USA > Iowa > Kossuth County > History of Kossuth County, Iowa > Part 79
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CRESCO TOWNSHIP
The township of Cresco has an interesting history and much of it has been told in the chapters treating of the early river settlements on the west side. The legislature in 1855 made the county twelve miles longer on the south than it is now, and the next year the county judge ordered that this southern portion should be known as Humboldt township, and all of what is now this county to be called Algona township. An attempt was made the next spring to organize Cresco township to include a large territory in the southwest corner of the county, but the scattering inhabitants failing to comply with the order, Lewis H. Smith, county judge, in the spring of 1858 ordered in effect that from Al- gona township west of the river should be taken for the township of Cresco its south ten and one-half miles. The election was held at Robt. Brown's log cabin, where Martin Jones is now living, on the first Monday of April, 1858. The officers chosen were James Robertson, Henry Kellogg and Levi Maxwell, trustees ; W. D. Eaton, clerk, and Ben Clark, assessor. It will be observed from these statements that the old Cresco township did not extend as far north by a mile and a half as it does now. The Algona town site being platted in 1856 con- sequently was located in Algona township. That is the reason why Algona to- day is in Algona township instead of being in Cresco where it rightfully belongs. The territory by degrees was taken away from around the town site for other townships, until the original township is now only just the size of the incorpora- tion and no larger.
Within the limits of the present township are many points of historical in- terest. The camp of the government surveyors was located on the northeast quarter of section 15, and was robbed by the Indians, July 2, 1854, and the party frightened away. Judge and Ambrose A. Call walked over this spot eight days later after they had selected the town site and the latter had taken his claim. On section 14, about twenty rods northwest of the Chubb farm house, Ambrose A. Call returned on July 26 and camped with his hired man. There the first cabin was raised August 8, and there the two began baching all alone. August 27. came several families. Malachi Clark settled in the M. D. L. Parsons grove, and his son William G. at the grove adjoining on the south. Billy Hill claimed the tract where the camp was robbed, Daniel Hill where Alex Brown lives, and Levi Maxwell the old Robe place and the one just east belonging to Mrs. Mary J. Clarke. In this crowd were several women and children, the first in the county. On the 26th of Sept. the first death occurred at the Call cabin, a preacher by the name of Mahuren being the victim of disease. November 4, Judge Call arrived at the cabin from the south with Mrs. Call, and on the 24th of that month W. H. Ingham and D. E. Stine came to the cabin on horseback
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and took lodging. Three days later these two visitors, after chasing an elk for several hours, killed it near the center of this township, the fatal shot being fired by Capt. Ingham. This was the first of that kind of game known to have been killed by any white man. Charley Easton came that winter and lived in a cave on the tract where Wm. Galbraith's farm is located.
In the spring of 1855 Billy Hill sold to Dr. Craw and he then soon sold to Charles Osgood; Daniel Hill sold to Alex Brown, the grandfather of the present occupant ; and the latter's father also located near by that spring. Barney Hol- land bought out Malachi Clark and Jason Richmond the one belonging to W. G. Clark. Dr. Cogley in June bought Maxwell's claim and John Johnson became the owner of Easton's. Robert Brown in May located on the hill where the Martin Jones house stands.
In July, 1855, a renegade band of Sioux raided the settlement and created much excitement. The story of this raid has already been told in preceding chapters. Stephen Millen located on the present Judge Quarton farm in that spring, and John Hutchinson also located in the township about the same time.
Henry Kellogg located on the south half of section 26 during the year 1856, although he had been here the year previous. He laid out the town of Cresco but the plat was not filed on record until Sept., 1858. The lone tree sprang up on his onion patch. W. D. Eaton, his son-in-law, claimed that year on the northeast quarter of section 34. The three Magoons-Jesse, John and Charles, dodged around taking claims here and there and finally the latter two lived for a while west of the river on what is now Capt. Ingham's pasture on section 3.
The first birth occurred Feb. 4, 1856, when Lizzie Hutchinson was born. She is now Mrs. Matt. Reibhoff. The first wedding took place when W. D. Eaton married Nancy Kellogg in December, 1857. About a year later Jennie Brown (Altwegg) taught the first school in a cabin near her home.
The grove where Leroy Bowen's farm residence is was claimed and occu- pied by James Robertson in 1855. He built one of the best log cabins in the township and it stood long after the war, and was a conspicuous sight on the edge of the timber. Dr. Lathrop lived there in 1860 when he was elected one of the first supervisors, and Abiather Hull was also living there when he enlisted in the army in the fall of 1862.
The pioneer cabins in the township have at last disappeared. The last to go was the old Alex Brown home built in 1855. It had been photographed many times before the cabin was demolished. The cabins of Cogley, Maxwell, Hack- man and Brown were sightly objects when the writer first saw them in 1858. In reaching them on the road from Irvington one had to cross the Indian ford at the river. The Robt. Brown cabin, standing as it did on the top of a hill, could be plainly seen for several miles, and it was in good repair when taken down. The Billy Hill-Osgood cabin disappeared early as did also Ambrose A. Call's. The one belonging to Eaton, later owned by J. R. Armstrong, stood until it rotted down.
John Edwards in the winter of 1857-58, and for some years later, owned the Clark-Holland grove, but it became the property in 1866 of Dr. Parsons, the father of the present owner, M. D. L. Parsons. That historic property now has on it the largest and most valuable apple orchard in the county.
Before the war both John and Hamilton Edwards owned the Walnut Grove
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farm on section 28, and then Seba Norton was there in 1865. Later that tract and much that adjoins it became the property of E. C. Buffum. About the time that Norton was there, J. G. Foster, better known as Big Foot Foster or Gov- ernment Foster, had his home on the northwest quarter of the same section, and Mr. Newville lived on the northeast corner. Mr. Wernert came about that time and bought the tract just north of Foster's and Newville's.
The Christian Hackman farm, now owned by U. G. Arnfelt, has changed owners several times. The cabin was one that was put up in 1855 and was used by him for a home for several years before he married Elizabeth Clark. The grove on the farm was at one time one of the best in that region.
The S. C. Spear farm down by the river in section 25 was the claim first taken by L. L. Treat, one of the Irvington proprietors. It was later the home of the Albert Bush family for several years. J. P. Sharp was an early settler on the northeast quarter of section 26, that is now the home of R. J. Stewart, and south of him A. J. Jones owns the Lone Tree quarter where the town of Cresco was located.
A few rods southwest of the Brown residence the first celebration was held on July 4, 1856, and the flag pole erected for the occasion stood on the prairie, bent like a rain-bow, for nearly a quarter of a century.
Among the substantial settlers of 1866 that came to the township was Samuel Reed of Scotch descent. In order to distinguish him from a pioneer of the same name living in the Irvington community, he was frequently referred to as Uncle Scotch Sammy Reed. He was the father of Mrs. Elizabeth M. Horton, the well known librarian at the county seat. Her brother William took for his homestead the north half of the northwest quarter of section 8, and on that 80 the family lived. There were no neighbors on the east nearer than Algona. In the north- west corner of the township lived at that time the Rickards and the Withams, and A. W. White lived just across the line from them in Union. It was on that Reed homestead where the son-in-law, John Wallace, established the first cheese factory in the county in 1875. and where Samuel Reed, Jr., became in- terested in that line of work to such an extent that he later became the junior member of the firm of Wallace & Reed, the promoters of the first cream- eries in the county. The Lorenzo Witham family located in 1865, Chester Rickards' in 1866 and William Johnson's a few years later.
Henry Hauzerman about the close of the war, after selling his farm in Plum Creek, and then shifting around for several months, located in filth in his claim shanty on the northwest forty of section 22. J. C. Heckart owned the north- west quarter of section 9 and set out the willow hedge and grove, and later H. F. Watson owned it and still later Alex. Younie and then Louise McNutt. That is now the home of the W. H. King family. Anton Bohn captured a good quar- ter in the 70's when he became the owner of the northeast quarter of section 33, and later Jesse Bedell captured his daughter. The southwest quarter of sec- tion 17 was the home of Stephen Sherwood in early days where he carried on the stock business more extensively than any one else in the township. That was an interesting community on section 18 where William Johnson. J. H. Covell, Tom Collinson and Loren E. Potter occupied most of the section for many years after the beginning of the 70's. On 19 the settlement was just as interesting as it contained the homes of the families of Leonard Ayers, Mansmith,
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and Lawrence and Frank Potter. On the west side of section 30 lived S. S. Potter and D. A. and W. H. Baker. The mother of the Baker boys was a set- tler of the latter 60's in that community. Just east of the Baker's lived the fa- mous Charley Pooch who moved from the county in recent years.
David Miller came to that region in 1868 but went away and did not return to locate on the southwest corner of section 20 until 1873. He soon had for his neighbor on the north "Pat" Potter. J. B. Jones on the north half of section 17 began raising pure bred stock in the middle 70's, the first in the township. A mile east of him lived for many years the J. G. Rawson family and on the south- west corner of section 16 was the home of S. W. Millen, a settler prior to the war. The County farm is located on the west side of that section and is now managed by Geo. A. Koch by order of the board. Laird Galbraith in 1870 es- tablished his family on the northwest quarter of 5.
M. A. Sabin on the northwest quarter of section 35 has lived there a long time and is prepared to live longer so far as finances are concerned. Alonzo D. Clark had his home on the southeast corner of section 7, and his son-in-law, H. E. Morgan, preferred to live a mile and a half farther east. On section 6 when Nate Robinson, Chester Rickard, Lorenzo Witham, Jas. A. Kennedy and Mrs. Elizabeth Hatch occupied all the land they constituted a settlement, after the grasshopper days, that was noted for its substantial character. J. R. Dutton was just as reliable during the time he lived on the northwest of section 26. M. D. L. Parsons, the champion fruit grower, has lived since 1866 at the Par- son's grove.
Cresco has had some Phillips family for a quarter of a century, and it got a good one when Monroe Phillips purchased the southwest quarter of section 9. Should a prize, however, be awarded for the best kept farm premises, it very prob- ably would go to John Daub whose yards are models of neatness. Since the days of the war there have been people living in the timber along the main road south of town. J. W. Curtis, for instance, came in 1876 and soon after located where he has since lived. Leroy F. Miller, and Nelson have had homes on small tracts on the other road, leading west from the bridge, and have made a good living for a long term of years.
Three parties whose farms hug the river timber are engaged in raising pure bred cattle. A. J. Brown, on his grandfather's old farm south of town, raises Guernseys, but Wm. Galbraith looks after the wants of his Aberdeen Angus herd.
Judge Quarton, is one of the most scientific breeders of pure bred dairy cat- tle in the county. He began in a small way about eight years ago with the foun- dation stock from the best known families of the Yeksa breed, which has a wide world reputation for producing milk and butter fat. On his farm on the south- west quarter of section 10 he sells from this herd, as it increases, sires and cows which go to other states at extraordinary prices. A. J. Brown, whose herd be- gan from stock purchased at the Quarton farm is meeting with the same success.
The Chubb Bros. managed to accumulate land to make the largest farm in the township. Chas. C. and Colman C. came in 1865, but only the latter is now living. They were among the prominent settlers of that period.
Cresco township has one house of worship, and that was built about ten years ago on the southwest corner of section 20. The leading promoter was
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WHITTEMORE'S MAIN STREET LOOKING WEST
LONE ROCK'S PRINCIPAL BUSINESS STREET
MAIN STREET, FENTON, LOOKING NORTH
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Rev. Ogden, but it was dedicated in 1903 by Rev. Vincent Beebe, both Metho- dist ministers. That place of worship has been of much value to residents in that section of the county. At present Rev. F. C. Taylor, the M. E. pastor at Algona, conducts the services. The trustees are Bert Potter, Frank Miller and W. Greenfield; the Sunday school superintendent, Frank Miller, and the presi- (lent of the Ladies' Aid, Mrs. Nellie Potter.
The village of Hobart contains the depot, the creamery, the C. W. Cook store, a few residences and the E. W. Cook elevator. The store has had several proprietors. About twenty years ago E. W. Cook started it and after running the business for several years sold to E. J. Campbell. After he grew tired of the work he sold to L. L. Vernon who in turn later sold to Geo. Tyndale. The lat- ter in about three years sold to the present owner, C. W. Cook. All of these proprietors have been the local postmasters, but the office has been discontinued for several months. The elevator is owned by E. W. Cook who started the enterprise about seventeen years ago.
The plat of the village site was filed on record by John Grove July 9, 1894. The site was composed of eight blocks and one out lot. On the north side of the tract Mr. Grove tried hard to start a town. He operated his department store with a flourish of trumpets, and succeeded in having a blacksmith shop and several residences built on that side of the tract ; but all have been brushed away as though they had never been erected. The north four blocks were vacated May 21, 1904.
The Hobart Co-operative Creamery is a factory of which all the patrons justly feel proud. The directors and officers of the company are W. H. King. president ; A. E. Clayton, secretary; J. W. Wadsworth, treasurer; Walter Brandow. T. A. McArthur, R. J. Hutchison, Tom Reid and I. Wernert. The factory has for its manager and butter maker Joe Bloomster. The Creamery Company was organized and incorporated in Feb., 1891, by F. A. Witham, A. C. Redfield, B. P. Tubbs, N. R. Robinson, J. G. Rawson, L. Mansmith, M. D. Courll, and J. H. Jones, the directors being Ed Simpkins, C. Rickard, Austin Witham, Frank Wilson and J. G. Rawson. The township affairs are intrusted to M. N. Phillips, clerk ; P. C. Hartgreaves, L. F. Miller and A. J. Brown, trustees ; and J. W. Curtis, assessor. The officers of the school board are M. N. Phillips, president; Geo. E. Hayne, secretary; W. H. King, treasurer; I. Wer- nert, Chas. Potter, J. M. Cox and August Kerstein.
WHITTEMORE TOWNSHIP AND VILLAGE
Congressional township 95-30 comprises the civil township of Whittemore. The first family to settle in this township was Geo. Smith's who located in 1865 on his homestead on the west half of the northeast quarter of section 10. The 80 east of that was taken by young Geo. Smith, and the 80 just west of the first was taken by Alex Smith. Among the daughters of the senior Geo. Smith fam- ily were three who are still residents of the county : Mrs. R. A. Hinton, Mrs. A. F. Dailey and Mrs. John Goetsch. These Smiths wintered in 1865-66, in a small sod house with no neighbors in that whole region of country.
Their primitive home was in Algona township at the time, for that was years before either Lotts Creek or Whittemore had been set off by the board. During
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the year 1866 these settlers received some neighbors-the S. B. Hatch family who came and located on the 80, adjoining Alex Smith's on the west, and Mr. Fisher on the northwest quarter of section 4. This man, Hatch, and his brother, H. P., now of Whittemore, had been here in 1865, before the Smiths came, and selected their land but had gone back to Illinois to wait until the spring follow- ing before moving here. Before they returned the Smiths had come and located and thus became the first settlers in the township.
What is now Whittemore township belonged to both Algona and Cresco when these settlements were made, but these people were all in the former town- ship. The line dividing these two ran one mile and a half further south than the north line of the present Whittemore township, and it extended from the west side of the county eastward to the river. When the board created Lotts Creek out of the Algona territory in January, 1873, it came as far south as this Al- gona-Cresco dividing line. The town site of Whittemore, being platted in the fall of 1878, consequently was located in Lotts Creek township. The village continued to remain in that township until the board established Whittemore township, in April, 1885, by appropriating all the territory in 95-30, thus tak- ing one and one half miles from the south side of Lotts Creek and four and one half from the north side of Cresco.
The Smiths and Hatches had some neighbors in 1866, a little northwest of them on section 32 of the township just north of them, but these will be con- sidered when telling of the early settlements in Lotts Creek. S. B. Hatch bought of Judge Call the first log house built in Algona and moved it out on his home- stead for a residence.
While these settlements were forming another down on section 14 began attracting attention. Soon after the Smiths and Hatches got settled Geo. Mc- Kay and Edgett homesteaded on the northwest quarter of that section and John Jacobs on the northeast corner. Between these two a little later James Miracle moved his family. On the southwest quarter of section 11, Matthew Frambach made his home. Just south of the Smiths on the same section there located a little later Henry Ebert and Henry Klingelhofer and P. C. Phillips, just west of them. John Wallace made his home on the west fourth of sec- tion 12, and the Nellis families on the west fourth of section 4. Wm. Struecker settled on the southwest quarter of section 32, in 1871, and numerous well known settlers bought land in the township about that time. The Bonstetters, Bells, Beschs, Dorweilers, Banwarts, the Baas boys, the Schumachers and so forth. When the two Lillibridges owned all of section 18, just south of Whittemore, the farm looked as grand as any at the time in the county. J. A. Simpson, who has accumulated 1.750 acres of land in the township since he located in 1885, is the land king, and every acre of it has been earned by hard knocks and strenuous labor. F. A. Witham in the northeast corner of the township is the son of an 1865 settler.
The officers of the township are W. F. Reimers, clerk; Chas. Bell, assessor ; P. W. Dahlhauser, J. B. Besch and F. H. Schultz, trustees. The school officers and directors are: Geo. Kohl, president; Carl Ebers. secretary; Wash Harris, treasurer; Peter Murtha, Jr., C. E. Kollasch, Harry Potter, John Besch and Peter Haag.
The town of Whittemore had for its origin the platting of the site by W. H.
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Ingham and Lewis H. Smith, in August, 1878. The Milwaukee road which had been completed to Algona in 1870, but which, in July, 1878, had reached the western edge of the county was the inspiration which promoted the above named proprietors to embark in the enterprise. The plat was not filed on record until April 12, 1879. The site consisted of twenty-two blocks and five out lots. Since that time three additions have been platted. The plat of Ingham & Smith's of three blocks was filed on record June 27, 1892; A. H. Hotelling's of six blocks and one out lot. March 14, 1893; and J. M. Farley's of four blocks, January 10, 1895.
During the fall and early winter of 1878, before the plat was even recorded, the village began to assume pleasing proportions. While the depot building was being erected J. C. Foster located and built his residence and became one of the first settlers at that place. J. J. Wilson about the same time put up a temporary warehouse for handling grain, Talbott & Vallou followed with another, Chas. Kemp built a structure and started a saloon and L. M. Moosaw started a black- smith shop which he soon disposed of to Frank Minger. Two others became resi- dents in the early movements of the building activity that fall. One was A. J. Henry, station agent, and the other Will Amos who had charge of Wilson's ware- house.
During the month of February, 1879, Henry Munch came with his family, purchased the Foster residence for his own, and then proceeded to build his store for general merchandise, the first in the new village. Then came C. D. Creed and his brother and opened up the first drug store at the "jumping off place," on the west end of the main street, and next followed the pioneer land- lord, Jacob J. Strandberg, who hauled a building up from Rutland and planted it on the corner for a hotel. It was also in that month that business had so in- creased that some lines were duplicated, for the second drink shop came into existence and was run by a man named Johnson.
In March, 1879, J. M. Farley arrived and established the pioneer hardware store in his new building. Then Emil Chrischilles gave up blacksmithing at Al- gona, came over, in March, and bought out the Kemp premises which a few months later he converted into a general store. A. Schmitt soon after appeared on the scene and built a combined hotel and saloon, the same building in a re- modeled form being still his home. Section Boss Dorcy about that time also built his home while working for the company.
The Pioneer physician was Dr. J. M. Pride who in June, 1879, after locating, bought out the Creed drug store business which had been established four months before.
During the year 1880, The National House, with C. D. Creed as landlord, loomed up in the air as the result of remodeling his store room. Another im- provement of much value to the village at that time was completed in January of that year, when the first schoolhouse was built. It cost about $800, and an- swered the purpose for a town hall, as well as a temple of education for about fourteen years.
That year Smith Carlisle, who had previously captured an Algona girl for a wife, located and opened up a furniture store and had no competition in that line. The lumber enterprise was started by J. J. Wilson soon after he got the grain business well under his control. His faithful manager, H. Hahn, was the right man in the right place.
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The Cemetery Association was organized in the summer of 1881, by the election of H. P. Hatch, president ; J. M. Farley, secretary ; and Will Amos, treas- urer. On the northeast quarter of section 8, the Association purchased ten acres for burial ground.
No one engaged in the harness-making business until in 1881, when D. J. Cain began in that line in May. He sold to his father, J. W. Cain, in a few months, and the latter then continued the work for several years. In November of that year, C. D. Creed established a livery and ran it in connection with his hotel. Will Amos also went into business for himself by opening another general mer- chandise store, but as he was engaged in other lines, he employed J. J. Strandberg to conduct it for him.
In 1882, Joe DeGraw, after getting tired of county seat life, marched into Whittemore and began pounding iron at the forge, a line of work he steadily followed for a long term of years. That year J. T. Creighton began in the im- plement business, and Dr. Pride had accumulated enough money to build a new drug store.
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