USA > Iowa > Marshall County > The History of Marshall County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, &c., a biographical directory of citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics, portraits of early settlers and prominent men etc > Part 50
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90
Thomas J. Wilson, who founded the press of the county, was drowned in Linn Creek, while serving as Superintendent of Schools. His business took him into the southern part of the county, and while he remained there the waters of Linn Creek were greatly swollen by freshet. He attempted to cross on a sub- merged bridge on horseback ; the horse was carried from the bridge, and both rider and animal were lost. Mr. Wilson was a most estimable man, of fine intelligence, and his sudden death caused great sorrow here.
In the files of the State Centre Enterprise, we read of the Museum belong- ing to John King of that place, which contains more than 20,000 specimens of
424
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
shells, minerals, fossils and curious works of art. Mr. King has been for years engaged in collecting curiosities from all parts of the globe.
This is the way an old lady in State Centre inquired for a lost snuff box : " Gentlemen, you haint none on you seen nothin of no snuff box no where around here no time to-day, with no snuff in it, haint you ? "
This a very good sample of a Western advertisement, and we find it in the State Centre Enterprise :
Two plow-men out West were telling touching stories of their exploits in breaking up new ground. The linen was taken off the bush by this yarn : "'Twas up in Dixmont, twenty-seven years ago this Spring, I was plowing in stump ground with a team of nine pair of cattle, for Sol Cunningham ; we were going along, makin' not very smooth work among rocks and stumps. Well, one day the pint o' the plow struck fair agin a stump four feet through, split it square across the heart, and I was follerin' the plow through when the thought flashed through my mind that the pesky stump might snap together and pinch my toes. So, I just gripped the plow-handles firm and swung my feet out o' the way and the stump sprang back and catched the slack of my pantaloons. That brought every thing up stannin'. Well, I tightened my hold, and Jim Swithin, he and Sol was drivin', they spoke to the cattle, and we snaked that stump out by the roots-and it had awful long ones ! "
"It must 'a been strainin' on your clothes," said the other.
" Wal, yes it was ; but I got the material at F. G. Tummel's, and it stood the test."
When Mr. Woodbury first came to Marshalltown, the house he lived in had but two rooms, and as there was no lumber or shingles to be got, he put on a a cloth roof. Mr. Pratt, coming into the town and having no house, it was arranged that his family should occupy one of these rooms, which made the accommodations of either family not very spacious. Provisions were not very plenty, as the demand was greater than the supply, and when a speculating farmer from outside brought in a lond of slaughtered hogs, Mr. Woodbury bought there. It was not quite as bad as to have a present of a white elephant; but still the quandary what to do with them was a puzzling question-no cellar, no woodshed, no barn. Finally, Mrs. Woodbury suggested an old joiner's bench that stood out of doors, and so there they were stored, covered with the wagon sheet-a part of every pioneer's property. Often in the Winter, the wolves would crave a nibble, and come prowling around, notwithstanding a deadly old musket that Frederick and John Woodbury, the sons, kept standing by their bed post. When meat was wanted, they had only to go out and hack off the desired quantity with an ax. When Mr. Woodbury built his grist-mill just north of Marshalltown, it was the first and a great blessing to the settlers, who otherwise would have been obliged to go to Cedar Rapids or Oskaloosa to mill over the then appalling roads. If a " grist " could not be got, then boiled corn had to be used for bread. Mr. Woodbury afterward built mills at Xenia and Alden on the lowa River, and sold flour to grocers and others "on tick," sup- płving the whole northwestern part of the State for some years. On one of his rounds for collection of these flour bills, his wife went with him. They were in Wright County, and came upon a slough, which looked dubious, but which Mr. W. decided might be undertaken with safety. He had a single horse and buggy. and after proceeding a little way, down went both into the mud and water. After some effort, Mr. W. succeeded in getting the horse unharnessed, and in getting him out in the right direction. Next, the baggage was safely landed on the other side. Mr. W. had removed his coat and boots, and was by
425
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
this time in good working condition, but how to get his wife across ! Finally, after much coaxing, she was carried over, papoose fashion, upon his shoulders, and then, to crown the work, he placed himself between the shafts and pulled the buggy out in triumph. At this juncture, however, a Turkish bath would have been very acceptable.
The first 4th of July celebrated in Marshalltown was in 1853; the point of celebration, the public square. There was a large bower built of green branches, with a flag waving gayly at the top. Tables were spread with unstinted abun- dance. Mr. Atwater, the young lawyer of Marietta, delivered the oration, and the singing class of Mr. Childs gave "Hail Columbia." Dr. Bissell was Marshal, and at one time when he called for cheers, an old lady shoved a young girl out of a chair, very unceremoniously, with : "Git up ; hain't ye no manners ? Don't you hear 'em call for cheers ?"
Everybody had worked to make it a success, and it is related that old Mrs. Rice trimmed cake for the occasion, and that Mrs. Straight filled a clothes basket with goodies for the tables.
The first funeral in Marshalltown was that of a little daughter of Mr. Silas Chorm, on the 10th of August, 1853. The burial took place without any ceremony whatever, as there was not a professing Christian in the neighbor- hood. A month later, a little seven-year-old sister of this child was buried in the same simple manner, under the wild asters at the corner of Jack Braddy's farm. At this funeral, Mrs. John Smith, mother of Mrs. Ralls, remarked that she could not rest easy if thus buried, but in the January following, she was interred in the same way.
The first distillery in Marshalltown was built by a man named Haynes, in 1854, and was conducted on a very primitive plan. His receivers were dug- out troughs of wood, and trappers would take a bag of corn and a jug, empty the corn into a heap, and fill the jug from the trough, without any graduating scale or measure. Such a plan would be a poor business for a distiller in these days.
On the 4th of July, 1855, there was a celebration at the town of La Fayette. The multitude assembled in the public square ; Mr. Sawyer was Chief Marshal of the Day, and Dr. Hixon read the Declaration of Independence and delivered the oration. Dr. Whealan was to have filled the latter office, but a slight injury prevented.
The prairie in the western portion of Jefferson has been noted for hunting parties. There is a tradition of 708 chickens being killed in one day by a party who went to the head of Timber Creek. Mr. George Wills with a party of five went one day beyond Power's Grove, and killed 311 chickens, returning at night with a wagon loaded down with game. Sportsmen from all parts of the country, as well as from England came out here to enjoy the fine shooting.
In the Fall of 1855, Mr. Rice started up two deer near Linn Creek, and turning them westward, they galloped down Marshalltown Main street, leaving the prints of the their feet where is now the constant roll of traffic.
The west half of Washington and Jefferson Townships were prairie uplands. with only now and then a farm to break the monotony. It was a fine sweep for a fire, and one time Mr. Manwaring was aroused by a crackling and roaring, and looked out in time to see his haystacks in a blaze, with danger to his house and stable. All hands were set to work to carry water, and finally, with the help of wet blankets and carpets, they saved a part of the hay and buildings. And one night Mr. Gotham was awakened by the light of a coming fire, and getting up, he succeeded in plowing a furrow around his buildings ; but a hen-
H
426
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
coop and its inhabitants were badly singed, the latter appearing in the morning without tail-feathers or wings. Many tons of hay a year were lost from fires. carelessly lit by the pipe of a passing hunter, or by the mischief of boys.
Mr. G. W. Voorhees, an early settler in Marion, lived near Mr. Holcomb, and having a neighborly regard for him, sent him one day a watermelon by " Jeff." "This melon, which was regarded as a great delicacy, tempted "Jeff " to the degree, that he, with the help of a young comrade, ate it up instead of delivering it, which was a standing joke against him for many a day.
In Vienna, on the occasion of the wedding of Mrs. Bradbury's daughter, which was the largest festival of the kind that had been held in the the town- ship, a careless boy on the farm set a straw stack on fire, which caught the barn and burned it with other valuables. It was a heavy loss, but the neighbors lightened it as far as lay in their power.
Mr. Hummaleau was an early settler in Albion, and, though wasted by long disease, took special delight in putting out trees. Some one asked him. not long before his death, why he continued to plant so many ornamental trees, and he replied : "Some weary body will love to sit under their shade when I am gone."
At the time of the Marietta and Marshalltown war, every device was resorted to by either place to put the other at a disadvantage. As a specimen of the ridicule used to influence public sentiment, the Iowa Central Journal, the Marshalltown organ, announced: " A Frenchman lately from Paris is negotiating for the purchase of the public square in Marietta to raise frogs for that market.' On another occasion, a gentleman of the name of Crookham, an extensive prop- erty holder in Marietta, was in Marshalltown on business. It was arranged by a few of the mischievous ones of the latter place to badger him a little. So, calling some stranger within his hearing, up to where a group of them were stand- ing, they told him that a man was actually drowned in the public square of Marietta only a week before ! Nothing could equal Crookham's disgust at such broad fibbing, and he was glad to get back to his own much-abused town.
When Judge MeFarland was on the bench, a ludicrous scene occurred in Court one day. A young lawyer from Burlington, of the name of Wood, was. facetiously termed "Old Timber " by the profession. At this court he was in the midst of a fine rhetorical display in submitting his case to the jury, when the head of an immense donkey thrust itself through the door and interrupted his eloquence with a sonorous bray. McFarland cried out : "Hold on, Old Timber, one at a time sir, one at a time !" Is it to be wondered that " Old Timber " was so confused as to lose his case ?
In the State Centre Enterprise, June 21, 1872, we find the following declaration :
" We the undersigned merchants of State Centre, Iowa, never having taken a general holiday, do hereby and hereon notify the public, that the undermen- tioned firms will not open their stores and offices on the 4th of July, 1872.
V. J. SHIPMAN, etc., etc.
It seems that when these energetic people played, they did it in earnest, just as when they worked they did it with all their might, as the results testify.
The following anecdote of Judge McFarland first appeared in the Des Moines Register : Some years ago, Judge McFarland, the hairy man of the West, as the Cincinnati Convention dubbed him, used to be a "power " up in the High Boone and the adjacent counties, wherein he dispensed justice-or rather dispensed with it. During the time he thus adorned the bench, the late Gen. Sam. A. Rice happened to have a "case" in one of his courts, of which he
427
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
used to relate the following: The morning upon which the Court was to hear and decide motions, "she" scarcely "understood herself," from the fact of "her" bibulous practices the preceding evening, and, indeed, until the "wee sma' hours bevant the twal." In short, the Court was in a very obfuscated and muddled condition, and decidedly cross-grained. One attorney after another had submitted motions, all of which his Honor summarily overruled, without a moment of thought or investigation. At length Gen. Rice's turn came, when he arose and quietly remarked that "he had a little motion to submit, which however, was of no particular moment-merely to 'save a point'-and that as his Honor was overruling everything that morning, he couldn't expect an ex- ception to be made in his case, and would therefore consider his motion in the same category." While he was repeating something about the unimportance of the case, etc., the Court leaned forward, extended "her" right hand and shaking "her " long forefinger in the face of the speaker, decided the motion in the following terse and vigorous style : "No you don't, Sammy ! No you don't, Sammy ! This hon'ble Court has keerfully investigated that ere pint, and your motion is sustained !" It happening that the motion covered the entire case, of course "Sammy " won.
Among the various kinds of wit-such as mother wit, Irish and French wit -there is room for still another division which might be called "pioneer wit." The face to face contact with Nature, which the settler in a new country always enjoys, gives a fresh-air kind of strength to his faculties, both of body and mind, and his humor seems to partake of the clear, open, direct character of everything about him. It is in fact "mother wit" nurtured under the same sky that ripens his crops, and grows into something as huge and strong as his own vegetables and grain. The Frenchman's wit is like his smile, volatile, inces- sent, impalpable, except to an oversharpened sensibility ; the Irishman's is the ready-make shift of one who has to do the best he can with bad circumstances, and who from good-natured indolence finds it more comfortable to parry fate with a blundering thrust, than to stand up and face odds with either strength or skill ; but the true pioneer neither polishes nor evades ; he gives his blows with the vigor of a mind that has met hardships in many forms, and yet has not been made afraid.
INCIDENTS OF PIONEER WOMEN.
In such history as we have of pioneer efforts, great stress is laid upon the courage of purpose and of action, as well as the extreme physical endurance, required in men who devote their lives to the venture of compelling nature's wilderness to blossom as the rose. There is little danger of too great credit being given them ; and yet, there are others who deserve, even more than they, our respect and praise, and to whom even reverence may justly be added; and that is the pioneer women. As it is more in man's nature to combat and conquer, so it is more in woman's to submit and endure. And as he who fights and wins deserves the victor's reward, so she who suffers and bears should have her crown ; oftener than any other way, however, it proves the martyr's crown.
If the history of all public effort is of interest, then why not the detail of the daily life-the struggle with privation, the close planning to get the desired results from very inadequate means, the overtaxed strength, the heart-ache of homesickness, and the still bitterer strife with prolonged sickness in the family and even with death ? This was essentially the woman's part; and so we pur- pose to devote a little space to the experiences of the Marshall County women. apart from the general and mutual trials.
428
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
There are sometimes heavy shadows in the picture, but these are relieved by pleasant lights, and by many a touch of bright color. The pioneer wife and mother is not a gloomy object, for her life was too active a one to admit of any long-continued melancholy. It is true that there was never absent the sense of being in a strange land, and this feeling has, during all time, been recognized as a very trying one. We read that the daughters of Israel wept when they remembered Zion, and the settler's wife felt a pang when she remembered, per- haps. some far-away New England village, with its sacred Sabbath and its church bells, with its schools, and its many familiar firesides surrounded by long-tried friends.
Yet. in the new country there was much to do. There were the kindly acts for those who were in need ; the healthful occupation of domestic work, which was often a sovereign cure for loneliness : the cheer and pride of being able to do so much with so little-all these phases lightened care and helped to make life easy. Then there were the gala neighborly evenings, when a guest was sure to be welcome, and the intercourse was genial and friendly without reference to rank or station.
We could hardly understand, now that ease and comfort are so universal, what the household life was in that early period, but for the fact that it is within the memory of not very old people, and we get the story direct from the lips of those who shared that life. Personal denials had to be made, refinement of taste held in abeyance, accomplishments forsworn-all until the great Jugger- naut of work could be appeased.
Idleness was not the part of any. The word "Iowa," in one Indian dialect, is said to mean " drowsy." It must be that the State was christened in the Indian Summer, which season covers its fair face with a blanket of smoke, and hushes it to its Winter sleep with softened sunshine and the repose of gathered harvests. It surely could not have been named for any woman within its borders ; for if it had been, the Indian for "energy," or " resolution," or " industry " would have been chosen.
Who could be idle living in a rail pen with a slough-grass roof, as Mrs. Hoffman did in Marshalltown ? When it rained, she was obliged to go about her mansion with an umbrella, for, as one would naturally infer, the roof was leaky. But woman of fine instincts she was, for she had a parlor. notwith- standing the primitive condition of things generally. The parlor was the family carriage with the curtains taken off. And, living in this way, five mem- bers of her family had typhoid fever from exposure. That certainly must have tried the fiber of any woman's spirit.
It involved more labor then than now to cook a meal. A " chunk " fire out-of-doors had to answer the purpose of our elaborate kitchen ranges, and complete little oil stoves, which do the culinary work of the family from only lighting a lamp. Mrs. Wm. Ralls cooked the food for her family and guests over one of these fires. Their house was a mere cabin, with a loft for a cham- ber, which loft was reached by a pole ladder. On one occasion when Mr. Eastman, afterward Lieut. Governor, was a visitor, he had to swing himself above the heads of the family as he went to retire for the night. After he reached his perch he looked down at the crude cradle made of oak shakes, in which the baby was sleeping, and said gayly, " That looks like the running-gear of a whip-poor-will's nest !
What "pernickety " housekeeper, as the Scotch say, would be willing to live as did Mrs. S. N. Knode, of Le Grand, whose house was a hut without door or chimney, and where the smoke had to find its way out as best it could
429
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
through the logs ? This cabin was sixteen feet square, and to her own family were added others more homeless than herself, making in all thirty-six persons. Besides this, she must graciously entertain whatever travelers wanted a shelter, and one night, four more were added to the thirty-six ; this " Arab hospitality making so close a sandwich of them all that it was doubtful if each could have a separate " puncheon " for a bed. Now, a puncheon carpet consisted of logs split in two, and laid with the flat side up. Supposing the housewife a Quaker. or a descendant of the Puritans, or of good Holland Dutch blood, as the Knode name implies, how was she to scour and sand that ? Must not her sense of cleanliness have endured constant torture ?
There could have been little cleaning of windows then. Mr. Henry An- son's cabin was the first one in Marshall that was sufficiently ornate in style to require any such superfluous arrangements, and the first lumber that was ever sawed in the county was wrought into them.
It is said that the settlers, being mostly from heavily wooded countries. usually selected their building sites in the timber; and that they thought it very foolhardy in Mr. Anson to choose for his dwelling-place a spot on the open prairie, nearly half a mile from trees. They said of him : " A Yankee has set- tled out on the prairie, with three windows in his house, and will freeze to death."
Indeed, it was generally conceded that windows were a superfluity, and a quilt did very well for a door. Mrs. Anson certainly had something to do which her neighbors did not-she had to wash windows.
However hospitable the lady of the house may be, there must now and then be an unwelcome visitor. Mrs. Rice tells how a lady of her acquaintance, who had been on a neighborly visit to a friend, returned to find she had left her door ajar-or if her door was a quilt, as we have seen was often the case, it had been disturbed. The woods near at hand were infested with hogs of a pecul- iar breed, called " prairie sharks." These animals-now, happily, quite extinct -had very long noses and legs, and were fearfully gaunt and starved-looking. Upon entering her house, she saw, standing upon his tall hind legs, in front of her cupboard, a huge "prairie shark," eating bread and butter from a shelf.
But hogs were not the worst intruders. Rattlesnakes were the terror of the timid, and Mrs. Washington Asher, living near the creek that bears their name-famous for its beautiful ice in Winter, and its purple grapes in Summer -used to set the chairs all in a row, on the dirt floor of her cabin, to walk on in the night, in case she had to get up to light a candle. The little folks used to creep slyly past the cracks in the puncheon floors, for fear of the reptiles.
One day, Mrs. Rice returned home to find, coiled up as comfortably as a kitten, on the doorstep, a nice, large rattler. She did not wait to hear him purr, however, but dispatched him with a spade.
These incidents may rank as trifles among the trials of a new country, but nobody but a woman knows how afraid a woman is of a snake.
This was also the "age of wolves." Mrs. Holcomb, who came in 1856, and who was afterward noted for her splendid dairy, had no cellar in which to store supplies. The custom was to suspend their smoked hams and shoulders from the eaves of the cabin, outside, and the wolves practiced light gymnastics there in rows, leaping up to reach the coveted plunder.
The dainty lady who feels justified in screaming at a mouse or a spider, can draw her own conclusions as to whether Mrs. Holcomb had any reason to feel "nervous."
It was not alone the living in a new country that tried women's souls, but it was often the getting there. A foretaste of hardship was to be had from the
430
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
time of the launching out in the prairie schooner until the voyage was done. One man, Mr. Jonathan Reed, of Ohio, left his wife and children, one day, three miles from any neighbor, out on the sea of brown grass, in Green Castle Township, to fetch flour from a distant point. When he went away, they were sewing a tent cover, certain to have a shelter ready before night. But, after hard stitching and after the tent pins were driven into the ground, Mrs. Reed found that her unskilled hands could not make the cover fit. She and the children spent a night in the open wagon on the prairie ; and, as the boys could not suc- ceed in building a turf house, though they tried to, they were forced to retrace their steps to a point they had passed where there was a smoke-house. This belonged to Mr. Hilsabeck. In this they lived a week until Mr. Reed could return, and, after his return, about three weeks longer, until he could get a hut in readiness for the Winter.
Yet, with so many discomforts, good digestion seemed to wait on appetite, and a merry-making now and then, at which a gingham dress was considered putting on airs. was not unusual. The bracing, healthy air cured the dyspeptic. and it was commoner after a good, square meal to speak of eating instead of kissing the cook. Mrs. Perrigo, of Albion, who, besides her calico dress and sun-bonnet, once wore cotton gloves to an afternoon tea party, was quite sharply commented upon by her friends. By the way, the Perrigoes rented the first frame house built in Albion, and Mrs. P. was accustomed relate how they moved Into it when the roof was shingled only at one corner, and she could lie awake and watch the stars as they moved in their silent orbits along the night.
So it will be seen that as long as the ladies could have a tea-drinking now and then, and could there discuss their neighbors' clothes, they were not wholly restricted and deprived. And we even get glimpses of heart-burnings and envy sometimes, on these occasions. which would do credit to our own day. At a quilting at Mr. Sylvanus Rice's hotel, where all the ladies in town were assembled, Mrs. Calvin Straight wore a pretty black and white gingham dress, which greatly grieved a less fortunate sister, because it " shamed her calico."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.