USA > Iowa > Polk County > Pioneers of Polk County, Iowa, and reminiscences of early days, Vol. II > Part 4
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"Insulted and injured, as they felt, it was no wonder the Indians concluded to borrow some white men's guns in the same way theirs had been borrowed. At Cherokee, they went into the houses and took the guns and some provisions, but hurt no one. They then went on to the next white settlement, Peterson, twelve miles, where they took more guns and provisions; then ou up to Spirit Lake, where, at one of the first houses, the people were scared, and a man shot an Indian. Then the fighting and killing began.
"It was, and still is, hard for me to realize that my old friend and neighbor, whom I never knew guilty of a mean act, could have sanctioned the cruel, bloodthirsty deeds committed during the hor- rible Spirit Lake Massacre.
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"In our neighborhood, at first, there were but three families within a radius of twenty miles. It was necessary for our men to go with loads to Kanesville, now Council Bluffs. The third man would stay and do chores for the two absent men. The women and children would stay at my cabin. Sometimes, for days and weeks, my wife and four children would be intrusted, as you might say, to the care of Ink-pa-du-a-tah and his band. I could relate many acts of his kindness. He would come to the cabin, and ask if any- thing could be done. If logs were needed for the immense fire- place, he would send up squaws to carry them in, and the table was supplied with the choicest of their fish and venison. He taught me the Sioux language, and many hours have we set together by my fireplace, exchanging knowledge of our languages. My pronuncia- tion of one word always afforded him great amusement. It was the word signifying the internal ear, or ear-hole. I could not speak it right, and he would lean back and laugh heartily. It finally became his invariable custom to pronounce that word for me when he wanted to bring the lesson to a close. He called me Ah-si-a-tah (accent on the second syllable), which means, so far as I could understand it, 'many good things in one person.'"
Asked how he first met Ink-pa-du-a-tah, he replied :
"I came to Iowa in 1850, took a claim in Township Eighty-six, Range Forty-four, on Little Sioux River, in what is now Little Sioux Township, Woodbury County, about thirty miles southeast from Sioux City, and built a log cabin. In the Fall of 1852, about twenty miles north, were some Indian camps. One day, a Spaniard, named Joe Maryville, came to my cabin with a horse and sleigh, and two Indians on their way from Sergeant's Bluff to these Indian camps, with blankets and other goods to trade with the Indians. He also had some alcohol. They stopped at my cabin over night. I made them bunks on the floor, as comfortable as possible. While there, Joe doped the alcohol with water, all it would bear, and went up to the Indian camp. He first traded his blankets and other stuff for furs, and the next morning let go the firewater. Knowing the nature of the stuff, he deemed it prudent to get out early, and went to 'hitch up,' but his horse was gone. Concluding it would take the back track to my stable, where it stopped the night before,
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he took the trail, arriving about ten o'clock, where the horse was having a good feed and waiting for him. He mounted him, and went back to get the sleigh. By that time the dope had got in its work, the Indians were fighting drunk, and having a regular knock- down and drag-out. The squaws had taken their papooses and gone to the timber for safety.
"There were two bands of Indians. Ink-pa-du-a-tah was the chief of one band, and Wah-se-bo-be-do chief of the other. In the affray, a brother of Ink-pa-du-a-tah was killed, and Wah-se-bo-be-do badly wounded by stabbing. Joe finally succeeded in stopping the fight, and persuaded the two bands to separate, Inka-pa-du-tah to go north, and Wah-se-bo-be-do to go south, where help for his wounds could be secured. Muz-ze-min, a Medicine Man, had a tepee not far from my cabin. He was an uncle of Wah-se-bo-be-do, who evidently knew where he was, for he sent an Indian boy down to his tepee to tell him that he was wounded, and his band was coming down with him. Muz-ze-min told the boy to go back and meet them, and tell them to bring Wah-se-bo-be-do to the white man's cabin. Muz-ze-min then came and told me what he had done. I said that was all right, though most of our conversation was in pantomime, as I had not then learned much of the Sioux language. After some time, I saw the Indians coming. Wah-se-bo- be-do was walking very feebly, and when he came to our porch, he seemed too weak to step up. I went out and helped him in, and set a chair, but he motioned to the floor. My wife hastily put a straw bed and some blankets on the floor, and he lay down. All this time Muz-ze-min sat with his elbows on his knees and face covered with his hands. After a while, he went and sat down by Wah-se-bo-be-do, leaned over, said a few words, and kissed him. After a short talk, he examined, with much tenderness, the wound, which was a stab with a knife, and had pierced one lung, from which air and blood escaped at each respiration. My wife brought bandages, and Muz- ze-min dressed the wound with some powders of his own make. They then went down to the tepees which the squaws had pitched, where they stayed all night. I think they were afraid Inka-pa-du- tah would come down from the north, for they all left for Ser- geant's Bluff the next day, and I never saw Wah-se-bo-be-do again, though I was told he recovered.
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"Not many days after, I was at work in the timber, when the children came rushing to me in great excitement, saying the house was full of Indians. Hurrying home, I found them there, their faces covered with war paint, and in an apparently ugly mood. Feeling sure it was the band that had fought Was-se-bo-be-do's band, and knowing I had aided and befriended their enemy, and not understanding a word of their language, I was somewhat puz- zled to know what course to pursue. I set to thinking mighty fast to decide what to do to pacify them. Knowing the surest way to a person's good nature was through the stomach; that the Indians were fond of turnips; that I had some good turnips stored away, I got a quantity and distributed them around. Each took one and laid it on the floor, without uttering a word or a grunt, which was a bad sign ; neither did they offer me a pipe to smoke, for they were all smoking, which was another bad sign. Meanwhile, the chil- dren played around, and their mother went on with her work, as if she was undisturbed. After an hour of this suspense, Inka-pa-du- a-tah picked up his turnip, the others following him. After eating their turnips, he came and shook hands with me first, and all the others followed. They then went to their tepees, not far away, where they remained all Winter. We became quite friendly. Ink- pa-du-a-tah taught me their language, and I taught him our's, and the white man's ways. My cabin was always open to him, and he became a firm friend of my wife and children. For three success- ive Falls, he returned and camped on my place, and traded with me. He told me they went north every Spring to where the wild ducks and geese laid their eggs, of which the Indians are very fond. While with me, they would hunt and trap. I loaned them a lot of steel traps, and they always returned them in the Spring before going north. They would trade me elk, deer, otter, mink, beaver, wolf, fox, and other skins, and venison hams, which I took to Council Bluffs, then called Kanesville, ninety miles distant, where I sold them for cash. I remember one lot of furs and four hundred hams which brought six hundred and eighty dollars in gold. With the proceeds of the sales, I would buy a general stock of Indian goods, together with provisions for my family. Sometimes I would have three or four yoke of oxen hitched to my load, making two
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trips during the Winter and one during the Summer, as the Sum- mer trade did not amount to very much, with only roving bands of Yankton Sioux.
"The third Fall on my claim, in 1853, two Indians of Ink-pa-du- a-tah's band came to my cabin and told me the Indians were com- ing, loaded down with furs, and wished I would go with a wagon and lighten their load. I yoked two yoke of oxen to a wagon, loaded up with some cornmeal and other goods, and went up in company with Sam. Day, who was staying with us at that time. We met the Indians about six miles north in a small open prairie. After shaking hands with all the warriors, we decided to come back about a mile, where there was timber and water, and there we camped. The Indians built a big fire, the squaws pitched the tepces and pre- pared a supper. Having taken our own food, Sam. and I ate together. After supper, business was lively. As fast as I could scoop up cornmeal in a pint measure, an Indian would take it and hand me a package of muskrat skins, five in a package. I counted them the first few times, but soon grew tired of that, and just threw them into the wagon as fast as I could. I was never cheated by them. I traded wool blankets, heavy mackinaws, for buckskins, getting ten buckskins for a blanket. After finishing trading, we retired peacefully for the night, and everything was quiet until daylight. We were early astir, and after breakfast, moved south- ward. When within three miles of my cabin, the Indians said they would camp there, the grass in the woods being still green and fresh for their ponies. Sam. and I went on home.
"A few days later, Ink-pa-du-a-tah came and told me there were 'min-ne-has-ka' (white men), 'num-pah' (two), in a small grove a mile and a half east of their camp, who had whiskey to sell to his men ; that they had come to his camp with bottles of whiskey, and treated his warriors, and given them to understand by signs that they had a barrel of whiskey to sell. He said he did not want his men to have it, as they would get mad and fight. He asked me what he should do; should he go and break the barrel ? I said, 'No,' that I would go up to his camp that night. That was all I said, but he went away perfectly satisfied. That evening, quite early, I, with my hired man, Zachary Allen, went to the Indian
VOL. II-(4).
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camp. I wanted to get positive evidence the men were selling whiskey to the Indians. I told the Indians to dress Zach. and myself like Indians, and we would go with them and get whiskey. They had lots of sport dressing us up, and we made quite respect- able looking Indians. We put blankets over our heads, drawn tight about the face to hide our beards. After donning our garments, we were much surprised to see how much larger we seemed than the Indians. We went over to the white man's camp, and found two Spaniards with a big bonfire. They invited the Indians to come nearer and get warm. They passed around a little whiskey, but soon detected us, and I heard one of them say to the other in an undertone: 'I wonder who told those fellows we were here?' They would do nothing more that evening, and early the next morning they were gone.
"I relate this to show that Ink-pa-du-a-tah really wanted his men to be sober, industrious, and law-abiding. He often asked me: 'Have my men ever stolen anything ?' and I could always answer, ·No.'
"No, I never saw Ink-pa-du-a-tah after the massacre at Spirit Lake."
Noticing that he spoke Ink-pa-du-a-tah's name different from its usual appearance in print, I asked why. The reply was: "That is the way it was always spoken by him, with the accent on the third syllable."
Politically, Lamb was a Whig and Abolitionist. He cast his first ballot for William Henry Harrison, in 1840, and has always been a Republican. He is an enthusiastic supporter of Roosevelt, and a firm "Standpatter;" is not a politician, though he keeps him- self thoroughly posted on current events through the papers; has never asked a public office, though he helped to organize Woodbury County, was elected the first Justice of the Peace in the county, which office, or some other township office, he has held continuously since. He takes an active part in educational affairs, and has been a member of school boards many years.
Socially, he is not connected with any of the fraternal organiza- tions, though he is fond of company, a good conversationalist, of genial temperament, and deservedly popular.
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Religiously, in his earlier years, he affiliated with the Metho- dists, but later denounced all creeds, and during the past few years has been a close student of the Bible; has repeatedly read the "Millenial Dawn," a series of books by Russell, and firmly believes they are all true.
Physically, he retains all his faculties to a remarkable degree. The retentiveness of his memory is surprising, and valuable to a compiler of the history of his county. He some time ago retired on Easy Street. For diversion, he cultivates a garden, which is the pride of his life, and he is getting anxious for the lion of March to let go his grip so that gardening may begin .*
April First, 1906.
*Died suddenly, January Third, 1907.
MADISON YOUNG
A PROMINENT early settler, and useful man, was Madison Young, or "Esquire," as everybody in the county knew him. Entering Union College, New York, at the age of twenty- three, he worked his way through, paying his expenses by manual labor, and graduated from the law department at the head of his class. He came here in December, 1849, opened a law office on Second Street, near Market, and at once identified himself with public affairs, especially those respecting schools, in the little ham- let at Raccoon Forks. He was admitted to the Bar the following Spring Term of court, and appointed Special Prosecutor for the counties of Dallas, Warren, Madison, Jasper, Boone, and Mar- shall, the Fifth Judicial District then embracing those counties.
Early in 1850, a movement was made for the formation of a School District, and at a meeting of the Directors, in May, he was elected Secretary. His record says :
"On motion, the electors present proceeded to vote by ballot whether they would levy a tax or not upon the taxable property in School District Number Five, Des Moines Township. One vote was given for a tax, and seventeen votes for no tax. Whereupon, it was declared that there should be no tax raised for the purpose of renting, hiring, building, or buying a schoolhouse at this time, in School District Number Five, Des Moines Township, Polk County, Iowa.
"The meeting then adjourned sine die."
The particularity of this record indicates clearly the methodical manner in which the Esquire did his business.
The community was small, the people were poor, and felt unable to build schoolhouses, and the school was continued in the Court House.
In November, a meeting was held of the Directors to examine Charles L. Alexander respecting his qualifications to teach the school. (See page One Hundred and Twenty, Volume One.)
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It was at this meeting of the Directors a decision was made to purchase a lot and build a schoolhouse, and in 1851, one hundred dollars was paid for one-half acre at the northwest corner of Ninth and Locust, and by slow progress a two-story building was com- pleted in 1855, costing about eleven thousand dollars, and occupied during the Winter term of 1856 by a corps of four teachers, with J. A. Stickney, Principal, and thus was begun the Public School System, with less than three hundred pupils.
In 1851, Young was elected Justice of the Peace and Coroner. During his term occurred the cow case, notable among the early settlers, the details of which are given in the sketch of Judge Curtis Bates. (See page Four Hundred and Twenty-two, Volume One.)
In May, 1855, at a State Conference of the Lutheran Church, it was decided to establish an institution for higher education at some point within forty miles of the Capital, which manifested the most liberality toward it, and to be known as Iowa Central College. Judge Casady, Doctor F. C. Grimmel, Esquire Young, and Cap- tain F. R. West at once took the matter up to secure its location at Des Moines, a characteristic of the pioneers to work unitedly in promoting the welfare of the town, regardless of their individual church associations. A subscription was raised, a site purchased for sixteen hundred dollars, at Fifteenth Street and Woodland Avenue. The proffer was accepted, and during the Summer of 1856, the corner stone was laid and the walls erected, but, because of the hard times and searcity of building material, work was sus- pended for want of funds. At this juncture, Judge Casady, Father Bird, Esquire Young, Captain West, R. W. Sypher, and Doctor Grimmel gave their individual notes, at thirty per cent interest, for a loan of five thousand dollars, to go on with the work, and in 1857, the roof was put on and construction suspended, the bare walls being left exposed to the elements as a deserted building until 1865, when the property was sold to the Baptist denomination. A subscription fund of twelve thousand dollars was then raised in Des Moines, the building completed, and in 1886 was inaugurated the University of Des Moines, by Elder Nash. Later, the prop- erty was sold and the University became what is now Des Moines College.
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In 1856, Young purchased a tract of several acres on Ninth street, adjoining the present Des Moines College grounds. It was his custom to invest every dollar he could in real estate, most of which was subsequently platted and added to the city. He cleared the tract of its forest and planted a fruit orchard and vineyard. While waiting for the trees to grow, he spent two years in Heidel- burg, Germany, attending university lectures, and in the grape and wine districts on the Rhine, to gain practical knowledge of grape- growing and wine-making. Returning, he built a shanty on his tract, and in Summer, living alone, cultivated his trees. In the Winter, he lived in a grout house he had built just south of 'Coon River, while experimenting with Reverend Doctor Peet, the first Episcopal minister, and Henry Scribner, to find a substitute for brick for building purposes. For several years, he cultivated his fruit farm, produced several varieties of luscious apples, and became an expert in making fine wine. Meanwhile, he built a fine two-story house of brick on the tract. His health failing, he very reluctantly sold the farm to Conrad Youngerman. It has since yielded to the encroachment of improvements, is covered with fine residences, the orchard has gone to decay, but the brick house still remains, as the home of Mrs. Anna Ross Clark, near the corner of Fifteenth and North streets.
In 1873, he went to Colorado to regain his health, but before going, made a will bequeathing all his wealth to his brothers, sis- ters, and their children, about thirty-five thousand dollars, except one thousand dollars to his alma mater, Union Colege, and one lot in South Des Moines, which he gave to a colored man named Mur- ray. Failing to get relief in the West, he returned, and in Septem- ber, accompanied by Taylor Pierce, City Clerk, he went to Cin- cinnati Hospital, but the ravages of Consumption had done their work, and October Twenty-third, he ceased to be. In accordance with his expressed desire, his remains were brought here, interred in Woodland Cemetery, and a fine monument designates the spot.
He was public-spirited, charitable, and during his life gave lib- erally to worthy objects, especially in the early days, when help was needed to promote and foster that which tended to the better- ment of society.
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Socially, he was reserved, taciturn, abjured society affairs and functions, preferring the single life of a bachelor. In 1850, when Pioneer Lodge, Number Twenty-two, A. F. and A. M., was organ- ized, he was the first person admitted to membership. When, in the same year, Fort Des Moines Lodge, I. O. O. F., was organized, he was one of the charter members, and elected its first Noble Grand.
There being no other place available, its first meetings were held in the Clerk's office at the Court House. Soon after, a second story was added to Granville Holland's store on Second Street, near Vine. In both lodges, Young was an active and efficient member, their exelusiveness being congenial to his temperament.
Religiously, he was an Episcopalian. In 1855, when Saint Paul's Church was organized, Young became one of the first Board of Vestry. Meetings were held at the residences of church mem- bers, and wherever a place could be obtained, until, in 1856, Edwin Hall donated a lot on Seventh Street, where now is the annex to the Younker store, and a small chapel was erected. Doctor Peet, the first Rector, was a missionary-a noble, worthy man-who, with Father Bird and Elder Nash, formed a triumvirate of good- ness and virtue which laid the foundation of that publie sentiment which has made this a widely notable community of schools and churches.
Politically, Young was a radical Whig, but not a politician. The only public office he held was given him when there were not Whigs enough in the township to form a Corporal's guard.
He was a man of many idiosyneracies and eccentricities, one of which was talking to himself during his later years. He would visit places of business and quietly sit for an hour muttering to himself, or he could be seen walking the street talking to himself, and emphasizing his conversation with gestures of the hand. It was absent-mindedness, not from mental aberration.
April Eighth, 1906.
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SETH GRAHAM
SETH GRAHAM
A N old-timer in Des Moines, and one of its best-known citi- zens is Seth Graham, a genuine Buckeye, born in Wayne County, Ohio, April Thirteenth, 1831, of Scottish ancestors, who emigrated to America in 1793.
In 1838, his father moved to Pike County, Illinois, where, as a millwright, he resided until 1842, when he removed to Perry County, Illinois. In the meantime, Seth attended the district schools, assisted his father, and became familiar with the use of mechanical tools. In Perry County, he was employed in a wagon shop, carpenter shop, and did mill work for two years.
In 1849, when eighteen years of age, he struck out for himself, and paddled his own canoe. In 1850, he landed in Iowa, and went to burning lime in Cedar County for fifteen dollars per month. In the Fall of that year, he made a contract with N. L. Milburn, an extensive bridge builder, and built bridges on Cedar River, on the Des Moines, at Keosauqua, in 1851-1852; on the Skunk, at Rome, on the road from Fairfield to Mount Pleasant, in 1852-1853.
In the Fall of 1853, he began the building of the steamboat, N. L. Milburn, at Iowaville, on Des Moines River. The hull was completed and towed into an inlet for the Winter, and to protect it against floating ice in the Spring. The next morning it was found water-logged. Milburn charged Andrew Jackson Davis, he of the famous Colorado Will Case, a few years ago, who was running a saw mill on the opposite side of the river, and with whom he had, in common with many others, trouble in the courts, with sinking the hull. Early in the Spring, an attempt was made to raise it and get it back to the yard for completion, but a high wind got control of it and blew it across the river in Davis' bailiwick, where it landed in the underbrush. Milburn called Seth and told him to go and borrow John Jordan's revolver, quietly slip over to the boat, and guard it, for "the man who sunk it will try it again to-night."
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Seth went and whispered his want to Jordan, who took the revolver from his desk and slipped it into Seth's overcoat pocket. Seth then crept stealthily on board the craft. It was a bad night; the wind was high and frigid; there was no escape from it except to crawl into one of the empty boilers, which he did, making himself as comfortable as possible, ocasionally thrusting his head out of the "manhole" to see if the coast was clear. The dreary night passed, however, without disturbance. Crawling out of his post early in the morning, and stretching himself to take the kinks out of his anatomy, he examined his trusty revolver, the six chambers of which contained not a sign of a charge; neither had he one in his pockets.
The hull was moved to its yard again and hustled to completion, making its first trip May Sixteenth, to Keokuk, thence back to Eddyville. About twelve miles below Red Rock was a good coal mine, where the Milburn got its coal. The boat was kept busy, and on one of its trips, the Badger State was found lying fast on a rock just below Ottumwa, and heavily loaded with freight for Des Moines. The freight was transferred to the Milburn, and on the Nineteenth of June, pulled out for "Raccoon Forks." Among the passengers on the Badger State were Colonel J. M. Griffith, then running a general merchandise store, and Jesse Dicks, a stove and hardware merchant, both on Second Street, who had been to Saint Louis to buy goods. When within a few miles of the coal mine, the steamboat J. B. Gordon was discovered coming after them at full speed, apparently to cut the Milburn out at the coal mine. The pilot ran along slowly, until the Gordon got close on, when barrels of tar were rolled out, the heads knocked in, the wood plunged into the tar, and then under the boilers. The Milburn forged ahead and struck the coal dock with a thud that sent everybody sprawling on the deck, but she got the coal.
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