USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa: A Record of Settlement, Organization. > Part 3
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HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY'
numerous shallow basins, where the water inevitably and naturally gath- ers. The reason for this state of affairs has to be learned from the geolo- gist, who delves into the history of the world many ages before man dwelt here. According to these authorities, there were times, long eons apart, when for causes not well understood, great floods of ice, wide in extent and of indefinite but very great depth, slid from the North down over the prairies of the upper Mississippi Valley, grinding off the surface, and when they melted and receded, left where they had been vast quantities of debris. The general effect of such passage of fields of ice or glaciers over the country was to plane off the irregularities in the surface of the ground, and leave the ground substantially flat, save for the deposits of rough gravel and rock that were left when the ice melted and the ice cap receded. Naturally, however, when the ice melted and the vast quantities of water produced by the melting run away, the surface of the country over which the water should run and upon which the rains and floods of subsequent periods might fall, would be very materially worn and chan- neled and, as the geologists say, eroded. If another glacier came down, but did not actually go over the given piece of territory, there would be the effects of eroism without the effects of smoothing. As a matter of fact, as the geologists tell us, this process was several times repeated in Iowa, nearly all the state being covered by glaciers twice, and a great part of the North half of the state on two other occasions. The natural condi- tion was that the North half of the State got the larger amount of planing off and the South half the larger amount of washings out; so it comes about that the South half of Iowa is a very much rougher country than is the North half and has very few places where water is likely to stand, but the north half of the State, and particularly that portion of the North central part of the State lying west and North from Story County, had more of the planing and less of the washing than any other part of the State. This is a fact pertaining to which there is scientific agreement, and, because of this fact, we have in Story County, and to the North and West of it, an expanse of country where the streams are shallow, the bottoms wide and the natural drainage of the country very imperfect. Such a condition of the country implies nothing in the way of derogation when the land is once properly improved. Upon the contrary, the broad and level fields across which the plow can be driven for half a mile or more without turn, are the ones which can be tilled with the greatest economy, and from which the finest crops can be raised, but before this agricultural perfection can be achieved, the work of nature must be supplemented by the work of man, and the channels for drainage which nature has neglected to furnish must be artificially supplied. To meet this necessity, there must be expended much of labor and of money, and it is only as men can see the prospective profits from such expenditure that they will go to the necessary trouble and expense.
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HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
So the condition of which we have been speaking operated in two ways. In the beginning, it retarded the settlement and growth of the County. Marshall County to the East was broken up and drained by the Iowa River and Boone to the West similarly broken up and drained by the Des Moines, but the Skunk was not a big enough River to furnish similar drainage to Story County ; and so the Pioneer, like the Indian before him, found in Story County conditions with which, relying upon limited and primitive resources, it was difficult satisfactorily to cope. Of course, the Pioneer did come. He picked the pieces of land that were the better drained. When these were gone, he picked others not so well drained, but nevertheless picked them because they were cheap, and because the general tide of migration had passed on beyond, following generally the uplands, and had left him here something which, though not so valuable at the time, was yet within his means to secure; but as years passed by and as markets and conditions changed, the very circumstance which had made Story County, in the beginning, unattractive as compared with other coun- ties in similar general situation, has tended to make the County about the best there is. The construction of drainage in the form of County ditches by the community and of local drainage through tile laid by the farmer, are matters of trouble and expense, but troubles and expense which, once surmounted and met, yield to the farmer wide areas of rich, profitable, arable land. It has taken Story County sixty years to win its just place among the agricultural counties of Iowa, but in the sixty years from having a reputation of a flat, swampy and undesirable County, it has gained the reputation of a well drained and very desirable county. All the labor and expense that have been necessary to attain the end have been well invested, but the investment has been slow; and the fact that the investment was necessary has had a great bearing on the history of the County.
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CHAPTER III.
GENERAL VIEW-(CONTINUED).
Whether this fact, that in Story County it was necessary for the pioneer to look a little farther ahead for his results than it was necessary for him to look in many other counties, had anything to do with getting for this County an exceptionally far-sighted and substantial class of citizenship, it might be difficult to say, but undoubtedly Story County did get early, and has steadily added to, a splendid body of citizenship. The first settlers are understood to have come on largely from Indiana, and coming as they did from a wooded country, and being also under the necessity of looking out for the question of fuel, they kept in the first instance pretty close to the streams, but they came here with the best intentions and the substantial pur- pose to build up the country. Among them, of course, there was an element of undesirables; but the woods and groves of Story County were not suffi- ciently extensive or numerous to offer to very many of that particular class the sort of surroundings which they have been found generally to prefer; and somehow the flotsam and jetsam of the frontier never reached Story County in any considerable numbers. For the earliest tide of migration, as before noted, had been up along the Rivers east and west of Story and not across the County ; so the people who came here were people looking for a place, not for the moment but to establish their homes; and as one goes over the names of the pioneers, it is a matter of surprise to find how many there were who came perhaps from a considerable distance, locating here for reasons, at this distance, not easy to analyze, but who, having located here, seem to have had no thought of ever moving out. Perhaps of the original settlers, there are not very many now to be found here, but there are a number; while there are many more who are gone, not because they wanted to move further west, but because, in the course of time, it has fallen to them to pay the last debt of nature, or else because, having ac- cumulated in Story County the fortune which it was their aspiration here to accumulate, they have gone on to some clime, supposed to be more favored with sunshine all the year round, to spend the income of their Iowa accumulation.
Abundant examples of this truth come readily to mind. The first As- sessor of Story County still lives at Ames, and has been counseled with on
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HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
the subject of this History. The founder of Nevada, T. E. Alderman, died here but a few years ago. Men who participated in the election to organize the County in 1853, including (W. K. Wood of Iowa Center, I. S. French of Colo, and perhaps others, still live in the County. The Mother of the second child born in Nevada, Mrs. Hannah Kellogg and her daughter, Mrs. Dyer, both live here yet. It is a little more than a dozen years since old Judge Evans, the first County Judge of the County, passed away at Ames. The Ballards and others who settled early in the Northwest part of the County, are still living about here. Old Mr. Utterback has passed to his reward, as have Wm. Arrasmith and others, but members of their families are still here about. H. C. (Wickham was one of the original settlers near Illinois Grove, and lives on the same old farm which he entered and on which he reared his large family. Handsaker and Hyden have not long gone. The Hague family is still well known. The Carrs and Kirkmans and Parkers are yet represented in the County which they helped to found in its early days. There was a permanency about much of the settlement that is signifi- cant of the substantial worth of the people who first came here, and of the general fixity of their purpose.
Not in the earliest years but in the first decade, there was a movement here that perhaps has counted more than any other one similar movement upon the character of the county and its population. This movement relates to the coming of the Norwegians. Theirs was in the beginning not a strag- gling movement, nor one in which a number of individuals of family re- lationship or previous personal association joined their efforts, but it was a matter of deliberate colonization. An emigration from Norway to Illinois had been started a few years before and considerable numbers of Nor- wegians had located in Northern Illinois, but they were looking for lands at near the government price, and their numbers had became such as to make practicable a concerted effort at colonization, and they sent a committee out into Iowa to see what they could find. This committee looked over the Country, just how much of it, we are unable to say; but after looking around quite thoroughly and enough to satisfy them of the soundness of their judgment, they picked out a tract in what is now Howard Township and there founded the village of Roland and to that locality removed their Illinois settlement. Not long after, a similar, but perhaps more individual movement, was made by Norwegians from Illinois and Wisconsin and Nor- way into Palestine Township, and from these two settlements have spread the Norwegian colonies in the County. Growth of these colonies has been steady and great. It was not long, of course, before the newcomers came directly from Norway for the most part, rather than by stages through Illi- nois and Wisconsin, but, however they came, they occupied the country, improved it and developed interests of notable prosperity which have entered conspicuously into all the affairs and developments of the County.
In measuring the development of a County like Story, a record of the census reveals very imperfectly the real status and progress of the County.
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HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
It tells the numbers but not the sorts. It indicates nothing of the institu- tions of the State or public affairs or the real life of the people; yet their successive census reports do show from time to time how rapidly a com- munity is increasing, and one is permitted to guess that the material devel- opment is somewhat parallel to the growth in numbers. At any rate, the census reports should be here set down. In the early days of the State, it was the rule to take a census in nearly or quite every year ; while, of course, the Federal census was taken every decennial year. The first record of population in Story County ought to have been made in 1849 or 1850; but, in fact, there is no record to be found of any census for these years, and the undoubted fact was, that such settlement as existed in Story in these years, was so very small and scattering, that the Census Taker from another County, to which Story County might, for convenience, have been attached, found little encouragement to hunt for the few scattered settlers in this County. So Story County does not appear even in the Federal Census of 1850 as having as yet any permanent population. The original and con- tinuous census record begins with the State Census of 1852, and from that time forward the several enumerations are here set down, those for the de- cennial years being totals of the Federal census for such years, and those for other years being the total of the State Census taken in the years in- dicated. The several totals are as follows:
1852
214
1870 11,651
1854
822
1873
11,519
1856
2,868
1875
13,31I
1859
3,826
1880
16,906
1860
4,051
1885
17,527
1863
4,368
1890
18,127
1865
5,918
1900
23,159
1867
6,888
1905
23,660
1869
9,347
1910
24,083
Some further suggestion of the beginnings and development of Story County and of Central Iowa is afforded by maps, which have been published from time to time and which have come variously to later attention. One such map was published in 1841, at which time the territory of Iowa ex- tended from Missouri to the British Dominions, and this shows that there were then but 18 organized Counties in the territory. In this map, Wapello in the North-Western corner of Van Buren County, was the furthermost County in Iowa toward the setting sun, near where is now the City of Ot- tuma and were the Indian villages Appanoose, Wapello and Keokuk. Linn was then the farthest recognized County West in the Latitude of Story.
Another map published in 1850 shows that there were then 39 organized Counties in the State: half of the State was then a wilderness inhabited by the Winnebago, Sacs and Foxes and Sioux or Decotah Indians. West of Winneshiek and Winnebago and Fayette Counties and extending in a
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HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
Southwesterly direction, was the neutral ground heretofore mentioned, as dividing the country of the Sioux from that of the Sacs and Foxes. West of Boone and Dallas is the Sac and Fox Country; West of Madison and clear as far as the Missouri, was the land of the Pottawattomies. A few people then inhabited the Southern tier of Counties West of Davis, but the town farthest west was Garden Grove in Decatur County. There was then no town noted in Blackhawk County, and the town farthest west in the central belt of Counties was Vinton, while Cedar Rapids and Marshalltown had not yet sufficiently developed to be noted on the map.
A third map of a similar period was published in 1851. The government survey then extended as far North-West as Ft. Dodge and as far Southwest as Corning, but correction lines only had been carried West to the Mis- souri. The principal towns of the Southeast and the eastern border had been located, but the frontier points as yet recognized were Independence, Vinton, Marengo, Newton, Adel, Winterset, Council Bluffs, and somehow Boonsborough had found a place by the name of Booneville, and Timber Creek had made its appearance in Marshall County, these being the only towns west of Vinton. Another mark of the white man farther west, how- ever, was "Floyd's grave" on the east side of the Missouri where Sioux City now is, which mark was commemorative of the Sergeant of the Lewis and Clark expedition, who died and was buried there. Even in both of these two later maps, all there was of Story was the square upon the area of the State. While, of course, the map first mentioned antedated even the naming of the County.
In trying to comprehend the period of the early settlement of the County, as well as the still earlier period in which settlement was delayed, it is im- possible to attach too great importance to the influence of Skunk River and of the early slough. These matters have both been before referred to but not at all in proportion to their significance. It has been noted that the tim- bered and more broken country along the Iowa and Des Moines Rivers was more attractive to the early settler and to the aborigine before him than was a comparatively open and imperfectly drained area such as that of Story County. It has also been noted that Skunk River had not cut its valley so deeply as had these other rivers, with the effect that its bottom lands were proportionately wider and much more boggy, but such evidence only suggests the truth as it has been made plain in almost every review that one is able to find of pioneer conditions in this part of the country.
There is no doubt about it that Skunk bottom was something awful, and pioneer tales are replete with illustrations of the difficulties of crossing it. Of course, after a time some crossings were definitely established, but they were far apart and difficult to reach, and were also subject to frequent inter- ruptions from the rise of the River. In Story County, the only convenient crossing, or at least, the one farthest down, was in the vicinity, as it is now known, of Hennum's mill, North of Ames, in Franklin Township. In this vicinity, there was a practicable ford, and crossing this ford, some of
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HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
the earliest settlers made their way, not westward, as might be naturally assumed from the time and general circumstances, but eastward from Boone County to which locality they had made their way over a more practicable route of travel than was afforded across Story County. South of this point, the bottom widened rapidly and continued in a more or less boggy condition, principally more, practically to the junction with the Mississippi. As the Country developed in the Southeastern part of the State, of course, roads and bridges were constructed across this River and its bottom, but it was some time after the considerable settlement of Story County before an artificial crossing that was at all to be relied upon was made in this County.
The first such crossing was made near Cambridge, but it was not till 1866 that the claim was put forward for this crossing that it was permanent. This matter is so important that it deserves some further elaboration. As late as November, 1866, we find Skunk bottom referred to in the Nevada paper, as this "Slough of Despond," with a statement that it is in a fair way to be dried up. A subscription had been circulated among the people of Nevada and Cambridge and other interested localities, which subscription, added to the County Appropriation of $400, made more than a year before but apparently yet unused, was regarded as sufficient for the building of a cause-way across the lowlands, so as to make the road to Des Moines by this route again passable. The next summer, in connection with a notice of re- turning delegates from the Republican State Convention at Des Moines, it is noted that these gentlemen had a "glorious time on the broad avenue of the Skunk. The crossing is about a mile wide at Cambridge, and at this season is generally covered with from two to four feet of water, underlaid with an unfathomable depth of mud. Delegates, candidates, and all men of whatever dignity or profession who would fain cross Skunk, must strip to the buff and wade. We were not there to see, but can easily imagine the graceful picture of primitive purity presented by the noble aspect of this group of editors, senators and the Lieutenant Governor at their head, man- fully buffetting the raging waters of the classic Skunk," to which descrip- tion is added the facetious suggestion that there was a dry crossing a little further up on the railroad bridge at Ames.
In this connection it should be borne definitely in mind that at the time here referred to, this Skunk crossing at Cambridge was on the main traveled route from the North-eastern quarter of the State to the State Capital. The politicians and dignitaries who were made the subject of the above satire were making this crossing because Nevada was the point at which travelers by rail from the northeastern part of the State left or took the cars on their way to or from Des Moines; and remembering this, it is worth while to note another experience of about the same time. The Chronicler on this occasion was some Reporter of the Des Moines Register, who re- ports as follows: "The announcement is regretfully made that Senator Richards, while locomoting through Skunk bottom on his way home, got tangled in some matted grass, fell forward toward the soil and suffered from
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HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
an unexpected immersion. It is believed, too, certain other men found Jor- dan a 'hard road to travel,' and planted themselves very deeply in one or more cases. Such things will happen in this Western Country, where the stage company, and not county corporations, is expected to make roads, build bridges and do all the repairing which is required by the travel of the State. With Skunk bottom out of the way, Nevada is about thirty miles from Des Moines; with Skunk bottom in the way, Captain Cook's three voyages around the world, and Pope's aerial flight to the moon were small circumstances compared with a trip from the capital to Nevada."
To follow up the story a little farther, it should be noted with the County appropriation and subscription before noted, there was actually constructed a causeway, but the bridge to which the causeway led appears still to have been something of a private affair; for in January, 1868, it is recorded that the Board of Supervisors had arranged the toll fee for the Skunk River bridge at Cambridge, which was hoped to "give greater satis- faction than heretofore existing. In consideration of $300 from the County Treasurer, to Mr. Billings, the operator under license, this gentleman is to issue family passes good for one year to bona fide residents of the County at the rate of $1.00. This ticket will allow the head of a family and all its members free passage on presentation, across the bridge. Transient travel- ers will pay the same toll as heretofore established."
With such demonstration of what the Skunk River crossing was, on the main route, 15 years after the settlement of the County, one is permitted to let his imagination run at will as to what that crossing was before there had been any systematic attempt to make the same practicable and passable. As a matter of fact, it manifestly was not to be attempted, excepting under favorable conditions and at low water in the River. The effect was that the early emigrant who was properly advised, did not attempt the crossing. If he wanted to reach from his eastern home some point on the west side of the river, he landed on the West Bank of the Mississippi below the mouth of the River, and made his overland trip where there was no river to cross. If, on the contrary, he was on the eastern side of the River and desired to reach some point on the West, he was very likely to change his mind and go somewhere else. When the earliest settlers of the County actually did get into the County, coming from east or west of Skunk, they stayed on their respective sides of the River; and in fact, it was not determined until 1876, whether the first settler on the west side or the first settler on the east side was the earliest settler of the County, it having been years after the settle- ment by both before either knew that the other was in the County.
But what is told in a particular sense about Skunk River was true also in a general sense, though probably in a less degree, of the sloughs that threaded the prairie, particularly of such counties as Story, in many di- rections. Of course, the traveller, when he could do so, followed the divides between the sloughs just as the emigrant to central Iowa preferably came from Keokuk up the divide between the Skunk and the Des Moines, but the
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HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
divides would never lead far enough in one direction to enable the traveller to keep to them uniformly, and between them, it was necessary, from time to time, to cross the intervening slough. Hon. Chas. Aldrich, who was a pioneer editor in this portion of Iowa, and, in his later years, founder and curator of the Iowa Historical library, has written a tribute to "The old Prairie Slough," which affords as good an understanding of the matter as it is possible now for one of the later generation to get. He says; "Among the characteristic landmarks of old Iowa, which are now becoming obselete, the prairie slough was conspicuous and most necessary to be reckoned with. During the Springs and Summers of long ago, one heard about them. They were the terror of the travelers, and the Western Stage Company was often compelled, by the bottomless condition of the roads, to abandon their coaches and use common lumber wagons instead. A long and strong rope was often indispensable. It was tied to the tongue of the vehicle, which had had been sloughed down, and the teams were placed out on solid ground where they could pull their very utmost. It was sometimes necessary to pry up the wheels, and it came to be a saying that the traveller must carry a fence rail in order to do his part of the business." In making his first journey in 1857 from Dubuque to Webster City, Mr. Aldrich says : "We had several times to unload our lumber wagon and carry our freight across by hand. In the outskirts of the village of Independence, we saw a wagon, with a much lighter load than ours, stuck in the center of a wide slough. How the poor man and team were extracted from this forlorn place, we never knew; for they were too far out in the mud and water for us to at- tempt to reach them." From many an old timer does the story come down that, in starting out for any considerable journey, it was really not a proper thing for one man and team to start alone, but, on the contrary, prudence re- quired that two or more go and keep together in order that when one should get mired down in one of the inevitable sloughs, the other with his team would be there to help him out; and such were the recognized difficulties thus to be encountered and the courage and persistence necessary to over- come them that the local politician who desired to set forth his strongest claim for the consideration and gratitude of his pioneer neighbors, would be moved to claim that he had "waded sloughs" for their interest and benefit.
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