The History of Clinton County, Iowa: Containing a History of the County, Its., Part 75

Author: Western Historical Co , Western Historical Company
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 807

USA > Iowa > Clinton County > The History of Clinton County, Iowa: Containing a History of the County, Its. > Part 75

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In May, 1876, one Paddy Hand, a notorious rough, was arrested for an assault outside of the city limits, and confined for trial in the engine-house, the usual cells being unavailable. Though a one-armed man, his pugnacity had made him a terror to the community. His maimed stump was armed with an iron hook, so that in prowess he was a modern edition of "Goetz of the Iron Hand." The night watchman being decoyed away, on his return, Hand was found dangling by the neck in the tower for drying hose, having been neatly and expeditiously lynched. Nothing ever transpired to indicate who rid the city of a dangerous ruffian and highwayman.

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SUMMARY.

In 1851-52, previous to the railroad excitement, there were no buildings, except a few isolated houses, west of what is now Fourth street. The river- bank was dotted with small houses, interspersed with a few stores. The old Exchange Hotel was close to the present Midland Depot. A small Catholic Church on Fourth street, now used as a liquor store, stood out on a sort of green. The plateau back to the bluffs, except where the pioneers had made improvements, was covered with clumps of dense chaparral, interspersed with timber. The north side of the slough, which at one time it was planned to utilize as a steamboat harbor, was thickly covered with large timber and under- growth. When that portion was afterward platted in 1855, and annexed to the city as Newtown or Buel's Addition, many of the first houses were surrounded with brush fences.

From 1858 to 1857 was the period of Lyons' most rampant growth The beginning of work on the L. & I. C. attracted both capital and population, especially during the latter part of 1853. Notwithstanding the retarding of the town's growth by its failure, the check was slight and brief, as with the Air- Line project, local prosperity and activity were redoubled. Many intelligent and thrifty Germans, driven from their Fatherland by the political re-action, were among the numbers who came to settle up and to add to Lyons' thrift.

In 1854 was built upon the present site of the Masonic Temple, the Clin- ton House, afterward rechristened the Adams, the first brick hotel, and marking the migration of business away from the levee-inevitable in all large river towns. In 1855-57, there was a strong business rivalry between Pearl and Main streets. At one time, the former seemed to have a decided advantage. Wash- ington Hall, well-stocked stores, hotels and a good trade made Pearl street, for some years, very lively. But business gradually and irresistibly, after several years, concentrated on Main street, partly owing to what were apparently its. misfortunes, viz., fires that have swept away most of the old ante-bellum land- marks, and transformed it from its appearance when it was first built up in 1856-57. Some of the first buildings were, for that time, very imposing.

During 1855-56, particularly on Sixth street, were built many elegant and roomy residences, such as Dr. Matthews', now W. A. Lyall's; H. E. Gates', now Mrs. Ezra Baldwin's ; Capt. N. C. Roe's, now belonging to the estate of the late L. Manz, and the Ferris place, now belonging to J. P. Gage. During the same time, additions to the city were rapidly platted, and lots sold, both for occupancy and speculation, at prices above their present valuation. Even the open land now lying west of the depot was held at high figures. An undivided half of the old Exchange Hotel was sold during those flush times for $5,500. Money was so abundant that it is probable that every lot within the city plat could have been easily sold if the owners had not held for still higher prices. The country tributary to the city was meanwhile also filling up and developing very rapidly. The growing rural trade assisted in building up the city's busi- ness, while the latter supplied a long-needed market for agricultural products. Lyons became a very heavy grain depot. The roads for miles inland were, at some seasons of the year, fairly choked with incoming teams, and weighing- scales counted the day's business by hundreds of loads. During the war, Lyons. attained its growth, but its prosperity was unabated till the opening of the Mid- land Railroad, which cut off a great share of the city's most profitable trade, though enterprising merchants have since struggled energetically against adverse circumstances. The great want of the city has been more varied and extensive

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manufactures to give full employment to the population. However, in rea comfort, refinement and happiness, Lyons need not fear comparison with more bustling towns. Its people have had leisure and means to evolve a social life distinguished for heartiness, culture and tranquillity. The elements of society have had time to assume stability and to outgrow the crudeness so common in comparatively new cities. The literary and esthetic character of Lyons has been materially aided by the influence of the Germans among her population, who have from an early day been a factor equally respected and influential in busi- ness and social affairs.

RINGWOOD.

Ringwood was until recently the name of a proposed town and corporation lying between and adjoining Clinton and Lyons, extending half a mile from north to south, and three-fourths mile west from the river, and comprising 260 acres. It was entered by Ward Williams in 1843, platted in 1856, and, as a proposed bridge would have terminated within its borders, quite a number of lots were sold and houses built in 1856-58. The plat was largely covered with magnificent groves of Druidical oaks, free from underbrush, similar to those still standing about the residences of Messrs. Hart, Stone, Gibbs and Mills. In 1870, the building of the street railway led to the building of more houses, and soon the city of Clinton endeavored to absorb the territory, to prevent which, after several legal fights, in which the Ringwood people were successful in preventing premature annexation, in August, 1873, Ringwood was regularly incorporated under the general law as a city, just in time to save it being gobbled, the sharp practice of the lawyers, and the way in which Clinton was outgeneraled, calling out much mirth at the time. A special act of the Legisla- ture was passed, confirming the action of the new city and thereby effectually fortifying it against either neighbor. The first and only officers were: Mayor. D. P. McDonald ; Recorder, J. Pollock ; Aldermen, A. L. Stone, E. S. Hart, Fred Rumble, W. Hannocke and George Bryant. However, in 1878, Ring- wood, having carried its point, unanimously voted for annexation to Clinton, thereby making that city and Lyons conterminous, and removing all impedi- ments to their union when mutually thought advisable. At one of the meet- ings during the consolidation excitement in 1878, E. S. Hart, Esq., convulsed the assemblage by suggesting that if Lyons and Clinton could not otherwise agree to unite, Ringwood would magnanimously agree to annex both. The opening of the new boulevard in 1878, by the continuation of Fourth street in Clinton through Ringwood, has been a great benefit to both cities.

DEEP CREEK TOWNSHIP.

Deep Creek Township is bounded on the north by Jackson County, on the west by Waterford Township, on the south by Center Township, and on the east by Elk River Township. It comprises Congressional Township 83 north, Range 5 east.

The township is obviously named from the stream that waters it so amply, running first to the east and then making an elbow toward the north and flow- ing toward the Maquoketa, through a superb alluvial valley averaging a mile and a half wide, bordered by rounded bluffs, and forming the celebrated " Deep Creek Bottom," unsurpassed in the world for farming lands. The creek derives its name not so much from the depth of water in its channel, though there are occasional holes of dangerous depth, as from the height of the banks

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compared with the shallow eastern streams. The township, aside from the floor-like valley, is prairie, more and more rolling as one proceeds northward toward the county line. The timber also increases in the same direction, and the more broken ground in the northwestern part was and is quite well wooded. At the time of its settlement, there were also thick belts of timber along the streams, as well as several groves, so that the pioneers were supplied with building and fencing stuff without having to go very far for it.

In the southern part of the township, the valley widensinto a vast savanna, in the center of which is the famous Goose Lake, now diminished to a fraction of the expanse that formerly gleamed from the grassy sea surrounding it, when its permanent area was more than a square mile, and its surrounding marshes much greater. The lake owed its existence to the peculiar conformation of the country. It occupies about the summit of the water-shed between the Maquoketa and the Wapsipinicon, so that when its waters overflowed, they flowed both north through Deep Creek into the former, and southward through Brophy Creek into the latter, though the actual crest is about half a mile south of the lake. Evidently, the magnificent valley formed by these two con- terminous creeks was once the bed of a vast bayou, when the present bluffs of the Mississippi were its shores. East of Goose Lake is also the divide between the drainage by Elk River to the Mississippi and where the Midland Railway passes from the grade formed by the course of the former to that of Deep Creek. Goose Lake has no inlet, being fed by copious springs. Though they, of course, must vary with the rainfall, the lessening of the lake's depth is not due to their diminishing, but to drainage by county ditches, in order to reclaim the swamp lands mentioned elsewhere. The drainage has added hundreds of acres of fat pasture land to the resources of the township and county, and its expanse resembles astonishingly the far-famed fen county in Lincolnshire, in old England, with its reeds, lush meadows and fat cattle. The lake took its' name from the myriads of water-fowl that from ages before the time the country was settled (though lately comparatively few in number) to the present day, find in its sedgy shallowa congenial haunts and breeding-grounds. The sight that the lake presented before its feathered inhabitants were decimated by the shot-gun, during the migrating and breeding seasons, especially in the months of April and October and November, would throw the amateur duck- hunter of to-day into ecstasies. One of the most reliable and soberest in state- ment of the old settlers, Mr. Thomas Watts, remembers that many times he has stood upon the bluffs overlooking the lake and seen swans alight upon the lake in such numbers that acres and acres of water appeared as white as a snowdrift. And as they flew to and fro, the glitter of long lines of snowy white pinions was a spectacle of dazzling beauty. Besides swans, the lake was frequented by pelicans, brant, wild geese and clouds of ducks. The clatter of their wings and the loud honking and quacking as they assembled at night, fairly darkening the horizon with their long columns, was absolutely deafening. For many years. there was no apparent thinning of their numbers, though the lake was a valuable source of food supply to the settlers. Not only were vast numbers of fowl shot and snared, but wagon-loads of eggs were taken during the breeding season. Many eggs of wild geese were hatched by domestic fowl, and for many years wild geese were no rarity in Deep Creek farm-yards.

Probably the first white man to locate in Deep Creek Township was one Boone, a nephew of the famous Daniel, who took up a claim at what has since been known as Boone's Springs, near the present residence of Sylvester Hunter, where he made some slight improvements. Before the land in the township

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was surveyed, John Jonas and Dennis Collins resided within the township, but did not enter claims for themselves, though they were engaged by non-resi- dents to look after their interests. The first permanent settlers were Matthew Fliun, James Kerwin, Thomas Watts, afterward County Surveyor, and Capt. Hubbard. About the same time, 1836-1838, came the Simmonses, James, Hiram and Egbert, father and sons, and soon after John Mormon, William L. Potts and Isaac Ramsay and family.

The pioneers were from diverse localities, but lived together in enviable · peace and tranquillity. Most of them secured the enormous claims of 600 to 1,000 acres, and even more, by the comprehensive process, as "Tom " Watts recounts, with but little of humorous exaggeration, of going up on a rising ground till a place was found that suited the prospector, who then went and staked off all the land in sight. Very little land was obtained in Deep Creek by the original settlers, except at the Government offices. They were not annoyed by speculators or claim jumpers (the former getting only " odds and ends ") in this township.

Though the Indians gave possession of the country in 1837, for ten years thereafter, every winter, large bands, sometimes numbering fifty or twenty per- sons, of friendly and honest Sacs and Foxes, would return to the Deep Creek and Goose Lake region and there encamp, attracted by the abundance of game and fur, and pass the winter hunting and trapping. Otter, mink and muskrat swarmed in the streams, and deer were so numerous, till about 1855, that it was almost impossible to take a walk for half a mile without seeing several. Small game was also abundant. The wives and families of the settlers were on the most cordial terms with the Indians, who paid a liberal tribute of game for occasional luxuries furnished them by the good housewives, who found them far more civil and grateful than are the white vagrants of to-day. Frequently, when Mr. Watts was reading in his bachelor cabin, before 1842, the window would be darkened by a tawny savage's painted face, full of curiosity at seeing the pale-face so intently regarding a sheet of paper. The pioneer would step out, perhaps invite the red man in; and, after getting comfortably warmed and exchanging compliments, the latter would noiselessly glide away upon the hunting trail. The last elk in the township, and possibly in the county, was killed after a chase so long and exciting as to fully task the hunter's powers, by an Indian, well known as "Jim," he having adopted the name of James Bourne, after the aboriginal custom, paying a delicate compliment to a person by assuming his name.

The first farms occupied were naturally those along the rich bottoms and adjacent slopes ; the last, those in the almost hilly north of the township. The bottom lands had another most powerful attraction in the magnificent springs that gushed out of the rocks at the base of the bluffs. Perhaps the presence of such choice " Adam's ale" was a cause of the remarkable temper- ance that, for that period, prevailed among the settlers along Deep Creek. Inebriation was very rare, and therefore quarrels and accidents were unknown and sickness very rare at that time. Nevertheless people enjoyed themselves. The level sward encouraged ball-playing and pitching quoits ; and raisings and similar gatherings prevented sociality from decaying.

The first child was born to William L. Potts, in September, 1839. The first funeral was that of Charles C. Smith, held soon after. The first wedding was in 1844, when Thomas Watts was married to Emmeline, daughter of Robert Hunter, at the house of the bride's father ; William Hunter, Justice, performing the ceremony, there being no clergyman within thirty or forty

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8 miles. It must have been an auspicious wedding-day ; for though the then blooming prairie bride has entered into her heavenly rest, the husband and father still survives, stalwart and vigorous, with his descendants multiplying about him.

The first post office was, as before mentioned, at Boone's Springs, in Sec- tion 5, Township 85 north, Range 5 east, established in 1850, with Philo Hunter as Postmaster. His successor was John Evans, who dispensed the weekly mail, by the Bellevue and De Witt horseback route, till, in 1872, the office was removed and changed to Goose Lake, where John Dickey has ever since served as Postmaster.

The first stated religious services in the township were held at Hunter's Log Schoolhouse, in the north part, in 1844, by both Methodists and Congre- gationalists. Rev. O. Emerson and other missionaries officiated. In 1854, congregations met in the log schoolhouse near B. T. Cook's. The names of those energetic workers, Larkins and Blackford, are found among those who dispensed spiritual food in the decade ending with 1850.

In 1862, a Methodist Church, costing $3,000, was built by a general con- tribution. Rev. Daniel Conrod is the present local clergyman in the Congre- gational Church of Deep Creek, and Waterford assisted in building a Union Church at Preston, in Jackson County, in 1876.

Among the early teachers in the old log schoolhouses above mentioned were Philo Hunter, Miss Marietta Rhodes and Mrs. Rodman. The schools were quiet and orderly, insubordination being less common than in these days. The inconveniences of the buildings were patiently endured. Teachers boarded around and were sustained in their legitimate functions by the school patrons. Deep Creek was one of the first townships to renew its schoolhouses at an aver- age cost of about $91.

The panic of 1857 was weathered very comfortably by the farmers of this township, as few of them then had any interest to carry. Since that date, the financial history of the township has substantially been that of the rest of the county. In common with the others of the two northern tiers of townships, substantial benefit was derived from the building of the recent railways. The Midland crosses the north part of Goose Lake on a solid embankment, just north of the old stage-route from Lyons to Maquoketa, which has, by the expenditure of much toil and money, been converted from a quagmire, in which coaches stuck and through which perspiring, muddy and profane travelers wallowed, into a firm and dry highway.

The winter of 1842-43 was memorable for its intense windless cold during January, February and March, so that on the first Monday of April, a load of 1,000 bricks was hauled across Deep Creek on the ice.

In 1849-50, was the deepest snow remembered by old settlers, twenty inches being measured on a level.

The greatest annoyances were prairie fires and wolves. The latter have, indeed, not lessened in numbers or in boldness, owing to the increase of lurk- ing-places in ditches and groves. Formerly, when swine were allowed to run at large outside of the fenced and broken fields, a large tribute of young porkers was secured by the wolves. Now the sheep are the victims, and farmers have generally been compelled to give up their flocks. Prairie fires, till as late as 1855, were an almost annual visitation either in rainless winters or in the fall, when the grass had been killed by frost. As they swept over the broad valley and climbed the bluffs, the sight was often inexpressibly grand. Sometimes they advanced at a speed of not less than twelve miles per hour,

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though the usual rate was only two to four miles. The settlers usually pre- served their fences and property by building counter-fires, which burned against the wind, so as to leave an open space, over which the advancing billow of fire could not leap. It is a mistake to suppose that these fires ceased when the Indians left the country. Owing either to carelessness of hunters or to design, they were just as frequent as long as there was a grassy jungle as dry as tinder for the flames to feed upon. Old settlers tell of the curious way in which it used to advance by wedges, so to speak. Many fences were burned and ditches were, therefore, at first often used for dividing lines. Next came the board fence, destined to give place to wire. Little did the emigrants ever expect to get their fencing material from Pittsburgh or Cleveland. Many acres have been added to the arable area of farms by sloughs drying up, owing to culti- vation and the wash from plowed land filling them up. Where were once oozy bogs now wave fields of corn. Much land has also been reclaimed by ditching.

In 1865, in Section 16, transpired the only capital crime chronicled in the annals of Deep Creek since its settlement, but a murder so melodramatic and fiendish in its motive and circumstances, as to savor of the climes where vol- canic passions invoke the dagger to settle rivalries. One J. M. Mattoon, a man of ugly and licentious disposition, had, in his household, a comely hand- maid named Hannah, whose position was, by the neighbors, pretty accurately supposed to be similar to that of Hagar, in Abraham's household. However, she appeared not to be at all exclusive in her affections, but to divide them with tolerable impartiality between Mattoon, whose wife bore the infliction with sin- gular equanimity, and a rather aged but ardent admirer named Ray. Miss Hannah's course of polyandry ran smoothly enough, till Ray's son, Oliver, a gallant soldier in Company K, of the Twenty-sixth Regiment, arrived home. He, too, became enamored of the voluptuous domestic, and she very naturally preferred the frank, martial young man to either the senior Ray or morose Mattoon. The old man Ray, upon being notified by Oliver, of the latters liking for the girl, gracefully withdrew, but into Mattoon entered the green- eyed devil of jealousy. Upon Oliver's calling upon the girl at the house, he was ordered out of the house by Mattoon, and went to the adjacent house of W. D. Weir, whither the lassie followed him. Presently Mattoon made his appearance and picked a quarrel with young Ray, finally calling him a liar, for which he was promptly knocked down by the veteran. Mattoon then went into the pantry, obtained a large, sharp butcher-knife, and, concealing it in his sleeve, walked into the door-yard, and soon returning renewed the quarrel, and plunged the knife twice into Ray's body, who fell, bathed in blood, to the floor, and, after lingering some days died, killed in a trivial broil, after having gone through the war without a wound. Owing to the culpable apathy of the neigh- borhood, Mattoon was neither lynched nor arrested, but made his escape to the Far West, and was never heard of again, though one of the settlers, Mr. Bron- son, of Goose Lake, found traces of him. The buxom cause of war married and went West. The only fatal accidents, aside from the drowning of a child recorded elsewhere, were the suffocation of Messrs. Kruse and Wilson, while dig- ging a well in Section 15, and the death of Samuel Cooper, by driving off an embankment near Bryant. Henry Boock committed suicide in Bryant.

A post office was established at Bryant, a station on the Midland in the southeastern part of the township, in 1870, the railroad being completed to that point in December of that year. The first Postmaster was C. Hass, suc- ceeded by Otto Behrns, E. Reiff, and the present official, E. N. Nagel. In 1877, a great need of that section of the county was met by the building of

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the Bryant Steam-Mills by a stock company, 100 shares at $50, being sub- scribed in the neighborhood. The officers are James Sewell, President; N. E. Ingwersen, Secretary ; O. H. Buck, Treasurer; P. H. Dunn and Hans Bruch, Directors. The first business men were E. N. Nagel, E. Reiff and C. Anderson. An independent school district was organized, and a school build- ing costing $2,400 erected in 1874. Among the older settlers and large farm- ers in this part of the county are the Ingwersens, Patrick Laughlen, P. H. Petersen and Josiah Davis. Many of the farms run from 600 to 700 acres in size, and compare in cultivation with any in the United States.

Previous to 1854, the settlers around Goose Lake had been greatly annoyed by losing horses and cattle, owing to a regular line of horse-thieves from St. Paul to Missouri and Kansas, where the border-ruffian element then made it & snug harbor for all kinds of desperadoes. In that year was organized a Home Protection Society, of which Capt. C. B. Hubbard was President. Six- teen active citizens were chosen as riders, and thereafter the mere existence of the organization rendered property in live stock secure. About this time, James Spurrell lost a valuable steer, which the thief took to Lyons. The culprit was tracked in the snow and captured, but succeeded in making his temporary escape during biting cold weather, on horseback, without boots, hat or coat, and was horribly frozen.

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The History of Clinton County, Iowa: Containing a History of the County, Its., Part 75

Author: Western Historical Co , Western Historical Company Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co. Number of Pages: 807

Author: Western Historical Co , Western Historical Company
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 807