USA > Iowa > Appanoose County > Past and present of Appanoose County, Iowa : a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. I > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43
In the relations of the territory and state to the national government, south- erners and men of southern predilections were likewise dominant in most of the important positions. The first federal judge was John James Dyer, a na- tive of Pendleton county, Virginia, now West Virginia. But for his refusal to consider the democratic nomination he probably would have been the first governor of the state of Iowa. The United States marshal was Dr. Gideon S. Bailey of Van Buren, a native of Kentucky. Judge Dyer's successor in 1855 was another Virginian, James M. Love. lowa's first territorial delegate to congress was W. W. Chapman, who was born and educated in Virginia under the tutelage of the noted lawyer St. George Tucker. His successor in 1841 was Augustus Caesar Dodge, a son of Governor Henry Dodge, born during the latter's residence in St. Genevieve, Missouri, and he was lowa's national repre- sentative until the state was admitted into the Union in 1846. When the first Vol. 1-5
66
IHISTORY OF APPANOOSE COUNTY
legislature broke the senatorial deadlock of 1846, the first senators elected were A. C. Dodge and George W. Jones. The latter was born at Vincennes, Indiana, spent his youth in Missouri, and was educated at Transylvania University, Ken- tucky. One could without doing violence to language claim one and perhaps both of Missouri's distinguished senators as lowa's guardians and representatives in congress. Thomas H. Benton had, as is well known, a direct family inter- est in Iowa through his nephew who early attained distinction in Dubuque and later in state affairs in Iowa, and Senator Lewis F. Linn was a half-brother of Governor Henry Dodge. So industrious was Senator Linn on behalf of the interests of this state that he was known as the "Iowa senator."
Iowa's first representative in the lower house of congress was Shepherd Leffler. of Burlington ; William Thompson, of Mount Pleasant, was our sec- ond. Both were sons of the Keystone state. Daniel F. Miller, our third rep- resentative, was born in Maryland, and our fourth, Lincoln Clark, of Dubuque, was born in Massachusetts, but he had been a resident of Alabama from 1830 to 1848. Of the six other representatives in congress prior to 1800 one, James Thorington, of Davenport, was a North Carolinian, and Timothy Davis, of Dubuque, was a New Jerseyan, who lived in Kentucky from 1817 to 1847.
Striking evidence of the domination of men of southern affiliations and antecedents in lowa's political affairs prior to 1850, and even beyond, is af- forded in the membership rolls of the early legislatures and constitutional con- ventions. The delegation from this side of the Mississippi in the Wisconsin legislatures that met first at Belmont and later at Burlington, numbered eighteen out of the thirty-nine members. Of Iowa's quota there was only one repre- sentative of New England, and one from New York, whereas there were four from Pennsylvania (three being from Washington county). The south had eight representatives; one each from Virginia and Georgia, and three each from Kentucky and Tennessee. There was one cach from Ohio and Illinois. Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee were the southern states represented. Disregarding the southern stock among the people of Pennsyl- vania, Ohio and Illinois, sons of the south constituted more than half of the membership. The records of nativity are not complete for subsequent sessions and the states of origin cannot be given except for the state senate in 1851. and the fifth general assembly that met in 1854. In the senate of the third general assembly ( 1851) southerners continued the most numerous, seven as against two from New England. In 1854, however, we note an increase in the relative proportions of the representatives from the middle and northwest states. Nevertheless there were in the senate ten southerners and only four New Eng- landers, and in the lower house sixteen from the south and but nine from north- east of the Narrows.
In the constitutional conventions that convened in 1844. 1846 and 1857, we find men hailing from south of Mason and Dixon's line greatly outnumbering the New Englanders. In the first convention there were eleven Virginians, six North Carolinians, eight Kentuckians and one Tennesseean. twenty-six in all; while New England was represented by ten : the middle states by twenty- three, of whom thirteen came from Pennsylvania: Ohio had eight and Indiana and Illinois each had one. In the second the numbers were fifteen from the south, cight from New England, four from the middle states and five from
67
HISTORY OF APPANOOSE COUNTY
the southwest states. In the convention of 1857 the south had ten, New Eng- land six, the middle states eleven and the northwest states nine representatives.
SOME OF THE SOUTHERN STOCK AMONG THE FIRST SETTLERS
The declarations of local chroniclers respecting the "first" events in pioneer times, such as the "first white child" born, or marriage solemnized, or the first house built, or the first church dedicated, are often born of misty memories or hasty surmises indulged in by ardent patriotic temperaments. Nevertheless, while subject to suspicion and often heavy deductions, taken altogether they may afford us considerable data from which substantial conclusions may be drawn. A cursory examination of the histories of the counties of lowa, of the few memoirs, journals and letters relating to the first years of the state will soon convince one that New Englanders were not always the first settlers in all of the counties, and contemporary opinion often indicates that their presence was rare in various com- munities.
In Lee county, excluding the French Canadians and Creoles, the first Ameri- can settlers are said to have been Richard Chaney, a native of Prince George's county in Maryland, and Peter Williams, of Kentucky or Tennessee. The first merchant of Fort Madison it is asserted, was one Walsh, a Baltimorean. Hawkin- Taylor, him-elf one of the first settlers, states that Lewis Pitman, a Kentuckian, was the first settler "in all the section round about" West Point ; and in Charleston he informs us there was a man by the name of Allen who "prided himself on being a Yankee-an article scarce in that section." Of the five members of the legislature from Lee in 1838 four were from southern states : Captain Jesse B. Browne, Kentucky ; William Patterson, Virginia ; Haw- kins Taylor, Kentucky: C. J. Price, North Carolina : and James Brierly, Ohio. AAmong the immigrants to Fort Madison in 1837 was a family of North Caro- linians whose head was John !\. Drake, afterward the founder of Drakesville, in Davis county. One member of that family. Francis Marion Drake, became governor of lowa in 1896. When General Joseph M. Street was ordered to drive back the squatters from the second Purchase he appointed a Virginian as the first licensed ferryman over the Des Moines, a man who afterward exercised a marked influence upon his fellows in territorial days. Van Caldwell, the father of llenry Clay Caldwell, a prominent state senator in 1800 and 1862, and later a judge of the federal circuit court for the district of Arkan- sas, and still in active service.
Southerners were not an inconsiderable number in Des Moines county. The first county clerk and city postmaster of Burlington was a Scotchman. Dr. William Ross, who had lived many years in the south, in Kentucky and Mis- souri. In 1836 Lieutenant Albert M. Lea bought in the "raw village" of Bur- lington from "one David, a shrewd Kentuckian," four lots fronting the court- house "in expectancy." and the next year soll them to John Pemberton, the father of the celebrated officer who years after surrendered Vicksburg to Gen- eral U. S. Grant. In 1838 General William Thompson, lowa's second repre- sentative in congress, a l'ennsylvanian, whose parents moved into the Keystone state from Virginia, registered at the "Wisconsin House, the largest hotel" in Burlington, whose hostess and assistants were "all West Virginians from the flats of Graves creek." One of the most influential of the first pioneers was Isaac Leffler, a Pennsylvanian, who had served eight years in the legisla-
68
HISTORY OF APPANOOSE COUNTY
ture of Virginia and represented that state in congress. lle was one of the representatives of Demoine county in the Wisconsin legislature at Belmont. In the first territorial legislature four of the Des Moines representatives were from Kentucky and Virginia, one each from Ohio and Pennsylvania, and two from New Hampshire. Another notable early settler of Burlington was no less than John C. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, who became vice president in 1857. Here it is interesting to note that in the case of the fugitive slave "Dick," whose owner sought by suit to recover him in order to take him back to Missouri, not only were both the leading attorneys southerners, but so was the mayor of the city. M. D. Browning, for the plaintiff, was a Kentuckian, and Judge David Rorer, for the defendant, a Virginian, and the mayor, S. A. Hudson, who was expected to maintain peace and order, was a Kentuckian.
In Scott county we find men from south of the Ohio river much in evi- dence in the early settlements. Mr. Barrows, one of the first surveyors and cartographers of Iowa, writing in 1863, says that "probably the first settler in Scott county" was Captain Benjamin W. Clark, a native of Virginia, who had commanded a company of mounted rangers in the Black Hawk war. He was given the first ferry franchise between Rock Island and Davenport. He founded the town of Buffalo. Bowling Green in Scott county derives its name from James MI. Bowling, another Virginian. The town of Princeton was set- tled first by a Kentuckian, Thomas Hubbard. Sr. The names of Colonel George Davenport and Antoine LeClaire have already been mentioned.
The first settler in Clinton county it is said was one Elisha Buell, a New Yorker, who had been "a pilot on the Ohio and lower Mississippi." coming up from St. Louis in 1835. Perhaps the most notable and forceful character among the first settlers of Jackson county was Colonel Thomas Cox, a Ken- tuckian, who had been a member of the senate of the first state legislature of Illinois and had served in the Black Hawk war before coming to Iowa.
The population that came across to Dubuque between 1830 and 1840 from the Fever river or Galena mining region was a variegated mixture of Cana- dian French and Scotch. Irish. Yankee and southerners. Excepting the Cana- dian infusion the majority of the "down easterns" had been previously "west- ernized" either in southern Ohio or southern Illinois, or in Kentucky and Missouri, that is, the Ilempsteads and Langworthys. The southerners were in- fluential. Among them were Thomas S. Nairn and General William Vandever. Marylanders, William Carter, Iowa's first manufacturer of shot. and General John G. Shields, Kentuckians, and the Emersons, John King. General Warner Lewis, Major Richard Moberly and William G. Stewart, Virginians. John King had the distinction of being the founder and editor of The Dubuque Visi- tor, the first newspaper printed in lowa ( 1836). Ilis associate, Andrew Keer- secker, who was the printer or compositor of the firm. was likewise a Vir- ginian.
Concerning Cedar Rapids, we are told that "it should be remembered that in the settlement of our city and its vicinity a strong and important element was from the south. That element brought a rich strain of blood, and means and intelligence into the raw community. And with this element the force of tradition and pride of race and early education held to accepted ideas of their section." Another writer only recently declares that those "influential pioneers"
69
HISTORY OF APPANOOSE COUNTY
came "from Maryland, Tennessee, Virginia and from South Carolina, and from a number of southern states," and they "left a social impress upon the community which, even to this day, has not been entirely obliterated." AAmong the number that came from South Carolina were the three Bryan brothers, Michael, B. S. and Hugh L., Mr. and Mrs. E. G. Staney, Mrs. Rutledge and two sisters, and Donald M. McIntosh, a "brilliant lawyer." But the chief star of them all was Mary Swinton Legare, a sister of Ilugh S. Legare, of South Carolina, who became attorney general in President Tyler's cabinet and later succeeded Webster as secretary of state. Miss Legare was her brother's con- stant companion until his death and later the editor of his literary works. She married Lowell Bullen, of North Brookfield, Massachusetts, in the "old muddy church" in Cedar Rapids, and lived in Marion for some time, but she exerted her great social influence chiefly in Cedar Rapids.
A census taker in Cedar and Johnson counties in 1836, and the first sher- iff of Johnson county appointed by Governor Henry Dodge, was Colonel S. C. Trowbridge, a Virginian. In Walter Terrell, one of the early millers of the state, lowa City had another "fine old Virginia gentleman," highly educated in the classics and mathematics, widely traveled and influential among his fel- lows. Rev. John Todd, on his arrival at Percival, Fremont county, in Octo- ber. 1848, found that most of the Methodists thereabouts were "from Vir- ginia, Kentucky and Missouri." In 1854 James W. Grimes spoke at Glen- wood, some thirty miles north of Percival, in Mills county, in behalf of his candidacy for governor, and in a letter to Mrs. Grimes describing his recep- tion, he said: "When I came here I found that the population is entirely south- ern."
Following up the Des Moines river valley we find numerous sons of the Old Dominion, Kentucky and Missouri among the first settlers. In Jefferson county the "first white settler" was John Ruff, a Virginian. In Mahaska the De Lashmutts, Edmundsons, Phillips and Seevers families brought with them the traditions of the Cavaliers and of the proud gentry of the Blue Grass re- gion. The man who was the occasion of the "Tally war" during the rebellion was a Tennesseean. In Monroe county one John Massey surveyed Albia. One naturally conjectures whether he was a lineal descendant or relative of Na- thaniel Massie, of Kentucky, who surveyed Virginia's lands in south central Ohio in 1789-92. A large proportion of the Mormons who stopped in Mon- roe county came "from Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia and other moun- tainous regions." Claiborne Hall, a Virginian, was the first settler in Red Rock, Marion county, coming up from Missouri in 1833, and the two following him were from Kentucky. George Gillaspy, likewise from Kentucky, settled first in Louisa county (1840), going to Marion in 1843. He became assessor. sheriff, treasurer of board of public works, member of the constitutional con- vention of 1857, and the first democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in Iowa in 1858. A fugitive from justice in Missouri is alleged to have been the first settler in Madison county but soon there followed him a "colony of new- comers" from Missouri. Among the party was a Mccrary, "an old Tennes- seean, mountaineer."
The first white settlers in Polk county came in when the second Fort Des Moines, at the "Raccoon Forks" was garrisoned in 1843. Among the troops
70
HISTORY OF APPANOOSE COUNTY
and the attaches of the garrison were a number who remained permanently in the region and one finds southern blood common, coming in directly or indi- rectly through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The government contractors, the brothers John B. and W. A. Scott, came via Indiana from North Carolina stock. The tailor of the fort, J. M. Thrift, was the son of a Virginia slave owner and Baptist preacher who took his slaves to Ohio and gave them their freedom, whose grandson is now ( 1906) adjutant general of Iowa's militia. Peter New- comer, who was granted permission to take a claim at Agency Prairie on con- dition that he woukl build a bridge over Four Mile creek, was a Marylander. One of the first trappers along the Des Moines was Landon Hamilton, a Vir- ginian who a few years since left his estate to the city of Des Moines and to the state of Iowa. Among the southern stock that came in later was James C. Jordan, a Virginian, afterward state senator, whose home just west of Des Moines became a noted station on the underground railway. Another Vir- ginian was John H. Given, father of Mrs. Pauline Given Swalm, and another was Thomas M. Napier, a county judge under the law of 1851. M. D. Mc- Henry, an attorney and later state senator, and James A. Williamson were prominent Kentuckians. In the development of the transportational facilities of Des Moines were Dr. M. P. Turner, a Missourian, who became interested first in the ferry franchises and later inaugurated the first street car system, and Jefferson S. Polk, a Kentuckian, who upon graduation from Georgetown College entered upon the practice of law in Des Moines in 1856. Since the early 'gos he has been manager and chief owner of the electric railways of Des Moines. Des Moines and Polk county was settled by great numbers of indi- anians and Ohioans whose ancestors came from south of Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio river. Many names of men of note might be mentioned; a few might be cited-Thomas J. Saylor and Alexander C. Bondurant, after whom Saylorville and Bondurant were named, Senators P. M. Casady and Colonel C. II. Gatch, Colonel Isaac W. Griffith and General Ed. Wright. Judge William H. McHenry, Sr. and Tacitus Hussey.
Southern stock predominated in the first settlement of Boone county. It was named after Captain Nathan Boone who first surveyed the region. Wil- liam Boone, a relative, early settled near .Boonesboro that commemorated the old home of their great namesake in Kentucky. Many of his descendants are found in Worth and Des Moines townships in Boone county today. In the same townships are also many relatives of the Virginian who became a noted circuit rider in Illinois, Peter Cartright. A South Carolinian has his name preserved in the town of Luther, and a Virginian in Zenorville. The common practice of western emigration proceeding by "families" and "neighborhoods" is exceedingly illustrated in the career of the Ilull family. Three brothers. James, George and Uriah, of Virginia Scotch-German stock, settled in and about Boone between 1847 and 1850, and their numerous families and relations al- most immediately made them the most potent political factors in the county. an influence which they maintained until the war and after. Two other broth- ers, John and C. J. McFarland, representatives of southern stock and views. early attained positions of marked influence, the former in banking and busi- ness and the latter on the bench. Judge McFarland was an exceedingly pic- turesque character in the annals of the county judge system.
71
HISTORY OF APPANOOSE COUNTY
One may find some interesting evidence of the make-up of the population in various sections of the northwestern counties of Iowa in the muster rolls of the Northern Border Brigade, raised in the fall of 1862 to guard our frontier against the threatened forays of the bloodthirsty Sioux. The five companies. comprising sixteen officers and two hundred and fifty-four men, were recruited from an extensive region including Harrison. Shelby, Woodbury in the south- west. Hamilton and Hardin in the southeast, and Emmet and Kossuth on the north. The lieutenant colonel, James A. Savage, of Sioux City, was a Ten- nesseean. Of the two hundred and seventy there were twenty-four from New England, fifty-five from New York and Pennsylvania, thirty-four from the southern states, eighty-four from the northwest states, and seven from Iowa. The first mentioned were chiefly in the northern counties. In the southern and western counties the southern states and Ohio and Indiana claimed the major number. In company B for instance, recruited chiefly in and about Fort Dodge. eighteen out of the forty-two native born were southerners, mostly North Carolinians and Tennesseeans.
This somewhat drearisome recital of particulars may be closed by one other reference. During the high waters in the Missouri and Floyd rivers in March, 1857, it was discovered that the floods were encroaching dangerously near to the grave of Sergeant Floyd, the young Kentuckian of Lewis and Clark's party who died and was buried on the river bluffs in 1804. His remains were taken up for reinterment. On May 28, 1857, under directions of Captain James B. Todd. late of the United States army, they were taken to the steamer for transfer to their present resting place. The pallbearers whose names are pre- served were W. Craft, of Virginia; T. Griffy, of Kentucky; L. Kennerly, of Missouri; W. H. Levering, of Indiana; N. Levering, of Ohio; and D. W. Scott, of the army. In Woodbury it appears that southerners seem to form a goodly proportion of the population if the suggestions of those names are worth consideration.
If we examine into the nativity of the pioneers among the professions we find many noteworthy southerners.
Iowa's first preacher probably was a Kentuckian, Rev. David Lowry, a Cumberland Presbyterian, who assisted General Street in his work with the Winnebago Indians at the Mission school in Allamakee county. In Mahaska county, in 1844, Mrs. Phillips tells us, "Cumberland Presbyterians seem to pre- dominate." Rev. Launcelot Graham Bell, a Virginian, organized the First Pres- byterian church, at West Point, Lee county, at Muscatine, at Iowa City and in cities and towns along the southern part of the state to the Missouri. It was Rev. John Hancock, of Kentucky, assisted by Mr. Bell, who started the first Presby- terian church in Council Bluffs. The first Presbyterian preacher in Red Rock, Marion county, and the first resident pastor in Des Moines was a North Caro- linian, Rev. Thompson Bird. The first preacher of the Christian church in lowa was David R. Chance, a Kentuckian. He was one of the seven representatives of Demoine county in the legislature at Belmont in 1836. This experience with legislative virtue in the location of the territorial capital did not enhance his faith in human nature. It was Elder D. S. Burnet, of Baltimore, who established the Christian church in Iowa City. One of the forceful and constructive men in the Methodist church was Rev. Samuel Clark. He was born in Virginia, and was
72
HISTORY OF APPANOOSE COUNTY
chaplain of Virginia's constitutional convention in 1829-30, in which sat ex-presi- dents Madison and Monroe. He was one of the founders of the Wesleyan Uni- versity at Mount Pleasant and the father of the brilliant editor of The Keokuk Gate City. Sam M. Clark. Bishop Loras of the Catholic church, who came to Dubuque in 1836, was stationed in Mobile, Alabama, from 1829 to 1836.
Among the doctors of the state were Dr. Enos Lowe, of Burlington, a native of North Carolina. He was made chairman of the constitutional convention that met in Iowa City in 1846 that framed the constitution finally adopted. Dr. John D. Elbert, of Keosanqua, Dr. John W. Finley, of Dubuque, Dr. John F. Henry, of Burlington, were Kentuckians. Dr. W. Patton, of Council Bluffs, was from Vir- ginia : Dr. G. L. Brown, of Marion county, was a Tennesseean. There were two physicians in the first territorial legislature and both hailed from the south, Dr. Gideon S. Bailey of Van Buren county, from Kentucky, in the house of rep- resentatives, and Dr. Jesse B. Payne, of Henry county, from Tennessee, in the council. In the constitutional convention of 1844, four out of the five doctors were members from the south. In the convention of 1846 honors were even; one was from Alabama, one from North Carolina and two from Vermont.
In the military service distinguished names are met with : General James C. Parrott. of Keokuk : General J. G. Lauman, of Burlington : General William Van- dever, of Dubuque, all Marylanders ; and General John Edwards of Chariton, and General James A. Williamson, of Des Moines, were both Kentuckians.
Southerners loom up prominently in the early annals of lowa's legal pro- fession. Besides Judge Caldwell already mentioned and Judges Dyer and Love referred to, Judge James Grant, a North Carolinian who settled in Davenport. was a man of remarkable force of character if one-half that hosts of admirers relate of him be true. He was a member of the first constitutional convention of 1844 and he called the second convention to order in 1846 and was a potent fac- tor in their deliberations. Other southern lawyers in those conventions were W. W. Chapman, of Virginia, our territorial delegate in congress: William R. Harrison, Washington county, from North Carolina: H. P. Haun, of Clinton county, from Kentucky ; and G. W. Bowie, of Des Moines county, from Mary- land ; Judge Dyer's brother-in-law, Ben M. Samuels, a Virginian, was one of the forceful lawyers of Dubuque. In Mahaska county we have the name of Wil- liam 11. Seevers, who gained fame both as a codifier and as a judge of the state supreme court. A vigorous lawyer in the pioneer days of Council Bluffs was Judge R. L. Douglass, a native of Maryland. One of the leaders in the consti- tutional convention of 1857 was William Penn Clarke, a Marylander. Another Marylander then rising into prominence was C. C. Nourse, of Keosauqua, who later became attorney general of Iowa. The name of one Iowa lawyer, however. stands above all. Samuel F. Miller, of Keokuk, a Kentuckian, who practiced law in the Gate City from 1850 to 1862, when President Lincoln made him associate justice of our great supreme court at Washington.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.