USA > Iowa > O'Brien County > Past and present of O'Brien and Osceola counties, Iowa, Vol. I > Part 46
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AN O'BRIEN COUNTY SOLON.
It was George R. Whitmer, member of the lower house of the General Assembly of Iowa in 1905, who was in his seat, when a loquacious member had been speaking for an unusually long time, and had been specially loud and long in his quotations from the Scriptures and in pounding out his con- clusions from Holy Writ. Just as he was in his climax, Mr. Whitmer solemnly rose to his seat with, "Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order." The speaker pounded his gavel, and announced in equally solemn tones, "The gentleman from O'Brien county rises to a point of order. The Honorable gentleman from O'Brien county will state to the house his point of order." By this time it was all stillness and attention. Mr. Whitmer then gravely stated his point of order: "Mr. Speaker, the hour for devotions has expired."
A REVIVAL IN THE COURT ROOM.
It was a hot afternoon in the court room in the court house in Primghar. The judge was on the bench. A lull for some reason was taking place. Hon. Scott M. Ladd, now O'Brien county's able and honored representative, was presiding as the then district court judge. Judge J. H. Swan, one of the very able attorneys of northwest Iowa, from Sioux City, was on hand represent-
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ing the Sioux City & St. Paul railroad. The lull in the proceedings had become oppressive. There was nothing doing, and Mr. Swan, apparently dozing as if half unconcsious where he was, broke out in a loud voice with that familiar hymn, "Revive us again," and sung a whole verse through, when all hands began to realize that this was not a "camp meeting." but a solemn court. when all hands at the bar applauded, leaving Judge Swan bowing as if before the footlights.
THE JUDGE NEEDED A SWEAT.
It was the irrepressible Milt H. Allen, one of the early attorneys at the O'Brien county bar, who always had an icicle to crush down the back of the neck of several who were present, or some other equally impressive ceremony. The judge and attorneys were at the hotel. and the good Judge Hutchison, who also loves a good joke, had returned. It was a very hot night, but late in the fall-in fact. cold spells had started .. The Judge was asleep. Milt smelled a good bed-time joke. He carried all the clothes from his own bed and his own personal clothes and piled them on top of the good judge. Milt had disrobed to the night gown and lay down. The judge, however, had been sleeping with one eye open. Quietly he rose and turned the key in the door. It being already the fall of the year, during the night it grew very unpleasantly cold. Mr. Allen wanted his clothes. He rapped at the door of the Judge's room. The Judge continued to sleep soundly. Mr. Allen begged and continued to freeze. Mr. Allen contended that he was simply trying to give the judge what he thought he needed. a sweat. At least it was one case where he did not secure the ear of the court. This occurred in a hotel at Sibley. Inasmuch as Judge William Hutchinson belongs to and holds court in both counties, and as this is a joint history of O'Brien and Osceola county. Mr. Allen being from O'Brien county at that time, it is one case where the two counties come together in a court item.
HEAR YE, HEAR YE, THE RECORDER'S OFFICE IS NOW OPEN.
It was Dr. Clanning Longshore, one of the earliest of physicians from Sheldon, who, in 1876, was elected county recorder. The good Doctor has a powerful voice. When he spoke on the street, they used to call it whisper- ing. He had much of the idea of the humorous. When he opened office he opened court, with all the solemnity of a court and by the sheriff. He would first pound on the office door with three raps, and in one of his whispering
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court orders would announce in a manner that every court official would hear and understand, "Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, the county recorder's office is now open and ready for business."
W. H. DOWNING, FOR THE DEMOCRATS, SCORES AN OFFICE.
It was at the election of 1904. The office was vacant by reason of the resignation of Ed. R. Wood as clerk of courts. J. F. Boyer had been ap- pointed temporarily to fill the vacancy. That, however, under the law, could only last until the voters would have an opportunity to elect, which meant that Mr. Boyer would be clerk until election. At the Republican convention Harry C. May was nominated for the regular full term, but no mention or even thought was made of the interim term of about a month and a half from election to January first. The Democrats at the election made no nomination for the interim. Thus far no nomination was made. The Democrats laid low. The law further says that if no nomination is made, then a man may be nominated by petition if done ten days before election. Late in the even- ing of the tenth day before election, the Democrats filed a petition for the nomination of W. H. Downing for this month and a half interim. The Re- publicans had slept on their rights. Mr. Downing being the only man in the printed ticket, was elected. The Republicans were helpless. It was simply a case where good shrewd politics scored a point and nominated a man who was all right for the office. He served for the short interim term.
JOKES REMINISCENT.
It was the eccentric Dr. Clanning Longshore, that pioneer physician of the early days, who did enough free practice and service during those years when there was no money, which if paid for would have made a man rich. A little child of homesteader John Griffith, in Carroll township, had swallowed a dose of concentrated lye. There were no telephones in those days. A horserider was quickly dispatched into Sheldon for Doctor Longshore. He came hurriedly. "My God," said the Doctor as he rushed in the house, "cram a lot of lard down its throat and make soap out of the lye." The child was saved. The Doctor knew how to make soap, to neutralize and start things.
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GIVE IT TO HER; PERHAPS IT WILL KILL HER, PERHAPS IT WILL CURE HER.
It was when Doctor Longshore was county recorder, and was attending at his duties at the county seat and boarding at the hotel. At urgent request he had made a trip beyond Hartley to a patient. Like all homesteaders, they had no money. They came in middle of night for him to make a second trip. He was a little surmised with the idea that it was questionable whether the patient was bad enough off for warranting a long trip. He stuck his head out the hotel window up-stairs and yelled out. "Got any money?" "No." "Well, I don't doctor no such damned cattle as them without money," and let the party go home. Notwithstanding this rebuff, this former patient had such faith in his ability to help out that he at once started the horseman back to the county seat with urgent demand that he come. Still the Doctor men- tally diagnosed the case that the patient was not so very bad off. He put up several prescriptions and handed the truck to the party, and said, "Tell her to take it ; perhaps it will cure her, perhaps it will kill her ; give it to her." In- asmuch as the party was around in a few days, it was apparent that he exer- cised the physician's skill that healeth.
THE ONLY MULE THAT EVER MET DEATH.
A chattel mortgage was sent in an early day to an O'Brien county attorney. The mortgage was on two hogs and a mule. The poor home- steader in his dire distress in early times had eaten the hogs for pork in his family. The mule died. The attorney wrote his report to the company holding the note, "That chattel mortgages were hard for mules to under- stand. That the mule had lived in such daily fear of fatal results that it had died with grief and a broken heart. That it was the only mule that was ever known to die. That a mule withstood all other calamities, but a chattel mortgage with the people and the mule eaten out by grasshoppers had proved fatal." By that letter the attorney meant to break it gently that the debt was uncollectible.
JOKE ON A BANK CASHIER.
One early homesteader was having some trouble with the bank, trying to pay eighteen per cent, which was the going rate in those days. In that case it was quite a large sum. The banker made arrangements with the fellow, to have another bank take up his paper to save the question of usury being raised. In drawing up the closing agreement with the party and in part arranging for the matter with the other bank, an agreement in writing had to be drawn up. In drawing it up hurriedly, the bank cashier inadvertently
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used this language: "That when the debtor," naming him, "did so and so," enumerating the conditions, that the "bank would hand over to him all the notes in the bank." Of course it could mean none other than Mr. Home- steader's notes in the bank. The notes belonged to the stockholders of the bank. However, the homesteader was considerably game, and he actually came into the bank with a written demand on the bank for the whole of the asset notes or bills receivable in the bank. This was an actual occurrence.
THE RATE OF INTEREST IMMATERIAL.
It was old-time settler Oliver M. Shonkwiler, among the earliest of the old timers. Mr. Shonkwiler has been of the hustling disposition, with a keen eye to the ultimate of O'Brien county land value, and which has developed right to him, he now holding some half dozen quarter sections of its high priced land. But in the early days he tumbled round much, with debts. That is, he carried these lands with debts in the first instance until he by his push paid it off. At one time when driven hard to meet a call for money in thus carrying a lump of land, he made application for a hand loan for a few months, but in a good sized sum. "Well," said the banker, "what rate of interest can you pay?" "That is not the question." said Mr. Shonkwiler. "I did not ask that question. What I asked was, Can I get the money ?" Money then was eighteen per cent, so the joke can be appreciated.
TOWN OF ARCHER SUPERIOR TO OMAHA.
Several years ago the city of Omaha sent out its advertising train, showing up the superior facilities of Omaha as a market and city. The train made a stop at Archer. The score or more of Omaha representatives made their usual march up town. They were passing the Bank of Archer. John H. Archer called them into the bank. When they got through with their deliverance, Mr. Archer made his speech :
"Gentlemen," he said, "there are five points in which the town of Archer is ahead of Omaha: Archer never had a busted bank; Archer has not had one of its citizens in jail for five years; not a single citizen of Archer, or within its trading territory, is in the poor house; ninety-five per cent. of its citizens, and the patrons in its trading territory, are independent, and not only self-supporting, but have a good competence : a far greater per cent. of citi- zens in the trading territory of Archer can borrow five hundred dollars on their own note than can be found in Omaha. We invite Omaha to come to
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Archer to live." Be it added that Mr. Archer could almost have made the application to the whole of O'Brien county.
O'BRIEN COUNTY IN THE HUMOROUS.
The following humorous and witty oration was prepared for and de- livered by Master Wirt Close ( twelve years of age), grandson of William King, an old homesteader on the southwest quarter of section 8. Highland township, at the old settlers' reunion held at Primghar September 2, 1909.
"I'm a pretty big small boy. I am twenty-four miles square. I'm not William Jennings Bryan, nor Mr. Dennis O'Brien, but I'm the original Irish- man, O'Brien county himself.
"I'm a Democrat and believe in sixteen to one, so I have sixteen town- ships spread all over the county map.
"These trees were planted in 1878, in this court house square. I was planted here in O'Brien county on a homestead in 1871.
"I was born in a log court house before the war in 1860, down in Old O'Brien. Well, in fact, come to think of it, I was not born at all; I was just organized, and there was just seven votes at the election, when I was elected into a county. I'm like Topsy, I just growed, and here I am. I'm really getting to be some pumpkins, but when I got here in 1871-5-well, now maybe it was my folks who got here instead of me, but we got here somehow, in a covered wagon and a mule and a cow hitched together.
"Well, the first thing father did was to borrow five dollars at John Pum- phrey's Bank and gave a chattel mortgage on the mule and the coffee mill, and, would you believe it, that mule died. The mortgage killed it, the first mule that was ever known to die.
"In them days it was all prairie grass and the roads went everywhere and anywhere right across the prairie. Father built a sod house and we twisted hay into stovewood to make a fire with. Father broke prairie sod and planted maple seed, and these trees are the corn crop from that maple seed.
"I gathered rosin weed gum from rosin weeds on the prairie, and there wasn't any nickel in the slot machine about that either. Instead of rolling around in automobiles, we rolled around in promissory notes and mortgages and debts and had a whale of a time. The whole farm got into a big county debt, but that was all paid off more than a year ago, so there's no use whining about that either. Life's too short to go on the grunt list. We have raised hogs and cattle and corn, and now we are raising the price of land. See ? (30)
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Father kept right on breaking prairie and twisting hay, and mother got her cut flowers from the conservatory-wild sweet williams off the prairie.
"Well, when I was about twelve to fifteen years old, I had the measles and the mumps and the whooping cough and the grasshoppers. Them grass- hoppers were frisky fellows. We dug ditches along the edges of the fields to keep them from jumping into the grain, and made a long board basin, pulled by a horse like a hayrake, and filled it with kerosene oil, to catch the pesky little critters. But they ate up the melon vines, the wheat and the oats, and, would you believe it, those saucy, impudent little grasshoppers, after they had eaten up all the wheat and the oats and corn, would sit on the fence in rows and wink their eyes, and actually squirt corn juice into father's face. But we got over the grasshoppers after all without the doctor having to put on a quarantine. We didn't need a quarantine then. The neighbors were two miles apart and no danger of catching the grasshoppers, and the nearest doctor was at Cherokee, and there didn't have to be any of us cut open for appendicitis either. But the grasshoppers all quit and the measles all ran away, and the hoppers went out of business.
"Then I commenced some real doin's. In 1872 and 1873 I built the Sioux City & St. Paul railroad, and on the road down I stuck down a shovel, and spaded up a few shovels full, and planted the town of Sheldon, and a right smart of a kid of a town it is today. Then I rested from railroad building for several years. I just simply held railroad meetings and licked out the grasshoppers.
"In 1878 I built the Milwaukee Railroad and lariated Hartley and San- born out on the prairie, and built a round house. Then in 1881 I built the Northwestern Railroad, and staked out Paullina and Sutherland right in the prairie grass.
"Then, what do you think? Primghar got to squealing for a railroad. and I built the Illinois Central, and planted out Archer. Gaza and Calumet. You must not laugh at Gaza, because land down there is worth one hundred and fifty dollars per acre all right. If you do not believe it, just go down to Gaza on one of their busy days and watch the big smoke stacks in their fac- tories, and the wheels of commerce as they go round and round. And now just lately I built the Rock Island Railroad from the city of Moneta to Plessis.
"There was a time when the 'squatters' came into the county like the old homesteaders and we licked out the railroads, and showed them a thing or two, and the squatters went to raising land, growing it up to a big price just like other folks.
"I built a poor farm and a poor house. Any of you ever been there?
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No? Well, the fact is, we can't hardly raise any poor people in O'Brien county, and the poor house boss has to go to raising corn and cattle and hogs just like other folks. I built one hundred and fifty school houses, and our boys and girls began to go to Ames, the best agricultural college in the United States.
"The maple seed kept on growing and we began to have shade trees, and we went to cutting wood instead of hay for fuel.
"Then I started the big county fair at Sutherland and will hold a ses- sion there every fall, which will make the folks down at Ames College know that we are raising cattle and cucumbers up here. We hold a big district fair at Sheldon every year, which got to be such a big affair that they took its secretary, Joe Morton, down to Sioux City to teach them fellers how O'Brien county does things.
"Then I planted apple seeds to show up the fruit deal, and went to build- ing big houses all over the farms in the county, with hot water heating plants and wash bowls and all them other jim cracks in them, and began to shove the old homestead houses back into the back yards for chicken houses, and the chickens grew up into old hens, and the old hens laid eggs and we sold the eggs and raised hogs to eat more corn, to buy more land, to raise more corn to buy more land, to raise more hogs to buy more pianos and automobiles with. So I suppose we will keep right on raising land, and seven-dollar hogs, and sixty-cent corn and dollar wheat and one-hundred-dollar cows and two- hundred-dollar horses and ten-thousand-dollar boys like me. I have concluded to get married and settle down on a farm and be an Old Settler."
CHAPTER XXVI.
MISCELLANEOUS.
FARMERS MUTUAL INSURANCE ASSOCIATION OF O'BRIEN COUNTY.
This O'Brien county insurance company, the Farmers' Mutual Insur- ance Association, has developed into one of the substantial and permanent institutions of the county. It was established March 24, 1890, hence is just completing a quarter of a century. It has grown steadily as the county has increased in number of people and in numbers and value of insurable build- ings and property. It has proved practical in that it has and is doing more fire and lightning insurance than any other one company now selling that class of insurance in the county, and also in that it does the service and fur- nishes a cheap insurance, which it is able to do, not having so many middle men and with its expenses reduced to the minimum. Its policy holders thus get their insurance at actual cost. Some of the best men in the county have been in the management. The people appreciate it, as is evidencd by the fig- ures given below. It is distinctly one of the well established and historic county-wide institutions.
J. P. Martin was its first president for five years until 1895. S. B. Crosser. its present president. followed and has served nineteen years. Its three secretaries have served, respectively, L. T. Gates, twelve : C. L. Rockwell, seven, and Theodore Zimmerman, five years. Its three treasurers have served. respectively, L. S. Austin, two; H. P. Scott, seven, and John H. Archer, fifteen years. It has, in total, issued four million two hundred and fifty thou- sand dollars, measured by insurance values. It now has seventeen hundred outstanding living policies, and in total has issued six thousand nine hundred and ninety-six policies. Its average policy has been twenty-five hundred dollars. Its total losses paid since organization have been sixty-seven thou- sand three hundred and sixty-five dollars and eleven cents. Its cost per thou- sand dollars per annum has been one dollar and ninety-eight cents, or nine- teen cents and eight mills per hundred dollars per annum. It perhaps would be true that some companies insuring the larger town properties and stocks of goods would exceed this company in total insurance, the insurance of this
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company being largely issued on farm property. But therein lies still another item of safety and cheap insurance.
PUBLIC OFFICIALS.
We will here give a place for a brief mention of the present members in the Iowa State Legislature from these districts: Nicholas Balkema, state senator, of Sioux Center ; Charles C. Cannon, representative of Paullina, state officials, present county officials and other items.
NICHOLAS BALKEMA.
Nicholas Balkema is the present state senator from this, the forty-ninth senatorial district, composed of the counties of Lyon, O'Brien, Sioux and Osceola. He was born in Gibbsville, Sheboygan county, Wisconsin, April 7. 1865, of Dutch parents. He attended the Gibbsville district school and afterwards graduated from the Sheboygan Falls high school. He moved to Newkirk, Iowa, in 1884. He taught school one year, and then started in the mercantile business at that place, running the postoffice in connection there- with. He sold out in 1894 and moved to Sioux Center, in Sioux county, Iowa, and continued the same business and in which he is still engaged. He also runs a clothing store at Paullina in our own county. He has been inter- ested in banking matters, in which he was vice-president. He has served on the city council, and is president of the school board at Sioux Center, having served in that capacity for ten years. He is a member of the Dutch Reformed church. He was elected senator in 1908 and re-elected in 1912. He is a Re- publican in politics.
CHARLES C. CANNON.
Charles C. Cannon is the present representative from O'Brien county. He was born in Loudon county, Tennessee, June 28, 1862, of American par- entage. He attended the University of Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1886. The same year he moved to Paullina, Iowa, where he engaged in the grain business, which occupation he follows at the present. He was married to Grace Jennings June 16. 1896, and his family consists of four girls. He is a member of the First Presbyterian church of Paullina, and a member of the Masonic lodge. He was elected representative in 1912. He is a Democrat in politics.
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OFFICIALS OF O'BRIEN COUNTY IN 1913.
County auditor. J. B. Stamp; coroner, Milo Avery ; clerk of courts. W. J. E. Thatcher : county treasurer. H. C. May ; county recorder, Bessie J. Beers ; county attorney. R. J. Locke: sheriff, H. W. Geister; superintendent of schools, J. J. Billingsly : supervisors, chairman, Peter Swenson. M. F. Mc- Nutt. W. C. Jackson, Ralph C. Jordan, William Strampe.
IOWA STATE OFFICIALS, 1913.
Governor, George W. Clark. Adel, Dallas county : lieutenant-governor. William L. Harding, Sioux City ; secretary of state, William S. Allen, Fair- field. Jefferson county; auditor of state, John L. Bleakly, Ida Grove, Ida county ; treasurer of state, William C. Brown, Clarion. Wright county ; attor- ney-general, George Cosson, Audobon, Audobon county ; clerk supreme court, Burgess W. Garrett. Leon, Decatur county : superintendent public instruction, Albert M. Deyoe, Garner, Hancock county; reporter supreme court, Wendell W. Cornwall, Spencer, Clay county: railroad commission, Clifford Thorne, Washington. Washington county; David J. Palmer, Washington, Washington county; N. S. Ketchum, Marshalltown, Marshall county: adjutant-general, Guy E. Logan, Red Oak. Montgomery county ( appointed ).
CITIZENS OF O'BRIEN COUNTY WHO HAVE SERVED IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE.
Osmond M. Barrett, of Sheldon, served in the House of Representatives of the state in the nineteenth Assembly in 1882, and in the State Senate in the twentieth, twenty-first. twenty-second and twenty-third General Assemblies in 1884, 1886, 1888 and 1890. In politics he is a Republican.
George W. Schee, of Pringhar, served in the House of Representatives of the state in the twentieth and twenty-first General Assemblies in 1884 and 1886, and again in the thirty-third and thirty-fourth Assemblies in 1909 and 1911. Republican in politics.
E. F. Parkhurst, of Sheldon, served in the House of Representatives in the twenty-second General Assembly in 1888. Republican in politics.
Herbert B. Wyman, then of Sheldon, now of Des Moines, served in the House of Representatives in the 23rd General Assembly in 1890. Repub- lican in politics.
John F. Hinman, of Primghar, served in the House of Representatives in the twenty-fourth General Assembly in 1892. Democrat in politics.
Ezra M. Brady, of Sanborn, served in the House of Representatives in
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the regular session of the twenty-sixth General Assembly in 1896, and also in the long special session called together by the governor to enact, and which did enact, the Code of Iowa for 1897. Republican in politics.
Charles Youde, of Sutherland, served in the House of Representatives in the thirty-second General Assembly in 1907 and in the extra session of the same Legislature. Republican in politics.
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