USA > Iowa > Jackson County > History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I > Part 70
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Richard Harrison was born March 18, 1801, in Sussex county, Virginia. In 1817 moved to Kentucky, thence to Tennessee. In 1832, to Rock Island; in 1836, to Rockingham, Iowa; in 1859, to Bellevue, where he spent the remain- der of his life, having passed the century mark before his death.
Chas. A. Harrington was born April 16, 1818, in Middlesex, Vermont. Came to Jackson county in 1841 ; was a brother of Anson Harrington, who came to Bellevue in 1838, and was very prominent in the early history of county.
Amosa S. Fanning, born August 1, 1845, in Galena. In 1851 came to Bellevue. In 1863, enlisted in Company H, Fifth Iowa Volunteer Cavalry ; served to the end of the war ; came back to Bellevue and engaged in sawmill business.
W. O. Evans, for many years editor and proprietor of the Bellevue Leader, was born near Grafton, Illinois, August 28, 1838. Came to Jackson county in
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1845; engaged in farming until 1860, then went to Pike's Peak; returned in 1862 to Galena, Illinois, raised one company and was captain of Company E, One Hundred and Fortieth Iowa Volunteer Infantry. When the regiment was organized he received the commission of major; was discharged October 29, 1864; came to Bellevue and bought the Jackson County Leader, changing the name to Bellevue Leader, which he conducted with great ability, being one of the best editorial writers in the county.
Benjamin Evans was born February, 1819, in Clinton county, Ohio. Came to Jackson county in 1843. Pioneer.
Henry Ernest was born October II, 1810, in Prussia. In 1842 came to Jackson county. He owned a large tract of land and resided in Bellevue for many years.
Wm. Dyas was born in Ireland, in 1814. Came to what is now Jackson county in 1833. He died in 1875; was one of the very earliest settlers in Jackson county.
A. J. Dorchester, born in 1827, Jefferson county, New York. Came to Bellevue in 1853, and engaged with E. G. Potter in milling until 1870, when Mr. Potter retired from the firm. He married in 1860, Miss Illinois Carpenter, a niece of the wife of ex-Governor Briggs, the first governor of Iowa.
Myron Collins, born in Allegany county, New York, came to .Bellevue in an early day, engaged in brick manufacture in 1852 which he followed for seven years ; at different times conducted livery barn ; sold agricultural imple- ments ; was deputy sheriff four years, and county commissioner four years, and was famous as an auctioneer. He married in January, 1854, Elizabeth Milar; she was born in Illinois. They had five children; one son, Dr. Chas. Collins, now a resident of Maquoketa.
John C. Campbell, born June 4, 1850, in Bellevue township; he attended the public schools in Richland township until eighteen years old, then taught school a few years. In 1873 went to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin ; attended St. John's College three terms, then returned to Bellevue ; studied law with D. A. Wynkoop; was admitted to practice in March, 1879. He has been postmaster for several terms and holds that station at the present time.
John Blush was born in Switzerland, July 8, 1825. Came to Bellevue in 1847; engaged in manufacture of brick; during the war was in the quarter- master department of the Army of the Cumberland, and with a construction corps at Nashville under Captain Netles; served one year.
Mrs. M. A. Barret was born in Bellevue, December 24, 1842; was dealer in millinery and dress trimmings and making, on Front street, Bellevue, many years.
THE BELLEVUE HOMECOMING. (From Bellevue Leader of August 22, 1907.)
At last the eventful week has arrived. The Bellevue Homecoming is now a magnificent reality. Hundreds of former residents from all portions of this fair land of ours, from Canada and from Mexico, throng the city and form a part of this representative gathering of men and women and children. This celebration is positively the greatest event in Bellevue's history. Nothing to equal it in importance has ever occurred in our midst and supreme joy marks the occasion. Every train reaching the city is filled with homecomers and the scenes enacted at the local station and on the streets as friends and relatives who have not met each other within ten, twenty, thirty, forty, yea, even fifty years, meet again have been both joyful and pathetic.
The old town is gaily and proudly decorated for the occasion, music fills the air. It is a gay and happy throng which has taken possession of their former home, fully five hundred homecomers and multitudes of visitors from the surrounding towns being in the city. Providence has smiled upon the occa-
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sion, and the weather has been ideal. Accommodations have been provided for everybody. Nothing is lacking to make the reunion an unqualified success.
. With the arrival of the famous Strasser Military Band, of Davenport, on Tuesday morning, the festivities began. Exercises were held in the afternoon in the beautiful public school ground. Mayor George Schlatter presided. J. C. Campbell, in well chosen words, delivered the address of welcome and turned over the keys of the city to the homecomers and visitors. Hon. Wm. Graham, of Dubuque, followed with a historical address which the Leader prints in full in this issue. Sidney Smith, originator of the Bellevue Home- coming, was called out of the crowd and made a rattling good impromptu speech, while J. C. Murray, of Maquoketa, upon previous invitation of the speakers' committee, closed the exercises with one of his characteristic ad- dresses. The program was interspersed with several high class selections from the Strasser band.
After the exercises several hundred homecomers and others departed on the excursion steamer "J. S." for a trip to Dubuque and return, and this afforded not only a delightful ride on the river but a splendid opportunity for social converse and a discussion of incidents of former days.
A splendid feature of the homecoming is that the formality has been scat- tered to the four winds. Everybody is making the most of this remarkable reunion and all are on an equal footing. This pleasing feature has been fre- quently and favorably commented upon. It is safe to predict that no one will leave Bellevue with any regret for having attended the homecoming celebra- tion, and it is sure to live long within the memory of every participant.
A splendid list of attractions has been provided for the entertainment of our guests. Besides the Strasser band, we have the Flying Baldwins, the world's greatest aerialists, and the pike with its numerous shows, including the wonderful Keetch family, Brandon's Gilt-edge vaudeville entertainers, the electric theatre and Bachman's glass blowers.
HISTORICAL ADDRESS BY HON. WILLIAM GRAIIAM. (From Bellevue Leader, August 22, 1907.)
When Mr. Campbell invited me to address you on this occasion I asked him for my text; he said I could talk on any subject politic. So I suppose I may discourse freely on philosophy, political economy or religion. I am inclined to think, however, that most of you would be better suited if I fol- lowed the example of the minister whose church the colonel of the First Iowa Infantry was recommended to attend. He had been annoyed at the preaching of politics in his own church, and was expressing himself to that effect quite forcibly, when Colonel Dave Wilson said to him, "Bates, you ought to come over to our church; we've got a minister who never meddles with either poli- tics or religion."
I have always had a warm affection for Bellevue, and when I first climbed its bluffs, and took in the glorious panorama of river, hills, woodland and distant prairie, I could realize in some measure the feelings of the first French- man who climbed to the top of the north bluff. No wonder that he burst forth with the exclamation, Belle-view. It was here I first began the practice of my chosen profession. It was here I brought the bride of my youth, here my first children were born, and here, too, we laid the earliest of them to sleep until the morning of the resurrection. Here I first entered into the strife of business and politics, and it was not on my own account, but on account of the health of another dearer than myself, that I reluctantly changed my residence to another locality. I have always visited it with pleasure and shall always retain the feeling that it was once my home.
It is said that old men are apt to grow garrulous and reminiscent with ad- vancing years. Now, both my friend Hyler and myself still plead guilty to
HON. WILLIAM GRAHAM
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being young. So as politics are barred, religion a theme too sacred to be lightly touched on, and political economy too dry for an occasion like this, I believe I will indulge in some reminiscences of the people I knew after my first coming here, over half a century ago.
The day fixed for Bellevue's homecoming coincides nearly with the anni- versary of my advent into that town. Fifty-one years ago last Sunday I came down from Dubuque on the "Royal Arch" enjoying greatly my first trip on the Father of Waters. On the boat I fell into conversation with a young fellow who was on his way to Kansas, being one of the recruits picked up for Jim Lane's Jayhawkers, who were contesting with the Border Ruffians of Missouri for the possession of bleeding Kansas.
He gave me a vivid description of the town for which I was bound, saying, "Bellevue is a pretty damn awfully bluffy place," a new kind of expression to my ears. I reached the levee then in course of construction, about half past 10 o'clock, and having seen my trunk safely to the Sublette house, I inquired my way to Judge Booth's, his family being the only persons in town I had ever seen before. Judge Booth was probably the most prominent, as well as pic- turesque, person in the town at that time. He had been judge and surrogate in New York before coming west, and was a member of the old Albany Regency, so well known in the political history of that state, and had been for one year district judge in Iowa. He was a sound and able lawyer, and a man of untiring industry. I became his partner after my admission to the bar here, and our partnership continued until his death.
I think I knew him as thoroughly as any one ever did, and although his manners were peculiar, and his expressions quaint, and he never was popular with people generally, I will say of him that few men ever possessed a kinder heart, few have ever been more ready to make sacrifices for his friends, or were more upright in their lives.
That afternoon I accompanied the judge to his office and met his son-in- law, William T. Wynkoop, and his partner, B. W. Seaward, who still survives and is still in business. I think Mr. Wynkoop was one of the most upright men I ever met. As I heard a lady say of him, "You might send a child to his store for an article of any kind, and he would wait on him with the same cour- tesy, and give him as good a bargain as the most experienced buyer in the country could get." I do not think anyone ever doubted his word. I also met John C. Foley, a man of education, and of large business experience. He was a grain dealer, but was one of those men unduly optimistic when the market was in his favor, and unduly depressed when it went against him, and as a result he often bought when he ought to have sold, and would sell when he ought to have kept his grain. Had his mind been better balanced he would have left a larger estate when he joined the silent majority a few years later.
Captain E. G. Potter was the largest property holder in the county then, as he was for some years afterwards. I met him within a day or two of my arri- val, and our firm transacted a large amount of business for him during his life. He was in town almost every day, and almost as frequently in our office. A very well balanced, clear and long headed business man he was. The Jasper mills, which he owned, were managed by the Little Captain, as his German neighbors called his son Byron, and Jack Dorchester.
Just at that time he and W. T. Hayes (afterwards captain of the Fifth Iowa Cavalry) were putting the new saw mill in shape to start up; the beginning of what is now the extensive plant of Dorchester and Hughey. His residence was on Mill Creek nearly five miles from town, to which he had given the name of "Paradise." He told me one day that it was in the spring of the year when he came here with his family, and with the ox teams they moved out their furniture, and the mud was so deep that they were all day making the trip, and he called his place "Paradise" because he had to go through purgatory to get there.
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Kilborn & Woods, and Charles Barroll, Wynkoop & Seaward and M. G. Hyler were the principal dry goods and grocery merchants, the last named being still in business and but a short distance from where he kept then, and is almost as vigorous now as he was then. I am told that the wild duck manifests even a greater aversion in getting in front of the business end of a gun than it did fifty years ago. Mr. Woods spent the last years of his life in Cedar Rapids. Kilborn was a man of ability and of great executive force. He wore a large sized hat and had brains enough under it for a secretary of treasury.
The Hughey Brothers, John C. and Robert M., kept a hardware store next to Wynkoop and Seaward, and were upright dealers. Men of cleaner lives it has never been my fortune to meet, and they were indeed pillars in the churches to which they respectively belonged.
A little German named Ramharter kept a little store on the corner opposite where Week's hotel is. He failed a year or two afterward, the only failure in Bellevue resulting from the panic of 1857. On the other corner, Pace had just laid the foundations of his drug store. John Weston was engaged in building the levee and Eli Cole had just gone to Pittsburg to be married. Wilson Reeves followed on the same errand a few weeks later.
Adam Schaub, the baker, occupied the old Brown hotel, the scene of the Bellevue war, and the north side of the old frame building was as full of holes made by the rifle bullets of the attacking party as the top of a pepperbox. John Bauman had a monopoly of the harness trade, and Fisher's gun shop was the place where sportsmen resorted.
Old Jasper Phillips did a smashing business in groceries with Pete Shiplor, and old Captain Henry Weber, as his clerks, in the south end of the Kennedy (afterwards Anderson) block. The postoffice was kept in the brick row north of the Sublett house. The postmaster was John Foley. He was one of the very early settlers in Iowa and entered the first piece of land in Jackson county, and had been a member of one of the early territorial legislatures. He died while in office and was succeeded by Geo. W. McNulty, who held the office (except during Andy Johnson's administration when it was filled by W. T. Wynkoop) until the first Cleveland administration.
When I arrived in Bellevue, McNulty was proprietor of the Sublett house, afterward the Bower house, still later the Conklin hotel. I made my home there for the first five months I lived in this town, and also for the last five months. When I applied for quarters there, and inquired the amount I would be expected to pay, I was sufficiently astonished to learn that the extravagant sum of two dollars per week would liquidate all demands. And in those days chicken fixin's were only common doin's. Prairie chicken, pheasant, quail and partridges were frequent in their appearance, to say nothing of an occasional wild turkey, channel cats, and salmon pike. In those days tenderloin roasts were not infrequent, and venison in season was exceedingly toothsome.
Bellevue was at that time the county seat and the court house answered several purposes. District court was held twice a year, in May and September ; county court on the first Monday of every month, and when no court was in session the court room was used for school purposes, while the treasurer, who was also recorder, occupied the north wing, and the clerk and sheriff the south wing, and the county judge had his office in the basement of the south wing. Judge Spurr was county judge; J. M. Brakey, clerk, and his brother James, an excellent scribe, was his deputy. John Pope was treasurer and Jeremiah Bettis was his deputy and recorder. A newspaper office occupied the middle room of the first floor, and the Masonic order had their quarters in the attic.
The legal fraternity was represented by Judge Booth, Dan Spurr, the county judge, Joseph Kelso, who succeeded him the next year, Fred Bangs, who a few days before had been elected prosecuting attorney, William A. Maginnis, who had just given way to Bangs. Spurr removed to California a few years after and about ten years afterwards Bangs removed to the western part of Iowa. Judge
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Kelso and the genial Maginnis who served one term as senator, spent the rest of their lives in Bellevue, the former of whom engaged in the more profitable busi- ness of banking. He was slow and methodical while in the practice of law, but he could see a dollar profit in a matter as quick as Ben Seaward, and that is say- ing a good deal.
Eugene Cowles was studying with Spurr, and he and I were admitted to the bar on the same day, in September following. He became the partner of Judge Spurr, and I of Judge Booth. Of all these I am the sole survivor, and in fact of all who were members of the Jackson county bar at that time except Deacon Fletcher of Maquoketa, and Judge Darling, who within two years has gone to Arkansas, to take up a new lease of life and open up a new line of practice.
The physicians practicing in Bellevue at the time of my arrival were Drs. Law- rence Miller, John W. Cowden, Preston L. Lake and J. S. Graham. The last of these confined himself principally to his drug store, and Dr. Lake soon after moved to Maquoketa. Dr. Cowden spent the next winter in the medical college at Chicago, and returning entered upon an extensive and successful practice, and removed to Rock Island, where he died a few years ago. Dr. Miller spent his whole professional life in Bellevue and is still remembered by a great many of you. I have seen few physicians more skillful in diagnosis, or more successful in allaying suffering. He had no sympathy for a man who would make a great fuss over a slight ailment, but was tender and gentle as a woman in a sickroom where a child or a woman was enduring real suffering. He was full of practical jokes on his associates of the sterner sex. I wonder if there is anyone here who recalls the Washington Birth Night Ball at George Jonas' when the ladies had to do all the dancing by themselves because their masculine partners, when they went up to the doctor's office to sample the contents of their pocket flasks, after filching a lump of sugar from the dining room, got croton oil instead of oil of wintergreen to disguise the odor of their breaths.
The school in the old courthouse was presided over by Edward Ford, who also taught a singing school in the winter. I was one of his scholars. The next year an academy was organized and Henry Severens, a graduate of Middlebury Col- lege, Vermont, and Miss Eliza Cressy, of Massachusetts, were engaged as prin- cipals. The venture was not a success. Mr. Severens became dissatisfied and resigned, and entered the office of Booth and Graham as a student-the first I ever had. He remained but a few months and then returned to Vermont to com- plete his course, and was admitted to the bar. He was a partner of Senator Bur- rows for many years, and was appointed by President Cleveland as judge of the Federal District Court, and afterwards by President Mckinley, without solicita- tion, one of the judges of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. His estate is large and his position assured. Miss Cressy remained in Bellevue and became the wife of Judge Kelso and the mother of Walter and William Kelso.
Some time afterward, while president of the school board, I engaged the late William L. Redmond as teacher, and from that day began the improvement in your schools, which are now among the best in the state.
N. T. Wynkoop was surveyor and engineer. A man of energy and ability who could do almost anything and do it well, and was withal a most pronounced and unmitigated democrat. Andy Reiling was living on his farm on Spruce creek and did not remove to town until the next year. John Gammell owned a large tract of land adjoining the town, and was preparing to build his mill, an enterprise which proved as disastrous as the feud between him and the Potters which lasted through life. The Dyas families had large possessions on the other side of the south bluff, and beyond them the Reeds, Alexander and William H., the latter of whom was twice a member of the legislature, and a man of standing and influence in it. One of his associates who served on several committees with him, told me that William H. Reed possessed more accurate knowledge of school and county matters than any other man in the body, and was very highly regarded and his advice sought after by his fellow members.
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If I remember rightly, the first work I did in Iowa was to draw up a deed from Andrew Kiskaddon to Frank McGovern for his farm in Pinchem Hollow. He and his family just at the time moved into town. I knew them well, and I will say for Mr. Kiskaddon that, though rough in appearance, he was one of nature's gentlemen and had a worthy companion in his wife. Their eldest son after serving in the army settled in Missouri, where he has attained distinction in law, and had he not been on the wrong side of the political fence might per- haps have held a place in the highest court of that state, but as he is here I will allow the prosecuting attorney and senator to speak for himself.
Any mention of the town of Bellevue fifty years ago would be incomplete if it omitted mention of J. B. Bovard, the carpenter. "Stephen Girard" as he was nicknamed until after the raid of John Brown, when he called his own establish- ment "Harper's Ferry," and went by the name of John Brown ever after. Four of his sons served in the army of the union and showed their courage and en- durance both on the battlefield and in prison pen, and besides, his brother William gave his life for the preservation of the Union. And Captain Bockius, the genial and jovial leader who never lost cheerfulness or courage, and was always ready at the call of duty, and Sergeant Mike Maloney, how well I remember his drill- ing the recruits for the Thirty-first Regiment in the old courthouse yard. And sometimes I fancy I hear again John Millar's voice singing, "The Widow Ma- chree." And Myron Collins crying a sale. Neither can I forget Hi Beedle, the veteran pilot of the upper Mississippi, nor George Lindsay, the principal con- tractor and builder, nor B. P. Lambertson, then just entering the wood business which soon brought him a competence, nor his brother Archie, who is with us today, nor his brother Archie Lindsey; and there were others.
If Hood Davis had been granted time to tell all the stories he had stored in his noddle, I think his age would have rivaled that of Methuselah, and John Mun- cey's hits were as sparkling as the burning metal that flew from his anvil. "Judge" Muncey everybody called him, from the dignity with which he presided at a cer- tain mock trial. If I should leave out any mention of George W. Lewis, or Cy- rus Huntoon, or Charley Harrington, old settlers would deny that I lived here at all, and it would not be possible for anyone who lived here in the forty years fol- lowing 1838 not to remember Captain W. A. Warren, sheriff, justice, politician, member of the constitutional convention, and the accomplished quartermaster of the Army of the Tennessee.
But I must stop. I could hardly do more than call the roll of other departed worthies, and of those who still survive William K. Henton is still pounding his anvil, and John McDonald is still in the harness.
These two with Mahlon Hyler and Ben Seaward, are the only ones I can re- call who were men of affairs when I landed in your town. Others who, like our friend David Kelso, were approaching manhood, still survive, but the rest like Don Wynkoop and Had Cowden and the Reed brothers sleep in the silent ceme- teries. Of many I cannot speak for want of time. They served their town and their country well and have passed on to their reward.
When I came here the town was just recovering from the disgrace its early settlers, particularly "Brown's Gang" had brought upon it. I am certain it im- proved while I lived here, thanks to the steadfast, earnest men and consecrated women who lived here, and I am equally sure of its improvement since I left. The average of education is greater, the standard of citizenship is higher, the aim of life nobler, and the demands of morality purer. May your watchwords for the years to come be ever thus, greater, higher, nobler, purer.
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