USA > Iowa > Poweshiek County > History of Poweshiek County, Iowa: a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume 1 > Part 5
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(It will be important to bear in mind that we shall use geographical terms, as we have already done, to denote localities by their present names, even though the name was not so used at the time referred to.)
We have noticed the Indians in their relations with the whites in Iowa, until with the exception of a few hundred, they were safely out of it. We will now consider the Iowa and the Poweshiek county of the whites, and the county more particularly.
ORIGIN OF THE NAME "IOWA."
This question has often been discussed, and nowhere so much as in Iowa itself, and with many varying results. The word seems to have been of Sioux or Dakota origin. The early French writers often spoke of the "Ayonas" as a tribe in the Mississippi valley. The Spaniards met the "Ajones," giving to "j" the sound of "y." The "Explorations of Lewis and Clarke" say that they passed a place on the west bank of the Missouri, where the "Ayonway" once lived, and from which they emigrated to Des Moines.
Hon. T. S. Parvin, secretary of the first territorial governor of Iowa, tells us that a tribe of Saxs and Foxes were seeking a home on the west side of the Mississippi, and that, as they reached the summit of the bluffs at the mouth of the Iowa river, they exclaimed "Iowa! Iowa !" that is "Beautiful ! Beautiful!" as they looked out over the landscape which appeared to view.
We need inquire no further concerning the Indian use of the name or its meaning. "Beautiful, beautiful Iowa," is good, good enough for the Indians, good enough for white Americans.
A PART OF WISCONSIN FIRST CALLED "IOWA."
Iowa was first used as the name of American territory by the legislative council of Michigan territory, October 9, 1829. It was made the name of a
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county in what is now Wisconsin, and was to take effect, January 1, 1830. The paragraph of the law was as follows :
"Be it enacted by the Legislative Council of the Territory of Michigan, That from and after the first day of January next ensuing all that part of the county of Crawford, to which the Indian title has been extinguished, and em- braced within the following boundaries, namely: beginning at the mouth of the Ouisconsin river, and following the course of the same, so as to include all the islands in said river, to the portage between the said Ouisconsin and the Fox river, thence east until it intersects the line beween the counties of Brown and Crawford, as established by the proclamation of the governor of this ter- ritory, bearing date of the twenty-sixth day of October, one thousand, eight hundred and eighteen, thence south with said line to the northern boundary of Illinois, thence west with said boundary to the Mississippi river, thence up said river, with the boundary of this territory, to the place of beginning, shall form a county, to be called the county of Iowa."
Thus the first "Iowa" created or reorganized by a legislature on this con- tinent was no part of our "Iowa" today.
THE IOWA DISTRICT.
The word "Iowa" so far as known, was used in 1836 in a small volume pub- lished in Philadelphia, with the following title :
"Notes on Wisconsin Territory. The Iowa District, or Black Hawk Purchase, By Lieutenant Albert M. Lea, With Accurate Map of the District."
In that volume Lieutenant Lea wrote: "The Iowa district lies between 40° 20' and 40 30' north latitude, and 18° 10' and 15° 15' west from Washington. It is bounded by the Neutral Grounds between the Sauk and Sioux Indians on the north ; by the lands of the Sauks and the Foxes on the west; by Missouri on the south ; and the Mississippi on the east. It is one hundred and ninety miles in length, fifty miles wide near each end and forty miles wide near the middle, opposite Rock Island. From the extent and beauty of the Iowa river which runs centrally through it and gives character to most of it, the name of that river being both euphonious and appropriate, has been given to the District itself. In every part of the District beautiful rivers and creeks are found.
"The character of the population settling in this beautiful country is such as is rarely found in our new territories. With very few exceptions there is not a more orderly, industrious, energetic population west of the Alleghenies than is found in this Iowa District. For intelligence they are not surpassed as a body, by any equal number of citizens of any country of the world."
Thus early, when the white population of what is now the entire state was only 10,000, and only three years after the United States dragoons had driven
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those who attempted to build their cabins west of the Mississippi back again, and burned down their buildings, did men who visited Iowa prairies begin to eulogize the beauty of the region and the character of its population.
We wonder that Lea did not say that the intelligence of the early settlers of that region was foreshadowed by the rare good sense even of the horses that bore the explorers through it, for he tells us his horse became very lame on the journey. He threw the lame animal, cut out the fistula in the foot, care- fully wrapped it up, and that the next morning the appreciative invalid appeared at his tent, and, although unusually restless about being handled, stretched out the wounded foot to him to give it a new treatment. (It is a pity that horses cannot write and talk.)
Lea left names for different objects and places along his route, also. Nicol- let, a Minnesota and a Mississippi explorer, and an esteemed historian and chartist of the regions he had visited, invited Lea to dinner in Washington. They sat in the room where Nicollet was making a map of the Upper Missis- sippi and some of its tributaries. Lea's observations of the Upper Des Moines were interesting, and especially so as to the scenery about a lake which Lea had called "Chapeau," on account of its resemblance to a cap. That charmed Frenchman inquired:
"What do you call 'em?"
Lea answered, "From its shape I called it Lake Chapeau."
Nicollet responded with the gush of a modern Gaul as he darted to the map and wrote the name which he chose, saying, "Zat ees not de name; ees Lake Albert Lea," and "Albert Lea" it has remained.
This intimacy between Nicollet and Lea enables Nicollet to speak with all- thority when he says that Lea published a map and a description of the country which he called the Iowa District,-a name both euphonious and appropriate, being derived from the Iowa river, the extent, beauty and importance of which were then for the first time made known to the public.
It was in 1838 that congress first used the name of Iowa for any Iowa terri- tory by "an act to divide the territory of Wisconsin, and to establish the terri- tory of Iowa." That act was approved June 12, 1838, and came in force July 3 following.
IOWA TERRITORY, 1838-1846.
The people who settled west of the Mississippi and north of Missouri de- sired to have their region erected into a territory, and the federal government granted their request to take effect from July 3, 1838. The most bitter opposi- tion was made by John C. Calhoun, but the Iowa delegate managed to have him called out of the senate when the vote was to be taken. He feared to give Iowa power lest it should be opposed to slavery.
The new territory was made of all that part of the territory of Wisconsin which lay west of the Mississippi river and west of a line running due north from the sources of the Mississippi to the British territory. That new "Iowa" was afterwards divided into the state of Iowa, most of Minnesota and a smaller part of North and South Dakota, but it had already been subdivided into six- teen counties.
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The legislative power of the territory was vested in the governor, who was appointed by the president of the United States, and in a council of thirteen and a house of representatives of twenty-six, chosen by the white male citizens.
The first governor was Robert Lucas, a native of Virginia, sent here from Ohio by President Van Buren. He came to a stormy governorship, neverthe- less he was an ardent advocate of temperance, the suppression of gambling, early and radical action for education, and dared to assert himself when the occasion seemed to him to demand it.
The first council elected was as follows :
E. A. M. Swazy, born in Vermont.
J. Keith, born in Virginia.
A. Ingram, born in Pennsylvania. Robert Ralston, born in Ohio.
C. Whittlesey, born in New York.
George Hepner, born in Kentucky.
Jesse B. Browne, born in Kentucky.
Jesse D. Payne, born in Tennessee.
L. B. Hughes, born in Virginia.
J. W. Parker, born in Vermont.
Stephen Hempstead, born in Connecticut.
Warner Lewis, born in Virginia.
J. M. Clark, born in New York.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
W. H. Wallace, Ohio.
William G. Coop, Virginia.
A. B. Porter, Kentucky.
Laurel Summers, Kentucky.
Jabez Burchard, Pennsylvania.
James Brierly, Ohio.
William Patterson, Virginia.
H. Taylor, Kentucky.
Harden Nowlin, Illinois.
Andrew Bankston, North Carolina.
Thomas Cox, Kentucky.
G. Swan, New York. C. J. Price, North Carolina.
J. W. Grimes, New Hampshire.
George Temple, New Hampshire.
George H. Beeler, Virginia.
V. B. Delashmutt, Virginia. Thomas Blair, Kentucky.
James Hall, Maryland.
Samuel Parker. Virginia.
G. S. Bailey, Kentucky.
Levi Thornton, Pennsylvania.
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William L. Toole, Virginia. Robert G. Roberts, Pennsylvania.
John Frierson, Ohio. S. C. Hastings, New York.
Of the members of these bodies eighteen came from north of Mason's and Dixon's line, and twenty-one from south of it. The youngest man of them was James W. Grimes, a native of New Hampshire, a lawyer from Burlington, twenty-two years old. The oldest man was A. Ingram, born in Pennsylvania, a farmer from Des Moines county, and sixty years old.
EARLY LEGISLATION.
"Many men of many minds?" Iowa showed at her first territorial election that a few men could be of many minds when she voted for three democrats, one whig and one "non-committal" for delegate to congress, when her demo- cratic votes numbered 4,499, her whig 913, and the man who didn't know what to call himself polled thirty lonely ballots.
The governor took high ground in favor of public schools. Gideon S. Bailey sought to authorize the Hawkeyes to levy taxes to support them by favoring a law for accepting good merchantable property for them if the taxpayer was out of cash for their support. Some have thought that Bailey, a Tennesseean, was trying to attract the Yankees to Iowa by that device, but Hon. Henry C. Cald- well, an intimate friend of Bailey's insists that he was just such a radical sup- porter of education. While he may have desired to attract New Englanders he seems to have desired sincerely to encourage the schools. S. C. Hastings and others deserve special mention, also.
That first legislature did not feel happy with that first governor, and the governor's secretary usurped some of the governor's authority. The governor was famous for his vetoes, and the legislature became famous for trying to have him removed, and altogether they added to their fame by forbidding any free negro to settle in the territory without giving a bond of $500 for good behaviour, and that he would not become a public charge. Any free negro who should violate that law was liable to be hired out for six months to the highest bidder, and any citizen who gave a free negro, who had given no such guaranty, either the scraps from his table or a sleep on his haymow, was liable to a fine of $100.
But Iowa's supreme court gave another glimpse of her thought at nearly the same hour when its legislature was enacting that law.
DRED SCOTT DECISION REVERSED IN ADVANCE.
One Ralph, a negro, was a slave in Missouri, in 1834. He and his owner then agreed that on making certain payments he should be free, and he was permitted to come to Dubuque to earn the purchase money. He failed to earn the money and was seized by slave-catchers to be delivered up to his master. The case reached the supreme court, the first one that came before it during the administration of Governor Lucas, the first during the territorial government. That court consisted of three democrats, Hon. Charles Mason, chief justice,
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and Hons. Thomas S. Wilson and Joseph Williams, associates. They decided that Ralph's coming into a free state by the master's consent emancipated him, and that thereafter he could not exercise any rights of ownership over him in this state.
That Iowa decision for freedom to Ralph was given eighteen years before the United States supreme court gave its decision for slavery to Dred Scott in a similar case.
THE LEGISLATURE SMILES.
Perhaps that first legislature was inferior to some held in Iowa, at any rate it seems that one of its members paid no attention to the business in hand. When about to take a vote he would call out, "Is Cedar in that 'ere bill? If so, I vote for it." At last a wag drew up a bill. The peripatetic member stopped his walk long enough to ask the usual question. "Yes," was the prompt answer, and "aye" was "Cedar's" vote. The roar of laughter that followed aroused "Cedar" to ask what it was. It was to permit Cedar to be represented no longer in that body. "Cedar" saw the point and begged for a reconsideration, to the amusement of the solons until a reconsideration was carried.
"Uncle Sam is a cow" said one of the members, and they did the milking so completely, it is said, as to exhaust the congressional appropriation, neverthe- less, there were embryo governors like Grimes and Hempstead in that first legislature, and youth waiting for judgeships and other high offices in later years.
THE STATE IS ORGANIZED.
The agitation for statehood had begun before the territory of Iowa was three years old. Indeed, Governor Chambers in his first message to the ter ritorial legislature in 1841 called attention to the fact that the people had already voted down, by a strong majority, the proposition to organize the state of Iowa. Although every county then voted against the proposition he thought the time had come when it would be well to try it again. The legislature accepted the suggestion. The people voted for a convention for a state constitution by a vote of 6,719 to 3,974 against it. The boundaries of the state as proposed by the convention were very nearly those of the state at present, and about seventeen counties were taken from southeast Minnesota. Banks were forbidden, stock- holders were made liable for corporation debts, and private property could not be taken for public use without the owner's consent, i. e., no money consideration could take the Chicago and Rock Island over a rod of land if the owner should object.
The boundaries proposed for the new state especially aroused the people under the active leadership of three young democrats, Enoch W. Eastman, T. S. Parvin and Frederick D. Mills. They were disgusted with the idea of running the west- ern boundary line along the west side of Calhoun county and within forty miles of Des Moines. Two older democrats joined them. They made things hum. They influenced enough democrats to join the whigs against the con- stitution to defend it at the polls by 996 votes.
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A new legislature met at Iowa City, May 5, 1845. The democrats were again strongly in the majority. The constitution that had just been defeated was modified and sweetened somewhat. It was carried through the legislature, but Governor Chambers vetoed it promptly. It went back to the legislature and was carried by a two-thirds vote in each house over the veto. (The legisla- ture passed an act, also, of special interest to married women. It provided that they might own and control real estate and not be liable for the debts of their husbands.)
Provision was also made for a constitutional convention on the first Monday in May, 1846, to frame a constitution and to submit it to the people. The con- vention met and made the boundaries of the state as they now are, for which the state is specially grateful, but the prohibition of banks caused strong oppo- sition, though a careful student of the time must admit that never were there so many good reasons for it as about that time. The state soon felt the strong- est objection to it when it was flooded with currency which it could not control.
The people accepted that constitution at an election held August 3, 1846, by a small majority, 9,492 for it and 9,036 against it.
Governor James Clarke called for a state election in September, and as ustial the democrats elected their candidates, Ansel Briggs, of Jackson county, as governor, E. Cutler, Jr., of Van Buren, Joseph T. Fales, of Linn, auditor of state, and Morgan Reno, of Johnson, although by the unusually small ma- jority, 247.
Augustus Caesar Dodge, the Iowa delegate, presented the Iowa constitution to the national house of representatives for their action, December 15, 1846. It was referred to the committee on territories, and two days later Stephen A. Douglas reported a bill for the admission of the state into the Union. On the 21st the house passed the bill and sent it to the senate. There it was referred to the judiciary committee as usual in such cases, and was acted upon on the 24th, and sent to the president, his signature was affixed to it on the 28th and Iowa became the twenty-ninth state in the Union.
After the constitution reached congress the work of admission was quickly done, and Douglas made the democrats of Iowa his perpetual friends, as was shown at the election of 1860.
Iowa closed 1846 with gratitude for statehood, and also for the gift of every sixteenth section in each township granted her by congress for the sup- port of her schools.
ELECTION OF APRIL, 1847.
The vote then was strongly against the sale of intoxicating drinks, only two counties voting for it.
There were two candidates then for superintendent of public instruction, --- Judge Charles Mason, the late popular surpeme judge, and James Harlan, little known before but not afterwards. Judge Mason made no effort to obtain votes, he was so well known and so popular that no necessity for an effort was apparent. Of what use was a long and approved public service to any man if a man like Judge Mason must enter the field against a young stranger in the
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state like James Harlan, a mere school teacher? Mason did nothing. Harlan was active, a good speaker, well educated, captivating. He carried off 8,038 votes, but Mason moved solemnly along with 7.625.
The secretary of state refused to issue a certificate of election to either, but Harlan discharged the duties of the office until the next legislature inet and adjourned, when Mason stepped down and out.
What is now Poweshiek county was deemed a part of Keokuk county from 1837 to 1840, then on to February 17, 1843, its boundaries were defined and it was attached to Jowa county for about one year, when, on February 5, 1844, it was made a precinct of Mahaska and remained so until April 3, 1848, and its nanie was changed from the Poweshiek precinct. of Mahaska to Poweshiek county.
THE TERRITORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY.
The territory of what is now Poweshiek county has been lying through mil- lenniums in the bosom of what is one of the best states of the best nation of this good old world. It has no mountains to furnish variety of surface and but a little bit of a river to give Izaak Waltons the sport they love so well, or to supply savages with the luxuries they enjoy, and yet it is said that some of the old time fish have disappeared from our Skunk river. The county has not been conspicuous in history, either ancient or modern. Peruvian builders, cen- tral American artists and Mexican kings left no indications here of their skill or power, if any were ever here. There were no cliff dwellers, for there were no cliffs, and no mound builders that were noteworthy, if there were any at all.
We have just a plain, rich soil, long uncultivated and unknown, waiting for the white men to bring its wealth to the surface and to enjoy it in civilized society.
10WA DISAPPOINTING! !
Indian lands are very tempting to whites, and always have been. They have ever looked on their reservations, and, in imagination, have seen their acres bearing golden, literally "golden," harvests under the care of the pale face. They have been eager to possess them, and been clamorous at the doors of congress that such rich lands shall be opened to them. Now as the Indian lands have shrivelled, and Indian territory shrunk away into unproductive re- gions, the papers tell of the bonanzas awaiting the white man when a reserva- tion is opened. The whites rush in, choose their lands, and sometimes now fail to "prove up." Their new find was not what they expected.
Thus the Black Hawk Purchase was welcomed. Thus white men rushed over the Mississippi before they had any right there, to be driven out by the dragoons, and to have their cabins burned down by United States army offi- cers who were waiting only a few years to be supported for congress, or for the presidency of those who were too previous in getting into Iowa. Scores of prairie schooners lined Illinois roads and dropped down on Iowa homesteads. and held them as long as possible for the next generation. But even then masses of them were disappointed, greatly disappointed. They "broke up" their lands, settled down the sod, shook with the ague, burned with the fever, looked ghostly,
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wished they were back in Kentucky or in Ohio, anywhere except in the grip of that patience-trying disease, the western ague.
But health returns. Their farm is a treasure ; to work it is a luxury. Neigh- bors arrive; schools grow; society is agreeable. All in all, the settler is dis- appointed. The present is better than he expected; the future is richer in promise. And such, in the end, is their great disappointment, greatly for the better, when they come into Iowa.
CITIZENS ENTER POWESHIEK.
When the musket fired at Iowa City announced that the land was open to the whites between what is now the vicinity of Homestead and near Metz on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, without fear of expulsion by United States dragoons, other states north and south carried the news to the limits of the Sac and Fox reservation. It was the midnight of April 30 and May 1, 1843, and along that line men rushed across it carrying stakes with which they marked out the land they desired. That inpour of men was satisfied with the good land of Iowa county, unless we accept as true the report that cousins of Reuben B. Ogden were the first to reach Union Prairie, or the first to leave it. We cannot believe that they wandered so far from the eastern line of the late Indian territory on that first night, or even in several days. Good as that land is near what we used to call Forest Home, there are many farms just as rich and beautiful as is the land which the pioneers of Poweshiek county called their "Home," their "Forest Home," which men must cross in order to reach that place. We can believe that those young men, however, did precede Mr. Ogden on Union Prairie and that they abandoned their claim before Mr. Ogden arrived there from Morgan county, Illinois, in the fall of 1843, and still earlier from Kentucky.
It was in the fall of 1843 also that Henry Snook left his home in Iowa City to follow the dragoons' trail westward into the newly opened region beyond Homestead. At the junction of the Big and the Little Bear creeks the land pleased him. There he staked out a claim and returned to his family at Iowa City, innocent of all knowledge of any one else in what is now the county of Poweshiek.
Mr. Snook was a Franco-German, born in Maryland, in 1795, and had married Susan Coon, of German descent, in 1821, in Virginia. The winter of 1843-4 was over. Mr. Snook returned to this county in 1844, broke some prairie and built his cabin, then spent another winter at Iowa City. In the spring of 1845 he returned to his cabin with his family, consisting of wife and eight children.
POWESHIEK PRECINCT.
When the county came completely into the hands of the whites by the treaty of 1842, its first name was the Poweshiek Precinct of Mahaska County, as Mahaska was settled earlier and more fully at an earlier day. Oskaloosa was our first postoffice, and the mills of Mahaska ground for us before we had
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a mill of our own, and many of the early settlers came to us through that county from along the Ohio river.
This precinct was twenty-four miles square, and about one-eighth of it was in grove, extending over the southwest quarter and half way from the middle of the south across well toward the middle of the west side of the county, with a fine grove east of what is now Brooklyn, and scattering islets of timber elsewhere. The Curlin brothers, William and Thomas, came from Illinois into what is now Union township somewhat early in 1843, built their log cabin and broke up land and left in the fall. Rhioneer Hoyt, now a resident of Grinnell, then a boy of ten years, came in 1844, and distinctly remembers that two other men built cabins in Union in 1843 and left before 1844. Then Richard B. Ogden, a native of the south, who is said to have been the first permanent settler on Union Prairie, was the fifth and not the first man to locate here and to remain. Nevertheless, he was the first to stick in the south part of the county.
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