History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I, Part 82

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

USA > Iowa > Jackson County > History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I > Part 82

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).

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informed in this case, either, who led the immigration, but find Joseph E. Shirk, of Lancaster, here in 1850; Captain Adam Gebert, of Schuylkill and the Kauff- mans, of Berks, in 1853; John Trout, of Schuylkill, and James D. Schell, of Berks, in 1848; James and George Edleman, of Berks, in 1855; Samuel Schieb, 1857; and others later. Henry Shellenberger, and Henry Reigart, were from Lebanon : and John C. Wendel. 1842, from Wyoming. Some of the Pennsyl- vania Germans came here after a sojourn in Ohio.

We understand that to be true of the Stamans, Gishes, Hursts (Clinton county ), Ebersoles and Francis Shollenberger, but details were not secured.

OHIO CONTINGENT.

There are many "sporadic" cases of early settlers from Ohio, but few in sufficient numbers from one point to be classed as colonies. A large majority, too, were born in the older states-had only lived temporarily in Ohio. William Morden, a Canadian, has already been mentioned. A racial rarity was Jean Priaulx, an Isle of Guernsey Frenchman, who came here in 1852, from a county in Ohio, in which his countrymen were so plentiful as to give their name, Guern- sey to the county. Others of unusual race origin were the Manxmen, Thomas E. Cannell and Henry Taubman, who arrived from Cleveland, in 1850. The Gor- dons, Charles P., Achilles, William and Erastus C., came from Huron county, in 1842. Zalmon Livermore, a brother-in-law of C. P. Gordon and one of the original town site owners, came earlier from the same part of Ohio, but was born in New York State, as was also true of Ashael Hall (grandfather of Mrs. W. M. Stephens). W. C. Swigart and brother came from Licking county, in 1854; and William Struble, from Trumbull county, the same year. Another very early settler was Thomas Frazier, of Athens county, who acquired land in the Esgate neighborhood. in 1849. The Sackriders, in 1851, were from Dela- ware county; David C. Mishler, 1854, from Akron; Daniel Stephens, 1853, from Carroll, and Thomas Tompkins, 1854, from Lorain. There are, doubt- less, other Ohio people whom we have not traced.'

INDIANA.

The nearest approach to a colony we find from Indiana are from Hendricks, Putnam and Morgan counties, near Indianapolis. They begin with the Flathers brothers-Edward, Thos. S., Willis, and William, in 1842; Joseph Anderson, 1848; Jesse Ellis, 1852; and William Ellis.

They all came from the same neighborhood in Hendricks county, were all related, and had all come from Kentucky to Indiana. George Roush and family, 1854, from Wabash county, and John Woods, in 1850, from Rush county. The latter's brother. Colonel Joseph Jackson Wood, a West Point graduate, came here in 1853, after his resignation from the regular army. Richard Breeden, a Kentuckian, removed from Putnam county, Indiana, to Edgar county, Illinois, in 1819, and from there to this locality, in 1839. Caleb and Shelton Summers, 1846, came from Morgan county, and Asa Davis, 1856, from Decatur. A goodly number of Indiana people have come to this locality since the war.

MICHIGAN.

Some of the earliest settlers in Jackson county had made a short sojourn in Michigan, but none were born there. Dr. Enoch A. Wood, an Ohio man, came to Sabula from near Niles, in 1837; and Morris S. Allen, a New Yorker, from Dewitt, in 1838. The Canadians, Wilson, Currents, Stimpson, Brookfield, and Chandler came here (1839-43) direct from Michigan. William C. Grant, a New Yorker, arrived here from Jackson, in 1846; Dr. D. L. I. Flanders, born in New Hampshire, from Sturgis, in 1848; and Caleb M. Sanborn, a native of Niagara county, New York, also from Sturgis, in 1854.

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TIIE FOREIGN BORN.

From its earliest settlement, Maquoketa has been remarkable for the small proportion of its people who are not of American birth. The first of whom we find any record, are from the north of Ireland. Joseph McCloy came here in 1842, after having lived in New Hampshire nineteen years. John McCaw left County Down, Ireland, in 1846, and settled in Monroe county, New York, until 1855, when he came to Jackson county. John Hannah had lived in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, twenty years when he came here, in 1848. Of the English, Wil- liam Haylock, Sr., came to Fairfield township in 1840, but he had previously lived in Missouri and Illinois, seven years. William Cundill, Sr., and the Wel- ton colony came direct from England in 1850. W. Hockley came here direct from England, in 1855.

The first German to settle here was probably George Dahling, who came from Dubuque in 1855, where he had lived two years, and two years previously in New Orleans. Henry Brookman also came from Dubuque the same year, having lived there four years. The first German to settle south of the Maquoketa River was Henry Lubben, who was lead mining in Dubuque as early as 1835. He came through this locality prospecting in 1837 and finally settled in Mon- mouth township in 1839. The German colony that has spread over Fairfield and Maquoketa townships began to form about 1855. Bohemians began set- tling about Iowa City and from there went into Jones county, at quite an early date. The first, probably, who came to Jackson county, was Francis Sokol, who came directly to Monmouth township through Quebec, in 1856. John Dostal had lived in Iowa City and Jones county before coming here, in 1865. Since the war, the colony of this nationality has attained respectable dimensions.

EARLY SCIIOOLS OF MAQUOKET.1.

According to the best information we have been able to collect from a dozen of those who attended the first term of school taught in the village of Spring- field, as it was then called, the first teacher was Miss Eunice Dennison, a sister of Mrs. Dr. Charles L. Usher; and the school was taught in a log sod covered building erected by J. E. Goodenow and Alfonzo Gowan for a black- smith shop in 1838. The building stood on the east side of Main street, about where the Servatius store is now located, in block 19. Miss Dennison taught the spring term in 1842. Miss Catherine Earle taught the next, or summer term; and Mr. Ebenezer Dorr, who later married Miss Earle, taught the winter term. Mrs. Susan Usher Forbes, in a letter under date of June 30, 1901, said : "When I came to Springfield, now Maquoketa, in 1842, the houses, as I remember them, were a log house, occupied by J. E. Goodenow for a hotel and postoffice, a log house occupied by John Shaw for store and dwelling, and just across the road was a sod covered log house in which my aunt, Miss Dennison, taught the first school taught in Springfield. George Earle, A. J. Phillips, N. O. Rhodes, Mrs. Sarah A. Pangborn Salter, and Mrs. Sophia Shaw Kelso are all agreed as to location of the schoolhouse. The building was made of rough, unhewed logs, chinked up and plastered between the logs with mud, was first covered with slabs split out of oak timber and covered with sod, out of which grass and weeds grew. profusely. In the spring of 1842 there were eighteen or twenty children in the village and vicinity of school age, and the people began to cast about for a teacher and a place to teach in. About that time or prior, two men, John and William Abbey, had come to the village and built a blacksmith shop, and in consequence there was no further use for Mr. Goodenow's building for a shop and he offered to donate it for a schoolhouse, if those interested would fit it up; which proposition was accepted, and a floor was put in and windows, one on each side, made by cutting out a couple of logs and setting in the two parts of sash of a twelve light, six by eight, window side-

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ways, instead of one above the other in the ordinary manner. There was but one door and it was in the end facing the road, which is now Main street, and near the southwest corner. The seats were made by splitting logs in halves, boring holes in the bark side and inserting pegs for legs, leaving the flat surface up. These seats were eight or ten feet long, without back or foot rest; would accommodate from six to ten pupils, according to size, if it could be called an accommodation. The desks on which the scholars practiced writing were made by boring holes in a log the proper height, and driving pegs into the logs and fastening a smooth plank on the pegs. The seats were arranged lengthwise about the room. When the pupils were studying their lessons, they faced inward; and when the time came for practicing writing, they reversed their position and faced outward.

The pupils of the first school taught in Maquoketa were two daughters and a son of John Shaw, Sophia, Laura, and John; Nancy, Serena, Bolivar, Margaret and A. J. Phillips; Mary, Julia, and Phoebe McCloy, Mary, Sarah, and Herbert Pangborn; Sarah Wright, a half sister to Mrs. J. E. Goodenow, Columbus Billips, Henry and Charley Hall, Frank and Matilda Battles, Rhoda Effner, George, Lizzie and Hattie Earl.

Mary McCloy married Pierce Mitchell, Sarah Pangborn married Horace Salter, Mary Pangborn married Fred DeGroush, Herbert Pangborn died before reaching maturity, Sophia Shaw married Judge Joseph Kelso, Laura married John Broeksmit, and the son, John, I think his name was, died when about seventeen; Julia McCloy died young, Phoebe McCloy married Fred Dunham, Helen Wright married Columbus Billips, Henry Hall married a Miss Smith, Nancy Phillips married Joel Higgins, Serena married Alfred Clark, Bolivar married a lady in California, and A. J. married Elizabeth Springer. There might have been other pupils attending the first school taught here, as Mr. Phillips says some of the first families that came to the valley only remained a short time and then moved on to other parts further west. Of the pupils of 1842 named above, there are nine or ten known to be living at this writing; but they are scattered to many states, several being on the Pacific Coast. The first cabin built in what is now the business part of Maquoketa, was built in the fall of 1837, and this cabin and the claim it was built upon became the property of J. E. Goodenow in the spring of 1838. The next cabin was built by Nelson Brown, and the next was a small frame building erected by James Sherman, a carpenter, on lands which he later sold to John Shaw.

The first store in the village was owned and operated by a man by the name of S. M. Marr, who came up from Nauvoo, and after looking over the situation, said if he had a building he would put in a stock of goods here. Goodenow told Marr to go after his goods and there would be a building ready by the time he got back. Goodenow had a new crib which had not been used, and this crib he proceeded to remodel and put shelves in, and when Mr. Marr came back with his stock of goods, the storeroom was ready for him. Mr. A. H. Wilson, who came here in the spring of 1839 and remained, is positive that this was the first store started in the village of Maquoketa, or Springfield, as it was then called. Mr. Wilson is also positive that the cabin occupied by J. E. Goodenow and the Nels Brown cabin and the sod covered cabin that Goodenow had built for a blacksmith shop, were the only cabins in the village in 1839.

An item of history, which is not generally known, came out in a conversation with A. H. Wilson on the 4th of November, 1906, when Mr. Wilson informed me that the first town site in the Maquoketa Valley was made by Nels Brown prior to 1839. That Brown had platted and laid out a town site about where Dostals brewery now stands, and had offered town lots for sale in the east before Goodenow had done any surveying for the present site of Maquoketa. Mr. Wilson recalls a visit he had with Nels Brown in 1839. Brown had invited Wilson to stay over night with him in his cabin in which he bached, and of course he. Brown, was general housekeeper. Wilson says when Brown started

Old sod-covered log house, built by J. W. Goodenow in 1838, for blacksmith shop, later used as school house, meeting house, polling place and town hall. From an original drawing made under the direction of J. W. Ellis, Maquoketa, Iowa

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to get supper, he put some cold water in a kettle and hung it over a fire, and put in some corn meal and sat down to visit while the mush cooked. Wilson says it was the first time he ever saw mush made by putting the meal in cold water, but says it tasted pretty good with sweetened water.

A. H. Wilson says that the first preacher he remembers in the Maquoketa Valley was Simeon Clark. Other early day preachers were Jenkins, Roberts, Weed, and a man from near Sabula, whose name he cannot recall, who occasionally preached here. Amasa Nims and wife thought so well of Rev. Weed that they named a son for him. Rev. William Jenkins, who settled in Perry township in 1839, preached here occasionally. He usually came on horseback with a sheep- skin for saddle.

The first cabin, the one occupied by J. E. Goodenow, stood about where Trout and Mathias' store is. The second cabin, built by Nels Brown, was where Stephens' Bank is; and the frame building, put up by James Sherman, stood about where the First National Bank is. The crib which Goodenow converted into a store room stood where D. H. Anderson's building is, on east side of Main street.

The well dug by Mr. Wilson for J. E. Goodenow in 1839, which was the first well in the village, was dug about where the gutter is now, directly in front of Trout and Mathias' hardware store. As early as 1842 John Shaw had erected a two story log building not far from where Comstock's store is, on west side of Main street. The lower story was used for a general store and the family lived upstairs.

MRS. S. F. KELSO'S REMINISCENCE OF THE OLD SOD COVERED SCHOOLHOUSE.

The building used as the first schoolhouse in Maquoketa was put up for a blacksmith shop, but by whom I do not remember of ever hearing. The first blacksmith shop I remember was Mr. Charles Gordon, on or near the corner of Main and Platt streets. The schoolhouse was of unhewed logs, facing the west, on or very near the northeast corner of what is now the Main and Pleasant streets. It was just thrown out of Mr. Goodenow's field. I remember one day in school we saw a deer standing outside the window. There were two long, low windows, one on each side. A tall person had to stoop slightly on entering the door. On the north was the teacher's rude table or desk, the same on Sunday serving for a pulpit. It was not plastered nor shingled but a board covered roof. In winter sod was laid on to make it warmer, and the sides were banked up nearly as high as the windows. In summer the roof was quite verdant. The desks were a wide board on each side and across east end with three rudely constructed benches in front of same; some extra ones in front of these without desks ; no backs to any of them. But there was no upholdstering, nor more than one or two rocking chairs in any home then.

The first school was in the summer of 1842, taught by Miss Dennison, a sister of Mrs. Dr. Usher, with whom she was visiting. The only distinct incident I remember about the schools, she was a pleasant person; and on the first day, and my first in school, when Helen Wright (Billips) and I were called up to read, she in her seventh year and I in my sixth, she had the spelling book opened to the ab-abs. We read and said nothing, but felt quite humiliated, as we could read quite fluently, having been taught at home. She soon found out our attain- ments. The scholars of that summer, I do not positively remember. Mary McCloy (Mrs. Mitchell), her sister Julia, who died when twelve or thirteen, Maloa Current (Mrs. Henry Taubman), her sister Harriet, deceased, Mary Pangborn (Mrs. Fred DeGrush), her sister Sarah (Mrs. Horace Salter). There were children of Mr. William Phillips, Bolivar, Jackson, Margaret, Nancy and John, living nearly a mile north; children of Mr. John Clark, living a mile east, Catherine, Susan and John. These are the first I recall; while others that attended later in the old schoolhouse, of not a few of them then, were children

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of William Montgomery-Amanda, Melinda, and Thaddeus; of Dominic Johanna -George and sister, Caroline, I think; Jerome Effner, a son of Dr. E. Children of Achilles Gordon-Emily, Sallie, and Stephen; of Abraham Livermore-Julia (Mrs. Wendell) and a brother, Abraham (the name of the oldest I cannot recall), Laura (Mrs. Taubman), Harriet, Aaron, and Hannah Esterbrook; children of Asahel Hall-Henry, Charles, and Edwin, a cousin, also Ormund Plato; the Van Horns-Joseph and Frank; Phebe McCloy (Mrs. Fred Dun- ham) ; William Redmond; Henry Lamsen; Catherine Earl, who became the wife of the first male teacher, Mr. Dorr. There were probably others I do not recall. The winter of 1843-4 I know the room was well filled, for having left my book at home it was sent over by a little brother four years old. He said on going home the teacher asked him to stay. When asked why he did not stay, said there was no room on the board to sit. He was told he could take his little chair and go over if he wished, which he did. The other women teachers were Miss Marcia Nickerson (Mrs. Dr. Hubbard), of Monmouth; Miss Mariette Ester- brooks, Miss Mary Lamson (Mrs. Alonzo Spalding). The summer of 1846 was the last term of school in the old log schoolhouse. I think Mr. Dorr taught two winters. The winter of 1844-45 a Mr. Steen taught perhaps a month. He was not at all liked and Mr. W. P. Bowers took his place. Mr. C. T. Lamsen taught the first school in the brick schoolhouse in 1846-47, and Mr. Bowers the next winter. There was a pond just east of the schoolhouse which afforded a skating place at recess and noon time in winter. There were spelling schools, at which to be the champion one ranked as high in the estimation of the people as the local champion in athletic games at the present day. Wood for fuel was supplied by the patrons of the school. Salaries or wages of teachers, paid by the patrons in proportion to the number of pupils sent, and number of days in attendance. There were debates and temperance meetings in the old schoolhouse. The Methodist Episcopal and Congregational churches were there organized. There were the circuit riders, good, faithful men, sometimes unlettered, as well as others more fully equipped for their work. My mother in the earliest times was often chorister, and my father started the fire Sunday mornings; the family down to the baby was at the services. At first, there were but few hymn books, and the minister lined the hymn, reading two lines at one time. The room was lighted in the evening by candles brought by the liberal hearted.

In the summer of 1842 (June), when my father moved from Bellevue to Maquoketa, Mr. Goodenow's log house stood near on the corner of Main and Platt streets. A log cabin, belonging to a bachelor Brown, near where Mrs. Eliza Reeves' house stands. That eighty was bought by a Mr. Spaulding. Mr. Jason Pangborn's log house, near where the house now stands. My father hewed a log or block house, where the Shaw block stands, but not on the street. These were all that were in the village. Mr. McCloy a mile south, Mr. William Current west, Mr. William Phillips north. My father, having been in the mercantile business for two years in Bellevue, brought his stock of dry goods, groceries, and drugs, and placed them in the front part of the house-the first store-which he continued for a time. There was so much fever and ague, there was a demand for drugs, unless herbs were used. Quinine then came as extract of Peruvian bark, a black, salvy mixture in cups, to be formed into pills. Having been in the drug business previously, my father was prepared to prescribe. The second store was kept by a Mr. Marr, south of Mr. Goodenow's house a few rods. The first frame house, I think, was built by Mr. Livermore.

EARLY SCHOOLS OF MAQUOKETA. By D. A. Fletcher.

The first record of any schools in Maquoketa that I have been able to find, is one, when on call of the then school fund commissioner of Jackson county, one

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Joseph Palmer, a meeting of the citizens of subdistrict No. 7 was held October 30, 1855, in the Congregational church of Maquoketa, of which meeting Pierce Mitchell was secretary. The territory included in this district was what is now the northeastern quarter of the present city. The first census of persons of school age in this subdistrict in May, 1856, numbered eighty-five persons, whose names are given in the record, not one of whom is now living.

The southeastern portion of the town of Maquoketa was organized as sub- district No. I, at a date I am not able to state; but I think at a date earlier than district No. 2, as in 1856 its school was held in a brick schoolhouse on the hillside, on Eliza street in this city. The part of Maquoketa lying west of Main street was known as subdistrict No. I, of South Fork township, and was organized as such probably as early as 1850 or 1851 .. A lot for school purposes was donated to this district by John Shaw, and a ane story brick school- house was erected upon it and school maintained there until as late of 1857 or perhaps 1858. This lot and building was sold in April, 1859, for two hundred dollars.

In May, 1858, these three subdistricts were consolidated into the present Independent District of Maquoketa, the first meeting of the board of directors of the new district being held May 14, 1858. Rev. L. Catlin, then engaged in the hardware business here, was the first president; Charles Rich, an attorney; P. A. Wolff, a brick mason, and William Current, a farmer, constituting a board of directors, and Russel Perham was its secretary. These early school officers had a hard time carrying on the schools under their charge, owing probably in equal parts to the defective school laws then in force, and to the general condition of impecuniosity then prevailing; for as late as August, 1858, the district was out of funds and in debt in the sum of one hundred and nineteen dollars and nine cents.

In 1858 the total contingent expenses of the district for a year were estimated at two hundred and eighty-one dollars and fifty cents, a prominent item of which was fuel which cost, as the record affirms, eighteen "York" shillings or two dollars and twenty-five cents a cord. In September, 1858, the census of the whole district was : males, two hundred and eighteen; females, two hundred and twenty-one; total, four hundred and thirty-nine children of school age. Of these four hundred and thirty-nine children there were only two hundred and eight registered as attending school; and the average attendance was only one hundred and thirty-three. As showing how people die or migrate, I can say, that on a careful examination of this census, only thirty of those children are now living in Maquoketa. The wages of teachers were on a par with the attendance, the school principal receiving but forty dollars per school month, and the other teachers on an average twenty-five dollars and seventy-five cents per month.

As late as 1859, the total tax levied for all funds in this consolidated district was three and one half mills. The names of the two teachers employed for subdistricts I and 2 in 1857 and 1858 were Mrs. Estelle and C. Miller. In the school west of Main street David C. Shaw and R. L. Grosvener taught a part of the time. In the earliest days of our public schools, and to the time of con- solidation of the three subdistricts onto one independent district, by virtue of what was called "The Free School Law," the expense of tuition of pupils was met by a rate bill, the parents or guardians of the pupils attending school being charged pro rata, according to their attendance. The serious defect of this plan of running the schools was this: Although the teachers were employed by the directors at an agreed rate of wages per month, the understanding with the teacher was, first, that the teacher must wait until the end of the term before receiving any part of his salary : because until that time it could not be ascertained how many days each pupil would attend school, and how much the parent must pay ; second, at the end of the term the teacher could not be sure of receiving his full pay, because many parents would be found unable or unwilling to pay. The teacher was thus a creditor of the parents, and an often time bankrupt teachers'

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fund; and the records of those early days disclose great difficulty in paying the teachers the wages due them.

In 1859, the teachers in our schools were O. J. Cowles, C. P. Holmes, C. Miller, L. L. Martin, Miss Hattie Earl, and one D. R. Cowles Of all these teachers and school officers, I am quite sure none are now living. O. J. Cowles became a Methodist minister of some note and died in Connecticut ; C. P. Holmes was a man of great energy and some learning, was for many years judge of the District Court at Des Moines, Iowa, and died there ; L. L. Martin became a good soldier in the war with the south, was promoted to a lieutenancy, and then died of wounds received in battle, in a southern hospital; Miss Hattie Earl became one of the editors and proprietors of the "Stylus," a paper published at Sioux City, Iowa, and died there about a year ago.

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History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I, Part 82

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