USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa; a record of organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 14
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It was the 27th of October in 1852 that I first came to this county- to Ames? No, Lord bless your life, there wasn't any. I settled on a squatter's claim about a mile northeast of the present site of Ames (on s. e. 14 sec. 35. township 84, range 24). Some of the real history mak- ing events which you can find in any Iowa history were very firmly im- pressed on my mind in those first years. Story County was organized in 1853, in the month of April under the supervision of Judge McCall of Boone County who divided the county into two townships for election purposes. The west half he called Skunk Township and the east half Indian Creek Township. I was at the organization and at the first election but lacked a few days of being a legal voter.
As they neglected to elect a county assessor at that first election I was appointed to that office by Judge E. C. Evans to take the assessment in July, 1853. At that time there were 109 families in the county, most of whom lived in tents or wagons. In my first assessment I found one man, Wm. Parker, who said he had settled in the southeast corner of the county in 1849, and I judged he had from the looks of things around. In April, 1854, I was elected to the office of school fund commissioner, which office is now extinct. While acting in that capacity I sold several pieces of school lands. Among others a quarter section each to Wm. K. Wood,
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Jesse Wood, and Chris Wood. Wm. K. Wood, is living on the same land today.
The first court was held in Judge Evans' cabin on the Skunk river, be- fore Nevada was located. At that time Barnabas Lowell was arraigned and indicted for the murder of his wife. He was later convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. I had the pleasure of helping put the irons on the old fellow.
Joe Thrift, of Boone County, and Johnson Edgar (of Jasper County ) located Nevada. I lived in a cabin on the Skunk river at the time Joe was making his first investigations and witnessed an amusing incident that I used to tell on Joe occasionally. After he got him in the water Joe's horse decided not to swim and turned over on his side until he rolled Joe off into the stream which was pretty much swollen at the time. Then the horses struck out and swam and beat Joe across, and stood on the bank and waited all dripping for Joe who came out also dripping and in not the best temper.
Judge McFarland presided at the first term of court held in Nevada, at which time court was held in a cabin that stood on the lot now occupied by the opera house in Nevada. At this term I was admitted to the bar. Many stories are told of the old judge and I remember one of his friends said in those early days that the judge couldn't sit on a case intelligently unless he had a quart of brandy in him. In the mornings Judge McFar- land would go out and kill enough prairie chickens to last us all day and Mrs. Alderman would cook them for ns.
There was plenty of the simple life in those days with no special effort made to get back to nature. The country was full of game, elk, deer, wolves. foxes, and the like. At one time I remember my brother-in-law. H. J. liestand, and 1 stood still on a piece of prairie just north of where Ames is now situated and counted 52 deer grazing in the hollow. Counting all your circuses you have probably never seen more than a dozen in your life. have you? Well in those days they were no curiosity and it was well for us that they were so plentiful. Venison was a staple and add to it corn bread. fat pork, potatoes and coffee and you have very nearly the sum total of the unprinted menu of the times. We had no fruit, no Knick-nacks and what groceries we had to buy, we got in Des Moines and the trip took three or four days. We did most of our hanling with oxen, and when we were first settling I used to take my own grain and that of all the neigh- bors behind from 4 to 6 yokes of oxen to Oskaloosa to be milled. The mail was also an occasion for travel, as the nearest postoffice was at Boons- borough, now the fifth ward of Boone. I remember too, that the lumber for the first frame house in this county was hauled from up on Boone river. Traveling was no simple matter either with oxen or horses. A good deal of land was not cleared and we had great times getting across rivers. There were no bridges and there was much more high water in the streams here than there is now. Men often swam their horses across unless the horse was
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of an independent turn of mind like Joe Thrift's. We frequently had visits from the Musquakie Indians who would camp on Skunk bottom in the winters. My children played with the Indian children often out in the woods. The Indians would never eat with the whites, but they were honest and straight and always peaceable.
In June, 1853. I. N. Briley, who now is a resident of Ames, was born, and he was the first white boy born in the county and my son Sam was the second.
The government land sales were interesting affairs. We had to go to Des Moines and wait until our township was called before we could enter our land and sometimes this required a wait of several days. It seems as though the early settlers had implicit confidence in each other as to their honesty and integrity, and an incident at one of the land sales that I recall is indicative of a very general attitude. Judge E. C. Evans was in the land office at Des Moines waiting his time when another man whom he did not know and in fact had never seen before, came in and while they were both waiting they compared notes on the length of their prospective waits, and finding they would each have to wait two or three days before they could enter their land, the stranger, a Mr. Sowers, said it would be foolish for them both to remain in Des Moines when one could do the business. So he gave Judge Evans the description of the land, three 80 acre lots, which he wished to enter and gave him $300 in gold with which to buy the land and went home. Before he saw or heard from the land he had forgotten the name of the Judge. but afterwards by accident met him and received receipts for his money from the land office. This was a case of absolutely depending on honor. Judge Evans later went one time to enter land for himself and neighbors and had so much gold coin that he put it in a sack and carried it in front of his saddle. The men of those days sometimes carried as much as $3,000 or $4,000 on their journeys and carried it fearlessly.
ATTY. A. K. WEBB.
A. K. Webb has lived in Story County for the most of his life buit is now in the practice of law at Wagner, Oklahoma. Writing from that place in June, 1910, he said :
"My parents, Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Webb, came from the state of In- diana to lowa in the spring of 1848 and settled at Trullinger's Grove in Polk county, three miles north of where Mitchellville is now located. Our first need was that of a cow; and. being short on money, Father and we boys cut and split 3,000 rails for Eli Trullinger for the needed cow. In the spring of 1852, we moved from Polk County to Story County and settled on the old home farm near Iowa Center, a town which was subsequently surveyed and platted by Jeremiah Cory, Jr., in 1853 or 4. This farm remained the family home during the life time of my parents. Father built and operated the first saw mill and flouring mill in Story County. It was near lowa Center. I
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was present, as a boy, and saw the commissioners drive the stake that located the county seat of Story County at what is now known as Nevada, Iowa. I had walked most of the way from Iowa Center to witness the great trans- action, and I remembered well the heavy rain that overtook us on the way up. Nearly all who witnessed the exciting scene of that day have passed beyond the River of Death."
THE STOLEN MILL.
Another story which is not told on the authority of Major O'Brien but which is told of a matter concerning him by one that is supposed to know and which is quite as significant of pioneer law and justice as anything that has been reported on that subject, runs as follows :
In 1857 and for many years thereafter the talk of the town and sur- rounding country as well was of the remarkable feat of stealing and carrying away a sawmill previously located just west of the block where W. G. Wright and George W. Hemstock now live in the southwest part of Nevada. The mill and fittings were new and had lately been erected by one John Parker, who sold it to Capt. S. P. O'Brien ; but it appears that the material used in the construction had not been paid for. O'Brien put everything he had into the mill and a mechanic's lien of $400 was filed which he also paid. Shortly afterwards a Pittsburg firm filed another claim of $1.400, and R. D. Coldren, who lived on the hill just above the mill, acting as deputy sheriff, took possession of the outfit, and Capt. O'Brien threw up his hands and gave everything up as lost. However in a few days thereafter the people of Nevada on getting up one morning found that the mill had passed away in the night, and it has always been said it was never heard of afterwards.
During the present week the writer casually called upon Capt. O'Brien. who is now a cripple living in Ames, to have a few moments chat over old times, and while we were talking over the incidents of the Fourth of July exhibition of fifty years ago, Elijah Purvis, another old comrade, came up and joined in and it soon developed that Purvis was the man who had en- gineered the deal in carrying away the saw mill, and he being asked to state the particulars readily did so about as follows :
The neighbors and friends of O'Brien upon hearing of his misfortune thought it was too bad for their friend to lose all he had in a venture of that kind and they got together and agreed upon a plan of action. They gathered up forty yoke of oxen and several wagons and started for Nevada. Purvis gave twenty-five cents for a gallon jug of the best whiskey he could find and came on a few hours ahead with his ox team. He drove in by way of the mill and meeting Coldfren there seemed surprised to find him at that place ; and after chatting a while pulled out his jug and invited the deputy to drink. which he readily did and seemed to like the flavor of the whiskey. After some further talk Purvis insisted he must be moving ; but after being treated again Coklren insisted that he stay all night. Purvis could not hear of such a
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thing, and moved on up town and in a short time returned the same way. They talked and proceedings as before were repeated and Purvis finally agreed it would be best to turn his oxen in until after supper at least. They went to the house, taking the jug of course. Mrs. Coldren prepared supper and also a quantity of egg nog. By eleven o'clock Coldren and his helper were beastly drunk and retired.
Purvis hitched up his team and repaired to the mill just in time to meet the other neighbors, and they went to work dismantling the structure in short order and loading up the machinery and boiler, which weighed several tons. they then struck out across the prairie for Skunk river which they reached in the early morning and hid the loot in the woods for the day.
Some time that day Coldren recovered and seeing no signs of the mill went out to see Purvis whom he found at home, and who expressed himself as very much surprised to hear that the mill had disappeared, and proffered assistance in looking it up. Elijah soothed Coldren with more egg nog and a bountiful meal, and the deputy then returned to Nevada, reporting that he could get no trace of the stolen property.
The next night the outfit was taken over to the Des Moines river and hid in the timber, and sometime thereafter it was sold to other parties and removed farther up the river, Capt. O'Brien realizing very little if anything in the venture.
JAMES C. LOVELL-AS TOLD BY HIS GRAND-DAUGHTER.
Of the young fellows who came to Nevada in its first year none was better qualified to make himself remembered. Also few of his time have stayed around so long. Mr. Lovell now lives at Seattle, where his home is kept by his grand-daughter, Mrs. Libbie Balliet Hoag. The latter has written most entertainingly some of her grandfather's stories, as follows :
When my grandfather, James C. Lovell, came to Nevada in the fall of 1854, he was twenty years old and in appearance, judging from an old daguerreotype of that time, a slim and beardless boy.
When he was ten years of age, he with the rest of his father's family, made the long journey from his birthplace in Vermont, by way of the Great Lakes, to Wisconsin. He was therefore somewhat experienced at pioneer- ing when he came to Iowa, and considered the summer time drive with horse and buggy from Wisconsin across country a simple matter.
His father had died two years after the family reached Wisconsin, and from that time the young James had been dependent very largely upon his own resources. He had accumulated a little money by working at various things, but conditions in Wisconsin were not satisfactory, and tales from the west stirring unrest, he determined to strike out for a new location.
Late in July of 1854, in company with Dr. and Mrs. M. D. Sheldon and Dr. Fenn, (Mrs. Sheldon's cousin ), the start was made from Hartland. The
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little party was bound for Omaha, at that time a thriving "out fitting station" for the plains, and they did not know that such a place as Nevada existed.
Dr. Sheldon and his brave, rosy checked bride of a year, led the way with their horse and light buggy. Dr. Fenn and my grandfather, each in a similar rig, followed, grandfather driving a big raw boned, spotted horse, which he traded for a gray one before he reached the boundary line of Wisconsin.
The roads over the prairie were level and good, but very dusty. The party drove early in the morning and late in the evening, and rested in the middle of the day. thus avoiding the extreme heat. The way was treeless. excepting along the banks of streams, and they were without bridges, and had to be forded. Houses were far apart. Often they traveled twenty miles at a stretch without sight of man's habitation. Then there would be a little "neighborhood" or settlement,-several farm houses close together .- and then unbroken, undulating prairie again, until the horizon shut off the view. At one time, while still in Wisconsin, they crossed fifty-one miles of prairie without coming to a house or stream of water. Food in plenty they carried with them, and a small quantity of water, but it was not sufficient for the long day. The poor horses had no water at all, and there was great rejoicing when, long after dusk, the travelers saw the lights of Fairplay, Wisconsin.
The long drives were enlivened by songs and "speech making." and many were the practical jokes that were played by the youngest member of the company.
The Mississippi river was crossed at Dubuque, by ferry, and the party proceeded to Knoxville. Marion county, lowa, where relatives of the Shel- dons lived. There, Dwight Sheldon, eldest child of Dr. and Mrs. Sheldon, was born. After remaining in Knoxville for a month, the journey was resumed.
At "Twin River." south of Des Moines, where the party stopped to "water" and to rest, they met Henry French, who had come there, bringing a load of grain from his farm on East Indian Creek, to have it milled. Mr. French toll them in glowing terms of the richness of Story County lands. and the splendid prospects of that part of the country. So forceful was his argument, that the little party changed plans and started northward.
Reaching lowa Center, then quite a village (compared with Nevada, ) the travelers stopped at Jerry Corey's log hotel, which consisted of two rooms, in size about 12x16 each, with an attic or loft above. The floors were of "puncheons," or split logs, and the beds in this hotel were what were called "catamounts," made of poles with the bark on, with holes bored in them, through which they were roped together. Most of the beds were in the loft, which was reached by a ladder. When all were in bed the ladder was set aside, out of the way, until needed again. Across the street was the log house where Jerry Corey kept store and post-office. The town also boasted a log school house, where on Sundays religious service was held whenever a minister happened along.
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The little village, sheltered as it was by the trees bordering East Indian Creek, presented a much more attractive appearance than the average prairie town of that time. The Sheldons decided to locate permanently in Iowa Center, but Dr. Fenn and Grandfather Lovell went to Nevada, where they boarded at John McLain's.
Among the sixteen boarders who lived at McLain's at that time, or came in the next few months, were Charlie Berry, Wm. Berry, Nathan Pardee, W'in. Bennet, Col. John Scott, George and Henry Staley, (land buyers). Richard Jenness and Isaac Walker, besides Dr. Fenn, and Grandfather Lovell.
The McLain Hotel was about the size of the one at lowa Center, and likewise possessed a loft where the boarders slept. This loft was "two logs high beneath the eaves," had a window in one end, and was reached by a permanent ladder from the general room below. The beds consisted mostly of ticks filled with hay and laid on the floor, side by side. Many a traveler during times of land rush, lacking even this sort of a bed, slept rolled in his blanket, and was thankful for shelter.
Nevada at that time consisted of five or six houses, clustered together on the bare prairie. There was not a tree nearer than those which fringed West Indian Creek. The little hamlet was exposed alike to the blizzards of winter and the glare of summer. But the pioneers gathered there could see possibilities in the unbroken prairie that surrounded them, and they took first steps toward developing it.
Grandfather's capital by the time he was established as one of the board- ers at "Mac's," was reduced to $17.00 and his horse and buggy. Board for himself was $2.50 per week, and there was the additional cost of grain for the horse, which was stabled in an old straw shed.
Chiefly to reduce expenses, he traded the horse, buggy and harness for forty acres of land which now constitutes a part of the Frank McLain farm. His money was getting low and the problem of getting a start in the new land looked the young pioneer square in the face.
There was not a variety of employments in that locality and he welcomed an opportunity to split rails at $1.00 per thousand for Alexander Densmore who lived on East Indian. Buying a new ax and wedges, he started at the job; but by the time the first tree was cut down and split into rails, his hands were blistered. He stopped to rest and to think awhile, and he made up his mind he wouldn't start that way. To emphasize his decision he threw his new ax and wedges as far as he could send them.
Then he went to Iowa Center and, taking advantage of the limited educa- tion he had received at Merton, Wisconsin, and the lack of school opportun- ities which had been the lot of most of the settlers, he engaged the school at Iowa Center at $1.00 per day and board. But Dr. Fenn, who had not been very fortunate in finding employment, begged grandfather to let him have the position and offered him $10.00 for it; so it was arranged with Jerry Corey. the school director, that Dr. Fenn should teach the district school and
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that grandfather should open a writing school in the school house, at night. The writing school proved popular, forty-two pupils attending it, and the school director being one of them. It was also a success financially, as the charge was $2.00 per pupil for fifteen lessons, and $84 looked larger in those days than the sum does now.
At the same time grandfather started a writing school at Nevada with about thirty pupils in attendance, and another at George Dyes, at East Indian Creek.
In the writing school at George Dye's there were about twenty-five pupils. The writing school in Nevada was held in Alderman's store. Boards laid across salt barrels served as desks. Here, by the light of flar- ing candles, old and young gathered twice a week, during the long winter evenings. Without doubt any occasion that would draw people together was welcomed as a break in monotony, and the social side of the writing school was as much appreciated as was the instructive.
The next spring. 1855, grandfather in company with Dick Jennes, bought eleven yoke of oxen, plows, chains and entire outfit for breaking prairie, and paid for the oxen with work, breaking a certain number of acres for each yoke of cattle. Five yoke of the oxen were bought from Henry French and breaking was done on his farm accordingly.
Breaking on Major Hawthorn's land occupied considerable time, during which time the men lived entirely out of doors, sleeping in their wagons and eating what the major carried them, as it was some distance to the house.
So the first summer passed with considerable profit, various trades being negotiated for land, horses, lumber or almost anything that was exchangable.
When fall came, the partners sold the cattle which they had worked dur- ing the season, and grandfather took up writing school again.
In November of that year, Isaac Romaine and his family reached Nevada, and built the seventh cabin in the town, on the corner where the Dr. Winsett (C. T. Swartz ) residence now stands. Four or five members of the family attended the writing school, and one of them was Mary Romaine, whose ac- quaintance with the writing teacher, thus begun, ended in the marriage of the two the next year, October 11th, 1856.
The young couple lived at first with the Romaine family, but after a few weeks a new home was started on one of several lots belonging to the bride- groom. The new house was located where Boyd's Meat Market used to be. which would bring it about two doors south of the present Patrick hard- ware store. The house was small, consisting of two rooms and a pantry and as it was built in the edge of winter, when the men of the community were not busy, nearly all of the young men of the town helped in construct- ing it. In front of the house was a pond, which extended across the street to the eastward of where the White and Bamberger store is now, and was quite deep in places. The front door of the house was reached by means of a long plank supported by chunks of wood. The furnishings of the new
FRIENDS' CHURCH, NEVADA
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home were scanty. Furniture was hard to get, even if one had the means, inasmuch as it all had to be hauled from Keokuk.
So the first meal in the new home was eaten off a dry goods box, and the chairs were nail kegs, each having a square piece of board nailed across its top. Mr. Alderman carried a small stock of hardware in connection with his general store, and from that stock a stove had been selected, which proved to be a good one, for it lasted thirty years or more. That stove and a bedstead constituted the store furnishings. The dishes were mostly odd pieces which had been accumulated during the girlhood of the bride, and carefully packed when the family came out from Illinois. Of pieced quilts and similar bedding there was plenty, but feather pillows and a feather bed (then considered necessities) were lacking and straw pillows and straw bed served as substitutes for some time.
In the course of a month or so, grandfather made a trip to Keokuk after a load of furniture for the store, and took his pay for the hauling in articles for the home. Among the pieces thus acquired were six chairs and a cane- seated rocker, and also a square topped light stand having two drawers, which continued a part of the furnishings of the Lovell liome as long as that home existed. This light stand served as a dining table for some time. So proud were the owners of their new furniture that they invited a number of their friends to an oyster supper. The guests were Mr. and Mrs. Alderman, Julia Romaine, Isaac Walker, Wm. Lockeridge, Dick Jennes, and others whose names are confused in the shadows of time. The little light stand did its part nobly as a social board, though its top was only about two and a half feet square. Thus the newly married couple of over fifty years ago, entertained and were contented with their little home.
By this time, 1856, a good many changes had taken place in Nevada. The town was growing rapidly. Sawed lumber and weather boarding from the new saw mill at Ballard Grove had taken the place of logs for building purposes, and many families whose names were afterward identified with the town for many years, had arrived. Among the neighbors whose names were often mentioned in connection with that first housekeeping of the Lov- ells, were the Kelloggs-Dr. and Mrs. Kellogg and Judge G. A. Kellogg- the families of Uncle David Child, S. S. Webb, and E. G. Day.
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