USA > Iowa > Poweshiek County > History of Poweshiek County, Iowa: a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume 1 > Part 41
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Oak made so large a part of building material that, in the beginning, every man who built a house drew his pine lumber from the end of the railroad for himself. Levi H. Marsh did considerable hauling, and after a few years began to keep some lumber on hand to sell. When the railroad reached the town he sold out his lumber stock to C. Carmichael.
Charles Hobart from New York started a yard near the close of the Civil war. A year or so later Alonzo Steele, also from New York, asked a friend for an honest young man who would join him in the lumber business, for which the New Yorker would furnish the money and let the young man do the work. The answer was: "Charles Hobart has the man you want, active, honest, and has the confidence of the public."
Craver and Steele began business, did well, added the manufacture of Ran- dolph headers, needed a legal adviser and soon Michael Austin, an ex-soldier and a hustler, became the third member of the company. Chicago tempted them from an excellent business here and there they dissolved.
Iowa College was better off from their business by a direct gift of $25,000 from Steele and about $100,000 from Austin.
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The lumber business now brings profit to three strong firms, to E. W. Clark, D. R. Warburton and to B. Jenkins, who has resided in this county about sixty years and came originally from Virginia.
VILLAGE AND COUNTRY BLEND.
The plan to promote individual and community interests was central in the purpose of the early settlers. "Church and school" in their plans impelled them to build their homes near together, that "church and school" would be more easily possible and profitable. "Land hunger" impelled settlers to buy farms ; town attractions induced most to build their houses in a cluster or a village. Of course it was a notable inconvenience for people to drive out a mile or more to their daily work, yet their home near the center insured them many a con- venience and, very early, the benefits of a town and of cordial cooperation at once.
The farmers and mechanics made a kind of bee-hive cluster residing in a village and going out in the morning to their farms to do much of their work.
THE TOWNSHIP ORGANIZED.
The territory of what is now the township of Grinnell was a part of Bear Creek at the organization of the county, April 3, 1848. It was made a part of Sugar Creek, 1855, next a part of Washington township and, March 6, 1855, it was named Grinnell. It then embraced all of present Chester and a part of Sheridan and Malcom, which were cut off when those townships were organized.
A PIONEER LYCEUM.
There were ten college graduates in Grinnell in 1856, about two years after the first house was built here. They knew no better way to take the mental measure of one another and of their neighbors than to maintain a lyceum. They were willing to range through the industrial, the political, the social, and the religious world for topics. All were permitted to take part, and any side of any theme. The women were welcome and encouraged and presented papers on any theme they chose.
The hours so spent were very profitable. All became better acquainted, found what their neighbors were thinking and enjoyed it, and acquired a broader and a profounder respect for one another by getting their real opinions in this free and easy way.
There were old questions enough to keep ordinary men busy, but temperance had its queries as to prohibition and license.
Slavery and anti-slavery filled all the air, and John Brown was arousing every man to thought and action in Kansas and on his way to or from there when he came through Iowa with an offer of thousands of dollars for his arrest hanging over him, and a dozen fugitives in his care.
Congress furnished material perpetually by daily discussions of the com- promise of 1850 and by talk of personal liberty bills of the north, by Keith's at-
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tack on Sumner, the only reply he was able to make, by the efforts of southern men to read Douglas out of their party, by the "Great Debate" between the "Yazoo" of the west and "the Little Giant," by the audacity of Ben Wade, who would have been glad to receive a challenge from a fire eater, which he would quickly accept and then choose his rifle with which it was said he could pick out a squirrel's eye in the top of a tree. There was enough to be said in that lyceum even if one made no effort to be original.
There were ten college graduates in Grinnell when it was two years old. Quincy A. Gilmore, who never recovered fully from overwork in Dartmouth, was a widely informed man, and Dr. Holyoke, a calm, firm man, who talked little yet straight as an arrow to the point. Amos Bixby, a lawyer from Maine, like all the Bixbys was a radical reformer and ready for any intelligent action. R. M. Kellogg from Vermont, spoke rarely and briefly, and then somebody's head was in danger.
The Blisses, and Whitcomb, Gillett and Beaton, Herricks and Baileys, Bart- letts and Clarks, Cooper and Gilmore, Kellogg, and nearly every man in town, and the women, too, were in that lyceum with their essays and their remarks and all were glad to have them there. Thus they became acquainted, and more than ever disposed to become cordially cooperative.
GRINNELL VILLAGE AND TOWNSHIP.
The site of Grinnell village was laid out very promptly, May, 1854, on the northwest quarter of section 16, in congressional township 80, and range 16 west. All the streets were eighty feet wide, excepting Broad street, which runs north and south, and lies west of the park block and the church, and is 100 feet wide. The lots were 165 feet long by 75 feet wide, and there are six on each side of an alley 28 feet wide. On this site not a shrub was growing and from it not a tree could be seen except on the west.
The civil township was organized April 2, 1855. The first election was held in the house of G. W. Chambers, as no other place was then suitable. The offi- cers chosen, not one of whom now lives, were as follows:
Trustees: L. H. Marsh, Sumner Bixby, Anor Scott.
Township Clerk: Anor Scott.
Assessor : Henry Lawrence.
Justices of the Peace: Darius Thomas, G. W. Chambers.
Constable : J. B. Woodward.
It is said that every vote at the first election was cast for prohibition, and that Buchanan received only four votes, while Fremont had one hundred and five, and the voting precinct then embraced nearly three times as much territory as at present.
We can give but a moment to the changes of the years since then. One-third of the way back there, trees were cut down in the city three feet through when the prairie was then treeless, when it was said that Anor Scott crept through an open space left in his bower to get the goods for his few and feeble customers ; there are such tradesmen as George H. McMurray and his brother J. H., such
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as A. McIntosh and J. A. Stone, as Grant Ramsey and W. T. Moyle, and where there are such women in business even as Manatt and Wineman, who are doing more business even than Anor Scott ever dreamed of.
It is possible, indeed, that Scott's booth never crept out of the grove upon the prairie as some say it did, or as others say it did not, yet his trade was won- derfully small.
Some tell us that Henry Hill and Henry Lawrence kept Scott's store supplied with goods, while Hill cut half of the dimension lumber for most of the early city, and yet took time to be the first man here to get married. And yet that was fifty-six years ago and he resides here still.
COLLEGE AND TOWN.
"Church and school paramount" in Mr. Grinnell's advertisement of his plan for a settlement in the west was something larger than he thought. It was in the minds of those who came here, and the school led them to talk of a university and plan for it when not half of the pioneers took in the full meaning of the word, or appreciated what it meant to the town. They had not thought it meant an enlargement of their own families, but when such men as Joseph Lyman came from the banks of the Missouri, such as Russell Eugene Jones from near the Mississippi, both waiting for a short time, one to come back with an adjutant's epaulet and a congressman's honor, and the other to win a captaincy in the Civil war and to fall at the head of his admiring company, when such men as Charles Scott came here from Scotland and Montezuma to study mental arithmetic, geometry and surveying, and graduated from the college after having earned a lieutenant's commission in Colonel Henderson's regiment, and the admiration of every one in the college and out of it, whom he met, and when such women as the angelic Hester Hillis, our first missionary, and the strong sisters of the present secretary of agriculture, James Wilson, another Scotchman, blessed us by their presence, our young people appreciate the choice spirits which the young college drew into our town.
Parents, too, appreciated that the college intellectualized the association of their sons and daughters. Students were welcomed to families and they became attached to one another as mutual benefactors.
"Town and gown" brought no collision of interests but created abiding friend- ships on both sides. The rule for such young people is that the better class is sifted out to seek the best in life and to fit themselves for it. A college educa- tion is helpful, and they are eager to acquire it. College ambitions stimulate to noble effort, and the college furnishes the best opportunity.
Such a call has just brought hundreds of thousands of dollars into the col- lege. No other proof is needed to show that Grinnell College has been a bene- diction to the town, or that the town is happy in the prosperity of the college. Its missionaries and its business men are scattered over the world and the world is receiving gracious influence from it.
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WHO'S WHO IN EARLY GRINNELL.
J. B. Grinnell's call to join him in forming a new settlement in the west was an appeal to men who were ready to cooperate in building up a town that did not limit itself to direct individual profit, but a writer long recognized the fact that a man, and especially a group of men, "may withhold more than is meet and it tendeth to poverty." Selfishness may be so selfish as to overreach itself. A man or a town may build so generously as to attract men of like spirit. Such men will look about to promote common interests, and it will not take men, even selfish men, long to see that that is a good community to join.
Mr. Grinnell's call was to men who could see that throwing away wheat on the ground in the spring might be a way of getting a crop in the autumn, and that he who does not sow will have nothing to reap. Men with such vision heard the call and responded. "The Long Home" was an indication of that spirit. Those here at the first needed it for themselves at once, and when they moved out into their individual houses, they needed it or a temporary home for new- comers. Dr. Holyoke illustrated that spirit by scattering white clover seed as he rode over the prairies. The return would be many fold when the bees gath- ered their honey for the public. Mr. Grinnell exhibited the feeling when he met a would-be settler by saying: "You have no grain for bread. Go to my granary and get what you need."
Was it bread cast upon the waters? And did it come back ere long? Wait and see. A few years later he wanted to go to the state legislature or to con- gress. He could depend upon the vote of every man whose first meal in town was made better from Mr. Grinnell's larder.
L. C. Phelps was here early. He meets a man in search of a home. "Come right in and stop with me till you find a place. We are going to have a good town right here." He calls. Mrs. Phelps welcomes him as cordially as if he were an old friend. She has made a new one.
Deacon Bartlett, the older deacon, we mean. It is not time for the younger one. That will come all too soon, for it will not be till the father is dead. That father superintended the erection of the first building for "Grinnell Univer- sity." The family is excellent. There is a professor in it for the State Normal College bye and bye, and an assistant pastor for the first church.
Deacon Abram Whitcomb and family. the deacon part, husband and wife, were models, like all our deacons and their wives, but this deacon sent off the first five dollars on record for benevolence and he was so honest that he was be- lieved to have paid the largest tax in town according to his means. The children, too, gentle in speech, how beautifully they write, and the boy is now Professor Selden Whitcomb, of Kansas State University.
The Bailey brothers, John, James and Lorenzo, honorable and useful, knew what to do and they did it well in manual labor and in molding the thought of the community.
Rev. Stephen Leonard Herrick followed Mr. Grinnell as the most frequent preacher for the church in 1856, contrary to his choice. He was a Yankee of course, New England educated; he had preached twenty-five years in Crown Point, New York, when a ministerial throat forced him to resign and to speak
Brawn by CWIRISH
Mayit:
A PIONEER HOME OUT WEST
FIRST CABIN IN GROVE BY GRINNELL SETTLERS, 1854
2
LITEN FOUNDATIC
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
in public rarely. Soon ill health forced his daughter, Mrs. Frank Wyatt, to leave her organ service near Washington, D. C., when her physician sent her "to the west." Friends sent her to "Grinnell." They arrived in 1855. The family was a most valuable acquisition. The father preached most acceptably as long as he was willing, and taught several years in college. Mrs. Wyatt presided at the church organ and taught music, and Mr. Wyatt, a son-in-law, was a musical genius, playing on the double bass in church and ready to play on almost any instrument. A younger son entered the school in Grinnell, graduated in its first class, in 1865, and the husband of another daughter, Rev. Joshua M. Chamber- lain, was a college trustee, as the father was, till his death, and as the son, Stephen Henderson, now is. Mr. Chamberlain was also college treasurer nine- teen years, and lost less money by unfortunate loans than the ordinary bank officer who handled less money.
The Hays group left Maryland early in 1854 for a home in the west. Illinois did not please them. They heard of the "Yankee colony at Grinnell" and a committee started for it. They could get no house there in October and had a dull prospect of getting one ready for winter. But they liked the region and those whom they met so well that they bought fourteen hundred acres. They occupied their covered wagons until into winter and secured lumber for a shelter from Brooklyn and Montezuma.
They were John T. Hays and wife, J. A., William M., J. B., their sons and daughters, Martha and Mary, and a friend, Darius Thomas. The second family consisted of two sisters of John T., "Debby" and Mary J., a niece Catherine, and an old slave who was too old and too unwilling to leave life-long friends and remain behind. Joseph Hays came here in the spring of 1856, with his three sons, Daniel F., Joseph T. and Thomas, a daughter, Deborah, and a widowed sister, Elizabeth.
What a large family! And yet, on acquaintance, all there wished it was larger. Most of them finally settled in Chester. The blacksmith shop of Daniel F. and Samuel Hays was very timely. Each man had been a blacksmith for himself until that was opened.
Oliver Langworthy arrived here from New York in 1855 and aided T. B. Clark in building his flouring mill. His son-in-law, C. D. Kelsey, came in 1857. They were eminently worthy men, and most active in founding the Baptist church, and in building up the town. The families were admirable and winsome. Mr. Kelsey was one of the most active in keeping whiskey as a beverage out of the town.
L. G. C. Peirce came to the vicinity in 1863, a wide-awake man, who did his own work and much of it, and his own thinking on all subjects, did much to improve the stock of this region, as is shown by his article on "Cattle" in this volume. His family are writing their own history in active, public service.
A. J. Blakely came from Vermont somewhat later to lead in improving our sheep, and with a large field before him, which he worked successfully. He has been active and successful in promoting the interests of the farmers.
George W. Chambers, a pushing pioneer, a builder and a business man, left . his mark on early houses and early enterprise.
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James Harris and his family deserve personal mention. He was a builder in the hamlet in 1855, and a soldier in the "Gray Beard" regiment in the Civil war. His children and his grandchildren have been leaders in good deeds, and in progressive movements, and they never took hold of any enterprise except earnestly. His son, Dr. E. H. Harris, has been noticed already. James is an enterprising business man. One daughter, Mrs. Worthington, is always brilliant, and Mrs. R. M. Haines, another daughter, would have shone in Washington if her husband had gone there, as he should have done.
Henry Hill's hand and help was in everything that was done in those days in the way of manual labor, when the "manual" `was occupying the thoughts of all, first, too, to find a wife. She was from the Harris family which included several who were in the Civil war when it came, a physician mentioned elsewhere in these pages, one of the first college graduates here-a merry group of chil- dren, indeed, growing up into happy usefulness.
Quincy A. Gilmore, a Dartmouth graduate with health broken from over study, was bright minded and ready handed for anything called for, a speech in the Lyceum or to carry materials in building a house, or to serve the town in office. Mrs. Gilmore, too, was sometimes quaintly original and always one of the brightest thinkers in the town. When dying she was asked if her bed was as comfortable as it could be made. Her reply was characteristic. "How should I know? I never died before."
S. K. Fuller was at Lattimer's Grove in May, 1854, when he was told that a company of Yankees was locating a town out on the prairie, and "would all be frozen as stiff as mackerels before another spring."
GRANGE STORES.
When the people began to think of railroad charges and to plan to limit them they broadened their inquiries. "Are not the store-keepers demanding excessive profits? Why not have stores of our own and put the gain these stores are mak- ing in our own pockets rather than in the dealers coffers ?- was a widespread thought, and to think was to act. Stores were established widely by groups of men unaccustomed to that kind of business and the inexperience of many caused many to fail. The Grinnell grange store was in the hands of those accustomed to business and was maintained twenty years. It is well to have its history written by one who was an officer in it.
"THE FARMERS' EXCHANGE" OR GRANGE STORE.
By A. J. Blakely.
This institution was organized in Grinnell, in January, 1874, by the coopera- tion of fully one hundred stockholders, nearly all farmers of Grinnell and sur- rounding townships. Like the Poweshiek County Mutual Fire Insurance Com- pany, it was an outgrowth of the grange movement in the county, which com- . menced two or three years earlier. It was a general merchandise store. A full line of groceries was kept, a considerable stock of dry goods, ready made cloth-
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ing, boots and shoes and some hardware. Nearly $4,000 was raised during the first two years and certificates of capital stock to that amount was issued. No more capital was ever invested. Shares of stock were $12.50 each.
Erastus Snow was elected agent at a salary of $1,200, and held the office by reelection for eleven years. Seven directors were elected which number was later reduced to five.
For three or four years the organization was simply a common partnership of all stockholders, after which time they became incorporated for a term of twenty years, so that private property would not be liable for debts of the concern.
It was provided in the constitution that no dividends should be made while the store was paying interest on borrowed capital. Accordingly, for about five years, dividends were made in capital stock until the capital stock amounted to nearly $14,000. Nearly every year afterward, dividends were made in goods from the store. Tilson H. Bixby was agent from January, 1885, to January, 1889. George E. James was agent during the remaining thirteen years, when the store was discontinued by reason of expiration of the charter. We always had effi- cient and honest agents.
The store was a great success. The annual sales ran from $35,000 to about $48,000. More than three-fifths of the sales each year were for cash. The immediate effect on organization was a considerable reduction of prices in Grin- nell. The merchants had been crediting large amounts and losing heavily in bad debts and so felt compelled to get high prices from customers who did pay. Greater care immediately was taken by merchants to give credit only to re- sponsible purchasers and all reduced prices, and Grinnell became the cheapest town in which to buy goods. Closing up the store in 1898, after three or four years of hard times in which farmers, manufacturers and merchants made very little money, as president of the concern, I divided over $10,000 among the stockholders.
LIS ARY
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اسم الص الهائب
GRINNELL ARMORY
CHAPTER XIX.
GRINNELL.
CHIEF CITY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY-A BUSY INDUSTRIAL AND MANUFACTURING PLACE-THE SEAT OF IOWA COLLEGE-HER SCHOOLS, CHURCHES, LIBRARIES, ETC.
At the January term, 1865, of the county court of Poweshiek county, Iowa, a petition signed by seventy-five citizens of Grinnell township was presented to the court, asking for an incorporation of the town of Grinnell. The petition was granted by the court in April of that year and, on July 21, 1865, the town was organized by the election of proper officers. Grinnell remained an incorporated town until March, 1882, when a city government of the second class was or- ganized and Grinnell became a city.
Under its first organization Samuel Cooper was elected mayor; W. W. Sutherland, recorder and treasurer; S. N. Bartlett, assessor; trustees, S. F. Pruyn, C. G. Carmichael, L. C. Phelps, S. N. Bartlett, S Needham. In 1866 Samuel Cooper was reelected as the chief executive of the town and his suc- cessors have been the following: Charles G. Carmichael, 1867-9; Henry G. Lit- tle, 1869-73 : L. C. Phelps, 1873-5; G. M. Hatch, 1875-7; S. H. Herrick, 1877-8; Charles H. Spencer, 1878-80; J. B. Grinnell, 1880-82.
CITY GOVERNMENT.
Under its charter as a city of the second class, Grinnell elected for its first mayor, in March, 1882, C. N. Perry, who served until 1884. His successors in office have been: Darwin Forbes, 1884-5; J. P. Lyman, 1885-7; George M. Christian, 1887-90; C. R. Morse, 1890-91 ; J. R. Lewis, 1891-3; E. W. Clark, 1893-7: W. C. Rayburn, 1897-9: Samuel Nelson, 1899-1901 ; H. W. Spaulding, 1901-03; B. Jenkins, 1903-05; R. G. Coutts, 1905-07; E. B. Wiley, 1907-09; L. D. Kemmerer, 1900-10: J. H. Patton, 1910-II.
MUNICIPAL POSSESSIONS.
Financially, Grinnell, for a city of its size and character, is in good condi- tion, notwithstanding certain obligations it must meet when they become due.
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Its municipal possessions, as indicated in dollars and cents, amount to $221,700. These consist of land and public buildings, fire department and apparatus, de- tention hospital, cemeteries, waterworks, library, and included in the first item a beautiful park of three acres within the heart of the city.
CITY HALL.
Grinnell is seriously lacking in a building for city purposes. In 1889 a so- called city hall, a building constructed of brick and two stories in height, cost- ing $5,000, was erected, but it comes far from meeting the demands upon it. On the ground floor is installed the fire department and firemen's hall in the second story. The city jail is also on the ground floor. This consumes all the space, consequently, the mayor's office, city clerk and the city engineer's offices are rented rooms in the basement of the Citizens National Bank. The city coun- cil meets in the superior court room.
As the city is a quiet and peaceful one, with no saloons, dives or other places to cause trouble, a small police force is all that is necessary. This consists of the marshal, or chief, who performs the duties of a police in the daytime, and two night men. The fire department is made up of volunteers who are paid a small stipend when in actual service. Their apparatus consists of the fire en- gine, hose cart, hook and ladder and hose.
WATERWORKS.
On the 18th of June, 1892, by a vote of 382 to 69, the city was authorized to issue bonds in the sum of $30.000, for the purpose of building a system of water- works. Operations at once began on the plant and in a comparatively short time it was completed. Since then many improvements have been made and today the waterworks are computed in the valuation of the municipal possessions to be worth $145,000. There are four artesian wells, Nos. 1 and 2 were bored down through clay and shale and harder rock. It was thought that this harder rock would need no casing and consequently the casing was in several strips with intervals of greater or less length between the parts. The wells began to fill up through these open spaces and now they are entirely useless and have been abandoned. The other two wells, each about 2,022 feet in depth, have six inch casings to a depth of 1,440 feet. In connection with these wells are two storage reservoirs, one holding 90,000 and the other 180,000 gallons of water. This water is forced to a height of 116 feet, into a forty-foot steel tank, which is sup- ported by a brick tower. This tank holds 32,000 gallons of water. Near the tower is the pumping station, a one-story brick, in which are installed tl : neces- sary boilers, engines and two pumps, each having a forcing capacity _f 1,000 gallons per minute.
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