USA > Iowa > Lucas County > Past and present of Lucas and Wayne counties, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 2
USA > Iowa > Wayne County > Past and present of Lucas and Wayne counties, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 2
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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
This civic record indicated that those who pushed on to the front in the early days of this section of the country, were men of sturdy wills, and of practical ideas of the great work they had commenced, in organizing and developing a sub- division of the great state that was to be, though they were unskilled and unpracticed in the clerical part of their work in committing their ideas of record in language and style challenging criticism.
As already noted, there being no election returns recorded prior to those of April, 1852, the only facts and information . relating to those of 1849, 1850 and 1851 are only such as we have been able to gather from the "abandoned archives" heretofore referred to; and from the loose and incomplete entries found in the records of the board of court commis- sioners from its organization, August 10, 1849, up to the adop- tion of the county judge system, July 1, 1851.
The return of the first election, August 6, 1849, has already been given. However, there appears to be no return of the election of a judge of probate, provided by law at that elec- tion. He must therefore have been appointed or elected at the general election of 1850, because the first probate record con- sisted of a quire of foolscap paper sewed together, shows that Allan Edwards filled the position on the date of the first entry. October 7. 1850. and continued therein until his office
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was merged into that of the county court, July 1, 1851, the last entry in this record being June 2, 1851.
A PUBLIC WELL
At the session of the commissioners in June, 1851, it was ordered "that there be dug in the town of Chariton, at some place to be picked out by the commissioners, and said com- missioners agree to donate $15, to be used for the construc- tion of said well, the same to be done in a workmanlike man- ner." J. M. B. Miller was awarded the contract to dig said well. At the following July session, the time for the digging of said well was postponed until August, by the board.
THE SECOND COURTHOUSE
As we have seen the pioneers of this county expended only about $374 for the building of the first courthouse, but the county was not so fortunate in building the second one.
There is no county record showing what it cost to build this second courthouse. It was built of brick and was about fifty feet square, and must have cost from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. In a large package of papers that were found in boxes in the belfry of said courthouse, there were scraps of papers relating to said building, but nothing from which the cost thereof can be ascertained with any degree of certainty. There was found in this package of papers a writ- ten offer of one George Switzer to furnish all materials and build and complete this second courthouse for the sum of $13,500. There was no further statement found relative to this offer but we know that it was not built by Switzer, but by W. T. Wade. Owing to the loose manner in which this building was constructed, quite a number of the citizens, in view of the fact that it must have cost the county a large sum of money, got the impression that some person had cheated the county out of considerable money in the building of said house. But after examining all of the facts that can be gathered relative thereto, we do not find any evidence sustain- ing such supposition. Of course this building cost more than it was estimated at, but there is nothing strange about this as there does not seem to have been any definite contract in relation to a great many expenditures. The house was built
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under the supervision of the county judge, Ethen Guard. Mr. Guard was an honest man, but was impracticable, and he seems to have supervised the entire work from day to day. In the first place, and under his direction, the foundation for the structure was made of logs. This was something new in architecture, but Judge Guard was a theorist and he had some theory in support of his claim that a foundation of logs placed in the earth at a certain depth and in a certain man- ner would constitute the best kind of a foundation for any kind of a building. He was a lawyer and his answer to cer- tain questions on his application for admission to the bar will indicate his knowledge of the law. The class was asked the question, "What is the best evidence of the terms of a contract : the written contract signed by the parties? Or the evidence of some creditable persons who overheard the con- tract made ?" There was a difference of opinion among the applicants as to which was the correct answer to this ques- tion, but Judge Guard concluded that the most satisfactory evidence would be that of persons who had overheard the contract, in preference to the written evidence. Now for such a man to undertake to build a courthouse without plans or specifications, we can readily see and understand how he would leave things in such shape as to leave the impression that some one had taken some of the county's money, but there is nothing in the character or history of Ethen Guard that would lead any one to believe that he ever received one cent of the county's money more than his small pay.
After the expiration of about ten years after said court- house was finished, cracks began to appear in the walls thereof, in such numbers and to such extent as to cause many to believe that the building would collapse. At one term of court the dangerous condition of the building was made known to the court, and he ordered the sheriff to secure another building in which to hold court. The sheriff rented a church. and after that time churches were used for the holding of court. But as the building did not fall it was thought there was no danger in its falling, and court was held in it again for several years and until it was torn down.
THE PRESENT OR THIRD COURTHOUSE
In the year 1885, the people of Lucas county at an election called for that purpose, authorized the building of a new
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PAST AND PRESENT OF LUCAS COUNTY
courthouse. The contract was let to local contractors, viz .. G. J. Stewart & Co., lumber dealers, who faithfully followed the plans and specifications therefor, prepared by an architect of Des Moines, Iowa, and the result is, that the county has secured a substantial, comfortable and even elegant building for a very reasonable price. It is amply sufficient for court purposes, and large, well-equipped rooms are provided therein for the county officers. This all goes to show that by obtain- ing proper plans and using care in the letting of contracts for public buildings, municipalities can obtain good buildings at a reasonable price.
STATEMENT OF PIONEERS
A brief statement of the experiences and sacrifices of the first men and women who undertook to make their homes in this county, would be read with interest by the present inhab- itants, and we will here insert a few brief statements of the oldest living inhabitants of this county.
Mrs. Susanna Custer, of Chariton, thus relates her experi- ence as one of the pioneers of Lucas county.
She says: "I am eighty-five years of age. I was born in Fairfax county in the state of Virginia. My maiden name was Susanna Millen. I was married in the year 1847, at Lan- caster, Missouri, to James B. Custer. My husband, in the year 1846, had traveled over this country as a member of a sur- veying party in the employ of the Government, and had in this way formed a very favorable opinion of this country. and soon after our marriage we concluded to make our home in or near this locality. In the fall of the year 1848 we came here from Lancaster, Missouri, with the expectation of mak- ing this locality our future home. We had good horses and wagons, and with the exception of suffering from the want of good drinking water, the trip was not unpleasant. There were no roads in the country, so we were compelled to follow the prairie divides in order to avoid the crossing of streams. We would travel for miles without water, except such as we could get from pools or small depressions in the prairies, and in numerous instances we would have to strain this water before attempting to use it, on account of the wiggle-tails that had collected therein. I well recollect that one evening as we were approaching a point or improvement which we after-
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wards knew as 'Zura West's Ranch' near the line which has since been known as the county line between Lucas and Mon- roe counties, we were attracted by what appeared to be a long pole or tree. We could see it for several miles, but no one of our party could guess just what it was. After numerous suggestions as to what was the object or purpose of this pole, I remember someone innocently suggested that it might be the North Pole. However, it developed to be the location of a well and the pole was used in drawing water from the well, after the Egyptian style.
"We followed the general prairie divide which extends from the southeast corner of the state in a westerly direction to Council Bluffs, Iowa. In the year 1845, the Mormons hav- ing been driven from their home at Nauvoo, Illinois, had fol- lowed this same divide through the state of Iowa, and evi- dences of their route still appeared at different points and places along the trail. We learned that a few Mormon fami- lies had stopped for one winter at a point near the Chariton river, about one and one-half miles southeast of Chariton, which was afterwards called Chariton Point.
"The prairies were covered with a thick coating of grass. Everywhere it was several feet tall. I remember that at the point which afterwards became the public square in the town of Chariton, the grass was very thick and about five feet tall.
"We continued our journey in a northward direction until we reached the point which afterwards became known as the E. R. Gibbon farm or ranch, about twelve miles north of Chariton, where we expected to make our future home.
"There was no person living at or near the point at which Chariton was afterwards located, at this time. In fact there were very few people in the county. Soon after we came, we would hear of people locating at different points in this local- ity. While there were a few horses in the county, oxen were in common use as substitutes therefor. About the year 1850, we learned that the county seat town had been located and named Chariton. We then expected that a thriving town would soon appear, but in this we were disappointed. The building up of the town was very slow. The settlers generally seemed to prefer the acquisition of farms rather than town lots. and hence, very few of them purchased lots in the new town. Jonas Wescoat and his brother built the first houses in the new town of Chariton. They built two log cabins on
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PAST AND PRESENT OF LUCAS COUNTY
the northwest corner of the public square, being on the lot now occupied by Jay Smyth's bank building. Both of the brothers had families, and they all lived in one of the cabins, and kept a small store or stock of dry goods in the other. Beverly Searcy afterwards built a cabin on the southwest corner of the public square, being the place where Oscar Isreal's store is now located. Afterwards other cabins ap- peared in the new town of Chariton, and the county author- ities secured the building of a log courthouse on the east side of the public square. This house was used for many pur- poses. I remember that at one time we came to Chariton in a wagon drawn by oxen to attend church, which was held in the courthouse. The minister was a traveling Methodist preacher. At the close of the services, which were on a Sab- bath day, Beverly Searcy, or Bev Searcy, as he was commonly known, announced to the congregation that there would be a dance in that house that night, and he urged all present to attend the dance. Simeon Chapman of Union township usu- ally furnished the music for the dances with his violin.
"Roving bands of Indians and wolves were frequently seen along the streams and in the timber. The Indians were great beggars, but further than this, they did not annoy us. I do not remember any attempt on their part to do us any harm. While we were deprived of the luxuries of life, and some times of the necessities, the constant changes that were taking place in the country every day and the general disposi- tion of the people to aid and assist each other, rendered our wild homes and lives attractive and pleasant in many ways."
Mrs. J. A. J. Bently thus relates her experience in this new country :
"I am eighty-four years of age. My maiden name was Anna Scott. I was born in Jackson county, Indiana. In 1849 I came to Fairfield, Iowa, with my mother and stepfather, John Howard. After staying at Fairfield for some time we came to Lucas county. We first settled on what has since been known as Badger's farm, a short distance southeast of Chariton. My stepfather purchased this place of a Mr. Town- send, who was commonly known as 'Buck' Townsend. There were no houses in Chariton at that time. Some one was build- ing a house on the place where Colonel Bartholomew now lives, in the southeast part of Chariton. They were putting a roof on this house when I first came here. Log cabin houses
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soon began to appear at different places near where Chariton was afterward located. Ox teams were generally used as a substitute for horses. We attended church in a small cooper shop which was built in Chariton. The Rev. Zura West was the minister. The seats consisted of boxes and temporary seats made with boards. At one time I found a seat on what was called a shaving horse. Mr. West was a Methodist preacher and he was regarded as a good man. I was married to J. A. J. Bently, a blacksmith, in 1857. My brother, Aaron Scott, came to the county in 1849. We did most of our trad- ing at Eddyville, Iowa, for several years. My brother, Levi Howard, made the first brick ever made in this county, on the Badger farm. My mother died on the 12th day of October. 1850, and she was buried in a cemetery on the ground, since occupied by what is called the South school building in Chari- ton. Several bodies were interred in this cemetery, but when the town spread over the grounds on all sides of this location. they were removed to other cemeteries."
THE MORMONS
The Mormons were the first white settlers in Lucas county. About the year 1846 they, having been driven from their homes at Nauvoo, Illinois, by mobs, passed through Lucas county on their way westward to Salt Lake. They followed the prairie divide from a point near the southeast corner of the state of Iowa to, or near Council Bluffs, Iowa, and evi- dences of their route were plainly marked at different points and places. It seems that a few families of Mormons stopped for at least one winter at a place called Chariton Point, about one and one-half miles southeast of the town of Chariton. and the route they took through the county has since been known as the Mormon Trace road. While some of the doc- trines and teachings of these people were wholly indefensible. vet the industry, economy and sacrifices made by them, in finding and establishing a new home in the then wild west. are worthy of our admiration, and represent them as being better citizens than those who composed the mob that took the law into their own hands and drove them from their homes. There is one incident connected with their flight from oppression that is not only pathetic, but it goes far in representing their patriotism and their disposition to abide
Vol. 1-2
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PAST AND PRESENT OF LUCAS COUNTY
by the laws of their country. In their flight from Nauvoo, when they reached the border of what was then called the American desert, they were met by a recruiting officer of the United States army, who insisted they should furnish their full quota of soldiers for the Mexican war. Without a mur- mur they selected a number of their young men, the bone and sinew of their colony, and sent them to defend the flag, under which they had in vain sought protection. Many years ago the founder of this sect, Joseph Smith, a native of Wayne county, New York, located on the eastern bank of the Missis- sippi river, in Hancock county, state of Illinois and built up a town which they called Nauvoo. Here they built a grand and imposing temple of worship. They became unpopular, and taking advantage of such unpopularity, a class of "roughs" undertook to drive them out of the country. They captured Joseph Smith and incarcerated him in jail at Carth- age, Illinois. In July, 1844, the jail was attacked by a mob and Smith was murdered, when in the act of escaping from a window he was shot and riddled with bullets.
In 1845 an attack was made upon the town of Nauvoo and the Mormons then determined to leave Nauvoo and find a new home in the wild west.
In September, 1846, the last lingering Mormons at Nauvoo, Illinois, where they had built a splendid temple, were driven away at the point of the bayonet by 1,600 troops. In Febru- ary, preceding, some sixteen hundred men. women and chil- dren, fearful of the wrath of the people around them, had crossed the Mississippi on the ice, and traveling with ox teams and on foot, they penetrated the wilderness to the Indian country near Council Bluffs on the Missouri. The remnant of their colony, many of whom were old men, feeble women, and delicate girls, started the next autumn and were compelled to traverse the same dreary regions. The united host, under the guidance of Brigham Young, then temporal and spiritual leader, halted on the broad prairies of the Missouri the fol- lowing summer; turned up the virgin soil and planted crops. Here, leaving a few to cultivate and gather the crops, the host moved on, making the wilderness vocal with preaching and singing. Order marked every step of their progress, for the voice of Young, whom they regarded as a seer, was to them as the voice of God. On they went forming tabernacle
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camps, or temporary resting places in the wilderness. No obstacles impeded their progress. They forded swift running streams, and bridged the deeper floods; crept up the great eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and from the summits of the Wasatch range, they beheld on the 20th day of July, 1847, the valley where they were to rest and build a city, and the placid waters of the Great Salt Lake, glittering in the beams of the setting sun.
To those weary wanderers, this mountain top was a Pis- gah. From it they saw the promised land; to them a scene of wondrous interest. Westward lofty peaks bathed in purple air, pierced the sky, and as far as the eye could reach, north and south, stretched the fertile valley of promise, and here and there the vapors of hot springs, gushing from rocky cov- erts, curled above the hills, like smoke from hearth fires of home.
Now returning to the Indians, we are led to believe that the so-called Indian wars that have occurred in the last thirty or forty years were nothing more than the result of out- rages perpetrated on the Indians by a collection of des- peradoes, who sought their territory in order to escape pun- ishment for crime. There is no doubt but that numerous criminals hiding from the law left the states to conceal them- selves in the territories west of the Missouri river. They were a lot of drunken ruffians, and when they became drunk were impelled by a desire to shoot some person, and on the least provocation they would rob and shoot an Indian, and when the Indians undertook to defend themselves from the attacks of this band of desperadoes, the cry would immedi- ately go out in all the newspapers of the country that, "the In- dians were again on the war path, and were about to engage in a murderous raid on the settlers." The result was that the Government would immediately call out a military force to punish the Indians.
The Indian side of this cruel story, was never published. They had no newspaper, and no newspaper reporter was on the ground to state the facts, until the battle was over. Every- thing was charged against the Indians.
The treatment by the whites to the Indians, has long been a subject of debate, but that the Indians were cruelly, and unjustly treated, there can be no doubt.
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THE INDIAN
The red men of the forest, whom the Norsemen of the North, the Gallic explorers, and Anglo-Saxon Puritans, found upon the American continent, is a race whose origin and ancient traditions are yet matters of mystery. Theory and speculation have offered us all the light we have con- cerning this wild, uncivilized people, who were thus found in possession of the North American continent, as far back as the tenth century, when the Norsemen landed upon its north- eastern coasts.
The Mayflower, in 1620, brought to Plymouth Rock the advance of the Anglo-Saxon race, which was destined to achieve the mastery of the continent over its native occupants, and build up a grand civilization, though at the cost of con- quest and probable ultimate extinction of the red men, it seems to have progressed.
From stride to stride, as the increasing Anglo-Saxon race needed more of the wild domain of the Indians, he was pushed on to the rear, and thus the rear has well nigh ended, and the problem which today vexes the statesman and philanthropist of the Nation, is the "Indian Problem." For over a hundred years its solution has taxed the genius of the Anglo-American people, and it bids fair to tax them for generations to come. His condition and treatment have from time to time awak- ened the sympathy of the philanthropists, and various hu- mane plans have been devised to ameliorate his savage nature. and bring him under the influence of the laws and civilized teachings. This seems to have been the policy of the Govern- ment, but unfortunately for the Indian it has not been exe- cuted in good faith.
From the close of the Revolution and the treaty of peace with the mother country, the Anglo American population in- creased rapidly, and reached out for domain, until about half a century-1832-brought them to the great war, of the con- tinent of the Mississippi. Iowa then belonged to the Iowas and Saes and Foxes, whose original titles, acquired by pos- session, were secured by treaties, dating from 1832 to 1842, which last cession included Lucas county, and all their terri- tory west of the Mississippi river. These were the tribes that once roamed over the prairie in the buffalo chase, and camped along the Chariton river.
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PAST AND PRESENT OF LUCAS COUNTY
In 1846, the last of these tribes were removed beyond the western limit of the state. They left no tradition in this county for historical record, except the names which they affixed to streams and other natural objects. Should the younger generation of this mysterious race of people follow the wild footsteps of their ancestors, and extinction should be the final result, the semi-civilized territory, will likely be the only ones to perpetuate the race. Whether the Indian has been justly deprived of the ownership of this country will remain a subject for debate; but that he has been deprived, cannot be denied.
The Saxon came and his conquering foot has trodden the vast domain from shore to shore. The weaker race has with- drawn from his presence and his sword. By the majestic rivers and in the depth of the solitary woods, the feeble sons of the bow and arrow will remain no more. Their names only remain on hill, stream and mountain. The Indian sinks and falls, his eyes are to the west. To the prairie and forests, the hunting grounds of his ancestors, he bids farewell.
After the Indian had surrendered possession of the soil of Iowa, there remained the Pottawattamies, who refused to leave, and from 1849 to about 18544, they camped along the streams in this county under the leadership of John Grenne. They were harmless and friendly ; always begging and always hungry enough for a hearty meal, and however ample they were supplied they never left anything upon the table from which they partook. They would invariably hide away under their filthy wraps whatever they could not devour.
When curious visitors called at their wigwams they were friendly and especially so long as the visitors' tobacco held out. When the white settlers first began to visit them, they would, when they asked them for tobacco, hand out the entire plug or paper, expecting that when they filled their pipes or took a chew, they would hand back the remainder, but this was contrary to their rule of social life, and instead they would slyly slip it in their bosoms and wink at their com- panions as much as to say, "White man, heap good." How- ever. this trick did not last and the white people learned when they asked for tobacco to give them a small piece.
The Indian is an inveterate beggar, and it is said that the white people devised a plan to check his too frequent visits, which operated effectively : they would refuse to give them
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