USA > Iowa > Franklin County > History of Franklin County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 8
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CHAPTER IV
BEFORE THE CREATION OF FRANKLIN COUNTY-THE FIRST TO SETTLE HERE-MAYNE'S GROVE SELECTED BY THEM-SKETCHES OF PIO- NEERS-THE INDIAN SCARE-HUNTING STORIES.
The late L. B. Raymond was for many years the leading journal- ist of Franklin county and made his paper, The Recorder, a house- hold necessity in this section of the state. His versatility as a writer, lucidity of expression and keenness in securing facts made the prod- ucts of his pen more than ordinarily valuable.
Early in the "Seventies" Mr. Raymond began collecting data for a history of Franklin county which he had in mind. Preparing his material with precision and literary taste, chapter after chapter appeared from week to week in the Recorder and met with universal interest and approbation. The writer of these articles had come to Franklin county early enough to meet face to face many of the men and women who first settled here. He got from the lips of these hardy and brave pioneers the stories of their early experiences in this new and wild country. He related in a plain, but fascinating man- ner the tales told him, without any frills, and exhibited consideration for facts truly admirable.
While in the midst of his multifarious duties, Mr. Raymond con- tinued in the quest for local historical material and gathered a mass of valuable data that can never be replaced, as the sources of in- formation are long since nonexistent. The real pioneers of Frank- lin county are gone, never to return, and the Raymond collection of historical data and reminiscences may be considered as treasure trove by the citizens of the county, who take a pride and pleasure in the preservation to themselves and future generations of these oft-told tales of the venturesome, courageous and thrifty men and women of the "Fifties," who came into this comparatively unknown land, ยท cleared away the timber, broke the virgin prairie soil and turned a wilderness into cultivated fields, yielding annually bounteous harvests.
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In the year 1883 a Chicago publishing concern took upon itself to give to the people of Franklin county the first printed history in book form of the community. L. B. Raymond was prevailed upon by the publishers to contribute of his valuable store of pertinent material to that history. One article from his pen was entitled "Early Set- tlers." It was prepared with care and having his facts at first hand this pioneer historian of the county preserved for posterity the names of the first settlers of the county and the periods of their arrival without making a material mistake as to either. That article appears below in its entirety :
"The first permanent settlement of Franklin county was indirectly due to the fact that in 1852 a man named Addison Phelps, residing in Ashtabula county, Ohio, started with his family, to find a new home in Iowa, and as one of his neighbors, named James B. Reeve, had for some time a desire to examine this unknown region for him- self, Phelps employed him to take a team and bring a portion of his goods. Phelps had relatives residing on the Cedar river above Cedar Falls, and thither they went, and upon arriving there they left the family, and Phelps and Reeve struck out still further west. They went to Rice's mill on the Iowa river (now Hardin City) and there were joined by a man named Moore, of whom nothing is known ex- cepting that they found him at Hardin City. These three men struck out on the trackless prairie and headed northward toward the body of timber now widely known as Mayne's Grove. Late in the afternoon they reached it and having found a suitable place to camp, near the Butterfield place in the west end of the grove, one of the party went out and shot a prairie chicken for supper. The noise of the gun brought to them in a few moments, to their great astonish- ment, a white man who, when he heard the gun, knew that it was, as he afterwards expressed it, 'no Injun's gun,' and started to look up his new neighbors.
"This man was John Mayne, who had that day come to the grove, following up the stream from its junction with the West Fork of the Cedar. He had an old style Hoosier wagon drawn by two yoke of oxen, his wife and child, a bundle of beaver and mink traps, his trusty rifle and a very scanty supply of domestic utensils. He also had in this wagon a tent which was not yet pitched, but upon meeting with Phelps, Reeve and Moore, he forthwith proposed that all should camp together, and the tent was put up. Mrs. Mayne got supper for the party, and while history is silent as to what the major
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part of the meal consisted of, yet it is handed down that the hostess made biscuit for supper that were shortened with coon's grease.
"Messrs. Phelps and Reeve were so well satisfied with the ap- pearance of the grove and its surroundings that they decided to locate there. Mayne said that if they would make claims, he would also. So the next day all hands packed up and turned down the creek and made their claims. Mayne took the farm now ( 1883) occupied by John C. Jones; Phelps the present Carter farm where S. H. Carter lives, and Reeve the place now occupied by his widow. With Mayne's oxen they broke furrows to mark the boundaries of their claims, and Phelps and Reeve returned to the Cedar river by way of Rice's mills for provisions and for Phelps' family. Mayne immediately set about building a shanty, which stood near the ford just east of John C. Jones' house and was the first building erected in Franklin county. It was of logs, of course, with no floor but the dirt, and covered with basswood bark, the chinks being daubed with mud. In a few days Reeve, Phelps and family returned and all took up quarters with Mayne. Phelps began a cabin on his claim just north of the house on the farm owned for many years by Colonel A. T. Reeve, but after getting it three or four logs high, cold weather set in and he abandoned the idea of finishing it until spring. As there was no hay to feed the horses belonging to Reeve, the latter returned with them to the Cedar, near Janesville, where they engaged keeping of them for the winter, and came to Mayne's grove on foot. Reeve and Mayne went to trapping and hunting for employment, being quite successful, and as the country abounded in elk, buffalo and smaller game, they did not lack for fresh meat. In fact, their larder was so scantily provided with everything else and so plenti- fully supplied in this respect, that it began to tell upon the health of the party. The supply of flour and meal becoming exhausted, Reeve started on foot for the Cedar river to bring back the much needed supplies with his team. The nearest settlement at this time was at Boylan's Grove, now Bristow, so he struck across the trackless prairie in that direction. Soon after he set out it began to storm and came on bitter cold. He found along towards night that he was freezing, and it required all his powers of endurance to keep up. Several times he was on the point of giving up and lying down to his fate, but by superhuman efforts kept under way. At last, just at night- fall, he reached the body of timber now known as Allen's Grove on the West Fork of the Cedar. . Having a few matches he broke up some twigs, built a fire, and upon taking off his boots found that his
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feet were badly frozen. Surrounded by howling wolves and suffer- ing the most excruciating tortures with his feet and hands, he wore away the long night and in the morning upon attempting to put on his boots, found his feet so swollen that it seemed an utter impossi- bility to get them on, but finally, after cutting the boots nearly to pieces, he managed to get them on and set out for Boylan's Grove, where he arrived late that night more dead than alive. After two or three days' rest there, he got a team to take him to Janesville, where he remained for some weeks, unable to stand upon his feet, and only returned to Mayne's Grove in March, just in time to find Phelps and family discouraged and about to leave, which they shortly did. From the effects of this adventure Reeve never fully recovered. The flesh nearly all came off from the soles of his feet and his toes and it was several years before he could expose himself with im- punity during the coldest winter weather .*
"After Phelps' departure and about the time that the winter was breaking up, Reeve and Mayne divided their furs, Mayne giving Reeve a little dun mare and a certain number of weeks' board for his share. In a few days after the trade was made Mayne got up a quar- rel, and it immediately occurred to Reeve that this was done to save the board. Mayne was ugly and vicious but Reeve was not to be dis- couraged nor scared off, and so he stayed by, and when Mrs. Mayne prepared a meal, Mayne would seat himself on one side of the table
* Orson G. Reeve, a son of Judge Reeve, gives a different version of this inci- dent from Mr. Raymond. He says that Phelps had no team and after conclud- ing to quit the settlement he borrowed Reeve's horses and wagon to take his wife and children back to Cedar Falls, promising to leave the team at Janesville, in Bremer county. After Phelps had been gone about a week, Mr. Reeve got uneasy about his team; there had come quite a snow storm and later a freeze, which made a hard crust on top of the snow. He started on his journey at about noon to look after his horses and after going some distance the sun had thawed the snow crust so that it became soft and at almost every step he would break through into the soft snow beneath. This wet the buckskin thongs used to tie on his snow shoes, so that they stretched and he had great difficulty in keeping the snow shoes on his feet. This caused delay. Reaching a tract of land be- tween two creeks, he discovered two otters traveling in the path from one creek to the other. These he killed, and skinning them, used their pelts as gloves. This also caused delay, and in the meantime the wind suddenly changed to the northwest and in a few minutes a blinding blizzard confronted the traveler, who stood facing the wind to get his directions. The wind and snow became so furi- ous that when Mr. Reeve got to Boylan's creek, and within a half mile of Boy- lan's house, he walked off an eight-foot bank. The thaw had raised the water three feet deep over the ice where he had to cross the creek. He could see the timber on the other side and reaching it, he gathered a few twigs and by shoot- ing a wad of paper into a piece of punk, after many discouraging trials, he finally managed to start a blaze, which saved him from freezing to death.
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and Reeve would seat himself on the other, although they were not on speaking terms. This state of affairs continued for several weeks until Mayne became convinced that Reeve would not scare nor leave, and a sort of a peace was patched up, which, however, was a sort of armed neutrality.
"In April, 1853, Leander C. Reeve, a brother of J. B., came from Ashtabula county, Ohio, and took the Phelps claim. Reeve broke ten acres on his claim and Mayne who had also claimed J. M. Soper's present farm, broke ten acres on that. Late in June of that year George Sturms, Henry Garner and a man named Fairchild, with their families, came to Mayne's Grove. Mayne claimed all the best locations and sold his original claim, with the shanty wherein he had wintered (the Jones place) to Mr. Sturms, the Soper place to Henry Garner, and the place where Amos Sheppard afterward lived, to Fairchild. Like a true pioneer, he went farther west, going up into the grove above Maysville and making a location on what in later years was known as the Lacey farm. A man named Stevens also came with this last party, but did not stay. In September, Garner sold his claim to Dr. L. H. Arledge, who had previously made a claim where Ackley now stands, and had sold out to Thomas Downs. A little later came Samuel Garner and Job Garner.
"In July the Reeves returned to Ohio, and in August of that year, J. B., with a team, his wife and eight children, started for their new home in Iowa, reaching there the 15th of September, 1853. Upon their arrival he finished up the shanty that Phelps had begun on the claim now owned by S. H. Carter, and in it they wintered.
"In October, 1853, thre was quite an addition to the colony at Mayne's Grove. Silas Moon came and made a claim where J. D. Parks now resides. Peter Rhinehart came and made his claim to the place in Geneva township now owned by W. C. Haines. Rhine- hart came too late to get his cabin up before winter set in, so he win- tered with Sturms. Still later, in the fall of 1853, the little settle- ment was reinforced by the addition of two men named Crouch and Webb. They made their claims at the head of Mayne's Grove, Webb taking the claim known to all old settlers as the May place, now occupied and owned by J. H. Bond, and Crouch, who was a brother- in-law of Mayne, moving in with him on the Lacey farm. Late in the winter a babe of Mr. Crouch's, a few months old, died. This was the first death in the county. Mrs. J. B. Reeve tells how upon a Sunday Mrs. Mayne came to' her house on horseback to borrow a
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little sugar, and to invite her to the funeral at the same time, al- though the child was not dead. 'Come day after tomorrow,' she said, 'for it will surely be gone before that time.' On Tuesday the funeral came off according to appointment. In April, 1854, Mr. Webb, who had gone to Rice's Mills on the Iowa river, to work, died, and was brought home and buried. Dr. Arledge officiated, making a prayer and returning the thanks of the bereaved ones to the few and scattering neighbors for their sympathy. These two graves, yet visible in a lonely and secluded spot near the west end of Mayne's Grove, have been pronounced Indian graves by many persons who were not informed as to the circumstances of the case.
"As early as the spring of 1853, Dr. Arledge located at the little grove known in later years as Downs' Grove and where that por- tion of Ackley that lies in Franklin county is located. Arledge built a cabin on the north side of the county line about forty rods west of where A. Severance now resides. With him, or about the same time, came a man named McCormick, who made his claim in the grove generally known since by his name, his cabin standing south of where John Fahey now lives and near the north bank of the Beaver creek, being land now owned by R. T. Blake. Both Arledge and Mc- Cormick came from the Iowa river, somewhere about Hardin City, and it is possible that they made their claims in the fall of 1852, although neither of them wintered there. In fact the exact time that they located on their claims is somewhat obscure, but Mr. Blake, who bought out McCormick's claim in 1854, says that there were eight or ten acres of breaking upon it done in 1853. Arledge sold out to Thomas Downs in 1853 and moved to Mayne's Grove not long after J. B. Reeve brought his family from Ohio. Arledge bought out Henry Garner, who had claimed the present Soper farm, and the cabin on the place was in the timber south of the old saw- mill on Mayne's creek and north of Soper's present residence. All the families that wintered in the county in the winter of 1853-4 have been mentioned, and their names are here repeated: Judge Reeve. Job, Samuel and Henry Garner, John Mayne, Fairchild, George Sturms, Peter Rhinehart, Silas Moon, Dr. Arledge, Crouch and Webb, who came about midwinter. The settlement was also rein- forced during the winter by two additions in 'the good old way,' the families of Mr. Sturms and Samuel Garner each having a son born to them. Abner Sturms, born in January, 1854, was the first white child born in Franklin county.
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"It was quite a common custom for the settlers to pick out some eligibly located quarter section or eighty near them and claim it for some friend who had not yet arrived, so as to have him in their neighborhood when he did come. If he failed to come entirely, why, then the claim was for sale. James B. and Leander Reeve had a friend back in Ohio, named Andrew Coffin, so they had claimed for him the Stark's farm, better known as the Reed place. Job Garner, when he arrived in the summer, wanted it and came to the Reeve's to see about the prospect of getting it. They told him that Coffin had authorized them to sell it and they thought it was worth $200. Garner said that he was a preacher and therefore entered into an argument to convince them what an advantage it would be to their settlement to have a minister of the gospel in their midst. Although not really church-going people the Reeve's finally told him that he might take the place and pay for it in preaching, but it must be recorded that although he took the claim, he never preached but once and that was some time during the winter of 1853 or 1854, at the house of Mr. Fairchild, on the Sheppard place.
"The land office for this portion of the state at that time was at Des Moines, and the abstract of original entries shows the following entries as made in the county during the year 1853 :
"Some time during the early part of the summer of 1854, James Van Horn came from near Janesville, in Bremer county, and located where J. C. Mott now lives, about a mile north of Hampton. He did not move on to his claim, however, until fall. A man named Endsley about the same time settled on the place about a mile further north, now owned by Walter Beed, but occupied for many years by Henry Hacker. Amon Rice thinks that two brothers named Ellis were trapping about Shobe's Grove the spring before he came to the county, and that they had made claims there, and also that a man named Collyer must have come in there that same summer and located on the place now owned by John T. Richards. Collyer had run away from some place further east, with a daughter of his second wife, and after a time one of the Ellis brothers got the girl away from the old man, and, his wife coming on, he sold out his claims to a man named Berdell and went up near Forest City, in Winnebago county, and died there. He had always been on the frontier and never saw a threshing machine nor a train of cars. He did not leave his claim at Shobe's Grove, however, until 1855.
"John I. Popejoy is the oldest settler on the Iowa river that is there at this writing. He left Ohio in the spring of 1854 on a tour
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of observation in the west. He came first to McLean county, Illi- nois, and there, in company with a brother-in-law, M. H. Pearsons, took a team and coming westward across the State of Illinois, crossed the Mississippi at Burlington, going to Palmyra, in Warren county, where Popejoy's father had in 1853 located and entered an eighty- acre tract. Not finding anything there to suit him, he went to the land office at Des Moines and upon looking over the plats of the different counties, noticed that there were timber lots not entered in Franklin county, both on the Iowa river, in Oakland township, and at Highland Grove, in Geneva township. He entered the forty in Highland Grove, then and there, 'sight unseen,' and he and Pear- sons started for Franklin county. They went to Iowa Falls, stayed there all night and the next day went up to the grove, where Popejoy now resides. They drove into the grove on the cast side of the river, stopped at a spring a few rods south of his present residence, and after drinking from the spring, sat down to rest. In a few moments, two men with guns came over the brow of the hill and rapidly ap- proaching them, sung out: 'What the h-1 are you doing here?' Popejoy replied : 'We came to look at this grove.' One of them re- plied : 'Well, there were three men here a day or two ago to look at this grove, and they left rather sudden.' Popejoy rose to his feet, put his fingers in his mouth and blew a shrill whistle. The two fellows evidently thought that reinforcements were near at hand and changed their tactics immediately. Popejoy said : 'Let me see your gun,' and taking it without resistance, raised it and fired at a tree a few rods off, and said: 'Now, I want this grove. If you have a claim on it, I will buy you out. If you haven't I will make one in a few moments.' The fellow then said he had a claim and if they would go up on to the hill, he would show them where he had begun a cabin, which they did, and there it was, not far from Popejoy's present residence. He then said he would take fifty dollars for his claim, which Popejoy paid him without more ado, and thus the grove changed hands. This man's name was Hurlbut C. Holmes, and he lived at that time across the river with one Dr. Crawford, in a cabin on the Brand place. Francis M. Mitchell, heretofore men- tioned as making the first entry of land in Franklin county, had a family in the same cabin at that time, but was then away, Mr. Popejoy thinks at Des Moines. This was in May, 1854, and these were all the settlers on the Iowa in Franklin county at that time, excepting that a man named Dennis Sprague had a claim where Oak-
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land village now is, although he had neither built a cabin nor moved there at this time.
"Popejoy and Pearsons went back to Des Moines, and the former bought land enough adjoining his new claim to make a section, be- fore he got away from the land office. They then returned to Illi- nois, Popejoy going back to his home in Ohio.
"There does not appear to have been many entries of government land made in 1854 in the county, and among those made in the first part of the season were those of James Van Horn, who made his entries, as mentioned, about May 13, 1854; Andrew Cole, who en- tered the northeast quarter of the notheast quarter of section 22, township 91, range 20, where his family now resides; on the 20th of June of the same year, Leander C. Reeve, who entered part of sec- tion 23, same township; on the 14th of April, William May, who entered the southeast quarter of the northwest quarter of section 27, where Maysville now is, and also the farm where J. H. Bond now resides ; on the 22d day of May, James Newell, who also entered the land that is now a part of the old plat.of Maysville, where the school- house is and westward of it, on the 13th of May; Sanford B. Mitchell, who entered the northwest quarter of section 27, in township 90, range 22 (Oakland township), on the 27th of April. Also June 26, David Allen entered land on section 12, in Ingham township, at the grove that now bears his name. None of these, so far as we can find out, moved their families into the county before July 4, 1854.
"In June of this year, Charles M. Leggett and a man named Loomis, came from Lake county, Ohio, to take a look in Iowa, and as he was from the same vicinity as Judge Reeve, naturally bent his steps to Franklin county. From Waterloo they walked up to Mayne's Grove and as it was exceedingly hot weather, they had a hard and tedious trip. For water they were often compelled to drink out of sloughs and to find a hole wherein an elk or buffalo had stepped in the soft ground, leaving a hole that they could drop an empty pint bottle into and have it fill with the lukewarm water, was counted a streak of good luck. Leggett selected 120 acres in Geneva township, on section 18, where J. A. Pickering now resides, and Loomis bought Peter Rhinehart's claim, which it will be remem- bered is where W. C. Haines now resides, although the house was further west, up the creek, where O. D. Andrews lived for many years. Loomis engaged forty acres of breaking to be done immedi- ately on his claim and Leggett and Loomis, engaging Judge Reeve to take them to Cedar Falls, returned to Ohio.
Vol. I- 6
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"About this time, Fairchild, who, it will be remembered, had set- tled on the present Sheppard place, got into a difficulty that had the effect of terminating his residence at Mayne's Grove. Among the settlers 'jumping a claim' was called the greatest crime known to the community, and they were consequently banded together in a league offensive and defensive against all speculators and interlopers. Sometimes there was a question as to the legality of the preemption by which a settler held his claim, but it was always construed in favor of the settler, such little trifling irregularities as failing to properly mark his boundaries or give the proper notice, being overlooked. A speculator came to the grove on a land hunt along in June and took a fancy to the claim occupied by Mayne, and falling in with Fairchild he obtained the information as to wherein Mayne's claim was defective, and accordingly the speculator 'entered Mayne out' as it was termed. This raised such a feeling against Fairchild that he packed up and left the settlement forthwith, and as one old settler naively remarked: 'Twas the best thing he could do, for he would have been shot if he had stayed.'
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