USA > Iowa > Buena Vista County > Past and present of Buena Vista County, Iowa > Part 4
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The Wisconsin lands are in some places not a little inenmbered with bowlders; but these have proved of great value everywhere as building stone where no other rock was at all accessible. West of the moraine and its immedi- ate vicinage there are bowlders only where these have been exposed and accumulated by the later processes of erosion, as along the banks, ravines, of the Little Sioux. The bowlders about Sioux Rapids are apparently of Wisconsin age; one massive limestone block near the town can hardly belong to the older drift.
But in general the soils of the county here discussed, whatever their nature. whatever their foundations, are of the finest quality, and yield to husbandry, year after year, with undiminished vigor, the varied crops which belong to this latitude in the great Mississippi valley.
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HISTORY OF BUENA VISTA COUNTY
BRICK AND TILE.
Briek and tile are manufactured in this county, more attention being paid to tile for which there has been a great demand. At Sioux Rapids, Linn Grove and Storm Lake are kilns and brick works which do a considerable business. The brick is rather soft but answers the purpose for inside work. The tiles are said to be of the first grade. At Sioux Rapids and Linn Grove the material is derived from a fine alluvial deposit close by the river, apparently a bed of silt. which possibly reaches the Kansan blue clay. At Storm Lake a similar bed of what seemed to be silt is worked profitably in the manufacture of soft briek and tiling of various sizes but fair quality, all rapidly taken up by the local demand.
GRAVEL.
Y
In the county here discussed there are unlimited supplies of gravel suitable for the preparation of highways. When once the era of good roads actually arrives these gravel deposits will assume more nearly their real value, that is. they will be better appreciated than now. Nevertheless, in both city and country, gravel is today the road material. An organized effort for the use of this material, extending the paved or graveled road year by year, would soon make the country roads of all northwestern Iowa the very best in the state.
WATER SUPPLY.
In Buena Vista county shallow wells are the rule. Deep wells are the exception. In Grant township there is a well one hundred and forty feet deep. in which is reported twenty feet to the blue elay, 70 feet of blue clay and then yellow clay and gravel to quicksand and water. . At Newell is a well where the blue clay was reached at the depth of only twelve feet, but beyond that depth the record is not very satisfactory, although the well is reported two hundred and forty feet deep. A few springs have been found in the county but these are only of benefit to the immediate locality where they occur. At the county farm spring water is conveyed to the buildings and farm houses by means of an hydraulic ram. At present there is no water power within the county except a small dam at Sioux Rapids. Power sufficient to drive a grist mill and furnish the eity with electric lights has been obtained.
In general it may be said that Buena Vista county is not only well watered in the ordinary sense of that term, but the supplies from wells is, if anything. more than ordinarily accessible.
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HISTORY OF BUENA VISTA COUNTY
FORESTRY NOTES.
By the testimony of all pioneers the original forest growth of Buena Vista county was limited to that part of the valley of the Little Sioux that falls within the northern limits of the county. It is reported that in the locality of Storm Lake there was existing at the time of the first settlement. a beautiful grove of trees on the western end of the lake, but these were soon transformed into build- ing material or destroyed by prairie fires, and were never replaced. Willow bushes oceur on the borders and sloughs throughout the county, but in the valley of the Little Sioux the case is different.
Ilere an unusual number of forest species has maintained itself through the past centuries, and these species are still represented by beautiful groves of thrifty, shapely young trees, the socalled second growth. The trees primeval, as seen by the pioneer, were very much scattered. They were generally old trees and although as remarked, representing many species. they yet formed nowhere a real forest. Today genuine forest conditions obtain in many places, There is a beautiful native grove near Sioux Rapids: another somewhat smaller at Linn Grove: while around the homestead of Mr. Brooke on section 14. Brooke township, is one of the finest native groves in northwest Iowa. The old trees which attracted first the attention and interest of Mr. Brooke are still standing surrounded now by hundreds of their descendants which form the densest kind of a forest down the hillside. On the summit of the ridge above the residence the boundary between two floras, woodland and prairie. is beautifully shown.
It is a curious fact that in all these native groves the bur oak always oceupies the outmost post. forms the vanguard. the very foremost line. Where no other persisted. or withstood the onset of fire and storm there stands the bur oak, gnarled and twisted, shorn and shortened, it is true, but still holding its ground until now that it has passed under the control of civilized man the species finds unexpected relief and young bur oaks are the characteristie feature of every uncultivated hillside along the Sionx.
But if forests are not part of the natural wealth of Buena Vista county, this is no reason why trees may not form a conspienons feature of the landscape now. Some of the finest, most woodland-looking groves in the country are to be seen today around that very Storm bake, once so bare and windswept. Planted groves adorn the whole country. In every township of the county may be seen most of the ornamental varieties of shrubs and trees that have place in the most favored grounds in other sections of the northern United States.
Some planted groves on the farms are also very beautiful and have estab- lished real forest conditions. The great trouble in the whole situation is that forestry and pasturage cannot go on together. If a farmer wishes to see his grove thrive and do him highest service he will not subject it to the injurious trampling of herds of cattle. Many fine groves in northern Iowa are now being ruined in this way. With the rapid ocenpaney of the more fertile portions of our country and the rapid destruction of our native supplies of lumber and forest products, the time is rapidly nearing. if not already at hand, when the
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HISTORY OF BUENA VISTA COUNTY
timber lot will be as valable an adjunct to the well appointed farm as the pasture lot. But the same land cannot be used for both purposes. As well attempt to raise eorn in the meadow. If the farmer desires a grove to shade and shelter him and his cattle, to furnish him a perennial supply of fuel and of wood to be used for all sorts of purposes about the farm to say nothing of the adornment of his holding. he can have it in the northwestern Iowa as well as elsewhere in the state, but he must take care of it. at least to the extent of giving the trees a chance. Furthermore the seant native growth of the county we have been studying is yet all sufficient to demonstrate that our farmer is by no means limited to the familiar willow and box-elder or white maple; he may plant all sorts of trees, ash, walnut, oak, basswood. besides those forms ordinarily used for ornament, such as pines and larches.
Since fire has been eliminated from the problem. the great enemies of the trees, enemies not under human control, are drought and wind. The county here considered has shown a remarkable endurance under the most trying conditions of drought. and it is a fact that the trees themselves, by their increasing numbers. protect each other from the winds, if they do not ameliorate these atmospherie conditions as a whole. There are those who have lived long in lowa who think and believe that the ovenpaney of these prairies and the planting of them with trees in thousands upon thousands has greatly changed our climate. However this may be, there is no doubt whatever of the protection afforded locally to a homestead by a well situated. well cared for grove of trees. It is doubtful if the northwest prairie were habitable, at least by enlightened people, without the aid and assistance brought by plantation of trees.
The native woody plants of Buena Vista county so far noted are as follows: Basswood, prickly ash, soft or white maple, box-elder, sumac, wild plum. choke cherry, wild cherry. Iowa crab apple. hawthorne. wolf berry. black haw. (rare along the river) white ash. common white elm, slippery elm, black walnut, pig nut. hazel, ironwood. cottonwood. bur oak, red oak and red cedar.
Besides the species here enumerated by name, there are several species of willow, some certainly native, which have not been . with certainty identified. Mention has not been made either of many introduced trees planted in many parts of these counties. mulberries, poplars, fruit trees of all sorts, which appear to thrive here as well as in some other portions of Iowa. The usual conifers also are here planted with good effect, and there seems no reason why the people of these counties may not have the advantage of the use of all or nearly all the arboreous species that are found commonly capable of enduring the somewhat trying and inhospitable climate of this state.
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IHISTORY OF BUENA VISTA COUNTY
THE FIRST ERA OF THE COUNTY.
1855-1866.
HISTORICAL.
The history of our county covers a span of more than fifty years since its organization. It was organized on November 15, 1858, but prior to that time it had been sought out by white men and homes had been established here. The first white men of whom we have any knowledge, who visited the county, were two United States surveyors, by the name of Lane and Ray. During the summer of 1858 several of the counties of this part of the state were laid out in townships by surveyors who held contracts for such work from the general government, and engaged in this work were the two men who are named above. They traversed the county from the south to the north, establishing corners and laying off the townships into sections.
There was no trace of their visit in the south part of the county, but when they arrived at the region about the Little Sioux river near Sioux Rapids the prospect was so good and the outlook so promising that they deviated from the rules of the government and took possession of some of the choicest land. At that time there were fine groves of native timber along the river and in the sheltered nooks, and this attracted the surveyors who had been working on the bleak prairie for many weeks. This was before the days of the Homestead Laws, when squatters took what they saw and held by right of possession. Lane and Ray posted notices upon trees, bearing the inscription :
"THIS LAND IS TAKEN BY LANE AND RAY."
This was in 1855 and there is some authority for the fact that these two men returned here during the fall and built a log house on one of the claims they had taken. At any rate there was a log structure there when settlers came in the following year. and Lane and Ray informed people at Fort Dodge, where they were at that time, that they had wintered on the Little Sioux river in Buena Vista county. They hunted and trapped along the river, and were well re- warded for their stay.
The old Lane and Ray claim, upon which they spent the winter of 1855-6. was located on section 12. in Barnes township. A portion of this quarter was heavily timbered and was afterward known as Barnes' Grove. After they left the county they went east and made preparation to return to make their home here. They came as far west as Fort Dodge. where there were several immi- grants waiting for spring to open up, so that they could proceed farther west, and when they came on to Buena Vista county they were joined by a party of New Jersey people. They were William R. Weaver and wife, Abner Bell, a brother to Mrs. Weaver, and a man by the name of Totten with his family. bane and Ray did not remain, but left shortly afterward and never came back.
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IIISTORY OF BUENA VISTA COUNTY
They sold their claim to a man named Templeton. who came from Fayette county, and he held it for some years.
When Lane and Ray came west in the spring they laid out the old Fort Dodge road. They followed an established trail from Fort Dodge to the North Lizard river in Calhoun county. and from there set their compass on an air line for Sioux Rapids. This old Fort Dodge road was used by settlers for many years afterward. and became a part of the Sioux City road. Caravans of movers followed it from Fort Dodge to the Rapids and then from Sioux Rapids on west to Sioux City. For some years Sioux Rapids was the only resting place of any consequence between Fort Dodge and Sioux City.
Thus, the first actual settlement of the county dates from the spring of 1856, and the first settler who remained was Abner Bell. Bell was a remarkable man in many ways. Ile was of swarthy complexion and a born hunter and trapper. Of New Jersey stock, restless and turbulent by nature. unlettered and unconth, but with a shrewd native humor. he found his birth place too small for a man of his disposition and came west. IIe came to Iowa, and what directed him to this county was never known, nor did he ever care to tell. But at the age of thirty-two he found himself here. a bachelor, a democrat. with not a care on his mind and with no inclination to take and hold land to improve it.
Bell at onee set out to see what the country afforded in the game, and al- lowed the other members of the party to prepare for the winter. While they planted and sowed, and built rude log huts in which to make their homes, he roamed the river up and down in search of game, which he found plentiful. At that time beaver. mink, and an occasional otter could be found along the Little Sioux. Musk rats in large numbers frequented the low places of the country. the swamp lands which afterward ent such an important figure in the affairs of the county. On the prairie deer and elk roamed in great herds and Bell's rifle supplied the larder of the settlers with fresh meat. He made his home with the Weavers, and led a hunter's life.
Many strange tales are told of him. Ile hated an Indian like veritable poison and would have preferred to favor the devil before he would have extended a courtesy to a member of the despised race of red skins. He was honest. in his way, and stood for what he thought was right. Yet he lacked education and was easily influenced by men who had a ready command of language and who could present a questionable proposition in a plausible manner. In later years Bell would at times rebel from the rule that was estab- lished by scheming and conniving men in the county, and would show some degree of independence, but allowed to have his way he would soon be under the spell of a glib tongue and a plausible argument and things wonkl go as the leaders wanted.
A story is told how the first illegal warrants of the county came to be issued. In 1860 John Cofer, a notorious O'Brien county character came to Buena Vista to look into the swamp lands that were supposed to belong to the county. Cofer's first move was to go to Abner Bell and Moses VanKirk. the former then being treasurer and recorder and the latter county judge, and make a propo- sition to them that if they would give him fifty dollars he would show them a way whereby they could make one hundred dollars in a legitimate and legal way.
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HISTORY OF BUENA VISTA COUNTY
They readily assented and he then informed them that a law had been passed by the legislature whereby their offices had been abolished, but the legislature had granted them extra pay as a balm for taking away their publie places. Ile assured them that it would be perfectly legal if they would issue three warrants of fifty dollars each and give him one, retaining the other two to recompense them for their services. Bell and VanKirk were confiding mortals and the transaction was completed in short order. The warrants were after- ward presented for payment, but they were dishonored and never paid.
Bell never took any land to hold and never wanted any. He built himself a small shack and ran a store. His stoek in trade consisted of groceries, traps, powder and ball and other articles that a hunter would need. IIe lived as a bachelor, clothing himself in nondeseript garments fashioned from skins of the animals he shot. Of course, as civilization in the county advanced he gave up his frontier ways and dressed as other people, but this was before the county became populated. He was a character known to all, and his eccentricities were probably magnified as they passed from month to mouth. He wore his hair long, had a long beard and two shrewd blue eyes twinkled from this profusion of hirsute adornment.
After the settlers came he would sell venison and visit all of his neighbors regularly. He would sit by the fire on an evening and tell his experiences with game, his trapping exploits. the Indians he had met and the terrible blizzards that swept over the country in those early winters. He knew some Indian words and on one occasion some bucks appeared at a house and demanded flour from the housewife who was at home alone. They became insolent and abusive at the good woman's refusal to comply with their requests, when Bell suddenly appeared in the midst of the savages and with a mixture of profanity. Indian dialect. bad English and wild whoops. he scattered the reds in every direction. They jumped on their ponies and rode away in haste, and while the woman was thanking Bell for his timely interference he gruffy told her never to give an Indian anything, but to drive him away as soon as he came. scolding her roundly for having been kind to the reds who came to her door.
Bell took great interest in the affairs of the county in the early days, and was clerk of the district court and of the board of supervisors for several years. At one time he and Hubbard Sanderson, who was treasurer, had a heated argument at a board meeting over the refusal of Sanderson to accept certain warrants, issued by Bell, in the payment of taxes. Bell also owned the war- rants and to have his integrity impugned by a refusal to accept the warrants was more than he could stand. and he petitioned the board to compel the treasurer to accept them. His petition opened as follows :
"To the Honorable Board of Supervisors, the undersigned, your humble petitioner, would represent to your honorable body the grievances and wrongs by your petitioner has received from the acts of the present incumbent of the treasury's office by refusing to receive certain orders from him in payment of taxes." Then continued a specific arraignment of Sanderson, which. while unimportant, was nevertheless an indictment of great length.
Another entry of Bell's in the minute book of the board, which has been widely commented upon in the county, was an outgrowth of this same contro-
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HISTORY OF BUENA VISTA COUNTY
versy. During the colloqny between Bell and Sanderson, Sanderson called Bell that short and ugly word which consigned him to the Ananias Club. Bell records: "Hub Sanderson called Abner Bell a G-D-liar, which I consider is unnecessary language." Such naive comments upon official matters are to be found in the records of the board during the period Bell served as elerk.
Bell was illiterate and when he did not have some one to enter the minutes and performed the act himself the books show his wonderful ehirography on many a page. His successor in office reported to the board that the minutes were not in presentable shape, and were in such a condition that he could not understand them. Acting upon his advice the board refused to settle with Bell and George H. Turbett, who was acting as clerk of the board, records in the minutes that "the said Bell has not performed his duties according to law, and has failed in every instance to act in good faith as a clerk." This insult to Bell was resented in a summary manner. Bell sued the county the very next day and received judgment for all he asked, although the board contested the claim.
As has been stated Weaver and Totten, with their families, constituted the party that came the same time Abner Bell arrived. They had their choice of the land of the entire county and knowing the need of wood and water, they settled in the sheltered valley of the Little Sioux. Weaver took the west half of section 8 and the northeast quarter of section 7 in Lee township, in order to get the timber. Bell took the southwest quarter of section 8 but it is not believed he ever realized any benefit from it, as he did not improve it. Totten took his land in what was afterward known as Trusty Gulch, on section 1 in Barnes township. John W. Tucker came in the spring of 1857 and located on the Nessler place on the north side of the river. Tucker built a house, a rude cabin, near the present site of Sionx Rapids.
It was this year that the Indian raid up the Little Sioux river stopped for a time all progress in the county. A short account of this tragie incident of northwest łowa history may not be out of place at this time. In sketching the attitude of the Indians toward the settlers at that day it is necessary to trace the tribal relations of the band which made the raid and which committed the depredations along the Sioux river and at Spirit Lake.
THE INDIAN RAID.
On the 11th of October. 1842, the Indians made a treaty with the United States government by which they sold the land west of the Mississippi river. to which they had a claim or title, or in which they had any interest whatever ; reserving the right of occupancy for three years from the date of the treaty. to all that part of the lands ceded which lay west of a line running due north and south from the Painted or Red Rocks, on the West Breast Fork of the Des Moines river, which rocks were situated eight miles from the junction of the White Breast with the Des Moines river.
The country north of Iowa and west of the Mississippi river. as far as the Little Rapids on the Minnesota river, was occupied by the Medewakanton and
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HISTORY OF BUENA VISTA COUNTY
Wakpekuti bands of Sioux Indians. These latter tribes were at war with the Saes and Foxes. The Wakpekuti band was under the leadership of two principal chiefs, named Wamdisapa and Tasagi. The lawless and predatory Wamdisapa and his band prolonged the war with the Saes and Foxes; and to a great extent created difficulties between the band of Wamdisapa and the rest of the Wakpekuti, which troubles gradually separated his band from them. Wam- disapa and his people moved to the west. toward the Missouri, and ocenpied the land about the Vermillion river. So thoroughly was he separated from the rest of the Wakpekutis that when the last named Indians, together with the Medewakantons, made their treaty at Mendota in 1851, by which they ceded the lands in Minnesota owned by them. the remnant of Wamdisapa's people were not regarded as being part of the Wakpekutis, and took no part in the treaty at all.
By 1857, all that remained of Wamdisapa's band was under the chieftain- ship of Inkpadutah, or Scarlet Point, sometimes called Red End. In August, 1856. the agencies of these Indians were on the Minnesota river at Redwood, and on the Yellow Medicine river. Inkpadutah and his band were considered a bad lot of vagabonds. They robbed the settlers of cattle and corn, intimi- dated women and children, and in 1856. made a disturbance by appearing at the Indian ageney and demanding a part of the money that had been paid to the tribe for the cession of the lands under the treaty signed at Mendota. They were compelled by the Indian agent. JJudge Flandreau of Minnesota, to return to their haunts along the Big Sioux and its branches.
The spring of 1857 found them at Smithland, in Woodbury county. Ink- padutah and his tribe, numbering about fourteen bucks, with man squaws. had been there all winter, going down in the fall. During the winter there were several violent aggressions by the warriors, and as violent repulses by the settlers. One day. in March, while the Indians were in pursuit of elk, they had an open clash with the whites. The Indians claimed that the settlers intercepted the chase. Others stated that a noble Indian buck had been bitten by a mongrel dog, belonging to a white, and this insult provoked bitter feeling. as the Indian killed the dog and was heartily chastised by the owner for so doing. It was also reported that the whites whipped off some squaws who were appropriating hay and corn. The Indians becoming more and more insolent. the whites proceeded in a body to camp and disarmed them, intending the next day to restore their guns to them and escort them out of the country. The next morning not an Indian remained to be seen. They went up the Little Sionx, committing depredations as they went. They took guns, ammuni- tion, eatables and stock from the settlers as they proceeded. Going into cabins they overturned furniture and ripped up bedding. They fired their guns into the houses and terrorized all with whom they came in contact. The farther up the Little Sioux they proceeded the fewer and more defenseless the settlers became. After remaining in Cherokee county for a few days they came to Peterson, and then on down the river into what is now Brooke township of the county. Here they visited the home of A. S. Mead. the first white settler in that corner of the county. At Mr. Mead's place they not only killed his cattle and destroyed his property, but knocked down Mrs. Mead and carried
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