USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa: A Record of Settlement, Organization. > Part 20
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BY H. H. BOYES.
I have been requested to contribute some of my early experiences and recollections, as one of the early settlers of Story County. I find it rather difficult to go back, over so many years, and recall incidents as they actually occurred. I will state, however, that I was born quite early in my career in Cattaraugus County, New York, and when four years old, my parents moved to southern Michigan and took me along.
In the fall of 1853, the star of empire lit the way toward the land of prom- ise, which was said to be beyond the Mississippi river, and had been named Iowa. A loaded wagon drawn by two yoke of oxen, a few head of cows
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trailing after, slowly and steadily moved onward straight toward the setting sun, until late in the fall a resting place was found in a little vacant cabin, surrounded by heavy timber down on Clear creek in Jasper County, about two miles south of Clyde. Here the winter was passed and in April, the following spring, the journey was resumed, headed for the vacant govern- ment lands along "Bear creek," in the northern part of Story County. A cabin and a few acres of land were rented and a beginning made for a home. Logs were cut and hauled for a house; corn was planted, the prairie sod torn up by the plow, and the cause was on trial between limited means and adverse circumstances on one hand and vast opportunity on the other.
Our experiences in those early days were the same as those of others who came, when all was new and wild. Far from mill and market, little to sell and much to buy, money scarce and often worthless; but through it all there was the spirit of enterprise and hopefulness. There were some hardships or rather privations. Game was plenty and there was never any lack of pork and beef, but the bread supply of those first years was sometimes a problem. I think it was in the winter of 1855 that the whole country was covered with a thick sheet of ice so it was impossible for oxen to travel, and at our home, the meal sack was about empty, and seven of us youngsters to feed, and there had to be something doing. So father sawed off a block about two feet long from a large oak log and with his carpenter tools hollowed out one end until it would hold about a peck of corn; then he took a hickory pole about six feet long, put iron rings on one end and drove in the iron wedge, and the problem was solved for the time being. It did not take long to pound out enough corn for a big johnny- cake in mother's dripping pan.
My brother and I would shoulder our axes and with our cold lunch of "hog and hominy" go to the timber, a mile away, and swing our axes and heavy mauls, all day, chop a hole in the ice on the river to drink, and think it no hardship. We were well and strong and hearty. And so those early pioneers fared and toiled, realizing they were making homes, and that more prosperous times would follow.
Perhaps they did not fully realize that they were also building up a commonwealth which would in the future be a potent factor and power in the affairs of the nation and the world. Could those pioneers have lived to the present day, they might have realized to a great extent the fulfill- ment of their anticipations. But nearly all have folded their toil worn, calloused hands across their breasts in surcease of care.
Socially the early settlers probably enjoyed themselves as much or more than do people at the present day. All were neighbors far and near, and often met and passed the hours in pleasant intercourse. No doubt the older members felt the responsibilities resting on them in their efforts to combat adverse circumstances; but here they had come, and here were their hopes for establishing a new home, and bravely and earnestly they persevered.
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To the younger members of society the conditions did not present so serious an aspect. Usually a sermon somewhere on Sunday, or singing school, and often in the summer time a mowing bee, when the younger men took their scythes on their shoulders and went to help some neigh- bor with his haying, and at the same time the young ladies were busy at a quilting in the little cabin. Then when supper was over and the stars came out, they all most diligently proceeded to polish down the puncheon floor to the time of "Uncle" Jonathan Smith's fiddle.
As an automobile was passing the other day, I asked Mrs. B. if she remembered the first buggy ride we ever took together. It was in the long ago when we were young; long before gray hair silvered our temples, when the world looked good and full of bright prospects. She readily recalled the incident. I remember how I yoked up old Buck and Browny, hitched them to the wagon, put a board across the box for a seat, and with my head up and a long whip over my shoulder, I walked beside the oxen and drove the outfit. The day was pleasant and all went "merry as a marriage bell," but the bells did not ring until long years afterwards. And now, with the shed full of buggies and the barn full of horses, she is insistent on another joy ride; but the carriage must have brass mountings and red wheels, and the horn at the side. I only mention the foregoing incident to show that in the methods of locomotion, with the exception of speed and a whole lot of ostentatious style, the world has not made such wonderful advancement as we are inclined to believe. Old Buck and Browny always got there.
The pioneer brought with him two cherished institutions, the church and the school. I believe the first sermons were given by Uncle Jonah Griffith and then followed Rev. Miller, and later Rev. Cadwalader and Rev. Swearingen. These services were held in the little cabins until the building of the first school house, which was in the year 1856, and was known as "Old Poverty." It was constructed of logs, plastered with clay, with split shakes for the roof, and benches for seats, and desks arranged along the sides.
The first school taught in the settlement was in a little house located on the hill just south of Long Dick creek, during the winter of 1855. This school was largely attended and was taught by Charley Haslett.
The first death in the settlement that I can chronicle was that of old Mrs. Smith, wife of Uncle Jimmy Smith. On this occasion, there being no lumber to make a coffin, my father and Mr. Brown and Mr. Griffith, split out of a walnut tree, the necessary material, hewed and planed it down and made a very respectable coffin.
In the wet season our roads became in places bottomless quagmires. However, as the necessity rose, they were gradually improved. Instead of calling a good roads convention and doing a lot of lamenting over con- ditions with no result, we yoked up the oxen, went to the timber and hauled
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out logs for culverts, and with brush and sod for filling, we did a pretty good job, with no thought of recompense further than our own convenience.
In those days there was a lot of volunteer work done on the roads, and that without the tools and conveniences we now have; and that work has gone steadily on until now we have roads quite satisfactory to everyone except the automobile driver. The first public road located was the old state road running from Newton to Ft. Dodge. This road went wander- ing around the ponds and over the hills and was marked by a furrow. The first work on the road was done where it now crosses the big slough in section 17, and so the years went by.
A great awkward youth I was in summer swinging the grain cradle from morning till night over many broad acres at 50 cents a day ; in winter wielding the ax and maul and driving the wedge with strokes that made the forest ring; standing by the home and homestead until of age. I had long cherished an ambition for a better education and in accordance with desire, had slowly accumulated the magnificent amount of eighteen dollars. Therefore, when father had sewed up a rip in my boot, and mother had done some repairing to my coat, I left home and turned my face toward Cornell college at Mount Vernon. There I struck a different atmosphere and found all the various kinds of aristocracy-the true moral worth, and the cheaply snobbish. I need not tell that these were strenuous days for the raw country boy, much more at home hunting coon up and down Skunk river at midnight, than poring beside the student lamp. Since these days I have passed through many trying ordeals, that tried the nerves, but I can truthfully say, that never have I been so scared as when I was called up to the rostrum in the old college chapel to deliver my first declamation.
The natural sequence came. The war came on,-and on the 14th of April, 1861, I volunteered as a soldier, and my "diploma" was won on the Brentwood Hills at Nashville, and was signed by Governor Kirkwood. H. H. BOYES.
MRS. H. H. BOYES.
By request I will attempt to recall a few incidents of pioneering.
On the 9th day of May, the year 1844, in Alleghany County, New York, I first saw the light, and when I was four months old, my father, Dr. M. R. Ballard, with his family migrated westward as far as Ohio. He re- mained in that state one year; then removed to Will County, Illinois, where he settled on a farm to provide employment for his sons, while he fol- lowed his profession as a practicing physician. Again, when I was thir- teen years old, the family took up its westward course, coming to Story County, Iowa, and arriving May 20, 1857, in what is now Howard Town- ship. I have resided here continuously, with the exception of six years I lived in Nevada and four years in the west.
While journeying on our way from Illinois, the experiences were novel at times, but the most vivid recollections were when we came to cross the
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Mississippi river at Davenport, and drove the covered wagon on to the ferry boat. At Iowa City, my sister, Mrs. Ferguson, stayed with a brother's family, who lived there, until the brother came along with the stock, then she came with brother Russell and family, and arrived in Story County, July 4, 1857. The weather, while we were jogging along from day to day was ideal, and all went well, until, approaching Nevada, we mired down in a slough and required assistance to get started again. Stopping at Nevada, we were supplied with necessaries at Major Hawthorn's store, before leav- ing for our destination. Between here and Nevada, there were no dwell- ings until we reached the log cabin of H. L. Boyes, near where we now live.
My father settled on the Isaac Blade farm, by the timber near Skunk river, which overflowed often in spring time. The building was a cabin, with one room for eight in the family to occupy. I well remember how homesick my mother was to be obliged to get along with so little room, in a log cabin ; with "bunks," one above another, for the family to sleep in; cooking by a fireplace, etc., until different arrangements could be made.
The following winter of 1857-8, the first school, in our immediate neighborhood was near my father's dwelling, and was taught by Lois E. Ballard, brother Russell's first wife, in their own dwelling. We had a good school, numbering fifteen or twenty pupils. The year 1856-7, the first school was taught by Charley Haslett, on Long Dick creek. The sec- ond school was the one above mentioned, and the third school was in "Old Poverty" taught by Rollin C. McOmber, in the summer of 1858. The winter of 1858-9 my brother, D. P. Ballard, taught the first school in the "Sheffield" school house, and I taught the summer school and the follow- ing winter of 1859 and 1860. H. H. Rood of Mt. Vernon, taught the same school. The winter of 1858-9, I attended the Nevada school taught by Rollin C. McOmber. Madams F. D. Thompson, Lockridge and Waldron were my classmates, as were also Gardner Price, J. D. Ferguson, H. H. Rood and many others. F. D. Thompson taught the Nevada schools the years of 1860-1 and 1861-2, and I had the pleasure of being one of his pupils.
In pioneer days, wheat bread was a luxury, as we lived principally on corn bread, but with plenty of vegetables, and all the wild fruit necessary, sweetened with sorghum. Molasses was relished then. We all enjoyed good health and life was full of pleasure to the younger members of society, who could adapt themselves to conditions and circumstances. I often con- trast the present prosperity with those days, and imagine it would be a hardship for the younger generation now to be brought to such conditions. This is an era of extravagance and wastefulness. I pity the children who are not taught the value of money, or what it means to make a living. I was taught that a penny saved was two earned. I am not a pessimist, but I predict this extravagance cannot always continue, and that those who do not garner and live within their income, may realize somewhat the strenuous conditions of the pioneer.
S. E. BOYES.
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CHAPTER XVII.
TALES OF EARLY DAYS.
MR. AND MRS. J. F. BROWN-LAFAYETTE IN 1854.
I came to Iowa the first time in 1854. In June, 1855, a younger brother and I walked from Cedar County, Iowa, to the county of Story, a distance of about 150 miles. The country was new and neighbors lived scattered in the pioneer houses of small dimensions but cheerful and happy. At that time but few families lived on Story's fertile prairies with a carpet of heavy prairie grass, in spots mingled with acres of white and blue and pink flowers which gracefully nodded when the winds blew. With the exception of the many ponds at that time it was a land of promise to a wide-awake newcomer, which ponds tiling is so nicely overcoming at the present day, though then the tiling was not dreamed of. In June, 1855, I entered the southeast quarter of section 26, Lafayette Township, Story County, Iowa. Went back to Pennsylvania and got married New Year's day, 1856. On March 5, 1856, we started for our new home in Lafayette Township, where we have lived ever since and raised our children, four boys and one girl, trained to honesty and industry. Our traveling outfit was a team of horses and muslin covered wagon, with plenty of warm wraps. We ar- rived on our plot of land April 13th, without a shack for shelter.
About the same time Mr. House and family came to Story City, then called Fairview, and located on the west bank of Skunk river with a port- able sawmill. The mill was very heavy to move over muddy sloughs as traction engines were then not known; but it soon furnished us with native lumber sufficient to build a 14x16 feet house-a luxury not enjoyed by previous newcomers, who had to build houses out of logs. Dan and Henry McCarthy of Ames, were engineers and head sawyers 54 years ago last spring. Dick Jones had a small store in Fairview, size about 12x14 feet. I first met Peter Dekop with others June 13, 1855, selecting their future home where Peter still lives. That same year Peter and his father saw 24 deer in where now is our calf and hog lot. In 1856, I bought a span of horses in the then small and mostly log-house town of Des Moines. Later during a heavy thunder storm one night, the horses left their un- fenced prairie pasture for shelter east of us in the Skunk river timber.
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It blew from the northwest and the next day they were seen grazing on the east side of the river. As I had no other horse then to ride, the fol- lowing day I walked many miles through the tall prairie grass, but found no track of them. The second day, W. R. Doolittle very kindly loaned me a good horse and saddle with which I started to hunt in earnest. I had faithfully looked every place over except the right place the day be- fore on foot. I soon found where they pastured the day before on a fresh plat of previously burnt pasture, but not a shadow of my fugitives that day. The first word I got, some one saw them southeast of Nevada head- ing in the direction of Keokuk. The country was unfenced and horses in a strange land steer direct for their native home. I concluded the owner brought them to Iowa by the way of Keokuk and so I searched diligently in that direction. Occasionally I met some one who had seen them grazing on some fresh burnt prairie grass pasture, I could not find them by getting in their advance. It was like hunting the needle in the hay mow. One night I took lodging with a German who could not talk English very well, so we sat up later than usual conversing in German. Before retiring he stepped out and by moonlight saw a white and a black horse passing. That was just what I was after. The one we got readily but the other was hard to catch at best and we failed to get him. How- ever, he knew me by daylight and voluntarily came to me next morning. I captured my team in Keokuk County, southeast of Sigourney, lost two weeks' time and had left my wife alone at home to keep house and think it over in sadness, which was followed by joy and gladness.
For protection we built our house and stable on the sunny slope of the hillside, but it proved to be a mistake for us. The winter of '56 and '57 was severe with sleet and lots of snow. The prairie fires burnt the tall prairie grass after the frost in the fall, which left the snow to drift with the caprice of the wind in every direction. The snow drifts nearly covered both house and barn and also our well on the side hill. With slippery ice our unshod team could not be used. We had three cows with calves, and for two weeks we fed hay to our stock through a hole I made in the hay roof. We melted snow in our copper wash boiler on the cook stove to water team, calves and cows. God's sunshine in due time melted the icy fetters of snow and later came the green grass and the song of the birds, again singing the happy song of life. I need scarcely say the summer and fall of 1857 we moved our abode from the side to the top of the hill where we have lived ever since in sunshine and in storm.
In the fall of 1856 I shot a wolf while in the act of running down one of our few hens like a dog. A few days later I shot a prairie wolf in his sleep sunning himself in a dry spot in the bed of Kegley branch. They would visit our melon patch and select the choicest to eat. Mr. Doolittle killed two wolves in one night by putting poison on the carcass of an ox which had died for him. Prairie chickens, wild ducks, geese, brants and sand-hill cranes were very numerous here before the invention of breech
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loaders. Elk and buffalo had been once plentiful but were of the past, when we located here. Fish of good size were also abundant. The only railroad then was a branch from Muscatine to Wilton Junction. Iowa City was the capital of Iowa. Merchandise was hauled by wagon back and forth from the Mississippi-an expensive method. The nearest grist mill was in Des Moines. Buildings were mostly made of logs. Eggs were 3 cents per dozen in Nevada at one time. The price of prairie land was $1.25 per acre. Timber $12 per acre. God ruled then as now in this fair land, in educational progress, in material prosperity and spiritual blessings.
J. F. BROWN. MRS. R. J. BROWN.
COL. HENRY H. ROOD .- 1856-61.
One of the best and most favorably known men that have gone out from Story County is Col. Henry H. Rood, now of Mt. Vernon. He came to Nevada in 1856, and in 1861 was at school at Mt. Vernon. He went from there to the war but never came back to Nevada, save as an always welcome visitor. He taught in Howard Township where the early settle- ment was, and was a most admirable type of the ambitious and capable young man, with his own fortune to make. He enlisted in the First Iowa Infantry as a private and came out of the war as a brevet lieutenant-colonel. Since the war he has been active in business affairs, making his home al- ways at Mt. Vernon. Of his life in Story County he has upon urgent request written as follows :
I left my home in Washington County, New York, April 10, 1856, com- ing to Chicago with a neighbor's son, who was shipping a well bred and valuable horse to Jo Daviess County, Illinois. At Albany he united with others who were shipping horses west; this necessitated coming by freight train all the way. At Chicago we separated. I staid all night at the Garden City House, which stood on Madison and Market streets, where Marshall Field & Company erected their wholesale houses after the Chi- cago fire in 1871. Thence I came to Rock Island on the Rock Island road, ferried the Mississippi across to Davenport and then took the railroad, now Rock Island, which had been completed to Iowa City, January 1, 1856.
At Iowa City took the Frink and Walker stage to Newton. A day or two later my brother Adolphus Rood came down from Nevada to meet me. Mr. Helphrey, the proprietor of a hotel, later known to the boys as the "Old Terrific," had driven down with my brother to meet me and young Dr. Adamson, who was returning from the medical college at Keokuk, where he had just graduated.
We passed over the then almost unsettled country to Edenville, now Rhodes, where we took dinner at Esquire Rhoads' house; between Clear . creek and the east fork of Indian creek, we did not pass a single occupied cabin, and at dark drew up at the Helphrey House, where I spent my first
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Methodist Church, Ames
Christian Church, Ames
Catholic Church, Ames
Congregational Church. Ames
Baptist Church, Ames
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night in Nevada. The date I do not remember, but it was on or near April 22, 1856. The next day I went to board with a Mr. Warren who lived in the house afterward owned by the father of Nathan G. Price.
The first court house of Story County was being erected, and my brother had the contract to lath and plaster it, but before it was ready for that, I helped for a short time to lay shingles on the roof. When the work was far enough along I helped lath it and then took from my brother my first lessons as a plasterer. I was only fifteen, but tall and slender, and for my age was stronger than most boys. By the time the season closed, I had progressed so I could do plain work.
The last work of that season, (which I did alone) was plastering a lean-to kitchen for lawyer J. L. Dana. I finished at near midnight Decem- ber 5, or 6, and the next morning the most terrible blizzard I ever witnessed was raging.
The summers were spent working at my trade; the winter of 1856-7 and 1857-8 the necessity of doing as much work as the season would per- mit, prevented me from going to school, but I acknowledge with deep grati- tude the kindness of Col. John Scott, Judge Geo. A. Kellogg, Lawyer J. L. Dana and R. H. Mitchell, the latter afterward surveyor of the county, all of whom loaned me books to read. I'd put in some of my leisure time also in studying the school books I brought with me, and the winter of 1858-9, I attended the full term of the public school, taught by that prince of teachers, Rollin C. Macomber.
That young man who had come to Fowa from the green hills of Ver- mont was the most helpful, inspiring and successful teacher I have ever known. In my later years I have seen and known many teachers, but not one who could arouse in young men and women such desire for educa- tion, or could so successfully impart the knowledge he had himself ac- quired. His early death deprived Iowa of an intellect, the clearest and strongest I have ever come in contact with. I left the school room of this gifted young man, on the "last day," with a firm resolve to get a better education. This purpose had been in my mind for some time, but asso- ciation with this high purposed youth confirmed it.
That summer business was very good but I found time to study quite a good deal, and in October, the superintendent of schools, held examina- tion, I think for the first time in the county, for certificates to teach. In the afternoon of this day I took off my working suit and, dressed in my Sun- day clothes, presented myself for examination. I was among the last, or possibly the very last. When it was over he said, "in some of the technical things you need more study. Your reading, spelling, arithmetic and gram- mar are sufficient; in your general information you are above the average," and he handed me a certificate, whether first or second grade I do not remember.
A little later, after an unsuccessful effort, because the teacher had already been employed, "over on Indian creek," I rode with Sheriff George Vol I-12
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. Child, up to the district in which the father of Harry Boyes, Henry, Sarah, . Martha and Ruth Ballard, children of Dr. Ballard then lived. George Smith was the subdirector. After a talk with him he took me to Dr. Bal- lard's, and the good old doctor approving, I was hired at $22 per month and was to board myself. Mrs. Ballard out of sympathy for an orphan boy, fighting for his first chance took me to board. The rate was the usual one for that time, $2 a week and my washing and mending. This left me $14 per month. At the school in Nevada the winter before I had become acquainted with all the children of Dr. Ballard named above, and Harry Boyes, and they all became pupils in my first school, so I had a few whom I knew to begin with. Jason D. Ferguson taught the school in the district next north of where I taught. He too had been a Macomber student and we were close friends. Never in my life, so far as the work in which I was engaged was concerned, have I had so much real enjoyment as that winter. We had in the three near districts, the one north, J. D. Fergu- son's, the one west, Keigley's, spelling schools, and declamations, and a general mingling. There were dances also, a visit to a sugar camp-I think Arrasmith's; the Musquakie Indians camped near us in the timber for a time, and there were shooting at a mark and foot races. Then came the "last day" with its declamations and essays, and a general showing off, and the separation from the bright, eager, aspiring children, and with a heavy heart I went to Nevada with my brother, who had come up to be present and take me back.
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