USA > Iowa > Kossuth County > History of Kossuth County, Iowa > Part 9
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"Mr. Stine, who had overtaken me, was pained to learn that Frank had been shot and then hurried off on the chase with a parting request from me to follow the elk until I came. I then stayed with one of the most intelligent and loyal dogs that I had ever known until his death. And so we finally parted in a suitable place where he was left as if in quiet sleep in the home of the prairie birds that he had liked to trail and find so well.
"The hour of the day, the distance out in the prairie and the elk still on his feet reminded me there was no time to spare and so I was off again, going to where I had last seen Mr. Stine, near Lotts creek. Not finding him I then went to a high summit not far away, from which a large scope of country could be covered. After a careful search for some little time in almost all direc- tions I finally was very fortunate in catching sight of him as he was passing over a high roll of land a few miles to the east. I was not long in overtaking him and then learned that he had fired his only shot on the run, without effect more than to increase the speed. The elk was becoming quite weak by this time and soon
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afterward stopped, when a shot brought him to the ground. And so ended the long and exciting chase, making it the capture of the first elk and the taking of the first elk antlers ever made in Kossuth county by any settler of the county. We hurriedly dressed out one of the hind quarters and packed it on the saddle of the pony, raised the head high up supported by the antlers, took the number of the section from a nearby corner post and then were off for the Call cabin once more, where we reported not long after dark. Mr and Mrs. Call were quite surprised to see us back so soon, but were well pleased to learn of our success in the chase as shown by the supply of meat brought in. I now told Mr. Call where he could find the balance of the meat so that he went out the next day and brought it in, also the antlers, which were used for a gun rack in our cabin after its com- pletion.
"In the morning we made our second start from Mr. Call's, taking a choice piece of meat with us for our friends at the Forks, picked up our goods at the section corner where they had been left the day before (when starting on the chase) and reached the Humboldt cabin safely at an early hour. During the evening we had an interesting time with our old friends in an exchange of frontier happenings.
"From here, with fine weather and good roads, we had a good trip back to Cedar Rapids. From now on we heard considerable talk from Mr. Stine, then proprietor of the Empire House, about his Kossuth county claim, in which Mrs. Stine did not seem to take very much interest. In the early part of January he came and told me that he had been unable to persuade Mrs. Stine to go with him to so new a country, and that he would like to release all right of his claim to me I told him if that was so I would go and take it myself. Needing some one to go with me, I asked A. L. Seeley if he would like to go and secure a claim in the new country He answered 'yes' but there were several reasons why he could not. When finding out what they were, I asked if he could be ready to go in two days if the reasons should be cared for. He said he could and then went to work to be ready. Arrangements were then made with Joseph W. Moore for a team to haul our goods. When ready to start the next morning he came to me and wanted to know if I would be responsible for the return of the team and wagon. I answered 'No, if you have no confidence in your man why should I? And we must know at once if the team can go.' He soon made arrangements and then let us know that he would be the driver himself. Nothing could have suited us better than the change. Everything went off quitely from now on. When in Hardin county I killed a deer near the road and took it with us to Skunk grove where we were to camp over night. This was the first experience that Mr. Moore had ever had camping out. He was so delighted that he was up nearly all night roasting venison at the end of a stick and singing songs, making it one of the most enjoyable times he ever had, evidently his first 'Call from the wild.'
"From here we reached the Parrot cabin on January 15th. After leaving us, Mr. Moore went back to Cedar Rapids with such a good opinion of the Des Moines country that he sold his farm near the rapids and returned the following April and bought the Parrot claim. Seeley and I after getting fully installed in the Parrot cabin, went to work getting out material for our cabin on the section 24, 96-29, the first to be built in Union township."
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THE OLD WATER MILL. 1865
THE WIG WAR
HOSPITAL CORNER, ALGONA, 1870
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EXPERIENCE OF MALACHI CLARK
Malachi Clark was another of the 1854 settlers. The account of his move- ments in reaching Kossuth presents a series of experiences which hundreds of others, who subsequently followed along the trail, met with in similar trials and vexations. He was not a Hoosier, as has generally been believed, but was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in the county of Pasquotank, April 17, 1797. Coming West he settled in Floyd county in the spring of 1853. He and his son William G. took claims but as they arrived too late to put in crops they moved in October to Lynn county with but little of this world's goods. While there they managed to sell their claims for $250. This ready cash came as a great blessing to them. It enabled them to get better prepared to move on further into the unsettled portions of the country. Malachi had one horse and his son managed to trade him for a yoke of oxen. They were now comparatively rich, at least forehanded enough to start on the road again. They had a chance to move to another location and have a team with which to operate. With the ox team, an old wagon and a part of the money they had received for their claims, they started April 25, 1854, for Fort Dodge, where nearly every one went first to inquire about lands in this section of the state. In going there they came by the way of Des Moines. They reached Fort Dodge on the third of May. There they found Major Williams running a little store. There were three families repre- senting the town, the Millers, the Scotts and the Van Cloves. As the soldiers had been withdrawn from the fort and sent to another post the Clarks took possession of one of the military cabins and stayed there over night. The next day they moved up the river to the forks and camped there a couple of nights. After investigating the conditions they came on up to where Dakota City is now located. There they stayed one day and two nights. There was some hesitancy in going farther north at that time, so on the 7th they returned to Fort Dodge. There they stayed but a single night and then started north again. After they had gone nine miles the axle of the wagon broke and left them in a dilemma. They managed to get their belongings to, a cabin about three-fourths of a mile from the road and there they stayed for about two months and a half. Once more they headed for the south and reached Fort Dodge on July 9th, where they rented a house of Major Williams and where they stayed until August 25th, when they finally struck out for the wilds of Kossuth, arriving August 27, 1854. Had Malachi Clark and his son William brought their families to this county instead of going to Fort Dodge the last time they would have been the first settlers and had a chance of claiming the big grove which later was in the Algona settlement. On the 9th day of July, when they reached Fort Dodge on their last trip towards the south, the Call brothers were entering this county as the first settlers and getting their choice claims in the finest groves.
SIDE-LIGHT PARAGRAPHS
The foregoing reports of the experiences of the 1854 settlers in coming to the county contain frequent references to certain persons, places and events that demand a more extended notice to enable the reader to better comprehend the conditions in this part of the state at that period. Side-light information, bearing
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upon interesting subjects to which these pioneers simply alluded in telling their stories, is herewith given to prevent the necessity of cumbersome foot-notes appearing on the pages of the text for the purpose of explanation.
The frequent mention of the little log village of Fort Dodge indicates to a certain extent the importance which that place sustained to this portion of the state at that time and for many years later. As it was the point at which much definite information could be gained about the quality of lands in the more unsettled parts of the state, it became the concentrating place for land seekers, and the place from which they diverged to secure their locations. It was the gateway to the County of Kossuth where about 6500 acres of timber were grow- ing upon the streams, where buffalos, elk, deer and other game were sporting upon the prairies, where not a furrow had been turned in the fertile drift-soil, and where the acres were awaiting the settlers to come and claim them. Had the names of those who passed through that place on their road to Kossuth been placed upon a tablet there, the list would have been lengthy and one of interest.
The name "Fort Dodge" to our earliest pioneers had a significance other than that of implying a village. Prior to the first settlements being made in this county it signified a military post on the borders of civilization, where troops were stationed as a protection against the savage Sioux who were continually interfering with the work of the government surveyors, driving away settlers and committing depredations which retarded the growth of settlements in the unsettled parts of the state. The first act taken to establish a fort at that place was early in the spring of 1849 when the military authorities ordered Colonel Mason of the Sixth U. S. infantry to investigate conditions and select the most desirable location for the fort on the upper DesMoines river. He finally chose a spot on the extreme western end of the famous "Neutral Ground," which by the 1830 treaty separated the warring Sioux on the north from the cunning and revenge- ful Sacs and Foxes on the south. In the spring of 1850 a detachment of the Sixth infantry under command of Maj. Samuel Woods was sent to the selected location to erect the fort. By the middle of November they had built twelve log houses for their quarters and had made other improvements for protection. The government established a reservation, on which the fortification was erected. four miles in width and eight in length. The name then given to the stronghold was Fort Clark, but later it was changed to that of Fort Dodge in honor of Gen. Henry Dodge, United States senator from Wisconsin. After the Sioux had relinquished all their claims to land in Iowa and Southern Minnesota to the government in 1851, the administration deemed it useless to continue maintaining troops at Fort Dodge. They remained there, however, until by previous order they abandoned the fort in October, 1853, less than a year before the Calls passed through the place en route for Kossuth. These soldiers were ordered to move about one hundred and fifty miles north and erect another fort at the junction of the Rock and Minnesota rivers, on the northern boundary of the government's new purchase from the Sioux. The works they erected there became known as Fort Ridgley.
Who was this Major Williams whose name occurs in the reports of the Calls, Ingham and Clark? He was the one man at Fort Dodge with whom every settler in these parts loved to converse and from whom they sought information before taking any chances in entering a section of country where roving bands of Indians
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were liable to appear at any time. He was a Pennsylvania German democrat who had been an officer in the militia of his native state. He came with the soldiers in 1850 to Fort Clark (Dodge), having received the appointment as sutler at the post. When the soldiers left the fort in 1853 he was practically out of a job. A few days after the detachment left there one soldier returned to take care of the several log buildings. The Major learning that this soldier was under the pay of the officers, reasoned that they were taking steps to become the owners of the site of the fort themselves. Learning also that the site was on ground which rightfully belonged to the Des Moines River Improvement Com- pany, he with others bought the same and entered much land adjoining. He platted the townsite of Fort Dodge in March, 1854, and became the first post- master. He lived there, a man of popularity and influence, until February, 1874, when his death occurred, mourned by friends far and wide.
The route from Fort Dodge to this county followed by the first settlers was up the east side of the river to the junction of the east and the west forks in Humboldt county, crossing at the ford on the east branch and then on up past where Dakota City is located, to Kossuth, arriving for a stopping place along the timber between the present Chubb farm residence and the M. D. L. Parsons home. Just how the Call brothers got over on the east side of the river and spent the first night in the grove near the D. W. King farm residence is not on record that can be found. But it is known that they came up a portion of the way from Fort Dodge following the old "Military Road," made by the soldiers when they abandoned the fort in 1853 and moved their heavy camp equipage to Fort Ridgley.
As has been explained in a previous chapter, the Sioux Indians whom the first settlers in this county encountered had no business on Iowa soil. The govern- ment in 1851 had made a treaty with them and purchased all their claims to the land. But there being no force here to prevent their coming they came whenever they so desired, terrifying the settlers with their hideous presence. It was fortu- nate for the helpless women and children of those early years that so many men in the settlement had courage and tact to handle them. These men were used to following the blazed trail and ready at all times to meet any emergency that might arise. The "braves" of the Sioux tribes were dastardly cowards as com- pared with the pioneer men of this county who went into their camps and ordered them away from the settlement. That was frontier life, and the making of early history for Kossuth.
In telling about his experiences in coming to the county, Ambrose A. Call refers to his seeing the head of Sidominadotah-the old chief whom Lott had murdered-stuck upon a pole at a hotel at Homer. That man Lott has a history which is by no means enviable. He was a rude, uncultured outlaw who during the latter 40's lived in a cabin with his family at the mouth of Boone river, trading whiskey for furs with the Indians and stealing their ponies for a pastime. Dur- ing his absence the Indians came to his cabin and demanded whiskey from his wife, but she refused to let them have any. Becoming furious they ordered the family away as they did also Lott on his return. On his refusal to leave they burned his cabin and killed his stock. Getting scared he fled to Boone, leaving his family to take care of themselves. His little son Milton in attempting to follow him was frozen to death after he had traveled twenty miles.
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Lott, after wandering around from place to place, drove through Fort Dodge one day during the year 1852, having in his wagon a barrel of whiskey and some household goods. He was on his way northward looking for a new location. He came on north until he reached what is now section 16 in Humboldt township, Humboldt county, and there built a cabin in the grove. He made a clearing of a few acres in the timber and raised a garden. Notwithstanding the presence of the troops at Fort Dodge he had settled beyond the boundary line of civilization and away from all protection. He maintained a trading post, exchanging whiskey as usual with the Indians for furs. There he seemed to live contentedly without neighbors. The liquor he hauled up from Oskaloosa by the barrel or in kegs. While living there Lott committed a foul murder which indirectly became a part of Kossuth county history. Inkpadutah was the Sioux chief who had the most to do in driving him and his family from the mouth of the Boone river and had been the cause of the death of his son. In January 1854, this chief had a brother Sidominadotah, who was the chief of a band camping in the vicinity of Lott's cabin home. This band had their tepees pitched on the east bank of the Des Moines on section 4, in what is now Grove township. Lott decided that the favorable time had come; so he loaded up his valuables and sent his family with them to the settlements below. When they had started he cut across the hills for the Indian camp. On arriving he informed the aged Indian chief that he had seen many buffaloes grazing over the hills on the high ground and proposed that both go and kill some of them. On the way he stepped behind the chief and shot him dead. Then going back to the camp he killed the chief's squaw, two of his children, and a young squaw and her children. Early reports of this slaughter were to the effect that Lott threw all the bodies into a creek which caused it to become known as "Bloody Run." The head of this chief was the one Mr. Call had seen on the top of a pole at Homer. Some trapper must have fished it out of the water and taken it to that place. While Lott was getting in his murderous work one of Sidominadotah's sons, a twelve-year-old boy, escaped by hiding. This was Jos-pa-do-tah, who later spent some time about Algona bunking in the cabin with Lewis H. Smith and others, and also stopping in the cabin with D. W. King. Lott after burning his own cabin, overtook his family before they had gone very far and left for the West. Report has it that he was killed on the plains while pretending to act as a guide to a party of emigrants, but in reality misleading them for the purpose of getting them murdered.
Inkpadutah, after trying to have Lott brought to justice and failing, awaited his chance to wreak his vengeance on a white settlement as Lott had gone beyond his reach. As it was his band that massacred the innocent settlers at Spirit Lake three years later, it is very probable that it was caused as the result of Lott's treachery and murder, a few months before the arrival of Kossuth's 1854 pioneers.
An attempt has been made to rob the Call brothers of the credit justly due them for having been the first to make claims to land in the county. Articles at various times have been published, tending to prove that others were here before them who marked trees according to pioneer regulations to establish their priority of right to timber tracts. It has also been asserted that Ambrose A. Call in later years confessed that when they came they found the claim marks of others on trees in the grove south of Algona and that they obliterated these marks and put fresh ones on for themselves, when they first arrived. To correct
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this false impression Mr. Call had published in the December 3, 1902, issue of the Upper Des Moines Republican, a statement which should forever settle the disputed point in controversy. It reads as follows :
"I wish to correct a mistake which later might be taken as true and get into the history of the county. Some friend recently sent me a publication from Belmond, Wright county, in which a lady, the daughter of one Mr. Hunt, I believe, states in a very interesting article that her father and one Mr. Overacker explored the country west and made claims in 1853, where the city of Algona and also Spirit Lake now stand. She says further that they intended to return and hold them, but upon their return heard of the Indian troubles around Clear Lake and the killing of Captain Hewitt's Winnebago boy and were deterred through fear of the Indians. By reference to history it will be seen that the Indian trouble spoken of occurred in July, 1854 and their return was subsequent to that event. I have on the margin of an old book this notice : 'July 28th, I find upon my return two parties, named Overacker and Hunt, have during my absence, marked out claims on sections 11 and 12, south of Asa's claim.' I had my cabin raised at that time and was living on my claim. No one made claims in Kossuth county prior to the settlement made by my brother and myself."
The robbing of the surveyor's camp by the Indians, is incidentally referred to by the 1854 arrivals, whose experiences in coming to the county are presented in the form of reports in this chapter. That event occurred on the 2d day of July of that year. Colonel Ellis and Captain Leach who were engaged in surveying the north part of township 95 had their camp on the northeast quarter of section 15 in what is now Cresco township, only a short distance from the present home of Alex. Brown. A band of Sioux who had come into that portion of the county about that time discovered the camp and made away with everything in sight. This party, not wishing to have a clash with the red skins, while no white set- tlers were in the county, picked up their instruments and went to Fort Dodge where they told the Calls what had happened only a few days before.
William Miller's name is also to be found in the reports a sufficient number of times to justify some explanation as to who he was and what he was doing at Fort Dodge. Previous to 1854, when the first settlement began to form over on the Cresco side of the river, there had been only two cabins between this county and Fort Dodge. These were rival trading posts conducted by private parties. At both places the Indians exchanged their goods for other articles. One was the home of the infamous Henry Lott in Humboldt county. When leaving the coun- try, after murdering the family of Sidominadotah, he burned his cabin and made good his escape. One lonely cabin was all that then stood between here and Fort Dodge. That was the one where William Miller lived, six miles north of that place, on the east side of the river. During the time the soldiers were at the fort he maintained his little trading post with little fear. When the detachment abandoned the barracks in the fall of 1853 and went up into Minnesota to build another fort, the Indians assumed a more warlike appearance and became more daring. Feeling that his life was endangered by remaining at his cabin, he took up his abode at Fort Dodge where he often had conversations with those coming to this county. All the early settlers knew Billy Miller, knew where his cabin was located and knew something about the story of his frontier life at that point. During the past fifty years civilization has transformed the route, lead-
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ing northward past his cabin into this section of the state, from one fraught with danger into one where evidences of peace and prosperity are to be seen all along the way.
The references made in the foregoing reports about the taking of claims sug- gest one of the most peculiar and at the same time one of the most important fron- tier customs ever observed and enforced during the entire pioneer period. From them we learn that on a large walnut tree, south of town, were written the words: "Ambrose A. Call claims this grove, July 10, 1854." and that on a prominent tree in the Black Cat grove were penciled the words: "This grove on section 24, 96,- 29 is claimed by D. E. Stine of Cedar Rapids, on this 25th day of November, 1854." The claim of the latter's was limited to section twenty-four, but the boundary of the former's was indefinite for the time being. In referring to Mr. Stine's act in marking his tree, Captain Ingham makes this significant asser- tion : "His right was unquestionable under pioneer rules for a reasonable length of time in which to make settlement." His statement applies with equal force to both claimants and to all others taking claims in that way. While it is true that the law designated, how one could enter a preemption claim of 160 acres and finally pay for it at the rate of $1.25 per acre, it made no provision by which one by the payment of money could become possessed of an acre more. The right to claim more land than that amount, unless located with a land war- rant, was not authorized either by Congress or the Legislature of the state. There was no statute concerning claims except that which pertained to pre- emptions. The right to hold in one's possession larger tracts of valuable land was a right given by mob law which was made by the claimants themselves. The custom of keeping one quarter section as a preemption, and then selling the claim right to much more land to subsequent arrivals for whatever amount could be obtained, was so extraordinary that it could not prevail anywhere except on the borders of civilization where settlers made laws, at least in part, to suit their own convenience. By "pioneer rules," Mr. Stine claimed and controlled all that fine body of timber on section 24, in Union township, which later, for a long term of years, was owned by Michael Reibhoff, W. B. Moore, Horace Schenck and Joseph Thompson. By the same rules that fine grove, south of Algona, was held by the claim right of Ambrose A. Call, the "north grove" by his brother, Asa C., and neighboring groves by other settlers of that period. After the frontier settlement had begun to form, these same settlers made rules deter- mining the amount of land a claimant could hold and be protected in his claim. The size of his tract thus authorized was indeed small, considering the hard- ships they had to endure in making the first homes in the county, and realizing that they could have held double that amount if they had been so disposed. Had Mr. Stine taken the time on November 25th to ascertain which quarters of section 24 were the most desirable, he no doubt would have designated not over a couple of the quarters in his markings on that tree. The same is true of Am- brose A. Call, who on the 10th of July could not take the time to determine and designate which particular quarter sections in that grove he desired to claim. Furthermore practically all who came that fall were at first compelled to designate their claims to include groves as a whole. The posted notices of those taking the claims were often such as to elicit laughter and ludicrous comment. One of the best remembered of that kind was down in Irvington township, where it had
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