USA > Iowa > Story County > History of Story County, Iowa; a record of organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 42
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
369
HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
was ended somewhat abruptly by the local political events of the ensuing weeks.
The troubles of 1867 seem to have begun with the death of George F. Schoonover, three months after beginning his term as county re- corder. Henry Boynton had been appointed to the vacancy with some suggestion that Mrs. Laura Berry should do the actual work of the office and that the fees over and above her compensation should go to Mrs. Schoonover. The facts of the matter are much obscured but the con- troversy that arose was spirited. Mr. Boynton was a candidate for the nomination for the unexpired term and the main issue in the election of delegates to the county convention seems to have been the recordership. Several candidates came forward and they all fought Boynton. In the end Boynton was beaten in Nevada and elsewhere and did not appear as a formidable candidate in the convention but the fight against Boynton had given the control of the Nevada delegation to the side with which Boynton did not generally affiliate. This side was also on the south side of the slough in Nevada, and its success in the Nevada caucus gave it ascendency in the convention. From this ascendency several results followed. One was that R. 11. Mitchell, who had been elected county judge two years before, was refused a renomination and in his stead T. J. Ross, who had been county treasurer for six years following 1859. was nominated. Incidentally Lycurgus Irwin, a brilliant and some- what erratic young lawyer, who had not been long in the county but who later won distinction as the original promoter of the Nevada public library, was nominated for representative over J. 1 .. Dana. Also Rev. Beckley, who was a brother-in-law of Ross, was renominated for super- intendent against the ineffective opposition of the other crowd. H. F. Murphey, who possessed in an especial degree the faculty of keeping out of trouble, was re-nominated for sheriff and did not become involved in the troubles of election. The nomination for recorder which had been the beginning of the rumpus went to Samuel Bates of Howard township and did not figure particularly in the further proceedings save that the regulars resented his apparent sympathy with the bolters and refused him a renomination the next year, although he was then reelected as an independent. The nub of the fight was the county judgeship and the point of that was that the land business at that time was good. Ross was in the land business with Scott, and other men in the land business did not want that firm to have the advantage of an office in the court house. Out of such a beginning came the subsequent disturbance. Some personal misunderstandings of things said helped the matter along and in a short time the disaffected faction was in the field with a bolting ticket for county judge, representative and county superintendent. The candidates were R. 11. Mitchell for county judge. J. L. Dana for representative. and F. D. Thompson for county superintendent. Dana undoubtedly wanted to be representative but Thompson had little use for
369
HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
the superintendency and in fact did not serve out the term to which he was elected, and there was no general issue which would have encouraged Dana to be a candidate. Probably the fact was that the other two had to run in order to support Mitchell, who really had some grounds for complaint in not being fairly treated in the convention. So they plunged into the fight. The Republican strength in the county was by this time just about two to one over the Democrats, and with the Republicans split in the middle and everybody mad, conditions were right for a very close three cornered contest. On the eve of the election Thompson and his business associate McCall, who together constituted a majority of the Re- publican County committee, sent out an appeal to Republicans to sup- port the bolting candidates as a means necessary to the defeat of the Democrats. This was an argument which the regulars much resented but it appears to have been warranted by the facts, for the returns put the regular candidates in third place, Mitchell defeating Kellogg, Demo- crat, for county judge by twenty-four votes, and Thompson being elected over Bartlett, Democrat, by twenty-one, Dana failed to come in ahead of his Democratic opponent and consequently Major Hawthorn was elected a Democratic representative from this overwhelmingly Republican county by a plurality of twenty-five. Scott, who as before noted was on the ticket at the same time for Lieut. Governor, was scratched to a consid- erable degree in his own county, and all the men who mixed in the matter on opposite sides were suspicious or hostile toward each other from that time on.
A further political incident of 1867 pertained to the senatorial con- vention of that year. In those years there was a different senatorial district at each senatorial election and it was not until 1871 that Story and Boone counties were constituted a district by themselves and appar- ently for keeps. In 1867, the district consisted of the counties of Boone, Greene, Hamilton, and Story, and the Republican convention was held at Boone. Boone had ten delegates, Story and Greene together 12, and Hamilton 5. Just what were the hopes of the Story delegates before they went to the convention is not reported; but when they got there, they found that Boone County was for I. J. Mitchell and that Judge Chase, who was running the Hamilton delegation, intended to nominate him, very likely for reasons connected with Chase's aspirations for con- gressional honors later on. At any rate, the Story and Greene delegations, being thus outside this combination, arranged to make what trouble they could for the combination and accordingly without consul- tation with the Hamilton delegation, cast their 12 votes for Col. G. W. Crossley, a Story County soldier of the Third Iowa, and then as now a prominent citizen of Webster City. The matter was as embarrassing for Chase as had been hoped, and Chase amply confessed his embarrass- ment in a speech of explanation; but he stood by his deal and threw the vote of Hamilton to Mitchell, who was accordingly nominated and
370
HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
clected senator and seven years later was nominated and elected district judge on another deal with Chase, who again did not get the congressional nomination he was seeking.
CAMPAIGN OF 1868.
The year 1868 was the one in which General Grant was first elected president of the United States and the Republican policy of reconstruc- tion was sustained. Story County was in full sympathy with the can- didate and the policy, but it is hardly a matter of special note that the county should have given its support to Republican candidates or prin- ciples at any particular time after the war. The main local incident of the year was the candidacy of Col. Scott for the congressional nomina- tion in the old sixth district. From the vantage point of his position in the lieutenant-governorship he pushed his canvass effectively and he had a powerful and well organized support through the greater part of the district. But there were other men of local and general standing who aspired to congresssional honors and the result was a much divided field. Among the other candidates were Judge Chase of Webster City, Judge Couch of Waterloo, and Charles Pomeroy of Fort Dodge, but formerly of Boone. The various county delegations were sharply contested and the convention was held at Boone. When it met, Chase had a small lead, Scott second with rather the more tenacious support, and Couch and Pomeroy not so very far behind. The balloting was protracted and, as is often the case, in such conventions, counties took to throwing around their votes somewhat carelessly. In this proceeding, some one exclaimed excitedly that a certain vote nominated Pomeroy, which it did not do. but the chairman of the Blackhawk delegation was stampeded and changed the vote of his county to Pomeroy who, in fact, was thus nomin- ated. Pomeroy was a zealous Republican and eloquent orator, and he had been a presidential elector in Lincoln's first campaign but one term was all he could get in congress on this sort of a start, and he was easily retired two years later, and in the meantime Story County's excellent time for a congressman had passed.
In county matters this year the situation quieted down to some de- gree. J. A. Fitchpatrick was renominated for clerk without difficulty and was re-elected as he continued to be for several terms. The other place on the county ticket was that of county-recorder. Bates' elec- tion for the previous year having been for the vacancy only. There was not so much fuss about the matter as in the previous year but the con- vention was controlled by the regulars and they as before noted refused Bates a renomination, putting on the ticket in his place Torkel Henry- son of Story City. This action is notable as the first nomination of a Norwegian, by the Republicans of the county, for a county office. The Norwegians had been a growing force in the county for ten years and
371
HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
back in 1859, their vote though small, had undoubtedly determined the political complexion of the county. In succeeding years, however, their vote though larger, had not been so badly needed and had therefore com- manded less attention. Undoubtedly it is further true that their vote did not increase as rapidly as did their settlement. The first Norwegian settlers in the county in the latter '50s, had come from Illinois and were for the most part already citizens; but later on the immigration came more directly from Norway and the newer arrivals had to wait the process of naturalization before counting in politics. In spite, however, of such delays, the Norwegian power and influence were becoming more appreciable and the nomination of Henryson was clearly dictated by good politics. Mr. Henryson was then-and is yet-one of the most represen- tative citizens of his portion of the county, and he would have filled well the recordership as his son, thirty years later, did the treasurership. But the politics of the previous year had not yet settled down and the people of the county were not yet habituated in the matter of voting for Nor- wegians for office. Bates bolted and ran independent and he was sup- ported by a combination of Democrats, bolters of the previous year and probably others who regarded with disfavor the nomination of a Nor- wegian. The combination was effective and Henryson was beaten. But it is to be said of him that he took his defeat in good part and the matter was not made the occasion of further political wars.
CHAPTER XXXVI. POLITICS FOLLOWING THE WAR-(CONTINUED).
CAMPAIGN OF 1869.
The year 1869 was more of an off year in county politics than there had been for some time. The divisions at the county seat continued, but the outside of the county became more assertive, and the outside spirit was manifested in the nomination for representative of W. K. Wood of Iowa Center. He had been one of the earliest settlers of the county, had always been universally esteemed and was indifferent as to whether business in Nevada should be done chiefly on the north side or the south side of the slough. In the Republican County convention the nominees were W. K. Wood for representative, E. G. Day for treasurer, C. P. McCord for auditor, R. S. Osborn for sheriff, John R. Hays for super- intendent, C. P. Robinson for coroner. Mr. Griffin for drainage commis- sioner and M. C. Allen for county surveyor. Of these nominees the first and last are still prominent citizens of the county; John R. Hays is one of the leading men of Nebraska and resides at Norfolk in that state: Osborn was beaten in the election but went to Kansas where he become auditor of state; Griffin we never heard of; but Day. McCord and Robinson were men long prominent in the county and in the course of years went the way of all that is mortal. But together they were a forceful bunch, and they won the nominations in a convention the pro- ceedings of which indicate that there was a fight.
The main issue of the fight appears to have been to clean out the bolters of two years before. The bolting faction was still strong in the county seat and it was in control of the Nevada delegation in convention ; but the opposite faction from Nevada and the people on the outside who were tired of the fuss got together and dominated the convention. We have a suspicion that E. G. Day had his identification with the bolters; but he never was aggressive on that side and he got his nomination by a margin of one vote over W. D. Lucas of Ames. But Dana was de- feated for representative and Mitchell for auditor, in each case the nomin- ation going to the country, which up to that time had not been in the habit of taking nominations to any considerable extent. Why Osborn was nominated over Murphey is not so clear; but it may be that he had
372
373
HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
a bunch of delegates that were needed in the outside combination. At any rate Osborn was nominated; but he was immediately voted as being no good, and the Democrats were given the hint that if they would nominate an old soldier for sheriff they might get one office. They nominated Alf Goodin, who had served through the war, and part of the time in Andersonville, and he beat Osborn by a big majority, it being a fact worthy of renewed mention that Goodin thus became the only Dem- ocrat to be elected to office in this county on a straight Democratic nom- ination since 1858.
The convention was called to order by T. J. Ross, and its chairman was Robert Marshall of Washington township. V. A. Ballou was secre- tary. It was not one of the famous conventions of Story county Re- publicanism; but it evidently knew what it wanted, and by sitting down hard on the bolters it probably made its contribution toward the factional feud which lasted in the county for twenty years. Explanatory of the candidacy of R. H. Mitchell for renomination for auditor, it should be said that the general assembly of 1868 had abolished the office of county judge, but had created the office of county auditor, and instead of legis- lating the county judges out of office, it had provided that for the re- mainder of their terms they should discharge the duties of the new position. The glories of the county judgeship had been much dimmed several years before by the creation of boards of supervisors; and the further change which made the county judge clerk of the board and gave him a suitable title was readily accepted by all.
SOME FURTHER POLITICS.
In the Republican convention of 1870 Fitchpatrick was renominated for clerk, and Sam Bates again secured a regular nomination for re- corder. Both candidates had opposition but not enough to bother thiem greatly. It was in this year that supervisors were first elected by the county as a whole, the boards up to this time having consisted of one member for each township. This convention therefore had three super- visors to nominate, and after some balloting the honors fell to W. R. Woodward, J. W. Maxwell and A. J. Graves, their strongest competitor being John Evanson.
There was in this year also a notable contest in the sixth district congressional convention, Chase and Scott, who had been the principal . candidates in the convention at Boone two years before, but who had been beaten by Pomeroy, received a few votes but were not candidates. Judge Couch of Waterloo, however, was again pushed by his friends, while yet more active candidates were Judge Ford of Sioux City and Jackson Orr of Boone. Pomeroy started in as the leading candidate but was not able to hold his lead and on the fourteenth ballot Orr was nominated. Orr had lived at Fort Dodge and Jefferson and at this time
374
HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
was a merchant at Boone. Ile seems to have had the faculty of moving around and getting office where he happened to be. Some years later he went to Colorado and figured out there in politics as a Populist. There may have been some reasonable excuse for the sixth district send- ing him to Congress, but we do not know what it was. In the judicial convention of this year, Judge Chase of Webster City and District At- torney Bradley of Marshalltown, were both renominated. In the elec- tion of this year the political troubles of previous years were not acute. and the whole ticket was elected without especial interest being aroused
The campaign of 1871 is notable chiefly for the beginning of con- troversy between Story and Boone counties over the senatorship, but there were other political matters that were speedily disposed of. For representative the Republican convention of that year renominated W. K. Wood on the second ballot, although there was a strong support for L. Q. lloggatt, and J. 1 .. Dana was also voted for on the first ballot, the most of his votes going to Wood. For treasurer. E. G. Day was re- nominated against the divided opposition ; and for auditor John R. Hays who had been deputy under McCord, received his first nomination; thus starting on a term of service which continued for ten years. The Re- publicans having lost the sheriff two years before were cautious about their nomination and returned to 11. F. Murphey, who had demonstrated his ability to be elected whenever he was nominated. For superintendent the nominee was B. Bisbee who for thirty years was notable as one of the two men from Franklin township who actually got Republican nom- inations for county offices, and both of whom were beaten in the elec- tion. For supervisor there seems to have been an agreement to concede something to the Norwegians, but some difficulty in agreeing on the man. On the third ballot there was a tie, thirty votes apiece, between John Evanson and Abel Olson, both of Roland, but on the fourth ballot Evan- son was nominated. W. G. Allen was nominated for surveyor and the convention forgot to name anyone for coroner. The same forgetful- ness extended to the opposition, but in the election, C. P. Robinson was re-elected by a few scattering votes in Nevada.
But as before noted the real question of the year was the senator- ship. This was the first senatorial election in which Story and Boone counties constituted the senatorial district. The outgoing senator was 1. J. Mitchell of Boone, but ten and a dozen years before. Story had had Scott and also Potter to fill out Scott's term. At all other times since the settlement of the counties they had been represented by senators not residents of either county. In this situation Story set up the claim that a Boone senator was going out and it was Story County's turn. Boone on the other hand argued that the two counties so far had had equal representation, and that the senatorship now on a new proposition should go to the larger of the two counties. On the basis of the votes of the last election the chairmen of the respective Republicans county
375
HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
committees agreed on a call for a district convention in which Boone County was accorded thirteen votes and Story ten. If Boone therefore should insist it could take the nomination, but the disposition in Story was to insist strongly on the other side. So the Story convention upon a ballot gave G. M. Maxwell forty six votes and T. J. Ross thirteen and thereupon named a solid delegation in the interest of Maxwell. Boone at the same time with perhaps equal apparent unanimity but with not so strong backing among the people gave its endorsement and delegation to A. J. Holmes. Holmes was a young lawyer, who in later years was representative from Boone County, and for three terms a member of Congress, but at this time his reputation was not established and Story County knew very little about him. Maxwell on the other hand had served two terms as representative, was a campaigner of undoubted force and was the natural choice of the county for the position. So the two delegations came together at Ames with an idea on the Boone side that Boone could afford to take the nomination and with the idea on the Story side that such action was not to be submitted to. So the two delegations had a conference in advance of the convention. Story wanted to know what Boone proposed to do about it; Boone said it proposed to take the nomination. So Story absented itself and Boone proceeded to organ- ize a convention. The committee on credentials reported thirteen dele- gates from Boone and no credentials from Story. Boone sent a com- mittee to invite the Story delegation to come in and the delegation not coming, a motion was adopted authorizing Story County citizens present
to cast the vote of the county. In the meantime the Story delegation had organized in Dan McCarthy's office, and Dan McCarthy appeared in the Boone convention and asked time for Story to present a proposition. Time was most cheerfully granted and later T. E. Alderman presented the proposition which was that the candidacies of Messrs. Maxwell and Holmes be referred to a primary of the two counties. The Boone chair- man advised Mr. Alderman that such reference was without the jurisdic- tion of the convention-which advice was manifestly unsound-and Mr. Alderman withdrew. This closed the negotiations. In the Boone con- vention, the Boone delegation cast thirteen votes for A. J. Holmes, and somebody cast ten votes for J. Patton. Holmes was declared the nominee, whereupon the Story delegation in McCarthy's office nominated Max- well. In the later discussion Maxwell asserted that if Boone objected to him personally he had proposed to withdraw and Boone might select another Story County man, but he was advised there was no per- sonal objection to himself. In the subsequent campaign the senatorship was about the only matter that received attention. The Democrats did not attempt to run a candidate between the two Republicans but re- frained from making a nomination. Generally they appear to have sup- ported Maxwell, and in Story county, W. H. Gallup as chairman of the Republican county committee, and Major Hawthorn as chairman of
376
HISTORY OF STORY COUNTY
the Democratic county committee arranged for a joint discussion between the two candidates. Just how many such discussions were actually held we do not know but there were some and Maxwell was built for that sort of politics while Holmes was not. So Maxwell had all the advan- tage of the game, and in the returns he had 1,067 majority in Story County while Holmes was able to get only about 650 majority in Boone. Holmes had a small vote in Story County from Republicans who were anxious to be regular, but there was little heartiness in their support, and the county was about as unanimous for Maxwell as it ever was for any- one. For county superintendent Bisbee was defeated by Jerry H. Franks who thus entered upon a quite notable career in Story County politics, but otherwise a straight Republican ticket was elected.
The politics of 1872 appears to have been singularly devoid of ex- citement. At the early convention to choose delegates to the state con- vention which was to elect delegates to the national convention, the Grant administration was endorsed and President A. S. Welch was complimented with the chairmanship of the state delegation. The latter incident reminds that President Beardshear was similarly complimented in the county in 1898-and President Storms in 1904. President Welch was unquestionably a man to meet with tactfulness the responsibilities of such position, and President Beardshear also entered with spirit and evident appreciation into the rather lively proceedings of the Dubuque convention of 1898; but President Storms was differently constituted and he stayed away from the state convention.
In the later conventions of the same year, Fitchpatrick for clerk and Bates for recorder. secured their usual renominations,-the latter without open opposition. And J. W. Maxwell, who had drawn the short term at the organization of the board of supervisors was renominated. The second convention also took an expression of congressional preference. The candidacy of Congressman Orr for renomination was regarded with evident indifference and former Congressman Pomeroy was regarded as at least a tentative candidate in opposition. So the convention after some deliberation concluded that the proper thing was to present a candidate of its own and it accordingly gave its endorsement to Col. Scott. The endorsement however was without effect, for the opposition to Orr in the district failed to get together and he was renominated by acclama- tion in a convention which was held at Storm Lake and as to which the leading comment at the time was one of wonder why the convention was called for a place where there were only 200 people and a body of water that the assembled delegates could not conveniently use. The cir- cuit judges who four years before had been provided for, two for each judicial district, had had their offices consolidated to one for each judicial clistrict and had their salaries increased to correspond with that of dis- trict judge. Judge Hudson of Boone, who for the term had been the judge for the southern circuit of the Eleventh district, appears to have
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.