USA > Iowa > O'Brien County > Past and present of O'Brien and Osceola counties, Iowa, Vol. I > Part 12
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The attorneys for Mr. Alexander had procured the affidavits of practi- cally every voter in the township who had voted for him to that effect, and the same voters were offered as witnesses at the trial to so testify. Evidence relating to the cigar box being used, and that the judge had taken it home to dinner was introduced.
A large crowd from all over the county was present, and the people were much excited. It lasted three days and its incidents and details cen- tered around many other items than the office itself. It was objected that the
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voters should not be allowed to divulge how they voted, and that it was in- tended that a vote was sacred and secret, not only with the individual but with the public, and that it was against public policy to allow it to be so divulged. The arguments on this question aroused much public sentiment. Two members of the court sustained these objections, the other member vot- ing that in his judgment the evidence should be heard. At all events this in- censed the crowd present, and the excitement was intense. The contest, in its hearing and arguments. was enlarged to include all the then public agita- tions.
This brought on one of the most dramatic scenes ever in the county. Frank Frisbee, of Sheldon, jumped out into the center of the floor in the court room and, in very emphatic and vigorous language, read the riot act to the court on all past matters and intimated strongly what the crowd might do. Many in the crowd on both sides were armed, and it seemed for several hours that physical violence would result, but fortunately it calmed down. The court adjourned for three days. It never, in fact, reconvened in the court room as a court. This item is cited as one of those stern pioneer oc- currences where a public question was in effect decided in the public forum.
The evidence and trial simply "quit." William E. Welch and J. C. Elliott, two of the judges, met on December 1, 1877, and signed the order awarding the office to Mr. Alexander, as shown by the election book page 118. Mr. McCormack did not join. In all reality, B. F. McCormack, chairman of the board and one of the judges, was the real individual on trial. In effect he was a judge trying his own case. The issue simply hovered around the shoulders of the two candidates.
Stephen Harris was a highly educated man and had been county super- intendent of schools. He at once engaged as principal of the Primghar high school, which position he held for several years. He later organized and became cashier of the Farmers Bank of Paullina, which he conducted for many years and handed down to its present cashier, George W. Harris, his son. Stephen Harris was one of those men who in the years built up instead of down.
T. J. Alexander became county treasurer January 1, 1878, with the highest hopes and best wishes. Regretable as it may seem, and which later became an admitted fact, Mr. Alexander became short in his public funds in the sum of about eleven thousand dollars. The amount was later made up and the county lost nothing. The office was not yet on a banking basis. Sad as it may be to record, we must add the further fact of the pathetic death of his wife, Mrs. Martha Alexander, who had withstood the hard pio-
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neering of O'Brien county, only to meet her fate in a gasoline explosion, from a stove, burning her so badly that she died the same day. On that very day they were to move into the later and modern home they had provided for old age.
A SECOND PERIOD OF AUDITORS AND TREASURERS.
We will now notice the second period referred to, from January. I. 1884. to the present time, and contrast situations. We have treated the auditor's and treasurer's offices together as, with the board of supervisors, constituting the county government. The people were getting themselves loose from many of their troubles. The investigation into the whole back matters of the county by George W. Schee was commenced January 1, 1876. The policies of that office then decidedly changed. The whole county was solving itself out. The reader is referred to the several sundry items and articles showing the gradual uplift of the county. It will be a pleasure to the reader to realize the gradual changed conditions in the county generally. The fol- lowing is a list of the county treasurers since January 1, 1884: Frank N. Derby, six years, from January 1, 1884, to January 1, 1890; Henry Rerick. six years, from January 1, 1890, to January 1, 1896; Chriss R. West, two years, from January 1, 1896, to January 1, 1898; Perry A. Edington, two years, from January 1, 1898, to January 1, 1900; Lester T. Aldinger, four years, from January 1, 1900, to January 1, 1904; Alex Stewart, five years. from January 1, 1904, to January 1, 1909; Lester T. Aldinger, four years, from January 1, 1909 .. to January 1, 1913 ; Harry C. May, present incumbent, from January 1. 1913.
COUNTY TREASURY ON A BANKING BASIS.
Henry Rerick, who became county treasurer January 1, 1890, was the first treasurer to put this office and its large funds on a strictly banking basis in its methods of business, and which has been firmly sustained by each of the treasurers since. The reader can see why former treasurers were not able to so place it prior to this time. The county during all that first twenty- four years, in a greater or less degree, as the people got control, was in the throes and dregs following the great debt and its attendant mischiefs. Small partial payments on the multitude of outstanding warrants and bond coupons added much to the troubles of those early treasurers. Add to this the hard times and the grasshopper scourge referred to, and still added were the in- dividual debts of the people, which were harrassing and which all mingled
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themselves with public affairs. It permeated all avenues, county, town, town- ship and individual. But let us keep in mind all the time that O'Brien county kept on correcting her situations, on these several troublous lines, until it now reached a point where it could be said that they were no longer repeated. Relating to the policies of the county during the terms of J. L. E. Peck and George W. Schee, as connected with the board and public matters, the reader is referred to articles under sundry other chapters and to the biographies of each. Having thus been gone into fully they need not be here repeated.
CHARLES H. WINTERBLE, COUNTY AUDITOR.
Charles H. Winterble became deputy auditor in 1886 under T. J. Alexan- der. Inasmuch as Mr. Alexander was also county treasurer, we will make his items cover both offices, and which have been dwelt upon in various arti- cles. Mr. Alexander removed to Sutherland, to engage in the mercantile business, in the middle of his term, and hence Mr. Winterble became vir- tually county auditor at that time and was himself continued as auditor from January 1, 1888, until January 1, 1895. Many of the main policies related to the resumption on a cash basis and the old debt, and its rebonding of 1881 and then reduction of the interest from the prior ten to seven per cent, later to six and five and finally to four and one-half, and many of these questions had been settled. But they were not all settled and could not be settled in a day. It was during Mr. Winterble's term that the debt was reduced to and a rebonding had of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars at six per cent. The present court house was built just at the time in 1886 that he became deputy auditor. His long term, however, may be said to have been among the building years that had now gotten under full headway. During his term the county paid off all the way from five to ten thousand dollars per year, and which was continued until now (1914) there is no debt of any description against the county. While he was deputy and under Mr. Alexan- der's term the county, on October 19, 1887, purchased the half section of land of the Milwaukee road for a county home at four dollars per acre. The board, with a larger levy to draw on, began to advance into the better grade of bridges, building of culverts, making of roads, and all public improve- ments. It was during these four terms of county management under Mr. Schee, J. L. E. Peck, T. J. Alexander and Mr. Winterble that the county was gradually looking up and out into a greater O'Brien county. During these years and later on and now, this office has become largely administra-
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tive rather than tumultuous, though this emerging from these old matters of necessity was a growth.
OTHER COUNTY AUDITORS.
Its early troubles mainly ended as we have recited : it has remained for the succeeding county auditors, with the boards of supervisors and other pub- lic officials, to pursue this administrative routine in large part. The list of those auditors and their terms are given above, namely, John T. Conn, Frank C. Wheaton, John P. Bossert and now Joseph B. Stamp. When we use this term administrative, it means largely the same proposition in various forms we have heretofore mentioned, relating to the treasurer's office, namely, that in the first twenty-four years practically all the county treasurers had serious troubles with funds, and in the later thirty years not a shortage has occurred. This same substantial cleaning up, this same systematic and business-like method has developed in all official acts in the county. Its early troubles have been of benefit and held up as a warning, turning attention of the people to a rightful and definite demand for a strict accounting on all lines of public affairs. It was not done in a year. Indeed, as we have seen, those tumults carried down sundry men of better and good intentions. This has now be- come so generally accepted and established that we doubt if any county in the state in its public affairs as well as its general public business and mer- chandising and trade is based on any higher moral standard than now in this county in all its departments. This does not mean that its present officials have or need no policies. But it does mean that those policies are now policies of growth and business and not of tumult. In all its departments, whether public, private, farming, merchandising, modes of living or the gen- eral welfare, all are up to the modern ideals of the best situations. The county speaks out its own uplift. The public business is now largely routine and administrative. It means that we have reached the period of the regular and the better of everything, a period of independence on the part of the people of the county generally and that they have got out and away from the debt and judgment-fearing period. It has reached the period of high-grade farming, instead of simply doing what they could. It all means better roads, modern culverts, bridges, houses, barns, fences, school buildings, clothes, comfortable conditions, better grades of stock, safer and sounder business, the certain instead of the uncertain.
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COUNTY RECORDER'S OFFICE.
Miss Bessie J. Beers is the present county recorder and the only lady ever holding that office in the county. This office is almost strictly routine, in the recording and indexing of the sundry instruments filed for record. The recorder does have, however, a few other duties, one, to examine the ab- stracts of title to town plats filed and to pass upon their sufficiency, becoming a sort of quasi judicial duty. The recorder, with the clerk of courts and county auditor, draws the grand and petit juries. The book of original entries of homesteads certified and made up at the United States land office at Des Moines is kept in this office.
The recorder's office in O'Brien county now contains a little over three hundred record books, of about six hundred and forty pages each, or, in other words, there have been recorded since the organization of the county about one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand instruments of all kinds. The following records are found in this office :
Indexes of Land Deeds 17
Corporation Records 2
Indexes of Mortgages 15
Physicians' Record I
Indexes Town Lot Deeds
7 Farm Names Record 1
Indexes Town Lot Mortgages 6
Affidavits and Powers of Attorney I
Indexes Chattel Mortgages I6
Land Deed Records 45
School Fund Mortgage Records. -
3
Land Mortgage Records 59
Town Lot Deed Records. 26
Town Lot Mortgage Records I7
Chattel Mortgage Records 66
Total 307
Original Entry Record I
Town Plat Record I
Miscellaneous Records 3
Other Records 20
The deeds that were recorded on O'Brien county lands prior to the or- ganization of the county in 1860, were copied and certified to by John P. Allison, county judge of Woodbury county, to which it had belonged, on July 21, 1860. The first deed was recorded in May, 1857, Andrew M. Hunt to Elijah Bent. Samuel H. Cassaday was county recorder of Woodbury in 1857 and Charles E. Hedges for 1858-59-60.
The following is a list of the county recorders and their terms: Hanni- bal H. Waterman, February 6, 1860, to November 11, 1860; I. C. Furber, November II, 1860, to January 1, 1862; James W. Bosler, January 1, 1862,
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to June 1, 1862; J. R. M. Cofer, June 1, 1862, to March 2, 1863; David Carroll, March 2, 1863, to June 2, 1864; John L. McFarland, June 2, 1864, to January 1, 1865.
Each of the following officials of this office served full calendar years thereafter: Archibald Murray, 1865-1870; McAllen Green, 1871-1872 ; A. J. Brock, 1873-1876; C. Longshore, 1877-1878; J. Hinshaw, 1879-1880; Hubert Sprague, 1881-1882; William H. Noyes, 1883-1886; Isaac Clements, 1887- 1890; Frank D. Mitchell. 1891-1894; Frank L. Herrick. 1895-1898; Isaac L. Rerick, 1899-1902; James S. Beers, 1903-1906; William H. Brown, 1907- 1910; Bessie J. Beers, 1911 -.
COUNTY SURVEYORS.
The county surveyor's office was much more in importance in the early than in the later years. This was true from the fact that the early home- steaders had to locate their claims, their lines and their corners. School sites were required to be measured off, and roads established and squared up. This was all practically completed in 1897, J. B. Frisbee served for about six years from 1898. From this time there was practically no surveyor, so little busi- ness was there to be done and parties elected did not qualify. The following is the list : Archibald Murray, 1860-1861 ; L. McClellan, 1862-1867; D. W. Inman, 1868-1869; J. F. Schofield, 1870-1871 ; A. J. Brock, 1872-1876; W. H. Riddell, 1877; Ed. A. Smith, 1878-1879; Chas. M. Griffith, 1880-1881 ; Jesse A .. Smith, 18821890; Frank E. Wade, 1891-1897; J. B. Frisbee, 1898-1903.
MEMBERS OF BOARD OF SUPERVISORS.
We give below the names of the several men who have served as mem- bers of the several boards of supervisors, giving them in the order of their elections, as near as may be, and separating them in the decades. Several of the men below given have served at different periods, and on different boards, but will give below the decade they first became a member.
1860-1870-John H. Cofer, I. C. Furber, D. Clark, Moses Lewis, John L. McFarland, John Moore, Asa Tyler, Daniel W. Inman, Rouse B. Crego, and W. H. Baker.
1870-1880-Chester W. Inman, John W. Kelly, Hannibal H. Water- man, Obediah Higbe, Isaac L. Rerick, T. J. Fields, B. F. McCormack, Z. P. Freeman, Harley Day, John M. Royer, H. E. Hoagland. William E. Welch, Benjamin Jones, Charles F. Albright. Warren Walker, John F. Burroughs.
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William W. Johnson, Joseph Rowland, Ralph Dodge, Thomas Holmes, William Oliver, Ezra M. Brady, Jacob H. Wolf, Emanuel Kindig.
1880-1890-George Hakeman, John L. Kinney, Daniel M. Sheldon, Henry Hoerman, W. W. Reynolds, Oliver M. Shonkwiler, John W. Gaunt, J. E. Wheelock, George O. Wheeler, J. A. Warner and H. P. Scott.
1890-1900-Jolin Bowley, Ed C. Parker, John Warnke, James K. Mc- Andrew, John Rhodes, Henry Appledorin, Charles Youde, John Warnke, Henry J. Merry and William Klein.
1900-1910-Joseph Shinski, D. M. Norton, Tom E. Mann, John San- ders, E. H. McClellan, George J. Smith, Theodore Zimmerman, C. L. Rock- well and Peter Swonson.
1910-1914-W. C. Jackson. M. F. McNutt, Ralph Jordan and William Strampe.
PRESENT MEMBERS OF THE BOARD.
Peter Swenson, chairman, M. F. McNutt, W. C. Jackson, Ralph C. Jor- dan and William Strampe.
.
COUNTY ATTORNEYS.
The following is a list of the county attorneys who have served since the creation of that office January 1, 1887: James B. Dunn, 1887-1892 ; John T. Conn, 1893-1894: D. A. W. Perkins, 1895-1896; C. A. Babcock, 1897- 1898; A. J. Walsmith, 1899-1902; Joe Morton, 1903-1906; Roscoe J. Locke, 1906.
OLD AND NEW BOARDS OF SUPERVISORS.
Reforms did not come in a day. It was hard to remove a whole board with elections three years apart. One member went out for re-election with the bold argument, "See here, I've robbed this county all I need to. Put in a new man and you will have to do it all over again. I can do this county a lot of good." And he showed them how. The change came, cog by cog. Boldness doth disarm in meantime, however. Bills and bills became harder to get passed. A new set of remarks began to be heard. Some one would sing out :
"The gopher scalp days are over, Good by, Old Bridges, good by, Good by."
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or some one would snap out snarlingly: "Ralph Dodge will cut your bill down," or "Uncle Jaky is on the board," this time referring to Uncle Jacob H. Wolf, a new member. Some one else would say, "Old honest John L. Kinney, of Sheldon, can see through that bill with his blind eye." Or the expression would be used when a bill would be rejected that. "the stuff's off." Or it would be Deputy Clerk Lon F. Derby, who would rip out a string of pro- fanity reaching clear around the court house, in righteous condemnation of the earlier and later humbugs. Mr. Derby's honest and blunt profanity put backbone into more than one item.
But O'Brien county has indeed been fortunate in its boards of super- visors since it once got onto its feet from the old doings. For instance, when Daniel M. Sheldon, of Sutherland, and William W. ( Bill) Johnson, an old homesteader, and Ben Jones, of Sheldon, got onto the board they were referred to as the "Triumvirate of Stability." It was remarked of Ezra M. Brady when on the board, "That when he sat down on those old bad things, that he sat down two hundred forty hard," which was his weight. Thomas Holmes was dubbed "Honest Tom" Holmes.
B. F. McCormack still on the board, however, and not yet ready to give up the ghost on behalf of his "old regime," as he proudly called it, would sarcastically recite, with a punctuation point on each word, "Boys, behold, the old things have passed away, and all things have become new"; "we must fulfill our election pledges to the dear cattle, the people": "I've reformed and am now reforming this board."
But finally O'Brien county got onto its feet, and was actually walking around with a lantern, looking for an honest man and hunting for a day of prosperity. The morning light was breaking. An acre of blue sky had ap- peared above the horizon. A star in the east had arisen. The wise men were taking action, and bringing gifts of frankincense and myrrh to the child O'Brien county.
It would extend this item too long to review the above long list of mem- bers of the boards of supervisors in detail. We can only illustrate. The very fact of the county being in and moving out of such throes of badness, seemed to spur on each board and member, as it did likewise the people, to watch- fulness. We give a full list of the members of the several boards, and must content ourselves with allowing the general mass of good results to serve as the monument to these several new members and new boards of supervisors clear down to date.
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COUNTY FARM AND COUNTY HOME BUILDING.
On June 25, 1913, occurred the dedication of the county home building. On October 19, 1887, the board of supervisors made the payment of principal and interest in the sum of one thousand four hundred and ninety-two dollars and seventy cents to secure a deed to the half section of land they had pur- chased at four dollars per acre, namely, the north half of section 5, township 95, range 40, Highland township, located one and one-half miles east of Primghar, for a county home. It was purchased of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, and was a very fortunate purchase. Today the land itself is worth fifty thousand dollars, not considering the new modern, fireproof, brick building built in 1913, at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars.
When purchased the land was raw prairie. Soon afterwards a fine grove of ten acres was planted. Unlike the older homestead groves, consist- ing and limited to mainly cottonwood, maple and willow, the county thus later was not thus hampered, and succeeded in securing a great variety of all classes of hardy and ornamental trees. At the dedication this grove had just reached its fine shade condition in size of trees. A large open space of about two acres was left for a lawn, which slopes from the front of the new home building on a fine proportionate grade. This tract is one of the finest half sections in the county.
In comparison with other articles herein relating to the actual homes or shacks and troubles of the decade in the seventies, it all seems like a fairy tale, but nevertheless true and refreshing to pen the true fact that in 1913 O'Brien county erected a county home for God's unfortunate, and that, too, without a levy for the purpose. It was built from surplus funds that had accumulated from our new prosperities.
It is modern in every particular. We but bespeak the pride of the county and we add the high-grade humanity of its people, when we say that it is among the finest in the state. Like all other modernisms, the methods of caring for the poor have developed and been studied out on practical lines. Before beginning its construction, the members of the board, Peter Swenson, chairman, Ralph C. Jordan, W. C. Jackson, William Strampe and M. F. Mc- Nutt, went themselves as committees and with architects to visit other counties lately building such structures, to study the most approved methods. The outer wall is of matt face, hydraulic pressure brick made at St. Paul, Minnesota, trimmed with Bedford stone, and is forty-eight by ninety feet in size, with two full stories and basement. The stairs, walls and floors are
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constructed of reinforced concrete. The rooms and departments are in pro- portion to the needs in the care of such unfortunates.
The main contract for the building itself was let to Lauritzen & Wasson, of Waterloo. The heating plant was put in by Swanson & Betzworth, of Cherokee. The county at this time has thirty-four patients in the state hos- pital at Cherokee, which is about the average for ten years last past. It is the present thought of the board that of this number the milder part can be the better cared for in this county home, and many have been accordingly removed.
It seemed a curious coincidence or fact that the greatest gathering dur- ing the year 1913 in the county, and at the climax in prosperity in its fifty- eight years of history should occur in its dedication of a county home, cost- ing twenty-five thousand dollars for the future unfortunate. The building then was about ten feet above ground. It was a model day. It was estimated there were from three to four thousand people present. In number, about four hundred automobiles passed the gate, besides more than as many more other vehicles. It was a representative gathering from all over the county, with old homesteaders and old soldiers in evidence, though the number is fast dwindling. The crowd were passing judgment on all sides that they had discovered the ideal spot for future picnics and gatherings in that beautiful ten-acre grove.
William S. Armstrong acted as president of the day. These stately auto- mobiles, and in such numbers, fit for the kings, and a twenty-five-thousand- dollar county home, located on a tract of land itself worth fifty thousand dol- lars, in the dignified presence of three court judges, Scott M. Ladd, judge of the supreme court of Iowa for now eighteen years, and ten years as judge of the district court; Judge William D. Boies, of the present district court, each honored products and early settlers of our own O'Brien county, and also Judge William Hutchison, of the district court, the honored son of Sioux county on the west, who has presided over the district courts of the county for eighteen years, was indeed a dramatic scene in comparison with the shack shanties and other early situations of which we have written. County Auditor Joseph B. Stamp and Sheriff Henry W. Geister acted as marshals and kept the crowds and automobiles organized and moving without an injury. Judge Scott M. Ladd laid the corner stone, as was declared by the chairman of the day, judicially and legally. The three addresses were dignified and appro- priate, Judge Ladd dwelling in the reminiscent, Judge Boies in a comparison of the agricultural conditions and developments, and Judge Hutchinson on "The Home." Rev. Charles Richards, of Sutherland, gave the invocation,
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