MASONIC HALL THURSDAY EVENING NEXT WILL YOU COME?
MANAGERS
Maj. Wm. Williams Hon. J. M. Stockdale Hon. C. C. Carpenter Hon. L. L. Pease
Hon. W. N. Meservey
Hon. Thos. Sargent
J. D. Strow
A. M. Dawley Israel Jenkins Geo. W. Reeve W. W. White
FLOOR MANAGERS A. F. Watkins
James B. Williams
D. D. Merritt
Fort Dodge, May 23rd, 1859.
CHAPTER XXI HISTORY OF THE RIVER-LAND GRANT
BY C. L. LUCAS
MAKING THE DES MOINES RIVER NAVIGABLE-CONTROVERSY AS TO MEANING OF TERMS OF THE GRANT-THE DES MOINES NAVIGATION AND RAILROAD COMPANY -STEAM ROADS INSTEAD OF STEAMBOATS-EVICTING SETTLERS-TARDY RECOM- PENSE.
No legislative act has ever affected the interests of the people of the Des Moines valley in so great a measure as the act known in history as the Des Moines River-Land Grant; nor has any land grant made to the state for any purpose created so much excitement and sorrow as it has.
In the first place it was a great mistake for anyone to have supposed that the Des Moines river could have been made navigable by any process of improve- 111ent. The only excuse that can be offered is the fact that at and preceding the date at which this grant was made there was a greater volume of water in the river than there has been since that date. All the streams of an unimproved country contain a larger volume of water than they do after the country is improved. At that time there were no railroads in the state; the need of means of transportation was the chief reason for the effort to improve the river and make it navigable.
The Des Moines river-land grant was passed and became a law August 8, 1846. Just who it was that formulated this act is not generally known, but as the act was passed by congress about four months before Iowa became a state, the grant must first have been proposed by A. C. Dodge, who was then the territorial delegate in congress, and through his influence, most likely, it was placed before the committee on territories, of which Stephen A. Douglas was chairman and by him placed on its passage.
The wording of this act was not sufficiently specific to prevent differences of opinion as to its meaning. The language of the act first says that the grant was made for the improvement of the navigation of the Des Moines river, from its mouth to the Raccoon fork ; and then follows the language defining the grant to be "a moiety in alternate sections of the public lands (remaining unsold, and not otherwise disposed of, encumbered or appropriated). in a strip five miles in width on each side of the river to be selected within said territory, by an agent or agents, appointed by the governor thereof, subject to the approval of the secre- tary of the treasury of the United States."
If the language defining the grant had been as specific as that defining the
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extent of the improvement to be made, there would have been no trouble in defin- ing its extent. The failure to fully define the extent of the grant brought about different opinions and different rulings by officers who had to transact the busi- ness relating to the grant.
On the 17th of October, 1846, a little over two months after the passage of this act, the commissioners of the general land office at Washington made a request of the governor of the territory, that he appoint an agent to select the land under the river grant, giving it as his opinion at the same time, that the grant extended only to the Raccoon fork of the Des Moines river. This was the first official opinion as to the extent of the grant ever given. There is not much doubt that this opinion was strictly in accord with the original intent of the grant.
On the 17th of December the territorial authorities designated the odd num- bered sections as the lands selected under this soon to be vexatious grant. This selection included every odd section in five miles of the Des Moines river below the Raccoon fork.
This was the last act under the river-land grant, for eleven days from that date the territory was admitted into the Union as a state, and the territorial officers stepped down and out, and were succeeded by the state officers. The - state authorities accepted the selection made by the territorial agent January 9. 1847, which was the first act done by the state authorities relating to the busi- ness of this grant, but not the last one by any means.
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