USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa: A Record of Settlement, Organization. > Part 38
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ing their location and moving their portion of the town, business buildings and residences, to the new town of Slater. But this is another story.
Other towns which had owed their existence to the coming of the railroads were Colo and Ontario, Colo had an immediate importance as a depot of railroad supplies for a time, and its establishment had had the effect of destroying utterly the near-by village of New Albany which never had been a considerable burg but which nevertheless had been known upon the map. Ontario was immediately adjacent to New Philadel- phia, which village it geographically superseded. But Ontario never was able to succeed to the measure of general interest and importance which New Philadelphia had enjoyed. New Philadelphia in its palmy days be- fore the railroads had been the one community center in the region about Squaw Fork, and comprising the greater part of the county west of Skunk river. Bloomington, just east of the river, had been its nearest rival and its general consequence had been variously recognized with public meetings, political debates, and Fourth of July celebrations. Ontario had obvious ad- vantages of transportation over New Philadelphia, but at the same time that Ontario was located, Ames also was founded. By common consent the business and political interest which had centered in and about New Phila- delphia was later directed to Ames.
In the south part of the county Iowa Center prospered notably. The firm of "Baldwin & Maxwell" built up there much the largest business that there has ever been in the county depending wholly upon the farmers for trade. There were not so many farmers in the county then as there are now, and such farmers as there were were not so well-to-do as is the average occupant now of his own farm; but the time was before the day of the catalog mail-order houses and what trade there was in the country, Baldwin & Maxwell very largely commanded. The firm had its head- quarters and main business at Iowa Center with important branches at Cambridge, Clyde-a little over the line from Collins township into Jas- per county-and Colo, the latter place being the one for railroad ship- ments. With such business interests at Iowa Center, and with no railroad south of about the middle of the county, excepting the narrow gauge in the extreme southwest, Iowa Center ranked distinctly next to Nevada and Ames among the towns of the county. Its only rival south of the principal towns, was Cambridge, which had rather lost in importance with the building of the narrow gauge and the transfer of traffic away from the Skunk river crossing at that place.
In this time there were but two recognized towns in the north half of the county, these being Story City and Roland. These were both "Inland" towns; for the Iowa and Minnesota narrow gauge was not extended north from Ames until late in the '70s and the Story City branch of the Iowa Cen- tral was not yet so much as projected. Story City had displaced the original town of Fairview and was probably the larger of the two northern towns, but Roland was in a township which upon the whole was better developed and
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undoubtedly was more of a unit, and with these advantages Roland was fairly holding its own in a rivalry that has not yet ceased to be more or less observable. In the northeast four townships of the county there was nothing that so much as called itself a town or village, and the nearest approach to anything of the sort was the rural settlement and strictly country postoffice at Johnson's Grove, where the mail was delivered once or twice a week by a carrier who travelled between Nevada and Eldora, stopping at Johnson's Grove and at Illinois Grove and at New Providence. In the extreme north- east corner of the county there was developing something of a settlement, but its postoffice and community center was at Illinois Grove over the line in Marshall county. For the most part the northeast quarter of the county was open prairie, a fine place for herding cattle in summer but offering nothing in the way of towns.
Of the earlier villages of the county which had been started at one time or another but which had failed to make good Defiance in the extreme south- east corner of the county had been lost sight of and Sheffield in the south- west corner of Howard township had given place to Roland; Peoria on the county line between Story and Polk counties southeast of Iowa Center was still known to the map and the post office department and continued so to be known until the coming of the Milwaukee railroad; but it had not par- ticularly developed. Bloomington in the bend of Skunk river north of Ames, had in the pioneer days been the location of a postoffice known as Camden and had been the location of the first district court, which indicted Barna- bas Lowell for the murder of his wife. But such aspirations as it may have had to become the metropolis of the Skunk river region had been blasted when the railroad passed to the south and made the station at Ames. Bloomington retained its name and its character as a neighborhood and it in fact retains them both to this day ; but as the affairs of towns are under- stood it was not a rival of Roland nor of Story City nor of Ames.
THE STANLEY TRIAL.
Probably no single event in the county during this period was of more general or continuing interest than was the trial of George Stanley for the murder of William Patterson. Not that a murder trial is something that moulds institutions, or influences greatly the subsequent course of events; but there are murder trials in which the people generally become interested and maintain their interest, and this trial was one of that sort. The matter became of such state wide interest that it was made the text of a successful campaign for the abolition of capital punishment, and it was such abolition that eventually saved Stanley from the gallows, that was at one time in the course of construction for his use. After thus having his sentence in effect commuted by the general assembly and being in consequence sent to the peni- tentiary at Ft. Madison for a life term, Stanley became a quite persistent applicant for pardon, his case coming up quite regularly before successive
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general assemblies, but not receiving any favorable consideration for many years. On the occasion of the local publication of notice of one of these applications, Mr. J. A. Fitchpatrick, who had been clerk of the court at the time of Stanley's trial, and who was one of the men most familiar with the matter, furnished the following concise statement of the case, which state- ment is here reproduced as the best to be offered. Mr. Fitchpatrick said: "At the September term 1870 of the Story county district court, George Stanley was indicted for the murder of William Patterson. The murder was committed on the 15th day of June 1870 on the railroad track just as it enters the cut on the west side of Skunk river, about 80 rods east of the depot in Ames. At the time Patterson was section foreman of the section running east of Ames. The two or three years previous he had been foreman at Ogden, and Stanley had been in his employ for a time while there. Stan- ley was a rough brutal looking fellow, but notwithstanding this fact an undue intimacy sprang up between him and Patterson's wife, which led to his dis- charge from the gang of workmen. Stanley after his discharge attacked Pat- terson with a club, striking him over the head several times and in the fracas Patterson managed to stab Stanley with a knife several times, inflicting se- rious wounds, laying him up for several weeks. While he was confined with his wounds several of the good people of Ogden tried to prevail upon him to file information against Patterson, but he declined to do so, saying that he was the aggressor and Patterson was not to blame, but he declared that if he recovered and should meet Patterson he would kill him. Patterson was finally indicted and tried at Boone in April 1870 and acquitted, Stanley ap- pearing as the principal witness against him. After this trial Stanley declared himself to be a 'bull-dog,' and when once he undertook to down a man he would never let up and said 'I will kill Patterson yet.'
"Stanley was first identified as seen in Ames on June 13th. At that time just opposite the scene of the murder, and about thirty feet north of the track, a deep gully had been washed out, leaving a high embankment of dirt between it and the track. On this day he was seen by Mrs. Nellie E. Gregory going into that gully about 5 o'clock in the evening. Gregorys at the time lived just south of the track. She saw him again the next day raising up out of the gully just after Patterson and his men had passed on their way to work, viewing them closely, but acting as if he did not want to be seen.
"On the evening of June 15th, Patterson left his work in the cut east of the river about 5 o'clock, telling the men he was going to town and gave them instructions to finish the jobs they were at and then come in. The men started in near six o'clock and upon reaching the spot opposite the gully they found Patterson's dead body lying across the track with two bullet wounds in his head-one entering the eye and coming out the opposite ear and the other full in the top of the head going downward. An old rusty revolver with one empty cartridge shell, the chamber also rusty and showing no signs of recent firing was found near him and also a box of cartridges. Patterson was never known to carry a revolver.
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"Mrs Eleanor Bradley, still residing in Ames, heard a shot and saw a man running but thought nothing strange of it at the time. The same evening Stanley called at the house of A. Dayton in the west part of Nevada asking for a drink of water and appearing very warm and excited. The next day he was seen at Liscomb, Marshall county, and asked for and secured a ride to Eldora. W. H. Carnick, mail agent on the train, noticed him and told him he answered the description of the man Stanley, who had murdered Pat- terson at Ames. He said he had never been at Ames and did not know Pat- terson. The day following he was arrested near Eldora and at the next session of the grand jury was indicted. He was tried at the April term A. D. 1871 of the Story County district court. Messrs. Boardman and Brown of Marshalltown and Dan McCarthy of Ames appeared as his attorneys; he was ably defended : the jury after a short deliberation returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree and he was sentenced to be hanged.
"The case was appealed to the Supreme court on technical grounds, Hon. G. W. Ball of Iowa City appearing for him on appeal, and February 24th 1872 the court affirmed the judgment of the lower court (33 Iowa page 526.) The court says: 'Weighing the evidence before us most cautiously, and con- sidering it all with great care, we are thoroughly satisfied that the jury were authorized thereon, without a reasonable doubt to convict the prisoner. The grave duty is imposed upon us which we discharge with a due sense of our responsibility to God and the state, to pronounce the decision of this court confirming the judgment of the court below, condemning the prisoner to suffer the extreme penalty prescribed by the law for the heinous crime of which he stands convicted.' The opinion was written by the late Chief Jus- tice Beck and the case was well considered. '
"The time for the execution was fixed for early in April, 1872. The tim- bers were on the ground and workmen had been engaged to erect the scaf- fold. In the meantime the legislature had passed the law abolishing capital punishment and only the day previous to that fixed for carrying out the sentence of the court, Governor Carpenter sent a special messenger with a commutation of sentence to that of imprisonment for life.
"The foregoing are the cold facts gleaned from the record in the case. That the murder was most foully committed after lying in wait for at least three days for that purpose, no one who heard the trial doubted at the time and there has been no occasion for change of views since.
"While under sentence Stanley was a docile and well behaved prisoner in every way. He settled down meekly to submit to his punishment whatever it might be. Upon one occasion the other prisoners confined with him broke jail and escaped. Stanley could have gone but refused to go saying that it was 'too cold to venture out.' Nothing is known here of his antecedents. Whether or not he had any relatives living did not develop upon the trial."
Mr. Fitchpatrick did not at this time take the position that Stanley should not under any circumstances or at any time receive a pardon, and in fact a few years later, having in the meantime been elected to the state
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senate, he gave the consent that was essential to Stanley's pardon. This was in 1902 when Stanley had been in prison for thirty years. Stanley had be- come the prisoner of much the longest service in the penitentiary and though still in his '50s as to age, he was broken down by his prison life. The relatives who were not known of at the time of his trial or for many years afterwards had made their appearance, and when Stanley was finally re- leased in the year stated they met him at the prison and took him back to his native state of Maine, whence there has been of him no further report.
THE KIRKMAN MURDER.
One other murder belongs to this period, that of Geo M. Kirkman in the early summer of 1875. Mr. Kirkman had been one of the very earliest set- tiers of the county, having located on its extreme southern border, a little east of the creek, in 1851. He appears to have come to the county with more means than was the case with very many of the pioneers, and he took up a good farm, improved and enlarged it and was counted one of the dis- tinctly successful men of his neighborhood. He was a man of positive character and had both friends and enemies. To a certain extent this condi- dition obtained at home and there had been family quarrels that were more or less known to the neighborhood. Whether these quarrels had anything to do with his murder, is a question that never was tried out in court and con- cerning which the people of the neighborhood have always been very chary about expressing opinions. The fact is that some time after there had been an apparent reconciliation of the family disagreements, Mr. Kirkman was one night dragged from his bed by some men who entered the house and was hanged to a small tree in his orchard near by. The matter was made the the subject of earnest investigation by a coroner's jury consisting of E. W. Lockwood, Wm. Lockbridge and W. K. Wood; but the jury was not able to fasten the crime upon parties suspected or on anyone else either within or out- side of the family. Two or three of the sons-in-law and one or two other parties were arrested but no indictments were returned against them and they were soon released. Whoever were concerned were able to keep their own counsel and if they are still living are to be credited with having done so for more than 35 years. The Kirkman mystery has never been unravelled and is not likely now to be.
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CHAPTER XXXI.
GENERAL CONDITIONS FOLLOWING THE WAR.
In the decade following the war as before suggested, there was in this part of the country a very rapid development, and this development was the subject not merely of local enthusiasm but also of extended outside com- ment. Of the outside commentators none was better qualified to observe dis- criminatingly and to write instructively, than was Benj. F. Taylor of Chicago. In the Fall of 1866 he made a journey of observation through this section and his comments were published first in the Chicago Journal and soon after were locally reprinted under the title of "Lake Michigan to the Missouri."
Mr. Taylor was one of the most gifted writers and speakers that ever graced the American press and platform. He was long connected with the Chicago Journal, which was then the leading Republican paper of the North- west ; he was actively engaged at times in lecturing, and a lecture which he gave in the regular course in Nevada in the winter of 1884 or 1885 is one of the best remembered of all the lectures that have ever been given here. He was also a poet, and one or two of his poems are among the pro- ductions that rank as the rarest in American literature. What such a man could see when he started out to cross Illinois and Iowa by the yet incom- plete line of the Northwestern was therefore what could be seen by one of the best trained and worthiest observers of that time. It is in fact definite rec- ord from which to measure the general development of the country along the route as achieved up to that time, Mr. Taylor said :
WHAT BENJ. F. TAYLOR SAW.
Iowa, September, 1886 .- A broad date; but you cannot better it; for taking its story and its promise, a man ought to be proud to live anywhere in Iowa. A little while ago-hardly longer than an aloe is getting ready to blossom-there was a splendid wilderness of more than fifty thousand square miles lying between the two great rivers of the continent. It had magnificent woods that stood up grandly before the Lord; it had glorious rivers that flowed on idly to the sea; it had prairies that undulated away, dotted with great island groves and spangled with jessamines, roses and vio- lets; it had valleys fair as the valley of Sharon. It was a part of Louisi-
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WARE
STREET SCENE IN COLO
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ana, within the domains of New France and was laid down very dimly upon the map. It was not a state; it was not a territory, but just a part of God's uninhabited globe waiting for the coming men. Ninety years ago there was not a white man in all its empire; in 1541 De Soto discovered it; in 1573 a man who could not speak the English tongue paddled along a river now called Des Moines-I crossed it an hour ago-and saw footsteps in the sand upon the shore and a slender trail drawn across the wilderness as if to score it out from the open book of civilization. He followed it and found a red man's dwelling. And so this empire was rediscovered. That man was Marquette.
About the last year of the seventeenth century Hennepin discovered it again; and so it was born a third time upon human vision, and has never gone out of sight. Seventy-eight years ago the most gracious Castilian granted to Julien Dubuque the "mines of Spain," and strangely enough, they lay in the wilderness clasped by the two great rivers, and a few pioneers burrowed like gophers in the mines of Spain. And they handed this domain about the mighty sisterhood, much as an admirable infant of our household. Louisiana passed it to Michigan Territory, and she took care of it three years. She reared it into two counties, each with one township in it. That was thirty-two years ago. It was too poor to be named, and Wisconsin took the motherless child and gave it a few laws of her own to use for lack of better. It was the Black Hawk purchase. In 1883 it was born a territory and twenty-eight years ago last Fourth of July it was formally christened Iowa-Iowa the Drowsy, some say, but not so. A band of Indians seeking that home beheld it and loved it and cried out "Iowa, Iowa, this is the place." And what a splendid vision! All the planet between the Mississippi and the Missouri north to the British possessions-195,000 square miles-and there it was fresh from the moccasined foot of the Sacs and Foxes. At length about the last days of December, 1846, an audible knock from hereaway was heard at the Federal door. Iowa stood upon the threshold, was admitted and became a sovereign state.
I took up a gazette the other day-true a few summers ago as the books of Moses-to find whither I was going; and I read in types very small and very contemptuous : "Iowa-bounded on the north by the British territory of the Hudson Bay Company. The Indian title is not extinguished."
I learned too that Iowa had eighteen counties; that 355 souls were en- gaged in commerce throughout this empire; that 154,000 bushels of wheat had been growing at one time within its borders; and twenty thousand cows came home to the milking; I looked for Clinton county and found it, but no accidental dot upon the map betrayed the existence of one of the towns and cities now strung like jewels along the Iowa division of the Chicago & Northwestern railroad and flung like a necklace across the state.
I am crossing this empire today; have looked upon a few faces of its 775,000, souls; upon its growing corn; have seen its pastures flecked with Vol. 1-22
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a million and a half of sheep. I number its two and a half millions of swine and its million cattle, whose delegations have gone squeaking and lowing across the continent from the Atlantic seaboard at the rate of twenty miles an hour. I think of its two hundred thousand acres of meadow rippling in the sun its five millions of broad acres under the plow ; its twelve and a half million bushels of wheat; its fifty million bushels of corn; its heads of three hundred and ten thousand cows coming home to the milking; its ciaughters who made last year almost fifteen million pounds of butter- enough to lubricate the axles of time-and a million pounds of cheese. I count its seven hundred and fifty churches, its forty colleges, crowning its heights like fair young queens upon their thrones, its seven thousand schools and their three hundred and twenty-five thousand young candidates for the kingdom of heaven. I treasure its hundred and twenty thousand homes, and I glory in this wilderness of Louisiana, this Black Hawk purchase, this sovereign state, white and a-flutter like a snowy day with a newspaper cir- culation of ten millions of copies. And so Iowa keeps magnificent step to the march of empire; and so I began with, "a man ought to be proud to live anywhere in Iowa."
But she has done more and more grandly; for she has changed that step and there in the forefront has kept time to the music of the Union. Out of the breathless wilderness of ninety years ago eighty-four thousand and seventeen-I linger lovingly on the number-Boys in Blue have swelled the Federal legions. There has been precisely time enough since 1840 to grow one man to prime, and in that year of grace there were not so many human beings in all the state by more than forty thousand. She had forty-three thousand men, women and children, all told, in 1840, and seventy-one sol- diers in the army. Four batteries have spoken for her; eleven regiments of cavalry have heard the bugles and thundered to the charge; fifty regiments of infantry have closed up the solid front and fifteen thousand fallen. And what heroes they were, and how splendid the record they have made for Iowa, liberty and God! How rich the meaning they have lent the legend of their coat of arms: "Our liberties we prize-our rights we will main- tain." The grand staple of Iowa never took root in her soil-Men. I can- not forget that when the call was made in December 1864 for two hundred thousand men, there were twelve thousand and eighty men to spare over all calls, that no such thing as a conscript ever hailed from Iowa, that it raised a splendid harvest of soldiers, and they were all volunteers. Of a truth, those "mines of Spain" they told of are emblematic of the state: they have lead enough in their mines to persuade creation to be loyal-they have the lead and they almost take the lead.
But all these things have gone into history. They could never be evolved in a trip to Nebraska. They do not belong in a wayside letter at all. And yet, sitting here on the bank of the Missouri, and thinking over the way I have come-across the Fox and Rock rivers; across the Mississippi; across the Cedar ; the Iowa, the Des Moines; across two states-thinking of the two
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days I rattled on by rail-Chicago and Northwestern all the time-, of being dropped helplessly at the present terminus of the road, two hundred and fifty-nine miles west of the Mississippi and three hundred and ninety- seven from Chicago, to find my way as best I could one hundred and twenty more to the Missouri; of the splendid wilderness you traversed, the un- fenced, unplowed, unparalleled world whose disc you move over-all day today and not a house-all day tomorrow and the next and not an engine in hearing to whistle civilization up. Thinking over all this you will almost wonder, as I did, how all that glorious thunder of battle could have broken out of the clear sky of Iowa, whence came all the wealth of flock, herd, har- vest and host that gives the state a place among the powers of the Northwest ; putting this and that together it had all the charm of a young miracle. The bottle with the giant in it was nothing to his wilderness with a world in it.
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