USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa; a record of organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 18
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Considerable ingenuity went into the manufacture of garments for chil- dren. Of course there was the utilization of every bit of cloth that still had wear in it, provided the thread supply held out ; while, as to footwear, home- spun yarn was knitted into stockings; and wooden shoes of home manufact- ure for adults as well as children were often supplemented with rawhide or cloth moccasins. A prize for faculty in meeting the footgear emergency was due to Mrs. Newnum who herself whittled out a last and made shoes for her children out of old boot legs, using a scythe stone for a hammer.
The war brought trials that were sore. But prices were better, and Mrs. Stultz remembers corn bringing a dollar a bushel.
Mrs. Stultz now, in the serenity of her rest time, looks back upon the struggles of her early and middle life, with thankfulness for the discipline which developed appreciation and not bitterness.
MRS. JOHN MCCAIN .- HICKORY GROVE IN '54
Mrs. McCain, now of Colo, was born Phoebe Catharine Wheatley, Jan- uary 20, 1847, in Hamilton county, Indiana. She came when a child of seven years with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Allen Wheatley, to Story County, lowa. They arrived July 20, 1854, and settled on a farm then in-
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cluded in New Albany township, but now, in the southeast part of Nevada township, on the southern edge of what has been known as the Hickory Grove neighborhood. The Brouhards were already in that neighborhood, and settlement by the Thomases, Mullens, Johns, Waltzes, McGuires, Dyes and Fords occurred soon after.
Mrs. McCain remembers that there were only three houses in Nevada when she first saw the town and the same number in Iowa Center. Mr. Wheatley, her father, broke the sod of his farm with his oxen, and planted a home with hard work after the manner of pioneers in general. Alderman's store at Nevada afforded the settlers small supplies, but for lumber to be used in building and for flour, stoves and numerous other necessities there had to be trips to Des Moines or some trade center farther away. Fuel was supplied by the nearby timber and fencing was fashioned as Abraham Lincoln fashioned it. Farming methods were simple, hay being cut with the scythe, and grain, with the cradle.
The Wheatley cabin had but one room, but out-of-doors widened its capacity, and the various processes included in cloth manufacture, and in making up the garments of the family, were daily employments of the house- hold as much as was caring for subsistence. Sheep were kept, and subse- quent to shearing time came wool washing, picking and greasing ; and after the carding had been done at Des Moines, the spinning, dyeing, doubling and twisting, knitting and making up, filled a large share of the year. Aunt Sally Mullin, Mother Spurgeon or Mrs. John Belcher generally helped out on the weaving, and sometimes wool was exchanged at the factory for cloth. Re- ligious services were attended occasionally at some home in the neighbor- hood, and sometimes in the school house at Iowa Center, transportation be- ing generally with the ox-team. The elder sons of the Wheatley family, James, Thomas and Luke, tramped to schools three or four miles away ; but Phoebe, the little daughter, had to pick up the fundamentals of an educa- tion at home excepting for a two months' term of attendance at the school which, after a time, was established in the home district.
Mrs. McCain says, "All went fine till the war came. Then there was sorrow. My brothers James and Thomas enlisted to fight for our country- and we said good bye to them not expecting to see them again. No one knows the trial except those who have experienced it. Our forebodings proved true in regard to James, as his life closed at St. Louis, Missouri, January 10, 1862; but Thomas lived to become a citizen of Nampa, Idaho, from which town he passed on January 2d, 1906."
Mr. Wheatley closed his life December 15, 1870, on the farm he had im- proved. Mrs. Wheatley survived till January 22, 1909, her last years hav- ing been spent with her daughter, Mrs. McCain.
CURTIS A. WOOD-BOYHOOD IN INDIAN CREEK.
Curtis A. Wood, former sheriff of Story County and now living in Chi- cago, was reminded of some boyhood memories when he first read the
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reminiscences, elsewhere noted, of his father, the now venerable W. K. Wood, who first settled, where he yet resides, on the cast side of Indian Creek below lowa Center. early in 1852. The son's recollections were of this order :
One of Curtis' most vivid recollections of life in the home log cabin per- tains to his first pair of boots. Ile thinks he was six years old when they came. Up to this date his good mother had manufactured his winter foot- gear-a sort of moccasins-out of cloth and skins. At other seasons his feet had been shod with only tan. There was not a pair of boy's boots in lowa Center or vicinity, nor had the sight of a pair ever gladdened the child's eyes. Berch Young kept a very small store at the settlement then, but his stock was not extensive enough to include boy's boots. At length there came an auspicions day when the indulgent sire, on his return from Des Moines, presented his two eldest sons, Cory and Curtis, cach with a pair of red-topped, copper-tipped boots. Jim, the toddler. must still wear moccasins. O. the delight of those boots! Cory said. "Now let's grease them good so as to make them last a long time." A lump of tallow was sacrificed and rubbed into the leather thoroughly and affectionately; they were compared in all particulars to determine points of likeness and of difference ; and then were set on the hearth before the fire to let the grease "dry in" and complete the work. The boys hovered around and watched in- tently till they thought the grease was "dry," and then took up the treasures to examine them. Lo, they were crisped, and ready to fall in pieces! Never was disappointment sorer. Curt's eyes are dim even now when he remem- bers the grief of that hour.
lle recalls a later date, when the boys of the neighborhood were Delos and Jeremiah and Hiram Shoop, Abner Moore, John and William and War- ren Maxwell, Dwight Sheklon, James White. Joseph MeCowen, Clifford Funk, and Cory, Curtis and James Wood. These youths were scattered over adjacent farms within a radius of four miles. They thought nothing of footing it to the farthest of their homes after chores were done, to play hide and seek in the moonlight till eleven o'clock, then to tramp home and sleep in the barn so as not to disturb the folks. Now and then a horse was sneaked out of the barn and three boys rode off on its back.
The farmer had a good chance at the wide prairie. He could take as big a hay claim as he could manage. Most of the land was owned by non-resi- dents, and the billowy grass was beautiful. A man would mow a swath with a McCormick mower taking in as much area as he could use, then would cut the expanse across again and again to lay it off into "lands" and would harvest the grass at his convenience. Cattle and hogs ran at will. The cattle of the well-to-do farmer were rounded-up at night into pounds. The swine foraged in the woods till winter, and each owner's were marked. The car mark known as "two swallow forks" told that the animal was Mr. Wood's, and "one swallow fork and an under-bit" said that it was Lot Morris's.
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Mr. Wood was a care-taker, the son testifies, and never let any animal suffer if he could help it. He would stay out all night attending a sick brute, and would carry a sack of corn on his back a mile to a swine mother with her little ones down in the woods. "And he was not less kind to his house- hold," is the filial tribute. "He never skimped anything for the comfort of his family."
CHAPTER XVL
EARLY DAYS IN HOWARD.
11. D. BALLARD-'57 AND LATER.
Of the old families in Story County none has been better or more favor- ably known in its time than the family of old Dr. Ballard, who settled in the southwest part of Howard township in 1857. To this family belonged Rus- sell W. Ballard, who was twice supervisor of the county, Mrs. Harry H. Boyes, and Mrs. H. F. Ferguson, both long residents of Howard township but now with their husbands, recently removed to Nevada; Deville P. Ballard, who was a captain in the 23d lowa and was once elected county clerk, others also less known in the county, and Henry D .. who after residing at Radcliffe and Webster City is now located in a pros- perous old age at Primghar in O'Brien county. There are few if any of the old-timers who are in better position than the last named to tell of the early experiences of the settlers in Story County in the '50s, and after quite a little persuasion was induced to furnish reminiscences as follows :
In the spring of 1857 my father left Frankfort, Will county, Illinois, for Fowa. He came on ahead of the most of us so as to get in some crop be- fore the rest of us arrived. He came through with a horse team and heavy wagon bringing some household goods; and mother, and my three sisters, (Sarah, Martha and Ruth ) came in the wagon with him. It was a long ride but he arrived in time to get in corn by June sixth and it was a very good crop that year. My brother Russell (R. W. B.) took charge of the balance of the outfit consisting of four yoke of oxen, two heavy wagons, thirty head of cows and heifers with a small flock of sheep, (about forty I think) and we started about the first of May overland. It was a long journey and took us about two months. We camped out nights wherever night overtook us, sleeping in our wagons among the household goods as best we could. We did our own cooking. We had one cow that gave milk for us and we en- joyed it. The other cows' calves took what they had and did well.
We ferried across some streams and twice floated across on a raft we made. There were very few bridges in those days. We ferried the Rock river in Illinois, then the Mississippi at Davenport, the Cedar at Tipton. When we got to Tipton we heard the exciting news of five horse thieves
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٢٠ ٢٠ مصر-ص مام ٧٤٦٠
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ARMORY BUILDING, AMES
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being hung there a short time before by a vigilance committee. In those early times the people formed such committees for protection and all had horses to ride and hunted the thieves down and when they caught one his trial did not cost the county as much as it does now. Our stock lived mostly on grass the first few days of our long journey and the grass grew so fast that soon we fed nothing and the stock got plenty to eat.
When we reached Iowa City Russell's wife was there, she having come on the train that far with her one child, (now Mrs. J. W. Sowers) and from there she lived in a wagon and camped with us the balance of the way. We came through Homestead, Marengo, Indian Town, Marshalltown (that had just had a war with Marietta over the county seat) then Marietta, both small villages at that time, and on to Clemens' Grove. From Clemens' Grove there was not a house until we got to Indian Creek in Story County where a family lived named Pool. From Pool's place to Nevada there were two houses, from Nevada to where father and the rest of the family were was ten miles, and not a house after we got out of Nevada. Nevada was all on the south side of town near where the park is now, excepting the Court House. From Nevada it was ten miles to where we stopped.
Father had bought an improved farm from a man by the name of Isaac Blade, paying eleven dollars per acre for 92 acres, and 12 of it was timber that ran down to the river Skunk. I remember the prairie grass was much higher than I had ever seen before. The angling road from Nevada was made crooked by the sloughs we encountered. In coming along the route from Iowa City we had many times been asked where we were going; and when we told them to Story County, they informed us that Story was the wettest county in the state and that we could not get a living in that county. We did not have such experience, although we seldom did see persons riding in anything but a lumber wagon. If a man had a spring seat on his wagon it was considered a luxury.
That year I with my brothers put up nearly 100 tons of wild hay for our stock and did it with a common scythe. We did not consider it very great hardship to do this. Grass was fully three feet high and stood thick on the ground and often we cut grass more than four feet high. We let it lie in the swath one day and then piled it up into a "hay cock" as it was then known. How many young men would now undertake to put up 100 tons of hay with a common scythe? With the amount of work we had on hand the summer soon passed and when the autumn came corn in the field had to be husked. Father was an eastern Yankee and he insisted that every husk and silk should be taken off from every ear and this was done, quite in contrast to the way corn is husked now.
Such work was slow and we did not crib half as many bushels per day as the ordinary man does now. Corn then was not nearly as large as it is now. A yield of 25 and 30 bushels was considered a good crop and it was often discussed and decided that we were on the north line of the corn belt Vol. 1-11
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which seems a laughable circumstance now. We raised wheat, oats, corn. potatoes, buckwheat, etc., the next year and were happy.
The first school we had after coming to Iowa was held in my brother Russell's house that he built with native lumber sawed from logs hauled to the mill at Story City and his wife taught the school. This was in the winter of 1857 and 1858. My brother Russell was a brother-in-law of Nathan Sheffield who came to this state in 1854 ( I think ) and Russell came out the next spring in a covered wagon with his wife, camping on the way and staid one year, took sick and returned to Frankfort. Illinois, and after recovering he induced father to come to lowa and father sent Russell back to bargain for the Isaac Blade farm that he bought, and then followed our ad- vent into the state the next spring in 1857. We were acquainted with the Sheffield family before they came to lowa and their being out in this state and Russell's desire to come west caused him to seek the locality where his wife's sister was.
The next winter, that of 1858-9. we attended school at what was known as the Griffith school house, ( but often it was called the Poverty School llouse ) because it was built of logs not hewed or flattened on the sides and it had what was called a puncheon floor. ( split out of logs, hewed smooth on one side, laid with the flat side up and notched down at the ends so as to make it as level as possible ). The seats were half of a log, split. with four straight legs to make it a sort of bench that we sat on very comfortably during the day. The winter passed with but little to recall only we had spelling contests ( or spelling schools) that gave amusement as well as good drill. Our neighbors were H. L. Boyes and family. Joseph Brouhard and family, both living about two miles away southeast of us. They went to school at the "Poverty School House" with us which was more than one mile north of where we lived up the Skunk river.
The families that patronized the school were Noah Griffith's, John Smith's, Jesse Smith's, Burham's and a few others making up a school of about forty scholars. The next winter our teacher was R. C. MeOmber from Plainfield Academy. Illinois, who afterward was the principal of the Nevada schools. I think however he spelled his name MeComber. 11. 11. Rood later on spells it "Macomber." No one seems sure about it. The poor fellow after he had been in lowa about two years went back home and (lied of consumption. He was a brilliant fellow and intended to make the law his profession had he lived. The Letsons. Lockridges, Kelloggs. Webbs, Hawthorns, Prices and many other old settlers of Nevada can readily recall his effort as principal of their schools. We used to go to Nevada to attend spelling schools and at one time the Nevada school came up to the Sheffield school house to our spelling school and there were three sleigh loads of the young people. Such distances to attend such events were common in those days. In those days people who lived ten to fifteen miles apart were called neighbors. If a man was sick in the spring and did not get his plowing done so as to put in his corn in time, we turned out and with teams from the
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various neighbors plowed his ground, planted his corn and made no charge- which is quite a contrast to the way people neighbor now. Often we had what we called husking bees, took out 20 to 25 acres of corn in one day, had a good time and made no charge.
Father and Russell got out logs and made a hewed log house. They had a lot of lumber sawed at a saw mill then operated at Story City by George Prime and Noah Hardin. This mill did a general business of sawing for a large scope of country about the little burg, the burg then consisting of about a half dozen houses and one store stocked with about $500 worth of goods I think. The only mill we had to grind corn was on Long Dick. It was run by James Smith and was a great convenience to many people. Its capacity Smith claimed was about five bushels per hour. We lived mostly on corn bread. When we wanted flour to eat we had to go to a mill above where Des Moines is on the Coon river, and often it took one week to go there, get a grist and get back home and we had to sleep on the ground under the wagon while waiting for our grist. Des Moines was a small village con- paratively then.
In the spring or summer of 1857 father and I went down to White Oak Grove in Polk County, below Cambridge, to buy some ear corn to feed. We found some splendid corn at a Mr. Woods' at the east end of the grove. He had about eight or ten rail pens eight feet or more high full of good sound corn, and we got two wagon loads, paying him eight cents per bushel. I kept the count as we measured it in a basket by throwing out one ear for every basket emptied. Every once in a while Mr. Woods would say, "Hold on, boy, don't count this, we will put it in for good measure." People do not sell corn that way now days. When father paid him he gave him the gold and silver. Mr. Woods took the money in his hand and said, "Doctor, that is the first money I have seen for two years and I have not paid my taxes for three years. I want you to come back and get two more loads and then I may have money enough to pay my taxes."
The paper money of those days was what was known as "wild cat money" and often if a man had a five dollar bill he could not buy his break- fast with it. People used to take what was known as a bank detector and it came to them by mail once a month. In that the banks which had failed were shown. The only paper money at that time in the state that was con- sidered good was issued by Frank Allen's "Nebraska State Bank," at Des Moines and by the Iowa State Bank at Davenport. The only reliable money in those days was gold and silver and there was not much of it to be had either. People often ask me, "Why did you not buy lots of this land when it was so cheap?" Poor money and scarcity of it answers that question. We were in the fix the man was who had a farm of 160 acres offered him for a pair of boots and the only reason he did not take the farm was that he had no boots.
At that time what the farmer had to sell did not bring much. Dressed hogs hauled to the end of the railroad at Iowa City brought two dollars per
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100 pounds if the weight equaled 200 pounds; if 225, $2.25; and three year old fat steers off the grass in the autumn brought from $18 to $19 per head, and milch cows, from $10 to $12 per head. Butter brought four to five cents per pound and eggs three cents per dozen, and no cash for either, but trade only. Tea sold for $2 per pound, coffee, 214 lbs. for a dollar, and other things in proportion. These are the reasons that people did not make any more than a bare living in those days. The ordinary coarse plow boot that can be bought now for about $3.50, sold in those days for $7.00 per pair, and other things in proportion. What we had to sell was cheap, and what we bought was high. Wheat then sold in trade for 25 cents per bushel. There being no way of shipping it then, what sold was for seed or bread only. We used to do our trading in Nevada and the men in busi- ness at that time were Theodore Alderman, Otis Briggs, Hawthorn & Talbott, and after a short time came Doctor Sinclair and others. To dodge the sloughs made it a long trip to go to Nevada, and took the most of a day. People seemed just as happy in those days as now and I am not sure but they were more contented than now. It is not our necessities that worry us, but our imaginary wants. We did not want as much then as now.
TRAGEDY OF A PRAIRIE FIRE.
In the autumn of 1860, a frightful circumstance occurred. John Swar- engen, his wife and four children stopped at Nevada (he stated) and bought ten pounds of cotton batting for use in their new home which they ex- pected to reach in a short time, a few miles west of Webster City. They tied this cotton batting on top of the cover of their wagon under which was their household goods. Their way from Nevada to Webster City Jed over the same road we used to travel to town. They being from the east, knew nothing about what a prairie fire was, and they kept along unsuspect- ingly, until they reached what was known then as the big rock in the north part of Milford Township, within two miles of where D. Stultz afterward made his home. Just as they were driving out of a low place or swail where the grass was high, the prairie fire from the southwest struck them. the team turned out on the right-hand side of the road and the whole wagon was on fire instantly. Mr. Swarengen stated that he immediately jumped out of the wagon helping his wife out. As soon as she reached the ground she said, "Oh, John, my baby!" She at once climbed back into the wagon, got her baby, and returning to the front of the wagon, he tried to assist her to the ground again but the horses flounced and kicked so, she fell with her baby in between the horses, and in trying to get her out of there, Mr. Swarengen received a kick from one of the horses that laid him out unconscious for a short time and when he came to, his cloth- ing was nearly burned off and his face, hands and arms were a crisp. He went to the back of the wagon, he stated, and tore off the feed box, think-
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ing he could get the other three children out in that way ; but the fire soon drove him back in despair, and he stood there and saw his whole family perish in the fire, unable to do any more to save them. After he could do no more and all were dead, he started to find some place where he could tell some human being what had happened. In his wanderings he finally landed at J. E. Hoover's home and farm, about three miles from where his family had perished and told his story. Men of the neighbor- hood were notified as soon as a horse could make the rounds, and soon were at the scene of the terrible disaster. They found one horse dead, and the other wandering about the prairie, burned so that he had to be killed, and the dog about fifty feet away also burned all over and dead.
Quincy Boynton of Nevada was up in that region after some fat cattle that father had sold to T. C. McCall and I was with him on horseback rounding up the cattle to drive them to Nevada. The prairie fire scattered our bunch of steers and cows so that we did not get them rounded up until the next day. When the cattle scattered we also made ourselves safe out of danger from the fire and rode toward Mr. Hoover's place, where we learned of the frightful accident, so we rode down to the place to see what it looked like. Before we got there the bodies, all that could be found of the four children and the wife had been picked up and placed in the feed box, which Mr. Swarengen had taken off the back part of his wagon, and the box was hardly filled with the bones of those four chil- dren and the wife. These bodies were buried in the Sheffield cemetery where Mr. Swarengen was buried also, after having suffered about ten days. The fire was so intense that it melted the dishes they had packed in their wagon, and burned all the wood work out of the irons of the wagon. The cotton batting being on top of the wagon no doubt made the flames en- velop the whole wagon instantly, and smothered the children back inside of the wagon cover under the wagon bows. The family bedding, clothes and keepsakes were all stored in the wagon and all helped to make the fire intense. This terrible thing was the talk of the country for many months after. Mr. Swarengen was conscious most of the time while he lived and told the terrible experience many times to callers, saying they had just been talking about how soon they would arrive at their destination. In less than one week they would be in their prairie home between Webster City and Fort Dodge. How true it is that in the midst of life we are in death. This family had no doubt fond hopes of making a future home and surrounding it with comforts and happiness with congenial neighbors, in the then new state.
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