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 16
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After a long and honorable career as an offi- cer in the Union army, and when the work of suppressing the insurrection was at an end, Gen. Curtis returned to his home in Keokuk to resume the duties of civil life. His seat in Congress had been filled by the Hon. James F. Wilson, now United States Senator-elect. The Union Pacific Railway had, in the meantime, been begun from the west bank of the Missouri River, and was being pressed with unexampled energy across the great plains to a junction
with the Central Pacific, which had already demonstrated the power to overcome obstacles that ordinary engineering had deemed insur- mountable. Gen. Curtis was appointed by President Johnson as one of the commissioners on behalf of the United States to examine and report upon the condition of the Union Pacific as far as then constructed, and in the fall of 1866 he spent some time along its line for that purpose. There was no other means of com- munication between Omaha and Council Bluffs at that date than the steam ferry and the line of coaches of the Western Stage Company. While crossing the river in one of the latter, on his way East homeward, Gen. Curtis grew so ill that he was unable to travel, and, reaching the Council Bluff's side, he was taken to the residence of his friend, Col. H. C. Nutt, on Broadway, and there died on the 26th of De- cember, 1866. His remains were taken to Keo- kuk and there interred, a whole State mourn- ing with profound sorrow the loss of one of her greatest citizens and of Council Bluffs an ar- dent friend. The house where he died still stands, a long, low, rambling frame edifice on the south side of Broadway, and midway of Sixth and Seventh streets. Its dilapidated con- dition cannot permit it to remain long as a landmark. Its site has been viewed as a pos- sible location for the new United States Court building and post office, and should this he done it will be a fitting monument to mark the spot where died Iowa's greatest soldier. If not, a suitable monument of some kind should designate the spot.
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
CHAPTER XX .*
COUNCIL BLUFFS - INCIPIENT DUEL - MARSHALL TURLEY - AN ECCENTRIC CHARACTER - THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY- GALESBURG ADDITION - PHILADELPHIA, FORT WAYNE & PLATTE VALLEY RAILWAY-THE AIR LINE-JOHN T. BALDWIN'S FORT- UNE-ODD FELLOWS ORGANIZED-FIRST BANKING HOUSE -THE FERRY COMPANY ORGANIZED.
A T this period, Council Bluffs narrowly es- caped a bloody duel, growing out of a po- litical controversy. One of the parties was a Pennsylvanian employed as a clerk in a front- ier store on Broadway. The other was a hot- headed, proud, irascible Virginian, who came here and seemed to have no particular occupa- tion or employment of any kind. He was al- ways well dressed, and had the air of one of the chivalry. Discussions of the slavery ques- tion, then coming into painful and disastrous prominence, was an every-day occurrence, at firesides and in the stores and shops. The young Pennsylvanian. whose name is now sup- pressed (he being heartily ashamed of the part he took in the affair) and the young Virginian met around a glass of grog at the store just mentioned. and in a short time a high sound- ing debate arose. The Virginian made a state- ment which the other regarded at variance with the truth. and in polite but emphatic terms it was questioned. In a moment, the young Southerner manifested his displeasure and walked away. In a few hours a friend of the Pennsylvanian called him aside, with the statement that, unless a prompt apology was made, he must be prepared to fight with the Virginian according to the code. He replied that he had no retraction to make, and that the party might take whatever course he saw fit. The next morning, sure enough. there was de- livered to him a formal written demand to either withdraw the offensive language or hold
himself in readiness to give such satisfaction as one gentleman had a right to demand of another. The reply by the Pennsylvanian was, that he peremptorily declined to respond to such. arbitrary language in any other way than to say that if the young Southerner wanted to settle the difficulty with revolvers, he would have the opportunity to do so, at any time and place he might select. The only apparent effect of this missive was the sudden disappearance of the eager belligerent, and he was never after- ward seen in Council Bluffs, nor even heard of, evidently regarding discretion, before it was too late, the better part of valor.
Among the most noted arrivals during the early part of 1854 was that of Marshal Turley. who came from Galesburg, Ill. He, in con- nection with William Gale, Clark E. Carr (for twenty-one years Postmaster of Galesburg), and others, became interested in a tract of land in the northwestern part of the city, and laid out the same, calling it Galesburg Addition. Mr. Turley came here an uncompromising anti- slavery man. At all times he was an outspoken enemy of the institution of slavery, and when John Brown was conducting his underground railway movements from Missouri through Tabor, in Fremont County, he had the sympa- thy at least of Mr. Turley, and a number of others less prominent here. on the anti-slavery movement. Mr. Turley is now a man of patri- archal appearance with his white hair and snowy beard. He is encroaching rapidly on the assigned limit of human life. but is still in his
*By Col. John II. Keatley.
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vigor of physical strength. He has always been noted for his eccentricities of character. lIe is an orator of no mean power. and, possess- ing a remarkable fund of knowledge acquired in long years of varied and extensive reading, his speeches are not only entertaining by reason of their richness in illustrative anecdote, but highly instructive in matters of fact. He is a curious genius in this, that he has devoted the best energies of his life in devising various mechanical inventions, experimenting in every conceivable direction to devise new means of saving labor or extending the scope of human effort. It is a profound and undeviating pas- sion with him, and perhaps the Patent Office at Washington is no more familiar with any name in the annals of invention than it is with that of Marshall Turley. Council Bluff's never saw his like before, and perhaps will never see his like again.
Gen. Curtis in the fall of 1853, conducted the preliminary survey for a railroad across the State to which was given the name of the Philadelphia, Fort Wayne & Platte Valley Railroad, or "Air Line." This road had a gen- eral direction eastward from Council Bluff's by the way of Winterset, Knoxville and Oska- loosa to the Mississippi, and was intended to cover about the same ground in lowa as is em- braced in the projected line of the New York & Council Bluff's Railway Company, organized in Council Bluff's, with Isaac M. Hymer, Presi- dent, on the 13th day of August, 1882. To : Gen. Curtis' road, the county, by a vote at a special election for that purpose on the 2d of January, 1854, made a subscription in stock of $100,000, but as nothing further than project the road was ever done, the bonds of the county were never issued. The State elections were then held in August under the old Con- stitution, and at the election of 1854, Col. Test was elected to the Senate, and John T. Baldwin and Daniel S. Jackson to the State 1 House of Representatives from this legisla- ; son of Jolin Keller, and Theodore Guittar, son
tive district. Luck had begun to turn in Mr. Baldwin's favor. Being a native of Washing- ton County, Penn., hestarted for Iowa in 1846, bringing with him a large flock of sheep, which he drove overland. His first settlement was made in Jefferson County, in the vicinity of Fairfield. At one time while in business in that county, he had his all invested in the flat- boat traffic on the Des Moines River. A wreck occurred which made complete ruin of his financial fortunes, and when he left that sec- tion of Iowa to begin over again, he was more than $5,000 in debt over and above every ex- isting possibility to pay. When he landed in Council Bluffs, all he had in the world was his household goods, plenty of pluck, nerve, ener- gy and business capacity, and only $2.50 in his pocket, with which to begin again.
It may be interesting to know now that there are many flourishing orders in the city; that the first to organize were the Odd Fellows. Coun- cil Bluffs Lodge, No. 49, was established on the 25th day of November, 1853, with J. B. Stuts- man, B. R. Pegram, J. T. Baldwin, J. P. Casa- dy, II. R. Hall, Hadley D. Johnson and Anson Belden as charter members. Among the ear- liest to join soon after were Moses F. Shinn, ex-Sheriff Doughty, James D. Test, D. C. Bloom- er and N. T. Spoor. Mr. Spoor is no longer a resident of Council Bluffs, but is engaged in railway service in Colorado. He served as Postmaster of Council Bluffs for a time, but upon the breaking-out of the civil war he raised a battery of artillery here, which took the des- Ignation of the Second Iowa Battery, he being made Captain of the same, Joseph R. Reed, for the last ten years District Judge, First Lieu- tenant, and Fred Reed, in the service of the postal department at this point, Second Lieu- tenant. Spoor resigned after being in the field some time, and Judge Reed became the Cap- tain of the battery. Of the enlisted men in that command were Victor L. Keller, the only
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of Frank Guittar, already mentioned. The lodge of Odd Fellows thus organized continued to flourish for some years, but waned in pros- perity, as did most of the lodges for a period of years throughout the country, and was dis- continued. It was revived under other and more favorable auspices at a later date, and when that is reached in the course of these an- nals the matter will be again appropriately re- ferred to. The first banking house opened was that by Green & Weare, in the fall of 1854, John Weare being the manager of the estab- lishment until the spring of 1855, when Gen. Thomas H. Benton, Jr., became a member of the firm. Their place of business was the brick building, which has been used as the City Re- corder's office, a city jail and a council chamber, at the southeast corner of Glen avenue and Broadway, for many years. The crash of 1857 caused a suspension of the business of this banking house.
As a means of traffic across the Missouri River at this point was the organization of the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company in 1854. The incorporators were Dr. Enos Lowe, Samuel S. Bayliss, James A. Jackson, Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, Dr. S. M. Ballard, W. W. Brown, Jesse Williams and J. H. D. Street, brother of A. W. Street, the present Cashier of the Citizen's Bank, which went into operation on the 1st of July, 1882. Jesse Williams was a well-known character in Council Bluffs in his day, was a fine portly gentleman, and noted far and wide for his enterprize and public spirit. He was unfortunate in business during the latter years of his life, and died at Sioux City about five years ago, dependent upon the kind- ness of friends for pecuniary assistance. The charter of the Ferry Company expired by limitation of twenty years, in the winter of 1873 and 1874, and, with some re-organization, it was continued under a license from the City Council for a year or two longer, and finally disappeared from sight in the changes in
-
transfer made by the Union Pacific Railroad, in the adopting of car ferriage over the Mis- souri River bridge. One of the boats used by the company was christened the " Lizzie Bay- liss," after the favorite daughter of Samuel S. Bayliss.
It is a notable fact that, although situated in Iowa, Council Bluffs, for a number of weeks, was the actual capital of the Territory of Nebraska in the year 1854. T. B. Cuming, of Keokuk, was the first Secretary of the territory. Furguson was Chief Justice, and Izard Marshal of the Territory, and remained here during the preparation of the necessary buiklings at Omaha, then first laid out as a town. Five former citizens of Council Bluff's had seats in the Territorial Legislature-Hadley D. Johnson, Andrew J. Hanscom, A. D. Jones, J. C. Mitchell and H. C. Purple. Jeremiah Folsom, still a resident of Council Bluffs, and W. W. Maynard, came from Michigan to Council Bluffs during that year. Folsom is still living, but Maynard, after filling ont a useful career as an editor, and as Postmaster for two terms, from 1861 to 1869, died in 1875. He and Fol- som brought a large flock of sheep to this county, driving them all the way from Michi- gan. At the date of his death, Mr. Maynard was editor of the Daily Nonpareil, though his connection with that paper was severed for five or six years, and not having been resumed again until the fall of 1871. After his removal from the post office by the accession of the Grant administration he was employed in newspaper work at Leavenworth on the Bulle- tin, published by W. S. Burke, who at one time was associated with him in the publica- tion of the Nonpareil of Council Bluffs.
No election was held in 1854 for city officers, but on the 5th of February, 1855, such an elec- tion was held, at which C. E. Stone was chosen as Mayor. It was charged that the success of the ticket elected at that date was due to the influence which the native American party,
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otherwise and popularly known as " Know- Nothings," was exerting here as well as else- where throughout the country. In passing, it is deserving to say, as a part of the current his- tory of that date, that everywhere North, as well as South, the native American party had sprung into vigorous life on the ruins of the Whig party, whose last great national effort was exerted in the Presidential campaign of 1852, and that the secrecy with which the "Know-Knothings " conducted their affairs not only gave them the popular name acquired, but became a stunning surprise to their own confident political adversaries. who suffered defeat in al- most every contest of the year. A tax of five mills was levied for city purposes, and although the new Mayor recommended the issuance of bonds to aid in public improvements, no indebtedness was created, and little else done than some re- pair to some of the streets, the passage of a few necessary police ordinances and the con- stitution of a board of health, consisting of Drs. Emanuel Honn, A. B. Maclom and Shoemaker.
The population during the summer varied as the exigencies of emigration changed, and the character of the people and their industries exhibited little change from those of former
years. Trading with emigrants, furnishing them with supplies and outfits was the unvary- ing monotony of traffic. Settlements began to form in groups in the adjoining counties, and the necessities of these brought them long dis- tances in contact with the people and merchants of Council Bluffs. Grain and produce were hanled in wagons from Harrison, Shelby, Cass and Monona Counties. Teams came from Page and Montgomery Counties, or the territory con- stituting those counties, and procured their supplies as an advantageons point on the river, and men and people who were severed by dis- tances of fifty, sixty and seventy miles, pioneers were regarded simply as neighbors. About the only amusements accessible to the people in the remote country places was the country dance, and it was considered no hardship to go twenty miles to one of these, " hoe it down " all night, return home the next day, and resume the homely occupations of the frontier settlements. The chain of friendship thus formed, under those circumstances, among the survivors of those days and those events, is as bright as ever it was, and is one of the consolations of a rapidly changed and, in many respects, more selfish and less sociable condition.
CHAPTER XXI .*
COUNCIL BLUFFS-NEBRASKA TERRITORY ORGANIZED-THE MOB AT BELLVUE-HADLEY JOHN- SON TERRITORIAL DELEGATE-SENATOR A. C. DODGE'S PLAN-SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY- "CHRONOTYPE" ESTABLISHED-DR. SETH CRAIG'S ARRIVAL AND SKETCII-COUN-
CIL BLUFFS TEMPERANCE-INDIAN HABITS -AGAINST PROIIIBITION.
D URING the year 1854 began the formation of a new political party in the country, and Council Bluffs also felt the tendency to change in new issues. The Republican party had not yet emerged from the Free-Soil element that took on shape organically in the Presidential cam- paigns of 1844, 1848 and 1852, but a spirit of
discontent with old organizations was mani- fest. A circumstance occurring on the other side of the river, at the old mission of the Omaha Indians, near Bellevue, in 1853, was the incipiency of a greater movement than was at first contemplated by its authors. What now constitutes the States of Nebraska and Kansas was unorganized territory of the I'nited States,
*By Col. John II. Keatley.
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
and without any form of government except such as was exercised by the military at the frontier posts. Hadley D. Johnson and about one hundred and fifty others, citizens and resi- dents of Council Bluffs, proceeded to the Oma- ha Mission. and without any authority from Congress organized a squatter civil territorial government, and elected Johnson as a Territor- ial delegate in Congress. Of course there could be no recognition of this irregular act of citi- zens of another State who were not residents of the so-called Territory, but it directed the attention of Congress to the necessity of pro- viding some kind of civil government for the region in question.
Hon. D. H. Solomon related to the writer of these annals that in the winter of 1853, while he was on his way, during a blinding snow storm, to Sidney to court, he was met by Gen. A. C. Dodge, one of the Senators of Iowa, on horseback, traversing this section of the State in that inclement weather on a tour of investigation regarding the settlement of West- ern Iowa, and the character of the country immediately beyond the Missouri, that an inter- view took place between them as to the organi- zation of a Territorial government for the Ne- braska country, and that his return to Wash- ington was followed by the introduction of a bill in the Senate to organize all of that coun- try now included in Kansas and Nebraska as Nebraska Territory. True it is that such a bill was introduced, and when it came back to the Senate, from the Committee on Territories, of which Senator Douglas, of Illinois, was Chairman, it was so amended as to provide for the organization of two Territories, one to be called Nebraska and the other Kansas, and in that form, with a further amendment allowing the people of these Territories to decide the question for themselves, as to the introduction of slavery, the bill became a law, and those incipient great States sprang into existence, and, in the case of Nebraska, contributed
greatly in shaping the destiny of Council Bluffs. The adoption of the Douglas princi- ple in regard to slavery being an overthrow of the compromises of 1820 and 1850, stimulated an opposition which, while in the transition period from the disruption of the Whig party to the actual formation of the Republican party, as Anti-Nebraska, not that they were opposed to the organization of the Territory, but to the novel features introduced which tended to open up the Territory to slavery and slave property, on equal terms withi free- dom. The Bugle, then under the management of Joseph E. Johnson, was the champion of the Douglas doctrine of squatter sovereignty, and was the Democratic organ. The discon- tents had no exponent. Jeremiah Folsom and W. W. Maynard were of the latter class. Maynard was a printer, Folsom was not. On the 13th day of December. 1855, in response to the growing discontent everywhere manifest, these two gentlemen, under the firm name of Folsom & Maynard, issued the first number of an Anti-Nebraska weekly newspaper, called the Council Bluff's Chronotype, with Mr. May- nard as editor. Those who knew Mr. May- nard in his lifetime and when in his greatest vigor, will not soon forget him. He was small in stature and light in build, and in all his movements was quiet and undemonstrative. He was no great while in demonstrating, in his editorial capacity, that he was no mean adver- sary with the pen. He had no disposition to elaborate and exhaustive editorial writing, as existing copies of the Chronotype and the early files of the Nonpareil show, but his short cuts to the pith of a point exhibited his capability to reach the sensitive part of an argument with a pungency that sometimes had a vigorous sting.
Among those who came to Council Bluffs in 1855, and who are among those best remem- bered of that date, is Dr. Seth H. Craig, and who is now a resident of Fremont County.
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
Dr. Craig has had a varied career, and no man
on the 21st of July, 1855, under the name of in the State is more widely known. He is a , Bluff City Lodge, No. 71. L. L. Brown was native of Millersburg, Ohio, having been born there in 1825. He removed to Farmington, Van Buren County, in 1843, and when the Mexican war broke out went into the serv- ice in 1847, in Lieut. Col. Powell's Mis- souri battalion of volunteers. After that war, he studied medicine, and in 1852 went to Cali- fornia, where he remained until he came to Council Bluffs in 1855. He was City Treas- urer in 1857, and appointed Sheriff of the county in 1859, and elected to the same office in 1860. When the civil war commenced, he went into Gen. G. M. Dodge's regiment, the Fourth Iowa, and remained in the service until he resigned in 1863. He then returned to Farmington, whence he was chosen from Van Buren County to the State Legislature, which met in 1868, and, serving one term, he again came to Council Bluff's. Here he served dur- ing part of 1869 and of 1870 as Assistant Assessor of United States Internal Revenue, under the Assessor of the District, Maj. A. R. Anderson. He was then elected by the Legis- lature, and served two terms as Warden of the penitentiary at Fort Madison. Dr. Craig is also a brother of Gen. James Craig, a resident of St. Joseph, Mo., and for years a wealthy and influential Democratic politician and an enter- prising citizen of that State. its first Master, and its other officers were Dr. P. J. McMahon, Judge Samuel H. Riddle, Sam- nel Knepper, A. W. Hollister, J. C. Fargo and Dr. S. W. Williams. Among those who were its earliest members were Joseph Weirich, W. W. Maynard, Judge Larimer, John Keller, Judge James, Gen. Benton and Leonard Sears. One of the noted business blocks of the city was the " Phoenix," erected by Lysander W. Babbitt and the firm of Stutsman & Donnell, on the south side of Broadway, between Main street and Pearl, in the early part of 1855. Mr. Bab- bitt was at that time the Register of the United States Land Office, and it was moved into that block during that fall. William H. Robinson and Mr. Babbitt also engaged jointly in trade, and carried one of the largest stock of goods fitted for the Western and pioncer trade ever carried by any firm in the West. They were known far and wide as dealers, and their credit seemed to be unlimited. The Phoenix Block was afterward totally destroyed by fire, but the historic recollection of its existence still lingers in the memory of the old settlers. During these years, the Indians, the Pawnees, the Otoes and the Omahas, were a sort of free common- ers in the city, and, in many instances, unmiti- gated nuisances. They were allowed to roam away from such reservations as bad the name In the spring of 1855, the great temperance movement throughout the United States mani- fested itself in the organization of lodges of an organization known as the Sons of Temper- ance. The order was then formed here, with Thomas Tostevin as its chief officer, and it had among its membership Judge Street and Thomas P. Treynor, the latter of whom held the office of City Recorder from 1863 to 1869, and until he was appointed Postmaster by the new Grant administration. He held the latter office until 1877. The first lodge of Ancient, Free and Ac- cepted Masons in Council Bluffs was constituted merely, and were disgraceful specimens of de- moralization when in contact with the white man and his vices. It was useless to close doors against them. They regarded these bar- riers of no account, and with the most stolid assurance stalked in and took possession and helped themselves. They were also a constant annoyance to families in the frights they gave women and children unused to their rude bab- its, as they put their tawny faces to the win - dows and gazed quizzingly into the dwellings. They were universal beggars, and up until 1869 abated little in their nomad conduct. The
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writer of this well remembers a characteristic incident occurring while the Union Pacific Rail- road was in course of construction. He took passage at night in the caboose attached to a freight train, mainly made up of flat cars laden with railroad iron. An old buck, who had been imbibing freely in Omaha, and his ancient and work-worn squaw were unticketed passengers on the car just in front of the caboose. The train was all night making its trip, and from dark until nearly dawn the old squaw sat " crooning " over her inebriated brave, chanting a doleful sort of requiem, sounding more like the outpourings of a savage heart in the death tepee than a natural scene by the side of a hus- band too full for utterance. Her reward for all this was when they left the train. He could then walk, and, leaving the car, he gruffly com- pelled her to carry a budget of stuff picked up in Omaha, big enough for the brawny shoulders of a stout man rather than for the frail frame of a decrepit, gray-haired, storm-wrinkled squaw. They disappeared over the hill to a tanning camp, she almost doubled to the earth by the weight of the burden, and he stalking along with lordly indifference as one of the bravest men of his tribe.
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