USA > Iowa > Franklin County > History of Franklin County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 22
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burden onto other shoulders, thereby receiving something in ad- dition to what they themselves paid for. The practical man would ask the question, "Has this investment paid?" Those who are famil- iar with the conditions of this county previous to the installment of these drainage systems may readily satisfy themselves as to whether it has paid or not by driving through the western portion of the county. Farms that fifteen years ago were so wet as to be unprofit- able to the owner or the tenants have become the most productive farms in the county and the general appearance is one of extreme prosperity and values of lands have doubled. This increased price of land, of course, is not wholly due to drainage as other conditions have intervened, but without the drainage little advancement in prices would have been had on these wet farms. The writer recalls the experience of one man who owned a wet farm and was strug- gling from year to year to pay off his debt on the same and support his family. He petitioned with others for the first drainage district in this county and on account of the peculiar location of the dis- trict, most of the cost of the improvement was assessed against the lands in the upper end of the district including his land. Many of the residents were fighting the assessment and this man came to Hampton to consult an attorney and in the private office of the at- torney he broke down and wept saying that he had petitioned for this district and he did not like to fight the assessment, but he had no idea that it was going to be so heavy and that with the debt already on his farm, he was satisfied that he would lose his farm. He finally concluded, however, that as he had started the machinery in motion to establish this district that he would not complain of his assess- ment, but would renew his effort to carry the additional load. He took advantage of the outlet furnished him by tiling his land into it, broke up pieces on which he had never received a crop, made other pieces upon which he had expended labor and seed many times with- out results, safe and profitable farm land. The result was that he be- gan to make money, paid off his ditch assessment, paid off his other debts and in the summer of 1911 built one of the finest farm homes in this county. His experience is indicative of the results that have been obtained by others who have taken advantage of the outlets furnished and brought their lands to a state of efficiency that was im- possible before the outlets were made.
In addition to the benefits derived by the individual land holders, the public has received a great benefit in the drainage that has been afforded the public highways. The highways in many instances
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crossed low marshy tracts of land that had no outlets and the county or the township was helpless to obtain drainage for the same until these drainage systems were established, but since that time many of these places, which were impassable during wet periods, have been drained into the outlets furnished and some of the best roads in the county may be found in these very places. The public has again re- ceived a large benefit from the fact that the valuation of these lands has been so increased that they are now bearing their proper pro- portion of the burden of taxation.
The drainage of Franklin county is not completed, but most of the larger systems are now in. From this time on the drainage will be practically individual drainage and small tile districts. However, in leaving the subject, I wish to predict that at some future time a joint district will be established by Franklin and Butler counties and the course of the West Fork will be straightened by cutting off its numerous bends and curves reducing its length by approximately one-half and relieving a vast area along its boundary of overflow, which makes the land at the present time unfit for cultivation pur- poses.
CHAPTER XVIII
WHY DID YOU COME HERE ?- THE QUESTION ASKED BY EDITOR RAY- MOND-ANSWERED BY THE QUERIST-INFLUENCE OF FRIENDS A COGENT AGENCY
Editor Raymond, one day in the year 1907, took up his pencil and while ruminating upon the blessings kind Nature had bestowed upon the people of this community, wrote the caption of an article which read: "Why Did You Come Here?" and then proceeded to answer the question for many a Franklin county settler. Below is given the result, as portrayed by him :
Did you ever stop to reflect upon what directed your steps to Franklin county? We are not addressing those who came here in child- hood or youth with their parents, but those of more mature age who came here and made homes. Were you to give it a little thought you will find, the chances are, that you came here because some one you knew was already here-possibly a relative. You did not, back in Wisconsin, Illinois or Ohio, take a map and putting your finger on Franklin county, resolve that you would go there and locate; the chances are that you wrote first to some one already living here with whom you had an acquaintance, and the one addressed assured you that it was a fine country-the finest in the land. So you came to look and you liked it too; you bought a home and in turn were, in due time, the means of bringing another settler from east of the Mis- sissippi. So there is scarcely a man in the county who has been here any length of time who cannot point to some one who came here on his account, either through previous acquaintance or through cor- respondence. It would make an interesting book if every one would tell just how they were induced to come to Franklin county; through whose influence they came here, or if one may so express it, who they followed here.
To undertake to trace out the thread of these pioneer influences would be an endless and probably impossible task, but we can give what we think are a few of them. We may make errors in trying so
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to do, but if so our columns are always open for corrections, and we trust to receive them if we make misstatements.
Probably the greatest number of people who have located in Franklin county during the past fifty years who emigrated from any one locality, have come from Jo Daviess county, Illinois, and Grant and Lafayette counties, Wisconsin. In Reeve and Geneva town- ships this would include the Clock families, Bobsts, Waddingtons, Tuckers (now gone), Hickses, Runyans, Lukes and others too numer- ous to mention. In and about Hampton there are the Mallorys, Adamses (two distinct families), Prostors, Webbs, Stonebrakers, Doctor Hutchins, Ed Funk, the Rules, more Lukes, Henry Osborne, George W. Pease, L. C. Chase, the Slees, Robinsons, Dr. H. K. Phelps, N. R. Bourne, the Claypools, and so many more that you would almost need a directory to publish their names. In and around Chapin and Sheffield there are many who came from the same region : The Blackstones, Mitchells, Runtons, Oateys, Atkin- sons and numberless others.
As near as we can find out, E. L. Clock, now of Geneva, was the "advance man" of this multitude. He located at old Maysville in 1856 and we find no record of anyone from the vicinity named prior to that date. That he was the first of the Clock family is alone suf- ficient to account for a large emigration, but until we are convinced to the contrary we shall believe that Mr. Clock was the pioneer, and we are satisfied that if you ask any one of those we have named how they came to locate in Franklin county, they will either name E. L. Clock, or some one who came here directly or indirectly on his account; in all events three or four such questions will end up on him. How Mr. Clock's steps were directed to Franklin county we never heard.
There were no Danes in Franklin county up to about 1870-71, when a man of that nationality came here to Hampton. We are not certain about his name, but think it was Soren Jensen, but he was commonly called "Esquimau." He only remained here a year or two, going to Colorado. If any of his countrymen followed him here we do not know it. In 1872 Charles Krag, of Hampton, and Nels Larsen, of Alexander, came, and others of the same nationality soon followed. We do not know exactly, but we do not think that we hazard any guess when we say that nearly all the Danish people in the county could trace their locating here to one or the other of these men, although they might have to go, in some instances, a roundabout way to do it. Our early Danish settlers came from Cedar
II. C.
II. A. ALONZO
E. L.
JARVIS
C. H.
THE CLOCK BROTHERS
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Falls, as Messrs. Krag and Larsen did, as well as Jensen, referred to. We are in nowise sure about when Jensen came here, by the way.
About 1865-6 there was an emigration into Ingham township from Dodge county, Wisconsin. Among those who came were the Woodleys and Menzies. If we ever knew who was the pioneer among them, we have forgotten.
In an early day, probably about 1859, there was an emigration into West Fork township from Winnebago county, Illinois, com- prising the Hall and Morehouse families among others. After them, from the same neighborhood, came the Kelloggs, Vanstons and Hudsons. We do not know who of the Halls or Morehouses came first.
If we were to name the county in the United States that has furnished the most inhabitants to Franklin county, we think we should be compelled to put Jo Daviess county, Illinois, first, but the second, without question, would be Delaware county, Indiana. Among those who came from there are first, the Jones families, and we might stop there and have our assertion good, but when we men- tion the Boots, Manifold, Shroyer, Horner, Mulkins, Silence and many other families who either came from Delaware county or followed some one who did come from there, it will be readily admitted that Delaware county contributed its full share toward settling up Franklin county.
In the fall of 1854 a colony left Delaware county to come and make new homes in Iowa. Uncle Levi Jones, dead these many years, was at the head of the colony. We do not remember, if we ever knew, all the names of the others, but their steps were directed to Buchanan county from the fact that the eldest son of the Jones family, Alpheus, had come from Indiana a year or two previous and located about half way between Independence and Littleton. It was late in the fall when the Indiana people reached the end of their long journey, so they decided to winter in that locality and look around for permanent homes at their leisure.
Two men named Clark and Cameron, evidently speculators, had already entered land in Franklin county, among other tracts, the farm now owned and occupied by A. D. St. Clair, three miles south of Hampton, and had laid out and staked out a town on the level land lying north of J. M. Stout's house and between him and St. Clair. This town, so far as we know, was never named or recorded. Messrs. Clark and Cameron induced Mr. Jones to look at Franklin
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county, and accordingly, accompanied by his son-in-law, Isaac C. Mulkins, he came up here in the winter. He and Mr. Mulkins liked the country well enough so that they bought before their return to Buchanan county, Mr. Jones buying the well known place where he lived so many years and where he died, and Mr. Mulkins the place where Thomas Fox now lives. The next spring they came up with their families and were soon joined by Jabish Jones, a brother of Uncle Levi, who located with his numerous descendants at Four Mile Grove. Martin Boots and many others, in fact the settlement in and about Four Mile Grove, was practically made up of those who came from Indiana on the trail of Uncle Levi. Alpheus Jones sold out in Buchanan county and came here a little later. Aaron Boots, a brother of Martin Boots, came from Indiana to Buchanan county with the first detachment but did not come to Franklin county, settling in Black Hawk county.
So far as we know, the venerable Martin Boots, now of Geneva, is the only one alive who came from Indiana in 1855.
In the north half of the county there are quite a number of fam- ilies from Clayton county in this state. As near as we can discover, the starting point of the immigration from that vicinity was owing to the fact that Lyman W. Bailey, who was one of the very first set- tlers in the northern portion of the county, had a brother-in-law named Goldsbury, who resided at Springfield, in Clayton county. It was a little town, not far from where Monona now is, but the rail- road missed it and it shared the fate of all such places. In and about the burg lived Jacob G. Zimmerman, William Ellis, the Craw- fords, James, Alexander and others, James Vance, W. S. Bowen, E. F. Hanks and others whose names we have forgotten. Bailey used to visit his brother-in-law at Springfield and was never backward about extolling the good points of Franklin county, and as early as 1861 or 1862 some of the Springfield people came out to look at the country and have a visit at the hospitable Bailey home. We think that John Goldsbury, a nephew of Mrs. Bailey, came as early as any one, although J. G. Zimmerman came out two or three times before he decided to settle. In 1864 Joseph Bobst and Zimmerman came out and bought land, Bobst getting three-quarters of the school sec- tion in Ross township. John Goldsbury had come out that year and had the logs cut for a house, but sold out to Zimmerman who built the house on the farm yet in possession of the family. In 1865 Bobst and Zimmerman moved their families out, but as near as we can
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find out, William Ellis was already here, and must have come in 1863 or 1864.
We cannot begin to tell who followed them, but apprehend that "Lyme" Bailey was the indirect cause of all the immigration from Clayton county here. Several years later Alex. Crawford, coming from Clayton county, started for Kansas, with a team, of course, and stopped here to make his relatives and old neighbors a visit. Resum- ing his journey, he got mired in one of the sloughs west of town and had to unload. He came back to take a start, but never took it, as he very wisely decided to locate in Franklin county and bought the nucleus of his fine farm in Mott township.
We suppose that all of our old settlers know that Hon. J. B. Grin- nell was the nucleus of the settlement in and about Old Chapin. He laid out the town and bought lands in the vicinity and induced many to settle there. The first settlers there, B. D. Robinson, John D. Leland, A. S. Ross, R. T. Knight, H. H. Grinnell, John W. Avery and Rev. William P. Avery, have all passed away and very few of their descendants are now residents here, but it is safe to say that Mr. Grinnell was the direct cause of their locating there, and it is also true that the large majority of those who came after were induced to do so by some of those we have named as the pioneer settlers.
CHAPTER XIX
THE TOWNSHIPS-REEVE, MORGAN, WEST FORK, OSCEOLA, INGHAM- THE FIRST SETTLEMENT MADE IN REEVE-MORGAN ONE OF THE INITIAL THREE TOWNSHIPS ORGANIZED-THE EARLY FARMS, TOWNS AND INHABITANTS.
REEVE TOWNSHIP
That part of Franklin county which is now the domain of Reeve township was selected by the first settlers for their new homes. It was here that J. B. Reeve, the first permanent settler, located. In the autumn of 1852, in company with Addison Phelps and a Mr. Moore, while prospecting for claims the party caught up with John Mayne, his wife and child, who were looking for a place to camp. They all decided to remain together that night and set up their tents on the spot which afterwards became known as Mayne's Grove. All of them were pleased with the surroundings and concluded to locate there. Mayne squatted on section 23 and built a log house 16x16 feet. Reeve and Phelps boarded with Mayne that winter and ate their meals on a table contrived by stretching a beaver skin over a wash tub. Hunting and trapping and getting out logs for a cabin consumed the winter months, and when the milder weather arrived a habitation was erected. Reeve brought oxen and joining teams with Mayne, managed to break up a few acres of prairie which were planted to corn, and in the fall a good crop was harvested. Mayne was essentially a pioneer hunter and trapper and looked it in his six feet odd, dark skin, and the evidence of unusual strength portrayed in his great limbs and muscles. Before his corn had been gathered Mayne sold his claim to G. D. Sturms and then went on section 28, remaining there a year, when he removed to Hardin county. By spring Phelps became displeased with his venture and started for the east, whence he came. The abandoned claim was taken up by Leander C. Reeve, a brother of James B. Reeve. Leander came in the spring of 1853 and remained until 1857, when he sold out to S. Vol. T -16
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H. Carter and returned to his former home in Ashtabula county, Ohio.
In the year 1854 the little colony in Franklin county was increased by the arrival of the following named persons : S. Garner, Isaac Mil- ler, C. M. Leggett, John G. Mitchell, H. J. Mitchell, Hyman Mitchell, William May, J. Springer, Dr. S. R. Mitchell, Jacob Wright and a Mr. Webster.
The arrivals in 1855 now remembered were: F. M. Springer, Levi Jones, Isaac Mulkins, J. S. Mulkins, Solomon Staley, W. Con- way, Benjamin Butterfield, James Soper, Martin Soper, James Mor- ris, James Rucker, James Johnston, L. Shroyer, Henry Shroyer, W. J. Shroyer, Nathaniel J. Shroyer, Amos Roberts, Erastus Baker, William Freeborn, A. Jones, F. A. Denton, William Higgins, the Whitesides and Fortners and Dr. L. H. Arledge. S. H. Carter made his first visit to Franklin county in 1853, and entered land on sections 21 and 22 in Reeve township. He moved here in 1862, and died in Hampton in 1906.
In the '6os, among others who made settlements in the township were John Imlay, J. M. Soper, Albert Pickering, Amos Sheppard, George W. Wilton, Amos B. Hudson, Garrett Luke, Isaac Way, Philip Kratz, Mrs. Susan Cole, John Meyer, O. D. Andrews, A. D. St. Clair and Warren Towle.
The reader's attention is directed to an article in this work written by the late L. B. Raymond, in which is given an extended narrative of the very earliest settlements in the county. Many names appear there that will not be found in this chapter.
Reeve was one of the first three townships erected out of Frank- lin township, which was then coextensive with the county. When organized in 1855, it comprised township 90, ranges 19, 20 and 21, and township 91, ranges 19, 20 and 21. From time to time terri- tory for four other townships was taken from Reeve, and in 1880 Reeve was organized with its present boundary lines as town- ship 91, range 20. Mott township is to the north of it, Geneva on the east, Grant on the south and Hamilton on the west.
The largest body of timber existing in the county when John Mayne and J. B. Reeve entered it was in this locality selected by these pioneers for a location and since known as Mayne's Grove. The timber covered six sections of the township. The land is watered and drained by Mayne's creek and its branches and here is to be found some of the finest farming land not only in Franklin county but in this section of the state. The soil in common with that
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of the whole county is of a most excellent quality-a dark, rich loam which produces every crop indigenous to this latitude, in abundance. Live stock also finds good pasturage and plenty of water.
A word or two in regard to the men who had the hardihood to come into this new country and open it up for settlement: H. J. Mitchell was born in the State of New York. At the age of fourteen he found himself in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and in the fall of 1854 he located in Reeve township, Franklin county, where he married Octavia Smith, who was the first person to teach a class of children the elementary principles of an education in Franklin county. Miss Smith had come to the county with her sister, Mrs. John Mitchell, from Wisconsin, in the spring of 1854, and that summer taught school in a small log building erected by the settlers on the hill about eighty rods northeast of the site of the present residence of S. G. Rennick, near the old Reeve cemetery. She was then sixteen years of age, and at the age of seventeen married Hial J. Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell engaged in farming, and both he and his wife became widely known throughout the county. Both of them have passed away.
Francis M. Springer was born in Jasper county, Illinois. He came to Franklin county in 1854 and settled at Maysville, where he helped survey the town site. Mr. Springer saw the early growth of the county and took a prominent share in forming its onward course. He held several local offices.
Levi Jones and his sons, M. B. and T. W. Jones, were all here in 1854 and helped shape the course and policy of Franklin county in its infant days. Levi Jones was a member of the first board of super- visors. M. B. Jones is now a resident of Hampton.
Orson G. Reeve and J. Rumsey Reeve, sons of J. B. Reeve, were boys when their father, the first settler, came to the county, and both of them are now residents of Hampton, the county seat, which their father was chiefly instrumental in maintaining in its important posi- tion in the county. John Rumsey Reeve is established in the lumber trade, while Orson G. Reeve, who recently retired from the Reeve township farm, is now the present representative from the county in the State Legislature.
Isaac C. Mulkins came to Franklin county and settled in Reeve township in 1856. He erected a log house, wherein he spent the first winter without any chinking between the logs. There was no floor and being without a stove, he cooked his meals on the ground inside the walls of his cabin. Mr. Mulkins was a member of Com-
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pany H, Thirty-second Iowa Volunteers, the only company of sol- diers raised for the Civil war in the county. Among the children who came to Franklin with Mr. Mulkins was his son, J. S., who was then a mere lad. He grew up with the community and in 1870 married Maggie Creighton.
Benjamin Butterfield was another one of the men who braved the uncertainties of a new country and settled in Reeve township on sec- tion 29, in 1855. He remained on the place, which he greatly improved, until his death in 1878. Mr. Butterfield had the distinc- tion of being the first justice of the peace elected in Cook county, Illinois. John S. Butterfield, a son, came with the family in Janu- ary, 1856, and soon thereafter married Mary J. Jones, of Geneva township.
Lewis Shroyer was one of the first settlers in the township, com- ing from Indiana in the spring of 1855. He was one of the first farmers in Franklin county. Henry Shroyer was elected school fund commissioner in August, 1855, and succeeded Judge Reeve as presiding officer of the county.
James J. Johnston, a native of Ireland, in the early part of 1855 found himself in Washington county, Iowa. In the fall of that year he came to Franklin county and located on section 2, Reeve township, where he resided for many years. In relating his experi- ences of the early days in Iowa, Mr. Johnston at one time said : "When I came to Iowa in the spring of 1855 there was not a mile of railroad west of Dubuque, and when we wanted flour we usually had to go to Cedar Falls-a three days' journey-and when we raised anything to sell it had to be taken to that place. We also had to dress our own pork and haul it to Cedar Falls or Waterloo. I sold pork the year before the war at that town for $2 per hundred, and my wheat for 33 1-3 cents a bushel." Mr. Johnston died August 18, 1899.
J. M. Soper was an early settler of Reeve township and became one of the leading farmers of the county and was for many years engaged in buying and selling stock. He was born in the Green Mountain state and came of worthy ancestors, his father having been captain in the War of 1812 and his grandfather in the Revolution of 1776. Mr. Soper was raised on a farm and coming to Frank- lin county in 1856, followed the tilling of the soil, which was his natural inclination. He not only accumulated a competency but also gathered around him a host of friends who held him in the highest esteem.
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Philip Kratz was a native of Germany, who emigrated to the United States when a small boy and settled in Wisconsin. In the fall of 1853 he walked all the way from Janesville, Wisconsin, to Franklin county, where he entered land and then footed it to Des Moines, where he spent the winter. Returning to Franklin county, he entered more land but did not locate on it until the summer of 1855, when he returned from Wisconsin with John Meyer. He built a log house in Reeve township, to which he brought his wife in May, 1856. Mr. Kratz became one of the representative men of Reeve.
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