USA > Iowa > Poweshiek County > History of Poweshiek County, Iowa: a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume 1 > Part 8
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But what of that? A brave threat! Like too many a victim of a brutal husband, she never would tell. But a Mr. Morgan was passing and heard the deadly words. He passed on to Des Moines, made complaint against William B. Thomas (or "Cumquick").
Vol. I-5
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He was promptly arrested and brought to Montezuma. A swarm of wit- nesses to his character testified that he was "a good man," but it was all in vain, for they seemed to be as worthless as he was. He was a peculiar looking man, easily identified and always remembered.
Respectable witnesses testified that about the time of the murder they had seen "Cumquick" between Montezuma and Oskaloosa, a tavern keeper between Oskaloosa and Pella said he halted at his house with two other men and a woman, and that later on the same day he saw "Cumquick" and one of the men driving the same team of four horses toward Montezuma, and the driver of the morning and the woman were not with them apparently. They drove from the main road to a sawmill and back, stopped by the way to water their horses and while "Cumquick" was getting water the owner of the cabin came toward them bantering them for a horse trade. But they started briskly before "Cumquick" got the water or the cabin owner got near the wagon.
They camped for the night on a by-road and it was near there that the bodies were found. Some of Casteel's property was found in possession of "Cumquick," also. He was held for trial but his lawyers asked for a change of venue in order to get justice. Judge Stone, afterwards general and governor, granted it.
A great crowd was present. They were angry. The murdered woman's brother was there. He said: "I am a poor man. There is the murderer of my sister. I cannot come again to give my testimony, and that wretch will go free to murder one of your sisters. What do you say to that?"
The response came quick: "A rope, a rope." "Cumquick," the crowd and the rope were moving quickly toward a tree and up he went. After choking for a time he was lowered. "Confess. Confess."
"If I do confess you'll hang me, and if I don't, you will."
But he plead for life piteously. The witness from Indiana interposed: "That is the way my sister plead for her life, but you had no mercy."
He made no confession, and-died. His associate in the murder was never found. This was the first and last execution by a Poweshiek mob, if that group of men could be called a mob.
SNAKES.
What harmless things the garter snakes were! How they would wiggle to get away from you! As they crossed the grassless ground they looked like a moving streak when they flew away. But the rattlers interested the boys most when their feet were bare and the warning z-z-z-burst out of the grass where a foot was about to be planted. Ah! there is the deadly coil, and the head rising out of its center, the forked tongue is shaking madly in an open mouth, and fangs full of venom are ready to thrust themselves into the unprotected foot. Then quicker than lightning a flash of thought thrills the heart, the muscles con- tract, and back the boy jumps for safety.
Look yonder that "breaker" is finishing a "land" of several acres. The land is narrow and now every time he comes around with his big team how all sorts of snakes rush out of the grass ahead and upon the broken ground where every
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one can be plainly seen scurrying away into the grass outside for safety, a whole regiment of them.
Home he goes. A "rattler" meets him at the door, and, what was worse, the wife tells him of a wicked looking head that was lifted on a chair to get a breakfast from the table before she could clear it off.
But it is bedtime. Turn back the clothes. A very comfortable wiggler slides out of the spot you wish to occupy! Now it is death to all snakes. They have left very few descendants.
CHAPTER IV.
PRAIRIES.
FARMING IN IOWA-AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES OF POWESHIEK COUNTY-ADOPTED CITIZENS-IMPROVEMENT IN CATTLE-SILOS IN POWESHIEK COUNTY.
It did not seem much like a new country when men from the wooded east or south came to the prairies without trees or stones often as far as the eye could reach in every direction. It seemed as though a destroying army had long before swept over the plain, wiping out every vestige of man or his work, and that it had occurred long enough ago for the obliteration to be so complete that no trace of building, or of road, of mound or of excavation could be seen.
All was meadow, just plain meadow! Hence those Frenchmen who- first visited them called them, "prataria," or little meadows.
Probably seven-eighths of all Iowa was prairie when Marquette visited it, and also, when the United States made the Louisiana Purchase, and in 1832 when we made our first purchase of the Indians for our occupancy.
With all the discussion concerning the origin of the prairies we are no nearer knowledge on the subject than we began. If Iowa was ever heavily timbered how were the trees to be swept off? We have seen places in forests where a mighty wind or a tornado has mowed down an immense swath, and then seen the trees spring up again until but little trace of the "windfall" has been left. But that has not surprised us. Of course that soil was adapted to tree growths.
But that is not the "prairie." Many of the first settlers most sincerely believed, at first, that trees would not grow on the prairies, but the same skeptics have lived in Iowa to see cottonwoods grow in their dooryards till in thirty years they have cut them down when three or four feet through.
We have concluded that we can raise a crop of trees as easily as a crop of corn. All we have to do is to plant the seeds and let them grow.
Some have thought that if we all should abandon Iowa and let nature and the birds take care of it, it would become a forest state in half a century. That may be a little too soon but surely Iowa is very friendly to trees adapted to this climate.
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Whatever may have been the origin of our treeless spaces, annual fires will readily keep them so.
But settlers were not eager to settle on them. Wood was essential, and the water that ran through the groves was equally so. Hence if "the groves were God's first temples," they were the sacred spots waiting to be the settlers' first homes. And even if they built their homes in the middle of a large prairie they soon surrounded them with growing trees and their orchards with protecting wind breaks.
It was 1868 before the general assembly of the state took pains to encourage the cultivation of trees. More or less of the annual taxes were remitted for the cultivation of trees, and groves multiplied on the farms and trees, in some places, were too numerous along the roadside to permit the roads to dry readily after a storm.
FARMING IN IOWA.
It was a solemn hour for the family when man decided to plunge into the forests of the east and to be a pioneer. It meant wrestle and poverty, long waiting for neighbors and longer waiting for trees to fall and stumps to rot. The farmer could hope that his children might possibly die on a farm made moderately free from roots and stones by his toil and theirs if he should live to a good old age, but scarcely otherwise.
On the prairie it was far otherwise. He could raise something from the sod the first year, more the second, and a bumper crop the third. But what tools they used !
Their "bull plows," half wood and half iron in the ground! Called "bull plows," perhaps, because it required a good yoke of the animals to draw one through the mellow ground! Now our plows are of polished steel.
The first agricultural fair at Malcom appears to have been held in 1870 and annual fairs have been held there ever since. H. G. Little, of Grinnell, was president; L. E. Cardell, of Malcom, vice president ; James E. Johnson, of Malcom, secretary; Miles K. Lewis, of Malcom, treasurer. In 1870, or 1871, the society bought twenty-eight acres in Malcom township, within a half mile of the geographical center of Poweshiek county, for fair purposes. The fairs were held with varied success until the year 1887. Then, early in 1888, a number of people residing in the west part of the county made an attempt to secure control of the society and relocate the same at Grinnell. This resulted in the formation of an agricultural society at Grinnell, and the reorganization of the old society at Malcom, and engendered a bitter strife between the two associations for a number of years, bringing about litigation which reached the supreme court of the state. Since 1888 annual fairs were held at Malcom by the reorganized society which have been successful. The society has added to the value of its grounds by various improvements, and in August, 1911, held its forty-second annual meeting.
The present officers are: William McClure, president; W. J. Johnson, treasurer ; James Nowak, secretary. The latter has held the office for twenty years.
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THE GRINNELL FAIR.
The Poweshiek County Central Agricultural Society of Grinnel held its forty-second exhibition in September, 1911.
The officers of this association are as follows: President, Samuel Jacobs ; first vice president, I. S. Bailey ; second vice president, J. A. Baugham; super- intendent of grounds, F. M. Card; treasurer, Ralph Sherman ; superintendent speed, A. F. Swaney; secretary, C. P. Buswell.
SILOS IN POWESHIEK COUNTY.
I. S. Bailey, of Grinnell, a well-informed business man and farmer, very kindly consented to look up the silos of the county and now gives us the follow- ing interesting facts :
"The first silo was built by A. Shadbolt during the season of 1903 and at this date we now have ninety of them. Mr. Shadbolt's is what is called a frame silo, and we have one panel silo, eighty-six stave silos, of five different manufacturers' make. Forty-nine of the eighty-six are what is called the In- diana silo, two of the ninety are what is called the Holland brick or Iowa silo, built by Clark & Son, of Montezuma, and I. S. Bailey, Jr., of Grinnell.
"The Iowa silo was gotten out by the Iowa State College. It is not claimed that this silo will preserve the silage any better than the stave silos but will be more durable and does not cost any more than a first class wood silo of the same dimensions. The sizes of these different silos run from 12x24 to 20x32. The majority of them are 16x30 and some 16x36."
Those farmers who have built silos seem well pleased with the innovation, which consists of the preparation and preservation of food from the farm for stock and horses. Cattle, hogs and horses eat the ensilage with evident relish and thrive upon it.
Adopted Citizens.
I. THE IRISH.
There is only one considerable group of Irish in this county, with the excep- tion of "Irish Ridge." Most of them are scattered among those of other nationalities. This ridge lies chiefly in Lincoln and Scott townships.
The earliest Irishmen to occupy this Ridge came from northern Ireland, from County Fermanagh, to Coal Valley, Illinois, near Davenport, about 1865, and engaged in coal mining. Liking the color of things and the employment of sunlight, James Morrison came to Iowa. He found the land in this county delightful, decided to locate here and wrote his Coal Valley friends what he found and what he hoped for, and that if they wanted to live where there was room for them all, where Illinois coal could easily be brought to them by rail, where land was cheaper than east of the river, or at least as cheap, and where those already here were "white all through," they should come.
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Morrison found his farm, John Ramsay came next and now he is glad of it, although his strength is largely in years behind him. John Ferguson, John Byers and a swarm of other industrious citizens, proud of their homes on two continents, followed them because they loved such company in such a promising environment. They are diligent in business, prosperous, don't care what you will give for their land, they want to keep it and leave it to their children, who are bound to be farmers.
"Do your children go to town to be lawyers or doctors, or what not?"
"No. They are just straight farmers."
"How many of you have been in state's prison or died in the poorhouse?"
And how they laughed at such absurd questions about the prison and the poorhouse !
In Fermanagh they were Episcopalians ; in America they became Methodists, that is, those who came to our county. In Scott township they organized the Loyal Orange Lodge, No. 146, October 26, 1876, at the home of Thomas C. Johnson, on section 22. Then there were only five members; now there are
members of that lodge, and they have a hall for their own use. Their present officers are :
They are the "Enniskillen True Blue."
The Loyal Orange Lodge of Lincoln was also organized in 1876 with seven charter members.
While all these have no desire to leave their "Irish Ridge" or their American friends, their memories are quickened with new love for old Ireland and warmer affection for America as the years go by. None are more cordial Americans. Their Montgomery and their Sheridan make them proud of their Erin and their America.
Let us recall a single family that settled in this county. An Irishman and his wife, Bartholomew and Jane Carney, came here May 1, 1855. They settled on a good farm. They had all the elements of good citizenship. One son became an honored lawyer, and was sent to the state senate. A daughter mar- ried a railroad officer and another brother became an officer in the Civil war and a mayor of his town. One of his grandchildren married a college officer and another. Paul F. Peck, is now a college professor, and are, all in their places among the most useful and the most welcome. If Ireland has any more such families we want their aid in making a good county and a good state right here.
NORWEGIANS.
The most of the Norwegians now in Poweshiek county came directly from Norway. In the first place, some of their relatives were here, who had advised them to come to America, and more especially to Poweshiek county, where they could earn and have a good home in a short time, for the word home means much to this particular nationality, as most of them are brought up to love their parents, home and church.
Many of them have helped their relatives across the blue Atlantic and they in turn have helped some other relative or friend until there are now about thirty families in the county.
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After coming to this country they soon lose their contentment with a few acres. A little ceases to be a great plenty for them. They are seized with a determination to acquire and to be as large as any one !
The Americans do not regret their coming here and living among them, for they soon learn and teach others habits of ambition, industry and integrity. And the Norwegians certainly appreciate living in this country and county, where all kinds of advantages are so good, especially, the educational advantages, of which many of their children have availed themselves of the opportunity of getting a good education as is shown by the many good positions they are capa- ble of holding. Among them are successful teachers, nurses, bookkeepers, preachers, stenographers, and, not least of all, successful farmers.
The earliest Norwegians who came to this county are the Newtons, Erick- sons, Nelsons, Olesons, Paulsons, Gundersons, Iversons, Petersons, Hendrick- sons, Larsons, Figlands, and Emersons.
Charles Newton came first in 1864, from Wisconsin, his brother Thomas came next in 1866, bringing with them Norwegian character, industry and pros- perity. You will find them in the church oftener than in the saloon, and with pockets fuller than they brought. One need not look for them in the saloons. They will be nearer their farms.
IMPROVEMENT IN CATTLE IN AND ABOUT GRINNELL.
By L. G. C. Peirce, Esq.
If as the Grange ritual says, "He that causes two spires of grass to grow where but one grew before" is a great benefactor, so must he be who invests his money and time to improve the dairy and beef qualities of cattle in his locality be a great benefactor, although some of his neighbors may look wise and say "a fool and his money are soon parted," nevertheless results will show progress and improvement in the milking pail and on the butcher's block for in a grain and grass growing state like Iowa, the raising of cattle for beef and dairy purposes is a very important branch of farming.
I remember in the early sixties hearing a man near Grinnell say he lost $1,000 that summer by not having cattle to consume the grass that went to waste near his farm. The early settlers in and around Grinnell found the scrub cow to abound among the first settlers along the skirts of timber where they were obliged to get their first cows for family use. These cattle made very good oxen for service in subduing the prairies, but the cows were not so much of a success for dairy purposes although there were some very good milkers among them but were inferior in beef quality. About 1858 Mr. J. B. Grinnell purchased and drove to this town a Devonshire Male animal for the purpose of improvement of the local herds, but at that time all cattle were running at large and as the animal brought here was aged or past his prime he left no very perceptible improvement. In the fall of 1869 Mr. Alonzo Steele brought from Madison, Ohio, three thoroughbred Shorthorns, one cow and two young bulls, all recorded in Vol. 9, American Shorthorn Herd Book. One of the bulls he sold to Blakely Brothers and Erastus Snow, the other bull he sold to
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Thomas Shackly, then living in Chester township. Blakely Brothers kept the animal they bought 3 years and traded him to Jess Long of Jasper county for another thoroughbred Shorthorn male. Mr. A. J. Blakely, successor to Blakely Brothers, has continued the improvement of cattle to this day. Mr. Shackly after using his animal three years sold him to L. G. C. Peirce. Mr. Steele raised two heifers from the cow he brought from Ohio. One of these he sold to H. G. Little and the other to L. G. C. Peirce. About 1872 Mr. Little went to Stark county, Illinois, and purchased a Shorthorn. It is written in the book of Chronicles published by the Grinnell Grange, "Henry went to Bashan and bought a bull." This animal Mr. Little sold to Beeler and Carpenter of Blue- point. In 1873 Mr. Little went to Chicago and bought of "Long" John Went- worth the bull, "Grinnell Duke" which he sold to L. G. C. Peirce, who kept him at the head of his herd for four years. Mr. Little in the winter of 1873 or spring of 1874 went to Bell Air, Missouri, and purchased a carload of cows and a car- load of young bulls all thoroughbred Shorthorns. These he sold out among the farmers of this county. L. G. C. Peirce purchasing 5 cows, Mr. Dodge of Malcom township 4, James B. Thomson of Chester township 2, A. Meigs of Malcom township I. All of these men kept their stock for breeding purposes and accumulated large herds of pure bred cattle, selling the male produce to their neighbors to head their herds. Mr. Little was not a breeder but a dealer in cattle, buying and selling.
In 1875 Mr. John Brown on his return from a two years' visit to England brought 2 Herefords, a male and a female, and placed them on his farm 2 miles south of town where they were kept until past usefulness as breeders, then were slaughtered for beef. This breed of cattle is a beef breed, good rustlers, always white faced, low down and blocky. About this time or soon after, Messrs. Stocknell & Lightner of Chester township started a herd of Holsteins, one male and 3 females. This breed is spotted or black and white, large rangy cattle and are recommended as large milkers, milk especially good for cheese making, as it contains a large per cent of caseine and albumen. About 1878 Mr. Martin Rickard of Chester purchased a few of the black Dodies or Polled Angus. These are a black, hornless, low down cattle, fair milkers and fine beef animals. When Mr. Holmes came to Grinnell to establish a creamery or butter factory he brought from central New York a herd of Jersey cows ; the milk from this breed of cows is very rich in butter fat, the skim milk blue and watery, the carcass very poor beef, lacking in the best juicy cuts, and as the butcher's block is the last resort of all the bovine race this breed is not recommended as the Shorthorns are for an all purpose animal.
From these early adventures and investments, their produce having spread throughout this locality, causing a great improvement in quality of the cattle, nearly every farmer has at the head of his herd a male animal a descendant from one or the other of these pure breeds above mentioned.
CHAPTER V.
TRANSPORTATION.
EARLY MEANS OF LOCOMOTION THE HORSE AND THE OX-ROADS THE FIRST PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT IN A SETTLEMENT-RAILROADS ARE BUILT AND THE EAST IS CON- NECTED WITH THE WEST-RAILROADS ENTERING POWESHIEK COUNTY AND WHEN BUILT-BICYCLES-AUTOMOBILES.
Horses were brought to this county very early, although oxen and cows came first. Perhaps it was 1844 when horses came among the whites. They were ponies and small horses. They would gallop off like the wind, with a man on their back. Oxen did the breaking and the very heavy hauling at first. Horses were employed for long distances.
The wagons, harness and saddles were made largely in the cabins or near them, so with ox yokes and bows.
Horses and cattle were greatly improved, the horses for draft and for speed; the cattle for beef and for dairying.
The thought that the east and the west should be bound together by com- mercial interests was entertained very early in our national history. Washington was greatly interested in it for the nation and for himself, for his eyes had been used to discover good western lands even as early as 1753, when he went down the Monongahela and up the Allegheny to inquire about the encroachments of the French upon English territory. Eventually he owned many farms in that region, some of which he gave to his slaves when he emancipated them.
The Cumberland pike running west from Cumberland, Maryland, was begun in and continued westward through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana until when railroads were so far developed as to supplant the national turnpike. For many years the Cumberland road was the finest in the country.
But canals would be more valuable. Governor George Clinton was thoroughly aroused to their possible worth. He was anxious to build one from the Hudson at Albany to Lake Erie at Buffalo. The Federal government was indifferent. At length, after a struggle of years New York consented to build "Clinton's Ditch" as he desired, and as it was called by way of ridicule. The canal began to be used in 1825, and at the same time a three mile railroad, in imitation of the English tramways, began to carry granite in Massachusetts, near Boston.
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Clinton's canal transferred Philadelphia's western trade to New York. Three years later Philadelphia merchants began to build the Baltimore and Ohio rail- road. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, took out the first shovelful of dirt, saying, "I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to that of signing the Declaration of Independence, if even second to that." That railroad reached Cumberland in 1842.
RAILROADS.
Tramways in England constituted the first letter of the railway system near the beginning of the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The rails were at first wooden, and strap iron was nailed on the wooden rails afterward. The improvements in moving power, in cars and in track were slow but immense and surprising.
The first railroad in the United States for carrying passengers was begun July 4. 1828. Then ground was broken for the Baltimore & Ohio railroad by Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, as his name appeared on the Declaration of Inde- pendence fifty-two years before. It was completed to Harper's Ferry, eighty-one miles, in 1833, and to Cumberland, one hundred and seventy-nine miles, in 1842. A link in the road from ocean to ocean across Poweshiek county was constructed from Boston to Albany in 1835, another was completed from Boston to New York in 1849, and in the spring of 1851 the Erie railroad line was completed from New York harbor to Lake Erie. The next year the Michigan Central and Michi- gan Southern railroads connected the west end of Lake Erie with Chicago, while Lake Erie furnished water connection between the states of New York and Michigan until 1853, when the Cleveland and Toledo railroad was constructed, making the connection with New York and Chicago complete by rail.
Hon. William C. Redfield, of New York, seems to have been the first man to have thought of a railway connection between the Atlantic and the Mississippi valley, for he published a sketch of the geographical route of a great railway between that ocean and the valley in 1828. Illinois as a state was less than ten years old, and Chicago was only a frontier hamlet growing up under the guns of old Fort Dearborn. The railroad, as then proposed, was to run near the Kankakee and the head of steamboat navigation in the Illinois river on to the banks of the Mississippi, immediately above the Rock Island rapids.
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