USA > Iowa > Harrison County > History of Harrison County, Iowa, including a condensed history of the state, the early settlement of the county together with sketches of its pioneers > Part 10
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Up to the year of 1855 there was not a flouring mill north of the Pigeon, and the only mill north of Council Bluffs at and during the year of 1854 was the one known as the Coolidge mill, just up the bluffs from Cresent City, which was in 1854 pur- chased of Coolidge by one William Reel, a brother to Henry Reel, who is now a resident of Logan, and built and ran the mill
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near to Logan, known all through the country, for twenty years, as Reel's Mills.
Mr. George Blackman, as well as all others who resided here prior to 1854, had quite a gala day in going and returning from mill. The ox team was the propelling power of transportation, and when the Willow, Boyer, or Pigeon was reached, there being at that time no bridges, the ax in the hand of the driver felled the tree across the unbridged stream, the oxen were unyoked and made to swim the river, the wagon taken in pieces and carried by main strength and awkwardness across on the impromptu bridge as well as the grist, and this modus operandi, ad infinitum, until the mill was reached and the return home was consummated.
The covered wagon was the car of the prairie, in which the fam- ily and goods pertaining to household affairs were transported, and this was rigged with as much care as to room and comfort as the present palace car. Every nook, cranny or corner was utilized, for those who have experienced this modus of travel say that it is surprising into what smallness of space a small family of ten or fifteen can be stowed away by the experienced conductor or conductoress. These trains, though not traversing more than ten to twenty miles per day, at some time in life generally struck the terminus of the route, yet with all the slowness of the journey, many there are of the present day who would prefer to travel by this kind of conveyance rather than by the rapid going of the lightning train which measures the distances by hours rather than by miles. The constant change of scenery, as well as the independence of owning a person's own train and making out their own time table, possessed a charm fully appreciated by the old-timers of 1847 to 1866.
The bill of fare at and during the time last named did not cover the space and contain the Frenchified airs of the present, for at that time a saddle of venison, a cup of cold water, a quarter sec- tion of baked squash and a good hoe-cake, filled the cup of bless-
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ings, and they who subsisted on these were as brave, whole- souled, brawny men as ever located in a new country, shouldered the rifle and built and defended the cabin.
All settlers up to the fall of 1853 were, as just before stated, compelled to go to Coolidge's mill or Reel's mill, on the Pigeon, or if there were too many ahead of the party lately arriving, then there was no alternative but to push on to Coonsville (now Glen- wood) and there court the smiles of Dame Fortune. These trips to the mill scarcely ever were completed sooner than a week or ten days, but when the rations of corn meal or the little sack of wheat flour did come, it was far more appreciated than at this date. At and during the fall of 1853, Stephen Mahoney and Jonas W. Chatburn attached a kind of corn cracker to their saw mill, located on the Willow, and during the latter part of a cer- tain day began the grinding of corn. This was hailed as a great benefit to the country, but scarcely had they pulverized a half score of bushels till they were called to supper by their good wives and treated to a nice dish of corn bread, the first ground by the new mill, and as soon as the meal was completed they again returned to the mill to furnish meal for other families, who, like themselves, were anticipating a morsel of this luxury, when returning, to their horror, the infernal wolves had broken the connection between the cracker and the power, by eating the raw hides which had been used as belting.
This misfortune caused many a boy to dispense with his corn "dodger" until such times as the proprietors of this merchant mill could butcher another cow and stretch and dry the hide, so as to make desired connection with the corn cracker and saw mill. In the month of December, of the same year, Mr. Henry Reel had his mill on the Boyer, being the same which Mr. James McCoid now owns and operates, in running order, and this gave to all the people on the east of the Boyer and north a chance to get meal, which at that time was run night and day to supply the demands.
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At the time Mr. Henry Reel settled here in 1852, there was not another white settler between the present site of Logan town and the residence or tract of land on the Boyer, known as the Joe Hill place, in Pottawattamie county, except the location made by William Dakan, on what is now known as the Joe Culver farm, not far from the old town of St. Johns, on the east side of the Boyer. There was not at the time last named another settler on the Boyer between this location and the north pole; neither were the Pigeon, Boyer, Willow, Soldier or the Little Sioux rivers bridged except during the winter, when nature furnished bridges at little tax to the settlers.
In the fall of 1856 Mr. Reel so far improved his mills as to grind wheat, and from that time up to the present the process of swimming rivers to procure milling has been dispensed with.
In the fall of 1855 and spring of 1856 Mr. L. D. Butler and a Mr. Coolidge built a mill at or near Woodbine, and this, together with one erected and put in operation on the Willow by Mr. James Hardy and Jake Huffman, in 1855, placed Harrison county so far as milling facilities were concerned, far ahead of any of the sister counties of the slope.
Away back in 1856 and 1857 it was as good as attending a circus to listen to Mr. L. D. Butler and Jake Huffman joke each other about the different ways they manipulated the grists of their patrons so as to leave the unfortunate owner a little of the grist and all of the sack. This, though only a war of words, would oftentimes warm up to such a degree of intensity that those not acquainted with the men would suppose that they were about to devour each other. Some one attempting to write a history of Harrison county has said that the saw mill of Maho- ney & Chatburn, at Magnolia, was the first mill in the county to saw a plank, but there are others who claim that the mill built on the Willow, near Calhoun, antedated that of Mahoney & Chatburn. As to this fact I will not now attempt a decision, from the fact that such a circumstance would not at this day
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and generation be used as a political fact in the election of a president or in the establishment of a church.
In 1853 two men, by the names of Greenman and Allen, con- structed a mill on Allen creek, just west of Magnolia, which proved to be a sort of thundergust arrangement, and would only run for a short time after a rain, because of lack of water, and just below this a mill frame was put up by Jacob Huffman. This never was completed, but was taken down by Hardy and Huffman and rebuilt on the Willow as before mentioned.
Owen Thorpe built a saw mill on Six Mile creek in 1856, and at the same time old Grandfather William Reeder erected one on the same creek three or four miles further down. These, though not manufacturing lumber with the rapidity which the steam mills of the present do, still for a new county the same served an excellent purpose. At this age these old "up and down " saw mills, in which the saw rose with the sun and set when the sun went down, would tire the patience of "Young America " because of the fast conditions and brevity of human life.
As to the hardships of frontier life I cannot better represent the same, than by giving the statements, verbatim, as given me by Mrs. Sally Young, the oldest woman in the neighborhood of Logan, and who has continuously resided in the vicinity ever since the summer of 1850. Mrs. Young is the widow of David Young, deceased; and is the mother, grand-mother or great- grand-mother of the entire Young family:
"We located in this county in 1850, and here found, as we thought, the garden of Eden, a vast prairie of beautiful flowers and a great abundance of wild fruits. At this time the country was very thinly settled, our nearest neighbors being six miles away; the nearest trading point Council Bluffs; nearest mill seventeen miles, and flour sixteen dollars per barrel and groceries quite as expensive. By 1851 our provisions were nearly ex- hausted, and the water in the Pigeon being so low they could
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not crack corn, we were compelled to grate all our meal on corn graters made out of old tin, but we had a large supply of meat, including venison, prairie hens, wild turkeys, etc., etc.
" We were told, when moving here, that we could not keep horses because the flies were so bad, and we traded our horses for oxen, and when we arrived on the Boyer we found the state- ment to be true, for the flies were so numerous and so plentiful that we could not work the oxen in the heat of the day, when the flies were bad, for they would have been eaten up, and only escaped by hiding themselves in the thickets, and when night came we would have teams hitched up and do our work after dark. The mosquitoes were very bad, and during all of the summer time we were compelled to keep a smoke in the house from sunset until the following morning, so as to keep these insects away. Wolves were quite plenty and very troublesome, for at the middle of a certain day two attacked a yearling calf near our door, and one of the boys ran out with the gun and shot one while the rascal was trying to kill the calf.
"I, on my way to the county, had bought a pair of chickens, and in the first fall after locating here a lynx came nearly to the house and tried to carry away the old hen, but the dog rescued her twice, but Mr. Lynx, at the third trial, was determined and finally made a Methodist supper on old 'Speckle.'
" The deer were doubly as numerous as wolves, for I could look out of our door at most any time of day and see a herd of them peacefully grazing on the prairies. No bridges, then, on the Boyer; each man made his own bridge, by felling a tree across the stream for his own convenience. Our first home was a little log shanty, covered with puncheons split out of the log with the axe, and the chimney was made of sods. Notwithstanding all that I have said, I do think that these few first years we settled here were the happiest of our lives, because we were anxious to get homes and care for our families, which at times were quite numer-
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ous, and these cares took up all our time, so that we did not have time to think of hardships or dangers.
" With all the deprivations of the early days, viewed from this standpoint of quite forty years, there was much to brighten and cheer the settler, from the fact that there were oceans of game, tons upon tons of summer and fall acids, in the shape of plums, grapes, early strawberries, together with a hundred things of which time and space prohibit present mention.
" The thousands of deer which roamed up and down the val- leys, crossed from valley to vale by the very many run ways, these to be had at the little cost of shooting and dressing, gave to the larder all, yea, perhaps better than is now experienced by many, who at the present live in this, what is now termed the land of plenty. Great droves of wild turkeys lined the skirts and inter- ior of every timber track, and honey was far more plentiful then than now."
Mr. Richard Musgrave of Twelve Mile Grove, Horatio Cay- wood, Daniel Brown, Levi Motz, Jerry Motz, George Blackman, Nephi Yocum, and the Alexander boys, all tell me that at many times the eye taking in the landscape from some little promon- tory would often see as many as two or three hundred deer at a time; would look somewhat like unto a flock or flocks of sheep, all quietly grazing until some old sentinel would give the alarm, when the entire herd would flee with a fleetness for which these timid creatures are so noted.
A turkey roast could be had as often as the appetite craved this luxury. In fact the palate was so often regaled by this magnificent diet that the same ceased to be a luxury and at many times became insipid by reason of its bounteousness.
The only bear killed or seen in the county was in the winter of 1857 and 1858. It was killed by George Caywood in the willows in Clay township. 'Tis said that George was the most thor- oughly frightened hunter, at the time he killed the big monster, that ever captured a coon or shot a deer. The circumstances of
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the killing were these : he had been out in the willows which abound so plentifully in that township, all the afternoon of the day, killing wild-cats; his hounds gave tongue, and he, supposing that they had a cat at bay, crept carefully up to the place indi- cated by the dogs, and by reason of the denseness of these willow glades, was within fifteen feet of Mr. Bruin, before he saw the game or the bear saw him. As soon as the bear saw the hunter he rose on his hind feet and in this erect position charged the hunter, when Caywood, who was so badly frightened that he could scarcely hold his gun, managed to cock and bring the same to his face and fired. He threw down his firearm, ran like a canine to which a can had been attached to his "narrative" for home, a distance of two miles, and told the father and Frank what he had seen and done. The night being then well developed, they all waited until the morning light and then set out for the hunt- ing ground; when arriving at the spot they found the bear dead, and when drawn home it weighed something over 300 pounds.
On inspection of the animal, it was found that Caywood had made a capital shot and had perforated the heart of the bear.
Many assertions have been made in regard to the presence of the larger game, viz .: buffalo, elk, etc., since the organization of the county in 1853, and no person has hugged the truth as closely as George Musgrave (editor of the Logan Observer), who in 1851 was but a beardless boy and settled with his father, Mr. Richard Musgrave, in the valley of the Boyer, in Boyer township.
This question being under discussion, the following is from the able and racy pen of this veteran editor. It was produced in the columns of the Logan Observer of date of March 6, 1887:
"THE LAST BUFFALO.
"Reference has been made in the papers to the killing of a buffalo in this county, which occurred about the year 1863, and when alluded to it is spoken of as 'the last of its species ever killed in Harrison county,' which is true enough. But it is also
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true that it was the first buffalo ever killed or seen by any white man, so far as there is any record or proof, inside of this county. The year 1850 is about as early as any settlement is known to have been made in this county, prior to which it was entirely uninhabited and almost unvisited by white men, and yet not one of these first settlers has ever been found who has ever seen or heard of any one claiming to have seen buffaloes here. In 1851 there were plenty of elk and deer, with evidences of their having inhabited these parts for years past, their horns being thickly strewn over the virgin prairies everywhere, in all stages of per- fection and decay. But such evidence of the presence of buffalo was rarely found, which convinces the writer that the home of the king of the plains has been wholly west of the Missouri for the past seventy-five years at least. The one alluded to as the 'last ever seen here,' was first discovered near the Boyer river in Boyer township, a short distance north of the farm of Josiah Coe. A few of the neighbors got after it on horseback and gave chase in an easterly direction, pursuing it very closely for five or six miles. They chased it around the east side of Twelve Mile Grove, across the farms of Matthew Hall and George Mefford, over on to the south branch of the Picayune, where G. W. Pugs- ley then resided, who happened to be standing in the door of his cabin and saw the horsemen driving the buffalo before them directly towards him. Seizing his rifle he stepped out, and when the buffalo approached within a few rods and stopped, nearly exhausted, he drew a bead and fortunately brought the noble fellow down, when but a few seconds elapsed ere his pursuers were all around and on top of him. Thus the last and first buffalo was dispatched. The writer ate a share of the meat. At this time we thought the county pretty well settled. The elk had all dis- appeared years before and the sight of a deer had become a rare curiosity. Where this buffalo came from remains a mystery, but it had evidently strayed from the herd at least a hundred miles away. None were then known to approach nearer than fifty or
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seventy-five miles to the Missouri river from the western plains beyond, where at that time countless thousands of them roamed, almost unmolested."
In numerous places in the county, even at present, large quan- tities of the bones of buffalo are found; usually in and near what were formerly marshy places, and along the little creeks where the banks are constantly being washed away by the fresh- ets of the country or where the banks are caving in by reason of the frosts and atmospheric agencies. Mr. Jacob Stern tells me of fishing out of a spring along some of the little branches in Harris Grove, about the year 1858, a very large buffalo skull, which from its appearance indicated that it had laid covered up in that place for a long time. Also Mr. William Frazier, an old veteran of the Mexican war, and who has been a resident of this county for the past thirty-three years, informs me that near his residence, a short distance from the place known as " Reeder's Mills," there is a small stream, in the banks of which the soil is full of bones of this animal, so much so that the attention of all is called to the peculiar characteristics, and wonder how this particular spot should contain so many bones. This undoubt- edly was, some time in the past, a very marshy place, and from the manner in which these bones are placed, would indicate that the animals had mired and the skeletons have remained from that date to the present intact.
Plentiful as were the deer and elk at the beginning of settle- ment, they have faded out of existence entirely in the State of Iowa at the present; but up to the winter of 1856 and 1857-a winter which is known by all the old settlers as the " hard win- ter "-they were so abundant that they were scarcely considered as a luxury or even a necessity as a family diet. On the 3d day of December, 1856, a little snow began falling in the morn- ing, increasing in force from minute to minute for three days, and to the fall of the snow was added that terrible gain twist that Iowa winds can produce, and this of such force that neither
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man nor beast could find the path or highway for twenty rods, and lasting as above stated for seventy-two hours without a par- ticle of intermission, heaped and drove the snow high above and over every obstacle, the particles of snow, frozen as hard as the hardest diamonds, cut and drifted into every nook, crevice and cranny, so that when the winds had subsided there was found to be quite a four foot depth of snow all over the county. This great snow-fall being in two or three weeks supplemented by a two days' drizzling rain, and this again freezing, left this surface so encrusted with ice that men, dogs and wolves could travel as readily as though upon the bare surface of Mother Earth, but alas for the poor deer and elk! they were left at the mercy of man, Indian and wolf, for every attempt to flee found them leaping into drifts of snow to the depths above stated, and these encrusted with ice so strong as to bear up a man, the icy surface cut their limbs so that they were wholly at the mercy of every foe. Hundreds of deer were butchered through pure wanton- ness, and nearly exterminated at this period.
THE BEAVER.
The beaver (castor, cuv), a fur bearing amphibious animal of the rodent or gnawing order (rodenta). The beaver has the head compressed, with an unbroken line of profile from occiput to muzzle; two large incisors and eight molars in each jaw, with large and powerful muscles, regulating the movements of the inferior jaw; eyes disproportionately small and vision of short range; ears very small but hearing acute; sense of smell power- ful; body short between the fore and hind legs, broad, heavy and clumsy; length when full grown, from end of nose to tip of tail, three feet six inches; weight from thirty to forty pounds. The fore feet of the beaver are digitigrade and the hinder ones plantigrade. The paws are small in proportion to the animal. In swimming they are not used and are folded under the body; but they are capable of some rotary movement, which enables the
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beaver to handle and carry sticks, limbs of trees, mud and stones, and to use his paws as hands while sitting up or walking on his hind legs. The hind feet are the propelling power in swim- ming, and the feet are fully webbed to the root of the claws. The most conspicuous organ, the tail, is from ten to eleven inches long and five and a half broad, nearly flat, straight and covered with black horny scales. The common error that the tail is the beaver's trowel is confuted by the fact that the animal always uses mud and soft earth as mortar, but it serves as a pounder to pack mud and earth in constructing lodges and dams, is used in swimming as a scull, assists in diving, and by striking a powerful blow, the report of which can be heard at a distance of half a mile, it gives an alarm; while the strong muscles enables the beaver when standing erect to use the tail as a prop. The female brings forth from two to six young in May and weans them in six weeks.
For commercial purposes, besides its fur, the beaver furnishes captoreum, a secretion used in medicine as an antispasmodic, and its flesh is much esteemed as food by trappers and Indians. The beaver is social, pairs and brings up a family to maturity, and sometimes two or more families inhabit the same pond. The common supposition that beavers live in villages or colonies is erroneous. All the inhabitants may assist in constructing or repairing the common dam, but each family has its own lodge, and burrows and lays in its own supply of provisions for the winter.
As their work is carried on by night, little is actually known of their methods except from the examination of what they effect.
These peculiar, industrious and harmless animals, as far back as the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, were very numerous along all the streams in the county. The Sol- dier in 1856 and 1857 was an especial resort and home for them. At a point directly in front of the residence of Mr. Abraham
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Ritchison, in Taylor township, in 1856 and 1857, there were trees then standing on the left bank of the Soldier river that were more than two-thirds gnawed off by these little fellows, some of the trees being sixteen inches in diameter, and the place where the cutting was done looked like some carpenter had tried to fell the trees by the use of a sort of gouge, the marks of their teeth being plainly seen. Here at this place and a short distance below, dams were constructed with as much architectural neat- ness as though planned and executed by the most skillful human hand.
Who of the readers of these thoughts ever saw a beaver slide? if not, they could find a reproduction thereof by visiting a swimming place of the boys of the period, constructed by them during a summer's vacation. The Willow has ever been the home of a family of beavers, for since the tirue of the first settlement along this stream, near the present residences of Michael Doyle and Dr. J. H. Rice, in Calhoun town- ship, each year these curious little fellows have built a dam in this river at this place. Cotton wood, willow and box-elder have been by them felled and carried into the said stream of such size as would astonish any person not acquainted with the habits of these animals. As late as 1886 a very large beaver was killed at the place last named, and being of such monstrous size, the same was shipped to Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, by young Mr. W. G. Rice, and when received there was, by the professors of that institution, skinned and mounted. It was a very handsome specimen and highly prized by the professors. During the past winter (1887) six large, healthy, full-grown ones have been cap- tured at this place, and still the family is not exterminated. In the early days of the county the beavers were so plenty that the skins were not so prized as at the present day, for then it was no uncommon sight to see a man wearing a beaver vest, cap, over- coat and mittens. The Butler boys at Woodbine during the past winter have captured more than twenty of these fur-bear-
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