History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I, Part 2

Author: Ellis, James Whitcomb, 1848-; Clarke, S. J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 730

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GOVERNMENT.

The government of the state is divided into three separate departments ; the legislative, the executive and the judicial.

The legislative department is vested in a general assembly (by some called the legislature) which consists of a senate and a house of representatives. The general assembly meets at the capitol on the second Monday of January in each odd numbered year; the length of the session is unlimited. The members are elected by the electors of the several districts at the general election held in November previous to the convening of the general assembly. The salary of the members of each general assembly is five hundred and fifty dollars, ir- respective of the number of days they are in session. The senate is composed of fifty members elected from districts containing from one to five counties. They serve for terms of four years each. To be eligible to the office of senator a person must be twenty-five years of age, a male citizen of the United States and resident of the state for one year and of the district he seeks to repre- sent sixty days previous to his election. The lieutenant governor is the pre- siding officer of the senate and as such he appoints all the committees unless it is otherwise provided. The house of representatives consists of one hundred and eight members elected from the several districts into which the state is divided. Each county composes a district and each district is entitled to at least one representative; the nine counties having the greatest population are entitled to two representatives each, but no county is entitled to more than two. To be eligible to the office of representative a person must possess the same qualification as for senator except that of age; any elector twenty-one years of age or more is eligible to be elected representative. The members of the house of representatives choose their own presiding officer who is known as the speaker.

The supreme executive power of the state is vested in the governor who is elected for a term of two years at each general election. To be eligible to the office of governor a person must be thirty years of age, a male citizen of the United States and a resident of the state for two years preceding his election. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the state militia. The lieutenant governor is president of the senate and in case of the death, re- moval or other disability of the governor succeeds to that office. His salary is twice that of a member of the senate or eleven hundred dollars for each regular session of the general assembly. He is elected at the same time as the governor and is required to possess the same qualifications as to age, citizenship, etc. The other principal officers of the state are, the secretary of

HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY

state, auditor of state and treasurer of state, who are each elected at the gen- eral election for terms of two years. Their salaries are two thousand two hun- dred dollars a year each. These three officers, together with the governor, com- pose the executive council and as such each member receives eight hundred dollars in addition to his regular salary. The executive council is a governing body of the state on which many duties are imposed by statute not specifically vested in other officers. It has power, under certain conditions, to remove all the principal appointive officers of the state, to audit most of the expenditures made in pursuance of legislative appropriations, to purchase supplies for all state departments, to assess for taxation the railways, telegraph, telephone and express companies, to canvass the result of primary and general elections for state and district officers, examine or cause to be examined the accounts of various departments of state and attend in a supervisory way to many other affairs of state. In addition to the above officers there is a superintendent of public instruction who is the head of the public school system, and a board of three members known as the railroad commission who supervise the regulation of railroad rates and have supervisory powers over all transportation companies. in the state. The superintendent of public instruction is elected for a term of two years and the members of the railroad commission are elected for terms of four years.

The judicial department consists of a supreme court, twenty district courts, superior courts, justice courts and police courts. The supreme court is composed of six members, each of whom is elected for a term of six years and draws a salary of six thousand dollars a year. There is also elected each two years an attorney general who represents the state before the supreme court in all ac- tions in which the state is a party and renders to the principal state officers upon request, interpretation of the laws. A clerk and a reporter of the supreme court are also elected every four years.

The twenty district courts have fifty-three judges who draw salaries of three thousand five hundred dollars per year each, and are elected for terms of four years.

Each county also elects a county attorney and a clerk of the district court who are officers of the judicial department. They serve for terms of two years each. Cities with a population of four thousand or more may establish superior courts with one judge each. These courts have greater powers than a police court and lesser powers than the district court. The judges are elected for terms of four years and are paid salaries of two thousand dollars each, one-half of which is paid by the county and one-half by the city. Each township elects two justices of the peace who serve for two years each. In cities of the first class where there are no superior courts a police judge is elected every two years at the municipal election. In all other cities and towns the mayor is the pre- siding officer in the police court.

Counties are governed by a board of supervisors consisting of from three to seven members and an auditor, clerk of the district court, recorder, treasurer, superintendent of schools, sheriff, attorney, coroner and surveyor. The terms of the members of the board of supervisors are three years each and of the other county officers two years.

The townships are governed by a board of three trustees, a clerk, an assessor, two constables and two justices of the peace. The terms of the trustees and the other officers are two years each. The justices of the peace and the con- stables are really county officers as their jurisdiction extends over the entire county.

Cities acting under special charter have certain powers which were granted them by the general assembly previous to the present constitution. A com- mission plan of government was authorized by the general assembly of 1906 for cities having a population of twenty-five thousand (this was amended by the Thirty-third General Assembly to include cities having a population of seven thou-

HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY

sand). Cities of the first class have a population of fifteen thousand; cities of the second class less than fifteen thousand and over two thousand; and incor- porations of less than two thousand population are designated towns. Town sites platted and unincorporated are villages. A city of the first class is governed by a council consisting of two aldermen at large and one councilman from each ward, a mayor, solicitor, treasurer, auditor, engineer, assessor and a police judge unless the city has a superior court in which case it elects a judge of the superior court. A city of the second class is governed by a council consisting of two aldermen at large and one councilman from each ward, a mayor, solicitor, treasurer and an assessor and a judge of the superior court if one has been established. The officers serve for two years except the judge of the superior court. A town is governed by a council of five members who are elected for a term of two years and a mayor, treasurer and an assessor who are also elected for terms of two years.

A general election for state, district, county and township officers is held in the even numbered years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Cities of the first and second class and towns hold biennial elections. These elections are held on the last Monday in March. Cities under special charter hold such elections as are provided in their charter and cities under the commission plan of government hold elections biennially. In June of each even numbered year there is held a primary election throughout the state at which the voters of the principal parties choose their candidates for the general elections for state, county, district and township officers.

Registration of voters at the general election and city elections is required in cities of three thousand five hundred or more and at school elections in cities of five thousand or more. A voter must be a male citizen of the United States, twenty-one years of age, a resident of the state six months, of the county sixty days prior to the day of election, and on election day a resident of the voting precinct in which he casts his ballot. In school elections the voter must also be an actual resident of the school district, and in city and town elections he must be a resident of the precinct ten days prior to the day of election.

Women are permitted to vote only on questions of issuing bonds for munic- ipal or school purposes, and for the purpose of borrowing money, or on the question of increasing the tax levy. When they are allowed to vote, separate ballots and ballot boxes are provided and a separate canvass is made.

SCHOOL SYSTEM.

At the head of the public school system of the state is the superintendent of public instruction, who is elected by the electors of the state at each general election. It is his duty to appoint and visit teachers' institutes, construe school laws, decide appeals from the decisions of the county superintendents, to re- port to the auditor of state the school census and to report the transactions of his office to the governor. Each county in the state also elects at each general election a county superintendent of schools. It is his duty to conduct the ex- aminations of teachers, under rules prescribed by law and the educational board of examiners, hold teachers' institutes, visit the schools of his county, re- voke certificates to teach, decide appeals from the actions of the local school boards and to report the school census to the county auditor. The school corporations of the state are divided into two classes, the school township and the independent district. The independent district is also divided into two classes, the city, town or village independent district and the rural independent district. Each of these various districts is governed by a board of directors which in school townships is elected at the annual school election held on the first Monday in March and in the other corporations the boards are elected on the second Monday in March. The number of directors vary with the class of the district, the least number being three and the greatest number seven. The

HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY

school board prescribes rules and regulations and the course of study for the schools, elects the teachers and fixes their salaries, determines the number of schools, selects school sites and erects school buildings, enforces school laws, etc. In city or town districts a school treasurer is elected at the school election ; in the other districts the board of directors elect a treasurer. Each board also elects a secretary.

Licenses to teach in the public schools of the state are issued by the edu- cational board of examiners, the membership of which is composed of the superintendent of public instruction, the president of the state university, the principal of the state teachers' college, and one man and one woman appointed by the governor. This board prepares the questions for the examination of can- didates to teach and also inspects and accredits the colleges of the state, the graduates of which are entitled to teach upon certification. The certificates to teach issued by this board are divided into various classes; first, a diploma for life of the holder ; second, a state certificate, regular or special, for five years; third, a two-year state certificate; fourth, a county certificate of first grade, or special, good for three years; fifth, a second grade certificate good for two years and sixth, a third grade and a provisional certificate good for six months. All the above certificates, excepting the provisional, may be registered and used in any county in the state.

Residents of the state between the ages of five and twenty-one are entitled to free public school privileges and children between the ages of seven and fourteen are required to attend school at least twenty-four weeks each year. The school system of the state is supported from funds derived from direct taxation, from the interest on the permanent school fund, from fines collected for criminal offenses by the courts, and from the sale of bonds for the erection of school buildings.

The permanent school fund which amounted to four million, seven hundred and eighty-one thousand, four hundred and four dollars and forty-six cents on the first day of January, 1909, is derived from the sale of certain lands granted to the state by the United States for the promotion of schools in the state. The principal of this fund the state is required to keep intact under the provisions of its constitution and the interest only is used for the support of the schools. The fund is invested in first mortgage loans on real estate and the rate paid the state for its use of four and one-half per cent. This interest is apportioned by the auditor of state in March and September of each year to the different counties and by the counties to the school districts in proportion as the num- ber of children of school age in the county and the district bears to the total number of children of school age in the state and in the county. The interest collected for the year 1908 was two hundred and fifteen thousand, five hundred and fourteen dollars and forty-six cents which was apportioned at the rate of thirty-one and twenty-four one-hundredths cents per person of school age.

THE INDIAN AND HIS FATE.

Seventy-eight years ago all that part of the great and beautiful state of Iowa of which the county of Jackson is a part was practically terra incognita, a vast wilderness, given over by the Almighty to wild beasts, birds of the air and their masters, the Indians, who roamed the plains and forests at will, claiming and securing an existence from the bounteous hand of nature. Here the deer, buffalo and other fur bearing animals found a habitat, and the many streams gave gen- erously of the palatable fish. The red man had no care for the morrow. No thought came to him that his possessions would ever be disturbed by the pale face. So he continued on in his dreams. The hunt was his daily avocation, broken in upon at intervals by a set-to with a hostile tribe of aborigines, that was always cruel and bloody in its results and added spoils to the victor and captives for torture. He knew not of the future and cared less. But the time was com-

HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY'

ing, was upon him, when he was called upon to make way for a stronger and pro- gressive race of men; when the fair land, that was their birthright and their hunting grounds, resplendent with the gorgeous flower and emerald sod, must yield to the husbandman. The time had come for the buffalo, deer and elk to seek pastures new, that the alluvial soil might be turned to the sun and fed with grain, to yield in their season the richest of harvests.

It is hard for the present generation to realize the rapid pace of civilization on the western continent in the past one hundred years; and when one confines his attention to the advancement of the state of Iowa in the past sixty years, his amazement is all the more intense. Evidences of progress are on every hand as one wends one's way across the beautiful state. Manufacturing plants are springing up hither and yon; magnificent edifices for religious worship point their spires heavenward; schoolhouses, colleges and other places of learning and instruction make the state stand out prominently among her sisters of this great republic. Villages are growing into towns and towns are taking on the dignity of a city government, until today Iowa is noted throughout the Union for the number, beauty and thrift of her towns and cities. The commonwealth is cob- webbed with her telegraph, telephone and railroad lines and all these things above mentioned have been made possible by the thrift, determination and high char- acter of the people who claim citizenship within her borders.

It is conceded by historians who have given the subject deep, thorough and careful research that this country was inhabited by a race of human beings dis- tinct from the red man. But this is beyond the province of this work. The men and women who opened up the state of Iowa to civilization had only the red man to dispute their coming and obstruct their progress; and in that regard some- thing should be recorded in these pages.

So far as the writer can ascertain, the Indians were the first inhabitants of Iowa. For more than one hundred years after Marquette and Joliet had trod the virgin soil of Iowa and admired its fertile plains, not a single settlement had been made or attempted, nor even a trading post established. The whole coun- try remained in the undisputed possession of the native tribes. These tribes fought among themselves and against each other for supremacy and the choicest hunting grounds became the reward for the strongest and most valiant of them.

When Marquette visited this country in 1673, the Illini were a very powerful people and occupied a large portion of the state. But when the country was again visited by the whites, not a remnant of that once powerful tribe remained on the west side of the Mississippi, and Iowa was principally in the possession of the Sacs and Foxes, a war like tribe which, originally two distinct nations, resid- ing in New York and on the St. Lawrence, had gradually fought their way west- ward and united, probably after the Foxes had been driven out of the Fox River country and crossed the Mississippi. The death of Pontiac, a famous Sac chieftain, was made the pretext for war against the Illini, and a fierce and bloody struggle ensued which continued until the Illini were nearly destroyed, and their possessions went into the hands of their victorious foes. The Iowas also occupied a portion of the state, for a time, in common with the Sacs, but they, too, were nearly destroyed by the Sacs and Foxes and in the beautiful land these natives met their equally war like and bloodthirsty enemies, the northern Sioux, with whom they maintained a constant warfare for the possession of the country for a great many years.

In 1803 when, under the administration of Thomas Jefferson, then president of the United States, Louisiana was purchased from Napoleon Bonaparte, em- peror of France, the Sacs, Foxes and Iowas possessed the entire state of Iowa and the two former tribes also occupied most of Illinois. The Sacs had four principal villages, where most of them resided. Their largest and most impor- tant town, from which emanated most of the obstacles encountered by the govern- ment in the extinguishment of Indian titles to land in this region, was on Rock River, near Rock Island; another was on the east bank of the Mississippi, near

HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY

the mouth of Henderson River; the third was at the head of the Des Moines rapids, near the present site of Montrose, and the fourth was near the mouth of the Upper Iowa. The Foxes had three principal villages. One was on the west side of the Mississippi, six miles above the rapids of Rock River ; another was about twelve miles from the river, in the rear of the Dubuque lead mines; and the third was on Turkey River.

The Iowas, at one time identified with the Sacs of Rock River, had with- drawn from them and become a separate tribe. Their principal village was on the Des Moines River, in Van Buren county, on the site where Iowaville now stands. Here the last great battle between the Sacs and Foxes and Iowas was fought, in which Black Hawk, then a young man, commanded one division of the attacking forces. The following account of the battle has been given: Contrary to long established custom of Indian attack, this battle was commenced in the daytime, the attending circumstances justifying this departure from the well- settled usages of Indian warfare. The battlefield was a level river bottom, about four miles in length and two miles wide near the middle, narrowing to a point at either end. The main area of this bottom rises perhaps twenty feet above the river, leaving a narrow strip of low bottom along the shore, covered with trees that belted the prairie on the river side with a thick forest, and the immediate bank of the river was fringed with a dense growth of willows. Near the lower end of this prairie, near the river bank, was situated the Iowa village. About two miles above it and near the middle of the prairie is a mound, covered at the time with a small clump of trees and underbrush growing on its summit. In the rear of this little elevation or mound, lay a belt of wet prairie, covered at that time with a dense growth of rank, coarse grass. Bordering this wet prairie on the north, the country rises abruptly into elevated broken river bluffs, covered with a heavy forest for miles in extent, and in places thickly clustered with under- growth affording convenient shelter for the stealthy approach of an enemy. "Through this forest the Sac and Fox war party made their way by night, and secreted themselves in the tall grass spoken of above, intending to remain in am- bush during the day and make such observations as this near proximity to their intended victims might afford, to aid them in their contemplated attack on the town during the following night. From this situation their spies could take a full survey of the village, and watch every member of the inhabitants, by which means they were soon convinced that the Iowas had no suspicion of their presence.

"At the foot of the mound above mentioned the Iowas had their race course, where they diverted themselves with the excitement of horse racing, and schooled their young warriors in cavalry evolutions. In these exercises mock battles were fought, and the Indian tactics of attack and defense carefully incul- cated, by which means a skill in horsemanship was acquired that is rarely ex- celled. Unfortunately for them, this day was selected for their equestrian sports and, wholly unconscious of the proximity of their foes, the warriors repaired to the race track, leaving most of their arms in the village, and their old men, women and children unprotected.

"Pash-a-popo, who was chief in command of the Sacs and Foxes, perceived at once this state of things afforded for a complete surprise of his now doomed victims, and ordered Black Hawk to file off with his young warriors through the tall grass and gain the cover of the timber, along the river bank, and, with the utmost speed reach the village and commence the battle while he remained with his division in the ambush to make a simultaneous attack on the unarmed men whose attention was engrossed with the excitement of the races. The plan was skillfully laid and dexterously executed. Black Hawk with his forces reached the village undiscovered, and made a furious onslaught upon the defenseless in- habitants by firing one general volley into their midst, and completing the slaughter with the tomahawk and scalping knife, aided by the devouring flames

HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY

with which they enveloped the village as soon as the firebrand could be spread from lodge to lodge.

"On the instant of the report of firearms at the village, the forces under Pash-a-popo leaped from their couchant position in the grass and sprang, tiger like, upon the unarmed Iowas in the midst of their racing sports. The first im- pulse of the latter naturally led them to make the utmost speed towards their arms in the village, and protect, if possible, their wives and children from the attack of their merciless assailants. The distance from the place of attack on the prairie was two miles, and a great number fell in their flight by the bullets and tomahawks of their enemies, who pressed them closely with a running fire the whole way and the survivors only reached their town in time to witness the horrors of its destruction. The whole village was in flames and the dearest ob- jects of their lives lay in slaughtered heaps amidst the devouring element, and the agonizing groans of the dying, mingled with the hideously exulting shouts of the enemy, filled their hearts with maddening despair. Their wives and children who had been spared the general massacre were prisoners and their weapons in the hands of the victorious savage; all that could now be done was to draw off their shattered and defenseless forces, and save as many lives as possible by a retreat across the Des Moines River, which they effected in the best possible man- ner, and took a position among the Soak Creek hills."

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History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I, Part 2

Author: Ellis, James Whitcomb, 1848-; Clarke, S. J., publishing company Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 730

Author: Ellis, James Whitcomb, 1848-; Clarke, S. J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 730