USA > Iowa > Polk County > Pioneers of Polk County, Iowa, and reminiscences of early days, Vol. II > Part 32
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429
SAMUEL GRAY
Ten, in Township Seventy-eight, north of Range Twenty-four, west of the Fifth Principal Meridian, in the district of lands subject to sale at Iowa City, Iowa, containing one hundred and forty-four aeres and thirty-three hundredths of an aere, according to the Offi- cial Plat of the survey of the said lands, returned to the General Land Office by the Surveyor General, which said traet has been purchased by the said Andrew Groseclose, James Mount, and Thomas Black, Commissioners aforesaid; now
"Know Ye, That the United States of America, in consideration of the premises, and in conformity with the several Acts of Con- gress, in such case made and provided, have given and granted, and by these presents do give and grant unto the said Andrew Grose- close, James Mount, and Thomas Blaek, Commissioners aforesaid, and to their successors, the said traet above described ; to have and to hold the same, together with all the rights, privileges, immuni- ties and appurtenanees of whatsoever nature thereunto belonging, unto the said Andrew Groseelose, James Mount, and Thomas Black, Commissioners aforesaid, and to their successors and assigns for- ever.
"In Testimony Whereof, I, Zachary Taylor, President of the United States of America, have caused these letters to be made patent, and the seal of the General Land Office to be hereunto affixed.
"Given under my hand, at the City of Washington, the Tenth day of April, in the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hun- dred and Forty-nine, and of the Independence of the United States the Seventy-third.
"By the President :
"Z. TAYLOR. "By THos. EWING, JR., "Secretary. "S. H. LAUGHLIN,
"Recorder of the General Land Office.
"Recorded, Volume Three, Page Que Hundred Seventy-two.
"Filed May First, 1855, at Two O'Clock P. M., and recorded same day in Book G, and on Page Five Hundred Sixty-five.
"SAMUEL GRAY,
"Recorder Polk County, Iowa."
[SEAL]
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PIONEERS OF POLK COUNTY, IOWA
At the close of his second term as Recorder, in 1856, Gray entered eighty aeres of school land and forty-three acres of the so- called river land in Bloomfield Township, laid aside the trowel, and began the building of a home. He ereeted a good dwelling- house, barns and sheds, cultivated the land, invested in about eighty lots on the East Side, and was prosperons.
The Eighth General Assembly, by an Act passed March Twenty- second, 1860, abolished the County Commissioner system, under which county affairs had been managed, and provided for a Board of Supervisors, to be composed of one representative from each township in the county. At the November election of that year, Gray was elected the first Supervisor from that township. Under the provisions of the statute, the Board was required to decide by lot, at its first meeting in January, the term of each member, one part to hold one year, the other two years; in the shuffle, "Sammy" drew a one-year term.
In 1883, it was discovered that a large body of stratified coal existed beneath his farm. He therefore leased to a coal company the right to dig the coal for twenty years, which put him in affluent circumstances, and he retired from active business to enjoy it.
Politically, he was a Democrat of the Jacksonian variety, and always ready for a tilt in any politieal serimmage that came up.
Socially, he had the temperament of the typical Corkonian ; was jolly, always bubbling over with humor and Celtie wit; open- hearted, publie-spirited, and esteemed by everybody who knew him -and that embraced the entire county.
July Twenty-first, 1907.
EVAN MORGAN BOLTON
EVAN M. BOLTON
A N early settler who was quite prominent in the early Fifties was Evan Morton Bolton. He was born on the Third day of August, 1813, of English ancestry, his father being a farmer, born in the town of Bolton, England,
When Evan was two years old, his father emigrated to America and settled in Connersville, Indiana, where he engaged in farming and dealing in live-stock. There Evan passed his boyhood days, doing the multifarious tasks which are the usual lot of a boy on a new farm.
His opportunities for attending school were very meager. Not more than six months' schooling was he able to get, and that in the Winter, in a log schoolhonse. During his minority, there lived nearby Phobe Hannah, a comely country lass, whose father, in 1833, came to Iowa with his family and settled in Burlington.
When Evan attained his majority, he went to farming for him- self, and one day, three years later, in 1837, he saddled a horse, filled well a pair of saddlebags, and started on a journey of nearly a thousand miles, through an uninhabited wilderness, to find Phœbe Hannah. As all things are possible to him who wills, he succeeded. They were married, and he returned to his home in Connersville, his bride accompanying him, also on horseback, an unusual, but truly a "bridle" tour.
In 1849, he had an attack of Gold Fever, which induced him to sell his farm and start for California, which he did in 1851, but after shipping his goods to New York for the water route around "The Horn," he switched off and landed in Cincinnati, where he went into the hotel business, first in Camp Washington House, and later the Eight-Mile Honse, on the Coleraine Turnpike. He soon tired of that, sold out, went to Indianapolis, and bought a farm.
In 1856, the new Capital of the State of Iowa was attracting the attention of the people in Eastern states as presenting good
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opportunities for the farmer and mechanic. Bolton, therefore, decided to join the procession thitherward. He again sold his farm and, with his family in a light two-horse spring wagon, by easy drives each day, arrived at the Mississippi opposite Burlington, in May. The river was high and covered the bottom land over a space nearly ten miles wide. His early training, however, had taught him to fear nothing, and he plunged forward, fording the rushing current until he reached the ferry-boat landing, from which he was taken safely to the Iowa shore. Leaving his wife and children with her relatives in Burlington, he came on to Des Moines, arriv- ing in May, and stopped at the Walker House-named after Colonel "Tom" Walker, a "Kentucky Colonel" by brevet, and Registrar of the United States Land Office by favor of President Buchanan- which stood alone on the north side of Locust Street, occupying all the ground from East Fifth to the present Northwestern Railroad tracks, and north to the alley. In July, he purchased the hotel and became its manager.
When the river was high, and the floating bridge at the foot of Sycamore Street became too short at both ends and swung around to the east bank, the Walker House was perforce the headquarters of the Western Stage Company, and did a land office business.
In 1857, Bolton took the mail route from Nevada, in Story County, to Des Moines and return, three times a week, and kept the route until 1862. It was during the famous Skunk River bottoms era. With the river several miles wide, sometimes he was ten days getting ten miles of the distance. Governor Kirkwood, C. F. Clark- son, father of "Ret" and "Dick," and many other notable men were "cooled" on those twenty-mile prairies in Winter, or stuck in the mud of sloughs and Skunk River bottoms. I have a very distinct remembrance of a ride over that route the last night of a bitter cold December, when I made my advent to Des Moines.
In 1857, Bolton started the first lumber yard on the East Side, on the south side of Walnut Street, where the Gilcrest yard now is. The lumber was brought from Keokuk on the steamboat Clara Hine, Captain Hill. As steamboats came only when the river was high, he was obliged to haul considerable lumber by teams from Keokuk.
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EVAN M. BOLTON
In 1862, during the Civil War, a large number of soldiers were detailed for garrison and post duty when they were greatly needed for active service in the field. To relieve them, the War Depart- ment called for a regiment of able-bodied men, forty-five to sixty years old, to relieve the younger men. Iowa quickly responded and raised what was rostered as the Thirty-seventh Infantry, but was known all through the army as the Gray Beard Regiment. Mr. Bolton made strenuous effort to enlist therein, but the doctors refused to accept him as an able-bodied man, to his great disappoint- ment. Every congressional district in the state was represented in it. It became one of the most notable features of the service, vet, singularly, very little was ever said of it in army reports. It ren- dezvoused at Muscatine, was mustered in in December, and in Jan- uary, 1863, was sent to Saint Louis, where it served to guard rail- road trains and military posts until January, 1864, when it was sent to Rock Island, thence, in June, to Memphis, where it had its only engagement with the "Rebs." A detail was sent to guard a train on the Memphis and Charleston Road, and when about thirty- six miles out, the train was fired on by a lot of bushwhackers con- cealed behind brush and fences. The guard being on top of the cars were fully exposed, and two men were killed. The fire was quiekly returned, and it was reported with good effect. From Memphis, the regiment went to Indianapolis, where it was divided, five companies going to Cineinnati and three companies to Gal- lopolis, Ohio. May Fifteenth, 1865, it was reunited at Cineinnati, and on the Twentieth, started for Davenport, where it was mus- tered out on the Twenty-fourth. During its service, it lost by dis- ease, one hundred and thirty-four; battle, two; wounded, three. Most of the men were broken down from hardship and exposures, and did not long survive.
Mr. Bolton was one of the first Justices of the Peace in Lee Township. The prohibitory law was in force then, and no one was allowed to sell spiritous liquor except the authorized agent of the county, who was Doetor D. V. Cole, but there were numerous "holes in the wall" where it could be purchased "on the sly." Numerous seizures were made of the contraband stuff, which helped the lawyers, and some of the best, Jefferson Polk, Judge M. D.
VOL. II-(28).
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PIONEERS OF POLK COUNTY, IOWA
McHenry, W. H. MeHenry ("Old Bill"), "Dan" Finch, Judge Cole, John A. Kasson, and others, twisted the statutes, circum- stances and facts before his Bar. His decisions were rarely reversed.
Politically, he was a Whig, a strong Abolitionist, a personal friend of old John Brown, and, with Isaac Brandt, was one of the Directors of the "Underground Railroad" from Missouri to Can- ada. During the Know-Nothing eraze, he was suspected of know- ing what to say when asked, "What time is it ?" by a man with the second digit of his right hand thrust between the buttons of his waistcoat, or where to go when the sidewalks were strewed with small diamond-shaped pieces of white or red paper.
Socially, he was of positive temperament, inclined to taciturn- ity, a kind neighbor, a zealous friend of the poor, and a popular citizen. He was not a member of any societies or clubs.
Religionsly, he affiliated with the Methodists. Though not a church member, he contributed liberally to churches and for educa- tional purposes.
He died in 1874.
November Twenty-fourth, 1907.
MOSES STRAUSS
MOSES STRAUSS
A N old settler of Polk County who has been a potent factor in business and religious affairs in the city, and yet one of the most quiet and unostentations, is Moses Strauss. He is known principally as a successful merchant, but he is more than that. Not only is he an early settler, he is the founder and builder of an element in the body politic of great helpfulness to the com- munity, thereby adding further graees to its social fabric.
Ile was born Mareh Sixth, 1833, in Bavaria, Germany. He passed his youthful days with his father, who was a merchant, and attended the common schools.
In 1848, not quite fifteen years old, he set sail for America, and landed at New Orleans, where he found employment in a store as elerk, at fifteen dollars per month.
In 1852, he went to New York, and took ship for Australia, and engaged in business in Melbourne about two years. He then went to the Mountains, where he remained for a time, when another rov- ing impulse took him to Africa, and thence to South America.
In 1857, he returned to New Orleans, and the same year came to Des Moines and engaged in business with L. Simon and his brother, Leopold, on Second Street, occupying two small stores.
Later, when trade and business began to move west, Strauss moved to Court Avenne, between Second and Third streets, to the Sherman Block.
In 1886, Alexander Lederer, a man of very courtly manner and dignified personality, formed a partnership with Strauss, under the name of Lederer & Strauss, which name has been continued to the present day. The firm opened a dry goods and clothing store in Exchange Block, at Third and Walnut streets. In 1871, the City Directory places them at Forty-nine and Fifty-one Walnut Street; in 1873, they opened up a stoek of millinery and fancy goods at Ninety-one Walnut Street, still retaining the dry goods
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PIONEERS OF POLK COUNTY, IOWA
and clothing at the old stand. In 1875, they sold out their dry goods stock aud moved their clothing stock to where Evans' restau- rant is now. The following year, they moved the millinery stock from Walnut Street to the old Cooper Building, on Court Avenue, and this business continues to-day, under the firm name of Lederer, Strauss & Company, Incorporated.
In 1872, Mr. Strauss, desiring to invest some of his surplus shekels in banking, became a stockholder and Director in the Citi- zens' National Bank, and has been reelected each year since.
In 1887, he was one of the organizers of the State Savings Bank, was elected one of its Directors, and in 1889 was elected President, which place he has held continuously since.
During the present year, he, with Carl Kahler, built the Majes- tic Theater, at a cost of one hundred thousand dollars, each invest- ing fifty thousand dollars. It is the finest amusement structure west of Chicago, and its interior arrangement not surpassed by any in the United States.
As a business man, he is conservative and optimistic, exercising always those business principles which have given the county and city an enviable financial reputation.
But it is in another field of helpfulness he has been conspicuous, and in which he was the pioneer. Trained and educated in the religious belief of the Hebrews-a religion dating back to the days of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-at the earliest oppor- tunity, he became one of the leaders in organizing the first Hebrew Church, or Synagogue, in Des Moines.
On Saturday, September Fifth, 1873, at the residence of David Goldman, a meeting was held and the congregation of B'Nai Jeshu- rum, which means "Sons of Peace," was organized, with eighteen members. Joseph Kuhn was chosen President; Julius Mandel- baum, Vice-President; Samuel Redstone, Secretary; L. Hirsch, Treasurer. The Trustees were David Goldman, Nelson Goldman, Alexander Lederer; members, S. Joseph, Morris Riegelman, Henry Riegelman, Isaac Hyman, Moses Strauss, L. Samish, Louis M. Doctor,
For six years after the organization, its meetings were held in a hall in the store of Joseph Kuhn, on Court Avenue, between Sec- ond and Third. In 1879, a building at Seventh and Mulberry was
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purchased and remodeled for the use of the congregation. In 1886, a lot at the corner of Eighth and Pleasant was purchased and a temple erected thereon the following year, in which services have since been conducted. The congregation has slowly but steadily increased in numbers, and has become a beneficent factor in the religious and social life of the community.
A large Sabbath School is maintained by the congregation, in which there are four divisions, for instruction in Jewish History, Religion, and Hebrew, by competent teachers.
Beginning with his little store on Second Street, Mr. Strauss has, by enterprise, integrity, and public spirit, become one of the solid, substantial men of the city.
Politically, he is a Democrat, but not in any wise a politician. Socially, he is quiet, taciturn, unostentatious, cares very little about ordinary social functions, is courteous and affable; in tem- perament, decidedly positive. I would classify him with the home- builders. He is a member of Pioneer Lodge, Number Twenty-two, of the Masonic order; Corinthian Chapter, Number Fourteen, Royal Arch Masons; Des Moines Consistory, S. P. R. S., Thirty- second Degree ; a charter member of Lazarus Samisch Lodge of K. S. B., organized November Seventeenth, 1876, and was elected its first Vice-President.
December First, 1907.
DAVID B. MURROW
DAVID B. MURROW
A PIONEER of Polk County who has been a resident for sixty years, and prominently identified with its development, is David B. Murrow.
Born in Parke County, Indiana, March Second, 1832, of Scotch- Irish ancestry on the side of his father, and Welsh on that of his mother, he passed the days of his youth on the farm of his father, who, in addition to farming, dealt in live-stock.
During the Winter, he acquired such education as the common school of that time afforded, in a log schoolhouse with puncheon floor and słab seats, without back or desk.
He attended no other school, but by keen observation and dili- gent reading, stored his mind with such intelligence as made him successful in business, a good and helpful citizen.
In the Fall of 1843, having a family of children and a very small farm, his father decided to come to Iowa, where there was inore land to the acre and more acres to be had, not only for him- self, but prospectively for his children as they reached their major- ity. Accordingly, with the proverbial "prairie schooner," loaded with bedding, a few household utensils, and clothing, with his fam- ily, he came to Henry County, driving also a herd of cattle and sheep, camping at night, or seeking the shelter of a convenient set- tler's cabin, and located about eight miles west of Mount Pleasant, where he remained one year, when he removed to Jefferson County, near Fairfield. In the Fall of 1846, he came to Polk County, and located a claim of one hundred and sixty acres of Government land four miles west of Fort Des Moines, on which are now the railroad shops at Valley Junction. He hired a man to build a log cabin with puncheon floor, on the claim, and returned to Jefferson County. In March, 1847, he sold his holdings and came to Fort Des Moines, bringing with him a drove of cattle, sheep and hogs. He crossed the Des Moines River on the ice. There was not a
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frame building in the village. Everybody was living and doing business in log cabins.
He took possession of his log cabin and began the cultivation of his claim. As the years passed, the Murrow farm became conspic- nous for its improvements, magnificent grove of timber, and adja- cent highly cultivated fields. The stork very generously brought him six girls and seven boys, who are married and all living on a farm except David.
David remained on the farm until he was twenty years old, when his father offered him his time if he so desired, as there was little doing, and he went to work for Davis Boone, at Booneville, at twenty dollars per month. At the expiration of the second month, his father sent for him to come back to the farm. Though Boone offered to largely increase his wages, he considered his services more naturally due to his father. He went back and worked two years for nine dollars per month. He then rented twenty acres of Alex. Scott, on the East Side, where the Rock Island Depot now is, plowed it with one horse and a shovel plow, having to go three times across the field for a furrow, so small was the plow ; planted the field to corn, cultivated it carefully, had a big crop, and sold it to Alfred Lyon for twelve dollars an acre in the field. With the proceeds, and that from the sale of his horse, he purchased one hundred and sixty acres four miles west of his father's farm, in Walnut Township. On his father's farm, he cut down trees and got logs for a cabin. For lumber for flooring, sheathing, and raft- ers, he hauled logs to a sawmill two miles east of Adel, and had them sawed. At one end of the cabin was a stick and mud chim- ney, with a big fireplace to take in four logs five feet long, to fur- nish calorie to keep the cabin comfortable in Winter and do the cooking. For glass in the windows, oiled paper was substituted. He put a family in the cabin, and boarded with them. His land was open prairie. The first crop raised was sod corn.
Sometimes, the flour and corn meal became exhausted. The weather and roads were bad, mills far away, and corn meal could only he got by grating the corn on the cob. The meal was a little coarse, but it satisfied the hunger and bred no dyspepsia. From the first crop of wheat he raised, he took a load to Oskaloosa, the
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nearest milling place, and had to wait eight days for it to be ground -camping under the wagon at night. At another time, in Winter, he took a load of corn to Three Rivers, and waited eight days for his grist-sleeping in the mill at night, with the crowd of other waiters for grists.
In 1859, he married, and soon after sold his farm and went to Kansas, where he remained until 1865, when he returned, pur- chased his father's farm, and at once entered into the social and industrial activities of the community. He still owns the farm, which he has made a very attractive place, and will ere long be needed to provide westward expansion of the city.
When the Iowa National Bank was organized, he became a large stockholder. He is also a heavy stockholder in the Des Moines City Railway Company and the Inter-Urban Railway Company, and has always been an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Polk in his endeavors to develop a system of interurban roads, believing them to be potent factors in the upbuilding of Des Moines.
In 1889, having, by industry and business sagacity, acquired nearly eight hundred Iowa golden acres, divided into four farms, to give his children of minor age better educational advantages, and himself more ease, he built an elegant residence on West Twenty- second Street, and there, undisturbd by the frenzied financiers of Wall Street, is passing his days in contentment, with the conscious assurance of the highest esteem of his neighbors and fellow citizens.
He is of frail physique, nervous sanguine temperament, opti- mistic, seldom indulges in retrospection, keeps daily posted on what is going on in the world at large, has positive opinions of his own, to change which would necessitate the showing that you "are from Missouri."
Politically, he has always been a Republican, though his father was a Democrat, but a strong Union man through the war period. He cast his first vote for President for "The Pathfinder," John C. Fremont. He is not a politician by inclination or adaptation, and would never master the game.
December Fifteenth, 1907.
REV. SANFORD HAINES
PIONEER PREACHERS
S CARCELY had the pioneers of Polk County begun to turn over the sod of the wild, unbroken prairie, when the pioneer preacher began work in the new field. In the rude log cabins and huts of the pioneers, they proclaimed the same gospel that is . preached in the gorgeous temples of to-day, but somehow it seemed to have gained a firmer discipline, and wielded a wider influence amid the simple life of the pioneer than in these latter days, amid the surroundings of wealth and fashion.
Going from place to place, hunting up Christians scattered in the wilderness, getting together a few of the faithful-often only the father and mother-in the cabin, or perchance in the shade of some wide-spreading tree, the Word would be expounded, a song of Zion sung, a prayer uttered, words of cheer, hope and consolation spoken. Thus they went about, founding societies, toning up moral sentiment, directing publie thought, and made the advancing line on Christian civilization as it pressed upon savage life and the wilderness.
Of such a type was Sanford Haines, born in Champaign County, Ohio, December Sixteenth, 1816, of Scotch-Irish descent. His father was a farmer, and on a farm he remained until 1841.
During his boyhood days, he acquired such an education as was possible in the common schools of that time and place, which he supplemented with untiring effort at self-education during early manhood. At the age of fifteen, it was necessary for him to leave his home and fight the battle of life on his own account, and he lived mostly among strangers, his associations not being very favor- able to good morals, but the early training of his Christian parents was a good guidon for him. In 1840, he attended a praver-meeting in Union, Ohio, was converted and united with the Methodist Church. He was very methodical, and kept a diary in which he recorded every day its events, showing the place, time and Bible
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