The history of Clinton County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns &c., biographical sketches of citizens, Part 38

Author: Western Historical Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : Western historical company
Number of Pages: 812

USA > Iowa > Clinton County > The history of Clinton County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns &c., biographical sketches of citizens > Part 38

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The Mound-Builders wore some sort of cloth as well as the dressed skins of animals. Some of the implements are found wrapped in wonderfully well- preserved cloth much resembling canvas. Trepanned skulls and flattened shin- bones are met with, showing that a rude sort of surgery, either for medical or superstitious reasons, was practiced, and that the skeletons are similar in con- formation to the present tribes of Indians. No ethnological differences have been observed sufficient to give weight to the theory that these regions were inhabited by a previous race distinct from the copper-colored Aborigines. Anatomically judged, the Mound-Builders were neither larger nor stronger than men of to-day. In some instances, the skull departs from the ordinary Caucasian or present Indian type, " the frontal bone receding from a prominent superciliary ridge, leaving no forchead, or rather the eye looks out from the frontal plate very similar to a turtle's shell and no more elevated." But the low forehead may have been artificially caused as in the case of the Flatheads in the Northwest, who may be congeners of the Mound-Builders forced from their old homes by more powerful adversaries.

MYTHICAL.

Probably by far the most dramatic and tragic portion of the history of Clinton County is that of which there is neither tradition or record, antedating the arrival of the white man. Probably every romantic bluff along the river and deep grove along the creeks, has been the scene of attack and defense, ambuscades and massacres, as thrilling as those which, embalmed in the pages of poets and romancers, have made Scotland, Wyoming, New York and New England historic and classic ground. But the warfares and feuds of the Indian or other tribes are of no more moment now than "the conflicts of kites and crows," to which a great writer has compared the squabbles of the old German barons. Now sagamore and warrior, denizen and invader,

" -all are gone, Alike without a monumental stone,"

unless a few crumbling and scattered earthen mounds serve as memorials. When the first white settlers took possession of their claims in Clinton County they must-if they paused from their labors to meditate-have felt very much as did the Israelites who ventured into the deserted Assyrian camp and there found such great treasures defended or owned by no man. Future generations will read of how their forefathers entered in and possessed the virgin prairies of Clinton County, finding farms, compared with the rugged East or arid West, virtually

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HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.

prepared by Nature's hand, very much as people now marvel at the gold and silver found by Cortez and Pizarro. But how different is the title to the fruits of the prairies, won by honest toil, from that to the wealth wrenched by the Spanish conquistadores from the Aztec and Inca, and the blessing that has fol- lowed the former contrasted to-day with the curse that has settled over the latter, is attested by the comparative result of the forty years of white occu- pancy in Clinton County and the two centuries since the Spanish conquests in the tropics.

It is not to be regretted, if the highest interests of the race are considered. that the red man had practically vacated Iowa's prairies before the territory was overspread by the westward-rolling wave of white immigration. Several alternatives would have been the result-a war of extermination as in Massa- chusetts, the "dark and bloody ground" of Ohio and Kentucky, and in the Gulf States, causing scores of desolated homes and the decimation of the bravest and best among the settlers, or the growth of a system of peonage as in the Southwest and Mexico, and troublesome negotiations as to the respective rights of savage and white man, varied by massacres like those in Minnesota. The moral status and nationality of the settlers would have secured them against amalgamation.

Probably there were none of the settlers so engrossed in considerations of possible profit from the bounteous soil which could not help, by its luxuriant primeval growth, testifying to its richness, that they failed to appreciate the vastness, gorgeousness and sublimity of the landscape, as they prospected for or selected, the sites of their homesteads. The whistle of the steamer echoed for miles over the quiet prairie, preventing loneliness from being felt by the set- tlers in the eastern part of the county, and hinting of the busy and fast approach- ing world of traffic, into which the new country they were developing would soon be incorporated. Never was there a fairer fresh field for pioneers to create a. State as near perfect as permitted to men, to mould one that would worthily succeed the prairies which Bryant has so fully and poetically pictured.

THE PRAIRIES.

" These are the gardens of the Desert, these

The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,

For which the speech of England has no name-

The Prairies. I behold them for the first,

And my heart swells, while the dilated sight

Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo, they stretch

In airy undulations, far away,

As if the ocean in its gentlest swell,

Stood still with all rounded billows fixed,

And motionless forever. Motionless ?

No-they are all unchained again. The clouds

Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,

The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye. Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South ! Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,

And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,

Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not- *

* * * have ye fanned A nobler or a lovelier scene than this? Man hath no part in all this glorious work ;

The hand that built the firmament hath heaved And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopes With herbage, planted them with island groves, And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor For this magnificent temple of the sky-

With flowers whose glory and whose multitude

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HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.

Rival the constellations! The great heavens Seem to slope down upon the scene in love,- A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue Than that which bends above our eastern hills.

" As o'er the verdant waste I guide my steed Among the high, rank grass that sweeps his sides. The hollow beating of his footstep seems A sacrilegious sound. I think of those Upon whose rest he tramples. Are they here- The dead of other days ?- and did the dust Of these fair solitudes once stir with life And burn with passion ? Let the mighty mounds That overlook the rivers, or that rise In the dim forest, crowded with old oiks.

Answer. A race, that long has passed away,

Built them ; a disciplined and populous race Hlenped with long toil the earth, while yet the Greek Was hewing the l'entilicus to forins Of symmetry, and rearing on its rocks The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields Nourished their harvests, here their herds were fed,

When haply by their stalls the bison lowed And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke. All day this desert murmured with their toils, Till twilight blushed, and lovers walked and wooed In a forgotten language, and old tunes. From instruments of unremembered forms, Gave the soft wind a voice. The red man came-

The roaming hunter tribes, warlike and fierce, And the mound-builders vanished from the earth.

" The solitude of centuries untold llas settled where they dwelt. The prairie-wolf Hunts in their meadows, and his fresh-dng den Yawns by my path. The gopher mines the ground Where stood their swarming cities. All is gone ; All save the piles of earth that hold their bones. The platforms where they worshiped unknown gods, The barriers which they builded from the soil To keep the foe at bay-till o'er the walls The wild beleaguers broke, and, one by one, The strongholds of the plain were forced, and heaped With corpses. The brown vultures of the wood Flocked to these vast, uncovered sepulchres, And sat, nuseared and silent, at their feast. Haply, some solitary fugitive, Lurking in marsh and forest till the sense Of desolation and of fear became Bitterer than death, yieldled himself to die. Man's better nature triumphed then. Kind words Welcomed and soothed him ; the rude conquerors Seated the captive with their chiefs ; he chose A bride among their maidens, and, at length, Seemed to forget-yet ne'er forgot-the wife Of his first love, and her sweet little ones, Butchered amid their shrieks, with all his race.

"Thus change the forms of being; thus arise Races of living beings, glorious in strength. And perish as the quickening breath of God Fills them or is withdrawn. The red man, too, Has left the blooming wilds he ranged so long, And, nearer to the Rocky Mountains, sought A wilder hunting ground. The beaver builds No longer by these streams, but, far away, On waters whose blue surface ne'er gave back The white man's face-among Missouri's springs, And pools, whose issues swell the Oregon-

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HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.

He rears his little Venice. On these plains The bison feeds no more. Twice twenty leagues Beyond remotest smoke of hunter's camp, Roams the majestic brute in herds that shake The earth with thundering steps-yet here I meet His ancient footprints stamped beside the pool.

"Still the great solitude is quick with life- Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers They flutter over ; gentle quadrupeds,

And birds that scarce have learned the fear of man,

Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground, Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deer

Bounds to the woods at my approach. The bee, A more adventurous colonist than man, With whom he came across the eastern deep, Fills the savannas with his murmurings, And hides his sweets, as in the golden age, Within the hollow oak. I listen long To his domestic hum, and think I hear The sound of that advancing multitude Which soon shall fill these deserts. Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn Of Sabbath worshipers. The low of herds Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain

From the ground,

Over the dark-brown furrows. All at once, A fresher wind sweeps by and breaks my dream, And I am in the wilderness alone."

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

The earliest settlements made in Iowa were along the Mississippi River. In 1833, miners from the east side of the Mississippi, at Galena and the adja- cent district in Wisconsin, were permitted to cross the river and settle upon the land included in the Black Hawk Purchase. The galena section around Du- buque was the first great center of attraction, but, as soon as settlers commenced raising mineral, the United States appeared, by an agent, and assumed direct control of all the mineral-bearing lands, requiring miners to take out permits for limited privileges, and to deliver the ore to a licensed smelter, who paid the Government a royalty on the lead manufactured. These restrictions became so hard to enforce that the Government abandoned them in 1846, and put the lands into market.

The men who first came to the Dubuque region were not long in discover- ing the exceeding beauty and fertility of the lands embraced in the Black Hawk Purchase, and the story of this "garden land" began to spread east- ward. Eastern Illinois was pretty well filled with the tide of immigration which had rushed in since her admission in 1818, and pushing along into her western boundaries, adventurous men and women soon began to cross the " Father of Waters " and penetrate the unbroken wilderness beyond.

Elijah Buel is a native of Utica, N. Y., and was born in 1801. He had been from an early age a sea-faring man for years upon the lakes, then a pilot on the Ohio and Lower Mississippi. Becoming wearied of this life, he had decided to become a pioneer, his ambition being to secure land upon which to make a home for himself and family. His mind was directed toward the Govern- ment lands in Illinois on the eastern side of the Mississippi, and which were then in market. Leaving his wife and child in St. Louis, he embarked at that point on the old steamboat Dubuque, commanded by Capt. Cole, an old acquaintance, and who, in the language of our informant, was "one of the best men who ever traveled the river." On his arrival at Cordova, he stopped at

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HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.

the cabin of a settler, and with this as his "base of operations" started on a tour of exploration. The habits of a life-time still elung to him, and although he had quit steamboating, yet he desired to locate where he could " see steam- boats." Reaching the Meredosia in May, 1835, he found there a solitary squatter, Mr. John Baker. They decided to prospect together, and traveling up the river they reached the narrows, where Fulton and Lyons are now sit- uated. In the language of Mr. Buel, "We thought that this would be a favorable point for a ferry, and .our only object was to secure to ourselves this expected privilege. We agreed to locate. Mr. Baker to take the Illinois side and I the Iowa side." Bent's " History of Whiteside County" says, in the history of Fulton Township and City, that John Baker, a native of Maryland, had settled upon the Meredosia, below Albany, in the fall of 1833. He remained here some year or more, and, in 1835, made a claim where the city of Fulton now stands. Upon this claim, near the Cat-tail Creek. he erected a small building. In the fall of 1836. John W. Baker, a nephew of the original John, came. and brought his wife, three sisters and a niece, the latter of whom, Miss Elizabeth Skinner, died the following year, aged twenty-two years, and was buried on the high bluff nearly opposite Culbertson, Smith & Co's. saw mill. Some idea of the privations of that time may be gathered from the following extract from the same work : "The funeral was a very primitive one, the coffin being made of an old wagon-box, and the remains conveyed to their last resting-place in a farm wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen. There was such a dearth of nails and other materials for the proper construction of a coffin, that John W. Baker was compelled to sit in the wagon and hold it together while John Baker and Edward Rolph drove the oxen from the house to the burial-place." Mr. John W. Baker opened the first store in Fulton in 1837, in the fall, in company with Moses Barlow, and they were succeeded in the spring by Church & Wing. In 1835, log dwellings were put up in Albany, III., by - Mitchell, and Edward Corbin, his brother-in-law, and, in the spring of 1836, others settled there, among them being O. McMahon, Esq., now of Lyons, who erected a frame building in the spring of 1837, which was used as a hotel. In the fall of 1837, Joy Buck opened a small grocery store. From these stores at Fulton and Albany, the few settlers on the west side of the river obtained some of the necessaries of life.

Mr. Buel, having decided upon his location went below for supplies and returned in a pirogue, loaded with his purchases, and accompanied by Henry Carson, whom he had hired, landing here July 25, 1835. Mr. Buel com- menced at once to make preparations for a permanent home. During the months of August and September, he and Carson built him a log house on the bank of the river. They cut the logs along the bluffs above, and floated them down and " crabbed " them up the bank to the place where needed, having some assistance from the Indians. His cabin was sixteen feet square, with a puncheon floor and a roof of shakes. He then went back for his family, and for additional supplies. On his return, he left his wife and child for a time at Cordova, they having been attacked with chills and fever, but, after their recov- ery, he brought them to their home. Having thus become "settled " in a " home," which consisted of one room, which answered all the purposes of par- lor, dining-room, bedroom, kitchen and storeroom, Mr. B. commenced his labors on the "farm." His first business was cutting hay. Having employed David S. Osborn, known as the "Green Mountain Yankee," whom he found in a cabin near the Meredosia, where he was trapping and trading with the Indians, they cut a good supply of prairie hay, which they stacked on the fields

Aylett Relation CLINTON

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HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.

where cut. He then commenced cutting cord-wood, which he expected to sell to the steamboats the next season.

Having no vegetables and his other supplies running low, in the fall of 1835, he went down to St. Louis to purchase the necessary winter stores, such as potatoes, onions, fish, flour, meat, etc. The potatoes he purchased of a Mr. Armstrong, who lived at Sand Prairie, between Cordova and the Meredosia, and who had raised a "sod crop" of these esculents. For these he paid 60 cents per bushel, and, with his man Carson, they loaded forty bushels into a pirogue and started homeward, but just as they reached the mouth of the Cat- tail slough, their boat was capsized and his potatoes were planted on the bottom of the slough. Nothing daunted, and quite satisfied with results in view of the fact that they had saved their lives by clinging to their overturned craft, they ran up and down the shore until they had warmed themselves and " drained" their clothing of surplus water, and then returned to Mr. Arm- strong's for another load, with which they reached home safely during the night.

The next effort was to procure a team, and Mr. Buel went down to Cordova, to a Mr. Allen's, where he expected the loan of an Indian pony to go to Mon- mouth, Ill., where there was a comparatively old settlement. and where he had heard there were cattle for sale. While eating breakfast here, a party of men came along driving a fine yoke of oxen, three cows and three calves. on their way to Galena. Mr. Buel followed along, and, entering into conversation with the owner of the stock, learned that he was a disgusted pioneer, who had buried his wife, got the ague, and was pushing for the lead district to sell out his stock so as to return East. Mr. B. purchased the whole outfit, paying $50 per yoke for the best pair and $40 each for the others, $20 per head for the cows and calves. Reaching the river where Fulton now is, the stock were swum across, and, so far as can be learned, were the first work and domesticated cattle in the county. Having constructed a large ox-sled, he hauled his hay-cocks together and stacked them. That winter was a very open one and no snow fell, to remain, during the whole winter. Mr. B. therefore was obliged to snake his cord-wood over the bare ground on his ox-sled to the river bank. In the spring of 1836, he commenced his first breaking.

To illustrate the privations undergone by these pioneers. the following incident will be of interest. Soon after getting into his cabin with his family, Mrs. Buel and her infant son and only child, who was one and a half years old, were both taken sick. Before leaving St. Louis, Mr. B. had procured from his family physician a small chest of medicines with a little manuscript book of prescriptions, prepared by this physician, and instructions as to administering. There was no physician within fifty miles. He used his best skill and judg- ment, but the little boy died, and, with only his hired man, Carson, they made a rude coffin, and those two, with George W. Harlan, the only other settler, carried the little first-born, as dear to these grief-stricken parents as though encoffined in rosewood casket and borne beneath nodding plumes from the home of luxury, and buried him beneath the prairie sods. The wife grew worse until they despaired of her life. Mr. Buel gave directions to Carson, and. leaving her in his charge, went on foot to Elk River, where there was an Indian camp. Making known his necessities, two squaws came down with him, and, after carefully examining his wife, they went out and dug various roots, which they made into a tea, very weak at first and then stronger, and administered it to her. For six days and nights they watched her with sleepless vigilance, until she was on the way to recovery. In relating this incident, Mr. Buel exhibited, even at this far-off day, a depth of emotion at the revival of the

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HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.

memories of that trying time that gave an indication of the mental struggle he must have passed through, and he closed his narration with the remark, "I would not pass through another such ordeal for the whole State of Iowa."

In 1837 and 1838, he hauled wheat and pork from here to Chicago, which he sold there for 40 cents per bushel, and at $2.25 per hundred, and loaded back with salt. at $1.25 per barrel. The trip, with horse teams, took eight days.

At the time of his arrival, and for some time after, Mr. Buel says, there was an encampment of Sac and Fox Indians on Elk River. They frequently visited him, and, as he could speak their language and always treated them fairly, they were friendly to him, and exchanged venison and other game for such things as he had to give in exchange. Frequently, however, they would come down to " New York." and, getting a supply of " fire-water " at Bartlett's store, would become intoxicated, and on their return, would stop at Mr. Buel's cabin to sleep off their potations. Sometimes his cabin floor would be covered with their dusky forms. At one of these visits, they had put their guns and tomahawks overhead and laid down to sleep, but, in the morning, one of them demanded of Mr. Buel more whisky. He was told that there was none in the cabin. He became enraged, and, taking down his rifle, with threats, began to load it. Mr. Buel, his wife and Carson were all there were to contend with those fifteen savages. Coolness and courage must stand in place of num- bers. The Indian would bite his rifle-ball, and make a feint of pushing it down the barrel. He was assured by Mr. Buel that he would kill him if he put down the ball. At last the ball went down, when instantly Mr. Buel seized an iron skillet and knocked him senseless on the cabin floor. His com- rades took him away without any interference in his behalf. For some time, Mr. B. lived in some apprehension that the result might be unpleasant to him, and one day, while he was chopping in the timber, this Indian suddenly and silently stood at his back. But his mission was a conciliatory one. He said, " Too much whisky; served right." When Mr. Buel reached his cabin at night-fall, he found that this Indian had been there and left with his wife a bucket of honey.

Being the pioneer, and a man of energy and enterprise, it was natural that he should at once become prominent in public affairs, and selected to represent the interests of his community. He was one of the first Board of Commis- sioners of the county, and held other offices, but he had no taste for public preferment. In 1837, he traveled over the county and circulated a petition for the first mail-route through the county, from Fulton, Lyons to Vandenburg (now De Witt) to Gower's Ferry, on the Cedar, which was established, and a horseback mail put on.

Mr. Buel has lived to see his property become valuable, and the county where he was " monarch of all he surveyed," one of the wealthiest and most prosperous in the State.

Mr. Daniel H. Pearce, who died at his residence in Clinton, January 5, 1878, had prepared a manuscript, in which he gave some incidents relative to the early settlement of this locality, from which we gather the following :

Mr. Pearce came here in the latter part of October, 1838. As he says, " The footprints of the red man had scarcely been obliterated ; indeed, many still lingered here, reluctant to quit the hunting-grounds of their fathers; but the rush of immigration soon crowded them toward the setting sun, where they may be permitted to linger a few years longer .. but will ultimately become extinct."

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HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.

On the 4th of July, 1838, Iowa Territory was organized, it having pre- viously been a part of Wisconsin Territory. Iowa was known as the " Black Hawk " country, and emigrants would simply say they wished to go to " Black Hawk," and the steamboat captains would put them off anywhere along the Mississippi which suited his convenience, and they would be satisfied, so that they were landed in " Black Hawk."

The first claim, where the principal part of Clinton now is, was made previous to his arrival by Joseph M. Bartlett. " At any rate, he owned it the year pre- vious to our arrival, but had sold out his claim, I think, some time in the spring or summer of 1838, to Capt. C. G. Pearce, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Col. Beal Randall, of Baltimore." Bartlett, he says, had previously laid out a town called New York, and established a ferry to Whiteside Point in Illinois. This was previous to the Government Survey, as this town (New York) is noted on the field-notes of the Surveyor. The plat of the city was quite extensive, as, in breaking up the prairie for farming purposes, we plowed up large quantities of stakes, which marked the streets and alleys of the imaginary city."

The following is an extract from a letter written by Capt. C. G. Pearce, a former proprietor of New York, to Mr. D. H. Pearce :

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The history of Clinton County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns &c., biographical sketches of citizens, Part 38

Author: Western Historical Co Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : Western historical company Number of Pages: 812

Author: Western Historical Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : Western historical company
Number of Pages: 812