USA > Iowa > Wright County > History of Wright County, Iowa, its peoples, industries and institutions > Part 23
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EARLY SETTLEMENT.
The author believes the following article, published in the Belmond Herald in "Centennial" year ( 1876) by Mert .A. Packard, a native of the township, to be the best possible account of early-day matters in Boone township :
"Boone township, proper, is township 93, range 26, west of the 5th
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principal meridian, but up to 1869 it composed this congressional township and also what is now Norway township, or congressional township 93, range 25.
"The first settlement was made by Scott Crapper ( the first sheriff of the county ), who built a log cabin in section 20, at the edge of the timber, in 1855. George Smith and Sylvester Brockway also built about the same time. The Brockway house is still standing [1876]. Several claims were made during the two succeeding years, and houses were built by C. H. Martin and a Mr. Brainard. At the time of the Spirit lake massacre in April, 1857, the settlers all left their homes and went down the Boone to Webster City, but finding that the Indians were not likely to penetrate into this county, they returned about June ist, that year.
"During the same month (June, 1857), Fred Zimmerman, Henry Frank, C. 11. Packard and Peter Groeshong arrived and located near where Luni now stands. Groeshong was a single man and thinking that it was not right for man to be alone, took to himself a wife in the person of Miss Malinda Miller. This was in 1858 and was the first marriage in the town- ship, though a couple eloped previously to Webster City and were there united in marriage.
"The first birth was that of Alvah Packard, in July, 1857; he was the son of Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Packard.
"The first death in the township was that of the child of Sylvester Brockway, he having been bitten by a rattlesnake while playing about the dooryard.
"The first school in the township was taught by M. Y. Hood, in the cabin built by Scott Crapper. This was taught in the winter of 1857-58, before Boone and Libetry townships had been separated. The school house was not finished until 1860-sometime in the early autumntime.
"During these times the settlers had to procure their food, such as Hour and provisions, from Cedar Falls or Clarksville, some even going as far as Clermont, Fayette county, for their flour; it being made at the famous Gov. William Larrabee mills, which made for itself a record in Civil War days when Mr. Larrabee furnished so many war widows with free flour.
"A postoffice was established in 1858, with C. H. Packard as postmaster, the name being Luni. Then the mail was carried as far as Goldfield, and the settlers took turns in carrying the mail from that place to Luni. The next year a post-road was established from Cedar Falls to Algona, after which mails came more regularly to the township.
(17)
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PLUCKY PIONEERS.
"The land did not come into the market till June, 1858. The settlers had to go to Fort Dodge to enter their lands that summer and it was so wet that roads were absolutely impassable for horses, consequently they set out on foot. After walking and swinning about twenty-six miles, they arrived at Fort Dodge, entered their lands and returned in the same manner as they went.
".At this time game was abundant and the river abounded in excellent fish. During the fall and winter the farmers busied themselves in hunting and trapping, as muskrats were very numerous, and otter and beaver by no means scarce. Foxes and wolves were also plentiful and bold and were shot in great numbers.
"If the people were so far removed from settlers, they still were not forgotten by office seekers, as we find that as early as 1857. Hon. Jolm F. Duncombe and Cyrus C. Carpenter visited the place on an electioneering tour.
"In the spring of 1858 C. H. Packard and 11. D. Houghton built a lime kiln and tried to burn lime; but the stone not being the right kind. the lime thus obtained was a very poor quality. However, as a poor excuse is ack- nowledged to be better than none, their lime was used by all the first settlers.
"The spring of 1859 was wet again; nothing could grow, and the settlers had to subsist on what corn they had kept over and what game they could shoot. Ducks and prairie chickens could be shot in innumerable numbers.
"\ Mr. Miller, of Marble Rock, lowa, built the first blacksmith shop in the township in 1858, and remained until 1860, then removed to Missouri. The first preaching was by a Methodist circuit rider, in 1857. at the old George Smith cabin, but no regular services were held until several years after that time.
"In 1860 the settlers were blessed with a large wheat crop. The near- est market was Cedar Falls and after they hauled the wheat to that place they sold it for forty cents a bushel. The first threshing-machine brought to the township was in 1860, by Packard and Zimmer, who also, a few years later, had the first reaping machine in the township.
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THE YEAR OF PERPETUAL FROST.
"1859 was memorable for it seeing frost every month during the entire year. Nothing was raised except some corn, by Fred Zimmerman, who divided it with other settlers as long as it lasted. When the settlers had to go to Horse Grove after more, there came on a snow storm, the day after they started ( April 2), and they were gone over a week.
"The settlement was now coming to be in a prosperous condition and continued so until the Civil War came on. The township responded nobly to the President's call for volunteers and there was not a man drafted from this township. The following named settlers responded: Charles and William Griffith, Elliott Loomis, Oliver lless, Henry Frank, and five of the Packard boys -. A. C., Charles. C. H., Inrank and George Packard. . All except George Packard were in the Thirty-second Iowa infantry regiment, which did as much hard fighting as any regiment in the service; was in the brigade that saved Banks' army at the disastrous battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, and later covered the retreat to Grand Ecore. Inrank Packard and Henry Frank were captured at the battle, but soon effected their escape.
"Since the Civil War this township has continued its growth in pros- perity, with only a few bad seasons. The grasshoppers first visited the township in 1873, but did not damage the crops to any great extent. The next year they came in greater numbers and did much damage, especially to the corn crop. The last year they came was in 1876, but arrived too late to do much damage.
"The season of 1875 was extremely wet, the Boone river rising and overflowing its banks three or four times during the summer, causing much damage to growing crops.
"The first apples grown in Boone township were by W. E. Young, on the farm later owned by Mr. Batterson. Sheep raising has been tried by the settlers but abandoned as a failure. W. II. Gillespie has succeeded in raising fine peaches on his farm, a mile out from the river. The township has been free from petty law-suits and there has never been a criminal prose- cution in the township."
TRYING TIMES.
In addition to what Mr. Packard has recorded. it should be added that about 1856-57 came to the township Fred Zinnerman, the Packards. Henry Frank, Dr. II. N. Crapper. R. Payne, A. MeIntyre and W. Gillespie, all of
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whom it can truthfully be said were among the pioneers of the township and county, as well. The "wet season" of 1858 compelled the settlers to resort to many different methods to obtain breadstuffs. The impassable conditions of the unbridged streams rendered hauling impossible, and neces- sity constrained them to live on what little corn they were fortunate enough to raise. For months flour was unseen, and all they had to rely on for meal was one corn-cracker, run by horse power; and some were even com- pelled to grind their corn in a family coffee-mill, in order to procure bread. During these trying times, a spirit of the greatest kindness ever existed among the little band of immigrants, and what little they had they willingly shared with one another.
There was one feature of these hard times that tended to lessen the real suffering of families, and that was the great abundance of wild game, which supplied them with plenty of meat, and the Boone river, which was then literally alive with good-sized fish of the best species for table use. These dull times did not deter the settlers from looking well to educational matters, for we find that about this date a school was held in the log cabin of pioneer C. H. Martin.
By 1870 the township had a population of about one hundred and fifty. It was during that year that a writer, well known in those days (J. H. Stephenson), said this of the township and its advantages :
"It contains many natural advantages, being well timbered, and having two fine streams of living water, one of which is Prairie creek and the other the Eagle, with a few lesser water courses. In keeping with other townships, Boone can boast of having some splendid farms, a number of which are worthy of note in this connection. C. Il. Martin and E. Gibbons, located close to the river Boone, have their farms well improved, and under a high state of cultivation; while a mile or so from the belt of timber, out on the prairie, W. H. Gillespie has a very handsome farm. Around his house is a beautiful young grove, set out by his own hands, and which even now has attained sufficient growth as to render it quite an ornament of beauty to his place, and to afford an excellent shade from the summer's sun and a shelter from the severe winds of winter.
"In his garden, with other trees, stands a peach tree which, yielding its fruit, gives Mr. Gillespie the credit of raising the first peaches in north- western Iowa, with possibly one exception-that of Mr. Downing on Eagle creek, farther down in the county, who also raised a few peaches in Civil War days."
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MISCELLANEOUS COMMENT.
The schools and churches of this township have all been treated in special general chapters, hence are not referred to here at any great length.
The agricultural reports, mention of which is made in the chapter on agriculture, shows Boone to be fully up to the Wright county standard as a farming and stock-raising section. The same is true of public schools.
Of recent years the township has been thickly settled with a large num- ber of Scandinavians, who make, generally speaking, the best of naturalized citizens, and take kindly and loyally to the American ideas of civil gov- ernment.
Luni postoffice, in this township, was established in 1858, and was discontinued June 23, 1888. It had postmasters as follow: C. H. Pack- ard, appointed 1858; II. D. Houghton, 1860; Frank Zimmerman, 1861; Marcellus Packard, 1875; Frank De Packard, 1876; William T. Drennen, 1880; George T. Packard, 1882, and Charles Packard, 1883.
What was known as Drew postoffice was established in this township in the summer of 1892, and was discontinued on October 31, 1901. The postmasters serving there were: Thomas Mitchell, appointed on June 7, 1892; William McMurty, June 9, 1893; II. P. Johnson, June 28, 1897, and H. C. Johnson, August 28, 1901.
The only cemetery in Boone township is the old one known as "Elm- wood," located in section 19.
The matter of drainage has been agitating the minds of the people of this township for a number of years, and in 1908, through the efforts of J. M. Overbaugh and others, a large open-drainage ditch was cut in the western portion of the township. Another ditch has been contracted for to drain portions of the eastern sections of the township, and will doubtless be of great advantage to the landowners there.
A LOST CHILD.
The Wright County Monitor of November 1, 1911, had the following concerning a touching incident that in a way reminds one of John Hlay's "Little Breeches" story :
"On the evening of November 21st the farmers of Boone township were thoroughly aroused over an alarm sent out over the telephone lines, that the two and a half year old child of E. B. Huntley and wife, and the
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grandson of Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Overbaugh, had been lost. The child was missed by his mother at about five o'clock in the evening. \ searching party was out all night with no avail, and as the night was cold and somewhat stormy, it was feared the little fellow was lost; but at eight o'clock in the morning following, the faithful searching party was rewarded by finding the boy lying beside an old building which Grandfather Overbaugh had built a quarter of a century before, and this was two and a half miles from his home. How he had made this great distance and survived without food or mittens, no one can tell. When found his little hands were very cold and he was sobbing as if his heart would break. Aside from fatigue and hunger, with a numb feeling, the little one was well. When discovered he said : 'Me seeps on the ground all night.' It was a very long and anxions night for the parents, grandparents and friends in the township, and all rejoiced at so happy a termination of so peculiar a case-a child two and a half years old traveling in the night, in a storm, two and a half miles, and not being materially injured, in Wright county, Iowa, in November."
CHAPTER XXIII.
CLARION TOWNSHIP AND CITY.
Clarion township, one of the later townships organized in Wright county, was formed in 1868. At present its form is the most irregular of any in the county, and was so constituted in order to get school money with which to erect school buildings. When first organized it comprised forty- eight sections, being all of township 92, range 24, except four sections in the northeast corner; section 6 of Lincoln township (91-24) ; section 1. Dayton township (91-25), and section 36 of Lake township (92-25). . A petition asking that such an organization be perfected, was presented the board of county supervisors in September, 1868, authorizing the election of township officers at the regular November election that year. The officers elected were as follow : Member of the county board of supervisors, R. K. Eastman; town clerk, George \. McKay: justices of the peace, Simeon Overacker and Lucius A. Look ; assessor. O. T. Nichols; constables, Daniel Leonard and James Meeker ; trustees, J. D. Oakley, John Pearl and Harri- son Thompson ; road supervisor, Daniel Leonard.
This township, being so closely identified with the city of Clarion, which is in its center, has not had a very eventful history, outside the regular routine of township business. Its records have been nicely kept and its affairs well managed by good and prudent citizens. The county seat having been located here, it was soon found that the nature of the soil, which is flat. precluded the ordinary good prairie highways, so the citizens early in its history commenced to plan for a system which would eventually bring good wagon roads to the town. The township was divided into road dis- triets and all within the law was accomplished to get a better class of wagon thoroughfares through the township, into the seat of justice, which was finally reasonably well accomplished. In 1877, a Wanchope road grader was purchased at a cost of six hundred seventy-five dollars, which was used in Clarion and adjoining townships for many years. The first effort by the township to secure a railroad was in August, 1877, when a five per cent. tax was voted to aid in the construction of a narrow-gauge line through an old grade known as the "Duncombe" grade, mentioned in the general chap-
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ter on railroads. The project was finally abandoned on account of various causes, chiefly the decision of the higher courts as to the unconstitutionality of such a tax. The old Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern railway line was the first to enter Clarion. (See railway chapter. )
But it should be remembered that the former large township, known as Clarion, has been cut down to a territory only including about twelve sections, or parts of twelve sections, of land in the geographical center of the county. Clarion city is within its center. It is now bounded by Lake, Grant, Lincoln and Dayton townships. It took on its present limits by act of the board of supervisors in 1881, in which year Clarion city was incor- porated, when the civil township was made to conform to that of the terri- tory included in the city limits.
The population of the present township in 1915. given as including the city of Clarion, was 2,065. In fact Clarion civil township and Clarion city corporate lines are one and the same for general purposes. Hence the his- tory of the one is covered by the other. (See (ity of Clarion. )
SETTLEMENT.
Among the very earliest settlers in Clarion township, as first formed. were D. Leonard, William McCormick and S. Overacker. Then, after the establishment of the county seat at Clarion village ( first known as Grant ), the McKay and Eastman families were the pioneers in the town and helped swell the population of Clarion township. Mr. Eastman and family occu- pied the second story of the court house in the winter of 1866-67.
In 1874, on the road north from Clarion village, lived George Curry, Michael Goslin, John Burns, Philip Doctor and P. R. Henry-no others living in that section until Norway township was reached. In that town- ship there were only two settlers at that date.
When Clarion township was first organized, in 1868, William McCor- mick was about the only settler, he having taken up a homestead in 1863 The first settlers to come in after the organization were R. K. Eastman and family, with his son-in-law, George A. McKay and family, who came from Goldfield at the same time.
THE INDIAN BATTLE GROUND.
In John H. Stephenson's pamphlet history of Wright county ( 1870) the author, who we think possibly had a very vivid imagination, gave the following concerning this township:
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"What is known among the inhabitants as the 'Indian battle ground.' is situated on the elevated portion of the prairie, about one mile to the north of the town of Clarion, and consists of what appears to have been at some period of the world's history, some sort of defensive works. We arrive at this conclusion from the present appearance that the place exhibits, although how near we are correct we are not prepared to say. The works, if so they may be called, assume somewhat the shape of a horse shoe and consist of a number of pits about five feet deep, although when first made, they were probably deeper. At the southwest end there is an opening of much wider space than exists at any other point in the chain of pits, and which probably was used as a means of entrance and exit, to and from. That it has been used once by some people and for what purpose is very evident, for in the vicinity is a large heap of bones of various animals, of which, in all probability not a few may be human. This, however, is con- jecture as we find no person who can throw any light on the mystery."
CITY OF CLARION.
When the voters of Wright county concluded to remove the seat of justice from Liberty (Goldfield), in 1865, the surpervisors purchased one hundred and twenty acres of land as near the center of the county as it was possible, the tract being described as the southwest quarter of the south- west quarter of section 31, township 92, range 24, which was ordered surveyed and platted into a town site, to be known as Grant. The remaining forty acres of the purchase was situated in section 36 of township 92, range 25, just to the west of the platted village. This was the starting of what is now Clarion-the name having been changed when the postoffice depart- ment at Washington declined to adopt the name Grant, as Iowa already had a postoffice of that name. It was then the Eastman and Mckay families, with a few interested in the welfare of the city embryo, met and after con- sulting a postal guide, their eyes finally struck the name "Clarion, Pennsyl- vania." This, to the ladies of the party, including Miss Cornelia Eastman and her sister, Mrs. McKay, seemed a proper name for the new postoffice and county seat, so it was that Clarion was decided upon. The facts con- cerning the change from Grant to Clarion have been kindly furnished the writer by Mrs. Cornelia ( Eastman ) Hancock, now residing in Los Angeles, California, who was one of those who liked the name Clarion for the new town and in which the family was first to settle, living in the court house building the first winter after it had been erected-1866-67; hence may be said to have been the first true pioneers of the present county seat.
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WHAT THE YEARS HAVE WROUGHT.
Vast have been the changes in the appearance of this locality, from a landscape viewpoint, since the town of "Grant" was surveyed, and Mr. Perry erected the frame court house out on the barren, storm-swept prairie, with not a tree in sight in any direction. Today, the eye rests upon many towering artificial groves, while Clarion has come to be so shaded by the trees set out by pioneer hands in the sixties and seventies, that many are now being removed. Hundreds of trees of the cottonwood and willow variety grew to great proportions and were cut down years ago, while the better class and younger shade trees have been beautifying the place a long time now and seem to one not acquainted with western prairie life and scenes, to have been natural timber found here; but not so-all was a tree- less plain.
With the passing years, substantial improvements have been made; street paving, electric lighting, the advantage of railroad facilities in all directions, the building of handsome churches and large modern school houses, with hundreds of beautiful residences, have all combined to make Clarion a desirable place in which to live. The railway shops and division offices of the Chicago Great Western system of railway furnish employ- ment to several hundred men and the surrounding agricultural section has come to be highly developed, the wealth of the farmers bringing prosperity to the merchants of the county seat. The United States census reports give the population as 744 in 1890: 1,475, in 1900, and 2,065 in' 1910, and the Iowa state census for the present year ( 1915) places it at 2,552. For the most part, the inhabitants are native-born Americans. The greater part of the people of Clarion are actively engaged in some one of the useful modern occupations. There are, of course. the usual number of retired farmers. who having run well their course as hard-working tillers of the soil, and laid by a handsome competency, have moved into town to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Such families have the advantage of excellent public schools and are among the best citizens of the place.
BEGINNINGS OF CLARION.
It was in 1869 that the historian wrote of Clarion: "It is without a store of any kind." Then no church spires towered high; no school bell was heard clanking in the belfry. Then teams hauled all supplies for the
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place from distant cities over muddy roads and unbridged streams, but now all is carried over the bright steel highways of railway lines.
In 1873 the business interests of Clarion consisted of a dry-goods store owned by I. Q. Milliken; the land and loan business of R. K. Eastman & Company, and a small shop or two.
In 1874 Milliken's store was in a two-story building on the lot now occupied by Linebarger & Tabor's drug store. He remained five years and moved to Colorado. Mr. Milliken was postmaster, and the upper story of his store was used for the Masonic hall and other public purposes. Adjoin- ing this was the Monitor office, the paper being then published by Gates & Hathaway; then came the bank and realty office of Eastman & Company, the building in which it was kept now being occupied by the Austin Abstract Company, on the south side of the square; P. L. Branham operated a small drug store; the attorneys were Nick Weber and A. R. Ladd, while the doctor was Thomas Garth, M.D., long since dead. A small shoe shop, kept by Charles Johnson, was situated on the corner where the McCoy & Nagle dry goods store now stands; E. E. Gould was the "village blacksmith," but there was no "spreading chestnut tree" to shade his forge, as was provided for Longfellow's smithy in his beautiful poem.
A mill-and such a mill !- was built about 1872 by Jacob Rohm, who utilized the winds for the propelling force, through the medium of an old- fashioned Dutch windmill, which stood just north of the present school grounds, in the northwest part of town. It was a failure, both mechanically and financially, but ground some grain during its existence.
The first private fireproof safe in Clarion was brought to town in June, 1874, by R. K. Eastman & Company, and in it everybody in town was invited to keep their valuables. It was a Diebold-Norris Company's safe. and weighed four thousand six hundred pounds.
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