USA > Iowa > Pottawattamie County > History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa. Containing a history from the earliest settlement to the present time biographical sketches; portraits of some of the early settlers, prominent men, etc. > Part 11
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
down Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and wounded Elder Taylor. Dr. Richards made his escape uninjured, and wrote a narrative of the event. Public excitement was allayed. The public arms in the possession of the Nauvoo Legion had been surrendered to the Governor when the Smiths gave themselves up. In the fall of 1844, a few months after the Prophet's death, the great temple at Nauvoo, of white limestone, 128 feet long, eighty-eight feet wide and sixty feet high, was finished.
A dispute began for the presidency of the church. Sidney Rigdon, the trusted and early friend of Joseph Smith, confidently ex- pected to succeed him in the hierarchy. The warfare grew so bitter during the winter that Rigdon was expelled from the organization. and, as a sequence, Brigham Young, his com- petitor, was unanimously chosen as its civil and religious head. It soon became manifest that the quiet which they were enjoying ex- ternally was only a truce, as public senti- ment was only crystalizing into a resolve to drive them from the State. Brigham Young and his Council accepted this manifestation, and began preparations for the eventuality. They agreed upor a proclamation, or an an- nouncement to their people, in which they stated that they intended " to send out into the Western country from this place (Nau- voo), in the early part of the month of March, a company of pioneers, consisting mostly of young, hardy men, with families. They are destined to be furnished with an ample out- fit, taking with them a printing press, farm- ing utensils of all kinds, with mill-irons and bolting-cloths, seeds of all kinds and grain." The object of this advance company "is to put in a spring crop, to build houses, and to prepare for the reception of families who will start as soon as the grass shall be suffi- ciently grown to sustain teams and stock." The pioneers " are instructed to proceed west
until they find some good place to make a crop, in some good valley in the neigh- borhood of the Rocky Mountains, where they will infringe upon no one, and be not likely to be infringed upon." "Here," the Coun- cil say, " we will make a resting-place, until we can determine upon a place for a perma- nent location." They also state, in the same connection, " We agreed to leave the coun. try, for the sake of peace, upon the condition that no more vexations prosecutions by insti- tuted against us. In good faith, we have la- bored to fulfill that engagement. Gov. Ford has also done his duty to further our wishes in that respect. But there are some unwill- ing that we should have any existence any- where."
Laying aside any views that one may have, in conflict with those entertained by this sect, thus already driven about, there is a pathos in that announcement that is touch- ing to one who reflects upon the necessary exodus of a whole people across a great wil- derness of more than two thousand miles, homeless, and, in a certain sense, aimless, and nearly destitute. In that tersely, simply worded proclamation is foreshadowed Council Bluffs. The preparations were rapidly com- pleted, and. in February, 1846, tho first con- pany of sixteen hundred set out on their cheerless journey, crossing the frozen Missis- sippi River, and beginning their long, weary march across the uninhabited prairies of Iowa, to make a new beginning in a new home. It is difficult to comprehend the feel- ings of that pioneer band. The writer of these pages has conversed, on more than one occasion, with men and women also who set forth on that wintry morning, with no hope of rest for months, and then only in the un- settled wilds, and no shelter except their wagons, and no courage but that of stout hearts. The ultimate purpose of the leaders
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
of the church was to find some suitable val- ley in Eastern California, which then be- longed to Mexico, hoping, by getting beyond the limit of the United States, and away from civilization, that they might prosper in their own way, unmolested. The Pottawato- mie Indians had just departed for their new reservation in Kansas. There was less dan- ger of molestation in passing through Iowa than through Missouri in reaching the Mis- souri River, and for that reason the pioneer band took the trail toward Council Bluffs. Other companies followed, and, in the early months of the year, their numbers began to greatly accumulate in the bluffs and on the river bottoms here, this point having been selected by the pioneers on account of the un- rivaled fertility of the soil, as the halting- place, foreshadowed in the proclamation an- nouncing the contemplated exodus. Orson Hyde, who was the Bishop in charge of the pioneers, at once selected that portion of the bluffs embraced by Madison, or First street, as the location of such permanent buildings as were needed in carrying out their far-reach- ing plan of emigration, and proselyting. Brigham Young and the entire hierarchy ar- rived soon after the pioneers.
In the meanwhile, the Mexican war broke out. The enterprising and adventurous men of Western Missouri, among them Sterling Price and Col. Doniphan, acquainted with the wonderful possibilities of New Mexico, through commercial intercourse by the Santa Fé trail from the Missouri River, covered that wide expanse of country, and conceived the idea of its conquest. Col. Kearney, of the army, was ordered to undertake it, and also to obtain control of California. On July 14, 1846, a battery of the Third United States Artillery sailed from New York by the way of Cape Horn, and in September, Col. Stev-
enson's regiment of New York volunteers pro- ceeded by the same route, to the same desti- nation-the Pacific coast.
The explorations of Fremont had revealed the weakness of the Mexican authority in that country, and the further fact that the Americans residing on that portion of Mex- ican soil were ripe for a revolt that would transfer its possession, by conquest, to the United States. Just before hostilities broke out, and while the sensibilities of the Mexi- can authorities were at their utmost tension, Capt. Fremont, of the United States Engi- neers set out from the Missouri River on his third exploration, with an armed outfit con- sisting of sixty men and two hundred horses, an expedition designed for peaceful pur- poses, but which, before its termination, be- came an anxiliary force in the conquest of one of the richest jewels in the American crown of national glory.
Shortly after the departure of the troops from New York, a regiment of mounted vol- unteers. under Sterling Price and Col. Doni- phan, rendezvoused at Fort Leavenworth, pre- paratory to the ardnous, long and perilous march to New Mexico, to aid in its conquest, and then to march to California. Two com- panies of the First Dragoons, under Capts. Edwin V. Sumner and Philip St. George Cooke, were also ordered to take part in the expedi- tion. At the same time, authority was given Col. Kearney to mako enlistments from the Mormon emigrants on their way to the Mis- sonri River, their services having been tend- ered to the Government by Brigham Young as soon as he ascertained that war with Mex- ico was a fact. Capt. James Allen, of the First Dragoons, was the officer sent on that duty, and, upon arriving at Council Bluffs, and at the cantonment of tents stretched out on the bottoms where now is the fairest por-
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tion of the city, he enrolled a battalion of 300 men, who were organized by him, as Lieutenant Colonel, at Fort Leavenworth. Many of the men were heads of families, but, responding to what they regarded as a sense of duty, they marched away to join in an en- terprise which has been described as being as marvelous as the famous retreat of the ten thousand under Xenophon. They turned their backs once more upon all that was left of civilization in the tents where still dwelt their families. Many lived to return and take part in the final exodus which landed the Saints in permanent homes in the Great Salt Lake Valley.
It is impossible here to follow in the foot- steps of that heroic band. Capts. Sumner and Cooke afterward became officers of high rank in the Union army, during the civil war, and the name and fame of Sterling Price in the same conflict, on the other side, is world- wide. Capt. Cooke. after having become a Major General, and recurring to the marvel- ous exploits of that band of devoted men. writes of its results: "The 'Army of the West' marched from Bent's Fort with only rations calculated to last, by uninterrupted and most rapid marches, until it should ar- rive at Santa Fé. Is this war? Tested by the rules of the science, this expedition is anomalous, not to say Quixotic. A Colonel's command, called an army, marches 800 muiles beyond its base, its communication liable to be cut off by the slightest effort of the enemy -mostly through a desert-the whole dis- tance almost totally destitute of resources, to conquer a territory of two hundred and fifty thousand square miles; without a military chest; this people are declared citizens of the United States, and the invaders are de- barred the rights of war to seize needful sup- plies; they arrive without food before the
capital, a city 240 years old, habitually gar- risoned by regular troops! I much doubt if any officer of rank but Stephen W. Kearney would have undertaken the enterprise; or, if induced to do so, would have accomplished it successfully."
In this connection, the writer of these pages begs leave to use the name of William Garner, an honored citizen of Council Bluffs, and one of the cherished survivors of that memorable campaign, an integer of the Mor- mon Battalion. so graphically outlined by the pen of Gen. St. George Cooke. The story is not all told, when the results of the campaign are stated, for, when the men returned to their families, after an absence of two years, they were met by a denial of their pay for their services, and to this day the Government stands indebted to them for the pittance stipulated for in their contracts of enlistment. It is charged upon Brigham Young, by high authority in the church, that the money ap- propriated to pay these men for their serv- ices, passed into his hands for disburse- ment, and was by him withheld and never paid over.
The first winter spent on the frontier by these hardy emigrants was in huts erected at what is known as " Winter Quarters, " on the Nebraska side of the Missouri, at Florence, a few miles above the present city of Omaha. Soon after the departure of the Mormon Bat- talion for Fort Leavenworth, Brigham Young and a few hardy followers started westward across the plains in search of a permanent settlement. They reached Salt Lake Valley, and, being captivated by its location and its isolation, decided to build there their new city. A portion of those who accompanied Young to Salt Lake, returned to Council Bluffs to take direction of the emigration, and in July 1847, about four thousand en-
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
tered the valley which was to constitute their future home. Many returned to the Iowa side of the river from " Winter Quarters" and made permanent settlements in view of
establishing a necessary station and resting- place for the emigrations which, through the policy of the hierarchy, should come after them.
CHAPTER XII .*
COUNCIL BLUFFS-ITS THIRD ERA-MOVEMENT FROM IOWA CITY-TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS EN ROUTE-KANESVILLE - SKETCH OF COL. KANE-FIRST APPEARANCE OF COUNCIL BLUFFS-FIRST STORE-THE FIRST GENTILE INHABITANT-FIRST VOTING - DANITE BAND - FIRST PROHIBITION.
N O emigration of any kind has ever taken place in modern times that could compare with that which involved the first settlement of Council Bluffs. The privations incident to the movement did not end with the arrival here of all those who formed the original population of Nauvoo. The same hardships, or a like kind, were the lot of those who sub- sequently followed in the wake of the Nauvoo exodus. Iowa City became a convenient ren- dezvous for converts and others, both from the States and from Europe, and at that point a great deal of the subsequent suffer- ing began. A correct picture of their camps at Iowa City preparatory to starting West cannot be drawn. It can only be presented in outline, as a mere study, to be filled in by the imagination. Ignorant as many of them were of the manners and customs of our people, and of the language of the country, hundreds of foreign emigrants were subjected to the grossest tyranny through an arbitrary and exacting leadership.
It was impossible, situated as the latter were, to furnish wagon transportation to con- vey the people's meager luggage and sup- plies, and frequently, on the trail from Iowa City to Council Bluffs, and from Council Bluff's to Salt Lake City, miles and miles of
hand carts were wearily pushed before them by the trudging, heart-sick and footsore emi- grants, in the hope of finding at last a haven of rest. Scanty supplies of provisions were, in nearly every instance, doled out, and men, women and children toiling over the treeless prairie, from dawn until dark, in rain or in shine, in cold or in heat, frequently suffered the most poignant pangs of hunger and dis- tress. Ten ounces of flour for one adult, and halt that amount for children, under the age of eight years, constituted a day's sup- ply. At rare intervals, a little rice, coffee or sugar was sparingly measured out to them. Hundreds were shoeless, and clothing in al- most every instance was scant. The sick, under such circumstances, were still more destitute and forlorn, and many a little hil- lock along.the trail and by the wayside attest- ed the final anguish of those whose last journey was at an end. For years, Council Bluffs witnessed the arrival of hordes who crossed the State on their weary journey to Salt Lake, reduced to the utmost extremity by untold and indescribable miseries. Now and then courage failed the emigrant, when he or she reached this point. Endurance with them had reached its limit, and they halted to make this their permanent homes, in defiance of ecclesiastical threats and pend-
*By Col. Jobn II. Kcatley.
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IIISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
ing censures. These recalcitrant ones in numerous instances left a salutary impress upon the growth of the new town.
When it was once determined that this should be a permanent post or stage on the route to Salt Lake, it was given a name, and called Kanesville. The selection of this title was intended by the Mormon authorities as a compliment to a Gentile who had rendered thein an appreciable service while they were yet at Nauvoo. Thomas L. Kane, of Phila- | delphia. and a brother of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the famous Arctic navigator, was a spectator of some of the concluding events which terminated the Mormon career at Nau- voo. Exercising the functions of correspond- ent to Eastern newspapers, he impartially narrated some of the scenes of violence which characterized the period. and fairness on his _ part was recognized in the naming of the village after him.
When the conflict arose between Brigham Young and the Federal authorities in 1857, and Col. Albert Sidney Johnson was en- camped in the valleys of the Rocky range, in winter quarters, preparatory to invading Utah, to inforce the mandates of President Buchanan and the laws of the United States, Kane was selected by the President to act as a negotiator between the belligerents.
When the civil war broke out, in 1861, he became Lieutenant Colonel of the First Penn- sylvania Rifles (the famous Bucktail Regi- ment), was wounded and captured near Har- risonburg. in the Shenandoah Valley, in 1862, while serving under Gen. Fremont, against Gen. Stonewall Jackson, and, upon being released, was made a Brigadier Gen- eral, and fought with great gallantry to the termination of the war in the Twelfth Army Corps. He is now a wealthy private citizen, his present home being at Kane, Penn.
A stranger coming to Council Bluffs is
struck with the singularity of some of its maps, especially that of the original town. There is a strong resemblance between the outlines of a diagram of that part of the city and a shattered square of glass. The irregu- larities in the one will compare favorably with those of the other. When the Utah emigrants reached this point, and found the Indian lands abandoned, they also ascertained that no survey had yet been made of them by the Government, and simply settled on them as " squatters." There was no exact rule by which they staked off their claims, and hence, theiri rregularity in areas and outline. There were no courts in which to adjudicate con- flicting rights. Few disputes arose, however. and these were settled by arbitrary decisions of the church authorities, who claimed to have the welfare of the community in their keeping.
The tacit observance of possessory rights caused the claims to ripen into transferable interests, and when a claim owner found it either his interest or his duty to move on. his right in the permanent improvements ac- quired an ascertainable value in either money or personal property, and barter of that kind was of frequent occurrence.
It is still not difficult to recall the general appearance of Council Bluffs during the first year of its settlement. A gorge partly clothed with timber, widened out from the east toward the river. This afterward be- came the Broadway of the city. Crossing it, at almost a right angle, was a street, north and south, or nearly so, which lay in another ravine, and this took the name of Hyde street, after the Mormon Bishop of that name. This street, now improved and altered in every respect, is known as Madison or First street. A few log cabins dotted the slopes of the bluffs on either side of the valley of Indian Creek, through which Broadway extends.
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
The greater number of the log houses and tents constituting the town were on Madison street, and until only a few years ago, the log houses kept their places in the march of sur- rounding improvement. Indian Creek, no more then than now a creek, but only a brook, swelled into a torrent by summer rains or winter snows, coiled sluggishly in a narrow channel around the base of the northern slope. Such, then, is an outline of the nu- cleus of the present city.
The Mormon emigration to Salt Lake was : and collected the votes. Five hundred and not without its attractions to Gentiles, a | name applied to those not of the sect who desired to take advantage of it for the pur- poses of traffic. A gentleman by the name of Donnell opened a store at Winter Quar- ters, on the west side of the river, at the end of the year 1847, and Jonathan B. Stutsman, now a merchant at Harlan, Iowa, came in February, 1848, to take charge of the busi- ness. He arrived from St. Joseph, Mo., and in his journey found but a single house on his way up from the southern line of the State. The store was removed from Winter Quarters to the east side of the river, to Kanesville, in June, 1848, and thus Mr. Stutsman became the first Gentile inhabitant of Council Bluffs. The business was opened under the name of Donnell & Stutsman, and was thus conducted for a number of years, William Powers, who died in the winter of 1882, was among the first to build a house near where the First Methodist Episcopal Church stands. His wife was a member of tho Mormon society, but she and her hus- band chose to remain at Council Bluffs through all the vicissitudes of the migration, and spent their long lives upon the soil se- lected in 1847 as their home. During the years 1847 and 1848, no intoxicating liquors were sold in and about the settlement, the rules and discipline of the church rigidly in- forced wholly prohibiting. Quite a village on what is now Madison street. Mr. Stuts- man married, and built the first frame dwell- ing-house and the first frame store building ever erected in the place. Cornelius Voor- his, whose name is associated with one of the additions to the city, came from St. Louis, arriving on the 17th of August, 1848, and as a partner in the firm of Eddy, Jamison & Co., began the sale of goods, near where the First. Methodist Episcopal Church now stands. He was accompanied by his wife, but the winter following his settlement was lonely
and dreary in the extreme. The long, cold winter months were enlivened by the settlers, to some extent, with dances and parties of one kind and another, but otherwise society was far from being cheerful. Their inner life was mainly one of toil and anxious con- templation of the almost frightful journey across the plains
In the fall of 1848, when the Presidential election occurred, political agents visited the settlement, organized an election precinct twenty-seven were cast for Taylor and Fil- more, the Whig candidates for President and Vice President, and forty-two for Gen. Cass and William O. Butler, the Democratic can- didates for the Presidency and Vice Presi- dency. The vote, however, was finally not taken into consideration. The affair was managed by Bishop Hyde and A. W. Babbitt, who were eventually called to account at Salt Lake for their conduct. Bishop Hyde made his submission, received the censure of the church, and was re-instated in its favor and good opinion; but Mr. Babbitt refused submission, was cut off from communion, and subsequently lost his life, report says, by the Indians, but general belief fixed the avengers as the famous Danite Band, organized in the hierarchy, to deal summarily with Apostles.
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
also sprang up at the same time along Mos- quito Creek, near the Nick's Indian Mill, about six miles east of the Kanesville settle- ment, the settlers devoting themselves to agricultural pursuits. William Garner, whose name has already been mentioned. Ezra Seho-
field, Alexander Follett and others, preferred to remain on that spot, after the main body moved forward to Salt Lake City, and when the emigrants were leaving for the West, their claims were purchased by these per- sons who were content to stay.
CHAPTER XIII."
COUNCIL BLUFFS-FIRST PROBATE CASE-GOLD IN CALIFORNIA-CHARACTER OF THE EMIGRANTS -JOSEPH TOOTLE AND JAMES A. JACKSON-GAMBLING HELLS-DRS. SHELLY, WILL- IAMS AND MCMAHON-COUNTY ADMINISTRATION - FRAUDULENT PRAC-
TICES-STUTSMAN AND POWERS' LOUP FORK FERRY.
[T appears that the county organization was perfected in 1849. On the 17th day of May of that year, an application was made to Isaac Clark, County Judge acting in pro- bate, for the appointment of a guardian for the minor heirs of Charles English, deceased. Nathan A. West was appointed such guard- ian. That appears to be the first record of the act of any county official, and as the County Judge. under the law in force then, was the Representative of the county, that may be taken as the first official act of the new county.
The discovery of gold, by a mere accident, at Suter's mill, in California, the unexampled excitement in consequence which it created in the Eastern States, the wonderful tide of emigration to the Pacific coast which it prompted, by both sea and land, wrought a complete revolution in the condition of this frontier settlement. There was no danger that the gold-seeker would not spurn, there was no hazard that he would not take, and no hardship that he would not endure. In the spring of 1849. as soon as the grass started sufficient for stock, long lines of emigrant trains wended their way across the prairies of Iowa on the old Mormon trail, but they
were a class of men wholly different from and bent on an errand wholly exceptional to those who had gone before. They were men of the stamp and intellect of Gov. John Big- ler, Gov. Weller, David C. Broderick, Gov. Geary, of Pennsylvania, Senator Baker, of Oregon, and MeDougal, of California, and others of a like character, able, resolute and enterprising. Along with them came lawyers who had thrown away their briefs in disgust, when the marvelous and fascinating tales of untold wealth, just for the taking, were rung into their willing ears; gamblers and blacklegs, who were cloyed in the dull precincts of an older and less rude civiliza- tion, farmers and mechanics, whose moderate gains stood abashed at the Alladin tales of wealth which swept on every breeze across the prairie from the Pacific. Men like these came pouring into Kanesville. A new life was injected into its career. It became wholly transformed. Wives, mothers and sisters were left behind. The rough garh of the frontiersman reduced all to a common level and a common object, and common dan- gers made mates and equals of all. Even individual names were sunk in the general mass, and men proud of blood, race and lin- eage at home, joyed even in the fragment of
*By Col. John H. Ketley.
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
a cognomen of any kind where a democratic equality rested in discovered and discoverable character. The restraints of female society and influence were removed.
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