USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa; a record of organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 20
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About the same time Mr. House and family came to Story City, then called Fairview, and located on the west bank of Skunk river with a port- able sawmill. The mill was very heavy to move over muddy sloughs as traction engines were then not known; but it soon furnished us with native lumber sufficient to build a 14x16 feet house-a luxury not enjoyed by previous newcomers, who had to build houses out of logs. Dan and Henry MeCarthy of Ames, were engineers and head sawyers 54 years ago last spring. Dick Jones had a small store in Fairview, size about 12x14 feet. 1 first met Peter Dekop with others June 13. 1855, selecting their future home where Peter still lives. That same year Peter and his father saw 24 deer in where now is our calf and hog lot. In 1856, I bought a span of horses in the then small and mostly log-house town of Des Moines. Later during a heavy thunder storm one night, the horses left their un- fenced prairie pasture for shelter east of us in the Skunk river timber.
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It blew from the northwest and the next day they were seen grazing on the east side of the river. As I had no other horse then to ride, the fol- lowing day I walked many miles through the tall prairie grass, but found no track of them. The second day. W. R. Doolittle very kindly loaned me a good horse and saddle with which I started to hunt in earnest. 1 had faithfully looked every place over except the right place the day be- fore on foot. I soon found where they pastured the day before on a fresh plat of previously burnt pasture, but not a shadow of my fugitives that day. The first word I got, some one saw them southeast of Nevada head- ing in the direction of Keokuk. The country was unfenced and horses in a strange land steer direct for their native home. I concluded the owner brought them to lowa by the way of Keokuk and so I searched diligently in that direction. Occasionally 1 met some one who had seen them grazing on some fresh burnt prairie grass pasture, I could not find them by getting in their advance. It was like hunting the needle in the hay mow. One night I took lodging with a German who could not talk English very well, so we sat up later than usual conversing in German. Before retiring he stepped out and by moonlight saw a white and a black horse passing. That was just what I was after. The one we got readily but the other was hard to catch at best and we failed to get him. How- ever, he knew me by daylight and voluntarily came to me next morning. I captured my team in Keokuk County, southeast of Sigourney, lost two weeks' time and had left my wife alone at home to keep house and think it over in sadness, which was followed by joy and gladness.
For protection we built our house and stable on the sunny slope of the hillside, but it proved to be a mistake for us. The winter of '56 and 57 was severe with sleet and lots of snow. The prairie fires burnt the tall prairie grass after the frost in the fall, which left the snow to drift with the caprice of the wind in every direction. The snow drifts nearly covered both house and barn and also our well on the side hill. With slippery ice our unshod team could not be used. We had three cows with calves, and for two weeks we fed hay to our stock through a hole I made in the hay roof. We melted snow in our copper wash boiler on the cook stove to water team, calves and cows. God's sunshine in due time melted the icy fetters of snow and later came the green grass and the song of the birds, again singing the happy song of life. I need scarcely say the summer and fall of 1857 we moved our abode from the side to the top of the hill where we have lived ever since in sunshine and in storm.
In the fall of 1856 I shot a wolf while in the act of running down one of our few hens like a dog. A few days later I shot a prairie wolf in his sleep sunning himself in a dry spot in the bed of Kegley branch. They would visit our melon patch and select the choicest to eat. Mr. Doolittle killed two wolves in one night by putting poison on the carcass of an ox which had died for him. Prairie chickens, wild ducks, geese, brants and sand-hill cranes were very numerous here before the invention of breech
WHICH We focalcu Here. Fisi of goou size were also abundant. The only railroad then was a branch from Muscatine to Wilton Junction. Iowa City was the capital of lowa. Merchandise was hauled by wagon back and forth from the Mississippi-an expensive method. The nearest grist mill was in Des Moines. Buildings were mostly made of logs. Eggs were 3 cents per dozen in Nevada at one time. The price of prairie land was $1.25 per acre. Timber $12 per acre. God ruled then as now in this fair land, in educational progress, in material prosperity and spiritual blessings.
J. F. BROWN. MIRS. R. J. BROWN.
COL. HENRY 11. ROOD .- 1856-61.
One of the best and most favorably known men that have gone out from Story County is Col. Henry H. Rood, now of Mt. Vernon. He came to Nevada in 1856, and in 1861 was at school at Mt. Vernon. He went from there to the war but never came back to Nevada, save as an always welcome visitor. He taught in Howard Township where the early settle- ment was, and was a most admirable type of the ambitious and capable young man, with his own fortune to make. He enlisted in the First Iowa Infantry as a private and came out of the war as a brevet lieutenant-colonel. Since the war he has been active in business affairs, making his home al- ways at Mt. Vernon. Of his life in Story County he has upon urgent request written as follows:
I left my home in Washington County, New York, April 10, 1856. com- ing to Chicago with a neighbor's son, who was shipping a well bred and valuable horse to Jo Daviess County, Illinois. At Albany he united with others who were shipping horses west ; this necessitated coming by freight train all the way. At Chicago we separated. I staid all night at the Garden City House, which stood on Madison and Market streets, where Marshall Field & Company erected their wholesale houses after the Chi- cago fire in 1871. Thence I came to Rock Island on the Rock Island road, ferried the Mississippi across to Davenport and then took the railroad. now Rock Island, which had been completed to lowa City, January 1. 1856.
At Iowa City took the Frink and Walker stage to Newton. A day or two later my brother Adolphus Rood came down from Nevada to meet me. Mr. Helphrey, the proprietor of a hotel, later known to the boys as the "Old Terrific," had driven down with my brother to meet me and young Dr. Adamson, who was returning from the medical college at Keokuk. where he had just graduated.
We passed over the then almost unsettled country to Edenville, now Rhodes, where we took dinner at Esquire Rhoads' house; between Clear creek and the east fork of Indian creek, we did not pass a single occupied cabin, and at dark drew up at the Helphrey House, where I spent my first
L
Methodist Church, Ames
Christian Church. Ames
Catholic Church. Ames
Congregational Church, Amnes
Baptist Church, Ames
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night in Nevada. The date I do not remember, but it was on or near April 22, 1856. The next day I went to board with a Mr. Warren who lived in the house afterward owned by the father of Nathan G. Price.
The first court house of Story County was being erected, and my brother had the contract to lath and plaster it, but before it was ready for that, I helped for a short time to lay shingles on the roof. When the work was far enough along I helped lath it and then took from my brother my first lessons as a plasterer. I was only fifteen, but tall and slender, and for my age was stronger than most boys. By the time the season closed, I had progressed so I could do plain work.
The last work of that season, (which I did alone) was plastering a lean-to kitchen for lawyer J. L. Dana. I finished at near midnight Decem- ber 5, or 6, and the next morning the most terrible blizzard I ever witnessed was raging.
The summers were spent working at my trade; the winter of 1856-7 and 1857-8 the necessity of doing as much work as the season would per- mit, prevented me from going to school, but I acknowledge with deep grati- tude the kindness of Col. John Scott, Judge Geo. A. Kellogg, Lawyer J. L. Dana and R. H. Mitchell, the latter afterward surveyor of the county, all of whom loaned me books to read. I'd put in some of my leisure time also in studying the school books I brought with me, and the winter of 1858-9, I attended the full term of the public school, taught by that prince of teachers, Rollin C. Macomber.
That young man who had come to Iowa from the green hills of Ver- mont was the most helpful, inspiring and successful teacher I have ever known. In my later years I have seen and known many teachers, but not one who could arouse in young men and women such desire for educa- tion, or could so successfully impart the knowledge he had himself ac- quired. His early death deprived Iowa of an intellect, the clearest and strongest I have ever come in contact with. I left the school room of this gifted young man, on the "last day," with a firm resolve to get a better education. This purpose had been in my mind for some time, but asso- ciation with this high purposed youth confirmed it.
That summer business was very good but I found time to study quite a good deal, and in October, the superintendent of schools, held examina- tion, I think for the first time in the county, for certificates to teach. In the afternoon of this day I took off my working suit and, dressed in my Sun- day clothes, presented myself for examination. I was among the last, or possibly the very last. When it was over he said, "in some of the technical things you need more study. Your reading, spelling, arithmetic and gram- mar are sufficient ; in your general information you are above the average," and he handed me a certificate, whether first or second grade I do not remember.
A little later, after an unsuccessful effort, because the teacher had already been employed, "over on Indian creek," I rode with Sheriff George Vol. 1-12
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Child, up to the district in which the father of Harry Boyes, Henry, Sarah. Martha and Ruth Ballard, children of Dr. Ballard then lived. George Smith was the subdirector. After a talk with him he took me to Dr. Bal- lard's, and the good old doctor approving, I was hired at $22 per month and was to board myself. Mrs. Ballard out of sympathy for an orphan boy, fighting for his first chance took me to board. The rate was the usual one for that time. $2 a week and my washing and mending. This left me $14 per month. At the school in Nevada the winter before I had become acquainted with all the children of Dr. Ballard named above, and Harry Boyes, and they all became pupils in my first school. so I had a few whom I knew to begin with. Jason D. Ferguson taught the school in the district next north of where I taught. He too had been a Macomber student and we were close friends. Never in my life, so far as the work in which I was engaged was concerned, have I had so much real enjoyment as that winter. We had in the three near districts, the one north. J. D. Fergu- son's, the one west, Keigley's, spelling schools, and declamations, and a general mingling. There were dances also. a visit to a sugar camp-I think Arrasmith's ; the Musquakie Indians camped near us in the timber for a time, and there were shooting at a mark and foot races. Then came the "last day" with its declamations and essays, and a general showing off. and the separation from the bright, eager, aspiring children, and with a heavy heart I went to Nevada with my brother, who had come up to be present and take me back.
For a long time thereafter, I could call the roll of that school. The in- evitable separations of life carried me away, and except two elsewhere noted, I have seen only a few of those boys and girls, and those few at long intervals, but the memory of those days come into my mind as often, and linger as dearly, as the happiest of all the days since.
l larry Boyes and Jason D. Ferguson followed Addison Davis and my- self to Mount Vernon. We all early enlisted in the Civil war. Ferguson fell at Shiloh. Being in different regiments, we saw little of each other. as we have since, but the memory of these friends of my youth is as clear. as warm, as abiding as it was then.
Another friend made in the Macomber days was George W. Crossley, now Colonel Crossley. Similarity of tastes, of hopes and aspirations drew us together. When I went away to school I did not see him again, until the close of the first day's battle at Shiloh, when he came to the right of the regiment in which I was. llis was the first face out of our own com- mand which I knew and which I had seen that day. When he came up. extended his hand with its ever warm grasp and spoke my name. it seemed as if the sight of no friend, alive and unharmed, after such a day, could have given greater pleasure. I knew his wife, too, in those early days, and among the cherished names of my youth and later years, none are more dear than Col. and Mrs. Crossley.
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The winter of 1856-7, I lived, as I did a good deal of the time during my stay in Nevada, at the Nevada House, with landlord John McLain. That winter there were among others at the hotel, John Scott and his brother "Bar," Isaac Walker, James C. Lovell, names long identified with the town and vicinity. I am deeply indebted to Col. Scott for many things of great value to a young boy. He was a man of moods and some eccentric- ities, but sound to the core on many lines, and a friend of boys if they would give him a chance. I lived to tell him in his later years how much his words and example had done for me.
I worked at my trade on the first court house, on the first school house, and I think on the first church built in Nevada, and on many residences. In the spring of 1859, before work began, I helped Mr. Crossley plant corn on his farm just across the Skunk river. A part of the farm is now a part of the town of Ames. We "backed it," and planted corn with an old hand dropper, and a part of it without the dropper. On July 4 of that year, with a great crowd, I went to help celebrate the location of the agricul- tural college at what is now Ames, and in the same year attended the first county fair at Nevada. There were a number of families who were al- ways nice to me, and I have ever held them in kindliest memory. Uncle Davy Child and George Child, Major Hawthorn, R. D. Coldren, Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell, John Stephens, the father of Mrs. Sam Statler and Mrs. Smith and their brother Thomas. The Letsons, the home of the parents of Nathan G. Price and Abby Price, Thompson, and others. The passing years have not dimmed the memory of those early friends.
H. H. ROOD.
IION. W. V. ALLEN .- NEVADA IN THE '50S.
Hon. W. V. Allen, from 1893 to 1901, a senator from Nebraska at the national capitol, was in his boyhood a resident of Nevada, and with his people lived in a little house that still stands on Pine street, being the sec- ond on the west side, south from Fourth avenue south. He left Nevada be- fore the war, but was in the war closely associated with many of the Story County boys, as a member of the Thirty-second Iowa Infantry, al- though his company was not K, to which the Story County contingent other- wise belonged. In later years he has been an occasional visitor here with his cousin, M. C. Allen ; and it was during one of these visits here that he made a tour of the town, looking up landmarks of the early day and haunts familiar to his boyhood. The vicinity of the city park stirred some recollec- tions which indicated that the epitome of the Nebraska statesman was a decidedly live boy with traits remarkably like those of boys today. Point- ing to the site of the John M. Wells residence, the visitor remarked, "Over there is where Uncle Will (W. G. Allen, whom you remember ) found me with some other boys throwing stones at the windows of an empty house and trounced me all of the way home. Uncle Will, inasmuch as my own
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father was not living, exercised considerable guardianship over me and tried to make me a very proper youngster."
Turning westward the retrospect was of the old ford-the Sycamore street crossing of the West Indian which is still used, but which long since lost its distinction as the only feasible crossing place, during most of the year, for a considerable distance north and south. Mr. Allen said, "My most vivid recollection of the Old Ford is that its immediate vicinity was the location of a dog fight. I had a dog-you, M. C., gave him to me- that was the pride of my heart. He had licked every other dog in town, and you know how glorious such a possession is to a boy. One day some movers camped down here by the ford who had a dog which they boasted could lick any other dog on the prairie. Directly there was a battle and my dog came off victor. O, but that was a glorious day !"
There was hint of a gentling force destined to rival even the paternal- ism of revered "Uncle Will" in subduing barbaric tendencies, as Mr. Allen remarked, "Over on the hill beyond the creek was the Sam Briggs place, where I planted potatoes while Mollie Armstrong dropped them for me."
Mr. Allen recalled one establishment of the early day that has been seldom mentioned of late years. It was the tannery located on Sycamore street where it descends the hill toward the ford. There Mr. J. R. Myers had some vats and converted green hides into leather for local use.
FORGETTING $3.500 .- A STORY OF J. D. HUNTER.
Hon. J. D. Hunter, for many years, and until his death, editor of the Freeman-Tribune at Webster City, never had his home in Story County; but he once-and perhaps at other times-told of something that happened to him and another man in Nevada in the summer of 1860. As his story ran, Mr. Hunter and Mr. Erastus Paradee, both then of Eldora, were en route overland "empowered to cast a full vote of Hardin County at the republican state convention to be held in Des Moines. Trips to the capital through the intervening bogs and bridgeless streams were so perilous and rare that the delegates had been made messengers to carry $3.500, the amount of Hardin County's state tax, and deliver the same to the state treasurer. The first day's journey ended at Nevada, and the night was spent at the leading hotel, probably the 'National' Hotel or 'Nevada House,' of which George H. Crossley was then proprietor. The building was located on the Mrs. Lowrey lot, corner of Locust street and Third avenue south. and now forms part of the 'Hutchins House.' At bed-time the money, con- sisting of state bank bills in a sealed envelope, was transferred from an inside coat pocket to snug quarters under the sheet between the two travel- ers. The ambassadors hurried off early in the morning, hoping to reach the capital that day. When five or six miles out toward Cambridge they were seized with consternation by discovering that their money had been left in the bed. Mr. Hunter says:
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"'Mr. Paradee, who was driving at once turned the horses around and headed for Nevada at a most lively gait, and during the whole of the ride back there was not a word spoken by either of the men. Driving up to the porch of the hotel, the horses dripping with sweat, the men were met by the landlady, who, holding up the package of money, exclaimed, 'It's safe.' It is needless to say that the relief that came to the occupants of the buggy was as welcome as it was overwhelming, and that they never had in all their lives greater reason for thanking their lucky stars than on this occasion. The landlady's chambermaid had found the money and brought it to her in less than an hour after our departure from the hotel. She was at once sought out and handsomely rewarded for her honesty, and the delegates once more turned their faces toward Des Moines. By this time the travelers had recovered their speech and thoroughly canvassed the situation in all its bearings, and were horrified when contemplating the narrow escape they had made from bankruptcy, and the possible loss of whatever character and reputation they may have possessed.'"
THE STATE ROADS-AN EXPLANATION BY HON. CHAS. ALDRICH. 1
In the pioneer stories there is frequent mention of the "state roads" that run from one point to another, according to convenience and without regard to the government survey. The origin of these roads and the reason why there were not more of them was given a few years ago by Hon. Charles Aldrich in the Annals of Iowa, to which explanation it may be added that the supply of new state roads being cut off and the settlement of the country having led to the abandonment of the early ones in favor of newer highways on the section lines. Mr. Aldrich said:
Some curious results would be reached by studying the manner in which public roads were projected and located by acts of the legislature, territorial and state, up to the adoption of our present constitution. These inchoate highways would seem legitimately to have had but one purpose- that of facilitating travel and intercourse between different portions of the territory or state. But in time their establishment became an abuse which the makers of our constitution did well to suppress. Candidates for the legislature were ready and even eager to promise to secure the establisli- ment of these roads, in order to obtain support in securing nominations, as well as votes at the election. The carrying out of pledges was generally easy, for as a rule these projects met with very little opposition in the legislature. Then, these laws provided not a little patronage in the ap- pointment of commissioners to locate the roads, who were also generally authorized to appoint one or more practical engineers and surveyors. A team, a tent, another camp equipage, one or more common laborers, and subsistence for the party, were also required. The location of some roads required several weeks, and as the work was for the most part undertaken as early in the season as animals could subsist on prairie grass, they were
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real junketing. "picnicing" excursions. Nothing could be pleasanter than going out to perform such official duties. The pay was sufficient in those "days of small things" to make the position of commissioner a very wel- come appointment. The appointments seldom went a-begging. The prairies were most beautiful with their carpets of green grass, interspersed with myriads of flowers, and fairly alive with feathered game. Deer and elk were occasionally killed, and as soon as the spring floods subsided fish were plenty and of the choicest quality. Enterprising frontiersmen who had gone out beyond the settlements to make themselves homes always gave them the heartiest welcome. Such settlers were hospitable to all comers, but especially so to these parties whose work promised to open up roads and place them in communication with populous places.
But it not only became apparent that this work had too often degen- erated into mere schemes of politicians, either to acquire influence and votes, or to pay off debts already incurred, but that railroads then rapidly extending westward, would largely obviate the necessity for even genuine state roads. So the convention of 1857. in Article III. Section 30, of the present constitution, prohibited the general assembly from "laying out. opening, and working roads or highways." The summer of that year saw the last parties engaged in laying out state roads. The legislature of 1856. however, had been so industrious in the establishment of state roads, that it takes almost three pages in the index merely to name the various laws or sections in which they were decreed. The commissioners in the sum- mer of that year were very active and "made hay while the sun shone," well knowing that the laws would provide for no more such roads. And so this usage-so pleasant to its beneficiaries-came to an end.
CHAPTER XVIII.
STORY COUNTY IN THE WAR.
The opening of the Civil war was as much a surprise to the people of Story County as it was to the people of the North generally. Contem- porary records of the actual reception of the news of the firing upon Ft. Sumter, are not at hand; but recollections are that the reception of the news was considerably delayed, but that when it did come, there was in- stant response of loyal enthusiasm. The local reliance for news at that time was in a semi-weekly hack line from Marshalltown to the Missouri river, which line touched Nevada, College Farm and New Philadelphia ; but, when the news did come, it traveled rapidly, and in a very short time a company was organized, under Lincoln's call for three months' volunteers. A committee was sent, consisting of then State Senator John Scott, At- torney Paul A. Queal and George Child, to Des Moines, to tender the services of the company, but the state's quota, under the first call was already full and running over ; and it was not until the subsequent call was made for 300,000 men for three years or for the war, that Story County succeeded in being represented at the front, save for four excep- tions resulting from the fact that that number of young men of patriotic disposition were temporarily in the eastern part of the state and were then able to secure admission to the First lowa Regiment.
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