USA > Iowa > Sac County > History of Sac County, Iowa > Part 4
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CHAPTER III.
ORGANIZATION OF SAC COUNTY.
At an early period Sac county was a part of Buchanan county, except the southern tier of townships, which were in Benton county. It was estab- lished in 1851 and was attached to the county of Wahkaw (now Woodbury), January 22, 1853. up to which time it had been attached to the county of Polk. It was attached to Greene county in 1855. It was named in honor of the Sac tribe of Indians, who, with the Foxes, at one time possessed the entire territory of the present domain of the state of Iowa.
In 1856 Sac county, which had previously been attached to Greene county for all administrative purposes, was granted a separate jurisdiction. S. L. Watt was the first county judge-and the county judge of those days was an autocrat, performing the functions of the present board of super- visors and county auditor, as well as those in part of the judge of the cir- cuit court. H. C. Crawford was the first county clerk, and F. M. Cory the first treasurer and recorder (both offices being then combined in one).
Previous to the organization of the county the following persons were appointed commissioners to locate the county seat: C. W. Williams, T. E. Brown and Mr. Huxford. They made selection of a point six and a half miles west of the east line of the county, on the west bank of the North Raccoon river, adjacent to a fine body of timber. This is now known as Sac City.
The first election for county organization was held at the house of Eugene Criss, April 7, 1856, when thirty-seven votes were cast for the entire county. The officers then and there elected were: Samuel L. Watt, county judge; Frances Ayers, clerk of the district court; F. Lagourge, sheriff ; H. C. Crawford, prosecuting attorney; F. M Cory, treasurer and recorder ; Jacob McAfee, drainage commissioner.
The next election in this county was that held on May 10, 1856, when there were twenty-two votes polled for officers, as follows: Justice of the peace, Eugene Criss, of Jackson township; for trustce, John McAfee had twenty-one out of the twenty-two votes cast; for the office of township clerk. Henry A. Evans received twenty-two votes and was declared elected; John
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Russell was elected as constable of the township; also, another constable was elected in the person of William Allen ; an assessor was elected in the person of William Wine; twenty ballots were cast for the office of supervisor, Joseph Gammon being declared elected. The above returns were certified to by William Wine, S. W. Wagner and G. F. Browning, and attested to by W. J. Wagner, Henry .\. Evans, clerks of the election, and County Judge S. L. Watt, Justices of the Peace G. F. Browning and Eugene Criss.
For Sac township the election at the above date resulted as follows : Trustees, William F. Lagourge, J. Williams, William Fulks; justices of the peace, J. Severn, J. K. Lane; constables, P. Fulks, J. W. Clark; township clerk, N. W. Condron ; assessor. J. Condron ; supervisor, William Lane. The judges of this election were E. Stills, P. D. Fulks and Lorin A. Goff, attested by H. C. Crawford and N. Condron.
A PROPOSED COUNTY SEAT.
In the first records of this county it is learned that an attempt was made to locate the seat of justice for Sac county at a point on section 36, of what is now Boyer Valley township, to the west and south of its present location. It was at almost exactly the center of the county. The record shows that Judge Samuel H. Riddle, judge of the seventh judicial district, living at Council Bluffs, on November 1, 1856, signed the following :
"A majority of the citizens of Sac county, as shown by a petition and certificate of the district court, prayed for the appointment of a commission to locate the seat of justice for said county. In accordance with the prayer of said petition, I. Samuel H. Riddle, judge of the seventh judicial district, hereby appoint Jesse Mason, of Crawford county; E. Buterick, of Carroll county ; and Doctor Bonnie, of Calhoun county, who shall within two months after receiving this notice of such appointment, locate the seat of justice for said county of Sac as near the geographical center as may be. having regard for the present as well as the future population."
This report shows they located the county seat on a portion of section 36, township 88, range 36, but while the record seems silent as to just why this was not carried out, it is found that another commission was appointed by Judge McFarland, at Jefferson, Grecne county, the same consisting of Talmage E. Brown, Crandall W. Williams and Cyrus Huxford. This com- mission was ordered to meet at the office of the county judge of Sac county September 17, 1857, at two o'clock in the afternoon and, having taken the
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oath prescribed by law, they proceeded to locate the seat of justice, taking into account the present and future prospects of said county. This proceed- ing is signed by G. W. Cochran, clerk of the court for Sac county.
The commission thus appointed had the following report to offer on the performance of their duties :
"To the Honorable Judge of Sac County, lowa: We, the undersigned commissioners appointed to locate the seat of justice for Sac county in the State of Iowa, make the following return to your Honor, to-wit: That we have the 19th day of September, 1857, located the seat of justice for and in said county, on the following described premises and lands to-wit : On all that certain tract of land in section 24, known as Sac City, with its present addi- tions, together with the east half of the northeast quarter of section 23, all in township 88, range 36 west of the fifth principal meridian, in Sac county, Iowa, and that we name the seat of justice Sac City.
"(Dated) September 19th, 1857.
"TALMAGE E. BROWN, "C. W. WILLIAMS, "CYRUS P. HUXFORD.
"Before County Judge "A. J. CAIN."
CHAPTER IV.
PIONEER SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY.
To have been a pioneer in western Iowa-to have set stakes in the early fifties and sixties in Sac county-was to have taken part in many interesting, as well as trying, scenes and transactions. Far removed from a thickly settled community, far from railroads and mills and postoffices and market towns, hardships were entailed which but few of today can comprehend. The sons and daughters hear their fathers and mothers relate the stories of those long ago, never-to-be-forgotten days, but even then this generation cannot begin to realize what the settlers of fifty and sixty years ago en- dured on the bleak prairies of western lowa. The pioneer period has about passed away in America and cannot, in the very nature of things, ever re- turn. When the virgin prairie sod has been once turned over to the sunlight, its wild state is gone forever. With it forever goes away the wild game so common at an early day. A few prairie chickens may still be seen, a few wild geese and sand-hill cranes, but, practically speaking, they have been numbered among the things of generations just gone.
The few pioneers who braved the dangers and hardships of early days in Sac county have nearly all been gathered to their fathers and sleep the long sleep that knows no waking. When the few remaining pioneers meet in reunion and family gatherings, their eyes sparkle and they grow young again, as the fading reminiscences of other days are recalled. As was well stated by a pioneer in this section, at a gathering of old settlers:
"You come together with varied emotions. Some of you almost at the foot of life's hill, look back and upward at the path you have trod, while others, who have just reached life's summit, gaze down into the valley of tears with many a hope and fear. You gray-headed fathers have done your work ; you have done it well; and now, as the sunset of life is closing around you, you are given the rare boon of enjoyment, the fruits of your own labor. You can see the land won by your own right arm from its wilderness state, and from the savage foe, pass to your children's children-literally a land 'flowing with milk and honey'; a land over which hover the white-robed angels of religion and peace; a land fairer and brighter and more glorious
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than any other land beneath the blue arch of heaven. You have done your work well, and when the time of rest shall come, you will sink to the 'dream- less sleep' with a calm consciousness of duty well performed.
"In this hour let memory assert her strongest sway; tear aside the thin veil that shrouds in gloom the misty past ; call up before you the long- forgotten scenes of years ago: live over once again the toils, and struggles, the hopes and fears of other days. Let this day be a day sacred to the memory of olden times. In that olden time, there are no doubt scenes of sadness as well as of joy. Perhaps you remember standing beside the bed of a loved and cherished, but dying wife-one who, in her days of youth and beauty, when you proposed to her to seek a home in a new wild land, took your hand in hers and spoke to you words like this: 'Whither thou goest. I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; when thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried ; the Lord do so to me and more also, if aught but death part me and thee.' Or perhaps some brave boy, stricken down in the pride of his strength ; or some gentle daughter, fading away in her glorious beauty; or some little prattling babe, folding its weary eyes in the 'dreamless sleep that kisses down its eyelids still.' If so-if there are memories like these, and the unbidden tear wells up to the eye, let it come, and today one and all shed a tear or two to the memory of the 'loved and lost.'"
In compiling this chapter the writer finds some difficulty in establishing the dates of coming and the locations first selected by the pioneer band in this county. Fortunately, there are in libraries of Storm Lake, Council Bluffs and Sioux City copies of a work published in Sioux City by the Journal Company, in 1882, the same being known as "Western Iowa," and in which is given an account of the settlement of thirteen counties situated in western, and especially northwestern, Iowa. This work includes a brief history of Sac county, and its pages are verified by the history of Iowa, by that splendid lowa historian, the late ex-Lieut .- Governor B. F. Gue, of Des Moines, who has seen fit to incorporate most of this historical data on Sac county in his four-volume work. The following are extracts from this work published in 1882 at Sioux City:
"The population of this county in 1880 was nine thousand three hun- dred, but in 1882 it is estimated at eleven thousand. This increase is partly accounted for by the Narrow Gauge railroad (a branch of the Wabash), which is in course of construction and which will run across the county, passing through Sac City, thus giving additional shipping and traveling fa-
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cilities to the people of the county. Depot grounds for the road have been laid out near the court house."-Northwest Iowa History, 1882.
Perhaps no better, more accurate account of the beginnings in Sac county can be had than to quote from a well-written article published in the local paper, The Sac Sun, December 24, 1881, which reads in part as follows :
"The immense immigration from the Eastern and Central states has for the past two or three years rapidly settled up the lands of Kansas and Nebraska, but of late have been diverted to some extent to the more certainly productive agricultural lands of northwestern Iowa. Many more of these home-seekers might have been induced to settle in this section had the people of Iowa and the Iowa government sooner awakened to the fact that so many thousands of good citizens were passing through Iowa to lands farther from market, and by no means so valuable as those of Iowa, all because the Kan- sas and Nebraska lands were assiduously advertised, while those of Iowa were undefended under the slanders mentioned in the appended letter. The General Assembly, however, to remedy this evil, appointed Hon. George D. Perkins, of the Sioux City Journal, to the office of commissioner of immigra- tion for Iowa, and appropriated a considerable sum of money for the pro- motion of immigration to this state. Read what Governor Campbell says :
"'Newton, Iowa, June 15, 1880.
"'Hon. George D. Perkins,
"'Commissioner of Immigration for Iowa:
" 'Dear Sir -- Your invitation to the immigration convention at Sheldon, June 22, received on my return home from an extended trip east. I fully realize the importance of the convention, and the great interests to be con- sidered, and I assure you my hearty sympathy goes out toward any effort that will tend to direct public attention to your beautiful country and fertile soil, and point the tens of thousands of homeless ones to that fair country that offers such splendid advantages for permanent homes and prosperous futures. During my visit east I had occasion to "talk up" northwestern Iowa in several localities and I found :
"'I. A total ignorance of the fact that so large a territory in Iowa lies open yet to settlement, the impression having obtained that a state with over a million and a half of people must be well settled up.
"*2. I found the old "grasshopper still sitting on the sweet potato vine," in the prejudices of many and it was only the work of a moment to (3)
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convince them that the "grasshopper" was long since a dead issue in any portion of Iowa.
"'3. The terrible storms and daily hurricanes of wind were held up before me, and I told them they were more a native of Missouri or even Ohio, than northwestern Iowa, and that the settlement of our state, the planting of groves, etc., had very materially changed the climate.
"'These are only a few of the objections urged, but among the most weighty, and I name them that you may see the objections that obtain in various quarters. There are tens of thousands in the East who would be glad to find homes in northwest Iowa, were they fully acquainted with the true condition of things, climate, soil, prices of land, terms, etc.
"'With thanks for your invitation, and regret that I cannot be present. I am your well-wisher and friend.
" 'FRANK T. CAMPBELL.'
"This sketch is intended principally as a pen picture of Sac county, as it now is, and will include a short outline of its history and a few incidents of the life of the early settlers.
"The soil of Sac county is a deep black loam, and in its nature is purely vegetable decomposition. Its depth is from eighteen inches to five or six feet. In some parts of the county the surface is almost perfectly level for long distances, but in general it is of the genuine 'rolling prairie' description. The inexhaustability of the soil is shown by the fact that farms which have been under cultivation for from twenty to twenty-five years are now as fertile and productive as ever. More than that-the land may be plowed here when it is so wet that it is almost impossible to do the work, and it will not bake.
"As regards the productiveness of Sac county, perhaps as effective a way of showing whether the detractors of northwestern Iowa, mentioned in Governor Campbell's letter, are right or wrong, will be to give our readers the benefit of some of the observations of the Hon. Eugene Criss, a pioneer and resident of Sac county for more than a quarter of a century. Judge Criss says that his average yield of corn in his twenty-five years' residence has been from forty to fifty bushels per acre, and the highest yield was sixty- five bushels. Average yield of oats, forty to fifty; highest yield, seventy- five; average yield of wheat, fifteen to eighteen bushels; this, remember, is his personal experience, and with only fair cultivation, no fancy farming, that he knows of at least two of his neighbors who have raised as high as
SAC COUNTY, IOW.1.
forty bushels of wheat per acre. Others, too, have raised, in more than one neighborhood, from seventy to eighty bushels of corn to the acre, and this with no extra amount of cultivation. The principal agricultural products of Sac county, and this section generally, are corn, wheat, oats, flax, barley, rye and grass. Timothy, clover and blue grass grow readily and will make Sac county, at an early day, one of the leading stock and dairy counties in Iowa. And Iowa is, with rapid strides, coming into the head of all states in dairy products. We will put Judge Criss on the stand again in regard to the ad- vantages for stock raising.
"We have stated that the tame grasses grow rapidly. Besides that fact, it is also true that Kentucky blue grass is rapidly coming of itself in places where it has never been sown. Along fence corners, along paths made by cattle through the brush and in the pastures, in spots where the timber and underbrush have been cleared, in door yards and other places. in some mysterious way that sweetest and best of feed for stock is rapidly making its appearance. It is a matter which the writer does not understand, but it is a good thing, and we are glad to see that this section is so fortunate. Grass is always sufficiently high to turn stock out at a date varying in the different years from April Ist to April 30th. And now we produce Judge Criss's testimony. The Judge is a Virginian by birth, but has had some years' ex- perience farming in Maryland. After many years' experience in the two states, it is his firm belief that both cattle and horses do better 'running out' during the winter months in this part of the state than they do in Maryland. This, our readers will observe, is not guess work or the dictum of a traveler or chance observer, but the carefully considered verdict of experience.
LOCATION OF SAC COUNTY.
"Sac county is on the Great Divide. as the water-shed between the Mis- souri and Mississippi is called. It is in the northwestern part of Iowa, being the fourth county from the north line, the sixth from the southern and the third from the Missouri river, while it is tenth from the Mississippi. Sac City, the center of government, and not far from the geographical center, is about fifty miles by wagon road west from Fort Dodge and eighty-five miles southeast from Sioux City.
"Sac county contains sixteen congressional townships, west of the Des Moines river. It contains three hundred and sixty-nine thousand six hun- dred and forty acres, nearly all of which is desirable land for either grain or stock purposes, and the larger part for either or both combined. The larger
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part of these lands are railroad property and these can be purchased by home- seekers, who will occupy them at once, on the most liberal terms. Many of the private holders are also selling on nearly if not quite as easy terms as the railroad land companies. And as for the grasshopper and tornado bugbears, it is perfectly safe to say that the farmers of Indiana and Ohio are as much annoyed by them, and have as much prospect for annoyance from them, as the Sac county grower of grain and stock. Sum up these advantages, and the reader will readily see why the population has been rapidly increasing ever since the opening of the railroad communication. Let those who have doubts give the county a visit and they will hesitate no longer. Sac county has not even the drawbacks so common to these fertile counties of northwest Iowa. What this is, is too well understood by the settlers who early located in the extreme northwest part of this state, before there were railroads to deliver coal at every man's door. Many counties in this section had little or no timber. Ida county, for instance, had less than a thousand acres within its borders. Sac county had many thousand acres of oak, black walnut, hickory, ash, elm, maple, box-elder, cottonwood, linn (basswood), and many other varieties native to this soil. The Coon river, that traverses the east part of the county, lies buried in woods for almost its entire length. Cord- wood is delivered at from four to five dollars a cord, according to quality. The timber culture laws of the state-relieving land from taxes for ten years in consideration of the culture of a certain portion of forest trees-have also caused so extensive a growth of forest trees that there is probably more timber now in the county than before the first axe was struck on the banks of the classic Coon.
EARLY SETTLERS AND FRUIT-GROWING.
"The early settlers of Sac county, though they had the advantage of being able to try fruit culture under the protection of considerable belt of timber. had small faith in the country as adapted to the growth of fruits. Hence, little was done ten or twelve years after the county was first settled. When proper attention was given to the matter, it was speedily demon- strated that Sac county was really well fitted for fruit growing, and there are now many fruit orchards, vineyards and small fruit gardens growing on the fair surface of Sac-shire. Apples, grapes, plums, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, currants, gooseberries and other fruits grow rap- idly and yield surely and abundantly, while the quality is unsurpassed any-
FIRST BARN IN SAC COUNTY
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where. This section is the garden spot of Iowa, as Iowa is the Garden state of the Union. The dry, pure air of our unexcelled climate gives to trees and plants a healthy growth, and the fruits and vegetables are solid and deli- cately flavored and handsomely tinted. You can say the California fruit is larger ; so you may say a pumpkin is larger than an apple, but how about the taste of the two? Our western Iowa apples are of a medium size, of the finest flavor and will keep much longer than any apple grown in a warmer climate. Therefore, the Iowa apple is in the near future the apple of com- merce, and it is not unlikely that the principal future industry of Iowa may be fruit growing. But not apples alone. Nowhere does the Concord grape come to such perfection as in Iowa."
THE FIRST TO MAKE SETTLEMENT.
Coming down to the first settlement question in Sac county, the above authority continues :
"The first settlement was made by Otho Williams, who came from Michigan in the autumn of 1853, with his family, and took up a claim in the timber near Grant City, in the southeastern part of the county. He and his family were the first white inhabitants of Sac county, but during the two succeeding years quite a number of settlers made their homes either in the same neighborhood or in the vicinity of Sac City, and Otho Williams, at the end of about two years, complained that 'folks are gitten' too thick 'round yer,' and he and his family 'folded their tents like the Arabs, and silently stole away.' In other words, they sold their claims and disappeared in the direc- tion of the setting sun. No one knows where they went or where their re- mains now lie.
"In the spring of 1854 Leonard Austin, F. M. Cory. William Wine and David Metcalf, with their families. W. A. Montgomery, with his mother and sister, and S. W. Wagoner and Harry Evans, single men, took up claims in the county. In August, 1855, came in Eugene Criss and family, locating near Sac City. A few days later William H. Hobbs located in the same neighborhood. During the autumn the population of Sac county was aug- mented by the arrival of John Condron. Joseph Lane, Joseph Williams and S. L. Watt and families, all of whom became permanent settlers. So far as can be now learned, this constituted the population in the county up to the close of the year 1855."
So much for the early settlement as given by those who have lived out-
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side the county, but a more definite, and perhaps comprehensive, statement is the following gathered from such men as those now living in the county, who were among that pioneer band and ought to know :
In 1854. on the 4th day of September, there came a little colony from Jones county, Iowa, made up of the families of F. M. Cory. W. V. La- Gourge and his family, David McAfee and family. Leonard Austin and family, and Joseph Austin, the first blacksmith in Sac county, who was a single man, and who had a dog which troubled the Indians who roamed back and forth here, and they told him he must kill his dog or they would kill him. He refused at first, but seeing they intended to kill him unless he did, he wisely killed the dog, which doubtless saved the entire settlement from being murdered, for they dare not kill one and not the whole settlement.
The winter of 1854-55 was an open, mild season throughout.
The winter of 1855-56 was without much snow, but quite cold.
The winter-the memorable "hard winter"-of 1856-57, was one of universal severity throughout the entire West. Snow was from three to four feet on a level all over western Iowa and many of the deer were lost by breaking through the crusted snow banks, which caused their slender little limbs to be snapped like pipe stems It is stated upon the best of authority that literally thousands were thus destroyed.
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