USA > Iowa > Page County > History of Page County, Iowa : also biographical sketches of some prominent citizens of the county, Vol. I > Part 6
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BRAADDYVILLE HIGH SCHOOL
PUBLIC 1 2 IT
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HISTORY OF PAGE COUNTY
men were enlisted and armed. There was no difficulty in raising volunteers, for the war spirit ran high. At this stage, however, it was considered best to send peace commissioners to Missouri, with a view of adjusting the diffi- culties. General A. C. Dodge, of Burlington, General Churchman, of Du- buque, and Dr. Clark, of Fort Madison, were appointed and proceeded to discharge the duties of their mission. When they arrived they found that the county commissioners of Clarke county, Missouri, had rescinded their order for the collection of taxes in Iowa, and the governor of Missouri had sent messengers to Governor Lucas, with a proposition to submit an agreed case to the supreme court of the United States. This proposition was declined but afterward both Iowa and Missouri petitioned congress to authorize a suit to settle the question. This was done and the decision was adverse to the claims of Missouri. Under an order of the supreme court of the United States. William G. Miner of Missouri, and Henry B. Hender- shott of Iowa, acted as commissioners to survey and establish the boundary line. They discharged the duties assigned them and peace was restored.
Before the dispute in regard to the boundary line had been settled, the greater portion of the southern half of the county paid tribute to the state of Missouri and the citizens of the territory above described, what few there were, considered themselves under the jurisdiction of that state, a portion of the time being attached to Andrews county, and afterwards to Nodaway, the sheriff of Missouri calling on them yearly for their taxes, it being the duty of that officer then to look after such matters.
As near as we can learn the citizens of this portion of the disputed terri- tory always submitted gracefully to Missouri during the "border" difficulty, a great number of them really believing that they belonged to that state, but after the boundary line had been permanently and amicably settled, a more permanent and substantial era immediately pervaded the whole of what had been the much disputed territory. The line was established by the com- missioners appointed by act of congress for that purpose in 1851.
DESCRIPTIVE AND PHYSICAL.
The county is a well watered and fertile tract of land, being well adapted for agricultural purposes. The county, east and west, is twenty-four and three-fourths miles long, including the "offset," which appears as though the northern half had been slipped three-fourths of a mile west. North and south it is about twenty-two and one-half miles, including an area of five hundred and fifty-five square miles, or three hundred and fifty-five thousand two hundred acres.
The surface is uneven, gently undulating with hills and valleys. The county is drained by Buchanan creek, a stream about twenty feet wide, the East Nodaway river being about fifty feet wide, the West Nodaway River about one hundred feet wide, and East, Middle, and West Tarkios, each about twenty feet wide, by the East Nishnabotna about seventy- five feet wide, and by their various tributaries. These principal streams flow in a direction a little west of south. Each of these streams has fine
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HISTORY OF PAGE COUNTY
valleys, corresponding in width with the size of the stream. Especially is this the case with the valleys of the Nodaways and Nishnabotna. In fact they are unsurpassed, both in beauty and the fertility of their soil. It will be readily observed that Page county is well supplied with living streams of water and is therefore well adapted for stock raising. No better inducement could be offered stock raisers than to have it generally known that a plen- tiful supply of living water abounds at all times within the borders of the county. It is an advertisement to be proud of and many stock raisers are taking advantage of the facilities and inducements offered here, for both handling and raising stock.
Good well water is obtained in most localities throughout the county in great abundance and at a moderate depth below the surface, ranging from ten to forty feet, of a good quality, clear, cool and unfailing. Frequently it becomes necessary to dig thirty and forty feet and occasionally deeper, before meeting with the same results, accordingly as the well digger is fortunate in starting in the right place to strike a good vein. Here, as in other localities of course, these water veins underground vary greatly in depth and sometimes only a few rods from a good well fifteen or twenty feet deep, it may become necessary to dig twice or three times the distance in order to find plenty of water again, and vice versa, so that it is difficult to give an average of depth. But in this county, as a general thing, plenty of good well water is more easily obtained than in most places throughout the state and though sometimes it is necessary to go down to quite a depth, the excellent quality of water secured-clear as crystal-well repays the digging.
The county very fortunately has comparatively few of those unapproach- able sloughs and tracts of swamp lands so often found on extensive prairies. The sloughs throughout the county are generally a good distance apart, leaving a broad strip of well drained farming land on either side. They are mostly broad and level, with sufficient fall to carry off the drainage and prevent water standing in them very long, while their channels do not wash deep, narrow drains in the center as is the case in many other places. The greater portion of the slough lands in the county could be easily drained and made tillable. They would then become some of the most productive lands in the county and would still answer the same purpose of drainage for which they are now prized, at the same time producing abundant yields of hay and other products. In some places they spread out in the shape of broad, level bottom lands, gradually widening and sloping down toward the valleys of the neighboring rivers and other running streams. The soil of these slough lands is fertile and easily tilled when once drained and broken.
The belts of local timber will supply all local needs for many years to come. The tendency is now and has been for some years to limit rather than enlarge the area of timber land. The timber is more abundant in the eastern part of the county and the area in timber and prairie is perhaps about equally interspersed. In the central and western part of the county the timber is generally to be found along the streams. On the whole, the timber of the county is well distributed and conveniently located to the
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HISTORY OF PAGE COUNTY
prairie and farming lands, so as to be easily accessible from any locality within its boundaries.
Beautiful groves are dotted here and there, some of them occupying quite elevated positions and others bordering on the lowlands, which tend to relieve the monotony and dreary aspect so prevalent on our broad, bleak western prairies.
There are a great many varieties of timber found, such as oak, hickory, sycamore, walnut, hackberry, lind, elm, sugar maple, soft maple, cotton- wood, swamp ash, and in some localities, white ash, etc. Along the river bottoms and lowlands it chiefly abounds in the soft woods, with a moderate per cent of hard wood trees occurring among them more or less frequently in different localities, while along the higher banks and bluff lands are found the more valuable hard woods, suitable for fencing and building purposes.
In many places the best of the hard woods of the older growth have been culled out, and in others pretty thoroughly cleared off to supply the needs of settlers, thus leaving only the less valuable soft woods, but the second growth is rapidly increasing and is furnishing as an average, a better quality of timber than that which preceded, and it is estimated that the increase in growth will exceed the annual waste and consumption for all purposes, so that there need be no fear of the citizens suffering from want of fuel and fencing and shelter, especially since coal and lumber, becoming so plentiful and cheap, are found almost at their very doors.
Even those who were born and reared in a timber country and who have spent their prime of life in the woods, can find here a timber home quite congenial to their nature, and also joining this they can secure for as large a family as they choose to raise, a fertile tract of farming land, all grubbed and cleared and ready for the plow which, with a moderate amount of labor and judicious management, will furnish a comfortable home and liberal income as the reward of faithful industry and prudence.
In these days, however, timber land is not in such high estimation as formerly, since railroad facilities have rendered fuel, fencing and building material so cheap. Consequently the opportunities to purchase are increased and the price decreased somewhat, as a general thing.
Prairie is the prevailing characteristic of the county. It is abundant in quantity and mostly all excellent in quality.
In so large a tract there must always be some that is of an inferior quality. However, there is comparatively small per cent of poor prairie land in this county and among so much that is good it is a difficult task to designate that which is best. On nearly all the divides between the rivers and running streams are found large tracts of beautiful, rolling prairie lands, well drained, easily cultivated, highly productive and conveniently located to water, timber, mills and markets.
The character of the soil heretofore spoken of is such that a failure of crops from dry weather is unknown. The soil is light and porous, so that ten hours of bright sunshine will dry the roads after a heavy rain.
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HISTORY OF PAGE COUNTY
The climate is healthful, invigorating and pleasant for this latitude, both winter and summer. The winters are generally long, with rather an even temperature, sometimes changing quite suddenly from cold to warm and back again to extremely cold weather within a few days. But these sudden changes are the exception rather than the general rule, so the citizens soon become accustomed to them and consider it not half a winter without them. This region is subject to an average and occasionally a heavy fall of snow during the winter season, which is usually accompanied by sharp, healthful frosts, but as a general thing the mercury remains above zero, seldom reach- ing more than twelve or fifteen degrees below and very rarely falling to twenty and twenty-five degrees below zero.
During the winter the roads generally remain dry, there being usually but little rain. Snow seldom falls of late years to a greater depth than six inches. It is much drifted, however, by the winds. The climate is generally esteemed no more rigorous than in the eastern states of the same latitude.
Strong, sharp, chilling winds sweep over the broad prairies and down the valleys during the winter and early spring months but these become modified to gentle. bracing, welcome breezes during the later spring, summer, autumn, and early fall months, and within the past few years the winters have become greatly modified from the reputed coldness of earlier days to the milder temperature of a more southern clime, so that many of the older settlers having become accustomed to exposure in driving storms and blustery weather during the hardships of frontier life, rather incline to look upon these open, mild winters as intruders, coming out of season and out of place, and they begin to "long for the good old days of yore." when neigh- bors must become congenial and accommodating in order to keep from freezing or starving to death and when storm-staid strangers will be made welcome guests at the fireside. The later spring, summer and autumn months are generally delightful and salubrious.
The prairie winds which become mild and almost constant, are fresh and bracing, regulating the temperature and purifying the atmosphere.
During the months of July and August they sometimes seem rather mild and motionless, allowing the sun's rays to beam down unhindered for a while and to occupy the field with almost undisputed sway, thus producing a few days of hot, sweltering harvest weather, which cause the citizens to place something of a proper estimate on the value and usefulness of the county's beautiful shade trees and excellent water. Then these few sultry days are soon followed by a glorious "Indian summer" of balmy autumn days, which are aptly fitted to brighten the pathway and "cheer the heart of man." The county has rain and wet weather enough to water the crops and produce a healthy growth of vegetation.
The health of Page county people is usually very good. although they die here as elsewhere. Ague is practically unknown in these later days and there are no climatic diseases peculiar to the county, so that the repeal of the quinine duty had little practical effect in this county and will not be made the one issue in any canvass of this county. The early settlers on the
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HISTORY OF PAGE COUNTY
river bottoms would have welcomed it but for practical results it is now useless.
Although the early settlers found considerable wild fruit in the timbered regions of the county, they accepted without question the belief that the county was not well adapted to fruit raising. Experience has proven this to be a great error. Tame or grafted fruits of equal hardihood have been found to flourish as well as the wild fruits. Among the wild fruits found in the timber belts were several varieties of plums of excellent flavor. The large yellow plum was often from three to three and a half inches in cir- cumference, and it was as luscious to the taste as any of the tame plums. Grapes, crab apple, wild cherry, currants, gooseberries, blackberries, straw- berries, raspberries, black and red haws, and other fruits of the same char- acter were also found. The butternut, walnut and hickory tree bear well and hazlenuts are abundant. It is along the river bottoms that the fruit Hourishes best.
Tame plums, peaches, apples. cherries, etc., produce abundantly when cultivated with care and when the proper varieties are selected. As we have stated, the early settlers as a general thing, thought it useless to attempt fruit raising here and thus the county now lacks many a noble orchard it might otherwise have had. At present, however, nearly every farmer, who has not already an orchard, is engaged in cultivating one, and thriving young orchards are to be seen all over the country and no better apples are raised anywhere than those grown in Page county. The raising of peaches did not prove a success at an early day but of late years it has been demonstrated that the peach can be raised here, almost as well and proves generally as sure a crop as anywhere.
The strawberry succeeds well, as it does throughout almost all por- tions in this latitude. They are not cultivated extensively for the markets because of the remoteness of the county from a large town to create a de- mand, but with improved railway connections a large and profitable business in this production will doubtless spring up to add employment and wealth to its people.
Raspberries and blackberries succeed well and are cultivated quite gen- erally over the surface of the county for home use.
Cherries have become a very important crop and will eventually add much to the wealth of the county.
The great, the standard productions of the county are the cereals, corn, wheat, oats, barley and rye. For these the soil is peculiarly fitted and they almost grow spontaneously. Especially is this the case with the corn crop as no other county in Iowa can excel Page in regard to yield and in fact, but few equal it. This portion of the state appears to be particularly adapted for corn, averaging from forty to eighty and sometimes as high as one hundred bushels per acre.
Rye and barley, while quite extensively cultivated, have not attained great importance because there are no local markets. The temperance pro- clivities of the people also operate as a bar to the establishment of breweries and distilleries.
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HISTORY OF PAGE COUNTY
Oats will probably average about thirty to forty bushels to the acre, one year with another.
Sorghum thrives well but is not now cultivated to that extent as formerly.
Potatoes grow almost without effort, although the bug has been a pest which has exercised the patience and devoured the crop of many a farmer. The average yield is probably about one hundred and fifty bushels per acre, although many instances are known of a production at the rate of four hundred bushels to the acre.
The importance of the tame grasses was not appreciated at an early day, so long as the virgin soil of much of the county remained unbroken, because the supply of pasturage was free and plentiful and the quality of the prairie hay was all that the early settlers desired or needed, but when the time came, the soil of the county gave evidence that it was thoroughly adapted to tame grasses. Timothy and red-top and clover, for both pas- turage and hay, and Kentucky blue grass for the former, succeed well in almost every portion of the county. As the county becomes more per- fectly developed, the importance of the tame grasses to the entire produc- tion of the other growths from the soil will be greatly increased.
Successful stock raising here as in every other portion of the western country has kept even pace with the adoption and increase of the tame grasses and will in the future be the absorbing industry of its people.
HYDROGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY.
The geological history of Page county is one of peculiar interest and affords some very suggestive facts relative to its past vicissitudes. It extends in point of time over many thousands of years and embraces pe- riods of repose and periods of remarkable change. Its history, climatologi- cally, has been one of deep interest and embraces changes so radical and so directly at variance with one another as to be almost incredible. There have been long ages when it basked under a torrid sun, and then these ages gave place to others equally as remarkable for polar frosts. Life in all the variety and luxuriance of a tropical climate gave place to the desert wastes of an arctic zone. Nor were these changes sudden. They are there, stamped in the very rocks at your door, and limned upon the landscape of your valleys, not as great and far-reaching catastrophes but as gradual transitions, marked as such by the fossil forms that roll out from the rock you crush or see traced with a delicacy no draughtsman can imitate. There have been times when Old Ocean, heedless of his doings, dashed against the rocky barrier that dared dispute his way, or rolled in solemn conscious might above its highest point, times when a beautiful and varied flora thrived on its surface, and times when there was naught, save a waste of desert water. We strike our pick in the shales on the hillside, and behold ! there in the coal that gives us warmth and drives our engines, are the fairy forms that made the fern paradise of the coal period. To trace briefly these changes and to note their probable causes is the object of this sketch.
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HISTORY OF PAGE COUNTY
It is, however, of the utmost importance to first obtain a correct view of the drainage of the county-or its hydrography.
The general dip of the county, averaging two feet to the mile, as in- deed of the remaining portions of southwestern Iowa, is a little west of south, its surface waters finding their way to the Missouri-the "Big Muddy." The entire eastern portion of the county is drained by the Nodaways, and along their valleys the most beautiful scenery of the county is to be found. The most heavily wooded sections also are here, the stream, throughout its entire course through the county, partaking less of the nature of a true prairie stream than any other water course within its limits. To the west and running throughout the county in courses, mainly par- allel to the Nodaway, are found the Tarkio and West Tarkio rivers, while through Pierce and Grant townships in the northwest flows the Nishnabotna. These streams, with their numerous smaller tributaries, entering at right angles to the courses of the main streams, afford a complete and perfect drainage. The three last named streams, with the exception of the lower half of the Tarkio, are truly prairie streams, sparsely wooded, and of sluggish movement. The surface of the county in the main, is the usual undulating, treeless prairie. Whatever may be the origin of these prairie lands, their real cause is the prevalence of annual fires. The valleys them- selves present the usual appearance of the "drift"-a term which will be explained farther on-and in the western portion of the county they are occupied by the "bluff deposit." The material of this deposit is of a slightly yellowish ash color, except where darkened by decaying vegeta- tion, very fine and silicious, but not sandy, not very cohesive and not at all plastic. The origin of the "bluff" is referred to the accumulation of sedi- ment in an ancient lake, which was afterwards drained and the sediment became dry land. That so enormous deposit of this age as is found in Page county-nearly two hundred feet on its western side-should be made, we must conceive the present level of the land to be lowered, the water of the Gulf of Mexico backing up on the land, the whole country adja- cent to the lower Missouri far below the surface of the ancient lake thus formed, while the upper Missouri is plowing its way through the land, wearing away its boundaries and hurrying with them to the compara- tively quiet water below. Here and there they were deposited and remained as sediment until those giant throes lifted again the partially submerged continents and hurled the encroaching waves back to their former dominion. Such a change occurred in Page county and the proofs are on every hand. The "bluff" deposit is known to occupy a region through which the Missouri runs almost centrally and measures more than two hundred miles in length and one hundred miles in width. This deposit occurs immedi- ately on the "drift" and with it forms almost the entire surface of this county. The term "drift" as is commonly employed in geology. includes the gravel, sand, clay, and boulders occurring over some parts of the con- tinents, which are without stratification or order of arrangement and have been transported from places in high latitudes by some agency which, first, could carry masses of rock, hundreds of tons in weight, and which,
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HISTORY OF PAGE COUNTY
second, was not always dependent for motion on the slopes of the sur- face. This agency was ice, either in the form of an extensive glacier or detached masses, called icebergs. The whole surface of North America, even to the thirty-ninth parallel, bears evidence of the denuding and trans- forming power of ice. This was the agency which rounded these hills, partially filled old valleys or dug out new ones, and which left at our very doors these masses of rock-small and large-to excite our wonder and cause us to seek their origin. The drift appears in numerous localities along the major and some of the minor water courses, and at railroad cut- tings. This deposit also covers all the high lands in the county and varies in thickness from a few to one hundred and eighty feet. It is mostly composed of clay and gravel, with occasional beds of sand, and is de- posited without much regularity of stratification and contains many worn and rounded masses of granite, gneiss, porphyry, hornblende and other primary rocks, together with limestone, sandstone, bits of coal and slate, all of which have been transplanted from points more or less remote from their present locality.
The only material of economical value to be obtained from the drift deposits are sands and clays. Sand of an excellent quality, suitable for molder's use and cement may be obtained along the rivers in considerable abundance, though no potter's clay has yet been observed in this forma- tion in this county.
The best wells of water are to be obtained by sinking in the subter- ranean stream that percolates through the sandy strata of this deposit. Usually on the prairies good water may be reached from twenty, to forty feet below the surface. The only fossils yet obtained from the drift in this county are a few shark teeth and an occasional fragment of silicified wood, which probably belong to a period somewhat older than the drift and have been transported from some cretaceous deposit over which the drift has passed. In the valley of the Nodaway, near Clarinda, some teeth of the huge and extinct mastodon have been found.
Of the coal-measures only the "Upper coal-measure strata have been exposed in this county but it is probable that some outline of these Nish- nabotna sandstones exist beneath the surface in the northwestern part" (White). The following account of the coal-measures of the county is taken from Dr. White's Geology of Iowa, 1870, Vol. I, page 349, et seq. : "The strata thus far discovered are all referred to the horizon of the lower half of the series of limestone and shales of the Winterset section (upper carboniferous, C.). At Hawleyville, just upon the east border of the county, there is an exposure of about five feet in thickness, of bluish argillaceous limestone, with partings of blue, clayey shale. These are no doubt the equivalents of a part of the strata associated with the coal bed at Foster's, in the Northwestern part of Taylor county, but no coal has yet been discovered in connection with the strata at Hawleyville. Cross- ing over to the valley of the West Nodaway, the next exposure of strata found was upon the left bank of the stream, a little below Clarinda, the county seat. Here the same bed of coal is found again which is worked at
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