USA > Iowa > Boone County > The history of Boone County, Iowa, containing biographical sketches war records of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics, portraits of early settlers and prominent men, history of the Northwest, history of Iowa, map of Boone county etc. > Part 38
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The first settlements in Boone county, like those of all other counties of the State, were made in or near to the timber. As timber was originally found only in strips along the water-courses, we find that the first settle- ments were made along the rivers and creeks. In fact, the most beautiful prairies were shunned by early settlers. Inhabitants of to-day, whilst con- templating the broad prairies, dotted with neat, commodious dwellings, barns, orchards, and artificial groves, look back with surprise at the choice of the first settlers. The uninviting features of the Western prairies is sug- gestive of a poem written of them which many have read in their boyhood days. The poem was doubtless written by some New England pedagogue
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after returning from a flying visit to some such a country as this was in early days:
" 'Oh, lonesome, windy, grassy place, Where buffalo and snakes prevail; The first with dreadful looking face. The last with dreadful sounding tail. I'd rather live on camel hump And be a Yankee Doodle beggar,
Than where I never see a stump
And shake to death with fever 'n' ager.' "
There were two reasons for this: First, the settlers were in the main the descendants of those hardy backwoodsmen who conquered the dense forests of Indiana, Ohio, and the regions farther east. When farms were opened up in those countries a large belt of timber was invariably reserved from which the farmer could draw his supply of logs for lumber and fence rails, and fuel for cooking and heating purposes. Even at the present day a farm withont its patch of timber is exceedingly rare in those countries. Having from their youth up been accustomed to timber, the emigrant from these timbered regions of the East would have ever felt lonesome and soli- tary deprived of the familiar sight of the tall forest trees and shut off from the familiar sound of the wind passing through the branches of the vener- able oaks. Then again, timber was an actual necessity to the early settler, In this day of railroads, herd laws, cheap lumber and cheap fuel, it is easy enough to open a farm and build up a comfortable home away out on the prairie, far from the sight of timber. But not so under the circumstances surrounding the first settlers. There was no way of shipping lumber from the markets of the East, coal mines were unknown, and before a parcel of land could be cultivated it was necessary to fence it. In order to settle the prairie countries it was necessary to have railroads, and in order to have railroads it was necessary that at least a portion of the country should be settled. Hence the most important resource in the development of this Western country was the belts of timber which skirted the streams; and the settlers who first hewed out homes in the timber, while at present not the most enterprising and progressive, were nevertheless an essential factor in the solution of the problem.
In one sense of the word the first settlements of Boone county were along the Des Moines river, in another sense they were not. They fol- lowed the general course of the river, but owing to the density of the tim- ber near its banks and the character of the soil, the country immediately bordering on the Des Moines was not so desirable as that somewhat more remote.
From either side of the river flowing in a southwestern and southeastern direction are a number of small streams or creeks. The uniform width of the belt of timber along the Des Moines was originally about four or five miles, but where these smaller streams empty into the river the timber ex- tends much further out. These places were called "points " and at these points were the first settlements made; here were the first beginnings of civilization; here began to operate the forces which have made the wilder- ness a fruitful place and caused the desert to blossom as the rose.
The first settlements were made on the east side of the river, not because the country there was any better than on the opposite side, but because emigration came from the east; for the same reason the south part had settlements before the north part had any. With a few
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exceptions this has been true of every other county and of the State itself -the direction which civilization has taken has been toward the northwest. It is true that the first settlement in the State was at or near Dubuque and that settlements were made at other points along the river at the same time, or even earlier than at Burlington, Ft. Madison and Keokuk. But it is also true that Lee county in the extreme southeast was the first county to be generally settled and the great tide of emigration continued to press from that point and even to-day it follows the same course. Thus it is that while Boone county is near the geographical center of the State it is yet too far north and west to be in the center of population, and while the city of Boone is somewhat northeast of the geographical center of the county, it is, nevertheless, very near in the center of population.
The first settlements made in Boone county were in 1846; all accounts agree in substantiating this fact. During this year some twenty settle- ments were made by different individuals. In some instances claims were taken and permanent improvements begun, by different persons at different places on the same day. Some were here days, and perhaps weeks, before the others knew of their arrival; over thirty years have passed since then and as none of these first settlers took the precaution of making a record of the date of their arrival, they are, many of them, uncertain as to the precise time, consequently their accounts of whom was the veritable first settler are somewhat conflicting. The honor of being the first settler is claimed for different parties; the writer having heard all the accounts, and carefully weighed all the evidence, concludes that this honor, without doubt, rightfully belongs to Charles W. Gaston, who settled near Elk Rapids, on section 34, township 82, range 26, in January, 1846. Mr. Gas- ton had previously been in the United States service, and while performing the duty of a soldier had passed through this section of country as early as 1835. It was probably at that time, and during that journey, that he was favorably impressed with the physical features and natural resources of * this section and determined at some future time to make it his permanent home. By the terms of the treaty made with the Indians they were to leave the Territory of Iowa in the fall of 1845, at which time some of them departed, but they were not all removed till some time after. Mr. Gaston, doubtless, was frequently very uneasy in his new home during the first months of his residence in the county, as many Indians were still here. Though their title had expired they had not been removed to their reserva- tion in Kansas, and although the savages who still remained were of a peaceable disposition, they were liable when intoxicated or enraged over some real or imaginary wrong, to wreak their vengeance upon any repre- sentative of the pale-faced race who chanced to be within their reach. Mr. Gaston, however, was naturally of a brave and adventurous disposition, and his discipline while in the army, and his experiences with the Indians on the frontier, were all calculated to prepare him for the hazardous under- taking of becoming the first permanent white settler of the county. He was within a distance of twenty miles from Fort Des Moines, where there was a garrison permanently located and where quite a number of settle. ments had been begun. In case of impending danger or scarcity of provi- sions a forced march of twenty miles would not have been much of an un- dertaking to a man who had undergone the privations and endured the hardships which he had already passed through. Then again, it is proba- ble that a chain of scattering settlements had been formed between Des
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Moines and Elk Rapids, prior to the time Mr. Gaston settled at the latter place, and he doubtless had frequent communication with his white neigh- bors toward the south. At any rate we do not hear that Gaston was sub- jected to any great annoyances from the Indians or endured any peculiar hardships further than those to which the early settlers were in common subjected. As soon as the heavy snows of the winter melted away and the roads became passable he doubtless soon ceased to feel like a stranger in a strange land, for one by one the characteristic ox wagon of the emi- grant made its way up the Des Moines, and the driver was sure to stop at Mr. Gaston's cabin to enquire concerning the country farther north. Then, too, the work of felling trees, making rails, building fences and other pre- paratory work essential to the opening up of a field for cultivation, doubt- less so far employed his mind as well as his energies, that he was troubled very little with despondency or loneliness. Moreover, Mr. Gaston was not one of those shiftless and aimless adventurers who were ever liable to be overcome by the desire to move on; he had come stay; in other words he had settled. The faculty of being able fix the mind upon some definite plan of operations, does much to achieve success and snatch victory from the jaws of impending defeat. Such faculty Mr. Gaston seems to have possessed in a remarkable degree, and as a result he has been enabled to see the country improved all around him, and as the country has improved he himself has prospered and been blessed with plenty. He still resides near the place where his first cabin was originally built. Not long since he took to himself a new wife, and although quite advanced in years, he still has expectations in the future: that they may be realized is the wish of the writer, and his many friends throughout the county.
The Hull family is the most numerous family in the county. The Jones and Smiths stand no show with the Hulls. Of the early settlers were three brothers, James, George and Uriah. George and James caine here in 1849, and Uriah in 1851, James was a doctor, and was known as Dr. Hull. He had three sons, Wesley C., Saml. A. and Fenlon W., and four daughters, Mrs. Jno. M. Wane, Mrs. R. M. Gwinn, Mrs. Jessie Seigler and Mrs. Milden Luther. His widow, Sophia, still survives.
George had four boys, Uriah, James Wm. and Geo. F., and one daughter, Mrs. Judge Montgomery. In later life he married Mrs. Hannah Crooks, mother of Hon. Geo. W., who still survives.
Uriah had one son, Philip, and four daughters, Mrs. John Hoffman, deceased, Mrs. L. B. Gilden, Mrs. Ben. Holcomb and Mrs. J. B. Patterson. The old man still survives.
Levi Hull, one of the early settlers, was cousin of James and Jesse. He died of cancer about 1860. He left one son, James, and several daughters, among them Mrs. E. J. Vontries.
An uncle of these, George Hull, came to the county about 1849. Of his family that came to the county were Jesse, Williamn, John, Nathan, Isom, George, Jackson, Martin, Sarah, Anna Grogan, Mary Dickison and Martha Long. Of these, John, Jackson, Martin and Mary now survive.
Jesse had three boys, David, Risse and William, and four girls, Civilla Graves, Amanda Luther, Carrie Graves and Mary, all of these survive but William and Mary.
John had four boys and two girls. His son Henry was the first child born in the county. William had eight children, Nathan had seven, Isom had eight. George was lost in the army, and the others have all done well in
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multiplication. Some of these were here as early as 1847. Jesse was a long time stage agent and kept a wayside tavern at Bell Point. John A. and S. Asbury are sons of Rev. Samuel Hull, of Terre Haute, Ind., and nephews of Dr. James, George and Uriah. John A. came in 1854 and Asbury came at same time, but he returned to Terre Haute, coming back in 1868.
The Hulls are of Scotch and German stock, the father of the family be- ing a pioneer in the mountains of Virginia, and among the first settlers of Licking county, Ohio. They are almost unanimous in the Methodist faith, and Dr. James and his son, Wesley C., are the only two that ever faltered in their democracy, so far as heard from. In early days in the county, when local questions were prominent and all-absorbing, they sometimes " bolted " and they were so strong that, by fusing with the three Whigs in the county, they could carry the elections, and for several years the old liners had to look out or the Hulls and Whigs would unite and beat them. They have all raised large families and the present generation can scarce be counted.
In May, 1846, came John Pea, James Hull, John M. Crooks, S. H. Bowers and Thomas Sparks. They all settled in or near the timber bordering on a creek which empties into the Des Moines river about three miles north of Elk Rapids. Two of them, John Pea and James Hull, came near the same time, probably on the same day, although they were not from the same neighborhood in the East, and probably had not met till arriving in this county. The others came later, but all during the month of May, 1846. Mr. Pea was a pioneer of the old stock; a positive, outspoken, blunt man. He was a Pennsylvanian by birth and prior to settling in this county, had for a time resided in every State intervening between this and the place of his birth. He resided for a time in Ohio when its forests were in a primeval condition. That country settling up, he gathered to- gether his effects and penetrated the dense forests of Indiana. Having resided in Indiana till the representatives of a higher civilization pressed too close around him he again emigrated and pitched his tent in the van of civilization on the broad prairies of the Garden State. From Illinois he removed to Missouri and was one of the pioneers of that State. Whether he was again crowded out or whether he disliked the " peculiar institution " of the State and was induced to come to the free soil of Iowa to escape the blighting curse of slavery, we know not. It is sufficient to know that he came, and for many years was one of the leading citizens of Boone county. The neighborhood in which he settled was, in his honor, named Pea's Point. This locality, we believe, was afterward called Flat Rock. The stream a short distance southeast of Boone and emptying into the Des Moines some three miles above Elk Rapids was called Pea's creek, and it is our understanding that it still bears that name. Pea's ford, a favorite crossing of the Des Moines directly west of Boone, was also named after this hardy pioneer. After the county began to be tolerably well settled up Mr. Pea become somewhat discontented and conceived the idea of again emigrating. He even made the preliminary preparations and had the lo- cality picked out in Nebraska where he proposed to drive his stakes for the sixth time. From some reason his plan of emigrating to Nebraska was not carried out and John Pea, one of the most active and characteristic pioneers of Boone county, died a few years ago and was buried not many miles from the spot of ground upon which he erected his first Iowa cabin.
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HISTORY OF BOONE COUNTY.
We have already said that John Pea was a plain, blunt man; this state- ment does not necessarily conflict with the further statement that he was a man of kind heart and generous impulses. He was a man of vigorous constitution and powerful frame, and after his head was covered with the gray hairs of three-score and ten winters, such were his erect form and robust constitution that time seemed to have broken its billows over his manly form only as the ocean rends its fury over the immovable rocks of the shore. Both physically and socially he was altogether such a man as is the product of a busy life on the wild frontier; from such factors, and only such, can a like product be obtained.
One of the of most eventful scenes, and one greatly regretted both by friend and foe, in the life of John Pea, was enacted during the progress of the late war. Although an ardent admirer of the American Union, and at heart as patriotic a citizen as could be found from Maine to Oregon, Mr. Pea was an ultra Democrat of the anti-war stampand was a good represent- ative of that class of citizens known in every community throughont the north, vulgarly called copperheads. It is not known that he took active measures to retard recruiting, or that he frequently even so much as openly spoke against the prosecution of the war. However, during the exciting times when the Union army was meeting with repeated reverses, and the call for volunteers was so large and frequent that the quota could no longer be filled, and it became necessary to order a draft, under the excitement of the hour and probably with no evil intent, Pea made some very insulting remarks, addressed to some recruits who were upon the point of leaving the county for the seat of war. The persons to whom these remarks were ad- dressed, being in charge of a commissioned officer, did not dare to resent the insult, but they treasured up in their memory the words spoken. This was especially true of one of the number, a man who was physically Pea's superior, and when in the course of time he returned to the county on a recruiting mission he assailed Pea on the streets of Boonesboro, and after addressing the old man in the most abusive language knocked him down, whereupon Pea inflicted upon the person of his assailant two or three frightful stabs, from the effects of which the officer was likely not to recover. A large number of returned soldiers were in the town at the time, and when the varions accounts, as usual highly colored, were spread abroad, threats of lynching the old man were freely made. The civil authorities seeing that a movement in this direction was taking definite shape, and that a rope for that purpose had already been procured, took Pea to a place of safety. He was indicted by the grand jury at its next sitting, and although the officer who had been stabbed had in the meantime recovered, a powerful effort was made to convict Pea of a crime which would have sent him to the State prison. The accused, however, had in the meantime enlisted the sympathies of many of the leading citizens, and through the untiring efforts of his counsel, ex-Judge Mitchell he was ac- quitted.
James Hull, who came to the county the same time John Pea did, was from Indiana. He was the advance guard of a numerous following of en- terprising farmers of the same name and of the same ancestry. He first located at Pea's Point, where, in years afterward, numerous representatives of the same family and from the same locality in Indiana settled. In later years he removed to Boonesboro, where he still resides. Later came Jesse Hull, John Hull, William Hull, and others of the same name and
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family. The Hulls were so numerous at one time that they became quite an important element in the politics of the county. There were in early days the Democratic party, the Whig party, and the Hull party. On questions of national and State politics the Hulls were Democrats, and the Democratic party was largely in the majority, but on local questions the Hulls did not always vote with the Democratic party, and if they went with the Whigs the Democrats were in the minority. Thus it was that in all contests of a local character it was a matter of vital interest to know how the Hull party would vote. The first contest in which the Hulls showed their strength was in an election which decided the location of a certain road. The policy of the dominant party was to have the road run through the timber; the Hulls objected, and by uniting with the Whigs came very nearly defeating the measure, and would have done so had not some of the Whigs broken away from the alliance. The Hulls have always been known in the county as an active, energetic, and intelligent class of people; they represented nearly all of the known callings, trades, and professions. Jesse Hull resided for many years at a place some ten miles south of Boone, called Bell's Point, where he kept a stage station for the Des Moines and Fort Dodge line of the Western Stage Company. James Hull was a phy- sician, and lived at Pea's Point, where he erected a house, which is known in late years as Dr. James Hull's old farm house. Rev. George Hull, a Methodist minister, organized the first religious society in the county, during the year 1848. John A. Hull, Esq., has for many years been known in this and adjoining counties as one of the leading lawyers of the State. At another place we shall speak more fully of these representative men of the county.
John M. Crooks was from Indiana. He was one of the most influential citizens of the county in early days. It was at his house that the settlers congregated at the time of the Lott difficulty. When the Pottawattamies, under the direction of Lott, came across the prairie flourishing their weapons and uttering their war cries, the band of white settlers, supposing that they were the bloodthirsty Sioux, went out to meet them, under the command of Mr. Crooks. Their weapons consisted of but a few trusty rifles, while the larger part of the force was armed with pitchforks and scythes, yet that little band, under the command of their brave leader, would have made a desperate fight had the Indians proved to be enemies, as they were supposed to be, instead of friends, which they really were. John M. Crooks emi- grated to the West years ago, and is now a citizen of Nevada. Jacob Crooks, with his wife, Hannah, the parents of J. M. Crooks, settled in the county the following year. They first located in Jefferson county, this State, in 1845, and after remaining there two years, followed their son to this county. Old Jacob Crooks has long since passed away, but the mem- ory of the good old man still remains a grateful heritage to those who, by many years of intimate association, learned to prize his many sterling traits of character. G. W. Crooks, another son, came to the county at an early day. He held the office of sheriff, first by appointment to fill out an unex- pired term, and then by election, for a number of consecutive years. He afterward was elected to the General Assembly of the State, and is now one of the prominent attorneys of Boone.
Thomas Sparks was born in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, December 23d, 1815. His parents removed to Tuscarawas county, Ohio, whence they. returned to Pennsylvania, young Sparks remaining with them. In 1846
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, he emigrated to this county where he has since resided. He had no edu- cational advantages in early life except such as were furnished in the com- mon schools of the States where he resided. His early education, how- ever, has been supplemented by extensive reading and self culture in later years. Mr. Sparks is a descendant of a noble line of ancestors who emi- grated from England with William Penn in his first voyage to Pennsyl- vania, in 1682. This ancestor, Oliver Copes by name, first settled on Naaman creek, in Pennsylvania, the record showing that he purchased of Penn five hundred acres of land which were set off to him in 1682. Although Mr. Sparks has given his attention chiefly to the business of farming he has also taken an active part in the political affairs of the county. At the election held in August, 1849, for the purpose of organ- izing the county he was elected to the office of county surveyor, a very responsible and important office in those days. Since that time he has been elected to many important offices and has invariably discharged his official duties with credit to himself and to the satisfaction of his constituents. He at present resides about six miles south of Boone, where he owns a fine farm of two hundred and eighty acres in an excellent state of culti- vation.
Among the number of men of education and refinement who left their comfortable homes in the East and exchanged the luxuries of an old settled country for the hardships and privations of the new, there are none proba- bly who have been more prominently associated with the development of the county or who have exercised a more potent influence in moulding and shaping the community in which they moved than John M. Wayne. He came to the county shortly after the first settlement was made and still lives near the spot of ground where he erected his first cabin on the orig- inal claim. The most important part of his education was obtained in the office of "The New York Tribune " where he served an apprenticeship as a printer. It was doubtless under the tuition of the sage of Chapaqua that he imbibed these ideas of industry and economy which have since secured for him a successful career in business and the political principles which were inculcated by this leader of the Whig party Mr. Wayne carried with him to the new country in the defense of which he waged many a fierce contest. At the first election held in the county, August, 1849, Mr. Wayne was elected to the responsible office of clerk of the district court. At this election party lines were not closely drawn, the only issne before the people being that of securing honest and competent officials. Affairs did not long remain in this condition and although the Democrats were largely in the majority Mr. Wayne adhered rigidly to his Whig principles although in doing so he thereby diminished his chances for official promotion. Not- withstanding the fact that he was recognized as the most radical and promn . inent of the leaders of the minority party Mr. Wayne was frequently elected to important offices and by a frequent coalition with the Hull party elections were frequently carried in spite of the large majority of the op- posite party. Mr. Wayne is comfortably located on an excellent farm a few miles south of Boone, and enjoys the respect and confidence of all who know him.
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