USA > Iowa > Taylor County > History of Taylor County, Iowa : containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc. : a biographical directory of many of its leading citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics, portraits of early settlers and prominent men, history of Iowa and the Northwest, map of Taylor County, Constitution of the United States, reminiscences, miscellaneous matters, etc > Part 38
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 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89
Winter, total.
117.29; mean 5.86
Spring
237.11; mean 11.85
Summer
278.06; mean 13.90
Fall 66
216.73; mean. 10.83
From which it will be seen that both the total and mean fall in summer exceed that of either of the other three seasons. The deduction from these statistics that the climate is a healthful one, is further strengthened by the general elevation of the surface of the county. In all elevated lands the
334
HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.
air is invigorating and bracing at all seasons, under all conditions that pre- vail elsewhere. The human race has not only degenerated by dwelling in low, unhealthy places, but it is again and again decimated by the pesti- lences generated in them. As Dr. Farr well remarks, "it is destroyed now periodically by five pestilences-cholera, remittent fever, yellow fever, glandular plagues and influenza. The origin or chief seat of the first is the delta of the Ganges. Of the second, the African and other tropical coats. Of the third, the low west coast around the Gulf of Mexico, or the delta of the Mississippi, and the West India Islands. Of the fourth, the delta of the Nile and the low sea-side cities of the Mediterranean. Of the generating field of influenza nothing certain is known; but *
* * the four great pestilential diseases-cholera, yellow fever, remittent fever and plague-have these properties in common: that they begin and are most fatal in low grounds; that their fatality diminishes in ascending the rivers and is inconsiderable around the river sources, except under such peculiar circumstances as are met with at Erzeroum, where the features of a marshy sea-side city are seen at the foot of the mountain chain of Ararat. Safety
is found in flight to the hills. * * * As the power of the Egyptians descended from the Thebaid to Memphis, from Memphis to Sais, they gradually degenerated, notwithstanding the elevation of their towns above the high waters of the Nile, their hygienic laws and the hydrographical and other sanitary arrangements which made the country renowned, justly or unjustly, for its salubrity in the days of Herodotus, the poison of the delta in every time of weakness and successful invasion gradually gained the ascendancy, and as the cities declined, the canals and the embalmments of the dead were neglected, and the plague gained ground. The people, sub- jugated by Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Mamelukes, became what they have been for centuries, and what they are at the present day. Every race that settled in the delta degenerated, and was only sustained by im- migration. So, likewise, the populations on the sites of all the city-states of antiquity, on the coast of Syria, Asia Minor, Africa, Italy, seated like the people of Rome on low ground under the ruin-clad hills of their ances- tors, within reach of fever and plague, are enervated and debased appar- ently beyond redemption.
"The history of the nations on the Mediterranean, on the plains of the Euphrates and the Tigris, the deltas of the Indus and the Ganges, and the rivers of China, exhibit this great fact: the gradual descent of races from the highlands, their establishment on the coasts in cities sustained and re- freshed for a season by immigration from the interior, their degradation in successive generations under the influence of the unhealthy earth, and their
335
HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.
final ruin, effacement or subjugation by new races of conquerors. The causes that destroy individual men lay cities waste which in their nature are immortal, and silently undermine eternal empires.
"On the highlands men feel the loftiest emotions. Every tradition places their origin there. The first nations worshiped there-high on the Indian Caucasus, on Olympus, and on other lofty mountains the Indians and the Greeks imagined the abodes of their highest gods, while they peo- pled the low, underground regions, the grave-land of mortality, with in- fernal deities. Their myths have a deep signification. Man feels his im- mortality in the hills .* While this may not be considered as bearing di- rectly on the climate of Taylor county, it is nevertheless a cognate theme. These are the things which have no little influence on mental and physical organization, and through them modify all the conditions of national de- velopment. Health and intelligence, intelligence and good morals, good morals and excellent government, are sisters three without which neither nations nor men may live and prosper. While it is true there are no highlands proper in this county, its whole surface is sufficiently elevated to out-general disease and stay the ravages of pestilence.
GEOLOGY.
The geological history of Taylor county is one of peculiar interest, and affords some very suggestive facts relative to its past vicissitudes. It ex- tends in point of time over many thousands of years, and embraces pe- riods of repose and periods of remarkable change. Its history, climatolog- ically, has been one of deep interest, and embraces changes so radical and so directly at variance with one another as to be almost incredible. There have been long ages when it basked under a torrid sun; and then these ages gave place to others remarkable for polar frosts. Life, in all the lux- uriance and variety of a tropical climate, gave place to the desert waste of an arctic zone. Nor were these changes sudden. They are there, stamped in the very rocks at your doors, and limned upon the landscape of your val- leys, not as great and far-reaching catastrophes, but as gradual transitions, indisputably marked as such by the fossil forms that roll out from the rock you crush, or see traced with a delicacy no draughtsman can imitate. There have been times when old ocean, heedless of his doings, dashed against the rocky barrier that dared dispute his way, or rolled in solemn conscious might above its highest point; times when a beautiful flora thrived on its
*Report of Wm. Farr, Esq., to the Registrar-General of England, 1852, p. xciv.
336
HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.
surface; and times when there was naught but a waste of desert water. We strike our pick in the shales on the hill-side; and, behold! there in the coal that gives us warmth and drives our engines are the fairy forms that made the fern paradise of the coal period-beautiful arguments these of changes that thousands of years, as we measure them, would not compass. In pre- senting the following principal facts in the geology of Taylor county, enough only of the lithological characters of the various rock strata has been given to enable the interested reader to identify them. Many points of interest from a geological standpoint have necessarily been omitted; their introduction would have unduly lengthened the chapter, and scarcely possessed any general interest. To trace, briefly, the changes that have oc- curred, and to note their probable causes are the main purposes of their sketch. There has been introduced a sketch of the celebrated deposit known as the loess, that which Prof. Swallow, while State Geologist of Missouri, named the "bluff deposit," so familiar to all who dwell along the valley of the Missouri. Though it has no direct relation to this county, since its introduction completes the geology of southwestern Iowa it will meet with the approbation and challenge the interest of all who are inter- ested in matters of this nature. Indeed, the geology of no county can be really understood in all its bearings and importance without having refer- ence to counties adjoining or not at all remote. The deposit now to be con- sidered does not occur in any part of Taylor, but does occur in Fremont, Mills and Page counties, extending, in the last named, as far eastward as the Tarkio River.
The surface of the first two of these counties, and a great part of the last named, is entirely covered with the loess. It lies next above the drift and varies in depth, in different parts of the county, from five to one hundred feet. In appearance the deposit is peculiarly characteristic, presenting substantially the same features in whatsoever part of the globe it is found. Its material is of a slightly yellowish ash color, except where darkened by decaying vegetation; very fine and silicious, but not sandy, "not very cohe- sive and not at all plastic." Along the Missouri bottom the formation is exposed in the most favorable manner for study. Those bold, high escarp- ments stand out as monuments-not very endurable, to be sure-to mark the great changes that have occurred in the surface features of this county. Mixed throughout this material are to be found various species of land and fresh water shells that seem to furnish the clue to a solution of the problem concerning its origin. Relative to this point, it is sufficient for present purposes to simply indicate the more prominent points in the theories broached, of which there are two principal ones. The first, and, to speak
337
HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.
within bounds, a most novel one, is the theory of Baron von Richthofen. The Baron's theory, based principally upon the study of the loess of China, is substantially this: "That loess, certainly in China and probably in all con- tinents, is a subaerial deposit collected on dry grassy areas by the action of fierce winds. For the formation of such a region, he supposes a central un- drained elevated area, from which nearly all moisture is excluded by sur- rounding mountain chains."*
To this theory is opposed what is called the subaqueous theory, which the reader will at once notice is diametrically opposite that of the Baron. Without entering into the details of the various arguments advanced by those who maintain the last named theory, it is sufficient to say that the lacustrine origin of the loess is now a quite generally conceded point. Such an origin involves radical changes in our conceptions of the physical aspect of the county. We must conceive the present level of the land to be somewhat lowered, the waters of the Missouri barred on their way to the ocean, spreading eastward and westward until they assume the propor- tions of a great inland sea, two hundred or more miles in length. Far away to the northwest the upper Missouri is plowing its way through the land, wearing away its boundaries and hurrying onward with them to the comparatively quiet waters below. The depression of the land meant also the northward extension of the Gulf of Mexico, which, then as now, be- came the final recipient of the waters of the Missouri. In the great Lake Missouri the finely comminuted material held in suspension by its waters was deposited as a blanket of silt over the bottom of the lake-the former surface of the land. Then came those giant throes which lifted again the partially submerged continent, hurled the encroaching waves of the ocean back to their former dominion, and allowed the waters of the ancient Lake Missouri to gradually reach the sea. Then began a period of erosion, not yet ended, by means of which the great river has plowed out its present valley through the land. The abrading process still continues on a scale so enormous as to excite our wonder, and it is the immediate cause that renders so treacherous and uncertain the navigation of the stream. Through sediment of its own deposition in centuries far back in the history of time the river is cutting its way, changing its channel ever and anon, and carry- ing in its turbid waters much of the land of Fremont and Mills counties to make fertile and broad acres along its lower course.
The lake the river formed in that far off past was not a lake of an hour, nor one of a season of floods, but for centuries reigned where now the
*Prof. J. E. Todd, in Proc. A. A. A. S., Vol. XXXVII, 1878.
2
338
HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.
farmer guides his plow. It contained life-forms, many of which, or closely allied ones, are living to-day. Among them flourished shells of the genera Physa, Lymnophysa, Planorbis, and perhaps Ancylus. These are found throughout the loess mningled with land shells of the genera Meso- don, Succinea, Zonites and others. Prof. J. E. Todd, in the "Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science," Vol. XXVII, reports twenty-seven species from the loess of this valley. Prof. Samuel Aughey reports a list of one hundred and twenty-three, of which seventy- eight at least are incorrectly determined. Not more than forty-five of all the forms he has listed in his " Sketches of the Physical Geography and Ge- ology of Nebraska," p. 287, can possibly stand. Is it questioned how came these land shells here? They were brought down by floods from the higher and wooded sections forming the boundaries of the lake, and at length sink- ing to the bottom were covered with a silt in a manner similar to that which entombed their allied brethren of the fresh water forms. These re- mains are in themselves almost conclusive proof of the fresh water origin of the loess, and help to solve some of the questions of the surface geology of southwestern Iowa.
Immediately beneath the loess is found the drift, though rarely seen in the extreme southwest of the State, and then only in deep railroad cuts, or in the valleys of those streams which have eroded their courses to a great depth. The term " drift," as is commonly employed in geology, " includes the sand, gravel, clay and boulders occurring over some parts of the conti- nents, which are without stratification or order of arrangement, and have been transported from places in high latitudes by some agency which (1) could carry masses of rock hundreds of tons in weight, and which (2) was not always dependent for motion on the slopes of the surface." (Hall.) This agency was ice, either in the form of an extensive glacier, or in detached masses called icebergs. The whole surface of North America to the thirty- ninth parallel bears evidence of the denuding and transforming power of this agency. This it was which rounded, in part, these hills, partially filled old valleys or dug out new ones, and which left at our very door these masses of rock-large and small-or buried them in the hill-side to excite our wonder and cause us to speculate as to their origin. They were brought thither from some northern locality where the material from which they were derived may be in situ. The general direction of the glacial move- ment was southward. The exposures of the drift in this county are consid- erable, occurring wherever the streams have carried away the surface soil, or humus. A few feet removed in any part of the county will show the up- per layers of the drift, which is here modified drift, or drift in which the
339
HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.
materials have been assorted, in a rough sort of way, and arranged in strata by the action of the water. This rearranging, or modification, was done after the melting or recession of the glacier which brought the material here, and perhaps in one of those periods of subsidence or continental de- pression which made the greater portion of Iowa one vast inland sea. In the deepest valleys the out-crops of the drift are seen to most excellent ad- vantage, and there it should be studied to learn all its peculiar features. At Bedford, in the northeast part of the city limits, where the Bedford quar- ries are located, the drift and its stratification are very finely exposed to view. When visited the vertical walls showed plainly and unmistakably the ac- tion of the water, and showed, also, the lithological character of the drift. In that locality are found, also, occasional layers of clay, composed of the fine detritus ground from the rocks over which the glacier had passed. Along the courses of all the streams, where exposed at all, the same essen- tial features are presented to the eye. Where it appears it is seen to be a compound of clay and gravel, with occasional beds of sand, and is deposited with considerable regularity of stratification. It usually contains many small and well-worn pieces of gneiss, porphyry, hornblende, and other pri- mary rocks, together with occasional small fragments of limestone, sand- stone, and bits of slate, all of which have been transported from points more or less remote from their present locality. The bluffs along the Mississippi River are almost entirely composed of drift, a most striking difference be- tween them and those along the Missouri, which are, superficially at least, composed of the loess.
Of the coal-measures, which lie next below the drift in this county, only the upper coal-measure strata are exposed, and, as would naturally be in- ferred from the general level character of the county, only occasional out- crops of them appear, and then but very limited ones. They have been studied in this county by Dr. C. A. White * and much of the following is either directly or indirectly the results of his labor.
* White's Geology of Iowa, 1870, Vol. I, pp. 344-347. Frequent allusion to this survey is made necessary, from the fact that no other has ever been made of this western portion of the State. The survey of Dr. Hall was confined to the eastern portions, and to the Des Moines River valley, while the still older one of Dr. Owen was merely a preliminary reconnoissance. Dr. White's work was unfortunately brought to an end by legislative folly before the sur- vey could be completed. Often condemned as inaccurate, its hould be remembered, in jus- tice to Dr. White, that he was compelled to publish his work before completion, and without the possibility of verifying his deductions. Future surveys will demonstrate the general cor- rectness of most of his views as to the area and geography of the coal formations, and should his suggestions be now followed, money being spent in further search for coal would be raised for more politic and rational purposes .- R. E. C.
340
HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.
The strata exposed near the city of Bedford are not the uppermost of the upper carboniferous, though they belong near the top of the series. After passing through the drift these strata were reached, but a small out-crop had pointed out their presence before a quarry was commenced The sec- tion at Bedford is the following:
Feet.
No. 6, thin-bedded, yellowish, impure limestone. 10 " 5, "shaly clay ". 1
" 4, " black slate ' 5
" 3, "hard, gray stone " 1
" 2, "gray shale " 12
" 1, "hard stone " 1
Total. 30
All but number 6 of this series are taken from local observations and were obtained by Dr. White. The impure and yellowish limestone has been largely used in this county for building purposes, but would not be used in a locality where good stone could be obtained. It quite easily disinte- grates when exposed to atmospheric influences, and becomes of a much deeper yellow. It abounds in the pretty little polyzoan Fusilina cylin- drica, the rock seeming in some layers to be almost composed of those small fossils.
In the northwestern part of the county, on Coal Creek, near its conflu- ence with the East Nodaway, another display of the rock strata of the county is made, but they evidently belong to a higher horizon in the se- ries than the rocks at Bedford. At this place an inferior quality of coal is mined, which runs among the strata in a vein one and a half feet in thick- ness. Dr. White gives the following section:
Feet.
No. 8. Yellowish, shaly impure limestone 3
7. Shaly, argillaceous limestone 2
= 6. Blue, fossiliferous, clayey shale. 3
" 5. Coal. 11%
" 4. Bluish, shaly clay, containing vegetable remains. 4
3. Compact, impure limestone. 1/2
2. Bluish, clayey shale, with occasional thin seams of impure limestone .. 6
" 1. Compact, impure limestone. 1
The various sections along the Nodaway in Page county give a result in all essential particulars the same. The coal-measures are much better ex- posed in that county than in this. It should be borne in mind that those strata which contain the coal wealth of Iowa belong not to the upper car-
4
341
HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.
boniferous, but to the lower. The uppermost rocks of the series are almost devoid of coal, the middle ones have a few thin veins, while the greater and thicker deposits are the lowest of the series. To this series be- longs the great coal bed of the valley of the Des Moines. It must not be gathered from this that no coal is to be found in the strata above the lower coal-measures. Numerous seams occur in the middle, and occasionally, as in this county, in the upper coal-measures, but the seams are all too thin for profitable mining. The question of the finding of coal in this county is, therefore, reduced to the single item of depth to which shafts must be sunk. The county is, beyond a doubt, underlaid by all these three forma- tions, the coal-bearing strata of greatest value being the lowest in the se- ries. To reach them all the superincumbent strata must be passed, and when found they will be at too great a depth to become profitable-in this county from six hundred to eight hundred feet. There should be taken into consideration, also, the fact that the upper coal-measure strata thicken to the westward, and the counties along the Missouri River would have added to this great thickness from seventy-five feet to one hundred and fifty feet. In borings made some years since near Nebraska City, the drill penetrated some four hundred feet, and then only reached the middle coal-measure, which, as we have seen, must first be passed before the pay- ing coal-bearing strata are reached.
Since among the mineral resources of the county coal cannot be included, but is effectually settled in the negative by the reason and facts above ad- duced, the only available material, aside from the fertile soil, is the limestone out-crops already mentioned, which furnish an inferior quality of building material. A good quality of brick is manufactured in the county of material derived in the main from the drift. It will always be true of this county that its wealth is in its broad acres, as being so well adapted to ag- ricultural pursuits, rather than in any hidden sources of mineral wealth. The crack of the whip rather than the hum of wheels, the steady arm of the farmer rather than the pick of the miner, must be its almost sole re- liance.
Thus briefly has been given all that is definitely known of the geology of this county. It presents many features of interest, and promises to abundantly reward any person willing to complete a minute survey of its domain.
A word as to the form of life found imbedded in the rocks of the county may not be out of place. The fossils characteristic of the upper coal-measure strata may be obtained at every point where the rocks are exposed, and these exposures promise a rich harvest to the student of ancient life, as well as to
342
HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.
the mere curiosity hunter. Here are found the now extinct and remark- able trilobites (Phillipsia)-a genus of forest crustaceans allied to the mod- ern " horse-shoe crab," of the Atlantic coast, and a very beautiful and curi- ous form of coral (Crinpophylum torquium), a silent witness to a once tropical climate. Mention has been made of the polyzoan Fusilina cyl- indrica, resembling wheat grains as much as anything of a familiar na- ture. These are very abundant in some strata, as has already been noticed. Among the articulates are found several species of Productus, once classed -- and still by many-with the mollusca, but now beginning to be recognized as closely allied to the worms. Others of the brachiopods are Chonetes granulifera and C. glabra. Among the "flowers of the carboniferous world " were crinoids-stemmed echinoderms -- of which the living Penta- cinus asteria of the West Indian seas is a type; not flowers at all, though popularly called " stone lilies," but an animal. These all point to a time when the ocean covered the county and the rocks in which they are found were being formed. They are full of instruction for those who will carefully study them.
NATURAL HISTORY .*
The natural history of this county does not differ from that of a general prairie country. Its general character is determined by a few dominating species, though its animal and vegetable life as a whole present an infinite diversity. There is a marked dependence of animal life on the flora and the physical features of a country, and this dependence assumes the pro- portions and importance of a law in prairie countries. With the single ex- ception of the insects, the birds will be found most numerously represented, though the former class is much less abundant than the number and variety of flowers would seem to warrant. Usually those regions which abound in plant life, where flowering species are so numerous as on the prairie, are famous as being the metropolis of insect life. And yet, one versed in the general principles of zoological and botanical geography, never anticipates finding on level plains the highly varied life one constantly meets with in regions broken by mountain chains and valleys. Woodless regions being also far less prolific in species than wooded districts, the prairies, with their level surface and general absence of timber, present conditions at once marked and peculiar, but conducive in a high degree to the produc- tion of the slightest varied fauna and flora they are found naturally to sup-
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.