History of Kossuth County, Iowa, Part 3

Author: Reed, Benjamin F
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 879

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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).

That old chief, Ishtahaba, must have passed out of existence before the days of Sidominadotah and Inkpadutah, for he was not heard of in the raids the Sioux made on the settlers a few years before the time that Major Williams wrote his series of articles that appeared in the Iowa Northwest; but he was very much alive in 1852 when his band attacked Surveyor Talcott. Indians, known as the Little Rock and the Red Tops, are names not employed by most other writers in giving an account of the Indian troubles in northwestern Iowa.

One of the most interesting events in relation to the Indians which pertain to the history of Kossuth county, occurred at Prairie du Chien, in August, 1825.

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It was at that time that a great council between the agents of the government and numerous tribes was held for the purpose of determining the boundary lines to the hunting grounds of these tribes. By the crossing of tribes over into the undefined territory claimed by others, bloody battles had ensued. This was especially the case with the Sioux and the Sacs and Foxes who had long been deadly enemies. Each tribe hated the other far worse than they despised the pale-faces. The administration decided, if possible, to put an end to the strife and entrusted the matter of arrangements to Gov. Lewis Cass of Michigan Ter- ritory and William Clark, commissioner on Indian affairs. In response to the invitations sent out by these two officials to the various chiefs to assemble there at the appointed time to have the boundaries to their hunting grounds adjusted, a large number of savages appeared. One of the principal objects of the council was to have a line agreed upon which should prevent the Sioux from passing over to the south side of it, and the Sacs and Foxes from going over to the north side. The agreement as finally made about the line incidentally affected the title to a portion of the land now in Kossuth county.

Emery Dye has graphically described the great council as follows: "Prairie du Chien was alive with excitement. Governor Cass of Michigan Territory was already there. Not only the village, but the entire banks along the river for miles above and below were covered with high pointed buffalo tents. Horses browsed upon the bluffs in Arabian abandon. Below, tall and warlike Chippewas and Winnebagoes, from Superior and the valley of St. Croix, jostled Menominees, Pottawattamies and Ottawas, from Lake Michigan and Green Bay. Major Tali- ferro from the Falls of St. Anthony made the grand entry with his Sioux and Chippewas, 400 strong, with drums beating and flags flying. Taliferro was very popular with the Sioux-even the squaws said he was 'Weechashtah washtay'- a handsome man. Over from Sault Ste. Marie, the learned agent, Schoolcraft, had brought 150 Chippewas. Keokuk, the watchful Fox, with his Sacs and Foxes was the last to arrive. I.eagued against the Sioux, they had camped on an island below to paint and dress, and came up the Mississippi attired in full war costume singing their battle song. It was a thrilling sight when they came . upon the scene with spears and lances, casting bitter glances at their ancient foe, the Sioux. Nearly nude, with feather war-flags flying, and beating tambourines, the Sacs landed in compact ranks, breathing defiance. From his earliest youth Keokuk had fought the Sioux. Keokuk landed, majestic and frowning, and shook his lance at the Sioux.

"At the signal of a gun every day at ten o'clock, the chiefs assembled. 'Chil- dren,' said Governor Clark to the assembled savages, 'your great father has not sent us here to ask anything from you. We want nothing, not the smallest piece of land. We have come a great way to meet for your good. Your great father, the president, has been informed that war is carried on among his red children- the Sacs and Foxes and Chippewas on one side, and the Sioux on the other, and that the wars of some of you began before any of you were born.' 'Heigh! Heigh!' broke forth the silent smokers. 'Heigh! Heigh !' exclaimed the warriors. 'Heigh! Heigh! echoed the vast impatient concourse around the council. 'Your father thinks there is no cause for the continuation of war between you. There is land enough for you to live and hunt on and animals enough. Why, instead of peaceably following the game and providing for your families, do you send out

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HISTORY OF KOSSUTH COUNTY

war parties to destroy each other? The great spirit made you all of one color and placed you upon the land.

"'Children, your wars have resulted from your having no definite boundaries. You do not know what belongs to you, and your people follow the game onto the lands claimed by other tribes.' 'Heigh! Heigh! Heigh!' responded the Indians. 'Children, you have all assembled under your father's flag. Your are under his protection. Blood must not be spilled here. Whoever injures one of you, in- jures us, and we will punish him as we would punish one of our own people.' 'Heigh! Heigh !' was responded again,

" 'Children,' said General Cass, 'your great father does not want your land. He wants to establish boundaries and peace among you. Your great father has strong limbs and a piercing eye, and an arm that extends from the sea to the Red river. Children, you are hungry. We will adjourn for two hours.' 'Heigh! Heigh! Heigh!' rolled the chorus across the prairie. As to an army, rations were distributed, beef, bread, corn, salt, sugar and tobacco. Each ate, ate, ate, ate, till not a scrap was left to feed a humming bird.

"'I never was at so great a council as this,' said Wabashaw. 'Three thousand were at Prairie du Chien.' 'The Sioux? from the far northwest they said their fathers came-the Tartar cheek was theirs. Wabashaw and his chiefs alone had the Caucausian countenance-three mighty brothers ruled the Sioux in the days of Pontiac-Wabashaw, Red King and Little Crow. Their sons, Wabashaw, Red Wing and Little Crow ruled still. Boundaries? they know not the meaning of the word.' Restless-anxious-sharp-featured Little Crow fixed his piercing hazel eye upon Red Head (Governor Clark). 'Takuwakan!' (that is incomprehensible). "'What does this mean?' exclaimed the Chippewas. 'We are all one people,' sagely observed Mahaska, the Iowa. 'My father, I claim no lands in particular.' 'I never yet have heard that any one had any exclusive right to the soil,' said Chambler, the Ottawa. 'I have a tract of country. It is where I was born and have lived,' said Red Bird, the Winnebago, 'but the Foxes claim it and the Sacs, the Menominees and the Omahas. We use it in common.'

"Red Bird was the handsome Indian, dressed Yankton fashion in white un- soiled deer-skin and scarlet, and glove-fitting moccasins-the dandy of his tribe. The debate grew animated. 'Our tract is so small,' cried the Menominees 'that we cannot turn around without touching our neighbors.' Then every Indian began to describe his boundaries crossing and recrossing each other. That night the parties two by two described their lines, the first step towards civilization. They drew maps on the ground and said 'My hunting ground,' 'and mine,' 'and mine.'

"After days of study the boundary rivers were acknowledged, the belt of wampum was passed and the Pipe of Peace. Every body signed the treaty and all sang, even the girls, the Witcheannas of the Sioux. 'We have buried our bad thoughts in the ashes of the pipe,' said Little Crow. 'I always had good counsel form Governor Clark,' observed Red Wing. 'You put this medal on my neck in 1812,' said Decorah, the Winnebago, 'and when I returned I gave good advice to the young men of the village.' After a fierce controversy and the ranklings of a hun- dred wrongs, the warring tribes laid down their lances and buried the tomahawk. Sacs and Sioux shook hands, the dividing lines were fixed, the chiefs signed and

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HISTORY OF KOSSUTH COUNTY

the tribes were at peace. 'Pray God it may last,' said Governor Clark as his boat went homeward along with the Sacs down the Mississippi."

The agreement was signed by 134 chiefs, by each touching the quill when the cross was made following his name on the document. Of these 26 were Sioux, 12 Sacs, 16 Foxes and 10 lowas. There were present at the council about 400 Sioux, 150 Chippewas and several hundred of the Sacs and Foxes, besides a large representation of the other tribes. Three thousand, all told, were there ac- cording to Emery Dye's statement.

That historic dividing line as agreed upon was described as follows in the treaty : "Commencing at the mouth of the Upper Ioway river on the west bank of the Mississippi and ascending the said Ioway river to its left fork, thence up that fork to its source, thence crossing the fork of the Red Cedar in a direct line to the second or upper fork of the Desmoines river, thence in a direct line to the lower fork of the Calumet river and down that river to its junction with the Missouri."

This line starting as it did in the northeast corner of the state and after run- ning southwesterly into Winneshiek, went nearly due south for some ten or twelve miles, and then turning southwesterly again went straight across the country to the junction of the forks of the Des Moines in Humboldt county. It was the nearest to Kossuth where it passed through Wright some distance north of its center. From the Des Moines river the line turned northwesterly and ran to the lower fork of the Big Sioux, which was then called the Calumet. That part of the line, however, was never regularly surveyed and staked. Conse- quently the 1825 neutral line, as generally understood, was the diagonal line extending from the Mississippi to the Missouri.

That line did about as much good in keeping the tribes separated as a rope of sand would have done in preventing Black Hawk from crossing the Mississippi, or Inkpadutah from making raids upon the settlers in northwestern Iowa. In a short time the Sioux and the Sacs and Foxes were crossing over it and engaging in bloody conflicts as they had done before the council was held. It became evi- dent to the administration that more stringent measures would have to be adopted and enforced. Another council was held at the same place in July, 1830, in which most of the same tribes participated, William Clark and Willoughby Morgan, acting on behalf of the government. There the Sioux were obliged to surrender all their right to a strip of land twenty miles wide extending along the entire north side of the line agreed upon five years before between the Missis- sippi and Missouri. The Sacs and Foxes also gave up to the government a strip of equal width and length on the south side. This strip of land, forty miles in width and extending from river to river, was known as the Neutral Ground. Upon it none of the tribes were permitted to engage in warfare or raise their vil- lages. Neither were the white men allowed to enter upon it to make their homes.

The boundary lines of that historic Neutral Ground were surveyed by Nathan Boone, the deputy U. S. surveyor, in 1832. The southeast corner of Kossuth county was included in the surveyed ground, it being a portion of what the Sioux ceded at the time of the council. The Neutral Ground, of course, had the Des Moines river for its western boundary. The north corner of that end was near where the corners of Kossuth, Palo Alto, Humboldt and Pocahontas come to-

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ALEXANDER BROWN'S CABIN (1855)

WALNUT GROVE FARM, CRESCO

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HISTORY OF KOSSUTH COUNTY

gether, and the south corner was down in Webster county at a point about ten miles north of its south line.

At the close of the Black Hawk war, which began in 1832, the Winnebagoes were forced to cede all their hunting grounds in Wisconsin for a home on this Neutral Ground. Iowa had known but little about that tribe until that time, ex- cept that they had fought many a bloody battle with the Sacs and Foxes. They had lived for many years in the vicinity of Winnebago lake in that state and did not care to live elsewhere. They were a dangerous tribe of savages and had the reputation for being very cruel in warfare. When they took possession of the eastern end of the Neutral Ground they found themselves between fierce tribes eager to engage in battle. On the north the Sioux were watching their chance to make an attack because they were much angered at the government's action in letting any tribe occupy that ground. The Sacs and Foxes on the south also were not satisfied with the arrangement. The Winnebagoes had two principal chiefs who helped to make Iowa history-Decorah and Winneshiek. The tribe seldom came to the western end of the Neutral Ground, but when they did, they encountered the Sioux as they did at Clear lake. They were glad of an oppor- tunity to move to their new home when they ceded their rights to the Neutral Ground to the government, in 1846, and were removed to their reservation north of the St. Peters river in Minnesota.

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CHAPTER III SOME GEOLOGICAL FEATURES

It is the frequent and justified boast of the farmers of Kossuth and neigh- boring counties that they own "deep, rich, black, drift-soil corn land." If that is a superior kind of soil they should be able to answer some of these questions : Where did the soil drift from? How did it drift? When did it drift? Why did it drift? What were the climatic conditions when the drift came? What evidences have we that there was a drift? Did the drift change the general appearance of this section of the country? Was there more than one drift? Of what value was the drift to the owners of the soil of this county? The geologists and scientists, who spend their lives investigating such problems, are the best prepared to inform the public on the general subject under consideration. Even these learned men have been unable to answer some questions put to them con- cerning this matter of the drift.

Almost every farmer has seen on his premises small "nigger heads." one side of which had the appearance of having been turned in a lathe, while the remain- ing surface was rough and irregular. Others were smooth and almost as round as a cannon ball. Some were small in the center like an hour glass, and some that were flat on one side had deep creases cut into them. It is very evident that these stones were not originally formed with these peculiar shapes and marks. They are not natural to this county. They originally were at some distant section of the continent, and were brought here by some powerful agency. That great boulder in the field came there in the same way. "Lone rock" had a long ride before it was dropped in its present location. All of the stones in this region of the boulder variety have a wonderful history which is partly told by the very appearance of the stones themselves. They are mute witnesses of a great his- toric event, but the mystery is gradually yielding to the investigations of not only the geologists but to the ordinary rational mind.

Many have wondered why such a great quantity of polished, rounded stones is found in the valleys along the banks of the streams. Under a great load they were rolled over and over for hundreds of miles until their original, angular shape became as they are now. They are in the valleys because it was there where they were dumped and where they no longer were compelled to roll. Many a farmer has also wondered why in some depressions the boulders are exceedingly numerous, while only a scattering few are found around on the higher ground. The fact is the dumping of all these stones occurred at a time when some por- tion of the great load disappeared and left them there, the stones then causing the depression. Now, let us consider in what this great load consisted, how it was propelled, and what were the effects of the moving load.

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HISTORY OF KOSSUTH COUNTY

These boulders came down from the north on to the land now embraced in Kossuth county during the glacial period-during the age of ice. It is well known that glaciers are rivers of snow, pressed into ice, which move slowly from higher to lower levels. In the warmer climates they are found only on the lofty mountains, but in the far north much of the level land is covered by them. In places like Greenland a sheet of ice almost constantly covers them. One of these glacier rivers is known to exist in the Alps and to be fifteen miles in length : and one is estimated to be fully 1,500 feet thick. One of these mighty rivers of ice moved over this region at one time and as a result not only gave us our boulders but our drift-soit as well.

The snow on the mountain tops and higher regions of the north becoming hundreds of feet deep, became forced into ice by its own weight and by the melt- ing and freezing. The snow kept falling and freezing into ice until the great mass was slowly forced southward on to less elevated regions. At what rate it moved down from the north over this section of country cannot be determined. It must have been very, very slow. It probably did not move in the warmest seasons at the rate of more than fifteen or twenty inches per day, and not more than half that fast during the winter seasons. Some of the glacier rivers in the old world move only a mile in about twenty years. This immense sheet of solid ice extended from the farthest points north down over this section of country to the latitude of Kansas City and St. Louis.

Geologists tell us that as friction held back the outer edges of the glacier, the center crowded somewhat ahead. As the edges ground slowly along rocky ledges and into the sides of mountains great quantities of rock tumbled over on to the mass and was carried along. During the many, many years in which it was coming this way, millions and millions of tons of rock rode along. The rocky ledges over which the glacier slowly passed were torn up and pushed along under the ponderous bulk of ice. As the rock rolled over and over, tens of thousands of times, they became smooth, rounded and polished. Some of the stones that projected from the sides or at the bottom dragged along and wore the outer portions in the fantastic shapes in which they are found on the prairies or in the fields. At times when the glacier followed valleys which made short turns, the huge mass of ice would break in two, then later would be cemented together again. At every break there would be more outer edges to take on board the rock along the way. Thus, for many years, the moving world of ice increased its cargo of stone. Under that great mass of ice streams of water started and the flow was increased by the nielting ice on the southern edge. The heat from the sun causing the breaking to pieces of the southern edge of the ice sheet, the detached portions dropped their load of rock where the pieces melted away. The water settling there started the depressions in the ground so often seen where the "nigger heads" are the most numerous. When the mass broke to allow it to pass down the valleys, the melting away of that portion left the pol- ished boulders along its trail.

When the great glacier moved down from the north no geologist has been able to say, but they all unite in saying that such an event did occur, and that it was thousands and thousands of years ago. They further say that there were several of these glaciers and that a longer period elapsed between some of them than from the last one to the present time. That being the case no one knows

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but another may come when the conditions are such as to start the mass of ice from the northern part of the continent on its way southward. It may be com- ing now, but if it is it will not reach Iowa for thousands of years.

Professor Agassiz, by his investigations, was one among the first to learn the general nature and magnitude of the great glacial sheets that pushed their way down to this section, and to learn how they changed the topography of the country and benefited those who were born centuries and centuries later. The hills, val- leys, river courses, rocks and soil imparted the story of their history to him and thus he became informed about the glacial rivers. Such geologists in our own state as Professors Calvin, McGee, and Leverett, agree with him that Iowa has been entirely submerged in the ocean, and a large part of it buried beneath the mas- sive sheet of moving ice. They have the knowledge that at one time Iowa had a tropical climate and grew the same vegetation that now flourishes in Florida and the other gulf states. They know that the balmy climate changed to one of intense cold. They know that the great moving mountains of ice extended east and west nearly from Vancouver to Boston, at a time when the country south of us was so low that the Gulf of Mexico extended up north nearly as far as St. Louis; and, furthermore, they know that the glacier crushed all animal life over which it passed.

Had there been no glacial epoch the farms in Kossuth would not have their black-loam, drift-soil surface. Neither would Iowa .be the corn pro- ducing state that it is. View the rough, rocky mountain tops and compare that soil with what this county has, and one can have only a faint idea of what the glacier did in making the surface, over which it passed in this section, fertile. The ice mountains pushed the rocky elevations into the deep, narrow gorges, filling the valleys and the rivers and leaving the surface comparatively level. Says Geologist Calvin: "These rivers of ice ground up the rocks over which they moved, and mingled the fresh, rock flour derived from the granites and other crystalline rocks of British America and northern Minnesota with pulverized limestone and shales of more southern regions, and used these rich materials in covering up the bald rocks and leveling the irregular surface of pre-glacial Iowa. Materials are in places hundreds of feet in depth, not oxidized or leached, but retain the carbonates and other soluble constituents that help so much in the growth of plants."

. Evidences of the great drift deposit disappear as one nears Kansas City. The grass and weeds look very different from what they do in this locality. The soil has a redder color and the field crops are less green and thrifty. Nor need one go south to see how far the ice mountain pushed the pulverized rock-soil. Northeastern Iowa, and the adjacent portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, the glacier did not cover, and hence they do not have our black, drift- soil corn land. It pushed a sediment of rocky slime, however, into that region, which rendered the soil fertile, but the hills, valleys and streams are far more numerous than in this region. There they do not have the gentle undulations which are characteristic of the farms in this county.

All progressive farmers should be interested in the history of the formation of the fertile soil of which they are so proud, as well as in knowing how to retain or increase the fertility. There is a reason why the soil is black here and red in the south ; why it is uniformly productive here and not so on the elevated

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portions of Missouri; why the farms here have gently rolling slopes while most of those in Allamakee, Winneshiek, Clayton, Fayette, Dubuque, and Jackson counties have abrupt hillsides and numerous valleys, and why granite boulders are scattered over our prairies while none are to be found in other localities not far away. The mysterious glacier is responsible for these changes.

There is but little else pertaining to the geological features of Kossuth county land that needs considering in this chapter. No mines of either gold, silver, lead. copper or iron have ever been discovered. There are no indications that the mound builders did any of their characteristic work in the county. No building stone of any considerable amount has ever been found except the granite boul- ders that were deposited with the glacial drift. It was believed for many years after the first settlements were made that clay, suitable for making a good quality of brick, was not obtainable, although kilns were burned as early as 1857. Now, however, local factories are turning out a superior article of drain tile from the same clay that once was thought to be worthless. No veins of coal are known to lie beneath the surface of Kossuth county soil. The deepest wells that have been sunk have failed to give evidence of the presence of any such combustible material.

Wood and peat are the only native fuel products of the county that can be obtained. The former is in abundance along the principal streams, and the lat- ter is to be found in great quantities in the marshes on many sections. Notwith- standing its value, the peat industry has never been developed. During the sum- mer of 1867, Prof. C. A. White, the state geologist, visited several of the northern counties in the state for the purpose of informing the citizens where peat beds were located, how deep they were, and how their products could be used for fuel. In Kossuth he found large quantities in various townships, and recorded the greatest depth he found at each of the places examined as follows : 40 acres on section 1, 95-20, 4 feet ; 100 acres on section 16. 96-29, 4 feet : and 200 acres on section 28, 97-28, 7 feet deep. It was his judgment that 250 tons of dry fuel could be procured from every acre of well drained marsh for every foot in depth that the peat extended. Consequently if a peat marsh averages 4 feet thick, an acre would yield 1,000 tous of dry fuel. Through his published report, which followed his examination, he gave our citizens some valuable and interesting information on the general subject, a part of which was as follows:

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History of Kossuth County, Iowa, Part 3

Author: Reed, Benjamin F Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 879

Author: Reed, Benjamin F
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 879