History of Story County, Iowa: A Record of Settlement, Organization., Part 11

Author: Payne, William Orson, 1860-
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 543

USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa: A Record of Settlement, Organization. > Part 11

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While on the way home Larcom fell in with a shoemaker named Chas. G. Smith, who was probably going west to grow up with the country. Tom pictured to him with all the embellishments of fevered insanity the delights of this western Eden, and Charlie came with him to the booming city of Tom's wild imagination. To say that Charlie was astounded to find that his gentlemanly and well-informed conductor was insane, is but a mild state- ment of the fact. Still to this incident the town was indebted for another resident, who built the house now owned by Mr. Ballou (the rear part of the S. H. Boohie home) and planted the cottonwood trees that still (until with- in a few years) shade the sidewalk in front.

After writing the foregoing Col. Scott received the story of Larcom from the pen of Dr. Adamson, giving further and very interesting details varying in some particulars from the traditions, but accepted by the colonel as strictly true. The Adamson version, substantially in the doctor's own words, was as follows :

It was with this last influx of citizens (in 1855) that there came into our midst one known as Thomas Larcom. He came direct from Illinois, was poor but exceedingly active, and engaged in any honorable avocation where- by he might turn an honest penny. Everything he put his hand to turned into money. Finally he began teaching an "outline geography," commonly known as "singing geography." He had full houses and his whole time was oc- cupied; but the mental strain was too great for him, and his mind gave way. He was looked upon as a harmless lunatic and his friends took charge of him by order of the county judge. Some months after this he escaped the vig- ilance of his keepers and fled into Marshall county. On his way he stopped. in a corn-field and exchanged his clothes for some tattered garments that were hung up as a scare-crow. Arrayed in these he arrived in Marshall- town, or Marietta, on Sunday morning at about the hour for Sunday school. As he passed down the principal street of the village, he noticed the door of a lawyer's office slightly ajar and entered without any ceremony whatever. The lawyer was engaged in shaving that he might be more presentable when he took his place in the class at Sabbath school. Tom coming behind him

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and without any undue commotion, the attorney was not aware of his pres- ence until he saw Tom's haggard visage from the looking-glass beside his own. With not a little fear he faced the crazy man, when Tom in a tragic voice exclaimed: "I have a commission from Jesus Christ to kill all red- headed lawyers that come in my way." Without stopping to wipe the lather from his half-shaven face or to consider the order of his going, he went at once by way of the back-door and as he ran he gave the alarm.

Tom took an inventory of the office, then deliberately divested himself of his tattered garments and taking the attorney's cloak from its peg on the wall wrapped it about him, went out on the street and to the church where the Sunday school was assembling. Stalking majestically into the pulpit, he took charge of the school. By this time the village was fully aroused and everyone was out to assist in capturing the strange mad-man. As Tom noticed the assembled crowd he cast aside his cloak, leaped through one of the open windows and endeavored to escape from his pursuers. But as they were coming in upon him from all sides he rushed in at the open door of a dwelling and was captured in one of the upper rooms, where he was found trying to array himself in the clothing of a little girl. He was returned in irons, and after this a closer watch was kept over him.

Late in the fall or early winter he secured one of his own horses and made a second escape. This time he was captured in Tama county and re- turned to his keepers.

As Larcom was becoming more and more difficult to control Judge Evans ordered his guardian to get everything in readiness for sending him to an asylum. Sheriff Child and Dr. Adamson were selected to assist in carrying out the mandates of the court. When everything was in readiness, the sheriff, the doctor and Tom all being in a spring wagon and ready for the start, Tom suddenly exclaimed that he had not bidden Mrs. J. H. McLain and the dining-room girls good-bye, and that he would not move an inch until he had done so. He sprang out of the wagon, entered the hotel, going in the direction of the dining-room, but he passed on through, and went out at the back door and into the barn, where he saddled and bridled a horse; and while the sheriff and party were watching for his appearance at the front door of the hotel he escaped by a back alley and was at least half a mile on his way toward Des Moines before it was known that he was gone. Then began a wild chase. Tom was on a good horse, and it was not long before he was out of sight. We heard of him from those he passed in his mad flight, and twice he write notes on the margin of a newspaper and placed them conspicuously on the road so that we would be sure to get them. In each note he urged us to hurry up, saying that he had business of importance at the land office in the capital city. When he arrived at Des Moines he put up at the only first-class hotel, ordered a hasty meal and after his appetite was appeased he went over to the land office, where he introduced himself as "Judge" Larcom, a capitalist of Story County, who was anxious to invest in government lands. He had a number of the clerks making out township plats

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for him, and by the time the sheriff arrived they had completed about twenty- five dollars' worth. The government officials were dumbfounded when they learned how completely they had been taken in by an insane man and finally accepted as a huge joke what could not be helped.

The sheriff and the doctor had another little trouble in getting Larcom started but finally succeeded in getting him as far as Ogle county, Illinois. But being unable to prove up his residence there, it was determined to take him to the asylum in Ohio. But when they arrived at his old home in Hardin County, Ohio, it was found that it was necessary to prove a township as well as state and county residence. This they were unable to do, and after de- liberating over the matter it was determined to take Tom to his father's at Marietta, Ohio, and suffer him to remain there until he should have acquired a residence, when his father would procure for him admission to the asylum.

As Tom was, or seemed to be, exceedingly anxious to see his father, it was thought that the doctor would have no trouble in taking him to his destination. The sheriff returned to Illinois and the doctor started with his charge. At Bellefontaine there was a delay of about one hour for the Mar- ietta train. Tom became restless and wanted some apples. The doctor gave him twenty-five cents and told him to go to an apple stand and buy. He saw him make his purchase and receive his change. He came back eating his apples, looked at the clock and remarked, "It will soon be train-time; will you be kind enough to show me the water-closet?" He was seen to enter it and close the door. The doctor read his paper for about ten minutes and observed the door still closed. We waited five minutes. No Tom. Grew uneasy, went to the closet and opened the door, to find that his charge was not there nor to be seen in or about the depot. The depot-master, as well as the city police, were called upon, and a minute description of the missing man was given. His flowing locks of raven hue, his long beard as black as Egyptian darkness, his heavy black beaver overcoat, as well as his cap, were all described over and over to the officers, and a reward offered for his arrest or return. The afternoon and night passed; but no tidings. The telegraph was now brought into use and despatches were sent out over Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, but to no purpose. They could get no trace of the missing man. After three or four weeks the doctor returned to find that Tom had beaten him back by about a week.

But this is not all. On his way back Tom stopped over in Chicago long enough to interview one of the city papers and secured the publication of an article in which he went on to recite that while Judge Larcom and Dr. Adam- son were traveling through Ohio the doctor from some unaccountable reason suddenly went mad, and the judge was compelled to see him safely locked in one of the cells of the asylum at Columbus, Ohio. The article closed with a letter of condolence to the doctor's parents.

Tom's return alone, his many stories and his newspaper articles all con- spired to make the doctor's friends very uneasy, and when the latter returned he found they were about to organize for the purpose of investigating Tom's

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reports. They feared that some violence had been done. It was afterwards ascertained that when Tom gave the doctor the slip he at once sought out an obscure barber shop, where he had his hair cut short, and his face smoothly shaven and exchanged his heavy black overcoat for one of drab color. These changes were so great that the doctor's description of the lost man would not apply.

After Tom's return he was closely watched for several months by his guardian ; but he finally succeeded in making good his escape. It was re- ported that he returned to Ohio, where he regained his reason, went into business and for some years accumulated property, but that he again failed mentally and was sent to the asylum, where the poor fellow died.

(In this connection it may be noted that a number of years later Mrs. Larcom, widow.of Thomas, was married here to Moses Hunt, and continued to reside in the county at Nevada and Collins for the most of her life. She died just at the end of the year 1910 at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Alfred Knoll, at Lake Arthur, New Mexico, and she was buried at Collins.)

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A PECULIAR TREE NEAR STORY CITY

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CHAPTER X.

COUNTY AFFAIRS BEFORE THE WAR.

While the county seat was getting started and the prairie was being taken up and occupied and the smaller towns were trying to establish a basis for future growth, the county as a whole was gradually becoming a more definite quantity. Its politics were becoming established, routes of travel were be- coming better defined, and much better routes were being most prayerfully hoped for. The period of this gradual unification of the county will be taken as extending from about the time of the organization of the county up to the outbreak of the Civil war. About the middle of this period, the first newspaper was established; and the fact that it was not sooner established may be taken as evidence that the general condition of affairs here was still very primitive up to January, 1857; and the further fact that the paper first established continued to be the only paper in the county until after the open- ing of the Civil war and this, notwithstanding the fact that the time was one of intense political controversy, as to which the sentiment of the county was closely divided, and in which the different elements would naturally have wished to have their views publicly expressed and presented, goes to show that even in the second half of the period, there was still abundant oppor- tunity to hope for future development.

The establishment of the paper, however, may be taken as an event quite as important among the various stages of local development as almost any other of the single matters mentioned. From this time on, there is more of a record of what the people were doing, and it is easier to get an under- standing as to what they were thinking about. As one peruses the record, it is easy to discover that, to a considerable degree, they were thinking about politics, but Editor Thrall was a very discreet man, and he managed to get along without unduly manifesting a political bias. He was, in fact, a good Republican and an anti-slavery man, but he ran the ticket of both parties impartially in his columns, published both platforms, gave both sides oppor- tunity for hearing, and probably in a personal way did what he could to restrain their forms of expression within measurable bounds. At the same time, he kept well to the front the other matters in which the people of the county were vitally interested. These matters were, for the most part. of a general nature; for it may be borne in mind that all the then existing towns

Vol. 1-7

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over the county, regardless of the extent of their town plats, were still, and for a long time afterwards, without municipal incorporations. Indeed, it was not until 1867 that Nevada was set off as an independent school district, nor did its incorporation come until 1868. Ames was not on the map until after the war was over and the railroad had come and its incorporation did not occur until 1869. The other towns of the county continued to be villages in a legal sense until long afterwards; that is, they were portions of territory, subdivided into lots and showing streets and alleys, but not having municipal organization ; so the only existing subdivisions of the county, recognized by law, were the townships, the affairs of which rarely have been subject of con- siderable controversy.

So in all this period, the county was the organization which was the basis of most important public doings. Aside from the matter of politics, the im- portant activities of the people and of the resident leaders of local opinion may have been directed in various directions, but the results were most manifest in the matter of transportation and of the location of the Iowa Agricultural College. As to neither of these matters indeed were the im- mediate results so very important in their bearing upon the conditions in the county ; but as to both of them, action was definitely taken which did, in time, bring results that have had a great deal to do with the county. Dele- gates, who had been more or less formally or informally commissioned by the people of the county to co-operate with similar delegates from other counties and make such arrangements as might be practicable for the con- struction of a railroad, did, in time reach a choice as between corporations of varying insistence as to their anxiety and ability to build the railroad, if properly supported, and did definitely commit the people and the county to the endorsement of the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad Company as the organization which should, in time, build a road. The road was not secured nearly so soon as was hoped for by those who agreed as to the forma- tion of the company, but the intervention of the Civil war was a matter which checked the work of constructing railroads, as well as most other peaceful enterprises; and the delay which was due to this cause affords no ground for disparagement of the sound judgment of those representative men who made the alliance on behalf of the county and in behalf of that particular railroad. The county did not, in fact, get the college until more than ten years after the location of that institution was determined, but the efforts which did determine the location were put forward in this period by people, who were, of course, hoping for more immediate educational results, but who had to content themselves with the hope and expectation of the college until such time as the state should be sufficiently free from war troubles to permit of its carrying out its contract to build a college in the county. In matters of such moment, however, as the railroad and the col- lege, it was the present determination and the ultimate success that really counted; and it stands to the credit of the county in this period that it did assure the construction of what was, in time, to be the best trans-continental

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railroad between the Mississippi and the Missouri and the best College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts that there is anywhere. Viewed in the light of half a century, the people of Story County in the latter fifties were wise beyond their day and generation; and if the matters of common interest in the county could, in all the intervening years, have been as wisely and effectively conducted as they were in that time, the greatness of the county must now have inevitably been much more striking than it is.

As to the railroad, the fundamental fact was that several years before, congress had made a grant of land for the purpose of aiding in the construc- tion of four railroads across the state of Iowa; such railroads to be con- structed not for the present needs of the new state; for, in fact, the great body of the state was not yet sufficiently settled to have any practical needs, but with a view to encouraging, as rapidly as possible, the settlement of the state. One of these lines of railroad was to be constructed, as nearly as practicable on the line of the 42d parallel of north latitude. This parallel runs very near the middle of the belt of counties east and west in the tier of which Story County is a part, and, doubtless, the fact that the land grant had been made and that the new prospective county seats in this belt of counties were all close enough to the parallel, so that they might confidently expect in time to secure the railroad, had not a little to do with their location and with the readiness with which people went far out beyond the ends of exist- ing lines of transportation and established their homes in such county seats. Nevada had the full benefit of this assurance; for the 42d parallel is only about a mile or more south of town, and all of the conditions were favorable for bringing the railroad to the town whenever it should reach the county.

The land grant was for alternate sections for six miles on each side of the railroad, or, if those sections should already be taken up, then their equivalent of public lands in other parts of the state. In fact, the sections along the prospective line were taken up long before the railroad came, and the alternatives elsewhere had to be accepted. These lands, at government prices, were worth $1.25 an acre and their value per mile of road was much less than the cost of constructing the road. While, therefore, any and every company that talked about building the road, expected, of course, to have the land grant, it inevitably demanded further aid. But, beyond the land grant and any possible local aid, the railroad company which should actually succeed, had to have a considerable amount of capital of its own; and the great and absorbing local and political problem, was to concentrate the re- sources of the land grant and local support and effective corporate capital, all in the same concern. This problem was not solved without a great deal of difficulty. The government having made the land grant to the state for the purpose indicated, it was, in the first place, for the state to determine what company should have the chance to make use of it. The state accordingly conveyed the several land grants to corporations of much promise, the par- ticular corporation to which was intrusted the duty and responsibility of building the railroad along the 42d parallel being the Iowa Central Air Line

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History of Story County, Iowa: A Record of Settlement, Organization., Part 11

Author: Payne, William Orson, 1860- Publication date: 1911 Publisher: Chicago, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 543

Author: Payne, William Orson, 1860-
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 543