USA > Iowa > Poweshiek County > History of Poweshiek County, Iowa: a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume 1 > Part 25
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(B.) "Foreign students are a help in their classes; no hindrance.
(C.) "One class has only one home student. Will you maintain or drop that class if you pass this resolution? The son of the gentleman who seconded this motion is that home student !
(D). "If you maintain all classes as they are 'now and pass this resolution you save nothing in salaries and lose the $500 which foreign students bring us this year."
The resolution was sustained by one vote only, that of the mover who had no children.
"That is not what we wanted," it was said. "We wanted to exclude the 'niggers.'" The motion to do that was lost by'a majority of eight in fifty votes by rising and of five by ballot.
Evidently that was not the end. The superintendent was at the schoolhouse fifteen minutes early the next morning. The teacher in whose room five col- ored students were admitted (refugees from Louisiana and Missouri), rushed into his room, 'saying: "What shall I do! Two men are coming to drive the ne- groes from my school." Looking down the stairway she exclaimed "And there they are at my door now." 1
The superintendent flew down, saying to the men : "I hope you have not come to commit an illegal deed !"
"We have come to prevent the 'niggers' from coming to school."
"Well, gentlemen, the best way will be to see the board of directors and to secure a line from them asking me not to admit them. I will attend to the rest. In that case, if they say so, they shall not come an hour."
"We know what they'll say."
"If you don't do that, I want you to understand that every pupil permitted by the board of directors to come to this school is under my protection while he is in the schoolhouse or on the school ground."
"Do you mean to say you will fight for the 'niggers'?"
"I mean that every pupil here is under my protection."
"We'll know where to find you then."
The boys were not there. They were intercepted on the way. They turned back. It was just spring vacation time. No further opposition to'their attend- ance was made in other terms.
2. The Lucas family came to Montezuma about that time. The father was the slave of a kind young master and officer in the Mexican war, who took him to the war with him and gave him the privilege of attending other officers and of laying up his money to buy his freedom. He bought himself, his wife and his oldest child. When the free colored people were driven out of Helena, Arkan- sas, where he resided, a correspondence was opened with Robert Morrison of Montezuma, who had become his friend in the Mexican service. Mr. Morrison met him at Oskaloosa and brought his family to Montezuma. They began to
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
send their children to school. The white children admired their kinky hair, their dark faces, their funny ways, but some people objected to their being in the schools. There was talk and a probability of trouble. The teacher was anxious and consulted the county superintendent. He advised her to treat them exactly as she would white children and wait. The postmaster was Otis Lizor and a kind-hearted democrat. Letters for the teacher, evidently unpleasant, were dropped in the office. He retained them till all became quiet. When the opposi- tion subsided, she received her mail.
The Lucas family removed to the prairie after a little time. It is said that there also the same objection was made to their school attendance but ceased very soon. There they were so upright and honest, it is recorded, that they were specially favored. Otis Lizor was clerk of a sale, and gave out the usual condi- tion of security for goods sold on credit. Soon some one interrupted the sale to say he noticed that Lucas was not giving security for his purchases. Otis Lizor arose and said: "Whatever Henry Lucas wants to buy at this sale, he can have without giving security." Otis Lizor did not go out of his way to raise the "ne- gro question," but when it was thrust upon him his sense of 'fairness compelled him to think that justice knew no color.
3. It may seem a little strange when we say that the first negro in the county was brought from Maryland, the legal property of a strong anti-slavery family, to Grinnell. He had been a faithful fellow in the family for a long time and wanted to come with them. When he reached a free state the boys lifted him up that "he might kick his heels together because he was free." "Old Uncle Ned" was a good specimen of the love of man for freedom, even though he had long enjoyed all its privileges. He wanted the legal title to it also.
Just here a question might arise which disturbed many in those early days, i. e., "Will the average negro when free, rise to the level of the average white in industry, economy, aspiration for education and high moral character?"
Candor compels us to answer it by saying the Lucas family were exceptions among whites and blacks, yet the average black man in Poweshiek county has fallen below the average white man, as we believe. Perhaps considering all the circumstances we should expect no more. The more profitable employment is not open to him as to a white man, and the white is preferred even in the lower excepting only the very lowest. A negro scavenger may get a good job, as such jobs go, but a negro doctor, lawyer, or minister would be very hungry before he would be asked for by our average citizen. No great effort would be made to employ a Booker Washington in our schools, or a Phillis Wheatley in the mil- linery store. What encouragement then, for a negro to try to rise ?
The negro question has assumed ever varying forms in the north and in Iowa. Their privileges were limited by the government. The territorial govern- ment forbade the settlement of free negroes in Iowa unless they could give a bond of $500 for good behavior and as security that they should not become a public charge. Any one who should give employment to a free negro who had failed to give such a bond, or should give him shelter, was made liable to a fine of $100. The state constitution adopted in 1846, granted suffrage only to the "white male citizen." (Iowa has never required a property qualification). A vote was given to the people by the constitutional convention of 1857, on drop-
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
ping the word "white" from the qualifications for suffrage. It was defeated overwhelmingly.
The vote of this county was as follows : For dropping "white" 56; against, 601.
In townships, Grinnell, for
8; against IO
Jefferson, for
o; against. 39
Madison, for
.0; against 29
Warren, for
3; against 47
Bear Creek, for 3; against 74
Washington, for
4; against 48
Sugar Creek, for
26; against 70
Jackson, for
12; against 272
Deep River, for I ; against. 12
The vote of this county and of the state was strongly opposed to dropping "white" from the constitution.
It is interesting to remember that the vote of 1857 was taken in the midst of the Kansas contest and that anti-slavery men in Iowa did not wish to seem too radical and scores of them voted "no" on dropping the word "white" when they felt "yes." But when the Civil war was over and 200,000 negro soldiers had served in the Union army, when slavery was abolished by the thirteenth amend- ment to the constitution of the United States and the fourteenth amendment was adopted, Iowa struck out "white" in 1868 from her own constitution by a major- ity of 24,265, and Poweshiek vote on granting the negro the suffrage was 653 and the vote against it was 221, and in 1880 she removed the word from her qualifications for membership in her assembly. Now a negro can vote, and be a senator or representative, if he gets votes enough '
Vol. 1-15
MONTEZUMA STREET SCENE
CHAPTER XVII.
TOWNSHIPS AND TOWNS.
ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWNSHIPS-THEIR RECORD OF PATRIOTISM DURING THE DARK DAYS OF '61-THE PROSPERITY THAT HAS COME TO THE FARMER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY-SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES-CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES -THE COUNTY SEAT-BROOKLYN-MALCOM.
OUR PRESENT TOWNSHIPS.
The following table shows the date of the organization of the different town- ships and their present size, omitting their various changes in the meantime.
Township
Size now.
Jackson, organized April 15, 1848 ... Township 78, Range 14 & east 1/3 15 Bear Creek, organized April 15, 1848. Township 80, Range 14 Sugar Creek, organized July 3, 1848. . Township 78, Range 16 Washington, organized April, 1852 .. Township 79, Range 16 Jefferson, organized March 6, 1854. .. Township 81, Range 13 Warren, organized March 5, 1855 .... Township 80, Range 13 Madison, organized March 5, 1855. .. Township 81, Range 14 Grinnell, organized March 6, 1855. .. Township 80, Range 16 Deep River, organized March 7, 1857. Township 78, Range 13 Malcom, organized , 1858. . Township 80, Range 15
Union, organized 1858 .. . Township 78, Range west 2/3 15 Pleasant, organized March 1, 1858 ... Township 79, Range 15
Chester, organized - -, 1860. . . .. Township 81, Range 16 Lincoln, organized January 4, 1861. . Township 79, Range 13 Scott, organized June 6, 1861. Township 79, Range 14 Sheridan, organized September 5, 1866. Township 81, Range 15
JACKSON TOWNSHIP.
Jackson township was organized April 15, 1848, twelve days after the crea- tion of the county, and by those who remembered "Old Hickory" as lovingly as the nation had done through a generation. They loved him because he whipped
227
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
the British so roundly at New Orleans, and all the more because he did it after the agents of France and America had agreed that they would fight no more. It then embraced the south tier of congressional townships, and was one-third as large as Bear Creek. It is still the largest township in the county, being twice as large as Union and a third larger than any other. There was no contest over the location of the county seat, as there were very few settlers in the north half of the county and the majority of the population was in the south quarter, or, to be more exact, in the southwest part of it when the county and township were organized.
MONTEZUMA.
Montezuma was laid out on the southwest quarter of section 6, township 78, of range 14, in 1848, and made the county seat. If Union township had consisted of the congressional township 78, in range 15, the west side of Monte- zuma would have been adjoining the east side of Union township,-an exceed- ingly undesirable municipal condition when the village should expand westward. The difficulty would not exist if two tiers of sections should be taken from the east side of range 15 and annexed to range 14. This was done and the embar- rassment of Montezuma was obviated. Gideon Wilson built the first house in Montezuma and soon opened a store for general merchandise there, the first store in the county.
How could the people in that vicinity live so long without a store where they could buy their salt and buttons, their tea and their cotton? They could go without them or have a substitute, or send by their neighbors to Keokuk or to Oskaloosa for them. Some neighbor would probably have a little salt, small pegs would serve for buttons, and they could parch corn or wheat for tea, or make linen take the place of cotton. "Where there's a will, there's a way," and if any were as well off as their neighbors, they might be as polite as they, even if they had a wardrobe that was hardly complete for refined society.
The county seat was attractive enough to cause travelers to pause in their journey toward the unknown, and enough, also, to take some from the prairie or the groves about them. It was absolutely necessary, henceforth, that several of the county officials should reside in Montezuma and some thus became perma- nent residents there. The population of Jackson township, including Montezuma in 1852, was 485 ; 1860, 1,190; 1870, 1,629; 1880, 2,081 ; 1890, 2,087; 1900, 2,165; 1910, 2,067.
For farming purposes no better land "lies out of doors" than that of Jackson township. Open, level prairie predominates, and the fertile soil is watered and drained by the South English river and Moon creek, including a number of trib- utaries of these streams.
The township is six miles north and south and eight miles east and west, and is bounded as follows: On the north by Scott, on the east by Deep River, on the west by Union township, and on the south by Mahaska county. A "plug" line of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northwestern railroad, operated by the Chi- cago, Rock Island & Pacific, and another "plug" road, operated by the Iowa Central and connecting the county seat with Grinnell, enter the township and terminate at the county seat.
229
HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
Among the early settlers in this township may be mentioned Jacob S. Dalby, John Hall, John Cassidy, Joshua Crisman, William H. Barnes, Jesse Lowry, Martin Snyder, O. P. Rundle, John Sargood, Robert Taylor, Gideon Wilson, Isaac G. Wilson, James W. Williams, David Cassidy, John Moore, John Sargood, B. O. Payne, Elias Brown and William Butt.
The county upon its formal organization, was divided into two townships, namely : Jackson and Bear Creek. Sugar Creek was organized July 3, 1848, a few months after the first two, and thus several of the early settlers found themselves in Sugar Creek instead of Jackson. As there has been a cloud upon the authenticity of the list of first officials of Jackson township, no mention of their names can be given with any certainty as to its correctness. Among the first voters, however, were O. P. Rundle, John Sargood, Robert Taylor, James W. Williams, I. G. Wilson, B. O. Payne, Joseph Hall, Daniel Satchell, John Moore, John Hall, J. S. Dalby, John and David Cassidy, Elias Brown and Will- iam Butt.
William Harklerode was another early settler in this township. The records show that October 23, 1849, he entered land on section 1. Others, who made en- tries in this township in 1848, were: William McVey, Gideon Wilson, William Hawkins, William Copplinger, Simeon Johnson, Isaac G. Wilson ; in 1849, William H. Wilson, Benjamin O. Payne, James W. Wilson, A. Bryan, Martin Servell, Mary S. Legari, Isaac G. Wilson, Jesse Soey and Samuel McPheeters.
The majority of those who settled in this township came from the New Eng- land states, and New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. Many hardy pio- neers ventured into the "prairie country" from Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, and their descendants rank with the best element of Poweshiek's people of today.
It was at the home of John H. McVey that the first board of county com- missioners met. Mr. McVey was one of the influential citizens of his day, was a man of thrift and enterprise and became possessed of many acres of land.
Martin Snyder built the first cabin in the vicinity of Montezuma and Jesse Soey had a claim near the southwest limits of the town. Gideon Wilson became a large landed proprietor and taxpayer.
Matthew Hardin was a settler in Jackson township in the early '40s, but after a residence of some little duration moved over into Scott township, and made the first settlement in what became notoriously known as Bogus Grove. a stretch of timber along the South English river.
THE COUNTY SEAT.
In the act authorizing the organizing of Poweshiek county, approved January 23, 1848, the following provision was made for the location and establishment of a county seat :
"Section 2 .- That David Edmundson, of the county of Jasper, John White, of the county of Mahaska, and John Rose, of the county of Polk, be, and they are, hereby appointed commissioners to locate and establish the seat of justice of said county of Poweshiek ; said commissioners, or any two of them, shall meet at the house of Mahlon Woodward, Esq., in said county, on the first Monday of
230
HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
June next, or at such other time within one month thereafter, as a majority of said commissioners may agree upon, in pursuance of the duties under this act."
From the records it appears that no town site company had a hand in the formation of the county seat. No land was donated to the county by settlers of a speculative turn of mind, to induce the commissioners to locate the county seat in any special part of the county and, furthermore, there is no data relating to any controversy over the location of the seat of justice. The matter was in the hands of those appointed by the legislature to act and in pursuance of their duty, imposed by the law, selected Montezuma as the capital city of Poweshiek county and it has remained so until the present, without any very serious contention over its right to continue bearing that distinction." Some have claimed that some other point is more easily accessible, and others Malcom is more central, but the courthouse holds it in Montezuma.
The first meeting of the board of commissioners was held at the house of John H. McVey, which was located on section 22, in Union township, now near the corporate limits of Montezuma. One of the first acts of this body of men was to provide ways and means for the purchase of land for the county seat. This object was accomplished through the efforts of Isaac G. Wilson, who had been appointed the county's agent for that purpose.
Upon securing the government title to the land for a town site, it was entered, surveyed and platted, the work being completed July 22, 1848. Then began the sale of lots, for which the county executed and delivered deeds to the purchasers. From these sales was formed the nucleus of a county fund, part of which was used to meet current expenses and another part applied as a building fund for a courthouse, which was very soon in demand. The county seat was laid off on the southwest quarter of section 6, in Jackson township, in the summer of 1848, and that fall Gideon and Isaac G. Wilson became the first residents thereon. Gideon Wilson built a double log house on lot 8, block 7, at the northwest corner of the courthouse square, in one room of which he opened a general store, which was the first attempt at merchandising in the county. Gideon Wilson thus be- came the pioneer merchant of Poweshiek. He became prosperous and was pub- lic-spirited. The "old part" of the cemetery, consisting of five acres, was a gift from him to the churches to be used for burial purposes.
Near the southeast corner of the courthouse campus, immediately upon secur- ing title to the site from the county, Isaac N. Wilson put up a log house, on lot 5, block 12.
METHODIST PROTESTANT CHURCH ORGANIZED.
Rev. James B. Johnson was a resident of the county at the time of its organi- zation, or very soon thereafter, and, in the fall of 1849 organized the Methodist Protestant church of Montezuma. Rev. Johnson is given credit of being the first minister in the place. He came to the new settlement from Ohio and was for many years a familiar and prominent figure in local church circles.
Dr. H. Clay Sanford removed from Keokuk to Montezuma in 1851 and was the first physician to minister to the bodily ills of the citizens of the place. Dr. Sanford remained in Montezuma several years and then left for the south- ern part of Iowa, there to resume his practice.
IIOUSE OF R. B. OGDEN IN MONTEZUMA Built 1850. Photo taken October 13, 1910
231
HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
The first marriage ceremony performed in the county was that of Catherine Wilson, daughter of Gideon Wilson, who there and then took up life's journey with James McIntire. This was a very interesting occurrence to the inhabitants of the little settlement and, it is safe to say, most, if not all of them, were in- vited to be present and enjoy the consequent festivities. To this couple also belongs the distinction of bringing into the world a youngster, which by reason of its birth at the time gave lustre to the name of the infant Catherine McIntire, as the first child born in the county.
In 1851, the burial place selected for the purpose was tenanted by the body of the wife of W. B. Hardin. This was the first death in the community.
The first schoolhouse was a frame structure that stood in the northeast part of the town and the first church edifice was constructed of brick-a small affair -by the Methodist Protestant society. It was occupied many years before giv- ing way to the present church building.
Joseph Schell was the first cabinet-maker to seek a livelihood in the new county of Poweshiek and James B. Logan is credited with being the first black- smith, although he did not locate in the village until about 1851. In 1854 oc- curred the first fire, which caused the destruction of Gideon Wilson's storeroom and stock of goods, entailing a loss of several thousand dollars.
Early in the '50s, J. W., Neri and Rachel Bryan Bone, children of Alanson Bryan, of the Irish nobility, lived in Gideon Wilson's house, on the northwest corner of the courthouse square, while a log house was being put up for them. W. A. Bryan came to the county in 1856 and opened the first coal mine on Buck creek and in Mahaska county, with Nicholas Kilburn.
Bedy Bryan became a citizen of the county in 1855 and immediately took up his abode on land northeast of Montezuma, where he lived about fifty years and then moved into the town. . Neri and Andrew Bryan located about one mile north of Montezuma and both served their country in the days of stress and anxiety during the Civil war. And here it can well be said that the Bryan fam- ily was an honored and useful one, each member having proved his worth as a pioneer.
Richard B. Ogden, the first settler in Poweshiek county, was elected a mem- ber of the first board of county commissioners and served in that capacity until taking his seat in 1851 as county judge. At that time he left his claim in Union township and took up his residence in the county seat, where he remained until his death, which occurred on February 22, 1875, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. A more extended sketch of this pioneer is given elsewhere in this work.
Perhaps no business man in Montezuma was more energetic than F. A. Kilburn, dealer in everything which a store can furnish. He came from New Hampshire in 1852, when thirty-two years old. His six-horse team was well known on the road to Keokuk at first, and in 1856 to Iowa City, when the rail- road reached that point. To bring a single load from Keokuk sometimes took him two weeks, and sometimes he drove his own team. He bought hogs and cat- tle later, till people sometimes thought he "liked to hear a pig squeal." It was thought to be music in his ears, but we don't believe a word of it unless the squeal was a note of pleasure. He retired from business in 1886 and died in 1896 in Montezuma. He was kind and generous, and it was an honor to be re-
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
lated to him. His second wife and her daughter, Lilian Frances, reside in Oskaloosa, and Mrs. John Moler, a daughter by his first wife, resides in Monte- zuma.
Captain J. W. Carr and Nicholas Carr came to Poweshiek county from Lo- gan county, Illinois, in 1847, in the company of their grandmother and uncle, Ste- phen R. Moore. Both of them returned home at the close of the Civil war with splendid military records and, resuming the arts of peace, one became an emi- nent member of the Poweshiek county bar and the other a prominent business man of the county seat.
John W. Hall was a native of Rhode Island and when sixteen years of age began farming in Illinois. In the winter of 1846 he settled in this county and became prosperous.
W. B. Hawkins came to Montezuma from Kentucky by way of Indiana, in 1851, when the town was laid out but no house yet built there. He had been a soldier in the Mexican war, and received the land warrant for his services with which he obtained his prairie land north of Montezuma. He bought a load of lumber at Union Mills, twelve miles south, for the first house on the prairie in that region but California gold tempted him away, and he sold his lumber to Mr. Ogden for the first part of his house, which is pictured in this volume. His oxen took him to California in five months, and, after four years, his horses brought him back in fifty-four days. In 1856 he built the house he had planned to put up in 1852, and that has been his home to the present time, although he gave it to his children a few months ago. He traded at Iowa City, and when hauling wheat at twenty-five cents a bushel, slept under his wagon that he might not spend all his receipts for hotel bills on the way. At eighty-six he is still vigorous in mind and muscle, and his younger neighbors love to hear his stories of earlier Montezuma.
Sylvester Johnson, who gave to Montezuma's historic hostelry its name, came to Poweshiek county in 1848.
John McIntire was of those who came to the county in 1849. He was a Kentuckian, and a farmer by occupation. In 1854 he built the Montezuma House and after catering to the "inner wants" of his public a short time, erected another hotel, which subsequently became known as the Stanley House. In 1855 he built a steam grist mill and "took toll" there until 1861. A mill had been running for some time on Skunk river. This he bought in 1866 and in the year following sold the property.
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