USA > Iowa > Woodbury County > Sioux City > Past and present of Sioux City and Woodbury County, Iowa > Part 70
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Previously to the coming of War Eagle to the Missouri river, the chief who held domain in the region about Sioux City was Pte-yu-te-sui, a Yankton Sioux. The white people ealled him Little Dish. War Eagle was not the son of Little Dish, but was made chief on his own merits.
As to what you speak of as the "Angie War," the Angie descendants, who are quite numer- ous, do not like the term. Their account of Mr. Henry Angie and the elaim quarrel is as follows :
Mr. Angie was a prominent man among the Frenchmen who were in the employ of the American Fur Company on the Missouri river. He had some Indian blood in him and spoke French, English and Indian. For these rea- sons he was often employed as guide and inter- preter. His wife was a half-breed, but not of French extraction. Her father was Robert Diekson, a Scotch trader, who was onee a colonel in the British army. 'Mr. Angie was with his brother-in-law, William Diekson, when he built Fort Vermillion. As his family be- eame large, he wanted to settle down, and did so with a number of Frenchmen, who opened farms in the neighborhood of Elk Point, but the Yankton Indians made complaint, as their title to the land west of the Big Sioux had not been relinquished, so that settlement was broken up.
Mr. Angie went to Minnesota for a time, that his children might attend sehools, which were then being started there. It was in 1854 that he moved his family baek to the Missouri. He spent the first winter near Sergeants Bluffs. The lands there were then open for settlement.
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A seore or more of French families had come guns to Angie's house to defend him. They from Fort Vermillion and elsewhere and were opening farms in the neighborhood.
There were few Americans who had taken claims, too, but hardly anyone stayed in that vicinity that winter. A man named Townsley lived at Sergeants Bluffs with his family, and two young men named Hiram Nelson and Rufus Rowe lived with him. Everyone there was taking a elaim, and Mr. Angie, desiring to make a home for his family, that winter selected a claim west of the Floyd, to the east of Sioux City. He built a log house on it, and in the early spring moved his family in it, and that summer he broke ground and raised a erop of corn and filed on the land.
That summer came a rush of white settlers. The town of Sioux City was laid out and claims taken all around. There seems to have sprung up considerable race prejudice between the white settlers and the French, who had been there before them and were more or less related to the Indians.
Mr. Angie was informed, soon after he lo- cated, that the claim had been taken before, and he should get off of it. But no proof was given him that either statement was true, so he paid no attention to them.
After awhile he was told a band of American settlers had been organized to drive him off, but he did not believe they would do anything, and went ahead with his work. His family, however, were troubled about the talk and so told their Indian relatives, several families were in the neighborhood, to get out of the way of the trouble. Some of them, like "Grey Face," said, "Why, no; if the Americans are going to pitch onto you, we will stay and help you ont." But Mrs. Angie especially per- sisted, and so they left.
After a while the rumor was started the Americans had set the day when they were going to come and tear down Angie's house. The French in the vicinity found out the day and early in the morning all came with their
waited around all morning, but no one eame. Angie had said all the time they would not come, and at noon the rest began to think the same and scattered off to get their dinner. They, however, left their guns in the house. After dinner Mr. Angie himself went away, and no one was left but the women and chil- dren.
What was their astonishment in the after- noon to see forty or fifty men coming from toward town. Before they got to the house, however, Mr. Angie came galloping up from another direction. Jumping off, he ordered all the family except the oldest boy to run for the brush and hide, and he would stay with the boy and defend the house.
They all ran ont, but Harriett, who could not walk, and the baby, whom she was holding, and Mrs. Angie, who refused to go. Mr. Angie then pulled a big eart across the door, which he then shut and barricaded on the inside.
Then he looked after the guns and kept peep- ing out of the window at the men who were walking up; some with guns and some with axes. As they came up around the house Mr. Angie became very much excited and declared no man would tear his house down while he was alive. The crowd came up around the house and some of them leaned against it, but were slow about doing anything. He wanted them to commence, so he took his gun and fired it into the floor. The men then ran and got behind a shanty that stood near by. From there they commeneed firing at the house. The folks inside kept out of range of the door, but the splinters flew in their faces. Mr. Angie was then determined to return the fire, but his wife and son held on to him so he couldn't.
After a while the firing quieted down and they could hear the men talking excitedly. It appears that one of the Frenehmen named Goulett had come up and was trying to make some compromise with them and have it set- tled peaceably. He did not want any bloodshed.
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Then he went to the door and wanted in. "Bill" Craven at that time was a regular vis- Angie did not want anyone to come in. He itor. wanted to fight it out himself. But Goulett was badly frightened and begged to be let in.
They let him in. Then he wanted Angie to leave. He said it was the only way to save trouble. He wanted Angie to name some sum he would take to leave. But Angie did not want to sell. He begged him to do so, but he would not. Then two or three of the Amer- icans came to the door and wanted to come in and talk it over. Angie did not want to talk it over, but the family let them in. They said they had collected from the crowd $100, which they had in their hands, and they wanted Mr. Angie to take it and save trouble, but he would not. His wife wanted peace and tried to get him to do something, but he did not want to be driven off that way. When they could not get him to do anything they put the money in his wife's hands and the crowd dispersed. When Mr. Angie cooled off he concluded discretion was the better part of valor and gave up his claim.
Joseph W. Stevens further reported that after the matter was adjusted that day with Angie, and the members of the attacking party returned to town, some of them went to Sang- ster's saloon to celebrate their victory and the peaceful settlement. The Frenchmen who had been imprisoned there fixed some sort of poison in a pail of whisky, with which they treated their late American enemies, and all who drank any great quantity were taken siek, some se- verely. One man died and Richard E. Rowe, the man about whose claim the trouble origi- nated, became so sick that he never recovered, his mind being affected. Rowe went away and died not long after. The lips of several of the party swelled from the effects of the drink.
It has been said that Rowe had been some- what attentive to Victoria Angie, which was his reason for allowing Angie to move into his house, but this is denied. That so far as Vic- toria having lovers in the American colony,
Mrs. Sangster gives some information, in part a somewhat different version of Rowe's illness, to the effect that Rowe was boarding at Austin Cole's hotel and that an Indian girl, We Washita, who waited on the table there, was persuaded by a friend of the Angies to put poison, some Indian drug, into Rowe's coffee, and that, concealing the vial contain- ing it in her sleeve, she secretly poured it in his coffee, with the result that he became sick, his mind affected, and that he went home and later died.
The postoffices were established at Sergeants Bluffs City, with Leonard Bates as post- master, and at Sioux City, with Dr. John K. Cook as postmaster, in 1855, probably the one at Sergeants Bluffs a short time before the other, but no contract had been let for carrying the mail from Council Bluffs, and they had to depend on special eonveyances or persons who went to Council Bluffs for freight to bring up the mail bags. Dr. Cook is said to have car- ried the mail around in his hat for delivery.
When Dr. S. P. Yeomans was on his way to Sioux City in 1855 he found at Council Bluffs a large number of mail pouches from the Gen- eral Land Office at Washington, D. C., with his land office books and supplies, but was told there was no public conveyance to take them to Sioux City, so he prevailed on the Western Stage Company to send up a stage for him- self and his mail bags. The journey occupied two days and was the first stage that came into Sioux City. In the course of the winter this stage company put on a regular conveyance and mail route.
For a long time B. M. Pizey carried the mail and did the errands along the route. He was a native of Essex county, England, coming to America when a boy, and had driven stage in Illinois. He was a quiet, sober man, who made no noise and was faithful and attentive to his duties and was variously called "Preacher" and
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"Old Reliable." The hardships of such a life thusiasts of those days saw a great future for were great, the road along the Missouri bottom the town, and town lots held a high value; sales were mostly made for cash and money leuders got a high rate of interest. being at times horrible. The story was told of him or some like driver who was expected from Council Bluffs with his mail and needed Persons who were in Sioux City from 1886 to 1892 know how, with a natural rapid growth and development of the town, real estate prices rose rapidly. But it seems hard to believe that with so very small a town in 1856 people could become so sanguine of a great growth and fabu- lons values of town lots. To the new comer the natives seemed crazy over prices of town lots, but they soon became as crazy as the rest. provisions at a time when they were nearly out of supplies, the hungry people were wait- ing his arrival. At last driver and wagon ap- peared, covered with mnd, and with no freight but a single barrel of whisky, and with the re- port that the roads were so bad that he had been obliged to leave his freight of flour and other provisions from time to time along the road and had to take choice of what he would bring through, and the waiting company at once voted his judgment correct. Mr. Pizey is still living at Dakota City, Nebraska, at the good old age of eighty-four.
At the beginning of 1856 the mercantile business in Sioux City was on a small scale. Charles Sangster had but a small stock, and White and Copeland's tent expanded into a store that was not much larger. There was no building material at hand except logs.
As part of the plan of promoting the town it was necessary to have a saw mill, the nearest one being that of Watts & Robinson at Ser- geants Bluffs, which was inadequate for a growing town. Then the freighting of mer- chandise from Council Bluffs was too expensive and tedious. Steamboats did not then make regular trips up the river, except the American Fur Company's boats or those chartered for government freight.
So James A. Jackson, one of the town pro- moters, a partner in the firm of Tootle & Jack- son, having stores at Omaha and Comeil Bluffs, went to St. Louis and chartered the steamboat Omaha for a trip to Sioux City, pay- ing the captain, it is said, $24,000 for the trip, with a cargo valued at $70,000, two-thirds of which was for Sioux City, the rest for their stores below.
This freight consisted of a saw mill and equipment, furniture, dry goods, hardware and groceries, needed for a general store. We have now before us the bill of lading for the saw mill equipment shipped on that boat, which was
We have spoken of the railroad grant which was passed May 14, 1856, granting land to the state of Iowa in aid of a railroad from Du- buque to Sioux City, giving it every odd mim- bered section within six miles on each side of the line to be located, and in case of previous sale or entry of any of these lands, they could take as indemnity for those so lost other lands in odd numbered sections within fifteen miles of this line, and as it would take some time to locate this line to fix these limits within which the land could be located, and in the meantime a large amount of it would be en- tered by individuals, the parties interested procured an order from the General Land Office to suspend further cash entries and pre- emptions in the prospective district or limits.
The state early in July, 1854, granted these lands to the Dubuque and Pacific Railroad Company. So Sioux City had secured a pros- peetive railroad whose munificent land grant seemed to assure a speedy building of the road and promised a great future for the town.
They little realized that the panie of 1857, the war, and natural delays would postpone the completion of this road for thirteen years as, in fact, did ocenr. The Sioux City en- preserved by Sanborn & Follett, who after-
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ward bought the saw mill. It is from Kings- lands & Ferguson's Phoenix Foundry at St. Louis, billed to Tootle & Jackson, Sioux City, on steamboat Omaha, Holland, master; Kirchi- val, clerk; dated May 21, 1856, enumerating boiler, engine and chimney, in all forty-six pieces and weighing 20,050 pounds.
This was the first steamboat arrival, occur- ring early in June, and furnished the place with many much needed supplies. Mr. Jack- son remained several weeks and left his store in the hands of Samuel Holland, probably the one who appeared as master of the boat in the bill of lading, and later they shipped from St. Louis lumber for a store, already framed, and erected it at the northeast corner of Second and Pearl streets, the first frame store to be erected in Sioux City.
We might say here that afterward many buildings were shipped here in the same way, the lumber already framed, some of which are yet standing; part of these were built by the town company and sold. The saw mill was speedily erected by the company at the north- west corner of Second and Water streets, the building that contained it still standing there, and this saw mill became a great factor in the early growth of the town. Many logs had been cut the winter before. It was operated for the company that season, Joseph B. Flagg, John F. Ward, Luther C. Sanborn and J. W. Stevens at different times being engaged in it.
December 6, 1856, when the company di- vided its lots, they also divided the sawed lum- ber on hand and agreed among themselves to use considerable of the plank in building side- walks in front of their property to give the town a metropolitan appearance; some of them were accused of violating the agreement and using it for building purposes.
The mill itself was sold to Ward, Flagg & Sanborn, without the ground, for $6,000 and the logs for $560.47, and Ward and Flagg soon sold their interest to J. L. Follett, and the new firm of Sanborn & Follett operated it for over
twenty years and existed as a co-partnership for over forty years.
The price of lumber was high in those days; one may says he paid $110 a thousand for the little pine lumber he used for the window and door casings for his house, otherwise built of cottonwood.
The mercantile business centered in these early years along the levee from Douglas to Water street and up Pearl to Fifth street, and soon the real estate and other offices were lo- cated on Douglas street from Fifth to Seventh streets.
The residences were chiefly above Fifth street, as the ground was much higher and drier there. Until the streets were raised and graded in later years, there was a well defined bench, as it was called, of about a four-foot rise in the ground just north of Fifth street, extending from Perry Creek east and crossing Fifth street south at about Jackson street, and then going east again, and just south of this bench the ground was lower than farther south toward the river, making a sort of slough, and one of the early improvements was to fill in Pearl street across this low ground. Above the bench good well water was found, but below that shal- low wells furnished very poor water. The bench line had evidently once been the bank of the river and been filled in again.
Space will not permit of a detailed continu- ation of the history of the county; much of it will be found in the individual biographies of the older citizens, and records of it are pre- served.
The panic of June, 1857, stopped the great immigration, and so far as the town's popula- tion was concerned it was out of business. The real estate business was dead ; professional men tried farming and stock raising to help out their incomes, and many of those who could raise money enough left.
Sergeants Bluffs tried to keep up its courage and did not acknowledge itself defeated by the loss of the county seat, the establishment
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the United States Land Office at Sioux City instead to furnish some whisky, and that day and the land grant for the railroad there. So came over to W. P. Holman's hotel to get a jug to put it in. C. J. Holman, then a good sized boy, found a jug and took it over for Otten to fill, but Otten found himself short ou whisky and then added brandy to fill it up, and this went with the party. far as wagon communication with the rest of the world was concerned, that town was the nearest to Council Bluffs and to the country east, by way of Smithland, and they had their ferry across into Nebraska, and in the spring of 1857 Dr. Crockwell got a steam ferry boat from Omaha and ran it that year. It was first run by a man named Nichols on July 4th, that year. They had a steamboat excursion on this eraft, going up the Bix Sioux, and a dance was one of the features of the party.
They also started a newspaper, probably in August, 1857, the Western Independent, spoken of by some as the Sergeants Bluffs In- dependent. It was published a few months and then went to Sioux City.
Sergeants Bluffs had a store early in 1856 kept by a man by the name of Harry Lyon, possibly the first in the county, and the first sermon there was preached in that store by Rev. William Black, early in 1856, and the boys then were as irreverent as now, as some of them were playing cards under the store counter while the sermon was being delivered.
A saloon was started in the town by Joe Otten, and as he indirectly contributed to the naming of one of the streams of the county, we might here speak of the original names of some of these streams.
There had come to be considerable travel from Smithland to the west end of the county. which mostly followed along under the bluff as it came down to the bottom land, but there were no bridges across the streams. So it was agreed by the citizens at each settlement that they would at a given day meet at what is now the Big Whisky and bridge this stream and the one next west.
The Sergeants Bluffs people notified all able- bodied men who could go to be on hand, among them Joe Otten. Either he thought his busi- ness would suffer in his absence or that kind of work would not agree with him, but he offered
When they met the Smithland bridge build- ers the latter were provided with a keg of liquor, which was first used by the whole party, and the bridge was completed over the larger stream that day and the whole party camped that night on higher ground between the two streams. It was warm fall weather and they were all tired, the water was poor and mos- quitoes were bad, and as there were about two dozen in the party the keg was exhausted before bed time, and they called for the little jug, as they called it, in contrast with the larger three-gallon keg, and this mixed liquor was too much for most of the party, and, as one of them later expressed it, they were soon drunker than lords. One of the Sharp boys from Sergeants Bluffs first called the keg the Big Whisky and the jug the Little Whisky, and before they parted, by unanimous consent the two streams were called the Big and Little Whisky, which names remain to this day. The party were so disabled by this night's work that they all went home without building the bridge over the Lit- tle Whisky.
Elliott Creek was named after Alexander Elliott and his brothers, who settled on that stream.
C'amp Creek was so named from it being a favorite place for camping over night, or for meals on the journey from Smithland west.
Wolf Creek was named at an early day from wolves being seen frequently in that vicinity.
Pearson Creek was so named from an early settler near Correctionville, Moses H. Pearson.
The Little Sioux Valley had its Indian trou- bles. The winter of 1856-1857 was a hard one for all parties. The snow was deep, the food searee, game hard to find, and the Indians suf-
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fered more than the rest, and knowing there were only a few whites, they were inclined to be insolent and thievish.
The Inkpadutah band, that camped above Smithland that winter, was said to be a sort of renegade lot from the Winnebagos and Sioux. These Indians claimed they found some corn ungathered in the field under the snow and scraped off the snow and got a blanket load of it. The whites discovered them carrying it and accused them of theft, which the Indians de- nied. So the whites determined to get rid of them and organized a band of twenty-one men and elected Seth Smith, who lived just over the line in Monona county, as captain, he being the owner of a fine suit of militia regimentals.
These men went to the Indian camp and ordered them to leave. The Indians made ex- cuses for delay, said they wanted to go to visit the Omaha Reservation and make peace. The whites, to make sure of safety, took the guns away from the Indians, and it was claimed that some of the whites struck some of the In- dians, either then, or about that time. The Indians left, going north, committing depreda- tions on the way, and finally ending with the famous Spirit Lake massacre. The Indians were in a mood for trouble, but found this Smithland colony too well prepared for action. The names of the men in this company, so far as could be recalled in after years, were, Seth Smith, captain, and O. B. Smith, Eli Lee, M. L. Jones, Edward Howe, John Howe, Eli Boyd, Jim Kerby, William Turman, Wesley Tur- man, John Kinnea, Thomas Nagle, M. B. Mead, Thomas Davis, John Floyd, Thomas Bowers, Jonathan Leach and A. Livermore.
The names furnish a partial list at least of the inhabitants at that time.
The Spirit Lake massacre caused great un- easiness all through the country, and further trouble was feared, but there were too many settlers, and the band was too small, and the uprising did not spread to other bodies of In- dians.
After the panic of 1857 there was much to retard the settlement of the country. The War of the Rebellion engaged the attention of the whole country, and called for just that class of men that go into a new settlement, and it left the Indians without the usual amount of restraint.
In the early days a small detachment of United States troops had been stationed across the Sioux in Dakota Territory, and some of the officers became interested in Sioux City property. General Lyon was one of these.
Early in 1861 rumors of depredations by Indians came from various quarters and peo- ple from the country north moved into town. The people thought they had better organize a company to protect themselves, and wrote to the Governor. The petition was circulated and sixty-seven names signed agreeing to join the company, and they were ordered to elect officers. William Tripp was elected Captain, Dr. W. R. Smith, 1st Lieutenant, A. J. Mill- ard, 2nd Lieutenant, and J. W. Stevens, 1st Sergeant. It was practically a mounted com- pany, each man furnished his own horse, and they charged up their time only when on duty, and their equipment and commissary outfit was after frontier rather than military order.
The first expedition was up the Sioux to Rock river, where there was a rumor of In- dians. Lieutenant Smith was in command with 15 men, wagons for supplies, but no tents. The party returned, having seen no Indians.
Another expedition went to Sioux Falls and Spirit Lake but the enemy was not encounter- ed. There were 24 men in the party and they carried their tents in one wagon. Near Spirit Lake they came to a place showing signs of Indians, and followed their tracks from an American horse with a shoe on one foot which they had, but the trail suddenly ended. John Currier was accidentally slightly wounded in the hip on this trip in jumping into the wagon and in some way discharging his gun.
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