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 58
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 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107
Haskill, Josiah, e. Oct. 17, 1862.
Romahn, Michael, e. Sept. 13, 1862. Smith, J., e. Sept. 18, 1862.
Wood, S., e. Nov. 8, 1862.
Yeager, J. B., e. Oct. 4, 1862, disd. Oct. 23, 1865.
Forty-Sixth Infantry
Manville, Richard H., e. May 21, 1864, m. 0. Sept. 23, 1864.
Forty-Eighth Infantry.
Houser, Aaron, e. June 14, 1864, m. o. Oct. 21, 1864.
Fourth Cavalry.
Andrews, James, e. Oct. 17, 1861, captd. Black River, Miss.
Wilson, T. J. G., e. Oct. 17, 1861, disd. Feb. 21, 1862.
Wilbur, Alford, e. Oct. 17, 1861, disd. July 6, 1863, for prmn. in Mo. cavalry regt. Sergt. Lewis J. Tucker, e. Sept. 19, 1861, vet. Dec. 12, 1863, m. o. Aug. 10, 1865.
Eighth Cavalry.
Lyle, Cline, e. Sept. 7, 1863, m. o. Aug. 13, 1865.
Swords, Wmn. H., e. Sept. 8, 1863, wd. and captd. Oct. 30, 1864.
Thayer, W., e. Aug. 27, 1863, drowned April 8, 1865.
Wade, Chas. L.
Ninth Cavalry.
Second Lieut. Jno. T. Waters, com. Nov. 30, 1863, resd. Jan. 10, 1865.
Corp. Hiram H. Frost, Sept. 20. 1863, m. o. Feb. 28, 1866.
Betty, John H., e. Sept. 17, 1863. m. o. Feb. 28, 1866.
Ferrell, Alvalı, e. Oct. 15, 1863, died April 30, 1864.
Forbes, Frank, e. Sept. 8, 1863, disd. May 25, 1864.
Latham, James H., e. Sept. 20, 1863, m. o. Feb. 28. 1866.
Ten Eyck, B., e. Nov. 5, 1863, m. o. Feb. 38. 1866.
Wright, A. C., e. Sept. 20, 1863, m. o. Feb. 28,1866.
Rice, Robt. M., e. Sept. 30, 1863, m. o. Feb. 28, 1866.
First Infantry, A. D.
Second Lieut. W. A. E. Tisdale, e. June 24, 1861, m. o. Oct. 15, 1865.
Sergt. John Bell, e. Aug. 21, 1863, m. o. Oct. 15, 1865.
Posten, Eli, e. Sept. 15, '63, m. o. Oct. 15, '65. Riddle. Edw., e. Sept. 9, 1863, m. o. Oct. 15, 1865.
First Lieut. Wm. A. E. Tisdale, was priv. Co. A, 5th Inf., com. 2d lieut. Co. C, this regt., printd. 1st lieut. Co. D, May 9, '64, m. o. Ang. 4, 1866.
Sergt. John Bell, e. Aug. 21, 1863, m. o. Oct. 15, 1865.
Fourth Battery.
Rodgers, Michael, e. Oct. 21, 1863, m. o. July 14, 1865.
Forty-Third Illinois Infantry.
Beil, Nicholas, e. Sept. 1, 1861. Ringsteim, Chas., e. Sept. 1, 1861.
Forty-Sixth Illinois Infantry. Tearney, Edw., e. Oct. 23, 1861.
Forty-Eighth Illinois Infantry. Roberts, Henry, e. Sept. 12, 1861.
Fifty-Seventh Illinois Infantry- McNeal, Tagget, e. Oct. 30, 1861.
F!fty-Eighth Illinois Infantry. Labrick, Joseph, e. Dec. 19, 1861.
Sixty-Sixth Illinois Infan'ry. Meacham, Milo F., e. Oct. 17, 1861.
488
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
CLINTON "RAISON D'ETRE."
During the tranquil years covered by the narrative of Mr. Daniel H. Pearce, and preceding 1855, there was no intimation that Bartlett's ambitious dreams would be more than realized, or that the waving harvests and solemn oak groves that then covered Clinton's future site, were soon to be invaded by the inexor- able demands of business, and displaced by the busy haunts of commerce and manufacture, and the solitude metamorphosed into the homes of a vigorous city. It is impossible to decide to whom belongs the honor of the "invention," and to determine the complex causes and interwoven sequence of events that led to such a progress within one decade; though apparently an easier task, it is scarcely less difficult to discern and describe in accurate perspective.
It appears reasonably certain that the idea of establishing a town at Clin- ton's location grew principally out of the disagreement as to crossing terms, depot grounds, etc., between the solid men of Lyons and the managers of the Mississippi & Iowa Central Railroad. Moreover, the result of the investiga- tions of T. T. Davis, a confidential agent of Erastus Corning, and afterward identified with the Iowa Land Company, was largely instrumental in founding the new city. He examined the proposed site for a high bridge from Lyons to Fulton, pronounced it impracticable, on account of its height and length, and recommended a grade crossing at some lower point between the Albany and Fulton sites.
Many considerations led to the selection of the ground afterward purchased by the Land Company as an eligible place to found a town, notwithstanding the proximity of rivals above and below, so formidable as to challenge to the utmost the energy and forethought of any who might dare to engage in what must then have appeared as a rash, if not absurd, enterprise.
THE IOWA LAND COMPANY ORGANIZED.
On May 28, 1855, the Iowa Land Company was organized under the general laws of Iowa, by its articles authorized to purchase, hold, improve and sell real estate, and to do such other acts as are incidental to these objects. Prominent among its early friends were the first officers-C. B. Steward, Pres- ident ; J. G. Forbes, Vice President ; R. H. Nolton, Secretary ; besides Charles Walker, Lucius B. Crocker, A. G. Mitchell, C. A. Lombard, John Bertram, B. A. G. Fuller and T. T. Davis, also those gentlemen who have since been for years identified, not only with the growth and prosperity of the Land Com- pany, but also of Clinton, viz. : the late J. C. Bucher, Col. J. Van Deventer, Secretary, Treasurer and General Agent since 1857, except when absent in the war, and Horace Williams, President of the Company since 1860.
The company built the first substantial edifice in Clinton, the Iowa Central Hotel and Block, where its office remained until in December, 1878, when it removed to the new block on Fifth avenue, owned by the C., I. & N. R. R., where, after a long life of energy, usefulness and public-spirited liberality, its affairs are now (August, 1879,) in process of winding up.
The liberal donations of land from the company to various churches, for public parks, etc., while aiding the development of the city must have materi- ally curtailed its own profits. To the company's wisdom is due the fact that the town was so well and regularly laid out, with broad avenues-none less than 100 feet wide-extending from the river at intervals of 300 feet, and intersected at right angles by streets 80 feet wide and 600 feet apart.
489
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
THE LAND COMPANY'S INITIAL OPERATIONS.
On the 4th of July, 1855, the Land Company made its first purchase of about five hundred acres of land on the west bank of the Mississippi, situated at the great eastward bend of the river, where a broad and beautiful site at a proper elevation above high-water, and skirted upon its background with picturesque oak-covered bluffs, naturally invited the building of a large city, whence, at its eastern terminus, a railroad might start to penetrate the interior of the State. Another advantage which this site presented was the fact that at this point the Mississippi offered rare facilities for bridging in consequence of the adaptation of the channel, the security of the shores, and the proximity of Little Rock Island, that made it superior to any other point below St. Anthony. To the wise forethought and courage of the Iowa Land Company, Clinton, with its present population and business, bears testimony.
These considerations for selecting this site were re-enforced by the advantages offered by the natural levce sweeping for a mile along the river front as sites for warehouses and factories, but it is doubtful whether the prolongation of the river front by the Riverside slough was fully appreciated as a possible factor in the city's growth. The broad plain between the river and back bluffs, and the gentle slope of those now in the Third and Fourth Wards, plainly offered room for a city to expand unchecked over a wide level area. The oak-crowned back bluffs were as unmistakably suited for suburban residences, while they sheltered the whole locality from wintry gales and summer storms. The valley winding southwesterly between the two ranges of bluffs added picturesqueness to the charming view. The shallow soil afforded over a large share of the future site, solid foundations for large buildings, and the convenient quarries were not over- looked.
Yet, except in the eyes of the most sanguine builders of cities, it must have seemed a herculean task to develop a town on Clinton's site. It was not by any means certain that a road would be built thence to the West; the connection with the line that Milo Smith was then pushing westward from Chicago across the boggy Illinois prairies was uncertain, and the location of the crossing still more problematical. A powerful and jealous rivalry was naturally to be expected from other interests. The site, although possessing advantages recounted above, was not altogether an Arcadia. It was rather low-stagnant water, where the land sloped toward the bluff, and the slough winding south- west from the present gas-works' location, and so deep at times that a horse- man had to swim across, being evident drawbacks to the plat.
In 1863, the prospect of the city could scarcely be considerd rosy. Stag- nation appeared to be settling upon the town as it had upon so many promis- ing future metropolises along the river. It would have puzzled even " Mark Tapley " to have been jolly over the financial outlook, had he at that time been very heavily loaded with Clinton city lots. The town was virtually bounded by First avenue, the river, the railroad track and Fourth street, and within even those narrow lines were yawning gaps. On Second street were only Charles Young's hardware store in the old building on the southeast corner of Third avenue, and a drug store a block below. On Second avenue were more houses than on any other. On the corner, where now stands the Revere, was a partially burned hotel. Where the gas-works now stand was a regular village of shanties. Where now stands the superb brick row of a score of stores on the north side of Fifth avenue, above Second street, was then a vacant space. The residences of Messrs. I. B. Howe, J. Irwin, William Poole and R. Dunbar, were the
490
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
only dwellings on Fifth avenue, above Second street, the territory above which was practically an open common. Fourth street was scarcely defined, though around his house F. P. Wilcox had erected the first fence, inclosing a yard, in the town. The inner bluff extended eastward a block, and northward many rods farther than now, it not having been quarried extensively for building and filling purposes. On its summit, the old Ten Broeck House rose in solitary state. The section south of the railroad was occupied only by isolated groups of shanties. Many blocks were crossed by diagonal "streets." Second street was, in bad weather, a quagmire in which milk wagons were stalled. Between Lyons and Clinton was a mud-hole-impassable for pedestrians during the greater portion of the year. The dwellings were mostly on the avenues between First and Third streets. Seventh, Eighth and Sixth avenues, had quite a number of tolerable houses. Sidewalks earliest gave evidences of the germ of public spirit and improvement. The Cushing House, on Eighth avenue, now occupied by Judge Cotton, was the " swell " mansion of the town. After nightfall, darkness of Egyptian blackness prevailed, except where relieved by lights from house or store windows. On Front street, around the Central Hotel, was the market-place where people were wont to most congregate.
But, with the close of the war and the completion of the bridge, detailed elsewhere, the town began, to use a word seemingly in process of absorption into the vocabulary, " to boom." Activity in the real estate agencies and Recorder's offices during 1865 and several successive years attests the marvelous expansion of the town between then and 1870, and makes that the "flush " era of Clin- ton's growth. In 1865-66, the migration of business up town from the river was fairly inaugurated by the building of the Young and Toll Blocks, on the corners of Fifth avenue and Second street. On Second street and Fifth avenue wooden blocks and stores rose like an exhalation. As seen by reference to those topics, saw-mills and other manufactures were developed during these years, the schools and churches were built up, the demand for workmen and mechanics fully absorbed the supply, bankers and business men both from the East and adjacent Western points, and possessed of capital, energy and skill, infused life and prosperity into the town. Public improvements noted under their appropriate heads were energetically prosecuted, and the mental and social life of the place kept pace with its material growth. New-comers were wel- comed, so that they quickly felt naturalized and domesticated. Visions of a vast city seemed not at all impossible of realization. Shanties temporarily occupied by laboring men were rapidly replaced by comfortable dwellings, a large proportion of which were owned by the tenants. A wise and liberal policy on the part of the large employers assisted many to become independent house- holders. Probably there are few places in the United States where there are more freeholders in proportion to the population than in Clinton. To that cause, and the intelligence of its workmen, has been due the immunity of the town from "labor" agitation.
ORIGINAL PLAT AND ADDITIONS.
The original town of Clinton, as laid out by the Land Company, contained 291 acres. Soon after the Company made six additions to the place increasing the town plat to 635 acres, or nearly a square mile. This soon became too limited an area for the growing town, and other additions rapidly succeeded each other, due to the enterprise of real estate dealers as well as to the demand for building-lots especially by residents of moderate means ambitious to own their homes. The other additions were as follows : Gray's Addition, June 22, 1866 ;
491
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
Hyatt's Addition, April 20, 1867 ; Flournoy's (first) Addition, April 14, 1868; Strayer's Addition, March 13, 1868; Davis' Addition, April 27, 1868 ; Aikens' (first) Addition, April 5, 1869; Bluff Addition, June 30, 1869; F. K. Peck's Addition, September 28, 1868 ; Flournoy's (second) Addition, August 17, 1869; Corbin's (first) Addition, October 9, 1871 ; W. B. Peck's Addition, October 10, 1872 ; Baldwin's Addition, November 22, 1872; Corbin's (second) Addition, February 10, 1877 ; Pearce's Addition, October 8, 1875.
In few American towns, and rarely in any of the same age, have the advantages bestowed by nature been more indefatigably supplemented by arti- ficial improvements. Could every building in the city be magically removed, any of the old proprietors would wonder at the changes the town site had undergone. In this respect, it fairly rivals some of those places wrung from the sea by the hardy Hollanders, and, in proportion to its size, Clinton has surpassed the vaunted street-filling of Chicago and back bay improvements of Boston. Thousands upon thousands of loads of broken rock from the bluffs have been piled into the principal streets and broad avenues to a depth of from two to over six feet above the original soil. Accordingly, when other North- western cities are floundering in spring mud, the visitor to Clinton is astonished not only at the breadth, but at the dry and clean condition of the streets. The stone-filling has contributed not only to the appearance and convenience of the thoroughfares, but to the unusually high average of public health. To obtain this rock, so much of some parts of the bluffs have been cut away as quite to transform them and the avenues in their vicinity. Near the mills there has been a vast amount of filling with pine lumber refuse and sawdust, the resinous quality of which renders its decay so slow that no harm is likely to result from its use to fill up low ground.
The wisdom of the Iowa Land Company in laying out the city on so open a plan, and also setting out choice shade trees throughout the original plat, has borne double fruit. In beautifying the town, its sanitary condition was also decidedly enhanced. For so young a town, it is now wonderfully well shaded. The umbrageous boughs not only add wonderfully to the looks of the broad avenues and furnish nesting-places for innumerable beneficial birds, but also break the sweep of winds and absorb malaria, while, in the hot season the passer-by blesses the embowering shade.
The parks in the heart of the city, with the surrounding rows of shade trees, are not only ornamental but doubly valuable in a sanitary point of view. Parks have been well styled the lungs of cities, and in those so felicitously named Clinton and De Witt, citizens of Clinton will, when the present trees are grown to towering size, take as much pride as Bostonians do in their Com- mon, while the space of two blocks they occupy has many-fold repaid its value by affording a place for hundreds of young children to exercise their active limbs, stretch their growing bodies, and recreate brains tired with confinement and study.
CALICO AND OTHER CHIMERICAL RAILWAYS.
During 1855 and 1856 was the flood-tide of Western land speculation. Stimulated by a currency that, even if not sound, was sufficiently abundant for any possible " wants of the country," as well as the natural westward expan- sion of an industrious and enterprising population, speculators were numerous and sanguine. Accordingly town lots were sold and resold, and, in the feverish buoyancy of the land, it seemed scarcely possible to make an unfortunate investment. Into Iowa poured a steady current of immigration, of which Clinton obtained an ample quota.
492
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
On August 1, 1855, corn was cut from the tasseled fields to make room for the laying with appropriate ceremonies of the corner-stones of the Central hotel, an Episcopal Church and a schoolhouse. For a while the financial ballooning in city lots was unabated. The sanguine faith of citizens and investors in the future prosperity of the city was based upon the prospective building of the Mississippi & Iowa Central Railroad. This line was to extend from Clinton to Iowa City and westward via Des Moines to the Missouri. It was to utilize the grading done by the defunct Lyons & Iowa Central ("Calico ") road, by starting from Clinton and running northwesterly till it intersected the latter line a few miles west of Lyons. Its abandoned embankment still stretches diagonally across the northwest part of the town in the appropriate direction of the cemetery. Evidently funds had not lasted long after striking the rocks of the bluffs.
The "Calico " line had left its trail in the shape of useless cuttings and crumbling embankments across the entire county. Those were palmy days for railroads projected on the basis of Col. Sellers' famous enterprise immortalized by Mark Twain in the " Gilded Age" and the inimitable Raymond on the stage as the "Columbus River Slack Water Navigation Company."
Indeed, the air was full of schemes for organizing companies and corpora- tions and supplying the local and Eastern markets with ready-made citics on paper, with the same facility with which dimension-timbers are now actually sawed out by the Clinton and Lyons lumber mills. Men of the stamp of the imaginary but typical Beriah Sellers and the real George Francis Train pinned their faith to supposed geographical locations and mythical "natural advant- ages " with an easy confidence that would seem touching and sublime were it not for the fresh memory and lesson of the years just preceding the panic of 1873.
As long as County and Township bonds could be obtained and negotiated at any discount, the L. & I. C. contractors, who were the company, " like a wounded snake, dragged its slow length along " between Lyons and Iowa City. Some of their plans might well have suggested to the satirical authors the wild ideas so brilliantly travestied in the " Gilded Age." One was to build a lofty bridge connecting the Cemetery Bluff at Fulton with the one opposite, just north of Welles & Gardiner's saw-mill. It would have been a structure three-fourths of a mile long and 200 feet high, and it is doubtful whether it could be, even now, practicably constructed with the aid of the enormous recent improvements in steel wire and bridge building. As was inevitable, laborers became weary of being paid in promises and irredeemable scrip, especially as rations were not forthcoming, and so the Company vanished.
From the debris was developed the Mississippi & Iowa Central, and Clinton was made the base of operations in the hope of anticipated sustenance from the Land Company. As this project also lacked due financial solidity, it became manifest that upon other shoulders would fall the responsibility of connecting by rail the Missouri with the Upper Mississippi. Accordingly, some Eastern gentlemen of character, enterprise, experience and capital, were induced to investigate the merits of a trans-Iowan railway. The result of their survey of the situation and faith in the future, awaiting the vast agricultural area west of the river, was that a railroad to and even beyond the Missouri would ultimately be profitable, and that Clinton was the proper eastern terminus of a line to con- nect with, and virtually be an extension of the Dixon Air Line. A new route was selected of remarkable directness, easy grade and cheapness of construction, and passing through a rich and growing portion of the State, already contain- ing a numerous and enterprising population. These considerations led to the
493
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
rejection of all previous schemes by those who had made, or were meditating, heavy investments at Clinton, and the formation on January 26, 1856, of a new railroad company, which, in view of its future field of operations, and the distant points its far-seeing projectors designed to connect by the comprehensive title of the
CHICAGO, IOWA & NEBRASKA RAILROAD.
The pledged faith of the Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska corporation that Clinton should be forever its eastern river terminus, was kept with a scrupulous fidelity that contrasts most vividly with the too frequent breaking of promises, both to the ear and to the hope, and the miserable evasions and subterfuges that have been all too common in the dealings of both Eastern and Western railways with counties, towns and municipalities. Indeed, the steadfast firmness and resolute integrity of the railroad company were for some years thie sheet-anchor of Clinton's hopes and prospects. Especially was this the case during the months of uncertainty and suspense that followed the passage of the land grant act, and also during the stormy days succeeding the financial crash of 1857, that was ultimately so beneficial to the West in general in giving the coup de grace to " wild-cat " banking, and to land and railroad speculation on as unsubstan- tial and delusive bases as a century before had been the South Sea Bubble in England and John Law's Louisiana scheme in France.
Nevertheless, in Clinton "those were the times that tried men's souls." Every possible motive and inducement was brought to bear by parties interested in the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad to induce the C., I. & N. Directors to recede from their position sustaining Clinton's future interests. All efforts were equally unavailing. They could all truthfully say with the ancient hero, " None of these things move me." From that memorable winter day when the various fragmentary plans for railroads westward from this point on the river were consolidated and unified by the organization of the C., I. & N. corpora- tion, the history and business development of Clinton is so inextricably inter- woven with that of the railroad that, for some years, the record of the one sub- stantially coincides with that of the other.
More distinctively than any other place on the Upper Mississippi, Clinton is a railroad city rather than a river town from its birth. Originated as an integral and inevitable part of a great railway project, with the progress of years and the development of the railway system of Iowa, it has become even more individualized as such, though, of course, the growth of manufactures tends to relatively lessen preponderating railway influence. The rampant growth and solid prosperity of Clinton during its municipal youth afford a strong and flattering contrast with the early days of many young cities dependent upon water or wagon communication alone.
In June, 1856, the C., I. & N. was re-organized by the appearance in its management of the Boston interest, which soon became a controlling one. About the same time, Col. Milo Smith was appointed Chief Engineer. The road was projected as an extension into Iowa of the Dixon Air Line, which was extended to Fulton in 1855. At the outset, it received every effusive mani- festation of friendship from the Galena Company, of which the Air Line was a part. Indeed, the parties who originated and took upon themselves the vast responsi- bility and labor of building the Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska line would never have committed themselves to its fortunes but for the assurances of co-operation from those influential in the Galena Company. In the beginning, there was no reason to distrust the sincerity of these assurances. Until the Land Grant Act was passed, the Galena Company probably stood ready to lend moral and
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.