USA > Iowa > Fayette County > Past and present of Fayette County, Iowa, Volume I > Part 11
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He called Mr. Thompson to him and gave him a message to take to Cap- tain Morgan, at Fort Atkinson. He took the message and by making a cir- cuitous route passed around the Indians, who were engaged in battle, and reached the fort as quickly as possible. It did not take Morgan long to mount his troops and start at a rapid pace for the scene of conflict. When he arrived
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at a place where he could take in the situation, he went with his men right down between the contending forces and while the Indians were very anxious to kill one another, they did not at that time want to kill any of Uncle Sam's soldiers. The firing at once ceased and the Sioux braves shortly after sur- rendered to the Captain. But the Winnebagoes were determined to have as much revenue from their enemies as possible, and that night they stole every pony that the Sioux had brought down with them. Captain Morgan made a search but not a single one of the ponies could be found. He then took an- other course. Calling up the Winnebago chiefs he told them that they must bring back the ponies, and if they were not returned by a certain hour the next morning, they would be charged up at the rate of a hundred dollars per head, and this sum would be taken from their next governmental allowance. A few moments before the expiration of the time set, the ponies suddenly put in an appearance, but just where they came from was a mystery to all save a few Winnebagoes. The troops went a short distance with the Sioux, who went back to their own reservation without further trouble.
Some years after this Thompson located land east of Clermont, and lived on it for some time, and then came to West Union, where he now resides, being one of the very few pioneers who were in the county before the remov- al of the Indians, and who still live here.
On one of Anthony Thompson's early trips across the prairie he was caught in a prairie fire and came near losing his life. Not having had much experience with them he did not suppose they were particularly dangerous, and as there seemed to be no way of escape he had to take it the best he could when it overtook him. He was riding a pony which got thoroughly singed before the fire was over, and Thompson had the hair burned from off his head and most of the clothes from his body. At another time he and Joshua Wells and Gabriel Long were hauling loads of grain from Monona. They undertook to cross the lower ford at or near Clermont, which at that time contained one log house. The water was higher than they expected, and they came near drowning themselves and their teams, but as good luck would have it they escaped with their lives but lost the grain in the river.
LORENZO DUTTON.
A pioneer history of Fayette county would be incomplete without more than a passing notice of this honored citizen. Mr. Dutton enjoys the distinc- tion of being the earliest settler in West Union (now Union) township. He, in company with several other young men, left his home in Meredith, Dela-
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ware county, New York, in the spring of 1848. His companions were Wil- liam Blanchard, W. W. Bailey, Henry and Charles Jones, and by preconcerted arrangement they met at Rochester, New York, and there took passage on the New York & Erie canal for Buffalo. From the latter place they came by boat to Chicago, and thence, by any available means of transportation, to Galena, Illinois. There they stopped for a short time and were engaged in making hay on Sand Prairie south of Galena. While thus employed they heard of the removal of the Indians from the Turkey river country, in north- eastern Iowa, and of its wonderful beauty and probable adaptation to their needs as a place to make homes. They crossed the Mississippi at Dubuque on a ferry boat propelled by mule power, and from there made their way to Elkader by way of Garnavillo. At the last named place they received further information as to the Turkey river country, and decided to continue their journey on foot until they explored the "promised land." Mr. Dutton and the Jones boys decided to locate, and Henry Jones and Mr. Dutton returned to Galena and purchased three yoke of oxen, a wagon, breaking plow, stove, and a few other necessary household implements, and started on the return trip. At Elkader they completed their load for their team with some lumber, pro- visions, etc., and began "keeping house" on their claims on the IIth of Sep- tember, 1849. None of the party had ever had any experience in cooking, but they soon learned how to make "flap-jacks," and as they soon found a bee tree full of honey, it may be inferred that they lived on the fat of the land, even if the yeast bread was not the very best. The woods furnished abund- ance of game for little effort in hunting, and everything went well with them. They built a cabin with the lumber hauled from Elkader, supplemented by crotched poles which they cut on the claim, and covered and "banked" it with slough grass. This promised to be quite a comfortable temporary habitation, but unfortunately it caught fire and nearly everything it contained was de- stroyed. Mr. Dutton was away at the time, but the Jones boys reached the scene of destruction in time to save some of the contents of the cabin, though their winter's hay was burned and the season was then too late to make more, except from frost-killed grass, which was a very poor provender for cat- tle without grain.
A short time after this settlement was made by Dutton and his compan- ions, a man named Hadley invited them to assist him in hauling logs and rais- ing a house he proposed to build on the little creek which has its beginning at the now well-known resort, Dutton's Cave. The party consisted of two of the Downs boys, who came from Bloomertown, Hadley and his hired man, Dutton, Jones and Bailey. Hadley's was also a bachelor establishment, and
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Hadley superintended the "cuisine!" He had but one kettle, and in this he cooked beans as a first course ; then potatoes and meat, after which he made coffee in it! The food was served on chips instead of plates, and one tin cup sufficed for all. But the meal was served and partaken of with the relish which hard labor and contented minds induce.
Fortune favored the Dutton party, for the day that their cabin was burned, two men named Pettit came and joined them until they had assisted in building a log house. This favor was returned soon afterwards when the Dutton party performed a like service for their new neighbors, who located a mile northeast of them, but went away soon after their home was established, and never returned. It is believed they located in Illyria township.
The winter of 1848-9 was an extremely severe one. Snow fell to the depth of eighteen inches, on the 2d and 3d of November, and additions were made to this at close intervals, for many weeks. The Dutton party had much trouble with their cattle, as they seemed determined to return to their former home in Illinois, or at least to seek better food than the frost-bitten hay afforded at their present home. On one occasion the oxen yvandered away as far as where Elgin now is located, and both Jones and Dutton were severely frozen in their efforts to recover the cattle and drive them home; and even after that distressing experience, each man having gone alone, and met the same fate, they were obliged to employ the Henry Smith boys mounted on horses to hunt up the cattle and drive them home.
On another occasion the cattle were turned out to pasture during a rainy day and wandered away out of sight. Mr. Dutton went after them and found them a mile and a half from home. In attempting to drive the cattle home by a "short cut," he got lost in the woods, and after fruitless efforts to "find himself," he decided to camp for the night. He and the oxen slept together, and when the morning dawned Mr. Dutton had no difficulty in finding his way home, none the worse for his novel experience.
Lorenzo Dutton has owned the same Fayette county farm for more than sixty years, and during nearly all of that period has lived upon and cultivated it. He retired from the farm a few years ago and purchased a home with large grounds, in West Union, and upon this little farm he is able to work off during the summer season, any surplus of ambition and physical strength accumulated during the winter's idleness. Having recently passed his eighty- fourth birth-day (on which occasion he received a "shower" of one hundred and thirty-five post cards from admiring friends and relatives), he feels him- self immune from the hard labor of earlier years, and is content to saw the
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wood, attend to the cows, do the chores, and devote his spare time to the care of an invalid wife. (A more complete biography of this estimable old gen- tleman appears elsewhere in this work. )
It seems from some of Mr. Dutton's remarks that claims were made in advance of the entry at the government land office, and that these claims gave the occupant no legal right to occupancy, though of course there was a moral right involved in such a transaction.
On one occasion a neighbor came to Dutton's house, visited with the fam- ily and partook of the frontiersman's hospitality. The conversation drifted to the subject of claims, and the neighbor (?) remarked that no one would enter Dutton's claim, as he was recognized as the first settler in all that com- munity ! There were two forties adjoining Dutton's homestead which he de- signed to enter, and had commenced to improve, but was awaiting the time when he felt able to go to Dubuque for the purpose of making the entry. But this kind neighbor saved him the trouble by starting the next morning for the Dubuque land office. Another neighbor went with this "land seeker," and each entered one of the forties which they knew Mr. Dutton wanted. Through the kindness of a friend who furnished the money, Mr. Dutton was enabled to get back one of the forties, but never got the other one.
Mr. Dutton's recital of the manner in which corn planting, harvesting and threshing was done in those days is not only interesting, but unique as well. He says : "It is enough to make a man laugh now to think the way we planted corn then. We would drag a log chain across the field to make a mark to drop in-that's the way we did it then-and covered it with a hoe. In a year or so we took a pole and put some legs in it, a tongue and some handles, then hitched the oxen to it and made what we called a 'guess row,' which would be from one to six feet apart. A few years later we had different markers with a gauge.
"Then we thought we had achieved great things. But look at a man planting corn today, riding on a spring seat and planting as much as ten or fifteen men, besides the boys and girls to do the dropping! Talk about a 'snap' then! Yes, it was 'snap' and 'crack' and keep everlastingly at it, and then you did but little."
In the summer of 1853 Mr. Dutton says he "became a little aristocratic," and sold his oxen and bought a span of horses and a sucking colt. "Got them on time, except what the oxen brought, and felt as if I was somebody, for I never did like to drive oxen."
"When we wanted to take a ride and see the neighbors, we would yoke up the oxen, hitch them to the wagon, cut a little prairie hay, put it in the
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wagon bed, and that was for a spring seat ! Wasn't that a snap? Now almost every farmer has his surrey, a single buggy and a driving team, and a good many of them have automobiles.
"In the fall of 1850 Henry Jones and I dissolved partnership and I went it alone, Henry afterwards becoming county surveyor."
"The winter wheat which we sowed in '49 killed out badly. We har- vested with cradles, and when we thrashed it we used a traveling machine. We made up a load and then put the machine in gear and drove around the field. We had a poor quality of wheat, and not much of it."
In the fall of 1853, having raised a crop of wheat and oats, Mr. Dutton engaged Howard & Pedrick to come from Fayette and do his threshing. The machine was constructed on the plan of all pioneer implements, and was as faulty as any. A thunder storm came up while they were threshing, a loud clap of thunder frightened the horses and they ran away. One of Mr. Dut- ton's recently purchased mares ran her leg under the tumbling-rod and broke it, which necessitated the killing of the animal. This was a severe blow to befall a man who was in debt for the dead horse and had no money to buy an- other one. But, Mr. Dutton says: "I stuck to the place, perhaps because I had to, and have become comparatively well-off, all done by sticking to the farm."
In the fall of 1849 Mr. Dutton returned to Cameron, Steuben county, New York, and there, on the 26th of January, 1850, he married Malinda A. Hawley, who returned with him to their Iowa home in May, 1850. For near- ly nineteen years their sojourn together was a happy and prosperous one. Mrs. Dutton died October 1, 1868, leaving three daughters.
CHAPTER V.
PIONEER HOMES, AMUSEMENTS AND RECREATION.
It may be interesting to the younger generations to learn something of the manner of living among those who paved the way to civilization in Fayette county, and especially so to the surviving pioneers whose early life is in part recorded.
On another page it is stated that most of the early settlers located in the timber along streams, regardless of the topography of their surroundings, just so they could get "timber" and "water." But as the settlers increased in num- bers, such locations were not always obtainable, and some were driven to the prairie sections. The first duty after the land was properly secured, through a process known as "filing on it," was the building of a "house." These, when the urgency for their possession was great, were hastily built, and often were crude affairs, diminutive in size and as cheaply constructed as the ingenuity of the builders could devise. The material used was secured in the forest, and con- sisted of round logs, laid up in the form of a pen, usually of no greater dimen- sions than to barely accommodate the needs of the occupants. A single room was considered sufficient, though some of the larger families were provided with two rooms, and all had an attic room where two or more beds could be placed, usually on the floor. There were but few nails used for any purpose, strong wooden pins being used in their stead. There were but few boards before the advent of the pioneer saw-mills, which came almost as soon as their products were needed; but the first settlers devised the means of flooring their houses, either with "puncheons" split from straight-grained logs, or from hand-sawing the required number of boards for floors, window frames, doors, etc. But many of the earliest cabins were devoid of either doors or windows, and some had earth floors for some time after being occupied. The apertures for doors and windows were cut out when the cabin was built, and the severed logs were held to their places by means of puncheons or planks pinned in place, and quilts or old carpets closed the openings, at least for the time being. Some- times the window openings were closed with greased paper, which shut out the cold, but admitted a faint, glimmering light, much better, however, than no light! The roof was made of "shakes," split from logs cut to the proper length, and "rived" to proper thickness with a "frow." In the use of this tool
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some of the pioneers were quite expert, and their services were in demand among their less fortunate neighbors. In later years nearly all the shingles used in building quite pretentious houses and barns were covered with hand- made shingles. The material being of oak, the shingles were very durable and were much longer lived than the machine-made product of a still later period.
These "shakes" were not nailed on, but were held in place by means of heavy weight-poles, laid on top of them, and kept at proper distance by means of short props placed at each end. The chimney-the most useful feature about the house-was built of split sticks, an inch or more in diameter, laid up in such a manner as to form the proper size, and this was always on a liberal scale. The inside of this structure was carefully plastered with mud prepared from yellow clay, and it is said that few such chimneys ever caught fire. The fire-place was built of stones, the larger the better, so they could be handled. Of these the back wall, jambs and hearth were constructed, and all was care- fully plastered with clay mortar. The dimensions of the fireplace were on the most liberal scale, since the fuel cost nothing but the labor of preparing it. The cooking was mostly done over the fire in the fireplace, for it must be remembered that we are speaking of a period which antedates the general introduction of cook stoves.
Baking was done in an iron kettle or oven, which was set on a bed of coals and the iron lid, with a flange to it, was covered with coals and by this means our ancestors were able to turn out a quality of "johnny cake" never surpassed by the most modern kitchen range. For baking "white bread," they used a "reflector," which was constructed of tin, and had a great flaring top and open sides which reached much closer to the fireplace than the portion containing the bread. This device absorbed the heat of the fire and, when properly adjusted, did an excellent job of baking. When the fireplace was constructed, heavy iron cranes were embedded in the rock and mortar, these being hinged at one end and loose at the other, and adjusted to the proper height from which to hang kettles from hooks placed on the horizontal bar. This was the manner of general cooking, the crane being pulled out and re- turned at pleasure. The "menu" of those days probably did not compare favorably with the Waldorf-Astoria or the Great Northern, at least as regards variety ; but with the prospect of some time having a home of their own, in the enjoyment of that peace of mind and domestic tranquillity, more universal among those who are constantly and profitably employed than with others, it is doubtful if our Fayette county pioneers would have exchanged places with the frequenters of those now renowned institutions.
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The forests abounded in wild game and wild honey, the streams were full of fish, and the prairie chickens were about the only inhabitants of the prairies (if we except the wolves), hence the opportunities for obtaining a livelihood were not then restricted by the "high cost of living!" Hogs and cattle were not plentiful among the pioneers, if we except the patient ox, of which each family usually had from one to half a dozen "yoke." These were the motive power of the times, and were used in the same manner that horses are used at present. They were used in breaking land, hauling timbers, going to mill and to market, and probably many a dashing young swain employed his father's oxen to take his future wife to places of amusement or recreation.
The settlers on the prairie were less fortunate in some respects than those who located in the timbered districts, though "timber," in this region, usually presupposes rough and hilly land, with rapidly flowing streams and clay soil. To the present-day citizen, it is a source of wonder why the first settlers of the county, who had choice of location, should choose some out-of-the-way place along the rivers and creeks, when perhaps the adjoining land, unoccupied at the time, was much better situated. The most rational explanation of this eccentricity is, that they sought such a location because of having left behind them in the east a location similar to the one chosen here. Many of the earli- est settlers of the county located along the Turkey, the Volga, Otter creek, Mink creek and Brush creek, some of them hemmed in with hills high enough to exclude the sun during several hours of the day, while the few acres of bottom land was subject to overflow at every freshet. Of course these were exceptional cases, but sufficiently numerous to cause comment.
The prairie settlers hauled their house logs from the timber, and some of them even built temporary quarters from hay or green slough grass. After the saw-mills were established, rough boards were secured for the first course and the cracks were battened with slabs. Such cabins were not as warm as those built of logs and plastered with mud, but they were used until circum- stances permitted building better ones. The usual dimensions of the pioneer cabin were sixteen by eighteen feet, though some were smaller and occasion- ally one was larger. It is surprising to learn how many people could be com- fortably provided for in one of these cabins. The "taverns" of that day sel- dom were larger than eighteen by twenty-six feet, and yet they never had to turn anyone away for want of room! When the beds were all full the capacity of the house had not commenced to be taxed, since there remained the tables, floors, chairs, etc., and nobody complained if consigned to any one of these resting-places. A spirit of comradeship and good fellowship pervaded every community, and when one had done his best, even though he failed, public sentiment commended his efforts.
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AMUSEMENT AND RECREATION.
House raising "bees" were a source of profitable amusement among the pioneers, in that one individual at least was always benefited, and in time, the whole community enjoyed like benefits, for the raising of a house or barn was something which no one could accomplish single handed. A feast of good things, such as the pioneer mothers could make from the material at hand, was one of the pleasures intermingled with heavy and, sometimes, dangerous work. Often a dance followed the completion of the work, the new building, if far enough completed, affording the "dance hall," and if not that, then some other building or the open yard was dedicated. There was always a "fiddler" or two in every community who could play the popular airs of the day and "call" the various changes of the cotillion, Virginia reel, etc. There was always a disposition among the pioneers to help each other, and a neighbor afflicted with disease or other hindering cause was the subject of universal sympathy, of the tangible kind, and his crops were planted or harvested, his wood hauled and cut, his corn husked or any other necessary labor was performed by his neighbors without a thought of recompense, save as he, in turn, might have an opportunity of repaying in kind.
The old-time spelling school became a fixture with the building of the first school houses and the establishment of schools. Every school had from one to three or four spelling schools during the winter term, and the rivalry for the honors of "spelling down" became animated, and good oral spellers were thus produced in every community. A literary programme was also rendered, and this encouraged the pupils to lay aside natural timidity in appearing before the public. It was nothing unusual for a teacher to take a squad of his best spellers and declaimers and walk three or four miles to meet the pupils of an- other school in a spelling and speaking contest. And do any remember the method of lighting the school-room on such occasions? "Who can bring a candle for the spelling school next Friday night?" and hands went up by every pupil at this inquiry from the teacher, even though the candle was not always forthcoming, for every one wanted and enjoyed this little respite from the ordinary affairs of home life. The candles were cut in two, and by melting a small portion of tallow on the window sash, they could be made to stick fast by setting the candle in the melted grease and holding it until it cooled. The teacher usually held a greasy dripping candle in his hand while pronouncing the words which were to determine the question of championship. The "cap- tains" (usually two of the best spellers in the school) having chosen everybody who would take part in the exercises, the "tug-of-war" commenced, and after
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a little preliminary skirmishing over a few previously prepared lessons, the "spelling down" was commenced and continued until all had missed. The last to "fall" was the champion, without regard to whom he was or where he came from.
Singing schools were another source of recreation and profit at a little later period than the introduction of the spelling school, and were conducted in the school houses and sometimes in private homes. The teachers were usually able to read music, though some who came here from the Eastern states brought with them a system of musical notation based upon the shape of the notes, called the "buckwheat notes," by the use of which, if the proper tones were learned and maintained, it was claimed that the student did not need to bother his head about the key, or the location of a character on the staff! But we had some excellent singers and teachers in the pioneer singing schools. Besides the practical value of such forms of recreation, there were many who took advantage of this opportunity for an outing who did not take active part in the exercises. It afforded an excuse for an evening out, as did the dance and the spelling school, and the young people took advantage of it with a relish born of their necessities.
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