USA > Iowa > Cedar County > The history of Cedar County, Iowa : containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, &c. : a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics, portraits of early settlers and prominent men > Part 57
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 | Part 91 | Part 92
Jerome Sweinhart is engaged in the production of first-class phaetons, car- riages, and especially the " Dexter Spring " buggy. He has been established in Tipton since 1852, and is now located on Fourth street.
D. K. Deardorf, on Sixth street, in the old Methodist Church building, has a large stock of carriages on land. He has been engaged in manufacturing wagons and buggies for a number of years, and his work has a good reputa- tion.
From the above items it will be seen that, although the manufacturing inter- ests of Tipton are limited to this department, it is very well represented therein, and deserves the entire patronage of the community.
TIPTON STEAM MILLS.
These mills were built in 1850, by a stock company. John P. Cook was elected President, William H. Tuthill, Secretary, and Samuel Long, Jr., Treas- urer. The stockholders were named as follows:
Robert H. Adams, Henry Bagley, Linus Bushnell, Simeon A. Bagley, George Bagley, Jeremiah C. Betts, Luther Bradley, Henry D. Brown, John Culbertson, John P. Cook. Wm. H. Tuthill, George Carl, Alexander Coutts, Peter Dilts, Robert Evans, Jolin Ferguson, P. J. Friend, Richard Hall, Willard Hammond, Mrs. Flora Huff, Solomon Knott, David Klock, Samuel W. Knott, Samuel I. Long, Robert M. Long, William Morton, D. A. McConnell, Cyrus Rickard, James H. Robinson, Washington A. Rigby, Francis Richard, Silas S. Swan, Charles Swetland, James Safley, Jolin Safley, Alonzo Shaw, John S. Tuthill, Samuel Tomlinson, Jacob L. Wright, John W. Wilkinson.
The first stock was issued in January, 1850.
The mill was first operated by Friend & Culbertson. for two years. but they found it unprofitable, and others tried it, with similar results. The great diffi- culty was an insufficiency of water. In August, 1854, Henry Bagley, then of Tipton, now of Mechanicsville, took the mill in charge and dug a large mill pond west of the mill, by which a constant supply was received through a quick- sand stratum. In 1855, the mill was sold to Stout & Shearer, and it has been operated by the Shearers to the present time. Walter and John Shearer are now proprietors.
The power used in operating the machinery is a large horizontal engine of fifty-horse power. There are two runs of stone, and all the necessary apparatus for manufacturing flour. It has a capacity of 200 barrels per week. Dennis Welch is the engineer, and Walter Shearer is the miller.
The elevator of John Culbertson was built in 1874, and has been in active operation ever since. It has a storing capacity of 8,000 bushels, and ships to Chicago and other cities.
This elevator is now operated by W. F. Witmer.
The Stone Mill, on Rock Creek. about four miles south of Tipton, was built in the Spring of 1866, by James Dwiggins. The mill was completed and put in operation in February, 1867. It is a stone structure, two stories high above the basement, and is operated by water power, the water running through a race thirty feet deep and 100 feet long, cut through solid rock. and exhibits a won- derful piece of mechanical engineering. The Leffel Turbine wheel is used. A horizontal engine, made by Noyes, of Clinton, Iowa, of twenty-horse power, to be used in case of low water, is in the mill and ready for use at any time. There are two runs of stone. The " Middlings Purifier" is used in the mill, and
482
HISTORY OF CEDAR COUNTY.
the firm are constantly putting in new and improved machinery. Five men are employed about the mill, and turn out about sixty barrels of flour per week. The mill is the property of Shearer & Gray, who have operated it since 1868, when it was sold to them by Mr. Dwiggans.
HOTELS.
The first public house kept in Tipton was by Charles M. Jennings, in 1840, within a few rods of the center of the county. This was afterward known as the Petriken Building, having been bought by B. Rush Petriken, Register of the Land Office.
Palmer House .- In the same year, John Culbertson built a log house, to which he soon after added a two-story frame front. This he carried on as the " Culbertson House" until 1847, when it was purchased by Alonzo Shaw and Col. Lockwood Smith, who, in 1850, sold it to Samuel Tomlinson. He disposed of the hotel building to J. C. Betts, in 1853, who added a third story and sold it to W. W. Aldrich, in 1856. From that time it was known as the " Aldrich House." Mr. Aldrich afterward rented it to Isaac Wright and others, and, in 1870, while it was the property of Amos Stanley and occupied by Mrs. Mary Palmer, it was burned to the ground.
The building next north, then owned by John Culbertson, was immediately enlarged and occupied by Mrs. Palmer.
J. P. Miller afterward purchased and operated it, and has since sold it to A. R. Starrett, who again enlarged it. It is now operated by Mrs. Mary Palmer.
The Fleming House .- Charles M. Jennings built a second house in 1840- the hotel now known as above-north of the Court Square, This was pur- chased by Patterson Fleming, in August, 1842, and continued by him, as the " Temperance House," until his death, in 1860. Thereafter, Mrs. Catherine Fleming operated the hotel as the " Union," and afterward as the " Fleming House," until March 1, 1878, when the present proprietors, Messrs. S. Jagger & Son, took possession.
The Goodrich House .- About 1850, Stephen Goodrich established this house on the corner of Third and Cedar streets, now the residence of John D. Shearer. Mr. Goodrich died there, and the hotel was continued by Mrs. Good- rich, who married twice. In 1853, the hotel was continued by Shaw & (George) Bagley, and, in 1854, by - Whitson, on the death of whom, Mrs. Whitson operated the hotel for a time, when it was discontinued.
The Pennsylvania House .- The two-and-a-half-story brick hotel on Third street was built in 1854, by John H. Bierley, and was then the "Bierley House." It was operated, afterward, by David Parks, as the " Parks House," and, after changing hands many times, was conducted by J. P. Miller as the " Pennsylvania House." It is now managed by A. C. Hartson as the " Hart- son House."
POST OFFICE.
The Tipton Post Office was established July 23, 1840, with Charles M. Jennings as Postmaster. The money-order system was established in March, 1866. The number of orders issued has now reached the number of 21,353. For the year ending March 1, 1878, the receipts of the Post Office were $2,700, and there were 2,946 orders issued, amounting to $38,000. Orders paid, $14,885.
Alonzo Shaw is the present Postmaster.
glomeration
TIPTON
485
HISTORY OF CEDAR COUNTY.
A VALUABLE AND VOLUMINOUS PRIVATE LIBRARY.
The following article, published in the Inter Ocean, Chicago, was written by a gentleman who. on a visit to Tipton, called on Judge Wm. H. Tuthill, the widely known historian and antiquarian. As this rare library was of interest to the writer, so is it to every one who appreciates the value of such works as are enumerated in the descriptive article which is appended in full. The people of Tipton and Cedar County may well be proud of this collection. As a source of reference, it is often sought after by lawyers, ministers and almost every other profession of Iowa and some of the adjoining States. The correspondent said :
I had often heard of "Judge Tuthill's Library" spoken of as not only being very large and extensive, but selected with much care and taste ; and having some curiosity to see it and judge for myself, gladly took the opportunity a few days ago, with his courteous permission, to look over its multifarious contents. I say look over, for it would take weeks, indeed, I might well say months, to examine in detail the vast quantity of literary lore there placed on his shelves.
It is, without doubt, one of the choicest collection of books owned by any private individual in the State of Iowa, comprising over five thousand volumes in nearly every department of literature, science and art, and must have cost him a large sum of money.
The Judge is well known as an antiquarian, being an honorary member of most of the Genealogical, Historical and Antiquarian Societies of the Eastern States; and among liis books will be found some rare specimens of early typography, several of which are about four hundred years old, being published in the same century in which the art of printing was discovered.
He has also the old Bible brought from England by liis ancestor in 1637, a quaint looking old quarto, printed in 1599, before the present " King James' translation" came into existence. This is the celebrated " Breeches Bible," so called because in the translation it states that " Adam and Eve took fig leaves and made themselves breeches."
The Judge said he had but a small collection of Bibles, only some forty or fifty in seventeen different languages. One in Anglo Saxon seemed to me quite a curiosity, as exhibiting the great change in orthography that has been made in the King's English. This, I think, was Wickliffe's translation. Then there was another in Dutch ( Holland) brought over, doubtless, by one of the first settlers of New Netherlands, printed in 1584, in the original binding, with a mass- ive brass clasp, a most antique looking affair.
I observed, also, a copy of the " Year Books," the oldest printed law book in existence, and very scarce, printed in black letter, by Richard Tothill, in 1568, six large quarto volumes ; and, in looking at it, I came to the conclusion that this black letter, which resembles German text, would puzzle most of the modern lawyers to read.
There are also several of the first editions of some of the early Law Reporters, also printed by Richard Tothill (who, it seems, was an ancestor of the Judge), dating back to the days of Queen Elizabeth. A copy, too, of that rare old book, Grafton's Chronicle, 1568, said to have been compiled by him during his long imprisonment for publishing an edition of the Bible in English ; with many other early printed works, mostly in Latin, from the first printing presses established. in the fifteenth century in Germany, Italy and France, one of which particularly attracted my attention, being a clean, perfect copy of the rare Aldine edition, so highly prized by bibli- ographers, of a Dictionaricum Græcum, iu Gothic and Roman type, with written paginations printed in Venice in 1497. It was indeed a curiosity, a veritable relic of olden times, bound in stamped vellum, with the ancient clasps still attached.
Among the classics I observed a fine copy of the Drakenborchii edition of Livy, in eight volumes, which Dibdin refers to as "one of the most beautiful and correct editions ever pub- lished." This copy is on large paper, and said to be very valuable.
The department of Heraldry and Genealogy is very extensive. A complete set of all the costly works compiled and edited by J. Bernard Burke, the standard authority of England, among which I noted his Royal Families, Peerage and Baronetage, Seats of the Nobility, Diction- ary of Arms, etc., etc. Then there was the Calendar of State Papers, a voluminous series, pub- lished under the authority of the British Government ; Grose's Antiquities, 8 vols. (the celebrated Capt. Grose mentioned in Burns' poems) ; Publications of the Camden Society, 75 vols. ; Lyson's Magna Britannica and Environs, 9 vols. quarto ; Harleian Miscellany, 12 vols. ; Lewis' Topograph- ical Dictionary of England, Ireland and Wales, 10 vols .; Nichols' Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, 8 vols ; Topographer and Genealogist, 3 vols. ; Literary Anecdotes, 9 vols. ; Lite- rary Illustrations, 6 vols.
But among all this wealth of books there were none more highly prized by me than the rich and costly Bibliographical works of the renowned Dr. Dibdin, comprising the Bibliographical Decameron, 3 vols. ; Tour in France and Germany, 3 vols., of which a copy, highly illustrated, was sold at the " Rice sale" for $1,920, being the highest price ever paid for a single work in the United States ; Tour in the Northern Counties, 2 vols. ; Typographical Antiquities, 4 vols. ; Bibliotheca Spenceriana and Edes Althorpiana, 6 vols. : Cassano's Collection, 1 vol. ; Bibliomania,
L
486
HISTORY OF CEDAR COUNTY.
Bibliophobia, Library Companion, Introduction to Greek and Latin Classics, 2 vols. ; autobiog- raphy, 2 vols.
I saw, also the fac-simile reprint of Caxton's "Game of ye Chesse," the first book printed in England, and the zincographic fac-simile got up by Lord Ellesmere of the first edition of Shakespeare, the exceedingly scarce first folio copy, of which one is exhibited in a glass case at the Astor Library in New York, and which is said to be worth $1,000.
Then there was quite a number of Herald's Visitations, pretty much all, I believe, that have been printed ; and of Heraldic works there were Guillam, Yorke, Wotton, Kent, Robson, Berry and Boutell, with a host of others.
In Biography, I observed Wood's Athena Oxoniensis, 2 vols. folio ; Dr. Kippis' Biographia Britannica, 5 vols. folio. ; Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary, 32 vols., with numerous others, such as Allen, Blake, Hawks, Allibone, Drake, etc.
Then came a large collection of works relating to English county history, among them Blomefield's History of Norfolk County, 12 vols .; Norfolk Archeology, 6 vols. ; Polwhele's Devonshire ; as also Risdon, Westcott and Moore, together with the first, second and third series of Notes and Queries, 36 vols .; Bailey and Britton, 32 vols., etc., etc.
The Judge scems to have been an assiduous student of our own early Colonial History, for the works on his shelves relating to the early settlements of this country are a legion. To attempt to particularize them would take up too much space and time for a newspaper article ; but it would appear that every work that has been published on the subject has been carefully sought out and deposited herc. For instance, all that has ever appeared in print relating to the Salem witchcraft mania ; the Hutchinson controversy ; and, in fact, the same might be said as to almost any other mooted point in the old Colonial times. Then there was the Historical Magazine from the commencement up to the present time; and the Proceedings and Collections of all the His- torical Societies in the United States that have issued publications, of which the Massachusetts Historical Society is the most extensive, comprising some forty volumes. Connected with this department is the Genealogical History of the Puritan settlers, a complete library in itself; there was the Historical and Genealogical Register, 25 vols .; Savage, 4 vols. ; Farmer, Hinman and others ; and scores upon scores of genealogical histories that have been published from time to time of scparate individual families, some of them now exceedingly scarce.
Then, coming down to what may be terined modern publications, I find our standard Amer- ican authors, Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, llildreth, Palfrey, etc., in History ; and in Poetry, the works of both British and American authors, from Chaucer and Spencer to Bryant and Tenny- son, most of them beautifully embellished editions.
Of the War of the Rebellion, there was the Rebellion Record, 12 vols., handsomely bound in half Turkey mnorocco, being the copy formerly owned by Mayor Rice, of Chicago ; Duyckinck's History of the War for the Union, and Tomes' War with the South. each of the two last named works in 3 vols. quarto, and extensively illustrated with engraved portraits, battles, etc. : these, I think, where what are called subscription works, added to which are a dozen or more of others, such as Lossing, Greeley, Pollard, etc.
Of what are known as privately printed books, I never before knew that so many of that description had come into existence. There was the Munsell Series, Bradford Club publications, Prince Society, Providence Club, Andrews', Dawson's, Shay's, Sabin's and Woodward's Series, and innumerable others, many of them presentation copies. One of them is worthy of more particular notice. It is the " Diary of Washington from Oct. 1st, 1789. to the 10th of March, 1790," of which only one hundred copies were printed at the expense of J. Carson Brevoort, Esq., and this particular copy superbly bound in levant morocco was presented to the Sanitary Commission Fair, held at New York, April 5th, 1864, and there publicly sold at an extravagant price.
In the department of illustrated books, the Judge's library is decidedly rich. There is Hume's England, published by Bowyer in the beginning of the present century, in 6 vols. folio, but by far the largest sized folio I ever saw. I think it is called Atlas or Elephant. Then comes Macklin's Bible, 6 vols. of the same size, of which the engravings alone are said to have cost a fortune. Then there is Knight's pictorial edition of Shakespeare, 8 vols. ; Milton, 2 vols. : Thomson's Season's, in large quarto ; the Keepsake, 8 vols., large paper ; Lodge's Portraits, the large paper edition ; Knight's Gallery ; Hogarth's Works : Burney's History of Music ; Dore's Don Quixote ; Bartlett's Scenery, and hundreds of other works. filled with the most exquisite engravings.
There, too, are the works on chess of Philidor, Sarratt, Lewis, Staunton and others ; Chess Player's Companion, Problems, Tournaments, etc.
The works of reference alone would fill the shelves of an ordinary library, There were the Encyclopedias from the early ones down to Chambers' and Appleton's. The numerous Gazeteers, the Dictionaries and kindred works were almost without number, among which can only be par- ticularized Bailey, Ashe, Tooke, Nares, Entick, l'egge, Boyer, Ainsworth, Halliwell, Johnson, Richardson, Worcester and Webster, which last is a truly magnificent copy, in two large folio volumes, being the large paper edition of which it is said there were but two hundred copies printed, and intended for presents.
In the periodical line, I noticed full files of the Merchants' Magazine, Putnam's, Atlantic and Harper's ; and in what may be termed light reading, there were not only the older works of
1
487
HISTORY OF CEDAR COUNTY.
Le Sage, Fielding, Sterne, Smollett, Richardson, etc., but the later ones of Sir Walter Scott, Bulwer, James, Lever, Dumas, Sue, Reade, ete. ; and of our own American authors, Washington Irving, J. F. Cooper, J. P. Kennedy, and an almost endless variety of others.
Then the piles of pamphlets on apparently every subject, of which, to my inexperienced eye, there seemed to be thousands upon thousands, making a perfect mine of printed matter that would gladden the eyes and delight the heart of every true lover of literature.
CLARENCE.
The neighborhood of Clarence was first known as Onion Grove, under which name the first post office was established, with Thomas Robinson as Postmaster. The office was first kept at the house of Mr. Robinson, at the grove two miles north of the present village of Clarence, and was supplied by the Tipton, Dubuque and Iowa City mail route. When the first settlers came, there were large quantities of wild onions growing along the banks of Mill Creek and in the timber, from which circumstance was derived the name of Onion Grove, as applied to the timber in that part of Dayton Township.
In the Fall of 1858, the Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska Railroad, now known as the Chicago & North-Western Railway, was completed to a point just east of the village, where it stopped for a time. When the road was extended farther west, and the company established a station here, they called it Onion Grove Station. The post office was removed from the grove soon after. Thomas Wor- den was Postmaster at the time of removal. The first Postmaster after the establishment of Onion Grove Station and the removal of the post office from Worden's to the station, was J. W. Bonesteel; the second one was Dan. Kin- niston; third, L. B. Gere; fourth, G. O. Button. The present incumbent is J. P. Ferguson, who has held the office about seven years.
When the cars commenced to make regular trips to Onion Grove Station in 1858, an old car, switched off on a side track, was used as a freight and ticket office. William M. Hoey was the first agent. This " make shift" was located east of town, near the McNeil place.
While the railroad was building, the Iowa Land Company was organized. The purpose of the company was to control the location of stations along the line of the road. When the line of the road was established, Joseph Ball was the owner of the northeast quarter of Section 27, and the entire south half of the same section. About the time the station was established, the Iowa Land Com- pany bought from Mr. Ball the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 27, 40 acres, for town purposes. That forty acres was south of Lom- bard street. James Laughrey owned the east half of the southeast quarter of Section 22, and Daniel Lesley owned the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 23. These tracts extended north from Lombard street across the rail- road track, and were also purchased by the Iowa Land Company. The forty acres above referred to, as purchased from Ball, was subdivided into town lots by the Land Company, as was also a part of the eighty acres purchased from Laughrey. This survey covered the original plat of Clarence.
In 1865, Fred. Hecht, M. K. H. Reed and A. Piatt bought the balance of the northeast quarter of Section 27, and all of the south half of the same sec- tion, and laid off what was known as Hecht's Addition to the town of Clarence. In 1867, Charles M. Gilbert made an addition to the east side of Clarence, which is known as Gilbert's Addition. In 1868, L .Phelps also made an addi- tion, which is known as Phelps' Addition. Besides the above named additions, there are these several others : Hluff's Addition on the northwest ; Baumann's, on the northeast ; Phelps' Triangular Addition, which lies between Lombard street and the railroad track, and Hecht's Second Addition.
488
HISTORY OF CEDAR COUNTY.
The lots laid off on the Laughrey track north of the railroad were never improved. In 1865, L. Phelps contracted with the Iowa Land Company for that part of the three eighty acre tracts lying north of the railroad. Before the decds were executed, he contracted the west eighty to James Huff, and the deeds were made to Mrs. Huff. The east eighty, with the exception of the part of it south of the railroad, and known as the Phelps' Triangular Addition, was deeded to George Bauman, leaving Mr. Phelps in possession of all that part of the mid- dle eighty north of the railroad. After the title was confirmed in him, Mr. Phelps petitioned to have that part of it included in the original town plat vacated, which petition was granted, and the land is now used for farming purposes.
Clarence was named in honor of Clarence, New York, at the suggestion of L. B. Gere, one of the early business men of Onion Grove Station.
The population is estimated at 800.
VILLAGE GOVERNMENT.
The village of Clarence was incorporated under the general laws of the State in the carly part of 1866. The first meeting of the Town Board was held on the 8th of May, 1866. The first Mayor was James De Wolf. Since then, the Mayors in succession have been as follows :
1867. James De Wolf; 1868, Norman Eldridge; 1869, M. K. H. Reed ; 1870, J. McMillon, who served three years; 1873, Seth Sylvester ; 1874, J. P. Ferguson, who served two years ; 1876, Norman Eldredge ; 1877, L. M. John- son, who is now (1878) serving a second term.
First Board of Aldermen-C. M. Gilbert, E. B. Simmonds, A. W. Bloomburg, B. A. Mink and J. Stone ; Geo. McLeod, Recorder ; L. H. Knapp, Treasurer ; J. P. Ferguson, Marshal.
Present Board of Aldermen-Thomas Elijah, H. G. Coe, C. F. Warner, George Smith and James Beattie. E. J. Moriarty is City Marshal.
Since the village was incorporated, there has been a continued struggle between the license and anti-license parties for supremacy in the management of village affairs. The license party have, in a majority of instances, proved successful. The present Board is anti-license.
RELIGIOUS INTERESTS.
Presbyterian Church .- In the early days of this town, when emigrants came in from the East, they did not forget their devotion to Him who had provided a dwelling place for them, but gathered together, first in private houses and afterward in public halls, for divine worship. From the records of the Presbyterian Church we transcribe the following :
Rev. Samuel J. Mills, after preaching a few weeks in the towns of Wheatland and Onion Grove (now Clarence), and a state of things arising which appeared to call for the organization of a church. did, by notice previously given, convene a meeting for the purpose of such organi- zation, in the hall over the store of Messrs. Fish & Gere, on Wednesday, November 14, 1860.
A sermon was preached by Rev. Daniel Clark, after which, and assisted by Rev. George D. Young, he organized " The First Presbyterian Church of Dayton," now called The First Presby- terian Church of Clarence. At this time, it was connected with the New School branch, but by the union of the two bodies, it is now in connection with the. Presbyterian Church.
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.