USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa; a record of organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 30
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HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
The burning of the old court house in the early hours of the year 1864 was the reasonable consequence of excessive fires being kept up from ne- cessity in a time of very extreme cold. It was an awful time so far as the weather was concerned, a cold wave of very exceptional severity hav- ing swept all over the western country and far into the south. Soldiers in the field, who were without protection suitable to extreme cold weather, suffered intensely, while in the new country to the northwest, where the wind had full sweep, great numbers of men, who were caught away from shelter. perished. How the conditions of that day were impressed on the minds of men was illustrated on the first day of the present year, when one old soldier asked another where he was 47 years ago that day, and was instantly answered, "At St. Louis," with an account of the struggle there with the cold. To have a fire start in such a time in a country village was simply to raise the question as to how far it would extend, and Ne- vada was very fortunate in that the burning court house did not, in fact, set other buildings afire. It was not a very great court house, but it was the first building erected for that purpose in the county. It had cost $1,500 in the first year or so of the county's existence and was considered ap- parently a very good building for the purpose. In the midst of the war, there seems to have been little disposition to take advantage of the destruc- tion of the old court house as a reason for building a new and elaborate and costly one in its place ; but, of course, something had to be done, and what was done by the board of supervisors was to use again the old foundation and to contract for the erection thereon of a new building of the same dimensions as the old one. This arrangement was reducing the cost of replacement to a minimum; and, in this way, there were accomplished, results which moved the Ægis in the November following to remark that "the board made a ten-strike in getting that job done at the price of $2,000. We venture to say $1,500 more would be necessary to secure the con- struction of such a building now."
This second court house was sold with the half block on which it stood, when the present court house had been completed in 1877, and it was soon removed to a lot west of the Opera Hall block, where it stood for a number of years, and was at one time used for the Watchman print- ing office, but was ultimately torn down.
At the time the court house was burned, there was in the vault a con- siderable amount of money belonging to the county and also some belong- ing to the county treasurer, Mr. T. J. Ross. The currency came through the fire in a somewhat demoralized condition, but for the most part it was recognizable. The treasurer took the remnants in his grip sack to Wash- ington and presented them to the treasury department, where they were closely scrutinized, and, so far as possible, identified and redeemed by the department. The amount of such redemption was $7.770. This amount did not balance the sum that was in the safe at the time; but, ultimately the difference was prorated between the county and the treasurer and the
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state. There was considerable difficulty and delay about getting the state to bear its share of the loss, but, we understand, it was ultimately done. As is apt to be the case, however, where there is an undoubted loss which is to be borne by somebody, it never was entirely satisfactory to the various parties in interest that a larger share of the loss was not borne by some one else.
It was along about this time that there found its way into print an official report, which has, at least once been reprinted since, and which deserves here to be preserved for all time, as a part of the county record. It appears in the proceedings of the board of supervisors, and it illustrates how it is possible to make a record sometimes out of no material, but also why. for a considerable period in the earlier history of the county, there is found so little of an interesting nature to record as pertaining to the western part of the county. The record is of an official report from W. C. Shockley, well known as old Squire Shockley, of Washington Township, who held the office of justice of the peace for many years, and who found himself under obligation of law to make complete report of his doings in office. This he did as follows: "Washington Township. Story County, Iowa. J. W. C. Shockley, Justice of the Peace of Washington Township. Story County, Iowa. report as such Justice of the Peace, in accordance with Chapter 29 of the Acts of the Ninth General Assembly. that I have nothing to report. W. C. SHOCKLEY, J. P .. Feb'y 16, 1864."
Another incident of the same period pertains to Jerry Marks and his horse. Jerry was a character in the pioneer community, lived on the Judge Mitchell place, had a family; and though he evidently had sympathy in time of trouble, was highly eccentric. He had been marshal of the day at the famous Fourth of July celebration on the college campus, in 1859, and on various other occasions it had been demonstrated that he was a useful citizen. So when he lost the horse on whose labors he largely depended for the support of his family, a paper was passed around, and by evening another horse stood at the unfortunate man's gate, a free gift to him from many of the citizens. Jerry was properly appreciative of this generosity; but it was not until some time afterwards that the extent to which he could be moved became apparent ; for he was not readily moved, but was rough in manners and speech, had been a sailor in his early years and was a tyrant in his home. Ile was a non-believer in religion and in sundry other good things ; but one day, as he was coming home on a load of wood, there arose a prairie fire, which was driven by a whirlwind. and was for a long time a memorable incident of this locality. The whirling of fire came up on the west side of the creek and Jerry was not in immediate danger, but the whirlwind and the awful spectacle together made him think that the world was coming to its end, and the Judgment Day was upon him. Ac- cordingly, he got down on his knees on the load of wood and got to pray- ing. His measure of devotion, which had been so long in making its ap- pearance, ought to have been appreciated and commended; but, probably,
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he backslid too soon for him to get the proper credit from his fellows. He moved to Kansas afterwards, but returned and died on a farm in Story County.
THE TOWNSEND MURDER.
On the 17th of October, 1864, a man who was hunting for prairie chick- ens or other game, had his attention drawn by something peculiar in a gully near the ford at the southwest part of Nevada, across West Indian creek, and, upon investigation, found a nearly but not quite completely buried body of a man. He at once gave the report and investigation followed. The body was exhumed, and was, without great difficulty, identified as that of one of two men who had come this way with a mover's outfit. Photo- graphs were also taken by Miss Hannah Bixby, now Mrs. R. H. Mitchell, and this assisted later in finding relatives of the deceased. He proved to be a man named Townsend, who had been in the far west, and was mak- ing his way back to the east side of the Mississippi. It appeared later that his companion was a man named McMullen, and that McMullen had killed and buried him at their camp by the ford. Thereupon McMullen took the outfit and drove on eastward, over to Illinois, where he sold the outfit making very little attempt at concealment; and, in fact, it appears that if he had buried his victim a little deeper, there might never have been sus- picion directed to him. The discovery of the body, however, followed so promptly upon the murder, that the matter was followed up, the team was easily traced along its route of travel, and the man found to whom Mc- Mullen had sold it. From then, McMullen was further traced and, in a very few weeks, brought back to Nevada for arraignment. There was concerning the actual circumstances of the murder, no information what- ever, save what McMullen himself told, and what could be inferred from the conditions and circumstances. According to McMullen's story, the two had come through together from Idaho. At Omaha, Townsend had laid in a supply of whisky which supply he replenished from time to time, and frequent disagreements resulted between them. Arriving at the ford in Nevada they went into camp, McMullen doing the work and taking his orders from Townsend, and the latter staying in the wagon, drinking and becoming quite intoxicated. After a time Townsend came out of the wagon and began abusing McMullen because he had not made a success of build- ing a fire ; then Townsend pushed over McMullen, who was squatting in a position easily to be tipped over, and the latter happened to fall upon the ax, which he picked up and struck Townsend with. Townsend fell and McMullen walked away, and returning soon after found that Townsend was dead. Then he was uncertain what to do, but finally buried Townsend and went on. So far as could be judged from the other circumstances of the case, McMullen's story might be a true statement of the matter. He protested that he had never been in trouble before, and upon the whole he appears to have been able to evoke considerable sympathy. He had used
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a part of Townsend's money to pay off a mortgage on his farm in Illinois; but one could readily believe that if he had been on murder bent, he need not have come with Townsend from Idaho to lowa, in order to find a fair opportunity for such crime. MeMullen was taken to Cedar Rapids for trial and was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to the peni- tentiary for ten years. Like some other criminal matters that have hap- pened in the county, this was one that had nothing to do with the people who belonged here. excepting as they took notice of it. and endeavored to promote justice. Neither the murderer nor the murdered man had ever been in the county until the day of the murder, and the fatal quarrel which happened here might just as well have happened anywhere.
CHAPTER XXV. HOME AFFAIRS IN WAR TIME-(CONTINUED).
THE RAILROAD.
The great local event of this period was the actual coming of the rail- road. The railroad convention at Cedar Rapids in 1859, had indeed led to the successful projection of the road through the central belt of Iowa counties, but that convention of course, did not determine the exact loca- tion of the road, nor make it certain that the road would pass through any particular town. Such towns as Marshalltown and Nevada, Boons- borough and Jefferson, naturally expected to get it, and, in the end, three of them did, but Boonsborough did not; and the fact of its failure is illus- trative of the conditions under which no town was actually sure of the railroad until the railroad actually came, or binding contracts for its loca- tion were signed. The management of the railroad surveyed its line through Nevada, but also surveyed a line two or three miles to the nortli- ward, where it is possible they might have been able to find a more favor- able route across the county ; but, whether the northern route was the better one or not, it served the purpose which railroad projectors, especially in the earlier days, never lost sight of, to-wit: of assisting in the collection of all available bonuses for the location.
In this case, the bonus to be looked after was mainly the swamp lands of the county. The congressional grant to the state for aid in construc- tion of the railroad on or near the line of the 42d parallel had, in due time, been declared forfeited as to the Iowa Central Air Line, and had been tendered formally to the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Company ; but, in addition to this grant, there had been conveyed first by the government to the state, and afterwards by the state to the counties concerned, the swamp lands that might be in the counties of the state. Story County hav- ing been in the early days and before the time of tile and up to the time of tile drainage, more than an ordinarily swampy country, its share of swamp lands was perhaps more than the ordinary amount ; but, of course, the county had not yet developed to the point where the higher and more readily tillable lands were by any means exhausted, and the value that therefore was put upon the swamp lands, was not very great. Whatever
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the value of the lands may have been, however, the railroad company de- sired the same, and following the survey north of Nevada it was given to be understood that if Nevada wanted the railroad, it must induce the county to convey the swamp lands as consideration therefore. The propo- sition was regarded much in the nature of a bluff, but the people of Ne- vada though it wiser not to call the bluff, and the people of the county sustained them in their position. Accordingly, it was agreed that if the county should convey the swamp lands, the railroad would locate its depot within a thousand yards of the court house; and the question being sub- mitted to the people of the county, they by a large majority voted to make the grant.
Besides this grant, there was a demand, for reasons not quite so clearly understood, for a cash donation from the business men of Nevada, and the urgency of this demand was also such that the subscription was circu- lated and liberally signed. In due time accordingly, the railroad came. After its arrival, demand was made upon the county for the performance of its contract as to the conveyance of the swamp lands. The board of supervisors having, in the meantime, gotten the railroad to Nevada, did not care about completing the contract ; but the matter was in sufficiently definite a shape, so that its completion could not be avoided, and in due time the railroad got the swamp lands, and the same were conveyed by the rail- road to the lowa Railroad Land Company, which had its headquarters in Cedar Rapids, and out of which those who were on the inside of the rail- road proposition are supposed to have made very considerable fortunes. For many years afterwards, the company ran advertisements in the local papers, describing the lands of this grant, that were for sale in the county ; but in the course of about twenty years, the lands were all disposed of and the advertisements discontinued, but not until the lands had been disposed of.
As to the donation, however, there appears to have been better luck for those who would be glad to avoid payment of the donation which was very much in the nature of a hold-up. As Mr. Sam Statler tells the story: The subscription paper was in the possession of Mr. Hawthorn, who was then the local director of the railroad, and was also Mr. Statler's employer. On one occasion, Mr. S. S. Webb, who was elected county clerk of the county in 1858 and died in Texas during the present year of 1911, and who was interested in the matter of the subscription, came to Mr. Statler, who was in charge of the office, and wanted that subscription paper. Later on, the paper was looked for and Webb referred to; but somehow the paper never showed up, and the subscriptions were never collected.
As for the work of construction it progressed very much as such work is supposed to progress. Marshalltown was reached in 1863, and in the spring of 1864. the work was pushed to Colo, which was, for a time, head- quarters of the advance work. Then it was pushed on towards Nevada. As the last weeks in June came, the local interest in the matter increased, and was weekly reported by the ÆEgis. At one time, the editor could hear
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the whistle ; at another, he could see what he called the "bulgine," and finally, on the 4th day of July, the country hereabout celebrated by going down to the north side of town and seeing the construction train come in. In a very short time thereafter, the regular train service was established at Nevada.
The year following the completion of the road to Nevada was the busiest, locally, that ever had been known in this community, and perhaps that ever has been known here. The very material fact was that Nevada had be- come the terminal of railroad transportation from the east for traffic to the far west. The Union Pacific had already been begun, and was working west from Omaha; but its eastern connection was by steamboat on the Missouri river, and not by railroad across Iowa. It would seem that the railroad might have been pushed on readily from Nevada to some point farther west, during that same year of 1864; but for reasons not ap- parent at this distance, the further construction was not pushed rapidly, and Nevada was permitted to be the terminal for the rest of that year. Forthwith, the railway was organized as the Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska, and the local editor published acknowledgement of the fact that he had a railroad pass, which he used with evident satisfaction on his first trip to Marshalltown. More important to the community in general, the Western Stage Company inaugurated regular service of tri-weekly stages to De- catur, Nebraska, while about the same time, a daily mail service was estab- lished between Nevada and Des Moines.
These two arrangements together were fine for Nevada, and were also a great institution for Des Moines and Decatur. Des Moines, from this start continued to grow and has since become quite a city, but one has to consult the index of the map to find out where Decatur now is. As a matter of fact, it is on the west side of the Missouri river, nearly opposite Onawa. In the shuffling of railroad construction it failed to get a deal closer than ten miles, and it passed out of its glories when the stage service was discontinued, and the Missouri river failed longer to count in matters of transportation. At Nevada, the idea of the railroad management was to build up a business center in the northeastern part of town. Blair's Addi- tion and the Blair Town Lot and Land Company addition were both laid out in the vicinity of the railroad, and the station was located on the east side of what is now Pine street in that immediate locality. Here there were barns for the stage service and most of the establishments of one sort or another that are incidental to the general transfer from rail to wagon travel. The understanding has been that the merchants who were at that time engaged in Nevada in the sale of general merchandise got rich rapidly in the furnishing of outfits to departing emigrants. What this traffic meant is faintly suggested by a paragraph in the Ægis at the end of the following matter, in which under the head of "Another Western Train," it is reported that "a train of wagons, loaded with gold mining machinery, bound for Denver City or thereabouts, which has been fitting out under the manage-
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ment of Captain Bradford for some weeks past. started on Thursday last. It was a source of considerable amusement to ourselves and others to wit- ness the performance of getting under way, where both mules and drivers were essentially green to their duties. The captain and his men, most all of whom were from Boston, have made many friends by their gentlemanly course, so much so in contrast with some other trains which have started from this point."
Of course, the business of outfitting for the far west was discontinued here as soon as the railroad was completed to Boone. or "Montana," as the new town was then called on the prairie this side of Boonsborough; but the railroad company did not attempt to establish any intermediate terminal between these two points, and all of the terminal traffic was done here until the location at Boone was reached; but while the far western traffic was then suspended. the Des Moines traffic continued for some time longer. It was not until 1866 that a railroad at all reached Des Moines, and when it did reach there. it was the Des Moines Valley Line and not the direct line east and west of what is now the Rock Island system; so for two or three years, the stage traffic between Nevada and Des Moines was very heavy, and shipments to Des Moines were very largely made to this point. It was at one time attempted by the railroad, or stage company. to transfer the Des Moines business from Nevada to Boone, but this arrangement did not prove satisfactory, and the stage line was changed back to Nevada. where it continued to have its connection with the Northwestern until the construction of the Narrow Gauge from Des Moines to Ames occasioned its ‹liscontinuance.
What Nevada probably saved for itself by getting the county to back it in the matter of granting the swamp lands in return for the satisfactory location of the depot at Nevada is illustrated by the occurrence at Boons- borough. Boonsborough was an okler town than Nevada, migration up the Des Moines river having reached the center of Boone County before there had developed any particular disposition to cross Squaw Fork into Story ; and the town was in the time of the war a better established town than was Nevada; although both towns were alike in the fact that neither of them then had any real rival in its county; but the position of Boons- borough as the political and business center of Boone County was seem- ingly so secure that the people there seem to have been governed by the idea that they did not need to meet the demands of the railroad for do- nations in return for local favors; as the people of Nevada had to meet the similar demands. The survey of the railroad carried the line directly along the north side of the village of Boonsborough, about where the people of the village would prefer to have it, and the most favorable crossing of the Des Moines river upon a high grade from the bluff on one side to the bluff on the other, was almost directly west from Boonsborough; so Boonsborongh refused to make the desired concessions.
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HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
After this refusal, John I. Blair, who was the great capitalist of New Jersey, and was putting his money into the building of the west, and who was the directing spirit with regard to the construction of what is now the Northwestern Railroad, came out to Boone to look over the situation. Blair had an idea of economical construction as well as of the gathering in of donations for location; and accordingly he had the line radically changed, the same being turned near where it reached Honey creek, east of Boonsborough and made to follow the creek to the Des Moines river bottoms. A gully made by a similar creek was found on the other side of the river, and thus the crossing of the river was effected by a very much cheaper bridge than would have been necessary at the higher cross- ing west of Boonsborough. As a matter of railroad engineering, this change of program was probably quite as unfortunate for the Northwestern Railroad as it was for the village of Boonsborough; for, after operating upon the steep grades and many curves of the line down to and out of Moingona, the Northwestern Railroad went back to the original line and built its million dollar crossing of the Des Moines river between Boone and Ogden; but this far belated return of the railroad to its original line was of only very incidental benefit to Boonsborough. The railroad located its terminal and permanent depot out at the turn in the line near Honey creek, and proceeded to lay out there a new town. The people of Boons- borough smiled for a time, but the new town soon got ahead, become the city, and in later years has annexed Boonsborough as its fifth ward.
Nevada, in 1864 could not have withstood a commercial assault such as was made upon Boonsborough by the Northwestern; and, while it does not appear that by changing the line two or three miles to the northward, there could have been any such saving of expense as was made for the time being in the change at the Des Moines river crossing ; yet, in the laying out of a new town in some favorable locality, there would have been a specu- lation in town lots; and the numerousness of Blairs' Additions in nearly all of the towns along the line of the Northwestern Railroad is evidence of the fact that the railroad management was fully alive to the advantage of such town lot speculation. The price for the railroad may have been high, but Nevada had to pay it; and the town was distinctly fortunate in being able to get the county to make the principal payment in the swamp land dona- tion, and finally to get out of the rest of the payment through the disap- pearance of the subscription paper.
Up to the time when the railroad reached Nevada and for several months thereafter the traffic, such as it was, over the line, was embarrassed by the crossing of the Mississippi at Clinton, where there was as yet no bridge and where the transfer had to be made in summer by ferry, and in winter over the ice, if the ice would bear it, and it is not stated how, when the ice would not bear it. In January, 1865, however, it was announced that the Northwestern bridge at Clinton was open, and from that time Story County has had an all-rail connection with the east. The bridge
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