USA > Iowa > Marion County > Pioneers of Marion county, consisting of a general history of the county from its early settlement to the present date. Also, the geography and history of each township, including brief biographical sketches of some of the more prominent early settlers > Part 2
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This renowned warrior spent a pleasant captivity in trav. eling through the eastern part of the United States, at the ex- pense of the government, during which time he visited Washington, and had an interview with President Jackson. After having seen much of the magnitude of the government against which he had been from time to time long and vigor- ously contending for what he conceived to be the just rights of his people, and had thereby an opportunity to judge of its power, he with his son and one or two of his braves who had accompanied him, returned to the west, and was released at Ft. Armstrong-now Rock Island-and immediately retired to private life, from which he no more emerged in hostile array against the whites. His death occurred in 1839, near Fair- field, Jefferson county. Soon after his death his head was severed from his body and coveyed to St. Louis. The object of this mutilation history does not state, but we may conjec- ture that it was either to preserve it in spirits or obtain from it a bust or painted likeness of the great chief. We have reason to suppose that the government had no cognizance of an act so unlike her wonted treatment of fallen foes. Our informant thinks that the head may be at St. Louis to this day. But this is not so very probable, for when the Indians discovered this mutilation of the body of their venerated chief, they
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Pioneers of Marion County.
threatened serious trouble, which nothing could avert but the return of the head ; accordingly it, or some other head, was returned, but it is not likely that the Indians could have been easily deceived in the identity of a face they had so long been familiar with. At all events they became pacified.
After the capture of Black Hawk, and the treaty that fol- lowed, Keokuk was made chief of both the Sacs and Foxes. This chief, little less renowned than Black Hawk for bravery and cunning in war, was yet quite a contrast to the latter in person, and in his relations with the whites. Black Hawk was a person of small stature, while Keokuk was a portly Indian, weighing, probably, over two hundred pounds. Whilst Black Hawk was pursuing his hostile attempts to check the en- croachments of the whites, Keokuk remained either neutral or friendly to the latter. In this he had many adherents, which prevented Black Hawk from bringing a much larger force into the field, as a strong partizan leader he had desired to do. For this reason, and in order to insure permanent peace with the Indians, the government, through its agents, obtained the appointment of Keokuk to the chieftainship of both tribes.
We have on file a number of sketches illustrative of the character and customs of these people, that occurred during their residence in this county, after its first settlement, but which, for want of room in this chapter, we shall reserve for the miscellaneous department of the work.
We shall, however, take occasion here to relate an event that transpired near Red Rock, early in the fall of 1844, and which, on account of its horrible details, is still fresh to the memory of those who witnessed it, or lived in the neighbor- hood at the time.
It is said to have been an occasional custom with the Indi- ans (or at least with those who were thus disposed) to take criminal liberties with such squaws as should happen to be
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General History of the County.
found abroad, unattended by any other person. Any squaw thus found alone was presumed to be not virtuous, and was therefore subject to the licentious attacks of any bad man who, under these circumstances, was not subject to punish- ment for the crime. The assault was called a feast.
On the occasion of which we speak, a Winnebago brave and his wife, a likely young squaw, of the Sac or Fox tribes, had come down the Des Moines river on a trading expedition, and were camped near Jordan's trading house that stood, as we stated in the preceding chapter, on the south side of the river, some distance above the ferry landing. About this time two Indians, named Wan-pep-cah-cah and Pac-a-tuke, chanced to be prowling in the neighborhood, and discovered the lady alone in the woods. They thereupon deemed her a fit subject for a "feast," but she escaped and returned to camp. Toward evening of that day, or the next, these Indi- ans were at Red Rock, from which they could observe the movements of their intended victim at the camp. At about dark they made their appearance at the trading house and attacked the squaw again, as she was preparing to light the camp fire, when she took refuge in the house. Her husband, who was absent at the time, on his return asked her why she had not lighted the fire. She then told him how she had been followed and persecuted by the two bad Indians, who were still without, intending to camp on the ground. Hearing this, Jordan permitted the brave and his wife to remain in-doors that night.
But the Winnebago was not content to merely escape, for the time being, the unwelcome presence of those "sons of Baliel "-his honor had been compromised in that of his wife. He was deeply incensed, and nothing but a bloody revenge could heal the wound. With this feeling he rose and an- nounced his purpose to go out and kill them. On accosting them angry words followed, and they both assaulted him,
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Pioneers of Marion County.
probably not knowing that he was armed. He resisted the assault with his hunting knife. Wan-pep-cah-cah received eleven mortal stabs, and Pac-a-tuke, one across the abdomen, letting out his bowels, which he caught and supported with his hands as they fell, and as he sank to the ground in an ago- nizing death.
This took place about nine o'clock at night. None but the actors witnessed the deed, but the strokes of the knife were distinctly heard within, and the scene next morning was such as to warrant the truth of the above narration.
Next morning several white men collected at the scene of the tragedy, and sent a report of it to a chief named Pasha- paho,* who, with his party of about three hundred, had been down the day before, but returned and camped on what is now called Stortz's Island, two or three miles above Red Rock. Pashapaho, on hearing the news, immediately sent one of his braves down with peremptory orders to kill the murderer. Apparently no thought was entertained of giving him a trial for his life, nor even inquiring as to how far he might have been justified in the commission of the deed. The order was to kill him.
The Winnebago remained at the place, apparently trusting in the justification of the act to shield him from the punishment of a common murderer, or else desirous of seeing what action would be taken in his case. But when he saw Pashapaho's agent approaching, he comprehended at a glance his intended doom, and made an attempt to escape. But too late. The fleet-footed Fox was too near him when the flight began, and after a chase of only about one hundred and fifty yards, he was ยท overtaken, and by the assistance of another Indian, who had just come into the action, apparently as a sort of reinforcement, was overpowered, led back to the house, and his legs bound together above the knees.
*Stabbing chief.
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General History of the County.
The inquiry now was, what they meant to do with him. The reply was that they would kill him. Against this the white men who were present did not feel called upon to interfere, either by command or persuasion, nor, so far as we have been . able to learn, by representing the facts of the case to the Indians. They only protested against the execution being performed there, and insisted that the prisoner should be taken to his own country for that purpose. But this protest was not heeded ; the Indian who had come to carry out the orders of his chief, walked into the house, seized a hatchet that belonged to the place, and, as he stepped out again by his victim, who was seated near the door, struck him a heavy blow across the back of the neck, burying the edge of the weapon in the bone. The stroke felled him, but did not render him insensible nor even speechless; and, as it was not followed immediately by others, as though it was the purpose of his executioner to prolong his agony, he partly rose upon his hands and pleadingly said : " Strike me again, friends." Then the other Indian who stood by, actuated either by a sense of pity or an eager desire to see the bloody work go on, said to the executioner in a tone as threatening as his words : "Kill that Indian or I'll kill you!" In another moment the head of the prostrate victim was nearly severed from the body. This done the Indians went their way, leaving the bodies where they had fallen, either not caring what disposition was made of them, or else taking it for granted that the whites would see to their burial. Messrs. Jordan, Bedell and a few others, when they saw that the savages would have nothing to do in the matter, proceeded to make some arrangements for the interment. Whilst this was going on, the poor woman who had witnessed the last act of the tragedy, the murder of her husband, with what feelings we are not sufficiently advised to describe, performed with her own hands the last sad rites it was the custom of her people to bestow upon the dead in preparation for the funeral. Having pro-
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Pioneers of Marion County.
cured some red paint commonly used by Indians to decorate their faces, she painted their cheeks, eye-lids and lips very nicely and carefully, and then made an impression of her open hand on each cheek. This service she performed with equal care upon each, foe as well as friend. The three bodies were put into one grave near where the upper ford now is. Since then they have been washed away with the bank that has caved in more or less with the annual freshets, and what remains of this most tragic event may now be scattered and deeply embedded in the sands at the bottom of the Des Moines. The woman, who was the innocent cause of the affair, went to Red Rock. Hearing that the Indians intended to murder her also, she took refuge in the house of Robert D. Russell, where she remained secreted for upwards of a month. By this time the Indians had so far learned the facts of the case that she was finally deemed innocent, and was permitted to come forth and go west with her friends .*
The settlement of Marion county was begun at a period of some financial depression.t The monetary crash of 1837 was still felt, and those who came early were by no means rich. They were literally poor men, seeking homes and independence that could not be acquired in a country where real estate was beyond the reach of the day laborer. An opportunity was now granted to those who would brave the privations of frontier life to possess themselves of an estate that might, if rightly im- proved, insure independence and even wealth.
* Another version of this story is to the effect that two drunken Indians mur- dered the son of a prophet, and, after being arrested, were tried and sentenced to death, the oldest squaw of the tribe being selected to execute the sentence with a tomahawk. Also that the Indians were so much incensed at the traders for supplying the murderers with whisky, that they sat twenty days in council discussing the propriety of punishing them, but were finally pacified by those who could speak their language. But the foregoing details being from an eye- witness to the last act of the tragedy, may be de. med correct.
+The " tightness " of money matters at that pericd may be conceived by the fact that property, compared to present prices, was remarkably cheap. Twenty- five or thirty dollars would buy a good yoke of cattle, and forty-five would buy ber one horse.
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General History of the County.
CHAPTER III.
Poverty - Settlements - Marking off Claims - Primitive Houses and their Furniture-First Crop-Grating Corn for Meal-Hominy-Samp.
During the first year (1843) about seventy families from various parts of the east and south, settled in the county. These immigrants mostly came in companies,-families acquainted or connected,-and settled in neighborhoods that eventually formed the nucleus of what were called " settle- ments." These settlements were mostly designated by names derived from some leading member thereof, or from their locality, such as the English settlement, the Tong settlement, the Buffington settlement, the White Breast settlement, and the Red Rock settlement. The first division of the county into election precincts, to be hereafter described, seems to have been intended to accommodate these settlements, and will show their localities. These settlements were not only the result of the social tendency of mankind to drift into commu- nities, but in a country so wild, and where mutual dependence upon each other was so much felt, wisdom demanded such combinations. In time these settlements were so expanded by additions as to unite with others, and thereby lost their dis- tinction, but some of them are still known by their old names.
But these settlements were not always so compact as cir- cumstances seemed to require. Settlers were disposed to suit themselves with a location, though it might be at a remote dis- tance from neighbors, and families within two or three miles of each other were neighbors. Occasionally a lonely cabin was to be met with so far from any other as to be apparently out of range of any settlement.
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Pioneers of Marion County.
The first business of a settler on reaching the place where he intended to settle, was to select his claim and mark it off as nearly as he could without a compass. This was done by stepping and staking or blazing the lines as he went. The absence of section lines rendered it necessary to take the sun at noon and at evening as a guide by which to run these claim lines. So many steps each way counted three hundred and twenty acres, more or less, the legal area of a claim It may be readily supposed that these lines were far from correct, but they answered all necessary claim purposes, for it was under- stood among the settlers that when the lands came to be sur- veyed and entered, all inequalities should be righted. Thus, if a surveyed line should happen to run between adjoining claims, cutting off more or less of the one or the other, the fraction was to be added to whichever lot required equalizing, yet without robbing the one from which it was taken, for an equal amount would be added to it in some other place.
The next important business of a settler was to build a house. Till this was done some had to camp on the ground or live in their wagons, perhaps the only shelter they had known for sev- eral weeks, so that the prospect of a house of some kind that could be called a home, produced a thrill of pleasure that could hardly be comprehended by those who have never suffered the same privation. To the home-loving unadventurous female, this thought must be specially applicable.
But such a home! The poor settler has neither the means nor the help to erect a palace. So far from it, the best he can do, in most instances, is to fix up the cheapest thing imaginable that could be called a house. Some of the most primitive con- structions of the kind were half-faced, or, as they were some- times called, " cat-faced " sheds or " wickeups," the Indian term for house or tent. But a claim cabin was a little more in the shape of a human habitation, made of round logs light enough for two or three men to lay up; about fourteen feet square, per-
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General History of the County.
haps a little larger or smaller, roofed with bark or clapboards, and floored with puncheons (logs split into slabs), or earth. For a fire place, a wall of stone and earth-frequently the latter only when stone was not convenient-was made in the best practicable shape for the purpose, in an opening in one end of the building, extending outward, and planked on the outside by batts of wood notched together to stay it. Frequently a fire- place of this kind was made so capacious as to occupy nearly the whole width of the house. In cold weather, when much fuel was needed to keep the temperature of such a room above the freezing point, large logs were piled up in the yawning space. To protect the crumbling back wall against the effects of fire, two " back logs" were placed against it, one upon the other. Sometimes these back logs were so large as to require horse power to draw them into the house, the horse entering at one door and going out at the other, leaving the log where it could be rolled into the fire-place. For a chimney any contriv- ance that would conduct the smoke upwards, would do. Some were made of sods plastered inside with clay, others-the more common perhaps-were the kind we occasionally see in use now, clay and sticks, or "cat in clay," as they were sometimes called. For doors and windows, the most simple contrivances that would serve the purposes were brought into requisition. The door was not always immediately provided with a shutter, in which case a quilt or some other cloth might be spared to hang over it. As soon as convenient, however, some boards were split and put together for a shutter, hung upon wooden hinges, and held shut by a wooden pin inserted in an auger hole. As substitutes for window glass, greased paper pasted over sticks crossed in the shape of a sash, was sometimes used. It admitted the light and excluded the air, nearly equal to a glass window, but of course, lacked the transparency.
In regard to the furniture of such a house, our inventory must necessarily be as brief as our description of its architecture,
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Pioneers of Marion County.
unless in such instances where the settlers may have brought with them their old household supply, which, owing to the dis- tance most of them had come, was very seldom. It may be readily understood by the reader that whatever articles could be made to substitute tables and chairs, were used for them. A table could be as easily made as a door shutter, and of the same kind of material. Indeed we have heard of in- stances of the door shutter being taken down and used for a table, and re-hanged again after meals. Benches and stools supplied the place of chairs. But perhaps the most impor- tant of the few domestic comforts that could be crowded into so small a space, was a bedstead or two. Any family who had been bred to the customs and conveniences of civilization could hardly accommodate themselves to the simple mode of repose in use among the savages, that of stretching them selves upon the earth. Something softer than the bosom of mother earth, and a little more elevating, was deemed indis- pensable, if it could be obtained. Therefore the nearest ap- proach to a real bedstead, that could be extemporised in a hurry and with the fewest tools, was done in this wise : A forked stake was driven into the ground at a proper distance diagonally from a corner of the room, upon which poles, reaching from each wall, were laid. The wall ends of the poles may have rested in the openings between the logs or been driven into auger holes. Bark or boards were made to substitute cords. Upon this cheap article of furniture the pains-taking housewife could spread her bedding so as to hide every bit of its deformity; then hang up some sheets behind it, and thus give the sleeping corner of the homely habitation a tasty and wide awake appearance. It was generally called the " prairie bedstead," and by some, the " prairie rascal," though for what reason the latter term was applied to it does not appear, for it is difficult to conceive of anything more honest in construction or use.
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General History of the County.
Few of these houses yet remain as monuments of the past. The writer has seen two or three foundation logs of one of the first, where it stood. Their appearance is quite antiqua- rian, rotten and sunken into the earth, but still bearing some marks of their ancient use. One or two cabins of a somewhat later date, still stand, or did a year since, on the premises of J. M. Brous, an old settler in Perry township. They are in tolerable preservation, considering their age. But a majority of those old cabins have passed away, as well as some of their builders and original occupants; not, however, without first serving the purposes of stables, sheds, cribs, &c., till at last too frail for even these uses, they have been reduced to fuel, and their ashes returned to the earth that first produced the living tree.
The next important duty of the settler was to prepare some ground and plant what he could at that advanced season for cropping. This was generally done in the edge of the timber, where most of the very earliest settlers located. Here the sod was easily broken, not requiring the heavy teams and plows needed to break the prairie sod. Perhaps we might safely add, as another reason for first settling in and about the tim- ber, convenience to fuel and building timber. It may be sup- posed that the timber afforded some protection against those terrible conflagrations that occasionally swept across the prai- ries. Though they often passed through the groves, it was not with the same destructive force. By these fires much of the young timber was killed from time to time, and the for- ests kept thin and shrubless. Since these fires have been kept out, our timber lands have become thickly set with a new growth.
The first year's farming generally consisted of a " truck patch " planted in corn, potatoes, turnips, &c. But one man in the county planted any considerable crop of " sod corn," and this was Jas. Price, of Summit township. He broke nine acres of prairie the first year, where he still lives, and from it
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Pioneers jof Marion County.
produced considerable more corn than he needed for his own consumption. But generally, the first year's crop fell far short of supplying even the most rigid economy of food. Most of the settlers had brought with them such provisions as were indispensable to frugal living for some time, such as flour or meal, bacon, and coffee or tea. But these supplies, unlike the poor widow's barrel of meal and cruise of oil, were not inexhaustible. A long winter must come and go before another crop could be raised. At times game was plentiful, and the skillful huntsman could supply his table with venison. When corn could be obtained, the absence or inconvenience of mills for grinding it, forced the necessity of grating it on an implement made by punching small holes through a piece of tin or sheet-iron and fastening it on a board in a concave shape, with the rough side out. Upon this implement the ear was rubbed to produce meal. But grating could not be done when the corn becomes so dry as to shell off when rubbed. Some even used a coffee mill for grinding corn. But a very common substitute for bread was hominy, a palatable and wholesome diet, made by boiling corn in weak lye till the hull or bran peals off, after which it was well washed to cleanse it of the lye, then boiled again to soften it, when it was ready for use as occasion required, by frying and seasoning it to suit the taste. Another mode of preparing hominy was by pest- ling. A mortar was made by burning a bowl-shaped cavity in the even end of an upright block of wood. After thoroughly clearing it of the charcoal, the corn could be put in, hot water teemed upon it, and subjected to a severe pesteling by a club of sufficient length and thickness, in the larger end of which was inserted an iron wedge banded to keep it there. The hot water would soften the corn and loosen the hull, and the pestle would crush it.
Another preparation of corn diet, called " samp," was made by cracking the kernels in a tan-bark mill, then boiling it like rice.
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General History of the County.
CHAPTER IV.
Going to Mill-Tally's Ford-Origin of Roads-First Roads Located-Returning from Mill.
But when breadstuffs were needed, they had to be obtained from the " Old Purchase," and hauled, mostly by ox teams, a distance of from sixty to eighty miles; some had to go even as far as Burlington to get a supply of wheat and corn and have it milled. Wheat could be had at fifty cents per bushel ; cheap enough compared with present prices, but dear enough then considering the scarcity of money, the inferiority of the grain and the distance it had to be hauled. Owing to the want of proper means of threshing and cleaning it, wheat was more or less mixed with foreign substances, such as dirt, smut and oats. The price of corn was from fifty to seventy-five cents per bushel. It was mostly bought in the ear, and shelled by the purchaser before taking it to mill. Those mills usually resorted to were at Brighton, Washington county, and at Keo- sauqua and Bonaparte, Van Buren county.
But the difficulties to be encountered in reaching these dis- tant places, were not the least among the tribulations endured by the pioneers during the first two years of settlement. The slow mo le of travel by ox teams was made still slower by the almost total absence of roads and bridges, and such a thing as a ferry was hardly even dreamed of. In dry weather, common sloughs and creeks offered little impediment to the teamsters ; but during floods and the breaking up of winter, proved ex- ceedingly troublesome and dangerous. To get " stuck " in some mucky slough, and thus be delayed for an hour or more, was no uncommon circumstance. Often a raging stream would blockade the way, seeming to threaten swift destruction to whoever would attempt to ford it.
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