USA > Iowa > Palo Alto County > History of Palo Alto county, Iowa > Part 2
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
" We had hunting experiences-lots of them. In the fall of '55 my father and my brother and I came up here and I don't remember where we camped the first night, but the second night we camped up at Walnut Grove, about where the Laughlins settled later. Got up there in the afternoon. Were probably four miles from our team, when along about four o'clock we saw a drove of elk, prob- ably two hundred of them. We got north of them, within a hundred rods, and saw that the main drove was on the south of the creek. On the bottom of the pond over beyond that, we saw two big elk by themselves. Father tried to get these two. He started and as he went along ducks would fly up, and we supposed that every time the ducks flew the elk would be frightened away, but they did not care at all. Father kept gaining on those two; we could see him as he waded through the pond. We lay there and watched him. He fired a shot. One elk laid down and the other started to run, but stopped in the middle of another report. The elk ran, and would stop, and finally the old rifle popped again. Father shot seven times and had both down-two of the largest elk I ever saw. That was my first hunting experience. Deer were plenty. In the spring of '56 there were elk with our cattle half a dozen times. I wanted to take a gun and get after them, but Father said they were poor then and I should wait until they got fatter. I never got an elk. In the fall of '56, old Sam McClelland, my brother, and I, and this young Indian that I have spoken about, went to Lost Island. There had been thou- sands of elk there, but an Indian told us that he saw four Indians driving them away." 1
1 Interview with A. B. Carter. Some of the details given above regard- ing the crop of the first year are taken from a letter of Mr. Carter's to the Semi-Centennial Committee, May 12, 1906.
20
HISTORY OF PALO ALTO COUNTY
Early in the spring of 1856 William D. Powers joined the West Bend colony. He tells the story of his coming to Palo Alto County as follows: "I walked through Palo Alto under command of Major Sherman on our march to Fort Ridgely on the 7th of March, 1854. We marched from there to St. Paul and took boats and landed at Jef- ferson Barracks and from there took boats up the Missouri and landed at Fort Belknap, and from there to Fort Riley. I was discharged at that post on August 29, 1855. I worked two months in the bakehouse. I served five years as a baker. I came to St. Louis and bought one yoke of oxen and a wagon and I traveled up through Missouri and came up to Dakotah [City] and stayed a few days with Ed McKnight. He had a small log house to live in, the only one in Dakotah [City]. He brought me down to a steep bank of the river where there was a cave. He took me up to the south corner of Palo Alto and showed me a piece of land to live on. I made my claim on section 34 on the 21st day of December, 1855. I saw a log house about a mile from where McKnight and I were taking a lunch. We went up and found Jerry Evans living with his fam- ily. He told us there was not a nail in the house. A little farther toward the river we found another log house oc- cupied by William Carter, father of A. B. Carter, and family. I went back to Dakotah [City] and lived in the cave all winter. I came up to my claim and put up my army tent I had bought in St. Louis. This putting up my tent was on the 9th of April, 1856, at what is called West Bend now. The country looked wild, no people around. However, in the fall some of the Sioux Indians came down the river to hunt. There was plenty of game at that time. The chief, Och-see-da-washta, with a few of his warriors, would pay me a visit and take some dinner with me. I had two barrels of hardtack I brought up from St. Louis. They are hard biscuit for army use. The winter of 1858
W. D. POWERS
JOHN MCCORMICK
21
THE WEST BEND SETTLEMENT
was a cold and snowy time. We wanted to go to Dakotah [City] to get some flour. We could not take any teams along on account of the deep snow. So J. Lynn, S. McClel- land, and a few more made hand sleighs and tramped the snow and dragged our sleighs along and started back with one sack of flour and fifty pounds of pork. It took four days to go and come. Oh, what a change from those hard times! The Indians would talk about the time I was cap- tured by the Yankton Indians at Devil's Lake. But those wild times are gone and those dark days are set. The bright day of civilization has come. Those wild times and thousands of dark hours are gone forever." 1
The natural advantages afforded by the location and the fact that they were on the main route of travel to the north, combined to give this little settlement a very im- portant position. Rugged and persevering in character, these first settlers have had a vital and lasting influence on the development of the county.
1 Letter of William D. Powers, June 20, 1906.
CHAPTER III The Irish Colony
In July, 1856, another notable group of settlers came to Palo Alto County. This was a colony of Irishmen from Kane County, Illinois, who with brave hearts and stead- fast purpose came on into the frontier wilderness in search of homes. There were seven families in this colony, and it consisted of the following persons: James Nolan, An- astasia his wife, Maria his daughter, and two sons, James and John F .; John Neary and his wife, and one son, John F. Neary, and one daughter, Mary; Edward Mahan and Margaret his wife, Ann and Ellen his daughters, and two sons, John and Myles; Martin Laughlin, his wife Mary, three sons, Lott, J. T., and Patrick, and one daugh- ter, Ellen; John Nolan and wife Bridget, and one son, Charlie; Thomas Downey and Ellen Downey his wife, and Ellen his daughter; Orrin Sylvester and his wife Ellen. Patrick Jackman and Thomas Laughlin, both single, came with these settlers though not members of the families above enumerated.1
There were six ox teams in the party and they wended their weary way toward the west. Their proposed destin- ation was in the vicinity of Sioux City, Iowa, but at Fort Dodge they met a man by the name of Lynch, who had been with the government surveying party in 1855, and who told them of the splendid location for settlers along the west branch of the Des Moines River, where there was plenty of timber, abundance of good water, and the tall
1 Interviews with J. F. Neary, Lott Laughlin, J. J. Mahan, Myles Mahan, Patrick Jackman, Charles Nolan and others.
MR. AND MRS. JAS. NOLAN
EDWARD AND MARGARET MAHAN
JOHN NEARY
P. R. JACKMAN
LOTT LAUGHLIN
JOHN J. MAHAN
CHAS. T. NOLAN
23
THE IRISH COLONY
grass was ample evidence of the fertility of the soil. Some of the party went forward with Mr. Lynch and looked over the ground, returning with glowing accounts of the coun- try. So the entire party started on the rough trail from Fort Dodge. They reached the Des Moines River at last and camped in the timber at what is now known as Mur- phy's Bayou. They stayed there nearly a week while the various members of the party prospected the country and selected their claims. While here these pioneers discov- ered the first traces of Indians. Two dozen slaughtered geese were found hanging in a large elm tree where they had been left by the redskins. But the incident scarcely more than awakened their curiosity, as they had not oc- casion as yet to know the treacherous savage nature that was later to spread terror throughout the settlement.
These pioneers soon moved up the river and settled on section 14, in Emmetsburg township, about two miles northwest from the present city of Emmetsburg. Such brave and sturdy settlers as these were good examples of the frontiersman. They commenced with what nature furnished them and began to build their homes from the prairie and the woods. Although it was getting late for plowing, the breaking up of the prairie was at once begun by doubling up on their ox teams. The next task was to put up some hay for the cows and young stock, which they had brought with them in addition to their oxen. They built rough shelters for their stock, and as fast as possible constructed rude cabins out of logs, the bark still on, and the cracks chinked with mud. These cabins all had clay floors, and were roofed with " shakes " or thatched with hay, covered with sod. Most of the cabins had cellars or " root houses " as they were called, dug on the outside of the house, roofed with logs, and covered over with clay and sod. This " root house " had no outside opening and was entered by steps leading down from inside the cabin.
24
HISTORY OF PALO ALTO COUNTY
The cabin fire would keep the frost out of the cellar and there was no danger of freezing. Several of the cabins had rough fireplaces built in the clay floor and under the side logs, well plastered with clay and with a piece of tin or sheet iron at the back. The chimney was usually a hole in the roof for the smoke to pass through and was in fact the most prominent feature about that sort of convenience in those days. Plain accommodations, hearty fare and plenty of hard work, characterized the daily life of these first settlers.
Little of interest transpired during the first six months in their new homes, and except for an occasional Indian, or a hunt for wild game, there was little excitement to break the routine work on their claims. These settlers had come direct from a well settled community, and as yet little appreciated the full value of nature's gifts. Musk- rats, beaver, mink, as well as wolves and foxes, were plen- tiful. But the settlers knew little about hunting and prac- tically nothing about trapping. It was not until 1858, when three professional trappers came and camped near them, and were offered over $7,000 for their winter's catch, that the settlers began to realize the value of such pelts. Wild fowl of every kind was abundant. It was a common sight to see Medium Lake black with wild geese. Deer, antelope, and elk were often seen and two buffalo were sighted by some of these settlers that year. Nature's abundance was some compensation for pioneer hardships. Supplies and provisions were obtained from Fort Dodge, though the settlers had to go to Iowa City for their corn meal and made several trips that fall. As the snow was very deep the first winter, the men were compelled to make trips to Fort Dodge on snow shoes in real Indian fashion. If it had not been for the furs for trade, they would have found it hard to subsist, as there was very little money in those far-off settlements.
MR. AND MRS. JAS. HICKEY
MRS. MAGGIE HICKEY-MCNALLY First White Child Born in Palo Alto County
M. H. CROWLEY
J. P. CROWLEY
25
THE IRISH COLONY
James Hickey and wife joined the Irish colony in the early fall of 1856, and remained with the settlement dur- ing the first winter. Their daughter (Mrs. Patrick McNal- ly), born in October of that year, was the first white child born in the county. The following spring the Hickeys took up a claim farther south across the river on section 35-96-33.
One of the early settlers who came to this county after the Irish colony settled here, was Jerry Crowley, Sr., and family, consisting of five children, J. P., Michael H., Katie, Ellen and John. They came in the fall of 1856 and settled in a picturesque grove of natural timber on the west side of the river in section 35, in what is now Walnut township, about five miles north of the Irish settlement. Mr. Crow- ley built a house that fall and then went to Fort Dodge to get supplies for the winter. He bought some sod corn from Shippey and potatoes from Evans. There were no white neighbors nearer than the Irish colony, but in the winter of 1856, some time in December, a band of fourteen Indians camped in the woods not over twenty-five rods from Crowley's house. The family could see the tepees plainly from their dooryard. They were good Indians, with Sleepy-Eye as their chief, and did not bother the Crowleys any during that winter. In fact they were given large quantities of flour and other supplies. There were three trappers who camped along the river that winter and traded somewhat with the Indians. These trappers got a great many valuable furs and took them to Fort Dodge, but the snow was so deep that they did not get back with the supplies in time to trade with the Indians before the Indians left. These same Indians left in the spring of 1857, at the time Inkpadutah's band perpetrated the Spirit Lake massacre. Michael H. Crowley, describing the band of Indians, says: "They camped not over twenty-five or thirty rods from our house. I used to see the squaws
26
HISTORY OF PALO ALTO COUNTY
chopping wood. They never tried to molest us. I was al- ways afraid of them. One in particular I remember. He would come in with a great big club, all tacked full of brass tacks. It had a steel spear in the end of it and a skunk tail hanging to the end. He was a ferocious looking fellow and I never liked him, and was very glad when they left. The rest of the family did not seem to be afraid of them. Jerry used to go over to the tepees and play with the Indian children. They would slide down hill together." 1
Roger Corcoran, his wife and three children, came with Jerry Crowley, Sr. They settled on the south side of the river in section 35. It was the intention of Mr. Corcoran and Mr. Crowley to take the same claim, buy it, and divide the timber. But this agreement was not carried out, as the former left the next spring and did not return.
There was a community of interest and helpfulness per- vading this Irish colony. The seven original families had located close together in a compact little settlement for protection and social convenience. With stout hearts and willing hands these sturdy settlers together braved the trials of frontier life. This Irish colony, as it was called, thus became the nucleus of the settlement in the central part of the county and exerted an important influence over the community.
1 Interview with M. H. Crowley.
CHAPTER IV
The Indians and the Spirit Lake Massacre
The pioneer family on the western prairie could endure with fortitude the life on a lonely claim, but one danger continually menaced its peace of mind. The roving bands of Indians were generally unfriendly and often treacher- ously destructive. Once roused to vengeance, the savage nature found expression in deeds of pillage, arson and murder that made one's blood run cold.
Many different tribes of Indians had roamed over the Iowa prairies before the advent of the white settlers, but all these had gradually drifted westward, and their land acquired by the government, until in 1851 the last of West- ern Iowa was ceded by treaty to the United States. Of all the bands of Indians the Sioux were perhaps the most ferocious and warlike. They were continually at war with other tribes and as they saw the onward march of the white settler and felt the encroachments upon their be- loved hunting ground, they became sullen and bitter to- ward the pioneers.
Some unfortunate conditions served to intensify this feeling. As early as 1847, Henry Lott, an unscrupulous ruffian, who had settled far out on the frontier in Webster County, organized a gang of desperate characters who stole horses and committed many depredations among the settlers and Indians. Lott's cabin finally became such a notorious rendezvous, that when a band of Indians under the chief Sidominadotah tracked a number of stolen ponies to his place, they ordered him to leave the county. As he did not do so, a few days afterwards the Indians killed his
28
HISTORY OF PALO ALTO COUNTY
cattle, drove his family out, and burned his cabin. Lott fled terror-stricken, leaving his wife and children, and one of his small sons died from the cold and exposure. Lott swore vengeance upon the Sioux, but it was several years before he returned.
The Indians keenly resented the advance of the white man and when the surveyors crossed the Des Moines in 1848, the Indians attacked them, broke up their instru- ments and drove them back. This incident led to the estab- lishment of Fort Dodge by the government.
In 1853 Lott and his step-son came back again and set- tled on the east branch of the Des Moines River in Hum- boldt County, at a place that has since been known as Lott's Creek.
In the following January, the chief of the same band of Sioux, unsuspecting, and not recognizing his old enemy, camped a short distance from Lott's cabin. Burning with hatred and revenge, in retaliation for the death of his son and destruction of his property years before, Lott treach- erously killed Chief Sidominadotah and his whole family except a little girl who hid in the bushes and a boy who was left for dead.1
The bodies of the chief and his family were brutally left where they lay, the camp was looted and burned, and the Lotts escaped down the river. They sold the booty and hastened still farther west. Several days later Inkpadu- tah, a brother of the murdered chief, discovered the bodies of the victims, and it was soon known that Lott was the murderer.
1 For the story of Lott and his troubles see Gue, History of Iowa, vol. 1, pp 289-292; Smith, History of Dickinson County, chap. 2; Flickinger, Pioneer History of Pocahontas County, pp. 27-28, ete. See also an excellent article by L. F. Andrews in Des Moines Register and Leader, August 12, 1907.
This Indian boy recovered and was afterward known as "Josh." He was a frequent visitor at the Carter cabin.
THE INDIANS AND THE SPIRIT LAKE MASSACRE 29
The Indians were thoroughly enraged and demanded the punishment of Lott, but though attempts were made to follow him, he was never apprehended. Not long after this the head of the murdered chief was ingloriously stuck up on a pole in the town of Homer near Fort Dodge.1 The failure to punish Lott increased the rage and desire for vengeance among the Sioux. The settlers were great- ly alarmed, and there was a vague feeling of distrust that boded ill for the future.
Inkpadutah, also known as "Scarlet Point" or "Red End," became the chief of the Sioux band. Reckless, domineering and cruel, he ruled his tribe with a strong hand and his harshness drove many of his followers to join more peaceful tribes. His band thus dwindled until it became a small group of straggling Indians, who ranged the country throughout the northwest, committing all sorts of petty depredations. Harvey Ingham, in an article in the Midland Monthly, thus describes their actions : " Ink- padutah and his followers contented themselves with stripping trappers and surveyors, stealing horses, and foraging on scattered settlers, always maintaining a hos- tile and threatening attitude. Many pages of the Midland would be required for a brief enumeration of the petty annoyances, pilferings and more serious assaults which occurred. At Dakotah City, in Humboldt County, the cabin of E. McKnight was rifled in the spring of 1855. Farther north, within a few miles of Algona, the cabin of Malachi Clark was entered, and the settlers gathered in great alarm to drive out the Indians-a band of eighty braves led by Inkpadutah in person. Still farther north, near where Bancroft stands, W. H. Ingham was captured by
1 "Sketch of Early History," by Ambrose A. Call, History of Kossuth County, Union Pub. Co. The late Charles Aldrich also had a vivid remem- brance of this, and says that the skull was fractured in several places by a blunt instrument. L. F. Andrews's article, Des Moines Register and Leader, August 12, 1907.
30
HISTORY OF PALO ALTO COUNTY
Umposhota, a leader under Inkpadutah in the massacre, and was held a prisoner for three days." 1
The winter of 1856 was a very severe one. The intense cold and heavy snow was followed by violent storms, and the sufferings of the settlers were extreme. Inkpadutah and his band had been camping at Loon Lake, but in De- cember, 1856, started down the Little Sioux River as far as Smithland. Another part of the band was in camp near Springfield (now Jackson), Minnesota.
In February, 1857, the Indians and settlers had trouble at Smithland, until the redskins finally were driven away. With their savage natures aroused and with a pent-up desire for vengeance, the combined band of Sioux started north. Inkpadutah knew the defenseless condition of the scattered settlers and he determined to wreak an awful vengeance upon the countrymen of Henry Lott. As the band moved northward they robbed and pillaged with de- structive hand, and committed the most barbarous out- rages that ever a savage mind devised. No one had been killed, however, when with their murderous desires roused by these atrocities to the highest pitch, they came to the peaceful little settlement on the banks of the lakes in Dickinson County.
Mrs. Abbie Gardner Sharp, the sole survivor of that terrible massacre, in a letter written in 1887, thus describes that never-to-be-forgotten event :
. " It is with sadness that I recall to memory the ill-fated March the 8th, 1857, when Inkpadutah and his murderous band invaded the peaceful and happy little settlement of Spirit and Okoboji Lakes and completely demolished it. It is not thirty years since those horrible atrocities were enacted, and having lost all on that sad day that made life dear to me, and though wrecked in health, I still
1 Harvey Ingham, Midland Monthly; Smith, History of Dickinson County, p. 38; Abbie Gardner Sharp, History of the Spirit Lake Massacre, chap. vi.
THE INDIANS AND THE SPIRIT LAKE MASSACRE 31
live a witness to those terrible scenes. The outbreak was as sudden and unexpected as a thunderbolt from a cloud- less sky. The Indians approached and through their pro- fessions of friendship got into the house, taking the people by surprise, and attacking in such a way that one family could not help another. My father was shot down while his back was turned getting the Indians some flour. They then rushed upon my mother and sister, beating them over the head with the butts of their guns, and drove them out in the dooryard and killed them. My brother and two sisters, all little children, were clinging to me in speechless terror. They next seized these helpless children, heedless of their piteous cries for the help I was powerless to give them, dragging them out of doors, and beating them to death with sticks of stove wood. All through their course they shot down the men when their backs were turned, and then rushed upon the helpless and terror-stricken women and children and killed them in the most cruel and shock- ing manner. At the time of the massacre I was little more than a child of less than fourteen summers, and was with three other women taken captive, suffering for three months all the cruelties and indignities that Indians only know how to inflict." 1
Over forty persons -men, women and children - were thus brutally murdered at the lakes,2 and the savages, after holding their war dance and painting their victories in signs upon the smoothed surface of a tree, broke camp and moved northward with their plunder to find fresh fields for their murderous work.
Our settlers in Palo Alto County knew nothing of these
1 From a letter of Mrs. Abbie Gardner Sharp, Aug. 4, 1887, Annals of Iowa, October, 1898, p. 550. Mrs. Sharp's book, History of the Spirit Lake Massacre, is a graphic description of the events leading up to that ter- rible day, and contains a vivid picture of the massacre, the relief expedition, the captivity of Abbie Gardner, her ransom and release.
2 Abbie Gardner Sharp, History of the Spirit Lake Massacre, p. 47.
32
HISTORY OF PALO ALTO COUNTY
tragedies that were being enacted such a short distance away. The news was first brought to them by three men from Jasper County - Wheelock, Parmenter and Howe by name, who were on their way to the lakes to join the settlement; but when they found the cabins in ashes and the dead bodies of the victims lying where they had fallen, they hurried back to give the alarm.
These harrowing reports spread terror throughout the whole northwest, and many settlers fled to places of safety. The members of the little Irish colony could hardly be- lieve that Indians who seemed so peaceful when camped so near them that winter could commit such deeds.1 It was indeed a miracle that they were spared. But in spite of the general stampede to Fort Dodge, the Irish settlers re- mained for some time. Their cabins furnished a conven- ient station for the soldiers of the relief expedition as we shall see in the next chapter. It was only after the soldiers of the expedition had all returned home, that the faithful little band finally left the colony to seek a refuge at Fort Dodge until the following spring.
1 The late J. F. Neary, a member of the original colony, once told me that he thought Inkpadutah's band camped until March, 1857, in Crowley 's woods, five miles north of the colony, and M. H. Crowley is of the same opinion. But A. B. Carter, who knew Sleepy-Eye and his band very well, is positive that it was Sleepy-Eye's band that camped at Crowley's and re- members Sleepy-Eye telling him that it was Inkpadutah's band of bad In- dians that was killing the whites on the Sioux and at the lakes.
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.