USA > Iowa > Jackson County > History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I > Part 68
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Hon. John Foley, a participant, had been a member of the first legislature of Wisconsin Territory, and in 1843 was elected to the Iowa territorial house. He was also sheriff of Jackson county, 1853 to 1855, and again in 1859 to 1861.
Captain Wm. A. Warren had been enrolling clerk for the Wisconsin legisla- ture which met at Burlington in 1838. He was appointed sheriff of Jackson county by Governor Lucas in 1839 and held that office under successive territo- rial governors for seven years. He was elected to the constitutional convention of 1857 by the people of Jackson county. He was commissioned by President Lincoln as captain and assistant quartermaster United States Volunteers in 1862 and served in that responsible position for three years, during which time he handled millions of dollars worth of government property. The writer remem- bers meeting him (without knowing, however, what state he was from) when he was quartermaster at the post of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a position of great responsibility. He was a justice of the peace in Bellevue almost continually for over twenty-five years.
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Hon. James K. Moss was at that time, as has been mentioned, postmaster of Bellevue (appointed November 1, 1839), and probate judge of the county (1839-40). He then became clerk of the courts and in 1841 he was elected a member of the territorial house of representatives.
General George G. McDonald had held a commission from President Andrew Jackson as lieutenant of United States Mounted Rangers. He was doorkeeper of the Iowa territorial house for the session of 1839-40, and was commissioned brigadier general of militia by Governor Lucas at the close of that session By an act of the same legislature, he was appointed one of the commissioners to locate the county seat of Jones county. He was county surveyor of Jackson county 1839 to 1843 and also served as clerk of the courts (about 1842) and as county recorder 1842-45. In 1849 as deputy United States surveyor, he had charge of the surveys of nine townships in Allamakee county. General McDonald was twice wounded in the Bellevue fight. He was unable to go on the day previous with his neighbors, the Coxes and Nevills, and, no horse being available, started early in the morning of the Ist of April on foot. He stopped at Butterworths' log cabin about 8 o'clock and proceeded thence to Bellevue. He arrived when the firing had begun, and was just in time to see one of Brown's men step out and level a gun at Colonel Cox. He leaped in front of the Colonel and received the ball in the hip. Soon after he received a slight wound in the wrist. (This information comes from N. B. Butterworth, of Andrew, and from General McDonald's son, R. H. McDonald, of Halstead, Kansas.) The quality of his heroism will be appreciated, too, when we know that his honeymoon was scarcely over, his marriage to Margaret A. Hildreth, at Burlington, having taken place on January 16, 1840. Anson Harrington, who swore out the information by virtue of which the warrant was issued under which Sheriff Warren acted, was elected probate judge at the election of 1840 to succeed James K. Moss. An amendment by Congress to the organic act by which Iowa Territory was organized, was passed March 3, 1839, which authorized the territorial legislature to provide by law for the election of judges of probate, sheriffs, justices of the peace and county surveyors, which officers under the original act were appointed by the governor. The legislature of 1839-40 provided that the officers thus named should be elected by the people of the county at the general election of 1840. This limited the term of Judge Moss, and he was appointed at its expira- tion clerk of the courts by the district judge. (Clerks were not elected by the people for several years afterward; I think not under the territorial government at all.) Then Moss in 1841 was elected to the legislature and John G. McDonald succeeded him as clerk.
Lieutenant James L. Kirkpatrick, the Black Hawk war soldier, was county attorney at the time, and in 1846 became one of the board of county commis- sioners. Rev. J. S. Kirkpatrick was not engaged in the attack but was an undoubted sympathizer. He was appointed special sheriff at the term of court held. soon after the event and selected a new grand jury to investigate the matter. He was elected to the territorial council at the election of 1840, and in 1844 was elected a member of the first constitutional convention of Iowa. Colonel Samuel W. Durham, who was a fellow member of that convention, says of him in a recent address before the Linn County Historical Society at Cedar Rapids :
"Rev. Scott Kirkpatrick, of Jackson county, an Illinoisan, was the largest and tallest and jolliest member and a good speaker." N. B. Butterworth says he was about six foot four, and that he could perform the feat of lifting a barrel of lead mineral. Anson Wilson's interview, published in these annals, mentions his engagement as the Fourth of July speaker in that summer of 1840.
Hon. William Morden was not present on the Ist of April, as far as we know, but he had advised and helped plan the movement. He was at that time one of the board of three county commissioners, and in 1844 became a colleague of Scott Kirkpatrick in the first constitutional convention. He was also in 1856 elected a member of the Sixth Iowa General Assembly.
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Geo. Watkins, who was a participant, succeeded Morden as one of the county commissioners in the election of 1840, and his son, James Watkins, also a partic- ipant, was sheriff of Jackson county from 1847 to 1853, and from 1855 to 1857 and from 1861 to 1865.
Dr. Enoch A. Wood, of Sabula, (then Charleston) was also one of the county commissioners. He was not present, but in a letter, written in 1879 and published in the Jackson county history, he says, "I know of my personal knowledge that they (Brown and his clan) were guilty of committing many crimes and misdemeanors, and I justify the steps taken by the representative men of the county who drove them from our midst."
John Howe was county recorder at the time and John T. Sublett county treasurer, and both were participants-Sublett particularly active.
Mr. Berry's letter says that it was reported that every one of the grand jury summoned for the next term of court was acting with the "mob" except Brown and he was killed. This was probably very near the truth. We can find the names of David A. Bates, H. G. Magoon, Thos. J. Parks, Thos. Sublett, V. G. Smith, J. L. Kirkpatrick, John D. Bell, John Stickley, Nicholas Jefferson among those drawn upon juries about that time.
Thus it appears that within the ranks, or aiding and abetting, this "most infamous mob" of "brutish beasts" were legislators present and prospective of two territories and two states, three who helped frame constitutions for Iowa, the probate judge, sheriff, recorder, treasurer, clerk of courts, surveyor and coroner of the county, with two of the county commissioners advising and consent- ing, and nearly all of the panel of grand jurors. There were also two militia of- ficers, one man who became probate judge, two who became sheriffs, a prospective recorder, clerk and county commissioner. Surely a body of men who did not need instruction from the hysterical Berry, nor even from the honorable Colonel John King, postmaster and first chief justice of Dubuque county.
The brave men who lost their lives in their desperate effort to enforce obedience to the mandate of law, were all men of high character, respectable, honest, law abiding citizens. Henderson Palmer, and I think, John Brink, lived in Bellevue ; John Maxwell, Andrew Farley and William Vaughn were farmers. The version given by Jo Henry of the part taken by Andrew Farley was a profound surprise, when published in 1897, to the people of the environment in which he had lived. The story told of Captain Warren (told from memory thirty-five years after the event) that Mr. Farley appeared in answer to a summons, was never questioned by his family or the pioneers of Deep Creek neighborhood. I am inclined to believe, however, that as Henry's version implies, he was overtaken by Warren, to the mill at Bellevue, and that he was unarmed, but that he impressed Warren as being in entire sympathy with the movement. I regard it as doubtful whether the Deep Creek settlement was visited by either Cox or Warren, because from what we know of the character and sentiments of Colonel Wyckoff, Samuel Carpenter, Lorin Sprague, David Swaney, Wm. L. Potts and others of that settlement, I do not believe they would have allowed Andrew Farley to go to Bellevue alone if they had known of the call. The desperate character of the conflict and the high grade of marksman- ship displayed by the squirrel hunters on both sides, is well shown by the large number of casualties, especially on the part of the assailants. They received nearly as many bullet wounds in all as the number of Brown's forces. The statement of Henry that there were no more than ten men with Brown in the hotel is manifestly an error. There were three killed and thirteen captured, and Warren says that "Negro Brown and six others made their escape."
Captain Warren wrote, at least, three accounts of the Bellevue war. The first was published in 1865, in the "Loyal West," by Henry Howe in Cincinnati.
Extracts from it are given in a paper by F. Snyder, then editor of the Jackson Sentinel, printed in the Annals of Iowa for April, 1869. Another very long account was published in the Bellevue Leader in 1875, and this is largely quoted
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and partly condensed by the compilers of the Jackson county history, published in 1879. Then in the same history is printed a communication from Captain Warren, written in the fall of 1879, in reply to one signed "Old Settler," of which Mr. Seeley makes mention. All of these were evidently written from memory, and contain some discrepancies in details as Farmer Buckhorn points out. We trust that this renewed discussion of that notable event in the history of Iowa Territory may bring out more light upon its obscure details. The Jack- son County Historical Society will be glad to receive communication from any one knowing facts about it.
Notes-On further investigation I find enrolled as soldiers in Galena companies, during the Black Hawk war, the names of Thomas Sublett, William Vance, James Beaty, and John Stuckey, all of whom are named by Warren as participants in the attack on Brown's hotel. William Vance was badly wounded, being shot in the thigh. Thos. Sublett and Vincent Smith are supposed to be the two whose bullets killed Brown, and it is a curious coincidence that they were comrades in Captain Enoch Duncan's company of Colonel Henry Dodge's regiment in the Black Hawk war. J. L. Kirkpatrick was a lieutenant in the same company, John Foley a sergeant, and William Vance and William Jonas, privates. Another private was Loring Wheeler, afterward an Iowa law maker from Dubuque and later from Dewitt.
My authority for the names of those enrolled in the war is "Record of the service of Illinois soldiers in the Black Hawk war," compiled by Adjutant General Isaac H. Elliott, in 1882. The book was secured by the Boardman Library recently from a second hand store in Chicago.
The Hon. Ebenezer Brigham, mentioned on page 63, and again on page 72 of Mr. Seeley's article, was a former Sangamon county friend and political associate of Colonel Cox. He had removed to the lead mines in 1827, and at the time of his visit to Bellevue was a resident of Blue Mounds, Dane county, Wisconsin territory, and was a member of the Wisconsin territorial legislature. Captain Warren was mistaken in supposing that Brigham and Cox were in the legislature together. They were both territorial law makers but in different territories. The insinuation that Brigham "turned up at the right moment," to help Cox "fix up political fences," is hardly consistent with the good Farmer Buckhorn's usual fairness.
Warren, in writing from memory, must have been somewhat muddled on the date when the caucus was held in which Brown beat Cox out of the legis- lature nomination. It is hardly supposable that it was while the river was frozen over, since the election could not take place until August. Then Buckhorn's con- jecture (page 63), that the election occurred after Brown's death, does not ac- cord with the statements of both Warren and the writer, signing himself a "pioneer" (supposed to be the late Wm. Y. Earle), in the Jackson county his- tory, who both say that Cox ran as an independent candidate against Brown and beat him badly. It is very much to be regretted that no records exist of the votes cast in Jackson county earlier than 1857. We would much like to know who were the imposing candidates and what their votes at all those early elec- tions. James C. Mitchell, the homicide, went to Council Bluffs, at the time of the great California emigration in 1849, and became owner of two stores there, accumulating quite a fortune. We have the testimony of Warren's 1865 ac- count, and again of one written in 1879, corroborated by the letter of "A Pioneer" and by the memory of N. B. Butterworth, that Henderson Palmer was the first man killed in the fight; that he was shot down in the charge before the hotel was reached, and before Brown was shot. Warren's 1875 history reads as though the episode of Brown being called upon to surrender opened the battle, but he makes no mention of how Palmer met his death, so we must conclude that firing began from the hotel, as all of the other accounts state.
The site of this old town was one of natural beauty, and the first point of settlement in the county, and being the seat of justice for several years, it was
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there that history was made, and there that many bloody dramas were enacted. The only story of the darkest page of the history of our county that was pub- lished and is on record was told by W. A. Warren, thirty-five years after the occurrence of the event which he narrated. On account of the diversity of opinions that always existed among the pioneers as to the coloring which Cap- tain Warren gave to the tragedy designated by him as the Bellevue war, and by others as the Bellevue mob. We have given the subject a great deal of thought, and for nearly half a century sought all the light possible to get, on the cause of that bloody encounter. Fifteen years ago we published our version of the events leading up to the affray that was precipitated by Colonel Cox and his friends on the memorable first day of April, 1840, and our version was endorsed by many old pioneers, some of whom witnessed the attack on Brown's hotel, the killing of Brown, and the punishment of those who tried to defend Brown from the mob. We are loath to touch upon this subject again, but we can not entirely endorse Captain Warren's version and will give the story as it was told to us by several people in whose integrity we had always had implicit confidence. One from whom we got most of our information was a relative, and a member of our family for many years, a lady possessed of a very bright mind, a tenacious memory, who was honored and respected by all who knew her and whose truth and veracity was never questioned. She was a resident of Bellevue and its near vicinity from the spring of 1836 and her story was fully corroborated by Chas. Bilto and Joseph Henri, who were eye witnesses to the tragedy of April I, 1840. It was also corroborated by Hon. P. B. Bradley with whom I have often heard my relative discuss the subject when visiting at the Bradley home and at her home.
Many of the first settlers in Bellevue who came from lead mines near Galena, were adventurous spirits who had had some military experience in capturing old Black Hawk and exterminating his starving followers. There were a number of southern people among them and they were endowed with the characteristics of southern people, not excluding the feudist traits peculiar to old Kentucky. The southern people had a strong prejudice against the people from the eastern states ; the writer well remembers with what distrust our people looked upon the "Yankees" as they termed all those coming from the eastern states. A Yankee, as they were termed, who settled among Hoosiers, Kentuckians and Missou- rians, sixty years ago, would have a hard time to get any neighbor to neighbor with him, not that they were not good people, but there was a strong prejudice against them. They appeared more selfish and more self-reliant, they seldom asked for or proferred assistance, while with the southern people, if one neighbor had anything to do that he needed assistance in, all the neighbors turned out to help him. Another thing, the Yankee was much sharper in driving a bargain, and invariably got the best end of the transaction with the southern neighbor. It is not strange to the writer, knowing the distrust and prejudice, and knowing something of the character of the rough and rugged men who first came to Bellevue, that they regarded with suspicion from the start the little colony of educated, refined, well dressed, and with good outfits and good money who came from the east in the spring of 1837, and bought up the choicest lots, built houses, and engaged in business. The member of the colony who became most prominent was Win. W. Brown, who appeared to have both money and credit. He bought the only hotel in the village, which it was claimed was also the only frame build- ing in the territory at the time, and conducted the hotel business himself, and the old settlers who knew him and had stopped at his place said it was the most orderly and best conducted hotel in the country, and that Brown had the reputa- tion of setting the best table, as they expressed it, between Dubuque and New Orleans. Brown also opened a general store and gave credit to everybody. He also in partnership with James Burtis run a meat market, and in the winter hired all the men he could get to cut the wood on an island opposite the village, and had the wood hauled over on the ice and piled up on the bank, while the
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river was frozen over. This wood he sold to the steamboat companies for cash which enabled him to pay for his goods bought on credit. The island from which the wood was cut belonged to the government, hence cost him nothing for the wood except cutting and hauling, and that was largely paid for in trade, board and clothing, etc. Brown's competitors could not understand how he could get the trade, trusting everybody as he did, and keep up, and hinted at dishonest methods. Joe Henri said "that this angered Brown and he retaliated by buying up their paper and making them trouble." The men who worked for Brown and boarded at his hotel frequently got into trouble with the citizens who questioned Brown's business methods, and said hard things about him.
In the spring of 1838, W. W. Brown was a candidate for appointment to the office of sheriff to organize Jackson county, and was said to have a petition to Governor Dodge, signed by every man of prominence in the county, and there is no doubt but what Brown could have got such a petition in 1838. But W. A. Warren was in Burlington at the time the appointment was to be made, and secured the position for himself, and at the first election, in 1838, was elected sheriff, at the same time Thomas Cox was elected to the first territorial assem- bly. Warren was a whig and Cox a democrat.
In the fall or winter of 1839-40 there was a democrat caucus or convention held in Bellevue to select candidates for county offices. Captain Warren, in writing of the event in 1875, says: "Colonel Thomas Cox, who was the war- horse of the democratic party in Jackson county, was apparently the only man talked of (meaning for representative). The balloting was regarded as a mere formality, when to the amazement of Cox and his supporters, W. W. Brown was declared nominated by a vote of two to one. Cox was a very high tempered man and fond of whiskey, which frequently had the better of him. He arose to denounce Brown and his clan. "He declared open war with Brown." Pre- vious to this time he had been one of his strongest allies and had looked upon him as a persecuted man, but he no longer hesitated to call him a base villain, nor did he ever relent his enmity toward him for we will find Cox one of the leaders at the time the "thieves were exterminated." Quoting Warren further, he says, "A decided majority of the town was on Brown's side ;" also says on same page, "Cox was saved from injury by the persuasion of his friends who in- duced him to go to his home." From this time the Bellevue war commenced. Cox declared himself an independent candidate for the legislature and denounced Brown as a leader of rascals, counterfeiters, and horse thieves, and swore he would never rest until he drove him out of the county.
James Mitchell and James Thompson had quarreled and threatened each other after which Mitchel barricaded his house and put two inch oak shutters on his windows. The lines between the factions were drawn closer and the authorities had more than their hands full to prevent open war and bloodshed, which was finally precipitated on in the night of the 8th of January, 1840. The democrats as usual celebrated Jackson day by a grand ball. At that time we find there was a feud on between Cox and Brown, and between Jim Mitchell and Thompson. Cox had sworn to never rest until Brown was driven out of the county, and Bellevue was no longer a safe place for Cox. Mitchell and Thomp- son had threatened each other and it was only a matter of time when they would clash, and it was almost certain when they did, one or both would be killed. When the committees were appointed for the ball Mitchell was made head manager and immediately declared that none of the Brown faction should be invited or admitted to the dance, and Mitchell had his way. The Brown faction was greatly incensed at this slight and no doubt felt vengeful. Some time previous to this James Mitchell and his brother had some difficulty, and James would not allow his brother to come into his house. There was some clothing in a trunk in Mitchell's house that belonged to the brother's wife, but the brother was afraid to go after it. But on the night of the ball it occurred to him it would be a good time to get the clothing, as the family was supposed to be at the dance.
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The brother took a justice of the peace with him to witness that he took nothing that did not belong to him; Thompson, who had been drinking excessively accompanied them, and finding a young lady in bed, who was too ill to attend the dance, insulted her and attempted to assault her; the girl escaped from the drunken wretch and ran in her night clothes in the cold, winter night to the place where the dance was on, and when sufficiently recovered from her fright told of her experience. Mitchell armed himself and started out to avenge the outrage and Thompson, anticipating the consequence of his act, went to a saloon and drank more liquor, and boasted of what he was going to do, and invited those present to come with him and see some fun, but none would go, and his friends tried to persuade him to go away for the present, but he would not listen to them, and started out to hunt Mitchell, Ab. Montgomery following at a safe distance. The night was clear and Mitchell was soon seen approaching from the opposite direction and the two men were plainly visible to each other. When more than a block away, Montgomery shouted a warning to Mitchell, but neither of the men halted or wavered.
Mitchell approached quietly, but the drunken Thompson was swearing and shouting at the top of his voice. When within striking distance both men raised their guns and pulled the triggers. Thompson's gun failed to explode, but the ball from Mitchell's gun penetrated his enemy's heart, causing instant death. Mitchell, still silent, turned and retraced his steps to the ballroom, and told what had occurred, and asked the men who were present to protect him, as he realized that Thompson's friends would seek vengeance. Montgomery, who had witnessed the shooting, hurried away to notify the sheriff, who returned with him and found the dead body of Thompson just as he had fallen. A report of the tragedy rapidly spread and soon a crowd had collected and the friends of Thompson were determined to wreak their vengeance on Mitchell. But Hon. Wm. Morden and other prominent men addressed the excited men and plead with them to go home and let the law take its course. The sheriff told them that Mitchell would be securely guarded and produced when court convened.
The men who were clamoring for revenge on Mitchell finally left, but Warren says, "Brown came back and told him to put a strong guard on the house where Mitchell was to be kept, for the boys being drunk, there was no telling what might happen under the circumstances."
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