USA > Iowa > Hancock County > History of Winnebago County and Hancock County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 22
USA > Iowa > Winnebago County > History of Winnebago County and Hancock County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 22
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Philip Tennis was sitting before his fire one wintry night partly undressed, when suddenly the door was burst open and in dashed a half dozen Indians. They were intoxicated, and at once made for Mr. Tennis, showing signs of hostility. He promptly met them, knocked one over into the fire, then leaped through the door out into the night. The Indians searched for him in vain; and they soon left, venting their disappointment in howls and whoops of rage.
They were very fond of liquor, and would use any means to get a pint of whiskey. One by the name of Dick Sharo came to John Blowers' mill one time, and offered to give him a bear skin for a pint of whiskey. Mr. Blowers said that he did not have any whiskey. But the Indian insisted and finally Blowers said, "Where is your bear skin?" The Indian replied, making a motion with his hands and feet as though the bear was still running, "Ugh ! me kill um-me kill um, morrow."
RECOLLECTIONS OF J. F. THOMPSON
In a letter to the Winnebago Republican, March 12, 1917, Mr. J. F. Thompson, who came to Forest City in 1872, wrote: "Your informa- tion of the burning down of the Barton store building and the Masonic Hall (March, 1917), along with the other two buildings on the north, pains me much, for with the going of the Barton store and the Masonic Hall, many fond remembrances of happy days and events had by me many years ago, go with it. This building had just been completed when I landed in Forest City in July 1872, and was the only brick build- ing then in the city except the residence of Judge Clark, my father-in- law, which stood where the Hotel Summit now stands or rather where the remains of that once magnificent hotel stands. The brick school- house located on the stand-pipe hill had burned down the winter before, and in the spring of 1873 I was employed by the school board to teach the Forest City public school in the basement of the old Barton build- ing just burned and you can well understand, therefore, why I am pained to hear of its destruction by fire.
In its basement I organized the Forest City public school and had as my pupils many of the old time boys and girls, some of whom still remain, but most of whom have gone-either to their home above, or moved away. I can recall the names of but very few of my pupils, in that old damp, dark basement school room. In fact, no names now come to my mind of those still living there, except Mr. Ed. Pinckney, who with his brother Edwin and sister Mary, attended, as I now recall it to mind. But those were happy days to me, and I am sorry that the old building is no more.
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I took active part for many years in the Masonic order, whose home was in the hall above the store, and I had the honor of being Master of the Lodge.
The summer of 1873, the school board had erected the old brick school house on the site where the former High school building now stands, and in the fall or winter we occupied it. I was the first Super- intendent (or Principal, we called the office then) of the High School in that new school house, which was torn down when the frame building now there, was erected.
I organized the school that fall with three departments; primary, intermediate and high school. I cannot call to mind my two assistant teachers. I was offered the principalship of the school for the next year and urged to take it, but declined, as I wished to go to the state university at Iowa City to finish my course and also the law course in that institution, which I did and graduated from the university in the Class of 1874.
Besides the Barton building there were three other stores. My brother, J. Thompson, had a store where Mr. Pinckney's drug store now is; Mr. Pinckney's father conducted a drug store where Mrs. Babbit's store stands. J. W. Mahoney had a store and the post office in the Hewett store building, where the north part of the First National Bank building now is, and there was a store building at or near the Secor Block. That was the town at that time, except Mr. Blenner- hasset had a drug store where your fine new office now is.
There were no churches in the town, no school house, no lumber vards, no railroads, and in fact, nothing but the stores above mentioned, and a small frame building where Clark's Jewelry store now is, and where E. L. Stillman at that time conducted a small hardware store. I have seen Forest City grow from almost nothing to the fine small city it is now, with its paved streets, its fine school buildings, and churches, Waldorf College, magnificent stores, banks and dwellings. You can therefore imagine why I feel sorrowful to learn of the Barton building and the Masonic Hall going up in flames. It is quite the last one of the old landmarks of Forest City and soon too, the last of we old builders will pass away, there being now left of us, only Messrs. B. A. Plummer, Eugene Secor, W. O. Hanson, Brother Jasper and myself. We old timers did the best we could, however, to lay the foundation for the fine little city. More than thirty years ago we fought the saloon out of the town and you can now feel proud, you younger generations, to know you walk on sidewalks not built-not one foot of them-by the saloon tax or license money. No child born or reared in Forest City now thirty years old or under, has ever seen a saloon in our beautiful little city.
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All can well feel proud of its fine college, churches, school buildings and other public and private buildings. I have been in every county of our grand old state of Iowa, having lived therein now a few months less than 60 years and I have traveled over quite a good deal of the United States, Canada and Old Mexico, and I want to say, and I say it advisedly and truthfully, there is no town of its size that I have ever seen that excels the beauty of location, environment, organization and lay out of buildings and parks of Forest City.
And the civic center of our school houses and college in a few years will be the pride of all, and the wonder of those who visit our town, and you can well be proud of the fact, that with myself and a few others like Senator Boe, you thought out the idea and fought the appari- tion until it became an actual fact, and your work in connection there- with was most commendable and worthy of this recognition.
PART THREE
HANCOCK COUNTY
CHAPTER I
EARLY SETTLEMENT OF HANCOCK COUNTY
THE COMING OF THE PIONEER-HANCOCK COUNTY PRIOR TO SETTLEMENT- THE FIRST SETTLEMENT-LATER SETTLEMENTS-FIRST VITAL STATISTICS- - ESCAPE FROM GRASSHOPPERS-FIRST TAX PAYERS-A SUMMARY-CENSUS STATISTICS, INCLUDING POPULATION, AGRICULTURE AND STOCK RAISING IN DIFFERENT YEARS.
THE COMING OF THE PIONEER
Most of the pioneers who resolutely sought their fortunes on the frontier prairie have passed on, but their story remains of unmarred interest. Many of Hancock County's most staunch and prominent families today are direct descendents of these men and point with pride to the accomplishments of these forbears. The pioneer's motive in coming to this country while it was young was purely an economic one; it was when he felt that the growing communities of the East were pinching him, that the call of the frontier was heeded. His subsequent advent into the unbroken West was, in nearly every case, not the romantic picture which literature and song has portrayed, but a prosaic, courageous and determined attack, with the axe and rifle as the principal weapons, also the reliable plow. They came to "open up" the country in every sense of the word, which meant clearing forests, breaking wild prairie land, building roads, planting crops, erecting homes, churches and schools, and at the same time make a living for all.
Notwithstanding the many disadvantages and hardships attendant upon the first steps of pioneering, there were many things which alle- viated them. The intense blizzards of the winter were offset by the beautiful summers, when the broad prairies were a sea of waving grass and pink flowers, when the curlews, plover and blackbirds were thick. True it is that a large part of Hancock County was then a slough,
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JOHN MABEN
L. B. BAILEY
JOHN A. BAILEY
EDWIN C. PACKARD
HANCOCK COUNTY PIONEERS
YIL 0
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but the higher ground afforded ample space for the settlers' cabins and the planting of his crops. For splendor the prairie supplied a moving scene unequaled. The sense of the dramatic was given by the fires which each year swept the prairies, the appearance of which was described by an eastern journalist of the time as follows: "Whilst enjoying the sublimity of the scene, night threw her mantle o'er the earth, and the sentinel stars set their watch in the skies, when suddenly the scene was lighted by a blaze of light, illuminating every object around. It was the prairie on fire. Language cannot convey, words cannot express to you, the faintest idea of the grandeur and splendor of that mighty conflagration. Methought the pale Queen of Night dis- claiming to take her place in the heavens, had dispatched ten thousand messengers to light their torches at the setting sun, and now that they were speeding on the wings of the wind to their appointed stations. As I gazed on that mighty conflagration, my thoughts recurred to you, immured in the walls of the city, and I exclaimed in the fulness of my heart :
" 'O fly to the prairie in wonder and gaze As o'er the grass sweeps the magnificant blaze; The world cannot boast so romantic a sight, A continent flaming, 'mid oceans of light.' "
The first duty of the settler was to select and mark the boundaries of his claim. In choosing a location, soil, timber and natural advan- tages were the first considerations. If a tract of land with a good spring upon it could be found, it saved the time and labor of digging a well. Without chain or compass, the pioneer measured his lines by counting his steps, guiding his course by the sun. So many steps upon each boundary meant three hundred and twenty acres, more or less, and when he went along he blazed the trees with his axe or carved his initials in the bark with his jack-knife. Where trees were absent he drove stakes bearing his initials and sometimes the date when the claim was made. Such lines were often far from correct, but they answered the purpose, for the settlers understood that when the lands were surveyed all inequalities would be righted. If a claimant lost some of his land on one side by the running of section lines, he was almost certain to acquire an equal area somewhere else along his boundaries.
After the claim was selected, the next thing was to provide shelter for himself and family. Until this was done, they lived in an impro- vised camp and slept in the covered wagon, perhaps the only home they had known during their journey from the old home to the western frontier.
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Many of the early settlers brought with them small stores of flour, bacon, salt, sugar and such other things necessary, but however frugal the family was these supplies were soon exhausted. The first year's farming was mainly the cultivation of a truck patch, where a few bush- els of corn, potatoes, turnips and other vegetables were raised and stored for winter use. Often the first erop proved insufficient for the family until another could be raised. Game was plentiful and the rifle was the means of supplying fresh meat for the table.
THE COUNTY PRIOR TO SETTLEMENT
Prior to 1853 the territory now comprising the county of Hancock was a vast expanse of prairie, dotted with sloughs and marsh ground, with a small amount of timber up the banks of the streams, and uninhabited by any human person except roving bands of Indians. This county, lying as it does at the headwaters of the Iowa, Boone and Des Moines Rivers, and traversed by many creeks, had no doubt been visited by white men, for these fertile grounds had long been the haunts of trappers and hunters prior to the coming of the home- seeker. Hancock County, at this time, was a part of the neutral ground that the government had placed between the Sioux on the north and the Winnebagoes on the sonth. This strip of "no man's land" was about fifty miles in width. Here the Indians could hunt and fish to their hearts' content, but could not locate there, make homes or indulge in any warfare.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
The first settlement in Hancock County was made by Mr. and Mrs. Anson Avery on the 9th of September, 1854. They located at Upper Grove, on the east fork of the Iowa River, in the southern and east part of the county. The previous winter C. D. Philo and George Nelson had come up in this direction on a hunting and trapping expedi- tion and had encamped at this place all winter, while they sought the wild game. The great beauty of the surroundings and the fertility of the soil impressed them and Nelson determined to return with a view of making a permanent location. However, Mr. Avery accom- plished this object first.' Anson Avery was a native of New York state, born October 2, 1823. When thirteen years of age he went to Cass County, Michigan, and in the fall of 1854 came to what is now Avery Township, Hancock County, Iowa, settling on Section 29. He also entered 80 acres of land on Section 28. He hauled his household goods and supplies to this country with six yoke
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of oxen. He cut sufficient grass with a common hand scythe to build a hay shed, after which he cut enough logs to build a small house, sixteen by eighteen feet in size, in which to winter. He covered it with clapboards and split some basswood logs to make a puncheon floor, the door and window casings also being made of puncheon. Mr. Avery was married September 9, 1847 to Lovina Philo, who was born on Kelly's Island, Lake Erie, January 22, 1831. Mrs. Avery now resides at Garner, Iowa, approaching her ninetieth year. Anson Avery died November 22, 1903, his demise occurring upon the same farm which he had broken with an ox-team a half century before.
In October, 1854, George Nelson, with his family, came to Upper Grove, and settled in the neighborhood of Mr. Avery. These two fam- ilies-Avery and Nelson-spent the winter of 1854-5 alone in the county, but with the coming of the spring weather others came in. Among those who located in the southeast part of the county, at Upper Grove, were Malcolm Magill, Thomas Magill, Sr., Orick and Reuben Church and Benoni Haskins. Charles Church and William Gilpin were also in the party. Thomas Magill, Sr., a Scotchman, veteran of the Mexican War, located upon a part of Section 24, raised a cabin, planted a crop, and there stayed until his death in the autumn of 1883. Mal- colm Magill also remained upon the portion of Section 24 where he first settled, until his death. Orick Church settled upon Section 33. Reuben Church, a nephew of the above, located nearby.
The next settlement in the county was made at Ellington on Lime Creek. On September 27, 1855, John Maben and Jacob Ward came into the county in search of a home and located at the above named spot. Ward was killed in the cyclone of June, 1883. In December of the same year Barnard and Andrew Bolsinger appeared and settled in Ellington Township. The former afterward moved to Oregon. In the same month Joseph and Lewis Barth located in the same vicinity and made claims to the land. Lewis Barth later moved to Sioux Coun- ty, Iowa. Jacob and Harrison Rice settled upon Section 8, in what is now Ellington Township, in the fall of 1855. These men did not long remain residents, but sold out their claims to John Maben and moved to the southward. Philip Tennis, in the latter part of 1855, located upon the northeast quarter of Section 7, Ellington Township, and re- mained a short time. A man named Pease, also located on Section 23 of the same township, for a short time. Thomas Bearse, a trapper and hunter, built a cabin in what is now Madison Township late in the fall of '55. He afterwards moved to Winnebago County.
Among the other settlers of 1856 and 1857 were: Francis and Richard Colburn, C. R. and Silas J. Wright, H. A. Stiles, Charles Gil- lespie, M. P. Rosecrans, Thomas Wheelock, David Hunt, Robert Irwin,
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George Louppe, C. D. Pritchard, Charles Church and his sons C. M. and Cyrus. All of these men are noted in the chapter on township history.
This practically completed the settlement of the county of Hancock until the year 1865, after the close of the Civil War, when Edwin Trum- bull and Myron Booth came to Crystal Lake. Another reason which may be cited as preventing the tide of emigration from coming this way was the land speculator, the bane of the frontier settlements. Much of the land in the territory now comprised in Hancock County was bought up by eastern land speculators, who refused to sell to the settlers except on terms which they were unable to meet. The settlers as a class were poor and necessarily were compelled to live economic- ally; they came to the western country where land could be had by claim and ownership obtained by their own work; they were in no position to pay high prices, especially for unimproved ground. The presence of marsh ground may have exerted a harmful influence upon emigration to this particular county ; land drainage was then a subject of little comprehension.
FIRST VITAL STATISTICS
The first child born in Hancock County was George Avery, son of Anson and Lovina Avery, in January, 1855.
The first death was that of George W. Haskins, who died June 2, 1855, and was buried at Upper Grove.
The marriage of Allen Yonker and Jane Haskins in 1856 was the first in the county. The couple went to Mason City to have the cere- mony performed. The marriage was an ill-starred one, for the hus- band afterward proved to be worthless and finally landed behind prison bars.
The first postoffice in the county was established at Upper Grove in 1857 and Benoni Haskins was appointed postmaster.
ESCAPE FROM GRASSHOPPERS
In the early '70s northwestern Iowa was visited in recurring years by hordes of grasshoppers. The billions of insects descended upon the growing fields of grain and stripped them of every vestige of plant life, causing immense loss to the farmers and many hardships due to the loss of the crops. Hancock County fortunately was just out of the territory devastated by the 'hoppers. The Garner Signal published an item at the time as follows: "At the time of the great grasshopper visitation the pests, on their eastward march of devastation, stopped
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with the western line of Hancock County and we shall never forget the remark of a pious old New Englander who owned a large tract of land in the marshy part of the county. He had been out to see his possession and could hardly find dry ground enough on his broad acres to stand upon to view the expanse of water and wild rushes that spread out in every direction. He viewed the situation gloomily for a few moments and then remarked, 'I have always held that the Almighty God never made anything in vain. When I first saw my land my faith was shaken, but my confidence vindicates my judgment. This strip of marsh and bog was interposed to stop the d-d grasshoppers.' "
Another humorous story of early settlement is copied from the files of the Britt Tribune as follows: "Frank MeGruder protests that he came here in 1869 looking for a place for a mill, but he didn't see any damsite and ate his dinner on the gopher knoll where C. C. Way's hen turkey set the fall of the centennial. E. B. Wheeler wasn't here in the early days, but remembers he welded a brass focus onto the foresight of the man who first came west and discovered Britt. E. B. was at Clear Lake at the time, working for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company. He describes the man as a tall com- plected, fair set man, with one broken suspender and a wild hair in his eye."
FIRST TAX PAYERS
From the original tax records at the county court house the fol- lowing names of the first tax payers are taken. In 1859 are found the names of M. P. Rosecrans, Edward Holway, Anson Avery, George Louppe, Benoni Haskins, Malcolm Magill, Thomas Magill, Charles Church, Orick Church, Reuben Church, Henry Overacker, Andrew Hunt, David F. Hunt, Robert Irwin, William C. Gilpin, Abner Cox, Perry Parker, Cornelius Cowen, Freeman Hitchcock, Cephas Church, John Bernard, Abraham Williams, F. M. Rother, Thomas Wheelock, H. Counsel, Jessie Haskins, Abner Stamp; in 1860 were added C. D. Pritchard, George Savogue, Edgar Thorp, Samuel Gilpin and Stephen Gilpin; in 1861 were added H. N. Brockway, Andrew Butterfield, C. W. Buffin, B. W. Culver, William Forbes, and A. Troy; in 1862 appear the new names of John Christie, N. S. Turner, G. R. Maben, John G. Stoshoff, F. N. Colburn, William Aldrich, Avery Baker, James C. Bonar, B. A. Hill, Harrison Wheelock, J. A. Kern, Richard Colburn, Joseph Barth, C. C. Doolittle, Charles Gillespie, B. and A. Bolsinger, Jacob Ward, H. A. Stiles, Charles Bice, Lewis Barth, G. W. Beadle, James Cron, Wesley Hayes and George Wren.
The above is a representative list of the earliest settlers in what is now Hancock County.
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A SUMMARY
The History, of Hancock County, published in 1884, has the follow- ing to say in regard to the early settlement of the county: "Years ago the public lands embraced by the present limits of Hancock County were thrown into the market and sold, the purchasers being generally men of extensive means who obtained the lands in large tracts for speculative purposes. Consequently, since the organization of the county, it has had no public lands, if we except the sixteenth sections for school purposes, and the swamp land grant, which the unwise, perhaps, mercenary action of the board of supervisors placed into the hands of the same class of speculators that had acquired the other portion at Decorah and Fort Dodge. This fact had a strong tendency to discourage the settlement of the county, for the land, though rarely held at exorbitant rates, was high enough to place it out of competition with government lands, and when the tide of emi- gration from the Old World and the Eastern States turned westward, allured by the healthful climate, fertile soil and natural advantages of the far away West, it flowed past and beyond us to the homestead lands of the counties less favored by nature, but more favored by circumstances. Other counties organized long after, soon boasted double the population. Year after year the early settlers watched and waited, hoping almost against hope for something to turn up, to people our prairies and develop their agricultural wealth, but the good times would not come. Fifteen years after the first settlement of the county its population numbered less than five hundred souls. There was not a store within its limits and the nearest market for the surplus produce was thirty-five or forty miles distant, and reached by roads that had never known the advantages to be derived from a bridge fund, or been marred by the spade of the pathmaster. The actual settlers were con- fined to a strip along timbered borders of Lime Creek in the extreme north, and around the groves on the banks of the Iowa in the extreme south, while between the two solitary settlements stretched tenty miles of prairie, without a house, tree, bridge, or scarcely a wagon track. The county seat was alternately at Upper Grove or Ellington, as either section succeeded in obtaining the necessary odd vote and was con- veyed back and forth in a wagon, being in reality the half dozen or more volumes known as the county records."
CENSUS STATISTICS
The following statistics are taken from the Census of Iowa for the year 1915, compiled and published under the direction of the executive council of the state:
The population of Hancock County as shown by this report was
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MAIN STREET, GARNER
£
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at that time 13,886, of which number 4,729 was urban and 9,157 rural. There were 24.3 people per square mile in the county.
Amsterdam Township, exclusive of Kanawha, had 325 males and 287 females.
Kanawha town had 284 males and 232 females.
Avery Township, exclusive of Goodell town, had a population of 299 males and 301 females.
Goodell town had 130 males and 111 females.
The Township of Bingham, exclusive of Woden town, had within its borders 282 males and 242 females.
Woden town had 85 males and 78 females.
Boone Township, exclusive of Corwith, had 265 males and 249 females.
Britt Township, exclusive of Britt town, had 258 males and 234 females.
Concord Township, exclusive of Garner, had 278 males and 241 females.
The town of Britt had 756 males and 689 females.
The town of Garner had 590 males and 636 females.
Crystal Lake Township, exclusive of Crystal Lake town, had 272 males and 253 females.
Crystal Lake town had 97 males and 80 females.
Ell Township, exclusive of Klemme, had 316 males and 258 females.
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