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 20
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
way through his system. He finally suc- cumbed, and came home to die, and, in the winter of 1876, death came to his relief. In addition to a thorough educational prepara- tion for a career in life, Judge Baldwin was a man of commanding presence. He was more than six feet in height, and, possessing a winsome, manly countenance, invariably attracted to him hosts of personal friends, and became personally popular with men of all parties. There was universal sorrow at his death. The Judges of the Supreme Court of the State came from their homes and at- tended his funeral in a body, and evinced a personal sorrow that denoted the esteem in which he was held by his professional asso- ciates.
For about eight years before his death, he made no appearance in court in the trial of causes, leaving that to those associated with him. The year before he died, however, a memorable scene was enacted in the court room in Council Bluffs. It was in the case of William Pierson against Benjamin Min- turn. Pierson was a bachelor, and had se. cured, shortly after the county was organ- ized, a beautiful piece of prairie land, which he made into a large and fertile farm. Min- turn became its purchaser, for perhaps all, or at least a great part of it, on credit. At about the arrival of Judge Baldwin in Council Bluffs, litigation began between Pierson and Minturn; and for nearly thirty years the con- tention in law proceeded. Pierson became a monomaniac on the subject, and a pauper, but clung with tenacity to his case. His at- torneys either removed, died or abandoned the case from time to time. Young lawyers, just fledged, were induced to take up the lines
where others laid them down, and began to grow gray in the service. The case of Pier- son against Minturn, on one side or the other, was the means of introducing the newly ar- rived lawyers of Council Bluffs to their pro- fessional brethren, and the calling of the case in court, term in and term out, as it stood at the head of the docket, musty and incumbered, was the source of the first merriment of the term, and the last joke before adjournment. Minturn, in the meantime, became a bankrupt, through trade, and there seemed not to be any reason for having the case still in court, the substance being gone, except that fate willed it so.
The year before the death of Judge Bald- win, the cause was reached for some kind of a determination and disposition before Judge Reed. There was no unusual stir among the regular habitues of the court room, but the presence of Judge Baldwin denoted some thing unusual. He was seated, his infirmi- ties claiming for him that exemption from re- spect to the court by being on his feet to ad- dress it. He began an argument. His tone was narrative and conversational in style. He commenced by reciting the history of the case, and followed it through all its chame- leon changes of counsel, aspect and phases, every step indicating that in the tragedy of those two litigants there lurked a well-sea- soned comedy that he was developing in side lights of " infinite jest " and merriment. The effect was surprising and wonderful. For more than an hour this incomparable droll. ery of speech went on, every step leading to a climax. When done, he left the court house, and never again was his voice heard within its walls.
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
CHAPTER XXV .*
COUNCIL BLUFFS-CRESCENT CITY A RIVAL-JOSEPHI E. JOHNSON-THE "CLARION" AND THE "PRESS"-BONDS IN AID OF MISSISSIPPI & MISSOURI RAILROAD-PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH INCORPORATED-BUILDING COMMENCED-EPISCOPAL CHURCH
-REAL ESTATE SPECULATIONS-CONCERT HALL-CRASH OF 1857 -- INDIAN CREEK CHANNEL CHANGED.
TN the beginning of the year 1857, John T. Baldwin and Gen. G. M. Dodge built a steam mill on Washington avenue, on the north side of Indian Creek, near the junction of Bryant and North Main streets. This mill they called the City Mills, and afterward it passed into the hands of Col. J. C. Hoffmayr, and now, in 1882, after being entirely re- built, and refitted with the Hungarian roller process of grinding, with an elevator at- tached, it is the property of John T. Bald- win and J. C. Hoffmayr. During the many years of its operations, it has been extensively employed, at times in the manufacture of flour for the Government in filling contracts of supply at Western Indian agencies.
Council Bluffs was threatened by a rival on the east side of the river at an early pe- riod of her existence. Six miles north, where Crescent Station, on the North-West- ern Railroad, now is, the tall bluffs, instead of keeping their directness on the verge of the valley, sweep inland to the eastward in a curve, and approach the river again south of Honey Creek Station. This curved sweep of plain to the east, crescent-shaped, gave the name to the locality, to the township carved out in that vicinity, and to the Mormon vil- lage known as Crescent City. The growth of the place was stimulated by the belief that the Mississippi and the Missouri River Rail- *By Col John II. Keatley.
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road would reach the Missouri River opposite that point, for a crossing, by the way of the Pigeon, and Crescent City, opposite Florence, in Nebraska. The latter was the chief town of the Territory, and Omaha was a mere con- ception, developed on paper by the drafts- men. Joseph E. Johnson, of the Bugle, of Council Bluffs, was an ardent advocate of the future greatness of Crescent City, and estab- lished there a newspaper called the Oracle. Mr. Johnson, in his far-off home in South- ern Utah, has lived to see the town of which he had such great hopes shrink again to a mere hamlet, and its rival expand to a popu- lation of 22,000. During these years. the Chronotype continued to be published, with Mr. Maynard at its head; but, in May, 1857, he and his brother-in-law, A. D. Long, launched the Weekly Nonpareil, a Repub- lican journal, which has continued as such ever since, and has expanded, under various managements, into a daily morning newspa- per of very wide influence and circulation. A. P. Bently became the owner of the Chro- notype, and published the paper for a few months, when it was made a Democratic jour. nal, and called the Clarion, as a response to Johnson's Bugle. The material on which the Clarion was printed was removed from the county in about eight years, and the pa- per disappeared from sight. For a few months in 1859, after J. E. Johnson ceased
Omaerão
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
to have any interest in the Bugle, and L. W. Babbitt had become its owner. Mr. Johnson published a Democratic newspaper called the Press, but its life was short, as its mission in this field was not a certain and successful one. During the summer of 1857. the Bugle appeared as a daily newspaper, but the vent- ure not being profitable and assuring, it was discontinued, except as a weekly, after a few months. It was eventually revived as a daily. but that fact belongs to another period of these annals.
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One of the most notable events of the year was a special election held in the county on the 19th of June, for the purpose of deter- mining whether the county should or should not subscribe $100,000 in the bonds of the county in aid of the construction of the Mis- sissippi & Missouri River Railroad. So ea- ger were the people of Council Bluffs for its adoption that only fourteen votes were cast against it. It was a stipulation of the con- traet that none of the bonds should issue un- til work was commenced in the county, and accordingly it did begin, in the Mosquito Creek Valley, in 1858. but not a great deal of grading was accomplished, and the build- ing of the road at this end was suspended, and not again resumed until 1868, under the auspices of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pa- citie. The County Judge hesitated signing the bonds when claim was made for them. in 1858, under the allegation that they were due on account of work begun. A strong public pressure was brought upon him, through public meetings and otherwise, and he was indueed to affix his signature, and the bonds passed into the hands of the railroad company. About $35,000 of these were ne- gotiated to innocent persons, or who elaimed to be such, and no legal defense could be made to their payment. Their validity was established by judgments against the coun-
ty. The remainder were eventually surren- dered and canceled, this taking place in 1870. as the result of a negotiation on the part of the county authorities. That is the only lia- bility or debt that the county ever ineurred in aid of railroads, though townships and the city undertook, by taxation and otherwise, to contribute to the building of several of these improvements.
So far as can be ascertained, the Rev. John Hancock, of Kentucky, was the first Presby- terian clergyman who ever undertook to con- duct stated services in that religious society in Council Bluffs. He came liere in 1856, and, after remaining here several days, went to Bellevue, Neb., to the Omaha Indian Mis- sion, where the Rev. William Hamilton was stationed, as a missionary. Coming back here, Hancock found quite a number of Pres- byterians scattered through the city, among them W. H. M. Pusey, Thomas Officer. James B. Rue and C. W. Boyers, and proceeded to take steps to organize a congregation. In this work he was assisted by the Rev. Mr. Bell, a well-known and energetic Presbyte- rian missionary in the West. In the begin- ning of 1857, $10,000 were subscribed to aid in the erection of a church edifice, and the ground secured on the east side of Marcy or Seventh street, between First avenue and Willow avenue. In February, 1857, articles of incorporation were filed in order to prop- erly constitute the society, and to enable it to hold and control the necessary real estate, among the incorporators of which were John T. Baldwin, Thomas Officer, James A. John- son, C. W. Boyers and W. H. M. Pusey. who were designated as Trustees. The work of erecting a brick structure as a place of wor- ship was begun the same year, but the unfort- unate panic which paralyzed every other en- terprise in 1857 caused a suspension of the church ereetion, as well as many other im-
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
provements, and the civil war and its excite- ments and perils also intervening, it was not resumed until 1865, when the present church edifice was completed. Mr. Hancock remained as pastor of the congregation until 1860. Dur- ing the next seven years, several clergymen were in charge of the congregation, and in 1867, the Rev. T. H. Cleland, a Kentuckian. was chosen pastor, and remained in that office until March, 1882, when he was called to Westminster Church, at Keokuk. and, accept- ing that appointment, the pulpit of the Pres- byterian Church in Council Bluffs was again declared vacant.
The Rev. E. W. Peet, an Episcopal cler- gyman of Des Moines, the first clergyman of that church who ever visted Council Bluffs, in the exercise of his religious or pastoral func- tions, came here in 1856, and proceeded to or- ganize St. Paul's Parish. The vestry was con - stituted with J. B. Beers, Horace Everett, William C. James, J. P. Casady, D. C. Bloomer, Addison Cochran, Thomas P. Trey- nor, Samuel Perin and G. W. Dodge. Dur- ing the autumn, the parish was visited by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Lee, of the diocese of Iowa, in company with the venerable missionary, Bishop Kemper, of that church. The Rev. George Watson. who also had a missionary parish in Omaha, came in February, 1856, and took charge of the parish in the capacity of missionary. A lot was purchased in Bay- liss' First Addition, on Pearl street, on the west side, in the block south of Willow avenue. It was the plan to erect a commo- dious brick building on the site selected, and preparations were made for that purpose. On the 1st day of August, 1857, the cere- monies of laying the corner stone occurred, under the direction of the Rt. Rev. Henry W. Lee, the Bishop, assisted by Mr. Watson. the missionary pastor. Some masonry in the form of a square was erected as a foundation,
several feet in height, at the northeast cor- ner of the intended edifice, and upon this was placed the cut stone designed as a cor- ner-stone. In its cavity were placed a brief history of the parish, local newspapers, some coins and other articles customary on such oe- casions, and the cavity sealed up. An address was also delivered by the Bishop. The panic of that year had its effect upon this enterprise. Many upon whom they depended for financial aid were overtaken by monetary distress, and went through the succeeding years under financial embarrassment, and the plan of building a brick church was abandoned. In 1860, when general prosperity began to re- appear, a neat and an appropriate wooden building was erected on the same lot, the northeast corner of which rests a few feet south of the corner-stone laid in 1857. Thousands have passed the spot in the last twenty-five years, and, in wonderment, no- tieed what appears to be a partial ruin of a building so near the other. In brief, it is simply a time-worn and storm-beaten monu- ment of a financial crisis of a quarter of a century ago. It is the hope of the survivors that some day their ardent wishes may be gratified by the occupancy of that corner-stone with an edifice worthy of the ceremonies which attended the laying of it. The spot is regarded with religious veneration by the members of the parish, and in all these years it has stood unmutilated, only as time has worn its traces into the stones.
The successive rectors of St. Paul's Parish during the years succeeding the incumbency of Mr. Watson have been the Revs. Faber, Byllesby, John Chamberlain, T. J. Brooks and F. T. Webb. The latter has been the highly esteemed rector for about eight years, and has been highly useful in his chosen work.
A vote was taken, at the October election
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
of that year (1858), upon the new State con- stitution, the majority in the county being 217 against it. The question of striking the word " white " out of the suffrage clause was also voted upon at the same time and defeated overwhelmingly, there being only seven votes in favor of negro suffrage. The Vonpareil, at that time under the management of Mr. Maynard, was vigorously opposed to that kind of suffrage, and urged the defeat of the proposition. W. H. M. Pusey was elected Senator, and Samuel H. Casady, Represent. ative, on the Democratic ticket, as against Frank Street and J. W. Denison, the total vote of Kane Township being 504. The not- ed and eloquent Ben Samuels, of Dubuque, the Democratic candidate for Governor, and Ralph P. Lowe, the opposition candidate, had a joint discussion here. Lowe was elected; also became ono of the Judges of the State Supreme Court; served under Unit- ed States District Attorney Sapp from 1869 to 1873, as assistant, and is now one of the legal advisers in a Washington executive de- partment.
Fancy values were given to much of the real estate in Council Bluffs at that date. The assessment that year was largely based upon the fancy values attributed to the large amount of unoccupied town lots held for spec- ulative purposes, and the official assessment in the city aggregated the enormous valua- tion of $2,276.600. Building was active dur- ing the summer. Money was abundant, such as it was, and, as it turned out to be, in a few months afterward, merely " wild cat," and trade of all kinds singularly active and prosperous. Not a day passed without the arrival of a steamboat from below. Judge James, Milton Rogers and W. B. Lewis erected that season the three-story brick block on the southeast corner of Main and Broadway, in 1 which block are now the Masonic Hall and the
American Express Company's offices. J. M. Palmer also built a very handsome two story building, called Concert Hall, at the northeast corner of Broadway and Center streets. This was afterward destroyed by fire, and the site is now occupied by the New Opera House. Where the Congregational Church now stands, on Center or Sixth street. H. C. Nutt. John A. Andrews and F. A. Tuttle began the erection of a large hotel, and after spending about $25,000 in the enterprise, were com- pelled to abandon it, and the part built was afterward torn down, and the material used in other buildings.
During the summer of 1857, W. H. M. Pusey and Thomas Officer built the comfort- able and commodious residences which they still occupy, on Willow avenue, on the sonth side of the Pearl Street Park. Thomas H. Benton also built a fine brick residence on the east side of Market street, south of Broad- way, in a beautiful spot in the glen, it be- ing the same that was afterward owned by Judge, Douglass for so many years, and is still the property of his estate. The banking houses then in the city were those of Green, Weare & Benton, whose place of business was the brick building now known as the City Building, on Broadway; Baldwin & Dodge; Officer & Pusey. still doing business; S. H. Riddle & Co. ; and J. M. Palmer & Co. Benton was also President, at the same time of the American Exchange Bank of Omaha, and so intimately connected were the two establishments that when one collapsed, on the 25th of September, 1857, the other went with it. and both closed their doors, to the great loss of many of their customers and depositors. Benton made strennous efforts to meet his obligations, surrendered his homestead, and all the property and paper that his banks held, but the crash was so general that a great part of the latter was
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
absolutely worthless. The utter flimsy char- acter of the Nebraska banks, whose paper formed the currency at that date in this part of the country, left them no alternative than to go to the wall, and with them went also forever their abundance of paper trash. Real estate fell to a low ebb in consequence of these disasters, and could be scarcely given away. It was, perhaps, the darkest period Council Bluffs ever saw. Men who were in affluence the evening before could scarcely buy a breakfast the next morning. So the season passed, amidst the most intense gloom. Many remained here, not that they had heart to stay and wait, but because they were unable to get away, and the crisis was so general, everywhere, that no encouragement was given even to change. During this period, the land office was closed, to await the pleas- ure of the railroads, that acquired an incho- ate interest in the public lands by way of donation; but among the first events of the beginning of the year 1858 was the re-open- ing of the office by the appointment of James Pollard as Register, and A. H. Palmer as Re- ceiver, in February. Between that and Au- gust, about eight hundred thousand acres of the public lands of Western Iowa were entered by speculators. Pollard held his position only until June, when he was succeeded by Lewis H. Hill, a clerk in the office of the Register. A greater portion of these entries were made through local agencies, among whom were the firms of Henn, Williams & Hooton; Casady & Test: Baldwin & Dodge; Officer & Pusey; Samuel Perin; Louden Mul- len; Addison Cochran; and Horace Everett. Mullen and Everett gave their names to addi- tions laid out by them to the city. At the spring election of 1858, J. Smith Hooton was chosen Mayor; Frank Street, Recorder; and J. B. Lewis, B. Haag, J. P. Casady, Milton Rogers, Addison Cochran and Alexander
Shoemaker, as Aldermen; C. E. Stone was made City Attorney. Up to that date, In- dian Creek meandered from east to west through the city, on the north side of Broad- way, in a narrow, shallow, devious channel. It crossed North Main street close to Broad- way, perhaps seventy-five feet in the rear of Officer & Pusey's present bank building, and on the ground now occupied by the brick block erected by P. C. Derd in 1882. The project to straighten the channel involved the rights of a mill-owner. The stream was dammed above Market street, and the water conducted in a race, on the north side of the creek, across what is now Washington avenue, at the City Mills, to the side-hill where Mad- ison Dagger had a water-mill. Addison Cochran, of the City Council, was the leader in the project for a change, and, under his influence, it was begun and carried out, and the present channel dug, making a straight course from a point near Geise's brewery to a short distance below where the Chicago & North - Western track crosses the stream, where it deflects nearly sonth in a shallow bed. A condition of things wholly unforeseen grew out of this change of channel. The fall in- curred, and the soft, friable earth through which the changed current has since passed, has washed out, between Benton street and Center street, the distance of three blocks, a frightful and ever-increasing chasm. The most difficult problem of the city government since the day the water was turned into its new course has been how to arrest the progress of the rava- ges of the water, and how to span the stream with bridges that will endure. It has also been the source of numerous perplexing law- suits on the part of riparian owners, who, from year to year, have seen their homesteads crumble into the flood and swept away to the bottoms below, to fill up the swampy lots of some other citizen.
HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
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CHAPTER XXVI .*
COUNCIL BLUFFS-ST. JOSEPH RAILROAD MEETING-COMPANY ORGANIZED-ELECTIONS OF 1858 -CURTIS AND TRIMBLE FOR CONGRESS-FIRST COUNTY FAIR-BABBITT'S CHEROKEE-
DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN COLORADO-" NONPAREIL" ADVERTISES IT-PIKE'S
PEAK EMIGRATION -GREELEY AND RICHARDSON - D. C. BLOOMER - BIRTHPLACE AND CAREER -FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY.
INTEREST in railway building to Council Bluffs began to manifest itself again in the early part of 1858, and on the 19th of May a convention of business men from Pottawatta- mie, Fremont and Mills counties, and of rep- resentatives from intervening counties in Missouri and Southeastern Nebraska, was held in Council Bluffs, to take into consideration the question of connecting Council Bluffs and St. Joseph. S. F. Nuckolls, of Nebraska City, was elected President of the company organized at that meeting; Horace Everett, of Council Bluffs, Vice President; S. S. Cur- tis, son of Gen. S. R. Curtis, Secretary; and L. Nuckolls, brother of the President of the company, was made Treasurer. The project was a feasible one, the proposed line being down the Missouri Valley, and with compara- tively few streams to cross. The first ma et- ing of the stockholders was held on the 12th of July, when Dr. Enos Lowe, S. F. Nuck- olls, B. F. Rector, J. W. Coolidge, L. Nuck- olls, L. W. Babbitt, James A. Jackson, James D. Test and Addison Cochran were chosen Directors, and H. C. Nutt, the Chief Engineer, made a favorable report of his pre- liminary survey. In passing, the remark may be made that S. F. Nuckolls afterward emigrated to Cheyenne, and became the first Delegate in Congress from the new Territory of Wyoming, having been elected in 1868.
James B. Rue was elected County Superin- tendent in the spring of 1858, over Samuel Eggleston and Thomas Officer, the oppos- ing candidates. At the Angust election, J. H. Sherman was chosen the County Judge, and C. P. Kellogg, the father of Miss Fannie Kellogg, the famous songstress, was elected Clerk of the District Court. The anti-slav- ery question, by its manifestation of opposi- tion to the extension of the institution into the new territory, caused great political in- terest in the Congressional canvass. Gen. S. R. Curtis was the Republican candidate for Congress in the district, and H. H. Trimble, afterward Colonel of an Iowa regiment, who was severely wounded at the battle of Pea Ridge, and is now a distinguished Iowa law- yer, was the candidate of the Democracy. Both visited Council Bluffs during the can - vass and presented their claims Curtis was, however, elected. Col. Trimble had a ma- jority of 209 in a total vote of 693 in the county.
The first agricultural exhibition or fair ever held in the county was on the 13th and 14th of October, 1858. Hon. Caleb Baldwin was President of the society, and W. H. Kinsman, the gallant soldier who fell at Black River Bridge, the Secretary. The fair grounds and race track were in the eastern part of the city, a little east of the Babbitt residence, and on the north side of Indian Creek.
By Col. John Li. Keatley.
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HISTORY OF POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY.
Those who took the most active interest in the success of the institution wern Col. Bab- bitt, Capt. D. B. Clark. William Garner, H. A. Terry (now and then the noted nurseryman and fruit-grower of Crescent Townshipi, Joseph E. Johnson (of the Ellisdale farm) and Marshal Turley. The exhibits were highly credita- ble, notwithstanding the sparsely settled character of the country and the newness of its agriculture. The famous horse Chero- kee, belonging to L. W. Babbitt, took the two first premiums of $S. Two handsome ladies' saddles were awarded to the best rid- ers in the tournament of the second day. when the greatest interest was manifested. The affair closed with a dance on the evening of the last day. and the festivities were of the most delightful character. The night of the 3d day of December was intensely cold. A. D. Long, brother-in-law of Mr. May- nard, of the Nonpareil, and its publisher, lived then on the north side of Indian Creek. and was accustomed to reaching his home by a foot bridge that considerably shortened the distance. When last seen alive, he was going in the direction of that crossing, but the next morning was found stark dead, and frozen in the bed of the creek, evidently hav- ing fallen from the unprotected structure. His death was greatly lamented, not only by his immediate relatives, but by many citizens to whom he was endeared by numerous manly qualities.
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