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 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38
42
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
no efforts have been made in order to ascertain its whereabouts. In these times, when the real is so astonishing that in many in- stances fiction is eclipsed, it may not be amiss to suggest that in less than five years there would be such finds of gas in the county as would wholly revolutionize the cost of steam power and the manner of the obtainment of fuel. Until then we will wait and see.
In the matter of iron ores, there are none; and as respects the clay for bricks, few localities but are well supplied. Extensive brick manufacturing is profitably carried on at River Sioux, Mondamin, Missouri Valley, Logan, Woodbine, Dunlap and Persia.
AGRICULTURE
Is the chosen means of livelihood of ninety-hundredths of the people of the county at the present day. This, not affording the readiest way to financial greatness, without question, is the most honorable as well as the most certain. The wealthy men of this county to-day are they who have ceaselessly toiled from day to day for the past quarter of a century, at each returning spring preparing the surface of mother earth for the reception of the seed, intended to bring forth the golden harvest, and by careful application to husbandry duty, in the way of proper tillage, have reaped abundant harvests. Farming in 1888 is very different from the farming of 1850 and up to 1860. The little granger of this present age would smile at the simplicity of the imple- ments used in the early days of settlement. Then the present improved fancy gang plow, the double drag, corn planter, har- vester and binder, mower and separator were not known in these parts, but in lieu thereof the old fashioned, wooden mold-board and bull-tongue plow, a crotch of a tree and wooden pins suf- ficed for drag; the corn planter was a man with double team fur- rowing out the rows, a man or woman to drop by hand and then followed boys with great nigger-hoes, or a man with a " go- devil," covering the corn as dropped.
43
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
How many of my readers know what a go-devil is? It was an implement of husbandry made in the following manner, viz .: A straight piece of wood for a beam, three or more feet long; to this was attached two handles, then underneath a strong piece of wood ten to twelve inches in length, morticed into the beam, and to this was securely fastened a single shovel such as was formerly used on a shovel plow. A horse was hitched to this and the man operating the same followed along in the furrow just made by the man with the team, the corn being dropped as aforesaid; this go-devil was raised and lowered so as to strike the soil immediately in front of each hill, so that the same again being lifted covered the corn. These kinds of plows, drags, corn covering machines, as well as the old " Armstrong " mowers and grain cradles would somewhat indicate to the present farmer who never used such implements the difficulties under which farming was carried on in the early days. At that time there was no necessity for the improved machinery of the present day, because there then was only necessity for a sufficiency for local use, and the demands for the product of field or herd did not extend beyond the limits of the immediate neighborhood. The yield then was as great as at the present, per acre, but the limited quantity under cultivation served to supply all demands, except in and during the winter of 1856 and '57, at and during which time there was such an extraordinary fall of snow in the early days of this ever to be remembered winter, that stock could not subsist on the rushes along the Missouri bottoms, and there being little or no hay prepared for stock, the entire corn crop in the county was wholly inadequate to supply provender for the thousands of starving cattle then at the mercy of the storm, wolf, Indian and man. During this winter the entire corn crop of the county was consumed in a great measure in supplying feed for these starving herds, and as a sequence, in the early spring this "king of the slope" was readily sold at $2.50 per bushel. I might be permitted this remark right here: that with
44
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
the railroad facilities which this county now possesses, such a condition of things would not happen, from the fact that relief could now be furnished, which under the old order of things could not be remedied.
What would our young farmers think of tramping out a grist of wheat for milling purposes by using four or six horses, having them go around and around in a circle until the grain was separated from the straw, in order to have a biscuit for break- fast? How many of these young scions of farmer lineage could stand in front of the cylinder of an old chaff-piler and rake away the straw from the machine, and keep this well up for one or two days at a time? How kindly would they take to the old manner of separating the wheat from the chaff and straw, by working an ordinary sheet so as to produce a sufficiency of wind to drive the chaff and straws beyond the pure golden grains? This was, under the circumstances existing at that time, neces- sitated by reason of the fact that this was the means at hand for the accomplishment of the end, and they of the fifties accepted the conditions as readily as they of the present who load into the wagon the well cleaned bushels of wheat, cart the same to the nearest railroad station, sell the same for cash and then at the nearest provision store purchase the fine flour manufactured at the mills at Minneapolis, Dakota or in Kansas. Suppose there was neither railroad nor mill within fifty or a hundred miles of the neighborhood-the last particle of flour or meal had been used for the last breakfast; how ancient would it appear for our people to take an old piece of tin-say six inches by ten inches, perforate the same by the use of some sharp pointed instrument and then attach this to some board or other substance, and this when completed, go to work and by rub- bing over the rough surface of this tin mill, grate a sufficient quantity of corn on the cob to provide for a small family of six or ten, and the usual amount of visitors, say half a dozen-would not this seem a hardship that few would like to undertake in
45
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
these days of advancement? Such was the every day occurrence in this county thirty-six years ago.
As before stated, the old plow, drag, scythe and snath, chaff- piler, corn grater and cradle for cutting grain, are thrown aside, being superseded by the single or gang sulky plow, the nicely constructed and efficient drag, the separator which measures into the half bushel the golden grain, threshed and cleaned from the straw, the mower, which by one man and team of horses sever from the surface of the meadow more grass in one day than four men could by the use of the old " Armstrong mower," in the same time, and then the harvester, which one man operates, doing as much labor in a day by the assistance for four horses attached thereto as could be accomplished by ten or twelve men under the old order of things; then the corn planter which now graces the sheds (or is suffered to stand in the fence corners) of nearly every farm, saves much of the wear and tear of muscle. One man, team, corn-planter and check-row, now places the corn in the ground more precisely than ever was done by hand, and gives to the farmer a chance to place his crop in the ground as fast as he prepares the soil, so that when done plowing, if a favorable season is had, the portion of the field or crop first planted is ready for the plow by the time the planting is finished.
The harvest time, dreaded by all the housewives, no longer ushers in a season of toil, hurry, vexations and unstinted drudg- ery, but in fact scarcely produces any change in the quantum of household duties from that of other ordinary times. The farmer by the use of his harvester and binder quietly severs and binds twelve to sixteen acres of wheat or oats per day, and by the assistance of one or two men, the same is found in shock by the time the day's work is completed. The old-fashioned shovel- plow, which once was supposed to be the embodiment of all that was grand and great in uprooting the belligerent sunflower or glory vine, in the corn field, has been retired on full pay, and the more effective sulky or walking double cultivator substituted in
46
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
its place. This implement of husbandry, in a soil like that in this county, enables one man, if diligent in business, fer- vent in spirit and constantly in the corn field, to success- fully farm forty or fifty acres of corn each season. The young farmer, whose only experience has been the sowing of "wild oats," would be entirely out of his latitude in shouldering a bushel of wheat and evenly scattering the same over the soil so as to feel secure of a good stand, yet while there may be an absence of this early art, there exists a practical knowledge of running a seeder, by the use of which the grain is more evenly distributed on the soil, and accomplished without the break- ing of backbone and cramping of limbs, which was the usual experience of those on whom fell the tasks of sowing after the manner of their fathers.
CORN IS KING,
Within the limits of this county, and not this county alone, but within the limits of the entire Missouri valley, and as far west as the corn belt reaches. By the production of this cereal, the farmer lives, moves and has his financial being. In the cul- tivation and production of corn, there is to the farmer a cer- tainty of livelihood such as no other character of grain affords. This is due to the splendid qualities of the soil for this particular crop. That which fits the soil within the limits of the county, as well as in all'other places like circumstanced, for the production of corn and tame grasses, without any seeming diminution from year to year, is the fact that the soil not only withstands pro- tracted drouths without perceptible lessening of production, but also is proof against the drowning out process, which is the curse of so many localities east and elsewhere. And why is this con- dition ? Because, it is perfectly under-drained in consequence of the porosity and depth of the deposit of which it constitutes a part, and containing no clay, it never becomes "sticky" and never bakes in times of drouth. In the dry or drouthy time moisture is furnished from the constant and ever present dampness under
47
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
the surface of the soil, and when rains come with such constancy and in such abundance, as is sometimes experienced, that which is not carried away by the natural drainage is swallowed up by the porosity of the soil.
The land which in the early days of settlement was thought to be worthless, has proven to be the best for the production of this crop. Then, all that part of the county which lay tangent to the Missouri river was labelled worthless, but since land has become quite valuable in all other parts of the county, this land, which has been made by accretion, or such locations at places which formerly constituted the old Missouri river beds, being improved and rendered arable, has given back to the person cultivating the same a better yield than in any other part of the entire county. In the townships of Cincinnati, Clay and Morgan, that part thereof which during the year 1887 was planted to corn, though the soil was the old river beds or accretions made by the receding of the Missouri river from the Iowa shore, has in many instances yielded eighty to ninety bushels of corn in the ear per acre; while that on the prairie out east from this timber belt, falls short of this twenty or more bushels to the acre.
By referring to the former census of this state, I find that in 1860, the live stock and farm production of this county for that year amounted to $115,837, and that in the year of 1880 the same had increased to the sum of $1,277,995. By the same authority, the farms in the county for the year of 1860 were valued at $29,010, and the farming implements for the same year, at $25,596, and that during the next score of years the farming lands had increased in acreage and value, so that the same is returned at $4,994,438, and the value of implements used at farming at $250,377.
In 1856 the number of bushels of corn raised in the county is reported at 2,644, while the same returns show that for the year 1880 the county produced 4,363,991 bushels, and the year 1884, 4,282,223, being a slight falling off from that of the year 1880.
48
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
The quantity of wheat produced in the county for the year . 1856 is reported at 6,786 bushels, while the census reports show for the year 1884, spring wheat to the number of 232,556 bushels.
The yield of corn within the limits of the county during the year 1887 will not fall short of 6,000,000 bushels; which at the present price of 36 cents a bushel, gives a return to the farmers in clear cash of over $2,000,000. Of this, nearly 2,000,000 bush- els will find its way out of the county by the different railroads, while the balance, viz .: 4,000,000, will be consumed by the farmers' stock, used for purposes of food, and retained for feeding pur- poses for stock during the incoming year. Nearly all the farm- ers feed their corn crop to the pig or steer, and by this manner of disposing of the surplus, get better returns than by market- ing the entire crop; yet this business of raising hogs is attended with many uncertainties, which at the outset is not contem- plated.
There were times in this county when farmers felt like flee- ing the country; times when the production of the vast sand plains northwest and west, in the form of the innumerable clouds of grasshoppers, visited the county, in 1858, 1867, 1871, 1875 1876; but the festive grasshopper, in all his power of destruct- iveness, never caused half the loss to the farmer as the " hog cholera." At different times many of the most extensive farm- ers, they who have given hog-raising their most careful atten- tion, have been compelled to stand quietly by and witness their entire herds swept away by this dreaded disease, without being able to stay the wholesale destruction.
In a country like this, where the little porker or Durham calf is an object of admiration to the farmer, they receive better care than in places where they are not used as sacks in which the product of the country is carried to market.
Mr. Hog, by receiving good care, ripens at the age of ten months or a year, and as soon as such ripening process has taken place
49
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
he affords the owner an opportunity, irrespective of the seasons, to replenish his bank account. Up to 1866 there was only one season in the year when hogs became ripe enough to bring cash, and that was at the first of the winter. This condition has un- dergone a radical change, for now, as above stated, he is in con- dition for market whenever there is sufficient fat and size.
This process of manufacturing corn into lard and muscle re- duces the amount of pounds in the way of shipments, so that in the hog's skin there is placed 200 pounds, which at five cents per pound, would amount to $10; this $10 would represent forty bushels of corn, at twenty-five cents a bushel; and then this corn at seventy pounds to the bushel, would weigh 2,800 pounds; hence, a blind man could readily discover a difference in the way of freightage to the number of 2,600 pounds.
By conversation with the different shippers in the county, also aided, indirectly, by the railroad station agents in the employ of the three roads in the county, I find, as nearly as the facts can be gleaned from this source, that during the past year, com- mencing on the 1st day of September, 1886, and ending on the 1st day of September, 1887, there were shipped from this county 1,150 cars of hogs to the different markets, viz .: Chicago, Omaha, Council Bluffs and Sioux City. Each of these contained on an average sixty-five head, which, for the year last named, would make a showing of 74,750 head; then supposing that each an- imal would average 250 pounds, they altogether would sum up 18,687,500 pounds, which, at four and one-half cents per pound; would indicate an income of $820,937.50 to the county from this one industry.
4
50
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
The different places of shipment, during the time last named, make the following showing, viz .:
Logan 210 cars.
Dunlap.
170 cars.
Woodbine 150 cars.
Mondamin. 160 cars.
Missouri Valley
100 cars.
River Sioux 100 cars.
Modale 80 cars.
California Junction
80 cars.
Persia 80 cars.
This statement would have been backed by the report from the different stations, but this could not be obtained from the rail- roads, from the fact that the several station agents were willing to furnish a statement from the books of the different offices, but were by the orders of the managers of the roads prohibited from so doing. The same is true as to all classes of shipments from the county, respecting the products of the county, which have found outlet over these different roads. Why there should be such reticence on the part of the railroads I cannot conjec- ture, unless they are not desirous that it should be known that from the hog industry of this county alone they are in receipt of the snug little sum of $57,500 per year in the matter of fur- nishing transportation, at the present charge of $50 per car to Chicago.
From the 1st of December, A. D. 1886, to the 1st day of Decem- ber, A. D. 1887, there was shipped from this county 1,535,000 bushels of corn, generally finding consignments to Chicago. The following represents the number of bushels shipped from the different stations, viz .:
Mondamin
240,000
Woodbine. 230,000
Logan
190,000
Dunlap.
200,000
River Sioux 160,000
51
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
Modale.
150,000
Missouri Valley. 120,000
California Junction.
125,000
Persia
120,000
And, as above stated, if the fact be true that this is carried to Chicago by rail at the present prices of transportation of nine- teen cents per hundred, from this matter of the shipment of corn alone from this county, the railroads would take as their share $160,407.50.
Mondamin, in Morgan township, bears away the palm as the largest corn producing neighborhood and market in the county, and well supports the name of " Mondamin," given it by. those who in the employ of the Sioux City & Pacific Railroad Co. had the naming of the towns along their lines. The name is taken from Longfellow's Hiawatha, and very properly and appropriately names the place.
The raising of cattle is next in importance to that of the porker, but within the past three or four years has been attended with financial failure to those engaged therein. This has been occasioned in consequence of feeders paying too high a price for the stock to be fed, the price of corn, the unhappy slides in the market at the time of marketing, and the beef furnished by the extensive cattle ranges in the far West. Those who are conversant with the results of feeding stock here during the time last spoken of, can call to mind very good men who have gone to the wall financially, by indulging in this hazardous undertaking. True, many stock raisers have amassed consider- able fortunes in this undertaking, but they are only such as have raised their own stock, fed the corn produced on their own prem- ises, and thus in spite of any slide in the markets, have acquired a healthy bank account.
The most extensive cattle shipping point in the county at the present, as well as that which has maintained this place in the past, is Dunlap. B. J. Moore and George Moorehead, of this
52
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
place last named, are by far the largest cattle dealers in the county, and have somewhat centralized the shipments at that point.
Unquestionably no man in the county has done so much to to improve the blood of cattle as Alfred Longman, now retired from the business, and residing in the town of Logan; James A. Lusk, B. J. Moore, of Dunlap; H. B. Cox, of Missouri Valley; Patrick Morrow and John T. Coffman, of Raglan; Peter Brady and Stephen King, of Jefferson; and Nelson Boynton of Cal- houn, have all been very efficient in introducing into each respect- ive neighborhood, the best blood of Durhams, Devons and Here- fords. At the present, James McCoid and Frank Dodson, of Logan, are the champions of the Jerseys, yet these are used to a very limited extent at the present. The first to successfully introduce into the county the handsomely squared up Durhams, was William Orr, Esq., who formerly resided on the farm now owned by B. A. Divelbess, of Harris Grove. This gentleman, at one time, I think in 1871, collected a considerable number of the best bred he could obtain, as well as chinking in many a scrub, with handsome form and fatty flanks and made a public sale, and by the use of a little persuasion located near the place of sale, induced such a degree of competition that many of the pur- chasers, on calm reflection, had abundant reason to feel that " blooded " stock had taken a slight advance, if only for one day.
In 1884 there were 271 Durhams, 1 Hereford, 2 Holstein, 21 Jerseys, 5 Black Polled, and 1 Red Polled, all thoroughbred, and of all kinds, 10,125.
In comparing the horned stock and hog of this date with that of 1856, little resemblance remains. The ox, which had his excellent qualities in length of horn, fleetness of foot, and the pointedness of posterior extremities, as well as the porker of that day, which was considered fit for the butcher when one extrem- ity would balance the other, the dividing line being immediately back of the ears, and which could climb trees, thrust his pro-
1
53
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
boscis into the woodpecker holes and subsist on the eggs found therein, have forever passed away, and in place thereof on each farm is found the Durham, Devon, Hereford, Holstein, or bright- eyed Jersey, and for hogs, the Berkshire, Poland-China, and an occasional Chester White.
John Williams of Harris Grove, Benj. Moore of Dunlap, Mr. Silsby of Jackson, Samuel Baird of Dunlap, Fred Luce of Logan, S. A. Roach of Missouri Valley, James Roberts of Lincoln, J. C. Briggs of Missouri Valley, are at present the representa- tive horsemen of the county. The small breeds in use in 1860 have been entirely supplanted by the larger class. Mr. Williams has been very successful in introducing the large Norman, and in the sale thereof has found the business more remunerative than at first anticipated.
Mr. Samuel Baird has given strict attention to the breeding of the Morgan trotting stock, and at present is possessed of a very superior trotter, which up to the present has only begun to make her mark.
Mr. Silsby and Mr. C. F. Luse each possesses a very magnificent horse of the Cleveland Bay stock, which for beauty, far leads all else. These animals cost $1,000 each, and though not the strongest or swiftest, yet they are marvels for beauty and docility.
FRUIT GROWING,
In the early days of the settlement, was thought quite impossible from the fact that but few succeeded in the enterprise, but as they who have learned from experience refer back to the manner in which this industry was attempted by themselves or others, are not surprised that there was quite a total failure in the undertaking. The trees which then were experimented upon were brought from a long distance, and the means then at hand for transportation caused the young trees to be so exposed to the air that they were dead and fit for kindling wood before being re-set in the ground. Another mishap was that they who were attempting to grow an orchard, were at the same time raising a
54
HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY.
herd of young mules or horses, and there never yet has been an individual who could successfully grow an orchard and a herd of mules in the same enclosure. The old rule that the stronger subdues and roots out the weaker held good in this case, for the long-eared non-multiplying mule withered the blast and like Pharoah's lean kine, swallowed up the other.
Mr. John A. Mckinney (now deceased) who while in the flesh resided in Harris Grove, was the first successful apple grower in the county. As early as 1860 he set out an orchard of the healthiest young trees he could obtain, and in the care of the same exercised his best judgment, and demonstrated to the people of the west that apples could be as readily grown here as elsewhere. The trees transplanted by him put on an enormous growth each year, occasioned by the richness and porosity of the soil, and to remedy this extraordinary growth, the soil at and around the roots of each tree was packed as solid, by the use of maul or other instruments, as could be done, and as a sequence, the trees at the commencement of the cold season were so hard- ened, that the frost of the winter did not kill them. This mode of treatment also put the trees to bearing, and from that time on his trees bore splendidly.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.