USA > Iowa > Washington County > History of Washington County, Iowa from the first white settlements to 1908. Also biographical sketches of some prominent citizens of the county, Vol. I > Part 13
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In a worthless country, on a scanty, lean soil like New England's and Colorado's, roads are superb, a macadam made of pulverized granite moun- tains. But who would exchange soil for highways? As the champagne- drinkers say. "the camel can go twenty-seven days without a drink, but who wants to be a camel ?"
Several years ago, blue grass all at once stole in, no one knows just when and how, on the flanks of our country roads, though every weed vigorously protested against the invasion of their realm. These long, flowing, green tresses look like the wave-combed hair of mer-maids. So say those who have seen the sea-inaids.
At first blush. it seems remarkable that a highway like the Sigourney road was not etablished until 1846, when the territory of Iowa was admitted into the Union, and that so many roads were not located till '58, '59, '60 and so on. It shows that enough people had not conquered their superstitions about the prairie to discard the streams and woods and take to the open. When a string of farmis had been opened from Washington to Dutch creek, the Sigourney road had to streak the map.
Of course, bridges were as slow coaches as roads, but their character has been improved faster than that of roads. Wooden affairs at first and for many years. mere culverts more or less extended, they have become steel concerns, pierced, trestled, braccd, safe. endurable. The load always pulls easily ou a bridge, as on paving. but heavily, wearily. on roads soft down to the first stratum of shale or limestone. In comparison with many counties in Iowa, we have lost but few bridges in freshets, a fact that speaks loudly for the sound judgment of our boards of supervisors, used in building them. And there have been but few accidents on them. Carefully inspected, and con- demned in time, and repaired, teams and riders rarely went down in a bridge wreck.
204
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
No Book of Bridges, as of Roads, was kept : therefore. it is impossible to tell when this bridge and that was built. unless one searched through the minutes of the supervisors, and that blind man's buff game is not worth the candle.
Making all due deductions for soaked roads, on the average we can get about with ease and dispatch and convenience on our highways and bridges, and to do better than now, we shall have to use air-ships. Aeroplanes are coming sure, as automobiles came into liberal use long before we could have expected : and within a quarter century many a Washington farmer and towns- man will be flying over our heads, and who then so poor as to do reverence to bottomless roads? And will the inevitable horse, that has been "going" so long, really "go" then? For nearly a generation we have been trying to "relegate" him, predicting that the trolley, the motor truck and car, the auto- mobile, the steam plow. the storage battery would supersede him, but up to date the price of him has been and is climbing because his service is indis- pensable and he is a favorite and pet, and his neck is still clothed with thunder, praise be! We must not decrease the number of things we can bet on. True, there are prize-fighters, elections-we can gamble on them, but it would be a saddened world to many if they could not bet on the time of a trotter, pacer or canterer, and on the amount of a draft horse's pull.
That many of the ancient roads would be abandoned, it was natural to expect, since so many dream towns aborted. The list of these extinct craters is surprising. There was Astoria, the county-seat-was it the first "city?" No, there was a Marysville on that site, the villa of Mary-who? Named no doubt, for some sweet, dear Mary, whose daguerreotype escapes us. A mere soap-bubble of a burg-where does the beautiful thing go to when it bursts? To the same place the candle light goes to when it is blown out, and the gas and electric glim when the juice is turned off-to limbo. Up to date it is not known where Moses was when the lights went out, and no more do we know, unless we search the Plat Book, where are the towns in this county that were once called Amboy, Winchester, Sandy Hook, Sheffield, Harris- burg. Yatton, Wassonville: Eureka, Lexington, Pilotburg, Dayton, Paris, Dublin are much smaller and less important in this year of grace 1909, than one could wish. There is not much use in keeping up roads to run to them.
However, what was the origin of these dream towns?
Winchester was platted March 25, 1841, by Jacob E. Gale. No one now seems to know where it was. Dig into almost any mound of debris. maybe its foundations would come to light.
May 5, '41, Sandy Hook aspired to civic greatness and swelled up like dried apples in a water-soaked stomach, with municipal ideals. It had been an Indian village, and wished to try the whites awhile. Jesse Hiatt and
205
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
Thomas J. Gordon set the yeast in that wee bit sponge. The future city was placed on a sandy ridge two miles north-east from Brighton. The founders admired President Martin Van Buren, and would honor him by perpetuating through all future time the name of his residence, "Kinderhook," but as they could not think of the name, remembering only that there was a "hook" to it, they rallied on the sand heap and let 'er go as Sandy Hook. Give these hero- worshippers a leather medal.
Sheffield was projected in a dream by Nathaniel McClure, August 16, '45. Busted ! He probably awoke before the dream was fairly under way. How- ever, he. with John F. Van Dyke, got in his work at Yatton in July, '56. That was a lively milling place till '79, when the railway sapped it to build up River- side.
Harrisburg was, perhaps, the most iridescent dream of them all. Nathan W. Burris laid it out June 20, '55. It was to cover 160 acres with beauty and glory. He built a stone seminary up to the second story, projected one hundred houses and a steam grist mill, when misfortune overtook him, and the dream exhaled. The stone was used by others, as the Roman Coliseum was plundered by mediaval nobles for their palaces.
Jacob Z. Bowman gave himself a severe wrench in laying out Eureka, April 20, '57, the panic year, though at one time, and for a considerable time, it had quite a smart spurt of trade.
Then there was Pottsville, a villa of pots. It was on David Goble, Sr.'s land in Oregon township. It seems that John B. Potts located it ; it was a post- office, with a swift weekly mail. For the first six months a hat, or was it a pot ? held all the mail.
As to the other extinct towns, not even tradition remains ; such as Glen- dora, Genoa, Mount Jackson, Middleburg, Rochester, Western City, Wal- haven, Xenia, West Liberty. All these were platted around a public square, an English fashion centuries old.
Nor were roads needed to reach several sequestered places, whose names were strokes of rustic humor, such as certain ridges, hollows, runs, acres and the like. English river had Snake hollow. Mr. O. E. Brown remembers a law-suit here, in which most of the witnesses were from the hollow. McJunkin would ask one after another, "Where do you reside?" "Snake Holler." That was many years ago, and the primitive type has no doubt expired by limitation. But can't you conjure up these queer figures-unshaven, hair shorn around the edge of a crock set on the head, a coon-skin cap, traces of egg in the chin- whiskers. The type was once very distinct.
Lime Creek had a cuticle ridge, and Marion boasted sockem ridge. Marion really had more than her share of odd places. and most of her early citizens
206
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
must have been ingrained humorists. Thus, before the New Lights built Shiloh church, that locality was called "Poverty Elbow." And there was also "Hell's Half Acre" and "Rabbit Gulch."
Highland claimed "Whiskey Run," and the name truly originated thus : Before the settlers broke the ground, the county was heavily sodded, and soil did not wash into streams as it does when our pliable soil is cultivated. But at the foot of the slopes, the drainage became impassioned at times, and swirled and dug deep pits that a horse might be buried in. In an early day before total depravity had gone out of fashion, Indians stole a barrel of whiskey from a trader and hid it in such a pit, and its discovery suggested the name "Whiskey Run."
Until our population became dense and uniformly distributed over the county, there was not special need of roads. The country was not fenced, as now. The timber on the streams could not supply the fencing needed. There was no barbed wire, settlers could not have afforded to buy fencing boards, even if they had been in market; it was many years before rafts of logs floated down the Mississippi river to possible mills at Muscatine and Bur- lington, and there was no railroad to bring it from Chicago till 1858. Settlers were experimenting with hedges of osage orange, hawthorn, willow, honey locust, and ditches for fences. So, people travelling were not shut in then as now. Doctors took straight cuts on horseback, and so did teamsters. There was more horseback riding than wagoning, and walking was far more com- mon than now. Fellows would streak it across lots to rural hops, and girls, as smartly dressed as possible, walked, barefoot, to the same places, carrying their shoes and stockings in their hands till they approached the rendezvous, washed in a run or swabbed their dusty pink and white feet in dew, dressed their un- derstandings, and after making a night of it by dancing, were seen home, bare- foot, by beaux. In England, where the roads are admirable, they are not much used. Fox-hunters take the fences and fields, and pedestrians the lanes and. paths through hedges, and the mileage is largely across country, riding or walking. The folk in this county had all the roads they needed up to 1860. at least.
Besides, there were not many here to need roads. The census of '44 gave this county only three thousand one hundred and twenty, and of land-owners many were non-residents, here as all over the state. In '59, there were of the thirty-three million acres in the state only four million acres improved : twenty- four million acres not touched by plows : sixteen million aeres owned by non- residents, and speculative absentees never work lands. The assessed value of land then averaged two dollars and seventy-five cents an acre. And there was not much inducement to cultivate, for the average price of wheat was forty
5M166058/4.
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DATODODS
2
BRYSON HOUSE, IN 1870
53
-
HENRY B. ANDERSON'S HOUSE, WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP Built in 1851 and still occupied
. HE NEW YORK LUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX TILDEN FOUNDATION
209
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
cents a bushel, of corn twelve, oats fifteen, potatoes twenty-five, hay a dollar and a half per ton. They burned corn for fuel way back in pioneer days ; it seems wicked, but it was sensible. And they twisted wild hay into tight ropes, and burned that, too.
How could there be much transportation? For years they could not sell anything. The federal census in '40 gives some eye-opener figures: Iowa raised one million four hundred and six thousand two hundred and forty-one bushels of corn, one hundred fifty-four thousand six hundred and ninety-three of wheat. two hundred sixteen thousand three hundred and eighty-five of oats, six thousand two hundred and twelve of buckwheat, three thousand seven hundred and ninety-two of rye, seven hundred and twenty-eight of barley. two hundred thirty-four thousand and sixty-three of potatoes, and about the same yields in '42, when good cows sold at ten dollars, pork at a dollar a hun- (red, wheat twenty cents, corn and oats ten cents-who needed roads to haul stuff to market forty to fifty miles away to sell at such pitiful prices? They did not need roads any more than birds and angels that have wings. Money was scarce, and they could get little or none at such rates. Interest was twenty-five to forty per cent. banks had suspended specie payment ; the Miners' bank in Dubuque was the only one in Iowa ; the currency was of doubtful value : there was no business, debts could not be collected : folks were reduced to barter. and burned corn in fireplaces a's in their bodies, corn bread being the main food aside from game. That winter was severe, snow from three to four . feet deep and lasting long from November on ; cattle perished, cabins were cold. food was low. For twenty years prairie grass was the only hay. On the prairie the houses were sod. and water for domestic and stock nse was dipped from springs or creeks before wells were dug. Clothing was linsey-woolsey dyed with butternut or hickory bark juice, and skins were worked up into moccasins. boots, shoes and harness. What could they have done for several years, if the muskrat skin crop had not held out ? That rat's hide was the sole thing that fetched a bit of coin.
So, take it all in all, roads came quite as soon as they were needed, or could be used, considering their bad quality for full half of the year.
Railroads .- The first railroad projected through this county was the "Ramshorn." which was to connect all the county seats in Iowa and fetch up at Robin Hood's barn. It was only one of many pipe dreams.
The next was the Iowa Western from Muscatine through the northern part of this county. Date, 1857. Just hot air.
Then the Philadelphia, Fort Wayne and Platte Valley Air Line road. It was an "air line"-hot air. It so exhausted the corporation to write the whole name, no energy or breath was left to build the road. This air plant, re-
14
.
210
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY .
sembling mistletoe and Spanish moss, had a name as long as foreign princes, shirt-tail names that have to be carried by pages and flunkeys like trails of queens' gowns. A sucker was born every minute back there, as now, and the county issued five thousand dollars in bonds to aid the road. and some grading may still be seen east of Crawfordsville. It is the grave of the last sixpence. The line was to run through Muscatine, Washington and Keokuk counties to Council Bluffs. A big convention was held in Oska- loosa in January, 1868, a corporation was formed by sixty-six men, and they drew up fourteen articles, adding one article to escape the number thirteen and skidoo. A committee of ten named fifteen directors, and they selected thie usual officers, one who is not named being from this county. All came back, enthused, to void their dope on their county constituents- spout- ings, speeches, felicitations, subscription books, gush, brass bands-sheer crazy to get a railroad. But it evaporated and left not even a smell behind.
About the same time the Mississippi & Missouri Railroad Company was organized and a road really got to Washington in 1858. Infinite blowing. oratory, subscribing, frenzy preliminary. On October 17, 1853. County Judge E. Ross proclaimed an election for November 21, '53, agreeable to a resolution adopted at a mass meeting on October 8, on a proposition for the county to subscribe one hundred thousand dollars in stock to that long named road, in the shape of bonds, payable in twenty years at not more than six per cent interest, and five mills, if needed. to pay said interest, to be increased to ten per cent after fifteen years, and to continue from year to year until principal and interest were paid.
The vote stood thus :
For
Township
Bonds.
Against Bonds.
Washington
201
O
Marion
58
O
Crawford
10.4
1
Oregon
45
4
Iowa
6
63
Lime Creek
7
59
Cedar
55
4
Dutch Creek
39
6
Clay
2
64
Brighton
55
95
English River
37
106
Total
609
405
211
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
On June 30, 1854, the judge proclaimed, on petition, a proposition to re- scind fifty thousand dollars of the stock bought in November, 1853, in the Hot Air line, and subscribe it to the M. & M., and ordering an election August 7, '54. The bonds to bear ten per cent interest, the company to receive them at par value in payment of stock, and only as fast as the work progressed towards completion within the county limits. The vote stood thus:
Townships.
For
Against
Washington
208
7
Oregon
57
0
Highland
8
O
Iowa
II
63
English River
39
89
Lime Creek
12
76
Jackson
22
14
Cedar
47
0
Dutch Creek
74
0
Clay
18
55
Franklin
54
0
Brighton
32
96
Marion
75
0
Crawford
33
O
Total
.690
400
In 1856 voters petitioned to take fifty thousand dollars more stock in the road that should build first into Washington, and Judge J. T. Burris on July 2, '56, proclaimed an election for August 4, the bonds to bear eight per cent and be issued when the road is finished and the rolling stock furnished at a point not over three-quarters of a mile from the court-house-the bonds to be taken at par and the road to be finished by December 1, '57. The vote was hostile, thus :
Townships.
For
Against
Washington
308
33
Clay
8
116
Brighton
23
196
Marion
41
30
Crawford
2
180
Oregon
34
45
Franklin
63
IO
Dutch Creek
107
14
Seventy-six
12
1.4
212
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
Town-lup
For
Against
Cedar
55
33
Jackson
23
39
Highland
19
2.4
Iowa
3
106
English River
18
159
Lime Creek
IO
I22
Total
726
II21
In '56, also, hundreds of voters petitioned for the submission of a proposi- tion to subscribe one hundred thousand dollars of the capital stock of the M. & M. road to build a road from Muscatine to Oskaloosa via Washington, and the judge, on November 10, ordered an election December 11, '56, bonds to bear eight per cent interest for twenty years, to be used on completion of the road from Muscatine to Washington by December 1, '57. The vote stood thus:
Townships.
For
Against
Clay
24
47
Brighton
28
123
Marion
29
8
Crawford
16
I30
Oregon
65
4
Washington
448
8
Franklin
83
I
Dutch Creek
117
- 1
Seventy-six
16
13
Cedar
76
1I
Jackson
34
7
Highland
19
20
Iowa
I
81
English River
36
100
Lime Creek
21
105
Total
1,013
668
In '58, more sucker voters petitioned the judge for a chance to take one hundred thousand dollars more M. & M. stock, and on March 1, '58, an election was called for April 5, '58, bonds at ten per cent, twenty years' run, not to be used until the company gave security that the road would be finished into Washington by September 1, '58, and a depot established not over one-half mile from the court house. The vote was:
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
Township
l'or
Against
Washington
550
7
Clay
42
84
Brighton
52
128
Marion
66
20
Crawford
44
146
Oregon
116
16
Franklin
82
7
Dutch Creek
189
8
Seventy-six
26
I2
Cedar
IO2
23
Jackson
81
7
Highland
20
36
lowa
I
140
English River
62
144
Lime Creek
38
108
Total
1,47I
883
July 26. '58, a MI. & M. agent demanded these bonds, and they were issued on that date, payable at the Corn Exchange Bank of New York in sums of one thousand dollars with thirty-six coupons of fifty dollars each, attached. The company's bond is recorded here in Book "D," page four hundred and thirty- eight. General John A. Dix of "If any man attempts to haul down the flag, shoot him on the spot" fame, was president of the M. & M. road. On June 7. 58. he demanded fifty thousand dollars of the bonds voted August 7. '54. and Judge S. P. Young issued them. They were for five hundred dollars each and twenty-five-dollar coupons. The bonds dated June 19. '58.
Then the worm began to squirm-it was fun to vote bonds to get roads ; it is delightful to dance while the fiddler is scraping ; but if he stops until paid, what then? In 1860 N. McClure, Michael Hayes, John Mather. W. R. Nu- gent. Dr. O. H. P'rizer et al. got an injunction restraining the board from levy- ing further taxes and the county treasurer from collecting them. Two levies had been made and the first tax was paid and the second tax partially. The two fiddlers, the M. & M. and the Hot Air Line, brought suits to recover the amounts due on the coupons attached to their bonds, in the federal court. In June, '64, the board of supervisors named John Rheinart, Enoch Ross and H. M. Holden, a committee to compromise with the companies in the settle- ment of any and all suits between the county and the railroads.
Nevertheless, joy! The road was completed in here according to con- tract, and there was a jamboree celebration. Mr. Ronde, an artist of Dutch
214
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
Creek, illustrated the spectacle for Leslie's. Arrangements were made August 14, '58, in the court house, and they rashly appointed a committee of thirteen to run it, viz. : N. Chipman, James Dawson, Dr. Chilcote, Jonathan H. Wilson, J. J. Higgins, Chas. Foster, J. R. Lewis, A. T. Burris, E. H. Ludington, Thos. Blanchard, John Bryson, W. B. Carruthers, J. S. Beaty. They decided to give a public dinner September ist. '58, in the square, and one thousand invitations were issued to neighboring towns. Mesdames Higgins, Parker, Rose, Phelps and Miss Dawson were to choose twenty-five other women to engineer the meal. Dr. McKee, Ozro Phelps and S. P. Young. were to shade the grounds with bowers of boughs and so forth. Wickersham, Ludington and Foster were to plan toasts and responses. Some three thousand feet of tables were set for three thousand guests from Oskaloosa, Sigourney, Muscatine, Daven- port, Iowa City, Columbus City, etc. Before the weather man was born, Phoebus sent a fine day, and by ten a. m., five thousand people were here- nothing draws like a free lunch. G. W. Teas was marshal, and his son "Lush" was doubtless around somewhere with several stone-bruised heels and sore toes. At 12:13 p. m. a train of thirteen cars came in. Why would they have thirteen or twenty-three? It was dangerous. Captain Sam A. Russell wel- comed the crowd at the depot and A. O. Patterson of Muscatine said "thank you," and all marched to the square, bands playing, military evoluting to the delight of universal womanhood, flags flying, Captain Garner in fine fettle at the head of his Columbus City Guards.
The toasts with quail roosting on them ranged from railroads to ladies. including Atlantic telegraph, Chicago and ten other towns, newspapers, laborers, etc., and Hiram Price, J. B. Grinnell, Governor Bross of Chicago Press and Tribune, J. Thorington, J. Scott Richman, J. R. Needham, R. S. Leak, Editor Saunders of the Davenport Gazette, Judge F. Springer, General Fitz Henry Warren, Dr. J. Bowen, Nixer, Judge Thayer, responded for their respective towns, and gushed the usual amount of taffy, white lies and in- sincerities at this Ananias club. Any reader who ever attended a banquet knows just what sloppy stuff is served up in pert, smart-Alec speeches-hates and detests it.
This food turned sour and bitter in our stomachs right off, for we soon learned that those two fiddlers must be paid, no compromise or repudiation possible. State and federal courts collided. supervisors got "sassy" and the district judge ordered their arrest. While the sheriff had them as his mut- ton, the federal marshal tried to get his clutches on them. The marshal won, took them to federal court, where they were scolded and sent home to levy a tax to pay their debts to the fiddlers aforesaid. They swore under their breaths, but levied a tax and began to pay. Our folly cost us over half a
PRANK LENIJE'S ILLUSTRATED NERNE APER
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Th PLA ČLƯỢTLATION AT NIEHINGTON 1ČEL
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--- .... ... railroad in the county, now the Southwestern Division of the Rock Island .- From --- The most important event in the history of Washington, the opening of the first --
Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, Nov. 13, 1858.
T
'EW YORK LIBRARY
, OR, LENOX ALDEN FOUNDATION
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
million. This silly attempt at repudiation is the one stain on our county record. There is a meaner blot on our city history, that I will come to, not now, but soon.
Despite the vast cost to us of our railroad. it paid big, although the county's stock in the road was rendered almost worthless by the way the C. R I. & P. R. R. got possession of the M. & M. road. For Washington was for at least a dozen years the terminus of the road, the entrepot for goods consigned to merchants west and south and north of us and the shipping point for live stock and grain in an area of country whose diameter extended beyond Os- kaloosa, sixty miles away. Such a distributing point !
James Dawson built in 1860 the big elevator, long years later known as the Dwight Norton, the Ed. Blair and the Whiting elevator, at a cost of seven thousand dollars, and it was a business whale. Stock and grain arrived here by dusk and the owners did shopping until mid- night or after, and started back home by dawn. The stores were choked with customers. It was like getting out a morning paper-sleep day times, and rake in coin at night. It was in this era that the two and three- story buildings around the square were built with the profits of this extra- ordinary trade. All got rich, not alone the shop men but farmers who got prices for their products twice and thrice higher than those that ruled before the railroad came. I saw four years of this tremendous strenuosity by kerosene lamp light. We were as nocturnal in habits as owls, and then we got idiotic, fell down, killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Washington was so ineffably green as to promote the railroad scheme of extending the road to Kansas City by either or both of two talked-up routes-one via Fairfield and the other through Dutch creek to Ottumwa. This was late in 1869. Jefferson county raised their one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars subsidy, Brighton raised thirty thousand dollars, and right of way through their township, and Washington-jackass with ears a fathom long and a bray like the laughter of a pond filled with loons and of an idiotic asylum, raised forty thousand dollars and right of way to the Brighton town- ship line, which cost four thousand eight hundred eleven dollars and fifty- eight cents. Judge Aller of the company spouted at the meeting here February 23, '70, and cinched the fatal contract. By September of that year the road was built to Fairfield.
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