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 42

Author:
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Des Moines : State Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 868

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 42

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HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.

of "red fox," " silver fox," and "black fox," occasionally enjoys a " square meal " at the farmer's expense, and to the detriment of his hennery, but hunted in revenge for his depredations and in desire for his pelt, he is rap- idly becoming extinct. One animal still flourishes, the enterprising nature of which is not unfrequently wafted to us on the " stilly breezes of night," to our disgust, and yet a most valuable companion to the farmer, the skunk Mephitis mephitica and M. bicolor). The French, perhaps, had sufficient reason to name him " le enfant diabale," but he is a great entomologist, if he does occasionally disgrace himself, and conducting his entomological ex- cursions by night, he rids the farmer of many a pest otherwise sadly de- structive. Notwithstanding that his scalp commands a bounty, the indus- trious gopher (Geomys bivisarius) piles his mounds of dirt here and there, all unconscious of the legal care of which he is the recipient. In addition to the animals above mentioned, there are in the county the following:

Taxidea Americana, badger.

Putorius visou, common mink.

ermineus, ermine.

66 vulgare, least weasel.

Procyon lotor, raccoon.

Vespertilio subulatus, little brown bat.

noctivagans, black bat.

fucus, dusky bat, common.

66 sp.

Atalapha crepuscularis, twilight bat.

Noveboracensis, New York bat; common.

(?) Corynorhinus macrotis, determination doubtful.

Sciuropterus volucella, flying squirrel; common.

Scirus inger; fox squirrel; common.

Carolinensis, gray squirrel abundant.

66 Hudsonius, chickaree. On the One Hundred and Two River.

66 Ludovicianus.

Tamias striatus, chipmunk. In all wooded sections.

Spermophilus tridecemlieatus, striped gopher.

Franklini, very common.

Zapus Hudsonius, jumping mouse, rare.

Hesperomys leucopus, deer mouse, everywhere. Michiganensis.

Ochetodon humilis, harvest mouse. Arvibola riparius, meadow mouse.

" austerus.

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HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.

Synaptomys Cooperi, Cooper's mouse.

Fiber zibethicus, muskrat; common in favorable localities. (?) Lepus sylvaticus, hare.

Lepus sp. jack rabbit.

This list comprises the major part of the mammalian fauna of the county. Further study will correct it, perhaps, by the addition of a few species. This simple enumeration of varieties may aid the future student in the determination of the county's animal resources.

INDIAN AFFAIRS.

The Indian! What crowds of memories, incidents and adventures come trooping to the mind at the bare mention of that name, once fear-inspiring, now commonplace and powerless. A name once so dreaded, and often freighted with murder and rapine, is history's, as a memento of which but a few outcast and hunted tribes alone remain.

The savage of nature and he of whom poets sing are different beings. The latter, kingly in mien and sullenly morose in habit, animated by the noblest of motives, engaging in chase or in war as fancy or necessity dic- tated, disdaining peril and knowing no fear-such as he existed only in the imagination of Cooper, or is painted in the verse of authors equally gifted with him. The former, with passions unrestrained and by nature treacher- ous, slothful, repulsive and unclean-such is the savage of nature, as un- like him celebrated in song as well he could be. Yet, there is something that calls for our sympathy in the history of this unfortunate race. The same harrowing lust for gold which impelled Pizarro to the conquest of the Incas, and Cortez to the destruction of the mighty empire of the Montezu- mas, in a newer, and perhaps less revolting form, has driven the red man from the homes in which his ancestors, for many generations past, have roamed at will, and left him-what ? The inheritance of extinction, and that alone. He was, rather than is. "The only hope of the perpetuity of his race seems now to center in the Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks and Chickasaws of the Indian Territory. These nations, numbering in the ag- gregate about eight thousand souls, have attained a considerable degree of civilization; and with just and liberal dealing on the part of the govern- ment, the outlook for the future is not discouraging. Most of the other In- dian tribes seem to be rapidly approaching extinction. Right or wrong, such is the logic of events. Whether the red man has been justly deprived of the ownership of the New World will remain a subject of debate; that he has been deprived, cannot be denied. The Saxon has come. His con-

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HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.

quering foot has trodden the vast domain from shore to shore. The weaker race has withdrawn from his presence and his sword. By the majestic rivers and in the depths of the solitary woods the feeble sons of the bow and arrow will be seen no more. Only their names remain on hill, and stream, and mountain. The red man sinks and fails. His eyes are to the west. To the prairies and forests, the hunting-grounds of his ancestors, he says farewell. He is gone! The cypress and the hemlock sing his requiem."

But whence did he come? This opens up a field of inquiry which has engaged the attention of earnest students since the Indian first was known. It seems to be still a mooted point whether he came from Asia, that myth- ological " cradle of the race." Long ages anterior to the red man's occu- pancy of the land there lived and thrived other races-men who, in that far- off time, built the mounds and made the implements that are now so com- monly found. The evidence which exists shows that that ancient civilization belonged to a great people; a people which covered a large part of the con- tinent, and with whom the Indians of to-day have little or nothing in com- mon. Over the past of these strange people hangs a veil, which yet re- mains for some Columbus or Pizarro to remove. In the valley of the Ohio, that of the Mississippi, the prairies of Kansas and Texas, the mysterious and inexplicable animal representation of Wisconsin, are mounds all of which contain relics which are the works of these primitive people, of whom the later Indians retain not even a tradition. Suppose that these latter were the lineal descendents of the mound-builders-what then? We have re- moved the difficulty by a step back, and still man was, there is no knowl- edge, revealed or human, that throws any light upon the origin of the race of men, other than that which comes to us through their structural affini- ities-that afforded by comparative anatomy. Concerning the mound- builders there is nothing historical to enlighten us as to what kind of men they were. They have left their works; but tell us more than a few social or domestic habits, and their distribution, they no not. They are a race shrouded in mystery, affording us not even the argument deduced so com- monly from philology to determine their affinity to the present tribes of the Far West.

With reference to a more complete account of the Indians who formerly made this county their home the reader is referred to a preceding page of this volume, where will be found all the various treaties mnade, either by the Territorial or general governments. It is sufficient to state that the Terri- tory of which the county is now composed was once possessed by the Iowas,*

*There is some difference of authority as to the origin and meaning of this name. A tribe of Sax and Fox Indians, according to Le Claire, wandering in search of a home, crossed the

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a tribe of Indians at one time identified with the Sacs, of the Rock River, but from whom they separated and formed a band by themselves. At an early day in the history of the Indians the Sac and Fox races were distinct nations, the latter of whom lived almost solely within the territory embraced .by the river St. Lawrence. They engaged in fierce wars with the famed Iroquois, by whom they were conquered and finally driven to the west. On reaching Illinois they formed an alliance with the Sacs. With them were finally joined the Pottawattamies, all of whom were of the great family of the Algonquins. This family, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, numbered nearly a quarter million souls; but their habits, their wars, and wasting diseases, have reduced their numbers to a mere handful, a disheart- ened and reckless remnant of a once proud race. The original owners of the soil belonged, however, to another family-the great race of the Dako- tas, who were the possessors when first the known history of the Territory begins. The Sac and Fox Indians did not come into the State until the close of the celebrated Black Hawk* War, when they were unable longer to resist the advance of the white man. In 1842 was made a treaty, in accord- ance with the provisions of which the Sacs and Foxes and Pottawattamies ceded to the general government the western portion of the State of Iowa,

Mississippi. Finding a place which they admired, and with the appearance of which they were satisfied, they exclaimed, " Iowa! lowa! this is the place." Hildreth says there is a tra- dition that a tribe of Indians left the parent band of the Omahas in a snow-storm, which pre- sented the phenomena of " gray snow," by mingling the sands of the shore with the falling snow, and thereby sullying its purity. The Omahas called them from this circumstance, "Py-ho-ja," grey snow. By dropping the j, or making it silent, it becomes Py-ho (a), which, by a little further corruption, is transformed into I-o-w-a, accented on the second syllable, as was the custom of the Indians. The meaning of the word, as now generally accepted, is drowsy or sleepy men .- R. E. C.

*The last years of this great chieftain were filled with bitterness, if not with remorse. In September, 1836, Governor Dodge met a band of a thousand-chiefs, braves, warriors-just above the cite of the city of Davenport. Black Hawk was present, but was not allowed to participate in the deliberations. It was the last time the old chief visited the vicinity. On this occasion he was dressed in the white man's style, having on an old black frock coat, and a dark hat, with a cane, the very picture of disappointed ambition. Like the withered oak of his native forest, torn and shattered by the lightning's blast, the winter of age upon his brow, and his feeble, tottering steps pressing the sod he so much loved, he stood, a repre- sentative, a noble relic of his once powerful tribe, in meditative, dismal silence. What thrill- ing recollections, what heart-stirring scenes must have passed through the mind of the aged patriarch of three-score years, and what deep emotions must have filled his soul as he re- flected upon the past, and desired to unburden his memory of the wrongs of his people toward him, but he was not allowed to speak. He had made a misstep in the great drama of life. He was a fallen chieftain. His proud nature would not allow him to yield, and take a lowly seat in the councils of his people, and so he stood, the silent observer of a final contract that tore him from the last foothold on the hunting-grounds of his fathers. The saddened mem- ories of years struggled for utterance, but the great chieftain smothered it with stoical indif- ference. He died on the Des Moines River, October 3, 1839, three years after the treaty.

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HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.

and " their right of title and interest therein." The parties to the treaty were, as has been said on a preceding page, Governor Chambers, of Iowa Territory, on the part of the government, and chiefs Keokuk, Appanoose, and Panassa, among others, in behalf of the red men. In the spring of 1846 the Indians finally retired to Kansas, and here the history of their connection with Iowa finally ends.

THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST.

(Caloptenus spretus.)

The first mention of the locust is in the Bible and occurs in chapter x of the book of Exodus, but is confined to a mere mention of their appear- ance in Egypt as an affliction upon Pharaoh and his people for their treat- ment of the Israelites. The earliest account of the ravages of locusts, descriptive of the terrible calamities they have caused to mankind, appears in the book of Joel chapter ii. Omitting the figurative parts, the prophet's description is graphic and accurate:

"A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick dark- ness, as the morning spread upon the mountains; a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks. * * They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall; they shall climb upon the houses; they shall enter at the windows like a thief. " Whether this be overdrawn none better know than those who resided in this county in those years when the locusts were most de- structive. The incessant buzz and noise which their flight produces; the unavoidable destruction which is everywhere going on, fill the beholder with both awe and wonder. Southey, in his Thalaba, pictures in a truly graphic manner the noise their approach occasions:

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HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.

"Onward they come, a dark continuous cloud Of congregated myriads numberless ; The rushing of whose wings was as the sound Of a broad river, headlong in its course, Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar

Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm,

Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks!"

The first account, after the statement of Joel, which, judging from the ac- - count then given, was the first civilization known to the semi-civilized Jews, is that of Ororius, who says that in the year 3800 certain regions in north Africa were visited by monstrous swarms; the wind blew them into the sea, and the bodies washed ashore "stank more than the corpses of a hundred thousand men." St. Augustine later mentions a locust plague which oc- curred in the kingdom of Masinissa, and resulting in a famine and pesti- lence, caused the death of about 800,000 men. According to Mouffet, in 1478 the region about Venice was subjected to an invasion and a resulting famine caused the death of 30,000 people.

The locusts of the New World present inany features in common with those of the Old World. They breed in the same enormous multitudes, enter upon the same migrations, and for the same reasons are subjected to essentially the same climatic conditions, and manifest the same destructive- ness.

The authentic records of the Rocky Mountain locust date back to 1818 and 1819. In Neill's History of Minnesota it is stated that in those years the locusts "in vast hordes " appeared in Minnesota "eating everything in their course, in some cases the ground being covered three or four inches." While, doubtless, the State of Iowa was invaded simultaneously with Min- nesota, the visitation was probably not so general, and possibly entirely confied to the northwestern counties. There is no tradition of a general invasion of the State which dates back further than the year 1833. The authority for a locust invasion in that year is the following, quoted in the United States Entomological Commissioner's Report: " In regard to the grasshopper raid of 1833, there was no white settlement here then, but there is a part of a tribe of Indians living near the center of this State and they used to hunt through here, and in some of their visits here in 1866, their chief,Johnny Green, who was a very old man, told the people here that thirty-three years before the grasshoppers came so thick that the grass was all eaten off and there was no grass for their ponies, and the ground looked black, as if there had been a prairie fire. He also said that there had been no more grasshoppers until 1866, when he was speaking. This chief was a very intelligent man, and was about one-half white; but the Indians are very

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HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.

liable to exaggerate; I have forgotten the name of the tribe of Indians, but think they were the Winnebagoes or Pottawattamies. "

Other locust years in Iowa were 1850, 1856, 1857, 1864-65, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1870-72, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877.

The most destructive year in Taylor county was 1867. The young un- fledged locusts made sad ravages in that year upon the growing crops. Again in 1875 was enormous damage done, not by locusts hatched in the county, as in the previous destructive invasion, but by grea tswarms com- ing from the south. In this county in that year the damage is reported as fully fifteen per cent.

In the year 1877, J. F. Sanborn, of Fremont county, writes to the com- mission as follows, and his letter is partially quoted here as giving some brief account of their habits in language all can easily understand:

" May 28, 1877 .- I find, by referring to my record of observations, that the grasshoppers came last year August 24, and continued to increase in numbers for some days following. Their coming was too late to do much damage to the crops. They deposited immense quantities of eggs through this section of the country, and the farmers were very apprehensive of the consequences, so that but little improvement in building is going on this year. The quantity of eggs in places, as found by actual count, was over two hundred and fifty in a square inch. Others have estimated them as high as thirty-five bushels per acre. The nice, beautiful weather of last fall hatched out some of the eggs, and I saw some of the little fellows hopping around just before cold weather set in for winter. This fine weather that hatched some probably partially developed many others which the cold of winter destroyed. The warm days of February and March developed, I think, the largest share of those the warm fall weather left undeveloped, and the freezing nights and cold storms of April destroyed them in immense quantities. They commenced hatching out April 14, and have continued up to this. In some fields protected from sudden changes of weather, as near timber, they are hatched in numbers sufficient to materially injure the crops, and where the fall plowing gave a favorable place to deposit the eggs in the greatest numbers, like that where the estimate was thirty-five bushels per acre, in such places, even if one in a thousand hatched, there would be enough to destroy the crops in that locality. While plowing my corn ground, twelve acres, I did not see one on it. On my timothy grass not any were hatched. I have a blue-grass pasture. Where the eggs were de- posited there are some, and they may injure it some, but not enough to materially affect the use as a pasture. They will soon commence traveling or hopping for a change of feed, and may then injure our corn and grain."

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HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.

The farming community of this county was especially fortunate in that it was one of those counties near the limit of the locust migrations. That limit sweeps through the southeastern part of Taylor into Worth county, Missouri, and thence in a southwest direction to the northwest corner of Arkansas. Their habits are, of course, altogether destructive, being vegeta- ble feeders, but especially are they destructive during the younger stages. Nothing green escapes their ravenous maw, and dire have been the effects of their visits in parts of Iowa.

The visitation of the locust in this county, or the State, will not be fre- quent. Nor can it ever become a permanent resident here. The labors of the entomological commission previously referred to, have developed the following general conclusions; conclusions in which all will at least hope to agree: The comparatively sudden change from the attenuated and dry atmosphere of the elevated plains and plateaus which constitute the perma- nent region to the more humid and low prairie region of the Mississippi valley proper, is injurious to the species, though its consequences are not manifest with the invading insects, except, perhaps, in limiting their east- ward progress. The generation, however, hatched in the low alluvial coun- try is more or less unhealthy, and the insects do not breed here, but quit the country and get back, as far as they are able, to more congenial breeding grounds. If the weather be particularly wet and cold they perish in im- mense numbers, and there is every reason to believe that even the bulk of those which attain maturity, are intestate, and perish without procreating, because the large majority of those which drop on the return to the North- west, contain no eggs. In the sub-permanent region, or as we go west or northwest, the species propagate, and becomes localized more and more until we reach the country where it is always found. Nothing is more certain than that the species is not authochthonous * in Texas, west Arkan- sas, Indiana Territory, west Missouri, Kansas, western Iowa, Nebraska, nor even Minnesota, and wherever it overruns any of those States, it sooner or later abandons them. We may perhaps find, in addition to the compara- tively sudden changes from an alternated and dry, to a more dense and humid atmosphere, another tangible barrier to the insect's permanent mul- tiplication in the more fertile country to the southeast is the lengthened summer season. As with annual plants, so with insects (like this locust) which produce but one generation annually and whose active existence is bounded by the spring and autumn frosts, the duration of active life is pro- portioned to the length of the growing season. Aside from the causes here

* Native or indigenous.

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HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.

enumerated by the commissioner, may be mentioned the presence of a great number of invertebrate enemies, in the shape of beetles and mites, both of which attack and slay incredible numbers of locusts. During their visita- tion to Iowa in 1875-6, there were also found within them many larvæ of a kind of fly, the egg having been laid in the body of the locust by the adult of the fly indicated. Innumerable thousands were thus found diseased and dying.

The injury to the agricultural interests of this county has been done, and now bids fair to come the dawn of immunity from this scourge. Thous- ands of dollars have been lost in its agricultural interests, but the expe- rience gained from past disaster will enable the farmer of the future, should it ever become necessary, to successfully battle even greater hosts. May the following unique description never be recorded of this beautiful "garden of Iowa ":

"The farmer plows and plants, he cultivates in hope, watching his grow- ing grain in graceful wavelike motion wafted to and fro by the warm, sum- mer winds. The green begins to golden; the harvest is at hand. Joy lightens his labor as the fruit of past toil is about to be realized. The day breaks with a smiling sun that sends its ripening rays through laden orch- ards and promising fields. Kine and stock of every sort are sleek with plenty, and all the earth seems glad. The day grows; suddenly the sun's face is darkened and clouds obscure the sky. The joy of the morn gives way to ominous fear. The day closes, and ravenous locust-swarms have fallen upon the land. The morrow comes, and, ah! what a change it brings! The fertile land of promise and plenty has become a desolate waste, and old Sol, even at his brightest, shines sadly through an atmosphere alive with myriads of glittering insects." -- Riley.

COUNTY ORGANIZATION .*

With regard to the origin of the division of individual States into county and township organizations, which in an important measure should have the power and opportunity of transacting their own business and governing themselves, under the approval of, and subject to the State and general government of which they each formed a part, we quote from Elijah M. Haines, who is considered good authority on the subject.

In his "Laws of Illinois, Relative to Township Organizations," he says the county system

*Ringgold county was formerly included within the jurisdiction of Taylor. See, further, under ELECTION RETURNS.

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HISTORY OF TAYLOR COUNTY.

"Originated with Virginia, whose early settlers soon became large landed proprietors, aristocratic in feeling, living apart in almost baronial magnificence on their own estates and owning the laboring part of the population. Thus the materials for a town were not at hand, the voters being thinly distributed over a great area.

"The county organization, where a few influential men managed the whole business of the community, retaining their places almost at their pleasure, scarcely responsible at all, except in name, and permitted to conduct the county concerns as their ideas or wishes might direct, was, morever, consonant with their recollections or traditions of the judicial and social dignities of the landed aristocracy of England, in descent from whom the Virginia gentleman felt so much pride. In 1734 eight counties were organized in Virginia, and the system, extending throughout the State, spread into all the Southern States, and some of the Northern States; unless we except the nearly similar division into 'districts' in South Carolina, and that into 'parishes' in Louisiana, from the French laws.

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Author: Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Des Moines : State Historical Co. Number of Pages: 868

Author:
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Des Moines : State Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 868