USA > Iowa > Muscatine County > History of Muscatine County, Iowa, from the earliest settlements to the present time, Volume I > Part 11
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Captain Merrick graphically describes a race between the Itasca and the Gray Eagle, which took place in 1856 on the Mississippi from Dunleith to St. Paul. He says : "As a race against time, the run of the Gray Eagle was some- thing really remarkable. A sustained speed of over sixteen miles an hour for a distance of three hundred miles up stream is a wonderful record for an inland
LOG RAFT, 1898
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HISTORY OF MUSCATINE COUNTY
steamboat, anywhere, upper river or lower river, and the pride which Captain Harris had in his boat was fully justified. A few years later she struck the Rock Island bridge and sank in less than five minutes, a total loss. It was pitiful to see the old captain leaving the wreck, a broken-hearted man, weeping over the loss of his darling and returning to his Galena home, never again to command a steamboat. He had during his eventful life on the upper river built and owned or commanded scores of steamboats and this was the end." Cap- tain D. Smith Harris in 1855 brought out the Gray Eagle which had been built at Cincinnati at a cost of $60,000. He built her with his own money or at least had a controlling interest and intended her to be the fastest boat on the river.
RAFTING DAYS.
Captain W. A. Blair gives an interesting description of rafting on the Missis- sippi river in the following article which first appeared in the Chicago Timber- man :
"The rafting of logs began about 1845 and reached its height in 1890, when the Chippewa river alone sent out over 600,000,000 feet of logs, besides over 400,000,000 feet of sawed lumber for the yards at Burlington, Keokuk, Hanni- bal, Louisiana, St. Louis and Chester. The first rafts floated down the Missis- sippi were very small, were carried along by the current and handled by large oars on the bow and stern. The logs were rafted in strings seventeen feet wide and held together by poles across them, to which each log was fastened by wooden plugs and lockdowns. These strings were fastened together into rafts from five to ten strings wide and about two hundred and fifty feet long. De- lays by wind, sticking on sandbars or breaking on islands were common and while the price per thousand feet was very high, the proceeds of the entire trip were often required to pay off the crew.
"In 1865 W. J. Young, of Clinton, Iowa, one of the most successful pioneers of the lumber business, encouraged Captain Cyrus Bradley to try a small steam- boat hitched to the stern of a raft to push and guide it in the stream. His first efforts were not highly satisfactory but enough so to induce him and others to try pushing rafts with better boats in the same way, which they did with very gratifying results.
THE CLINTON "NIGGER."
"By 1870 the business of towing rafts by steamboat had become well es- tablished but considerable trouble attended all their efforts to properly handle and guide the rafts until Chauncey Lamb, of Clinton, Iowa, invented the famous 'Clinton Nigger,' since then in use on every boat in the rafting business. By its use the boat's position can be easily and quickly changed so as to shove for- ward or back up in different directions as the change in wind or course of the river may require. The boat's head is made fast to the stern of the raft as near the middle as possible, and the stern is held in position by two gang lines of large ropes made fast on the stern corners of the raft and rove around the drums of the 'Clinton Nigger' placed aft of the boat's center and amidships. 'Running the Nigger' pulls in one gang line and passes out the other, changing Vol. 1-8
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the direction of the boat accordingly. A boat hitched in this way can handle a much heavier tow than if hitched in stiff depending entirely on the rudders for steering and handling. During the early part of 1895 the steamer Saturn, 120 feet long, twenty-four feet wide, with engine fifteen inches in diameter, four and a half feet stroke, made a very successful trip to St. Louis with a raft of lumber 1,584 feet long and 272 feet wide, containing over 7,000,000 feet of lumber besides shingles, laths and pickets enough to load a good sized steamer. About the same time the steamer E. Rutledge brought to Rock Island a raft of logs 1,450 feet long and 285 feet wide, containing over 2,000,000 feet log measure. Either of these rafts would cover ten acres, but were brought suc- cessfully through some very narrow, crooked places.
"Floating rafts are a thing of the past and many of the famous old floating pilots have long since crossed to the other shore. They were a strong, hardy, self-reliant lot of men, accustomed to exposure, hard work, long watches and the handling of the rough, boisterous men who composed their crew. When wind-bound or tied up near some small town where liquors were to be had, these raftsmen of the olden time were much inclined to paint things a very bril- liant color, and where local authorities failed to control them they generally hunted up the pilot to take charge of his men and save the town.
THE FIRST RAFT PILOT.
"Captain S. B. Hanks, now living in Albany, Illinois (1905), at the age of eighty-nine years, gets the credit for having been the first recognized raft pilot. He saw the business grow from a single trip to a great industry in which ninety steamers were engaged regularly all season long, whose crews numbered all told 1,800 men, with a monthly payroll of over $80,000.
"The average raft steamer is 130 feet long, twenty-six feet wide, four feet hold and has two-inch pressure boiler with engine thirteen inches in diameter and six feet stroke. Some of them have very nice cabins with accommodation for the crew of twenty and a few extra. The logs are driven down the small tributaries into the Black, Chippewa, St. Croix and upper Mississippi rivers, and then flooded and driven down loose into the Mississippi river.
"Black river logs are rafted at North La Crosse at the mouth of the stream. Chippewa logs are driven down into the Mississippi at Reed's Landing, then twelve miles down into West Newton slough, where they are held, sorted, scaled and rafted by the Minnesota Boom Company, which company can turn out, when conditions are favorable, 10,000,000 to 15,000,000 feet per day. St. Croix logs are rafted at Stillwater, where the St. Croix river enters St. Croix Lake. Upper Mississippi logs are driven loose from St. Anthony's Falls and rafted between Fort Snelling and St. Paul. From these points the steamer tows them to the sawmills at Winona, La Crosse, Lansing, Guttenberg, Dubuque, Bellevue, Lyons, Fulton, Clinton, Moline, Rock Island, Davenport, Muscatine, Burlington, Fort Madison, Keokuk, Quincy, Hannibal and St. Louis, while rafted lumber is sometimes taken to Chester, eighty miles below St. Louis.
"The average speed of a towboat and raft down stream is three and a half miles an hour. Of late years several operators have adopted the plan of making
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their rafts very long and using a small steamboat fastened crosswise of the bow. By going ahead or backing the bow boat the raft can be pointed around or kept in the channel much more quickly than the boat at the stern could do it alone. Another point gained by this plan is that while the ordinary raft is too wide for the bridge draws and can only be put through one-half at a time, lengthened out double length and half width, double tripping the bridge is avoided and much time saved.
"The business has seen its best days. Forest fires and the chopper's ax have destroyed nearly all the good timber accessible. The average size of the logs diminishes each year. Mill after mill will close when its supply of white pine is exhausted. One by one the towboats that have chased each other down the grand old river will be laid to rest and rot, while their crew, who have waited in vain for the pleasant message to 'get her ready at once' will wander off, sadly trying to catch a land lubber's step and earn a hard living on shore, think- ing often of the old familiar whistle he will hear no more."
FIRST ELECTRIC LIGHT ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
The Journal of June 23, 1881, is authority for the following statement: The "rafter," B. Hershey, carried the first electric searchlight used by a steamboat of any kind on the Mississippi. The steamer Gem City made its appearance on the day above mentioned at Muscatine, with the first electric searchlight used on an upper river packet.
MISSISSIPPI STEAMBOATS "PERFECT PALACES."
In a reminiscent article published in the Journal June 12, 1874, appeared the following: "The old steamer Milwaukee passed down the river for St. Louis, where she will be dismantled and converted into something else. She is the last of a noble race of steamers that once constituted a perfect flotilla of palaces on the upper Mississippi. We learn from an article in the Davenport Gazette that she, with the Gray Eagle, Itasca, Northern Light and Key City, was built in Cincinnati in 1855 for the Galena, Dubuque & Minnesota Packet Company. The whole five were magnificent packets built for speed and pas- sengers rather than for freight and all on the same model. These packets did an immense business in both freight and passengers in 1855-6-7. They scarcely made a trip without being so crowded with passengers that the cabin floors were covered with cots, but with the crash of 1857, emigration ceased passing into Minnesota in such overwhelming numbers. Davidson started a line from La Crosse, the Galena, Dubuque & Minnesota Company was transformed into the Northwestern Packet Company and the palmy days of the steamers were ended. The Gray Eagle went to pieces against the Rock Island bridge in 1861. The Itasca burned at Paducah, Kentucky, the Northern Light sank above La
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Crosse in high water and was cut to pieces by the ice, and the Key City was taken to pieces at Paducah, leaving the Milwaukee "the last of the Mohicans."
ARRIVAL OF THE STEAMER MUSCATINE.
From the Journal of. April 1, 1864, we glean that "the new Northern Line steamer Muscatine arrived at our levee yesterday afternoon. She was delayed on her upward trip (from the Ohio river) some seventy-two hours at the lower rapids by high water. Her arrival was announced by peals from the cannon answered by a piece on board the boat. Hundreds of our citizens were on the wharf to welcome her. Immediately on her arrival, she was formally pre- sented by Henry O'Connor, Esq., on behalf of the merchants of Muscatine with a beautiful set of flags, consisting of an ensign, a banner with the name of the boat, two side-wheel flags, a Union jack and a streamer. They were made of the finest English bunting at Buffalo, New York, and cost $95. Cap- tain Roach was accorded the floor and responded by inviting the company into the cabin, where refreshments were provided to them and where for a time everything went merrily. The boat is a magnificent large "side-wheeler," one of the best of the Northern Line Company's packets. She was built by the company at Wheeling, West Virginia, last summer, under the superintendence of Captain Robinson, who is to be commander. Her dimensions are as fol- lows: Length, 201 feet; breadth of beam, 34 feet; cylinders, 18 inches in diam- eter, with 61/2 feet stroke; length of buckets, 10 feet; diameter of wheel, 38 feet; and tonnage, 600. She draws twenty-five inches light. She can also ac- commodate with comfortable staterooms, 100 passengers and carries cots for forty more. Her cabin is an elegant affair, richly and tastefully ornamented. She is furnished magnificently and all modern improvements for comfort and convenience are used. From her build and power we judge she will be a fast boat. Altogether, Muscatine has reason to be proud of her namesake. Captain Rhodes is a brother of T. B. Rhodes, president of the line. Clerk Jenks is also well known on the upper rivers. They will remain with the boat until the com- pletion of the City of Burlington, now in course of construction at Wheeling by the Northern Line Company, of which boat they are to take command."
RACING ON THE MISSISSIPPI IN EARLY TIMES.
We are indebted to the Journal of July 5, 1867, for the following: "About eight o'clock last evening great interest was excited by the almost simultaneous appearance around the 'towhead' below the city of two steamers, which proved to be the Phil Sheridan and Hawkeye State, and which it had been announced were to start out of St. Louis together. The Sheridan was a short distance in advance and landed at this place, while her rival passed on. By the officers of the Sheridan we have been furnished the following memoranda of the trip: 'Left St. Louis at 4:58. Hawkeye left at 4:05; Belle of Pike (Illinois river boat), 4:20; Lucy Bertram, 4:24. Passed the Lucy Bertram below Grafton, Belle of Pike at Grafton Landing. First came in view of the Hawkeye below Hannibal, nearly reached her at Keithsburg, parted with her to land at New
Drawrys From MENE
APEX.
Ferry Boat Apex used at Muscatine from 1852 until 1855. Sketched from memory by John McGreer
Moonlight EXCURSION OF THE U.B. CH.
On the Northern Illinois. July. IT
Ferry Boat Northern Illinois
Old Settlers' Excursion to mouth of Pine Creek on the steamer John M. Abbott, September 25, 1884
I SAINT PAUL
Ferry Boat Decalion at Drury's Landing in 1866
Diamond Jo Steamer St. Paul
Ferry Boat Ida May
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Boston, she leading us about a mile at 7:20. At 7:50 lapped her again, and after a desperate and dangerous resistance on her part, passed her at 8:15. Muscatine is our twelfth landing and Hawkeye the sixth as far as we know. This race promises to be a hotly contested one and the result will be anxiously awaited."
W. G. Block, steamboat agent, son of the late Marx Block, says this race was from St. Louis to St. Paul, between the Phil Sheridan and the Sucker State, the Phil Sheridan being a Northwestern packet and the Sucker State of the Northern Line Company. He says the Phil Sheridan was the fastest boat and had a long pointed bow, while the Sucker State had a bluff bow, but in spite of this the Sucker State got to St. Paul first, as Captain Hight of the Sucker State took the chances of running the Rock Island rapids at night, which was considered very hazardous then, with its sunken rocks and no gov- ernment lights, as now. The Phil Sheridan laid up at Davenport until day- light, as all other boats were then in the habit of doing, her officers never sup- posing the Sucker State would go through after dark. In this way the Sucker State beat the Phil Sheridan to St. Paul.
The Sucker State on April 1, 1864, landed at Muscatine with the Sixteenth Iowa Infantry on board. Some of the veterans were on leave of absence from the front and others had finished their terms of service. At the time of their arrival the soldiers were feasted and feted to their hearts' content by the loyal and patriotic citizens of Muscatine, who had made great preparation for their reception.
FERRY BOATS.
Through the careful research labors of Edward L. Graham, the writer and the readers of this work are indebted for facts, and many of them, relating to various subjects of interest herein contained. Among them is the following data pertinent to the ferries and ferry boats, the last of which disappeared when the high bridge was opened for traffic :
Probably the first ferry boat at Muscatine was the Polly Keith, a flat boat built in 1839, for Charles Warfield by D. C. Cloud and George Leffingwell, Sr. The next was propelled by steam and named the Iowa. Its captain was John Phillips and the craft was in commission one season (1842), when it was con- demned and dismantled. For two or three years thereafter Phillips ran a flat boat with oars. The successor to the flat boat was one propelled by horse power in 1845, similar to the Apex. It was first run by Brooks & Reece, then by Colonel A. M. Hare and others. From March, 1852, to 1855, the Apex, a horse-power boat, was in the service under Fimple & Pettibone, and in July, 1855, the steam ferry boat Muscatine was placed in commission by Fimple & Pettibone and remained until 1858.
The Decalion was a steamboat and was used for ferry purposes from 1858 until February 16, 1868, when it sank to the bottom of the river. Next came the Northern Illinois, a steam boat, which was in the ferry service here from the spring of 1868, until May, 1874, when it was sold to Captain Leonard. The last was the Ida May, which plied from shore to shore from May 24, 1875, to
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May 16, 1891, when she was sold to the Muscatine Fence Company after the opening of the high bridge.
RAFTING OF LUMBER.
Remarkable details regarding the rafting of lumber on the Mississippi in the early days have been gleaned from the files of the Journal, as follows : From 1865 to 1870 lumber rafts were taken as far south as Memphis and Vicks- burg. Not more than two rafts a year go south of St. Louis and then only as far as St. Mary and Chester. The longest distance ever run by a raft on the Mississippi was from La Crosse, Wisconsin, to New Orleans. The trip was made in 1870. The float was made up of ten strings of about 1,000,000 feet. It was owned by the Grunner Brothers Lumber Company and was valued at $30,000. * * The largest raft yet towed (1870) by the steamer Van Sant contained 2,000,000 feet of lumber, 500,000 lath, and 250,000 pickets. It was sixteen strings wide and three and a half acres in area. * A * monster raft containing 2,000,000 feet of lumber and loaded with 500,000 shingles, 700,000 lath and 100,000 pickets, passed down in tow of the rafter J. W. Van Sant. This was in May, 1872. * *
* May 19, 1873, a lumber raft of 1,700,000 feet arrived yesterday, propelled by the steamer James Means. It came from Reed's Landing, about 355 miles in four and a half days. It be- longed to the Union Lumbering Company and was mostly sold to dealers in this city. In 1874, the same rafter arrived with a big lumber raft for the Union Lumbering Company. It contained 1,600,000 feet of lumber and was loaded down with lath, shingles, etc. * * On May 22, 1875, a raft containing 2,300,000 feet of lumber, with the usual top loading, was tied near Chambers'
mill and attracted much attention from its immense size, its area being three and a half acres. It belonged to the Union Lumbering Company and came from Chippewa Falls. * * In its issue of August 9, 1877, the Journal says : "One of the largest log rafts that ever floated down passed here on its way to St. Louis from the Jennie Bull Falls on the Chippewa. It belonged to T. B. Scott, who likes to run logs by the acre. The raft is twenty-eight strings long and nine strings wide and carried on it 1,200,000 shingles. This raft had a crew of forty men. * * In the issue of June 5, 1879, appeared this item: "That Big Raft-There was quite a crowd along the levee last evening to see the Ben Hershey land the largest raft ever brought down the river. The raft by actual measurement was 310 feet wide and 535 feet long, containing twenty strings. The Ben Hershey is undoubtedly the best rafter on the river and is claimed to have been the first steamboat of any kind to be equipped with electric searchlights. It was constructed at Rock Island for the Muscatine Lumber Manufacturing Company, which afterward became known as the Hershey Lumbering Company. She was 130 feet from stern to stern, 28 feet beam, and had a clearance of four feet. Her cost was $14,000."
A terrible disaster occurred on the Mississippi a short distance below Mus- catine in 1837, when the old Dubuque had a horrible explosion. Twenty-two people were killed and many more seriously injured. The bodies of the dead and injured were brought to this city, the dead being buried where the large
LAUNCHING OF "TRIDENT," NOVEMBER, 1873
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Third Ward school building now stands. When the contractors made excava- tions for the school building, many of the bones and skulls were unearthed. These bones were reinterred in another place. The Dubuque was one of the earliest boats on the Mississippi. At that time there were three boats running between St. Louis and Galena, Illinois. The other two were The Warrior and Live Branch.
THE WHITE COLLAR LINE.
One of the early steamboat lines on the Mississippi was the White Collar Line, which had a number of well equipped boats and was a very strong com- pany. Some of its vessels were constructed on handsome lines, among them being the City of St. Paul, the Belle of La Crosse, Phil Sheridan, Lucy Bertram, Northwestern, Centennial, Milwaukee, Itasca, Key City, Tom Jasper, Keokuk, War Eagle, S. S. Merrill and 'Alex Mitchell-all side-wheel steamers. The Centennial was the largest boat on the upper river and the Lucy Bertram, built on the Ohio river, was one of the finest and best equipped steamers on the Mississippi, costing about $175,000.
THE DIAMOND JO LINE.
This well known packet line was started by three Reynolds brothers, one of whom, Joe Reynolds, lived at Galena. It was started a short time subsequent to that of the White Collar Line. In those early days it was customary to mark the grain sacks with some distinguishing emblem trade-mark. The Reynolds brothers chose the diamond mark. From this the name of Diamond Jo origi- nated, and afterward when the packet line was organized, the name was given to it. The Diamond Jo line was started with the idea of towing grain down from the northern cities to Fulton, where it was stored in an immense elevator, which was destroyed some years ago. The John C. Gault was the pioneer boat of the Diamond Jo Line-a powerful double screw propeller. Sister vessels were the Ida Fulton, Arkansas, Tidal Wave, Diamond Jo, Josie, Josephine, Mary Morton, Sidney, Pittsburg, Libbie Conger, St. Paul and Quincy. The Pittsburg almost lost her life in a St. Louis cyclone and the remnant of her hulk was remodeled and named the Dubuque.
CHAPTER VI.
ORDER OUT OF CHAOS.
MUSCATINE COUNTY IS ORGANIZED-THE FIRST OFFICIALS AND PROCEEDINGS- ELECTION PRECINCTS ESTABLISHED AND COUNTY DIVIDED INTO COMMISSION- ERS DISTRICTS-COMMISSIONERS' AND OTHER COURTS-FIRST GRAND AND PETIT JURIES-COUNTY ADOPTS SUPERVISOR SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT-COURT HOUSES AND JAILS-COUNTY FARM-SOME STATISTICS-POPULATION OF MUSCATINE COUNTY IN 1910.
As has been seen, the bill organizing the county of Muscatine was approved December 7, 1836, and the first election in the county was held in the spring of 1837. Arthur Washburn and Edward Fay were the commissioners chosen, and possibly there was a third one, but his name is not obtainable. S. Clinton Hastings was elected clerk of the commissioners' court and James Davis sheriff ; John G. Coleman and Silas Lathrop, justices of the peace; Samuel Shortridge, S. C. Hastings and James R. Struthers assessors of the county. The first court was held in a room furnished by Samuel Parker, presumably at his home.
The second session of the commissioners' court was presided over by John Vanatta, Err Thorton and Aaron Usher, and was held on the 17th day of Feb- ruary, 1838. This session was devoid of results and lasted but one day. At the second session, in March, the bond of Jonathan Pettibone, as treasurer of the county, was accepted.
The minutes of the April (1838) meeting gives the first evidence of election precincts having been established. At that time Bloomington, Moscow, Fair- haven and Montpelier were recorded and also the discontinuance of Clark pre- cinct. The judges appointed were E. E. Fay, Samuel Holiday and Thomas Burdett, Bloomington; George Storms, William Kidder and William Bagley, Fairhaven; Benjamin Ludlow, William Addir and Goodwin Taylor, Moscow; Peter Hesser, William Chambers and Stephen Nye, Montpelier. In May, Fair- haven precinct was changed to Wapsinonoc.
July 2, 1838, James W. Neally was granted a license to keep a ferry, run- ning to the Illinois shore, on the Mississippi, for one year and prescribing rates as follows: Each footman, 25 cents ; man and horse, 50 cents; wagon and two horses, $1.50; cattle, 25 cents ; sheep and hogs, 61/4 cents. At the same time rates of ferriage across the Cedar river were fixed by the court : Each footman, 121/2 cents; man and horse, 25 cents; wagon and two horses, 75 cents; addi- tional oxen, 25 cents ; loose cattle, sheep, hogs, etc., 61/4 cents. Fee for obtain- ing license on the Cedar, $7.50.
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In 1839, block 24 of the town plat was reserved for the use of the county, and in March of the same year George Baumgardner was appointed county surveyor and ordered to survey section 35. In August, 1839, the board was composed of John Vanatta, Madison Stewart and Moses Perrin, J. G. Morrow, clerk.
November 4, Edward E. Fay was appointed clerk and on the same day school district No. I was established in township 78 north, range 2 west, in the limits of Bloomington.
At the January (1839) session of the board a jail was provided for and in the November session proposals for the building of a court house were or- dered printed in the Bloomington Territorial Gazette.
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