USA > Iowa > Mills County > History of Mills County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc. > Part 44
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82
Putorius vison, common mink.
ermineus, ermine.
66 vulgaris, least weasel.
Procyon lotor, raccoon.
Vespertilio subulatus, little brown bat.
fuscus, dusky bat. sp. noctivagans, black bat.
Atalapha crepuscularis, twilight-bat; rare here.
noveboracensis, common.
(?) Corynorhinus macrotis; not sure of this determination.
371
HISTORY OF MILLS COUNTY.
Sciuropterus volucella, flying squirrel; in Missouri bottom.
Sciurus niger, fox squirrel; common.
carolinensis, gray squirrel; abundant.
ludovicianus, common.
hudsonius, chickaree, common, especially along the Nisnabotna and Missouri.
Tamias striatus, chipmunk, in all wooded sections.
Spermophilus tridecemlincatus, striped gopher.
66 franklinii, common.
Arctomys monax, woodchuck.
Zapus hudsonius, jumping mouse, rare.
Hesperomys leucopus, deer mouse, everywhere.
Ochetodon humilis, harvest mouse, local.
Arvicola riparius, meadow mouse.
66 austerus, commonly confounded with the last.
Synaptomys cooperi, Cooper's mouse. Castor fiber, beaver. *
Fiber zibethicus, muskrat.
Erethizon dorsatus, porcupine; not seen, listed by tradition.
(?) Lepus sylvațicus, hare, determination doubtful. -- , jack rabbit; rare.
This list comprises the major part of the mammalian fauna of the county. Further study will correct it, perhaps, by the addition of a few species. This simple enumeration of varieties may aid the future student in the determination of the county's animal resources. The value of a knowledge of the forms about one is sufficiently attested by the exper- ience of men. Nevertheless, it is a fact, that may not be successfully controverted, that the most common objects about people interest them the least. Even in Great Britain, where nearly all of the time of men is con- sumed in the attempt to earn a livelihood, more attention is paid to these subjects than in this land of comparative leisure, abounding in forms tointer- est and instruct. Jardine, one of the greatest ornithologists of the present century, writing of the nature of the society in which Alexander Wilson, the "Scottish bird-catcher," spent his infancy and early youth, says:
"The population of the manufacturing districts differs not essentially in its constitution and character from the other parts of the community of Great Britain. It is composed of men primarily devoted to the acquisition of independence. Activity and decision form a strong feature in their disposition, and stamp them with vivid impressions of the worldly changes which may ultimately conduce to the loss or prosperity of their engage-
* Two specimens were trapped in the Nishnabotna river, in Fremont county, Decem- ber 9, 1880. They were taken to Sidney and regarded as a great curiosity ; hence it may be presumed the beaver is of extremely rare occurrence here. R. E. C.
372
HISTORY OF MILLS COUNTY.
ments. In Paisley,* the largest manufacturing town in Scotland, the middle and operative classes in whose sphere the individual, about whom we are now interested chiefly moved, are respectable and industrious-or idle, of restless disposition and preferring dissipation and revelry, according to the habits they had formed on their carly entrance into the world. The greater part of the employment in this important town is given out in pieces, which permits the laborer to enjoy a greater portion of leisure than he could do by the more usual method of working a fixed time. A little exertion and assiduity will allow him some hours of relaxation, and the manner in which this is spent often bears a high influence on the future prospects of the individual. Numerous clubs have at various times been insti- · tuted, to which most of the operatives resort and spend their leisure time, according to their inclinations. In some, intemperance prevails, with the high and wrangling discussion of the affairs and conduct of their different masters, and the politics of the day, What are called liberal sentiments are promulgated ; and with the assistance of the more radical newspapers the foundation is laid for that jealousy of the welfare of their superiors, and discontentment with their own lot, which so often causes the distress of friends, and the destruction of neighbor's property, and which, if it does not always bring themselves to ruin, can never promote either their happiness or welfare. In others, though, to a certain extent, the same courses are run, they are generally conducted with moderation-intemp- erance is avoided-politics and literature are freely entered upon and keenly contested, and the argument is conducted with a ready conviction to the truth, and more for the sake of information, than the obstinate maintenance of any untenable opinion. Libraries of con- siderable extent belong to some of these clubs; the taste for reading and study is gradually increasing, and many of the more sedate members avail themselves of their privilege, to advance their knowledge of some favorite subject, and occasionally launch into debates with ardor and penetration, and talent, not often found so varied among this class of soci- ety. Other sources of information and improvement also occupy the unemployed hours of the more respectable operatives. The different branches of mechanics are eagerly pur- sued, and often practically applied with such success as to raise the individual from depend- ency to the higher ranks of society. Natural history is also studied, and the more inter- esting works on the subject sought after and eagerly pursued ; and botany, or rather the culture of flowers, forms one of the most favorite and universal recreations. Almost every one possesses his flower-garden, and, as his taste directs, enters warmly into the culture of what are called florist's plants-polyanthuses, ranunculi, anemonies, hyacinths, pinks and carnations; and as much pleasure is afforded, and emulation excited, in watching the suc- cess of a favorite bulb or seedling, as could arise from an indulgence in more common, but less innocent amusements. The naming of their flowers, too, is a matter of great importance, and serves to draw their attention to the history of the individuals whom they wish to commemorate." --- Sir W. Jardine's Life of Alex. Wilson.
Under influences such as these was Wilson born, influences which, if they could find a harbor in each western heart, would soon result in a most intelligent and thoroughly informed class of men. It is in the hope that some one, in whose hands this volume may fall, will engage in the study of this county's natural resources that these outlines have been given, as well as that they may prove useful to those now directly inter- ested.
*The place where Wilson was born, July 6, 1766.
373
HISTORY OF MILLS COUNTY.
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST.
(Caloptenus spretus).
The first mention of the locust is in the Bible, and occurs in chapter X., of the book of Exodus, but is confined to a mere mention of their appear- ance in Egypt as an affliction upon Pharaoh and his people for their treat- ment of the Israelites. The earliest account of the ravages of locusts, descriptive of the terrible calamities they have caused to mankind, appears in the book of Joel, chapter I. Omitting the figurative parts, the prophets description is graphic and accurate:
" A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains; a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth; the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and noth- ing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horse-men, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained; all faces shall gather black-
ness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks. * * They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall: they shall climb upon the houses; they shall enter at the windows like a thief." Whether this be over-drawn none better know than those who resided in Mills county in those years when the locusts were most destructive. The incessant buzz and noise which their flight produces, the unavoidable destruction which is everywhere going on, fill the beholder with both awe and wonder. Southey, in his Thalaba, pictures most graphically the noise their approach occasions:
" Onward they come, a dark, continuous elond Of congregated myriads numberless, The rushing of whose wings was as the sound Of a broad river, headlong in its course Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm, Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks! "
The first account after the statement of Joel, which, judging from the account there given, was the first visitation known to the semi-civilized Jews, is that of Ororius, who says that in the year 3800 certain regions in North Africa were visited by monstrous swarms: the wind blew them
374
HISTORY OF MILLS COUNTY.
into the sea, and the bodies washed ashore "stank more than the corpses of a hundred thousand men." St. Augustine later mentions a locust plague which occurred in the Kingdom of Masinissa, and resulting in a famine and pestilence, caused the death of about 800,000 men. Accord- ing to Mouffet, in 1478 the region about Venice was subjected to an inva- sion and a resulting famine caused the death of 30,000 people.
The locusts of the New World present many features in common with those of the Old World. They breed in the same enormous multitudes, enter upon the same migrations, and for the same reasons, are subjected to essentially the same climatic conditions, and manifest the same destruc- tiveness.
The authentic records of the Rocky Mountain locust date back to 1818 and 1819. In Neill's History of Minnesota it is stated that in those years the locusts "in vast hordes" appeared in Minnesota "eating everything in their course, in some cases the ground being covered three or four inches." While, doubtless, the state of Iowa was invaded simultaneously with Minnesota, the visitation was probably not so general, and possibly entirely confined to the northwestern counties. There is no tradition of a general invasion of the state which dates back further than the year 1833. The authority for a locust invasion in that year is the following, quoted in the United States Entomological Commissioners' Report: " In regard to the grasshopper raid of 1833, there was no white settlement here then, but there is a part of a tribe of Indians living near the center of this state and they used to hunt through here, and in some of their visits here in 1866, their chief, Johnny Green, who was a very old man, told the people here that thirty-three years before that the grasshoppers came so thick that the grass was all eaten off, and there was no grass for their ponies, and the ground looked black, as if there had been a prairie fire. He also said there had been no more grasshoppers till 1866, when he was speak- ing. This chief was a very intelligent man, and was about one-half white; but the Indians are very liable to exaggerate; I have forgotten the name of the tribe of Indians, but think they were the Winnebagoes or Pottawattamies."
Other locust years in Iowa were 1850, 1856, 1857, 1864-65, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1870-72, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877.
The most destructive year in Mills county was 1867. The young unfledged locusts made sad ravages in that year upon the growing crops. Again in 1875 was enormous damage done, not by locusts, hatched in the county, as in the previous destructive invasion, but by great swarms com- ing from the south. In this county in that year the damage is reported as fully twenty-five per cent.
The visitations of the locust to this county, or the state will not be fre-
375
HISTORY OF MILLS COUNTY.
quent. Nor can it ever become a permanent resident here. The labors of the entomological commission previously referred to, have developed the following general conclusions: The comparatively sudden change from the attenuated and dry atmosphere of the elevated plains and plat- eaus which constitute the permanent region to the more humid and low prairie region of the Mississippi valley proper, is injurious to that species, though its consequences are not manifest with the invading insects, except, perhaps, in limiting their eastward progress. The first generation, how- ever, hatched in the low, alluvial country, is more or less unhealthy, and the insects do not breed here, but quit the country and get back,as far as they are able, to more congenial breeding grounds. If the weather be particularly wet and cold they perish in immense numbers, and there is even reason to believe that even the bulk of those which attain maturity are intestate and perish without procreating, because the large majority of those which drop on the return to Northwest contain no eggs. In the sub-permanent region, or as we go west and northwest, the species prop- agates, aud becomes localized more and more until we reach the country where it is always found. Nothing is morecertain than that the species is not autochthonous in Texas; West Arkansas, Indian Territory, West Mis- souri, Kansas, Western Iowa, Nebraska, nor even Minnesota; and when- ever it over-runs any of those states, it sooner or later abandons them. We may perhaps find, in addition to the comparatively sudden changes from an attenuated and dry to a more dense and humid atmosphere, another tangible barrier to the insects permanent multiplication in the more fer- tile country to the southeast, in the lengthened summer season. As with annual plants, so with insects (like the locust) which produce but one gen- eration annually and whose active existence is bounded by the spring and autumn frosts, the duration of active life is proportioned to the length of the growing season. Aside from the causes here enumerated by the commission, may be mentioned the presence of a greater number of invertebrate enemies in the shape of beetles and mites, both of which attack and slay incredible numbers of locusts. During their visitatation to Iowa in 1875-76 there were also found within them many larvae of a kind of fly, the egg having been laid within the body of the locust by adults of the fly indicated. Innumerable thousands were thus found dis- eased and dying.
The injury to the agricultural interests of this county has been done; and now bids fair to come the dawn of immunity from this scourge. Thousands of dollars have been lost to its agricultural interests, but the experience gained from past disaster will enable the farmer of the future, should it ever become necessary, to successfully battle even greater hosts. May the following unique description never again be recorded of this
376
HISTORY OF MILLS COUNTY.
beautiful "garden of Iowa:" "The farmer plows and plants. He culti- vates in hope, watching his growing grain, in graceful, wave-like motion wafted to and fro by the warm summer winds. The green begins to golden; the harvest is at hand. Joy lightens his labor as the fruit of past toil is about to be realized. The day breaks with a smiling sun that sends his ripening rays through laden orchards and promising fields. Kine and stock of every sort are sleek with plenty, and all the earth seems glad. The day grows. Suddenly the sun's face is darkened, and clouds obscure the sky. The joy of the morn gives way to ominous fear. The day closes, and ravenous locust swarms have fallen upon the land. The mor- row comes, and, ah! what a change it brings! The fertile land of prom- ise and plenty has become a desolate waste, and old Sol, even at his brightest, shines sadly through an atmosphere alive with myriads of glittering insects."-Riley.
INDIAN AFFAIRS.
The Indian! What crowds of memories, incidents and adventures come trooping to the mind at the bare mention of that name, once fear-inspiring, now commonplace and powerless. A name once so dreaded, and often freighted with murder and rapine, is history's, as a momento of which but a few outcast and hunted tribes alone remain.
The savage of Nature and he whom poets sing are different beings. The latter, kingly in mien and sullenly morose in habit, animated by the noblest of motives, engaging in chase or in war as fancy or necessity dic- tated, disdaining peril and knowing no fear-such as he existed only in the imagination of Cooper, or is painted in the verse of authors equally gifted with him. The former, with passions unrestrained and by nature treacherous, slothful, repulsive and unclean-such is the savage of Nature, as unlike him celebrated in song as well he could be. Yet, there is some- thing that calls for our sympathy in the history of this unfortunate race. The same harrowing lust for gold which impelled Pizarro to the conquest of the Incas, and Cortez to the destruction of the mighty empire of the Montezumas, in a newer, and perhaps less revolting form, has driven the red man from the homes in which his ancestors, for many generations past, have roamed at will, and left him-what? The inheritance of extinction, and that alone. He was, rather than is. "The only hope of the perpetuity of his race seems now to center in the Choctaws, Chero- kees, Creeks and Chickasaws of the Indian Territory. These nations, numbering in the aggregate about eight thousand souls, have attained a
377
HISTORY OF MILLS COUNTY.
considerable degree of civilization; and with just and liberal dealing on the part of the government the outlook for the future is not discouraging. Most of the other Indian tribes seem to be rapidly approaching extinction. Right or wrong, such is the logic of events. Whether the red man has been justly deprived of the ownership of the New World will remain a subject of debate; that he has been deprived, cannot be denied. " The Saxon has come. His conquering foot has trodden the vast domain from shore to shore. The weaker race has withdrawn from his presence and his sword. By the majestic rivers and in the depths of the solitary woods the feeble sons of the bow and arrow will be seen no more. Only their names remain on hill, and stream, and mountain. The red man sinks and falls. His eyes are to the west. To the prairies and forests, the hunting- grounds of his ancestors, he says farewell. He is gone! The cypress and the hemlock sing his requiem."
But whence did he come? This opens up a field of inquiry which has engaged the attention of earnest students since the Indian was first known. It seems to be a still mooted point whether he came from Asia, that mythological "cradle of the race." Long ages anterior to the red man's occupation of the land there lived and thrived other races-men who, in that far off time built the mounds and made the implements that we now so commonly find. The evidence which exists shows that that ancient civil- ization belonged to a great people, a people which covered a large part of this continent and with whom the Indians of today have little or nothing in common. Over the past of these strange people hangs a veil which it yet remains for some Columbus or Pizarro to remove. In the valley of the Ohio, that of the Mississippi, the prairies of Kansas and of Texas, the mysterious and inexplicable animal representations of Wisconsin, are mounds, all of which contain relics which are the works of these primitive people, of whom the later Indians retain not even a tradition. Suppose that these latter were the lineal descendants of the mound builders-what then? we have removed the difficulty, but a step back, and still man was. There is no knowledge, revealed or human, that throws any light upon the origin of the race of men, other than that which comes to us through their structural affinities-that afforded by comparative anatomy. Con- cerning the mound builders, there is nothing historical to enlighten us as to what kind of men they were. They have left their works, and imple- ments, some of them in this county, but tell us more than a few social or domestic habits, and their distribution, they do not. They are a race shrouded in mystery, affording us not even the argument deduced so commonly from philology to determine their affinity to the present tribes of the far West.
With reference to a more complete account of the Indians who formerly
1
378
HISTORY OF MILLS COUNTY.
made this county their home, the reader is referred to a preceding page of this volume-where will be found all the various treaties made either by the territorial or general governments. It is sufficient to state here that the territory of which the county is now composed was once pos- sessed by the lowas," a tribe of Indians at one time identified with the Sacs, of the Rock River, but from whom they separated and formed a band by themselves. At an early day in the history of the Indians the Sac and Fox races were distinct nations, the latter of whom lived almost solely within the territory embraced by the river St. Lawrence. They engaged in fierce wars with the famed Iroquois, by whom they were con- quered and finally driven to the west. On reaching Illinois they formed an alliance with the Sacs. "With them were finally joined the Pottawat- tamie Indians, all of whom were of the great family of the Algonquins. This family, at the beginning of the seventeenth century numbered nearly a quarter million souls, but their habits, their wars, and wasting diseases, have reduced their numbers to a mere handful, a disheartened and reck- less remnant of a once proud race. The original owners of this soil, belonged, however to another family-the great race of the Dakotahs, who were the possessors when first the known history of the territory begins. The Sac and Fox Indians did not come into the state to dwell until the close of the celebrated Black Hawkt war, when they were
*There is some difference, of authority as to the origin and meaning of this name. A tribe of Sac and Fox Indians, according to Le Claire, wandering in search of a home, crossed the Mississippi at Rock Island. Finding a place which they admired and with the appearance of which they were satisfied they exclaimed "Jowa! lowa! this is the place." Hildreth says there is a tradition that a tribe of Indians left the parent band of the Omahas in a snow-storm, which presented the phenomena of "gray snow," by mingl- ing the sands of the shore with the falling snow, and thereby sullying its purity. The Omaha's called them from this circumstance, "Py-ho-ja," gray snow. By dropping the j. or making it silent it becomes Py-ho-ia, which, by a little further corruption is trans- formed into I-o-wa, accented on the second syllable, as was the custom of the Indians. The meaning of the word as now generally accepted is drowsy or sleepy men. R. E. C.
+The last years of this great chieftain were filled with bitterness, if not with remorse. In September, of 1836, Governor Dodge met a band of a thousand, chiefs, braves and war- riors, just above the site of the city of Davenport. Black Hawk was present, but was not allowed to participate in the deliberations. It was the last time the old chief visited the vicinity. On this occasion he was dressed in the white man's style, having on an old black frock coat, and a drab hat, with a cane, the very picture of disappointed ambition. Like the withered oak of his native forest, torn and shattered by the lightning's blast, the winter of age upon his brow, and his feeble tottering steps pressing the soil he so much loved, he stood, a representative, a noble relie of his once powerful tribe, in meditative, dismal silence. What thrilling recollections, what heartstirring scenes, must have passed through the mind of the aged patriarch of three-score years, and what deep emotions must have filled his sonl, as he reflected upon the past, and desired to unburden his crowded memory of the wrongs of his people toward him. But he was not allowed to speak. He had made a mis-step in the great drama of life. He was a fallen chieftain. His proud nature would
379
HISTORY OF MILLS COUNTY.
unable longer to resist the advance of the white man. In 1842 was made a treaty in accordance with the provisions of which the Sac and Fox and Pottawattamies ceded to the general government the western portion of the State of Iowa, and "their right of title and interest therein." The parties to the treaty were, as has been said on a preceding page, Gover- nor Chambers, of Iowa Territory, on the part of the government, and Chiefs Keokuk, Appanoose and Panassa, among others, in behalf of the red men. In the spring of 1846 the Indians finally retired to Kansas, and here the history of their connection with Iowa soil finally ends.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.