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 19
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the prime of life, and has many years of use- fulness before him. He was born on the 29th day of July, 1826, in Washington County, Penn., and graduated from Wash- ington College, in his native county, in 1847. Among others who have distinguished them- selves in subsequent public life, and who were class-mates of Mr. Pusev, was the Hon. James G. Blaine, and whose friendship for Mr. Pusey has been undiminished in all the intervening years of public vicissitudes and political strife. Their esteem for each other
*By Col. John H Keatley.
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is as fresh and manifest as it was when they were boys at college. Mr. Pusey is of Quaker parentage and habits ofthought. His phys- ique and name indicates his English origin, and his habits are in keeping with that char- acter. He is broadly built, of medium height, and is capable of an immense amount of phys- ical endurance. His physiognomy is that of the English middle-class business man. After taking his degree at college, he selected the profession of law, and began its study. His ripe scholarship and studious, staid hab- its enabled him soon to master legal prinei- ples, and in a short time he was duly admit- ted to the bar. Soon after this occurred, he took another important step, and that was marriage, with Miss Sarah Ellen Officer, in 1849. This lady is the daughter of the late Robert Officer and the sister of Thomas Officer, who has been Mr. Pusey's business associate as a banker in Council Bluffs for nearly twenty-five years. The first move made by these gentlemen was to Illinois, where the vast quantities of unimproved land presented a wide field for real estate opera- tions. In these they engaged with success in that State; but, in 1855, Mr. Pusey visited Council Bluffs for the first time, remained quite awhile, located a large amount of wild lands, and laid the foundation for his and their subsequent successful business career. Returning to Illinois, his business connee- tions there were severed, his affairs in that quarter wound up, and a permanent removal made in 1856 to Council Bluffs, to establish the banking honse of Officer & Pusey, which, during all the monetary panics through which the country has since passed, has stood firm, unmoved and almost uninfluenced. The country now tributary to Council Bluffs and the basis of its prosperity and growth were little more than a waste. Here and there, for a hundred miles in the interior, was a ham-
| let, and here and there a settlement. . Coun- cil Bluffs was the only point west of the Des Moines River that could then afford any kind of banking facilities, and Officer & Pusey at once acquired an acquaintance and inspired a confidence that has been undeviating from that day to this.
Mr. Pusey, though engaged in an exacting and absorbing business, jealous of every mo- ment's thought and energy, took some inter- est in political affairs and acted with the Democratic party, not wholly standing aloof from an active participation in its local oper- ations and movements. In regard to the rapidly developing question of disposing of slavery in the unorganized Territories, he was a disciple and an admirer of the lament. ed Stephen A. Douglas. His interest in these matters was recognized in 1857 by his nomination for State Senator, in a district largely Republican at that date, and com- prised of twenty-three counties, extending from the Missouri line to that of the present State of Minnesota. Hon. Frank Street, of whom mention has already been made, was the opposing candidate. There were no rail- roads in this vast area of country, and both candidates separately made a canvass of this sparsely settled district. To neither was it anything like child's play. The odds being against Mr. Pusey, his task was all the more difficult. This section of the country had suffered and was suffering then from the effects of wild-cat banking, and his views on that question coinciding with those of the people, in the advocacy of more stringent regulations and safeguards as to the curren- ey, and the confidence he inspired as a pri- vate banker whose interests were not identi- cal with those of the shattered and shaking institutions so greatly unauthorized, gave him a personal leverage that insured his tri- umphant election. An incident of the result
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
was that he had a majority in every township and a majority in every county of the twenty- three in the district. His service in the Senate was marked during its first session by his advocacy of proper safeguards and restric- tions upon those railroads that were seeking to secure to themselves the results of the mu- nificence of the General Government in do- nating large bodies of the public lands to the State, intrust for a proper encouragement of railroad building. He foresaw, as may be learned from the debates on those questions, that the time would come when the people and the railroads that had profited by the generosity of the former would be brought face to face with each other in a struggle for industrial domination. His pledges to the people on the question of the currency were carried out to the letter. His term, embracing four years, included the exciting Presidential campaign of 1860, and, as a Douglas Democrat, he was sent to the Charleston Convention; and in the exciting and difficult position in which the adherents of the "Little Giant" were placed, by the demands of the cotton Slave States, and by their threats to secede from the convention, he stood side by side with Iowa's most elo- quent son, Ben Samuels, whose resolutions so clearly expressed the length to which the Northern friends of Mr. Douglas were only willing to go on the slavery question. The assault upon Fort Sumter brought new duties to every man who held any official position in Iowa. Mr. Pusey's attitude was not un- certain. He gave his cordial support to all such measures as were regarded by the execu- tive, at the head of which was Gov. Kirk- wood, to fully sustain the effort of the Na- tional Government to suppress the rebellion. Some criticism has since been made that Mr. Pusey supported a resolution declaring that the war was not waged on the part of the
North for the abolishment of slavery, but for the sole purpose of restoring the authority of the General Government over the disputed territory. In this he simply reflected the sentiments of Mr. Lincoln's inaugural ad- dress, delivered only a few months before, and a resolution repeatedly taken by the friends of the President almost up to the date of the emancipation proclamation. At the end of his Senatorial term. Mr. Pusey returned to his business as a banker. Dur- ing all the changing fortunes of the civil war, his confidence in the ultimate triumph of the Union cause was undiminished, and he gave to it all the assistance possible from his means and his energies. He ceased to take as active an interest in mere party affairs, be- cause his business and business interests grew apace, but in the affairs of the city, its credit had reached such a low ebb, that the best men here demanded a re-organization of the Council, by bringing into it those who had the capacity and the will to comprehend its necessities. In a largely Republican ward. the Fourth, Mr. Pusey was elected by a de- cided majority to represent it in the Council. He took a lead in that body in financial re- organization, and, before the expiration of his term, public credit was brought to par and placed on a solid basis. When the time came for the Council Bluffs & St. Louis Rail- road to seek an entrance into the city, it im- plored the people to vote a tax that would have aggregated about $180,000, to be given them as a donation, under the offer that the city should derive certain benefits from this liberality. An immense popular assembly was called to consider the question with the tide in its favor and strong influences brought to bear in aid of its success, but Mr. Pusey, with a few others, at the risk of the loss of whatever popularity was involved in such an opposition, for two nights, debated every feat-
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ure of it, and defeated it, and the result has fully justified the event. Since then, his life has been a busy one behind the counter of his bank, giving his personal attention to the details of his business. During these years of activity, he has contributed to the growth of the city by investments in the erection of business blocks of a most substan- tial and enduring character. In every public enterprise that promised to be of a permanent and substantial value, he has lent his in- fluence and financial aid. It is not usual for men, in their relation to bankers, to make public such a relation and the aids they re- ceive from that source, but the writer of this is in a position to know that Mr. Pnsey has been unsparing, and without exactions to those, humble though they be, who were in need of substantial friendly assistance. His career, public and private, has been withont spot or blemish, or suspicion of either. Up to 1882, he had cast off all thought of polit- ical ambition. His family, consisting of a
wife, two daughters and a son, engages his affections in a high degree, and home sur- roundings were a solace to one who had learned to suppress the promptings of am- bition and to forget the excitements of po- litical strife. But, exigencies arose in this Congressional district that demanded of him an abnegation that he was loath to accept. and, at the instance of the largest convention ever held of the kind in the western part of the State, he accepted a nomination, unani- mously and heartily tendered, of the candidacy of the Democratic party for member of Con- gress from the Ninth District.
At the general election held on the 7th of November, 1882, Mr. Pusey was elected a member of the Forty-eighth Congress, by a plurality of 2,249, over Anderson, Republican, and Hatton, Greenbacker. In the same conn- ties of the district in 1880, there was a Republican majority of 5,000, making the gain in 1882 the unprecedented amount of 7,249.
CHAPTER XXIV .*
COUNCIL BLUFFS-ELECTION OF 1856 - D. W. PRICE CHOSEN MEMBER OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION-LOAN OF $100,000 - MISSISSIPPI & MISSOURI CELEBRATION - PALMER'S BLOCK-BENEDICT HAAG-CHARLES BOCK -WESTERN STAGE COMPANY-
II. P. WARREN-KEOKUK AND WAPELLO-ANECDOTE OF JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE-CHARTER AMENDED-JUDGE BALDWIN.
TI THE political canvass of 1856 was a memor- able one throughout the country. James Buchanan and John C. Breckinridge headed the Democratic ticket: John C. Fremont and William L. Dayton that of the Republicans, who were, for the first time, making a des- perate struggle to gain control of the Na- tional Government; and ex-President Millard Fillmore and Andrew Jackson Donelson, the
nephew of Gen. Andrew Jackson, represented the Whig and native American element in politics. So far as the interest of Council Bluffs was concerned, the lines were drawn almost solely between the Democrats and the Republicans. Gen. S. R. Curtis was the Republican candidate for Congress, and Au- gustus Hall that of the Democrats of the dis- trict. Both of these gentlemen, in stumping the district, made speeches here in advocacy
*By Col. John 11. Keatley.
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
of their claims. Two elections were held that year, one in August, for State and county officers, and another in November for Presi- dential electors. The whole number of votes in the county at the Angust election was 564, with a Democratic majority of 200. Hon. A. V. Larimer was elected Representa- tive in the State Legislature; J. H. Sherman, County Prosecuting Attorney, and F. H. Welsh, the Clerk of the District Court. B. R. Pogram ran against Larimer; George W. Dodge against Sherman, and David Devol, now an old and venerable citizen, the father of P. C. Devol, against Welsh. An election was also held for members of a Constitutional Convention to revise the constitution, and D. W. Price was chosen the member of that body, as a Democrat, from a district embrac- ing the greater portion of the northwestern section of the State, his Republican competi- tor being the highly respected and venerable Judge D. E. Brainard, now of Magnolia, Har- rison County. In the county, at the November election, the Buchanan and Breckenridge electors received 353 votes: those of Fremont and Dayton, 259, and Fillmore and Donel- son's electors, 85, or a total of 697, out of which Kane Township contributed 408. Capt. Price was also Mayor of the city that year, having been chosen to that office in March. W. C. James, J. B. Lewis, J. D. Test. Patrick Murphy, John T. Baldwin, D. C. Bloomer and G. A. Robinson, among others, constituted the City Council.
The city authorities had begun to realize the necessity of expending money for the im- provement of the streets. In order to accom- plish that, a special election was ordered upon the question of borrowing $100,000 for that purpose, and, on the 14th of April, the voters, by a poll of 122 to 4, declared in fav- or of the proposition. The principal part of this sum was expended in grading and wid-
ening Broadway, hemmed in as it was by the bluffs, and irregular as it appeared in its general features. It was virtually the only street of any importance, at that time, in a business point of view. In respect, also, of the fact that large donations of public lands had just been made, in aid of four contem- plated lines of railway across the State, the land office here was closed in May, 1856, in or- der that this liberality of the General Govern- ment might have full effect. In anticipation of this order, the eagerness to take advantage of what opportunity still existed during that month, 200,000 acres were entered before the office was closed. At, that date, the tendency of railroad concentration was here. though not definite. This concentration was antici- pated in the celebration of the completion of the Mississippi & Missouri Railroad to Iowa City. Gen. Curtis urged that course in newspaper articles, and had in view the great Platte Valley as the route of the great inter- continental highway. a dream that he almost realized in his own lifetime.
During this season, J. M. Palmer built the three-story brick block of four buildings. known as Palmer's Block, and now known as the Nonpareil Block, commencing at the southeast corner of Scott street and Broadway and extending westward along Broadway. Benedict Haag having built the first brewery ever erected in Western Iowa, the year pre- vious, also erected the three-story brick suite of buildings on Upper Broadway, known as Haag's block. The brewery, now disused for about ten years, is located on the south side of Pierce street, east of the Pierce Street School building, and part of the premises constitute what went, for many years, by the name of Bock's Beer Gardens, the widow of Benedict Haag having married Charles Bock, who, before his death, was also one of the best known and popular Germans in the city.
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
His widow, Mrs. Bock, still occupies part of the premises as a beautiful homestead.
Commerce at this time was mainly by the river, from St. Louis, by steamboat, as many as twenty boats arriving in a month, many of them, of course, en route for the sparse settle- ments and for the Indian country, still far. ther north. The Western Stage Company ran a line of coaches across the State, and a gentleman by the name of Frost conducted a line between Council Bluffs and St. Joseph. Mo. Perhaps the most severe winter ever ex- perienced in this locality was that which was heralded by a severe snow-storm in Decem- ber, 1856. Snow fell during that month to the depth of four feet, and, in many places. it was six feet deep. The atmosphere gained in coldness at the same time, and many who had not anticipated so great a severity, suffered intensely, owing to the inadequacy in pre- paration for anything of the kind. Up to that winter, deer were abundant in the vi- cinity, but the deep snow drove them into the timber southwest and northwest of the city, to browse on the young cottonwood sprigs to keep them from starvation, and they were slaughtered by hundreds.
The number was so diminished by this means that it may be said that they ever after ' disappeared from the locality only one here and there at times making an appearance in the timber or on the prairie. The only wild animals, in which there did not seem to be any diminution by the rigors of winter, were the prairie wolf.
Among those who came to stay during the early part of the winter of 1856 was Henry P. Warren, who has, for quite a number of years, filled the position of Deputy Clerk of the District and the Circuit Courts, and who is the father of F. H. Warren, who, for two terms, was Clerk of those courts. Mr. War- ren was born in Illinois in 1818, and, when
a mere boy, came to what was then known as Wisconsin Territory, now within the limits of Iowa. His uncle, with whom he came, was an authorized Indian trader to the Sacs and Foxes, and among the places at which he lo- cated was Agency City, on the Des Moines River, in Henry County. Here was a splen- did opportunity to study the Indian charac- ter and the language of those tribes, and Mr. Warren was at that susceptible age when it became easy to acquire the tongue of the Iowa Indians. He quickly became a useful interpreter-as much so as those who made it their life employment. It was here that he formed the acquaintance and acquired the friendship of both Keokuk and Wapello, and inspired those noted Indian chiefs with a confidence that was not shaken during their lives, and, when they went on their journey to the happy hunting-grounds of their tribe, they still remembered the white youth at the agency with gratitude and characteristic In- dian fidelity and friendship. After remain- ing at this and other trading houses within the limits of those tribes for several years, he returned to Illinois to school, but came out again in 1838. In 1842, John C. Breckin- ridge, of Kentucky, who had settled in Bur- lington, expecting to make that his perma- nent residence, with a party came out to hunt, and went up the Des Moines River in two detachments far beyond trading-posts and the bounds of civilization. Breckinridge acted as cook for the party to which Warren was attached, and, the supply of flour getting low, he resorted to more than a liberal use of lard, in order to make slapjacks that would go a great ways. Little did the future Vice President of the United States, the gallant officer in the Mexican war, and the noted Confederate General think that his practice in the art culinary, with slender means, on the frontier, would ever stand him in
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hand, in many a like occasion, during civil war.
Great hardship was endured by many peo- ple during the winter of 1856. Not only in the town was this the case, but in the coun- try, which was covered with the deepest snow. Roads were blocked, such as they were, the timber was inaccessible, and many suffered from the want of fuel. extremely difficult to obtain. Scarcely anything but green cotton- wood could be had, and this commanded famine prices, selling as high at times as $20 per load. Whole weeks intervened between the arrival of mails, and newspapers were read and re-read for the want of fresh sup- plies. From the outside world they were virtually cut off, and the isolated people were compelled to endure life, instead of enjoying it, making up for deficiencies in ordinary com- forts by resorting to such amusements as the frontier of itself could afford.
The original charter of the city, after a fair experiment, was found inadequate, and, in January, 1857, it was materially amended, and the powers of the city government greatly enlarged. Not only were the municipal pow- ers increased, but the boundaries were ex- panded so that more territory was included within its limits than embraces the city of New York proper, and even the great city of London. This craze for enlargement was absurd, and grew out of the intense passion for speculation in city property, in common with all other kinds of speculation inordi- nately stimulated by unlimited issues of cheap paper money by hosts of Western wild- cat banks. Theonly manufacturing industry existing at that time in the narrow belt of settlements constituting the Territory of Ne- braska was that of paper money manufactur- ing; and this flourished with baneful influ- ence until the general financial collapse of the fall of 1857 brought institutions to sink
to rise no more. Council Bluffs was a suffer- er from this folly in a high and in an acute degree. The limits of the city at that date were extended to the Missouri River, and made to embrace an area of four miles square, and quite a large number of acres that have never yet been devoted to anything else than tillage. Under the amended charter, the first election was held March 9, resulting in the choice of J. Smith Hooton as Mayor; Frank Street, City Recorder; S. H. Craig, Treas- urer; and City Marshal, H. J. Barnes. Dan- iel W. Carpenter, L. W. Babbitt, Henry Allen and Capt. John P. Williams were among the Councilmen chosen at that elec- tion. George Snider was appointed City At- torney for one year, but before the end of his term he resigned, and Caleb Baldwin was appointed in his stead.
The latter gentleman performed so large a part in assisting to develop the city, and, during his life-time, occupied such a high rank as a lawyer, Judge, citizen and public man, that he is entitled to more than a mere reference in these annals. Mr. Baldwin was bern in Washington County, Penn., on the 3d of April, 1824. He was the brother of the Hon. John T. Baldwin, also identified with the origin and growth of Council Bluffs, and both were sons of Nehemiah Baldwin, who, until his death several years ago, dis- charged the duties of Deputy Collector of In- ternal Revenue in the service of the United States for a long time, an l with the highest degree of acceptability. Caleb Baldwin de- veloped an early aptitude for study, and was given the necessary means of mental improve ment. When prepared for college, he entered that at Washington, Penn., and graduated from that institution in IS42. He spent four years in the study of the law, being in no great haste to enter one of the most jealous and exacting vocations of life without having
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thoroughly mastered the principles that are necessary to the highest professional success. He was then twenty-two years of age, and eager to develop his talents in a new country, and, removing to Fairfield, in Jefferson Coun- ty. lowa, established that as his home, and entered upon the practice of his profession. Iowa was then a Territory only, and its set- tlements extended but a short distance inland from the Mississippi River. Many were the discouragements, the common lot of the vent- uresome, in those days, in a new country, without railroads, and no immediate prospects of any such; but Mr. Baldwin had extraor- dinary courage, resolution, industry and will to overcome the obstacles that were in his pathway. He rapidly made friends, grad- ually. yet certainly, advanced to professional success, and acquired popularity as a citizen. His talents and character were fully appre- ciated by the most discriminating in that new community; but, being a Whig, and subse- quently a life-long Republican, the political avenues were virtually closed against him, after Iowa became a State, until 1855, when he was appointed Judge of the District Court by Gov. James W. Grimes. This was to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of Hon. W. H. Seevers, now one of the Judges of the Iowa Supreme Court. Mr. Baldwin came to Council Bluffs early in 1857, and was made, as already stated, the City Attorney. Iu 1859, he was elected to the bench of the Su- preme Court of the State, this being the first election of Judges of that court by the peo- ple under the new constitution formed by the convention of 1857. According to the method of selection, as provided by law, he became Chief Justice of that court in 1862. He was unwilling to serve longer than one term-six years-in that station, and declined a renom- ination, and resumed the practice of his pro- fession. His career as a Judge was marked
by signal ability. The opinions prepared by him, and which are his monument, in the earlier Iowa Reports, are models of terseness and perspicuity. There is never any diffi- culty in understanding what Judge Baldwin meant when he decided a point, for his lan- guage was direct, and the matter unclouded by any attempt to evade the issue presented in the record. His instinct of justice mani- fested itself in every line of those opinions. As a debater, he was an adversary of formi- dable character, and, having a pleasing voice and presence, and considerable humor, much of it of the quaint, homely character, there was always an eagerness to listen to his speeches when he made arguments in court. He always inspired confidence, both with judge and jury, and in that way gave addi- tional character and force to the evidence by which he sought verdicts. In 1865, Judge Baldwin was appointed United States Attor- ney for the District of Iowa, and held that position for a short time, soon finding it too irksome to suit his tastes. About a year afterward, George F. Wright. a young law- yer from the eastern part of the State, came to Council Bluffs, and he and Judge Baldwin formed a law partnership which lasted until the death of the latter. After the treaty of Washington was ratified, and the Geneva con- vention had ascertained the amount of indem- nity to be paid by Great Britain to the United States for the depredations of the Alabama, Shenandoah and other Confederate priva- teers named in the treaty stipulation, Judge Baldwin was, in 1872, made one of the Judges to constitute the court and distribute the claims arising under that treaty and pay- ment. During the last years of his life, it was evident to his friends, though not to him- self-for he refused to believe it-that a fa- tal disease had taken hold of his stalwart frame, and was rapidly working its insidious
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