USA > Iowa > Woodbury County > Sioux City > Past and present of Sioux City and Woodbury County, Iowa > Part 66
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When they arrived in Woodbury county the land was not surveyed, but he says Mr. Ander- son surveyed the township next year and that J. W. Ross subdivided it in the years of 1852 and 1853. When he first came to this county the Indians were his near neighbors, and he was on friendly terms with Chief Ink-pa-du-a-ta and his band, who were afterward guilty of the Spirit Lake massacre.
William Maxwell in about a year, or in 1852, sold his claim to Josiah Sumner.
In the fall of 1852 Orrin B. Smith, his brother Edwin M. Smith and John Hurley, year and decided to locate and return the next
and Sumner, settled there. They stopped with Sumner a short time, then went on up the Lit- tle Sioux river. On their return Orrin B. Smith was so impressed with the place where Sumner had squatted that he offered him one hundred dollars in gold for the two claims he had squatted on, and Sumner, accepting the offer, Smith took possession and Sumner left. O. B. Smith soon went to Council Bluffs, sold one of his claims to Eli Lee, and the latter came up with his family in February, 1853, and (). B. Smith, with his family, soon moved up, so what was then called the White settle- ment in the spring of 1853 consisted of five men, with the families of at least three of them.
In the same year, but probably not until after the organization of the county in August, others came to the Smithland settlement, among them William Turman, John McCauley and John Turman. Of these settlers prior to 1853 two are yet living, Curtis Lamb, as before stated, and Eli Lee, who still lives in Wood- bury county. Mr. White remained several years, and in 1853 was granted a ferry license across the Little Sioux. He moved to Monona county and was drowned in Silver lake there.
O. B. Smith later platted the town of Smith- land, was prominent in county affairs, and with some absences lived many years about Smith- land, finally moved away and has since died.
Ed M. Smith moved to Colton Creek, Colo- rado, and was alive in 1890.
William Turman and Isaac Turman lived many years and died in this county, leaving families. We have not enumerated the chil- dren of these early settlers, many of whom grew up and became prominent citizens.
We have named as near as we could learn all the settlers, including those of the year of 1853. There may be some omitted, especially those who might have visited the county that year.
Mormons from Kanesville, came on a hunting expedition up the Little Sioux and were sur- Many of the details of the legal steps in the prised to find these three men, Lamb, White organization of the county are lacking, as the
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record of it was probably kept on sheets of paper or some blank book and not recorded in the official record book of the county judge, for that official had no book then, and one was not probably obtained for several months, and the present minute book No. 1 has the appear- ance of having been written up a year or more afterward, all in one handwriting, and as if copied in.
The first entry is on page 1, copied evidently from the records of Pottawattamie county and relates to the location of the county scat, dated July 18, 1853. The next entry is on page 3 and under date of January 27, 1854, allowing Thomas L. Griffey $18.50 as commissioner in locating the county seat, and here follow en- tries allowing claims for the other county seat commissioner, $5.00 to the organizing sheriff, and salaries of county officers, and approving bonds of the officers elected then and the next summer and down to October, 1855; then on page 6 it returns to date of Angust 1, 1853, when O. B. Smith gave bond as county attor- ney, and again on through 1854 to February, 1855, on page 8, from which place it takes up the record from the fall of 1855. It would seem from these records that from the begin- ning down through the year 1855 they were copied into this book from other books or pa- pers that are now lost, and were not arranged or copied according to dates, and some of the pa- pers may have been lost without being recorded.
By the act of the legislature passed January 1, 1853, three commissioners named were ap- pointed to locate the county seat, and two of the three appointed met within the time speci- fied, located the county seat and made their re- port, which is as follows :
"Minute Book 1, page 2. Sergeants Bluff.
Woodbury County, State of Iowa.
To the organizing sheriff of said county :-- We have fixed upon the southeast quarter of section 1, township eighty-eight (88), north of range forty-eight (48), west of 5th P. M. as a
point for the seat of justice for the aforesaid county of Woodbury, and set a stake on the avenue running east and west between lots number one hundred and thirty-one ( 131) and ninety-seven (97), as laid down on Thomp- son's plat of the town of Floyds Bluff in said county, and recorded in the recorder's office of Pottawattamie county, Iowa, this 18th day of July, 1853.
THOMAS L. GRIFFEY, IRA PERJUE, Commissioners."
The names as printed in the legislative act were Thomas L. Griffith and Ira Perdue, but as signed to this certificate the names were Thomas L. Griffey and Ira Perjne. These were no doubt the persons intended in the act, and a small difference in spelling a man's name could not stop the birth of this county.
The organizing sheriff was named in the act in the same way as Thomas L. Griffith. He no doubt gave the ten days' notice of the first election to be held August 1, 1853, at Sergeants Bluff as required by the law, and was himself on hand to hold the election, bringing with him from Council Bluffs Marshall Townsley, and perhaps others who contemplated settling in the new county. The five men from the White settlement, as it was then called, known later as the Smith settle- ment, developing finally into Smithland, started the day before, as one of them described it, with their rifles on their backs. It was a hot day's walk ; they followed an Indian trail along the Missouri bottom, under the bluffs, finishing the day at Traversie's, near the Missouri river, where they were welcomed with true Canadian hospitality. Ilis squaw prepared them a sup- per, consisting of a stew of dried elk meat, highly seasoned with garlic, corn cakes and splendid coffee, food which hungry, tired, jaded men at least could appreciate. In dne time they retired and slept, notwithstanding the fleas that visited them.
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In the morning after breakfasting with Traversie, they went up to the county seat at "Bill" Thompson's, meeting there William B. Thompson, Charles C. Thompson, Hiram Nel- son, Thomas L. Griffey, the organizing sheriff, and Marshall Townsley, who, with his family, it was said, had arrived that morning from Council Bluffs. There were others present in the course of the day to vote. They were intro- duced round in true western way with corn juice, pipes and tobacco, as one of them says.
There were, it is said, seventeen votes cast at this first organizing election. A small ma- jority of these were Americans. The organ- izing sheriff was authorized to swear in the election offieers and those who were elected. The election officers were :
Judges of Election, Joseph Merivall, Charles Rulo and William B. Thompson.
Clerks of Election, Edwin M. Smith and Orrin Smith.
County officers elected were as follows :
County Judge, Marshall Townsley.
District Clerk, Joseph P. Babbitt.
Prosecuting Attorney, Orrin B. Smith. Coroner, Eli Lee.
Treasurer and Recorder, Hiram Nelson.
No sheriff was elected, as Thomas L. Grif- fey being organizing sheriff was assumed to continue in office. There was but one township in the county, and they elected Curtis Lamb justice of the peace and Ed M. Smith constable.
It has been said that these seventeen votes cast at this election were those enumerated above, who were election officers or elected to office, as well as William B. Thompson, at whose house the election was held, so the voters were :
1-Marshall Townsley.
2-Thomas L. Griffey.
3-Orrin B. Smith.
4-Eli Lee.
5-Curtis Lamb.
6-Hiram Nelson.
7-Edwin M. Smith.
8-Joseph P. Babbitt. 9-Joseph Marrival.
10-Charles Rulo.
11-William B. Thompson.
12-William S. White.
And besides these there were, as one who voted recollected, the following other voters:
13-Theophile Bruguier.
14-Stephens DeRoi.
15-Joseph Leonnais.
and one other Frenchman, either L. Francis La Charite, Francis Bercier or Elie Bedard, who then lived in the settlement. The Frenchmen had not all been naturalized then.
So Woodbury county was organized, but it had no books or records and no money in the treasury, and no taxable lands, as none had been entered from the United States, and the amount of personal property was small. The machinery of county government was installed and ready to be started, and the time had ar- rived when land would soon come into market and new settlers could be invited to come in.
The year 1854 brought numerous accessions to the new Woodbury county colony, though at the beginning of the year it does not appear there were large numbers. At the township election in April there were fourteen votes cast, and William S. White, Stephen Devoy (DeRoi) and R. Hazzard were elected town- ship trustees, Hazzard evidently being a new eomer. He worked for Bill Thompson and is said to have been a wild, reckless fellow, a wrestler and fighter. He went to Denver, Colo- rado, and worked there as a miner. Leonard Bates was elected township clerk, and William B. Thompson assessor. The township, con- sisting of the whole county, was called Sergeant Bluff township, and it would appear that later in the year a voting precinct on the Lit- tle Sioux was created, as at the state election held August 7, 1854, nine votes were cast in that precinct at the polling place, which was the house of Curtis Lamb, so that that settle- ment had increased. Among the names of the
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new ones there was probably that of M. L. ports of the character of the soil, and many of Jones, who was most of the time that year at them and their assistants were among the very early settlers. the west end of the county, and there also came that year to the Little Sioux Jolm B. Pieree, Joseph Bowers, Thomas Bowers, Alvah North, James MeDonald, Martin Metcalf, and one or two others. Many of these remained many years. Metcalf was a Methodist exhorter and probably was the first person to conduct religions services in the county. Ira Price came to the settlement late in 1854 or early the next year, but went to Nebraska in 1856. O. Plato came to the Little Sioux Valley that year and still resides there and is entitled to rank as the oldest attorney in the county.
The valley of the Little Sioux was a most attractive region and that part of it abont Smithland was particularly beautiful and satis- fied every sense with its beauty. The river wended its way through the fertile bottom land, skirted with timber, with an occasional large grove extending to the bluffs on the west and up their sides. It was, and still is, a sort of earthly paradise, and it is no wonder the first settlement was made at Smithland. It was at first an isolated spot, a long distance from the base of supplies, Council Bluffs, and the early pioneer had to undergo many hard- ships and privations before he could settle down to the real comforts of life. To be sure, game was abundant, but it took time to raise the crops and procure the other needed house- hold supplies.
At the west end of the county there was con- siderable activity, new settlers eame in who wished to get land for a home, and then those who had the fever for a town site. It could not be otherwise than that every one should feel that some time in the near future a town would grow up somewhere on the Missouri river in the county where the bluffs eame near to the river.
Dr. John K. Cook and his party of surveyors had finished subdividing the land in Sionx City in 1854, and these surveyors had made re-
Leonard Bates that year built a log house for himself at the point of the bluff just north of the town of Sergeants Bluffs, and he and his brother Gibson Bates, who came in August, 1854, built a log house for Dr. J. D. M. Crock- well in the south part of this town, and the Doctor with his family moved from Council Bluffs into this house in the fall of 1854; T. Ellwood Clark, whose wife was a sister of Crockwell's wife, came with him, and Clark started to build his house that fall. They, with Kountz, later an Omaha banker, had been up earlier in that year, and had picked the place out as a town site, employed Leonard Bates to build their log house for $100.00 in gold, and employed Samuel F. Watts and Eli- jah K. Robinson, surveyors, to stake out their town of Sergeants Bluffs, which was done that fall. Leonard Bates raised a crop that year. They finally named the locality "Sergeants Bluffs ('ity" to distinguish it in techinical name form "Bill" Thompson's county seat.
John M. Cloud, a son-in-law of Marshall Townsley, built a home that year south of Ser- gents Bluffs and raised something of a erop. M. L. Jones, then a single man, lived a part of the time with Cloud and part of the time with Judge Townsley.
John M. Brown, a brother-in-law of Thomas L. Griffey, that year built a house south of where Salix now is, about a mile north of Sand ITill Lake on seetion 2, township 86, range 47. The traveled road ran near the north end of this lake, and it was always a place where the teams on the Council Bluffs road turned in and water- ed. That winter Brown, his mother, wife and two daughters, and Thomas L. Griffey and wife, Brown's sister, spent the winter in that log house. Thomas L. Griffey was a good hun- ter and spent part of that winter on the Little Sionx with Curtis Lamb, hunting deer and turkey. Brugnier had an unocenpied log
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cabin on the bank of Sand Hill Lake on sec- tion 10, township 86, range 47.
An anecdote is related of John M. Brown in connection with establishing his claim, which illustrates the fears of the new settler, and incidentally the disposition of this one :-
Mr. Brown made up his mind to protect him- self from a possible invasion of the Indians, or other thieves, by building a stockade around his house and stable. He had cottonwoods cut and split about 14 feet long, and set close to- gether in the grounds. John himself was not much of a worker, so he got Morris L. Jones to build the stockade. John's mother was a sensible woman, and as she had watched the progress of the work, which was pretty slow, the ground being frozen hard, she came to the conclusion that it was labor lost, and expense for nothing, so she said to her son: "John, at the rate this work is being done, it will take till spring to finish it." "Mother," answered John, "If I knew Gabriel would toot his horn the minute I finished this work, I would finish it."
We add a few names to the colony at Ser- geants Bluffs City and south of there for this year 1854, of persons who bought land that year, who probably visited that region, and went away, some becoming residents for a time. Later Marshall Turley had a contract for selecting the swamp land for the county. Lewis Cunningham was Clerk of the Court. Samuel Brown, a relative of J. W. Brown, William Stewart, J. Z. Stutsman, John Galler and Rupes Beal were there. The latter bought a large tract of land near Sloan on which he moved after the railroad came in, and was for many years a wealthy and influential citizen of the county. John Samuels came in 1854 and entered land in Liberty township. He married a half blood Blackfoot girl.
During the fall of 1854 besides the French and Americans already enumerated, others no doubt became settlers in the west end of the county. Samuel F. Watts, who with Dr. Cook
had surveyed Sioux City township that year; Samuel Ruth, an assistant, and Elijah Robin- son, were at the new Sergeants Bluffs City that year, and Watts and Robinson surveyed this town site.
Algernon S. Dutton came in 1854, probably in the fall, held some township office, entered 40 acres of land and went to Pike's Peak in 1859.
R. E. Knox acted and drew pay that year as District Clerk, Lewis Cunningham acted as assessor and Sheriff, staying at Thompson's. He came from Council Bluffs and had been a county officer there.
HI. Slagar was a resident that year.
R. E. Rowe was for a time that year Dis- trict Clerk.
George W. Chamberlain also came with the surveying party and stayed.
Joshua Clark was a settler that year and probably J. Samuels, also at the Sergeants Bluffs colony.
W. H. James came in the fall and was the first lawyer to settle in the county. He later went across the river, settled in Dakota County, Nebraska, and was elected Secretary of State, and by the death of the Governor became acting Governor of Nebraska.
John K. Cook also settled at Sioux City in the fall of 1854, after he had made his township survey, and came back to start his town.
Luther Woodford first came to the county in the fall of 1854. He was born in Hartford county, Connecticut, in September, 1807, and after reaching his majority took up the proverbial calling of about half the young men of that state at that day, and became a clock peddler, working west by degrees. He was married in 1833, and later was at Agency City, in Wapello County, Iowa, as a merchant with his wife and children. He sold out there, and in 1854 started west with a team to look at the country, not knowing just where he would go. Reaching Council Bluffs he heard of the
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new settlement in Woodbury county, and drove Woodford passed him. At Ashton in Monona up to Sergeants Bluffs, and finding a few set- tlers there, he decided to locate in that vicinity, selected a piece of land, and on his way back entered it in Council Bluffs, it being the west one half of southwest one quarter of section 31 township 88, range 47, and the east half of the southeast quarter of section 36, township 88, range 48. He entered also a piece of timber land. He spent the winter in Wapello county with his family.
In the early spring he started for this conn- ty with two yoke of oxen, one team of horses and three wagons, and with some household goods, house building and farming utensils. His oldest daughter, Almira P., with her hus- band, George Brassfield, and his oldest son, Charles R. Woodford, then thirteen years old, and Mr. Henry Reams, since one of the promi- nent settlers of Dakota county, Nebraska, came with him, leaving the rest of his family behind. They reached Sergeants Bluffs in May and went to work to build their log house on the land he had bought the fall before; a rough one of round logs chinked with mud, pole, hay and dirt roof, puncheon floor, with the door and window casings hewed with a broadax.
After this rough log house was done they started to build a regular hewed log house, but when partly completed a Presbyterian min- ister came to the county, who offered Mr. Wood- ford $5.00 an aere for the land, and he sold it. He had another piece of land in view which he intended to enter at the landoffice at Conneil Bluffs on his way back after his family, but hearing one day that another man, H. O. Griggs, a new settler, was also after the same piece, and had already started on horseback to Council Bluffs to enter it, he mounted his horse and followed in hot pursuit.
The history of the west is full of stories of races for the landoffice to enter some tract of land, so we will complete the telling of this one. While Mr. Griggs was at dinner at George Murphy's honse, near where Sloan now is, Mr.
county, Griggs passed Mr. Woodford and pushed on to Larpenteur's, at the crossing of the Little Sioux, that night, having traveled nearly fifty miles that day. The next morn- ing early, Mr. Woodford, having traveled late and started early, again passed Griggs. They reached Council Bluffs that day about the same time. Each got a man to help him enter the piece of land he was after, and then found out they were after separate pieces. They were typical pioneers, qniek to think and aet, and both from the same Connectient county.
Mr. Woodford returned to Sergeants Bluffs and started to build a new double log house on this new piece of land, and the young son, C. R. Woodford, broke five acres of ground.
In the summer they went back with all the teams to Wapello county and loaded up the whole family, with its belongings, and a year's provisions, Mr. and Mrs. Brassfield, however, not coming with them.
He hired two men to drive his teams, com- ing by way of Conneil Bhiffs. They had this time four yoke of oxen, two horses and five cows, and a few chickens. The children at first drove the cows but they soon learned the ways of the journey and followed without driv- ing. Then every one of them were taken sick with fever and agne on the journey. The son, Charles R., shook one day, and all the family the next. The people along the road were kind, and one old woman made them all some herb tea. They recovered from the ague about the time they reached their new home, and all went to work with vigor to complete the new house, finish well built sheds for the horses and cattle, and put up hay for the stock.
There was a great influx of people that win- ter and from necessity they kept many travel- ers, as many as eighteen men on one night in that log house. Hay was a scarce article, and travelers tried to buy the hay on the roof of their house and stable, offering $20 a ton.
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This is a typical history of many a settler's family migration to this country.
John M. Pinckney's father came a year or two with his family with an ox team from Michigan, wintering on the way.
W. P. Holman came that year, 1855, from Connecticut, with his brother-in-law, H. O. Griggs, coming first to Galena, Ill., then from there to Ft. Dodge on horseback, and there bought a wagon. He brought along a hired man named Bronson, a carpenter, and a man named Pardy, and Dr. W. W. Ordway, who settled at Castana, Monona county, came with the party.
Samnel F. Watts and Thomas Robeson had just started a small steam saw mill at Ser- geants Bluffs, and Mr. Holman, deciding to locate, made arrangements to build a frame house for a hotel, and got the first lumber sawed at this mill, the first in the county, and Bron- son finished the house during the late fall and winter, while Mr. Holman went back after his family. This hotel was eighteen feet by twen- ty-four feet, fourteen feet high, boarded up and down, and the cracks battened with strips, and shingled with long thick shingles, all made from cottonwood.
Mr. Holman sold out in Connecticut and ear- ly in February started shipping their house- hold goods by rail to Iowa City. The railroad from Davenport to Iowa City was just com- pleted, the track was laid on the level prairie, and it took the train a whole afternoon to go that fifty-five miles, and the boys, when they got tired of riding, would jump off and run along behind and jump on again.
Mr. Holman had bought a wagon and team of horses in Chicago and shipped these, and bought four yoke of oxen at Iowa City, and they started from there to Sergeants Bluffs, W. P. Holnan, his wife, an adopted daughter, now Mrs. Joseph Graville, and three children, C. J. ITolman, aged sixteen, 1. M. Holman, aged eleven, and daughter Ella, aged five, now Mrs. George W. Waitt, and three hired men. The
whole journey consumed twenty-three days. It took them nine days to get from Council Bluffs to Sioux City. At the Little Sioux the rope ferry had washed out and they joined forces with Larpenteur, who kept the ferry, and Alec Garber, who was running the new stage line for the Western Stage Company from Coun- cil Bluffs, and cutting dry cottonwood logs made a raft, and with a new rope managed to get ferried over. They stopped at Ashton one night and the next with George Murphy and John Friedline, who kept a stage house near Sloan. Dr. John K. Cook and Jesse Williams, on their way to Sioux City, were fellow travel- ers along the road. They reached their house, now all completed, the next day and commenced keeping a hotel.
At this time, which is the commencement of 1856, the only houses in Sergeants Bluffs were those of Dr. Crockwell, Lem Bates, T. Ellwood Clark, two Thomas Robinsons, Squire James and Holman. A postoffice had just been started with Lem Bates as postmaster.
Woodford's farm was just below and the only farm near, except a small piece of Dr. Crock- well's which had been broken up. The most of the farming done that year was west of town in the weed land which was easily culti- vated.
Early in 1855 a petition had been presented to the county judge for the removal of the county seat from the original county seat at Bill Thompson's town of Sergeants Bluffs of one house to the new town of Sergeants Bluffs, city of three or four houses, and it is said a vote was taken and twenty-four votes were cast in favor of removal and none against it.
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