USA > Iowa > Polk County > Pioneers of Polk County, Iowa, and reminiscences of early days, Vol. II > Part 28
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When fifteen years old, he went to live with his grandparents, in Massachusetts, where he worked for his board and attended the common school, supplementing his studies with diligent reading and close observation of things in general. Later, he attended Williston Academy for Boys, where an ambition seized him to go to college. He tramped over the country, selling maps and charts, to earn money to pay his expenses while preparing to enter Amherst College.
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When he became twenty, he said to his father one day: "Your father gave yon your time long before you were twenty-one; can I have mine ?" "Young man, any time you think you can do bet- ter away from home, you may go," was the response. He packed his belongings in a little satchel, and, with what money he had-his father gave him none-set his face toward Amherst. A younger cousin joined him, and together they did janitor work or whatever they could get, to earn means to defray their frugal expenses. They prepared their own meals, and often said they managed so as to have crackers and cheese, if nothing else.
When Albert had reached his majority, the whole country was stirred with the gold discoveries in California, and he had a strong desire to join the vast caravan headed that way, and see more of the country, but the cost was beyond his means. He had two uncles who were practicing law in Kentucky, and there he decided to go. Ile worked his way to the Mississippi River, where he got a job on a river boat and worked his passage to Hickman, Kentucky. A brief stay there convinced him that the South was not the place for him. Noticing his unsettled state of mind, his uncle said to him one day :
"Young man, you are just starting out in life. Let me give you svine advice-the advice of L. A. Bruyert, an eminent French lawyer. If you want to succeed, avoid law suits beyond all things ; they influence your conscience, impair your health, and dissipate your property."
Albert thought there was good in it, and he made it the rule of his life.
Unsatisfied with the South, he decided to come West. Arriving at Adrian, Michigan, he found, when searching for work, two schoolnates of boyhood days, and they made a compact to go to California and get rich. They started on foot. The second day out, one of them said to Albert : "Suppose you are taken sick ; you have no money. I have some, and I would have to pay your expenses ; I will go no farther." He turned backward, and his chum joined him. Albert, undaunted by this showing of the white feather, went on, working a few days in different places to earn some money, until he reached Chicago. After a short respite there,
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he again started westward, and walked to Fort Des Moines, arriv- ing April First, 1850, with only fifty cents in his pocket. His gold fever had somewhat subsided, his purse was empty, his shoes worn ont, his clothing dilapidated, and he decided to stop awhile and earn more money. His first job was with "Billy" Hughes, out on Four Mile Creek, at thirteen dollars a month and board. The board was far removed from the doughnut-and-pie variety of his boyhood days, for in those days there was very little to be had in Polk County but bacon, corn meal and dried apples. To add vari- ety to the menu, one day, coming to The Fort for mail, he pur- chased a bottle of molasses, stuck it in his pocket, and when at the table would nse a little of it, pass it to the next fellow, and then pocket it.
His next job was attending the ferry, just north of where Locust Street bridge is-there were no bridges. The rush of emigration was prodigious, the ferry often being so overcrowded that only the vehicles and people could be taken over, the cattle and horses hav- ing to swim. One day, the boat was so crowded he was knocked overboard. He could not swim, and came near drowning, but he grabbed the tail of an ox, which pulled him ashore.
Hle stuck to the ferry job until he had earned enough to pur- chase a small tract on the East Side-land was cheap then-and buy a yoke of oxen. He then hired with Eli. Mosier to break prairie, which business he followed until August, 1851, when he sold his East Side tract, and, with the money earned by prairie breaking, purchased from W. W. Williamson the tract now known as "Kingman Place," lying between University Avenue and Center and Twenty-eighth and Thirtieth streets, consisting of nearly one hundred acres, for which he paid four hundred dollars. He at once began clearing his land and preparing it for cultivation. When in suitable condition, he planted a nursery and fruit orchard, and for many years did an extensive and lucrative business in the nurs- ery line. It was not long, however, before the westward progress of the town began to encroach upon his farm, and in 1887, he sold to Frank Sherman, who knew a good thing when he saw it, forty acres for forty thousand dollars. The same year, he donated a strip eighty feet wide through his entire farm, which is now Kingman
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Boulevard, soon to be extended to Waveland Park, making one of the most splendid driving places in the city.
Sherman's purchase was platted into residence lots, streets and alleys, and thus was begun one of the beauty spots of the town.
Mr. Kingman selected two acres, now lying along Cottage Grove Avenue, and west of Twenty-eighth Street, for a home place, ou which he had, soon after his purchase of the farm, erected a log house. In July, 1854, he wedded a niece of Eli. Mosier, and began housekeeping in the log house, with very little to satisfy an ambi- tious housekeeper. He made a table of plain boards on which they ate their frugal meals, two chairs given them by Mr. Mosier, a few dishes, a stove, and corn-shuck bed constituted the equipment. Later, the log house was supplanted by a fine residence, where he passed the remainder of his days, until his decease, in March. 1905.
It was not uncommon for him to shoot deer from the door of his log house, his gun always hanging on the wall ready for emer- gencies.
He was a diligent reader of good books. He loved nature, the waving fields, trees, flowers, birds, and music. The show and glit- ter of town life had little attraction for him, but the beauties of Art and Nature touched him deeply. Early, he set apart fifty acres remaining after the Sherman purchase to be kept for his children. He planted thereon the most beautiful trees he could find, the hard, or Rock Maple (Acer saccharinum), being his special favorite. Happily, he lived to enjoy the fruition of his labor, in the produc- tion of one of the most attractive residence tracts in the city, and it is charted on the map of the city as Kingman Boulevard Addi- tion. On his decease, it was divided among his children.
Politically, he was a Republican, but he was not made up for a politician by taste nor adaptation.
Socially, he was of pleasing personality, thoroughly domestic in taste and habit. Love of home, family and friends were his chief incentives of action. His children were his confidants, and it was his dominant thought to make them feel that home was the best place on earth. He was genial, benevolent, and sympathetic. \n incident characteristic of his sympathy, especially for the needy,
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was manifested when he was working for Mr. Mosier, in the Win- ter of 1852. Mrs. Jane Swan, a widow, and daughter, Lucy, lived at an isolated place, at what is now the corner of Thirty-fifth and University Avenne. The weather was severe, and he discovered that they had great difficulty in getting fuel, and needed other assistance. He suggested to the mother that he make his home with them, and render them such help as he could. The following Winter, he was prostrated for many weeks with a severe attack of Typhoid Fever, during which he was carefully and tenderly nursed to convalescence by the mother and daughter. With them, he remained until his marriage. Later, the mother left town. Lucy married O. R. Jones, and went to Texas. In March, 1885, she returned, a widow, far advanced in years, without visible means of support. Kingman at once took her to his home, and during the Summer, built a small, comfortable house for her on his farm, where she lived care-free until the Spring of 1901, when she acci- dentally had an arm broken. He then secured a place for her in the Home for the Aged.
He was a liberal supporter of the church and school, and nearly continuously a Director, Trustee, or Treasurer of a School Board. He was not a member of any clubs or fraternal organizations.
Religiously, he had been trained by his parents in the faith of the so-called Orthodox Congregational Church, with which he uni- ted when young, but after coming West, did not place his member- ship with any church, for in his latter days he believed that true religion depends on facts; not on theory, but on acts. He was a Christian man, of most exemplary character, and a true type of the pioneers who lived and labored for the good of their posterity.
June Twenty-ninth, 1900, he divided among his twelve children five hundred and sixty-two acres of land, all in Polk County, and not a part of Kingman Place, reserving amply sufficient for him- self and his mother, and, with contentment, waited the coming of the night which has no to-morrow.
August Fourth, 1907.
GEORGE A. JEWETT
GEORGE A. JEWETT
A N old settler who has had part in the development of Polk County and Des Moines in a quiet, yet none the less poten- tial way, is George A. Jewett, a Hawkeye by birth.
Born in Red Rock, Marion County, September Ninth, 1847, of mixed ancestry (to be precise, three-eighths English, one-fourth Scotch, one-eighth Welsh, one-eighth French, one-eighth Hollander) -he passed his first ten years on a farm, and attended the common school. A favorite camping-place of the Indians was near Red Rock, and George made himself chummy with the Indian boys. While they could beat him shooting with bows and arrows, and riding ponies bareback, he could beat them at marbles, but they soon taught him to become a very good arrow-shooter, and he does not believe he ever had more real enjoyment than he had with those children of the forest. Referring to the sources of amusement in his youth, a few days ago, he said his Uncle, Simpson Matthews, had a team of buffaloes with which he used to haul heavy loads from Keokuk.
Following the failure of the river improvement scheme, came the project, in 1857, for a railroad from Keokuk to Fort Des Moines, with its hopes and expectations intensified by the money panic and procrastination in building it. Great was the discom- fiture of the Red Rockers when the road went to Pella, and left them out in the cold, it being so contrary to all custom.
In 1857, when George was ten years old, his mother removed to Pella, so that he and a brother could attend the University there. He entered the Primary Department, and later took a regular course. Dean A. N. Currier, who, for forty years, was one of the professors in the State University, was one of his teachers.
In 1861, when the Rebel shot fell on Fort Sumter, nearly the entire school enlisted in the army, Dean Currier going with his boys. George offered himself, but was rejected because he was
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four years short of the age limit. His brother went through the war, and at the close mysteriously disappeared, and was never heard of afterward.
On his rejection from the army, George left the school and went to work on a farm, where he remained until 1865, when he went to a commercial college in Chicago for a six months' course in book- keeping, and in Angust of that year came to Des Moines, walking from Pella, as Colonel Hooker charged ten cents a mile to ride in his coaches, George's purse being short on dimes. Arriving at the top of Capitol Hill, he looked westward over the landscape, as did Harrison Lyon, in 1852, and was so well pleased, he decided to make it his future home. He crossed Court Avenue bridge, paid an entrance to the West Side of one eent toll, and became a denizen.
His first movmeut was for a job as bookkeeper. After seareh- ing the town over for several days, and finding none, he footed it to Boonesville, where his uncle, Joseph M. Thrift, father of Adju- tant General Thrift, resided. After carefully quizzing him a few days, his uncle advised him to go back to Des Moines and stick, and he walked back again. A few days later, he sauntered into the store of I. & J. Kuhn, when a man named Wolfe, an entire stran- ger, asked him if he wanted a job. George informed him that was just what he was very much in need of. As was the custom of the pioneers, to help one another, Wolfe gave him a letter of commend- ation to Brown, Beattie & Spofford, agricultural implement deal- ers at First and Court Avenue. He got the job at twenty dollars a month and board, and remained with the house eight years, the business having finally passed to William Dickerson, whose daugh- ter, Jennie, became famous as an opera singer.
In April, 1872, he assisted Coryden E. Fuller, John A. Elliott. James Callanan, Samuel Merrill, John W. Ulm, James B. Heart- well, John M. Coggeshall, John M. Owens, M. T. Russell, C. C. Carpenter, Brown & Dudley, I. N. Thomas, and J. G. Weeks in organizing the Iowa Loan and Trust Company, with a limited capital of one million dollars, to make loans on real estate securi- ties, with which he remained until he went into the lumber busi- ness. The company is still doing an extensive business, having, as shown by its last official report, deposits amounting to two million,
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five hundred and fifty thousand, seven hundred and ninety-one dol- lars and forty-eight cents.
In 1873, George, as everybody called him, abandoned threshing machines, plows, and harrows, and became bookkeeper for H. F. Getchell & Sons, lumber dealers, at Eighth and Vine, where he served until 1879, when he formed a partnership with D. R. Ewing and Ed. S. Chandler, in the lumber business, at Sixth and Cherry, until 1881, when the Wabash Railroad Company wanted a station, and got possession of the lumber yard site under condemnation pro- ceedings. The lumber company then purchased the block at Ninth and Grand, which, two years prior, had been offered the city for a park for ten thousand dollars, but the lumber company had to pay twenty thousand dollars for it. In 1906, George purchased all the interest of the Ewing Estate, Ewing having died, and organ- ized the Jewett Lumber Company.
His life work thus far had been of a clerical or mercantile nature, but his dominant thought had always been toward mechan- ieal industries. He wanted to do things, to see the wheels go round. In 1871, he organized the Des Moines Seale Company, with F. R. West, President ; S. F. Spofford, Vice-President; Wes- ley Redhead, Treasurer, and himself Secretary. Its business was the manufacture of hay and stock scales, and did a good business, and, though it has passed through several changes, it is still in operation.
In 1888, he became interested in an invention for the applica- tion of a new principle in the construction of a typewriting machine, known as the "Duplex." He organized a company to manufacture it, and was made President. It was soon discovered that the keyboard of the "Duplex" was so unlike that of other machines with which users had become accustomed, the company devised another machine, and named it the "Jewett." It was well received, and took the highest award at the World's Fair in Chi- eago, and the first gold medal at the Paris Exposition, in 1900. During the past fifteen years, George has traveled over Europe in the interest of his machine, until there is not a civilized country on the face of the globe in which it is not in use, thus carrying the name of Des Moines to all parts of the world. As there is but one
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Des Moines, there ean be no question as to identification. The eom- pany has paid to labor in Des Moines over one million, five hun- dred thousand dollars.
I'mfortunately, some time ago, Eastern capitalists, deeming it a good thing, began purchasing a controlling interest in the stock of the company, so as to remove the plant to their territory. For sev- eral years, George has been resisting their seheme, which has neces- sitated some litigation in the eonrts and retarded the growth of the company, but it is his aim yet to build a large factory in Des Moines.
Politieally, he is a Republican. Before the War of the Rebel- lion, he was an Abolitionist, and as a driver, he onee made two trips from the "station," at Nine-Mile Honse, between Pella and Oskaloosa, to a point near Monroe, on the "Underground Rail- road," with runaway slaves going to Canada.
He never held any publie office, except in 1866, Frank Palmer had him appointed a representative of the Smithsonian Institution, which then had charge of the weather service. Instruments were sent to him, and three times a day he took the state of the weather, which was printed every morning in the Daily Register, and every week he made his report to Washington. He was the pioneer of the Weather Bureau Service in Des Moines.
Socially, he is genial, courteous and of generous temperament. Ile has always been actively identified with the church and school life of the community. In 1878, he was one of the organizers of the Young Men's Christian Association, and was its first Secre- tary. Its meetings were held in the City Conneil chamber, in Sherman Bloek, at Third and Court Avenue.
He was an active participant in the founding of Drake Univer- sity, in 1881, was elected one of the Trustees, and soon after Sec- retary of the Board, and holds both places yet. He has been a vigorous worker with General Drake, Carpenter, and Bell in the upbuilding of the institution.
He is a member of the Grant and Commercial clubs, but not of any fraternal organizations.
Religiously, he is a member of the Central Church of Christ. In 1866, he was elected Church Clerk; in 1881, Church Treasurer,
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and has held both offices since those dates. In 1868, he was chosen Deacon, and in 1887 an Elder.
In 1887, he started a Mission Sunday School on the East Side, which culminated in the erection of a chapel at Twelfth and Des Moines streets. The same year, he, with the Reverend Doctor Breeden, founded the Christian Worker, a monthly paper devoted to the interests of the Christian churches of the city. Upon the departure of Doctor Breeden from the city, the Reverend Finis Idleman, his pastoral successor, has assumed the editorial chair of the paper.
September Fifteenth, 1907.
SOLOMON BALES
SOLOMON BALES
A MARKED characteristic of the pioneers was conservatism, industry, frugality, integrity, and helpfulness. They came hither to make and build homes. A religious element also largely permeated the different settlements, which induced early movement to establish the church and school. A typical represent- ative of this element was Solomon Bales. He was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, February Twenty-eighth, 1807. His father, Dilman Bales, whose sister married Aaron Burr, was a Virginian, of Welsh and English descent. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, and so noted as a sharpshooter as to gain the soubriquet of "Sure Shot Dill." Solomon's mother was of Scotch- Irish parentage.
While the father was away in the army, Solomon, then five years old, with his mother, in the blockhouse, could hear the roar- ing of the cannon. He often told his children how his mother wept, and exclaimed: "O, that wicked war!" she being a Quaker- ess. Solomon amused himself carrying water for the wives of the officers, and in that way earned his first shilling.
Soon after the close of the war, Solomon and his mother, in a small wagon, his father walking with gun in hand, crossed the Cumberland Mountains to Kentucky, where they remained for a short time, and then removed to Tippecanoe County, Indiana. There the father located a large tract of land, and Solomon passed his boyhood days in helping to improve it. On reaching his major- ity, he engaged in farming and raising, buying and selling live- stock. He was very successful, and accumulated considerable wealth. He built the first large brick house west of La Fayette, in 1834, also two large barns, and had one of the finest homes in the county.
In 1838-1839, he became surety on bonds for some of his busi- ness friends, who failed to meet their obligations, and he was
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obliged to make good their failure, which took nearly all his prop- erty, with nothing to show for it.
He came to Polk County in February, 1846, and purchased a claim for several hundred acres of land in what was known as the Saylor Settlement. The county had not then been surveyed, and there was no title to land except that of a claim-holder, which was held inviolable by the squatters and early settlers. A person who had preempted a claim in good faith, could sell his interest and claim rights therein for what he could get. Solomon's claim lay along the east side of Des Moines River, west of Saylor Grove. It was densely covered with timber, consisting of Walnut, Hickory, Black Cherry, Wild Loeust. Cottonwood, Linn, and several kinds of Oak. There were about two hundred Rock Maple trees, from which many barrels of sugar and syrup were made.
The first work done after his arrival was to eut away trees, dig out the stumps and brush, roll up the logs and brush, and burn them over a space sufficient to put a cabin, surrounded with a vard and garden, near an ever-flowing spring of sparkling water, saving enough Linn and Cottonwood trees from which to cut the clap- boards and puncheon floor for the unhewed log cabin, 10x12 feet, with two six-light windows, and one door. The garden was early planted for Summer vegetables.
After getting his oldest daughter, Susannah, and her husband, Eli. Keeler, comfortably settled in that cozy cottage, he returned to Indiana, and, gathering together what was left of his once valu- able holdings, in September, with a family of fourteen, started for his new Western home. The incidents of the journey are related under the title, "The Saylors," Volume II, page Two Hundred and Fifty-five.
Soon after his arrival, Solomon built a large, comfortable cabin and made extensive improvement. He also built the first saw mill in the county, on Des Moines River, and furnished lumber for many of the first frame buildings at The Fort.
One day, he came to the shop of Conrad D. Reinking, the first cabinet maker in Des Moines, and said to him : "If thee will make a table and cupboard from Cherry lumber for my daughter, I will give thee what boards thee wants for thy work." The work was done, and the gift was duly appreciated by the daughter.
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SOLOMON BALES
Solomon had been strictly taught the religion of the Quakers, and during his early life attended regularly meetings of the con- gregation on First Day, and often the Fourth Day of each week. He was all his life a devoted Christian man. There being but few Quakers in his vicinity, and ne organized Society of Friends, he took great interest in promoting churches and schools of all denom- inations. His generons, kindly nature embraced all human kind. His isolation from people of his faith was a sore grievance to him, and he frequently went to Oskaloosa to attend the Yearly Meeting of the church.
In 1869, he decided to dispose of his holding and go to Kansas, where land was cheaper, and settle his younger children. After locating and helping to improve three farms there, in 1886, he purchased a fine home in Lawrence, and there passed the remain- der of his days in ease, comfort and enjoyment of the privileges of his church, until 1887, when he was laid to rest in the Friends' Cemetery.
Politically, he was a Henry Clay Whig until the Republican party was organized, when he joined that, but he took little part in partisan politics, and never held a public office.
Socially, he was of genial, generous, kindly temperament. He was a Friend in all that term implies, and for which he paid a costly price, in one instance, over forty thousand dollars.
June Second, 1907.
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WILLIAM LOWRY
WILLIAM LOWRY
A PIONEER who tasted the Cup of Misfortune and passed through the Valley of Trouble was the well-known William Lowry.
He was born in the county of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Febru- ary Fourteenth, 1835, of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His grandfather came to America from Ireland in 1798, and settled in Lancaster. Later, four brothers came and settled in different parts of the coun- try, but he never saw them after they reached America.
William passed his boyhood days with his father, who was a hatter, and acquired such education as he could in the public school of that day, which was supplemented with a course in Franklin College.
In 1851, when sixteen years old, he was apprenticed for four years to learn the trade of carpenter. At the close of his appren- ticeship, he worked one year as a journeyman.
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