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 76
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Few " claim difficulties " occurred, most of the settlers being allowed to purchase at private sale. A Mr. James Hall caused the only difficulty which took place. Mr. Beatty had improved an eighty, which he had fenced, and one of the forties he had purchased. Mr. Hall entered the other forty from him, and so the neighbors turned out one night and assisted Mr. Beatty in drawing his fence off from the forty which Hall had entered. Hall took his revenge by entering the claims of each settler who assisted Beatty, wherever he
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could find the opportunity. This created very bitter feeling in the neighbor- hood.
In 1840, Zara Emory, who lived in Lyons, desired to go to the saw-mill of Leonard & Crary, at Teed's Grove. He took the divide between the east and . west flow of water, and marked a road by guess. That trail is almost the identical route of the road as afterward located and known as the " prairie road."
John Hollis is said to be the longest continuous resident in the township of Elk River.
Charles G. Forrest, as a successful farmer and business man, stands pre- eminent in the township, having originally settled there with his hands and head as his only capital.
In 1856, a man named O'Brien killed his wife, on the Robert Cruther's farm, by beating her to death with a piece of board, while on a drunken spree. He confessed his crime, and was committed to jail in De Witt, and while con- fined there he broke jail and has never since been heard of.
In 1860, Abner Munger and Austin Baldwin, who owned lands adjoining, quarreled about the division line. Mr. Baldwin's son, Walter, together with his cousin, Ransom Baldwin, met Mr. Munger on Sunday morning, on the highway. Walter said, "there comes Munger, and I will give him a licking." He attacked Mr. Munger, who drew a jackknife and kept him at bay, until Walter found a piece of fence board, and, picking it up, struck at Mr. Munger until he knocked him down, as afterward developed, fracturing his skull. Walter immediately after the affray surrendered himself to Justice Crawford, who fined him $1 for breach of the peace. Three days after, Mr. Munger died. When his death became evident, Walter fled the country, remaining away sev- eral months. Upon the advice of his attorney, he returned and stood his trial. which took place in March, 1862. The jury, after being out forty-six hours, brought in a verdict of manslaughter. Judge Dillon sentenced him to pay a fine of $1,000, and to one year's imprisonment. An appeal being taken to the Supreme Court, a new trial was granted. Meanwhile, Ransom Baldwin, the only eye-witness, had enlisted in the army, from which he deserted and could not be found, and a nolle prosequi was entered in the case.
WATERFORD TOWNSHIP.
Waterford is bounded on the north by Jackson County, on the east by Deep Creek, on the south by Washington and on the west by Bloomfield Town- ships. It comprises Congressional Township 83 north, Range + east, and was set off as related elsewhere. Its surface is very agreeably diversified. Deep Creek flows in an easterly direction through the southern part of the township, though the bottom-lands are not so extensive as in the wider vale through which the stream flows after bending to the north. But the prairie, through which it has cut a rather narrow and, in some places, rocky channel, is excellent rolling land, which, toward the northern part of the town- ship, becomes more and more broken and abrupt. Sugar Creek flows eastward in the northern part of the township, and along its course are some very good farming sections, adjacent to land decidedly rocky and hilly. The pools of Deep Creek, where it flows over a stony and rocky bed, afford magnificent fish- ing. Pike weighing twenty-eight pounds have been caught by the old settlers. Indeed, the creek was a favorite fishing resort of Indians long after the settlers
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were domiciled along its banks. By injudicious taking of the young fry and fishing out of season, the finny tribe were, a few years ago, nearly exterminated, but since the passage of the game laws the fish, notably bass, have had a chance to multiply, so that now they furnish rare sport and much choice food, good sport being obtained in the very streets of Charlotte.
Among the senior settlers were William Hunter, who was probably the first to take up a claim on the brawling creek within the present township limits, not far from where is now the business centre of Charlotte; Henry Nurre, one of the first of the honest Teutons who spied out the land of plenty in Clinton County, arriving in 1840 ; O. P. Aikman, an old Lyons settler; Miles R. Louderbaugh, a mighty hunter; John Costolo, Sr., O. W. Denham, W. D. Hanrahan, the Monahans, C. Spain. Lewis Shull, John Clary, John P. Preffer. the original proprietor of the town plat of Charlotte ; A. J. Riggs, Charles and A. J. Albright, M. F. Quigley. Conrad Varner, Elias Staleup, Jeremiah Dingwall, Elijah Markham, John Adams and John Crouch. Many of the early settlers came from New York and Indiana, but a large German and Irish influx at an early day materially aided in the development of the township and gave the population a composite character.
For a long time game was very abundant. The herds of red deer then pastured throughout the natural glades or browsed in the abundant thickets and rather well-timbered northern portion of the township would have gratified the stalwart border hunters or astonished those sportsmen who now invade the north- ern woods, with the most elaborate equipment and consider themselves lucky when they get a single buck or doe. Miles Lawderbaugh, one of those patriarchal Kentuckians who believed not a word of the Malthusian creed, having over twenty children in his family. was, in his younger days, renowned through the length and breadth of the Deep Creek country as an indefatigable and skillful hunter, astonishingly successful even after the deer became so wild that it required great skill in woodcraft to get a fair shot at the shy creatures. Lawderbaugh, armed with his trusty long Kentucky rifle, would mount his mare, that enjoyed the chase as much as her owner, and, frequently using the intelligent beast as a stalking-horse behind which to walk within range, he would fairly hunt down and secure sometimes four deer in half a day-a record that nonc of the Indian hunters of the time were able to surpass or even equal.
Land titles were established peaceably and permanently, as a general thing, though, owing to the speculative excitement in the bubble years preceding the panic of 1857, most of the eligible farms in the township have changed hands. The effect of the plethora of paper money at that time, and the sanguine spirit fostered by the beginning of the construction of the Iowa Air Line, may be inferred by the fact that some lands favorably located along Deep Creek bot- tom were sold, before the war, as high as $75 per acre, and, after the crash, tumbled to $15, to undergo, during the war and after the construction of the Midland, a second and more healthy and permanent appreciation in value. Claim-jumpers were, however, wide awake in Waterford. One day in 1847, William Hunter-as before stated, the earliest settler-observed two men, one a neighbor and the other a stranger, riding around the claim he had located. His suspicions being aroused, as soon as it was dark, he went on foot seven miles, to where his father and brothers were farming on rented land in Deep Creek Township. In such emergencies, not only vigilance, but promptness, was necessary ; so the brothers at once yoked their two pairs of cattle, obtained a plow from their brother-in-law, Thomas Watts, and when the rising sun gilded the prairie knolls, the brothers, with their two yoke of cattle, had already
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turned up the virgin sod upon the claim. Soon after, the two men, who had been discovered reconnoitering, arrived on the scene with a load of lumber, with which it was their intention to construct a cabin on the claim, thereby dispossessing the rightful owners. But the plowing saved the farmers' acres, and the invaders retired crestfallen at being outgeneraled by the wide-awake Hunters. On other occasions, the holders of claims were not so fortunate. In 1853, Wash. Stalcup and a man of the name of Chapin, succeeded in obtaining a claim of enormous size-tradition affirms of upward of 1,200 acres-which certain neighbors coveting, they so artfully worked on the appre- hensions of the partners that they abandoned their claim and left the country, leaving their plantation to be divided among the authors of the "put-up" job, of which details are lacking, but which was probably of very doubtful credit to any of the parties concerned.
During the palmy days of 1856, when business and speculation were " booming " along the proposed route of the Air Line, most enormous interests were paid by sanguine persons, who borrowed money on real estate, ranging from 15 to as high as 30 per cent. After the panic, speculators, as a general thing, were glad to unload their land to actual settlers at almost any figure, so that the result was that most of the farms in the section around Charlotte were obtained by the original settlers or present owners, at comparatively reasonable prices.
In the spring of 1853, the present post office of Charlotte was established and named after the wife of the first Postmaster, the late Albert Gilmore. The office was then kept by Jerry Case, who was consecutively succeeded by William Hunter, A. J. Albright, R. J. Mc Lanahan, William Hunter, re-appointed, H. A. Wickes. Patrick Murphy, A. M. Gohlmann, H. Junger, N. Harrison, and the present official, W. H. Junger. The mail, till the arrival of the rail- way, was nominally a weekly one on the route from De Witt to Sabula. Fre- quently, in the seasons of floods and bad roads, the people had to wait an unconscionable time for tidings from the outer world. On one occasion it was delayed six weeks by high water in the Maquoketa River.
Principal among the older Justices were William Hunter, Andrew Hevener and Joe Case. A. J. Albright and E. II. Rowell at present occupy the position.
Originally, the towns of Deep Creek, Waterford, and the north half of the present township of Washington, constituted one school district. The first school was taught by Celeste Jenne, in the summer of 1849, in a log school- house, built by private subscription and located on the farm now occupied by Will- iam McClure. Among the other earnest workers in the cause of education were such teachers as Ann A. Ritchie, Mary Wise, Delia and Maria Hall and R. J. Crouch. For some time, several of the primitive log schoolhouses had only rounded puncheon seats, uncomfortable alike for the children and the worship- ers, when on Sunday they were used for church purposes. Elijah Markham was the first public-spirited man to move in the direction of substituting seats and desks made of lumber. How teachers and children endured the winter in those crazy structures is one of the mysteries that would perplex a medical faculty. Yet, somehow, the pupil not only lived but learned. Now, the town- ship is dotted with very commodious schoolhouses, and Charlotte possesses a very creditable graded school, built in 1875, costing $3,500, and seating 150 pupils. Mr. Houck and Miss Conwell are the teachers.
In the early days, spelling schools were frequent and jolly. The rivalry between the north and south sides of the creek was as great as that described in the " Hoosier Schoolmaster," and often ambitious leaders would commit to
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memory the entire speller, so that the real sport began when the propounder of words, often " Dick " Crouch, now of De Witt, produced the " extra " list of geographical and newly-coined words, before which the sturdiest spellers went down like squadrons before a well-served Gatling battery.
As in the other townships, the schoolhouses were the first churches. Denominational lines were disregarded in the general eagerness to hear the Word. The pioneer clergy were itinerants and circuit-riders. Among the earlier Methodist clergymen were Rev. Mulholland, a relative of the Riggs family, who preached in the old log schoolhouse at Charlotte, and in settlers' houses. Revs. Larkins. William Moore and Amos are also remembered as faithful workers in a field where the laborers were indeed few.
In 1871, a neat Methodist Church, costing $3,000, was built at Charlotte, and is now presided over by Rev. W. O. Glassner, who also labors efficiently at Preston and Fairfield, in Jackson County. The names of Peter Varner, W. C. White, William Rossiter, William Marshall and J. S. Ellis appear on "the records as the founders of the re-organized society. Several edifying camp- meetings were held in the vicinity before the war. Lately, the general ren- dezvous at Camanche, during the District Camp-Meeting, has prevented their revival.
A Lutheran Church was also organized, and for some years met on private houses till in 1872, when the present combined church and parsonage was erected, at a cost of $2,500. Rev. E. Riedel is the present Pastor.
The Roman Catholic Church has, for many years, been strongly represented in Waterford. Almost from the time the township was organized, services were held, and the first mass was celebrated at a log house by the zealous pioneer priest, Rev. Father McKinney. From that time, the congregation has steadily and rapidly increased till it now numbers 150 families, and occupies a commo- dious church on Section 30, costing over $4,000. Rev. Father James Scallen was the second Pastor of the infant Church, and was succeeded by the first resident priest, Rev. Father J. J. Cadden, followed by Rev. Father Eugene O'Keefe, and in November, 1877, by the present Father, Rev. J. J. O'Farrell. Not only has the influence of the Church been directly felt in the work of regenerating a formerly rather recklessly convivial community, but the co-op- eration of Rev. Fathers Cadden and O'Farrell with the Roman Catholic Total Abstinence and Benevolent Society, organized October 25, 1871, has been of great value to that useful and flourishing body. Its first officers were : Presi- dent, William Hanrahan : Vice President, G. H. Knight ; Secretary, B. J. Moynahan ; Treasurer, M. Conwell. Charter members-M. McDermott, Wil- liam Williams and T. Conolly. When the Society was instituted at Charlotte, there was only three men in the vicinity who did not occasionally get, if not on the " war-path," at least take a social glass with very little provocation. But the Roman Catholic Total Abstinence Society and other wholesome influences have changed all that. It has over one hundred and fifty members enrolled. Its present officers are : President, Thomas O'Toole; Vice President, James Hurley ; Secretary, James O'Meara ; Treasurer. John O'Donnell.
The temperance cause in Waterford received another decided impetus when, in February, 1878, a Reform Club was organized, with A. T. Carny, President, and J. G. Spellman, Vice President. The membership was quickly increased to over fifty, and a large and well-stocked reading-room opened near the res- idence of A. J. Albright ; and the organization prospers with, for present offi- cers, President, Thomas Spellman : Vice President, Josiah Shaw ; Secretary, Stephen Williams.
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In 1864, a German Catholic Church was built in the Sugar Creek settle- ment. It has since been renovated and enlarged. Rev. Father Liersmann is the present Pastor.
About the beginning of the past decade, there was a very lively debating society in Charlotte, which used to meet in the old schoolhouse and discuss many knotty problems of morals and social science. As in the spelling-schools, great was the feud between the north and the south sides of the creek, and Dick Crouch often attended to assist in the discussion. Sometimes personali- ties ran high, and a scene between L. B. Nixon and William Hunter is still remembered with considerable glee.
Putnam Lodge, No. 102, of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, was instituted February 22, 1877, with the following charter members and first officers : M. G. Sloan, P. M. W. : John Pieffer, M. W .; E. F. Hill, F .; C. Christiansen, O .; E. C. Rowell, Recorder; J. P. Spellman, Financier; G. W. Van Zandt, Receiver ; Charles Gilmore, Guide; H. Bedford, I. W .; S. P. Reed, O. W. The present officers are : Samuel Hansen, P. M. W .; P. A. Gohlmann. M. W .; John Lund, O .; H. Bedford, F .; Stephen Williams, Recorder ; Peter Schmidt, Financier. The Lodge occupies snug quarters in Gohlmann's Block, and has enrolled over a hundred members.
Charlotte dragged a rather slow existence during the tedious interval between the suspension of operations on the Air Line and the celebration that welcomed the arrival of the Midland, in November, 1870. Gilmore's mill had been the nucleus of the settlement, and from 1852-53, supplied, notwith- standing several interruptions due to raging floods, a wide area of country with flour. Another mill was built a short distance below, about the same time, by Wash Crabb. Both mills cut lumber as well as ground grain. Especially when logs were easily obtainable from Government claims in the northern part of the township was the lumbering interest lively along Deep Creek. One Claiborne undertook to start a saw-mill at a site above Gilmore's, but before he was ready to begin cutting, a heavy freshet washed out his dam, and the location was bought by Gilmore to prevent his own supply of water being shut off by a dam above.
After the completion of the Midland Railroad to Charlotte, business naturally revived, and several enterprising houses, Moynahan Bros., Thomas Carny, Gohlmann & Junger and others, have made it the supply and shipping point for quite an extensive farming region. Since then, the population has doubled till that of the Independent School District, organized in 1873, number about four hundred and fifty. Real estate has permanently appreciated at least 25 per cent on the average. Cattle-raising is largely displacing other and less profit- able interests, and the future outlook of that portion of the country is one of encouragement to the dwellers therein. During the past decade, quite a settle-, ment of Bohemians, Austrians and Poles has grown up in the Sugar Creek Valley ; their farms being usually of only a few acres, and in rugged, and, com- pared with the more fertile portions of the county, unproductive localities. But they toil and live on what the American, German or Irishman would despise as anything but a sheep pasture.
The rushing waters of Deep Creek have been productive of tragedy. On St. Patrick's Day, 1865, Patrick Clary and his wife were drowned while endeavoring to ford the swollen stream, at a point a short distance west of Charlotte. On the evening of March 6, 1873, when the creek was very high, and an ice-gorge had formed just below the ford in Charlotte, used while the bridge was undergoing repairs, a wagon and team were swept under the ice by
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the swift current, and Johann Jochimsen and wife, Martin Paulsen, and a. stranger from Chicago were drowned.
In the fall of 1869, a serious shooting affray happened in Charlotte. Deputy Constable Thomas Henderson, having arrested Hugh and Daniel Han- rahan, for some trifling offense, their brother Martin, having arrived in town. and becoming intoxicated near Murphy's store, endeavored to assault the offi- cer. who, being unable to retreat. as the creek was at his back, after warning Hanrahan. shot him fatally through the body. An infuriated crowd of the friends of Hanrahan surrounded Justice Aikman's house. threatening to lynch Henderson and to burn the house. Finally, however, the mob was pacified, and he was taken to De Witt jail, where several unsuccessful attempts were made to take and lynch him. He was eventually acquitted on the ground of self-defense.
At a cost of much labor and many hundred dollars. a broad causeway has been built across the once miry Deep Creek bottom at Charlotte, as the course of the stream straightened so that floods are neither as annoying or dangerous as in times past.
The first inn between Lyons and Maquoketa was kept by Elijah Markham in the flush air-line days, when a daily stage ran between those two points. The points of departure and arrival were the Clinton House at Lyons and the Decker House at Maquoketa, passengers dining at Markham's. The vehicles and horses were both first-class, and the trip along the territorial ridge road was, except through the morasses near Goose Lake, a pleasant and rapid one. Until after the war, the trail was mostly unfenced. and wound through the beautiful open prairie. The coaches carried from twelve to fifteen passengers, who sometimes had to get out and pass through muddy places on foot. Near Goose Lake, a settler had a claim through which the coach sometimes passed to find firm ground in wet weather. One day, however, the owner's son appeared with a gun and forbade the driver trespassing on their land, but, by a moderate bribe, was induced to imitate the medieval barons and allow travelers to pass through his dominion upon the payment of toll. In 1857, supplies bore fancy prices in Waterford. Hay was $40 per ton; potatoes were $1 per bushel ; beef, 16 cents per pound, and other articles in like proportion. Many cattle perished during that severe winter of 1856-57, and there were but few who did not fully realize what "hard times " really were. The convulsion of 1873 was scarcely felt in comparison.
The Sabula, Ackley & Dakota Railroad traverses the northern part of the township, and affords the farmers in that part an outlet at Riggs' and Brown's Stations.
BROOKFIELD AND BLOOMFIELD.
When Brookfield Precinct was first established, comprising what are now the townships of Brookfield, Bloomfield, Berlin and Welton, there were but six voters in the township to fill its nine offices. Afterward, about 1855, Congressional Townships 82 and 83 north, of Range 3 east, were set off from Brookfield and named Bloomfield, by Russell Perham. He, Sylvanus S. Norton and Alva McLaughlin were the first Justices of the Peace, and S. S. Norton the first Town Clerk. Among the settlers of Bloomfield Township at the time of its organization were also Joseph Benjamin, Nicholas Koon, Joseph Willey, Anson Norton, N. and Eli Hatfield. O. J. Hinckley, Calvin Davis, Ben Ogden, Sr., Parvin Davis. Royal Goodenow, John and Solomon Smith, Abraham Names,
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James and Abe Walrod, John Q. Jenkins, Robert Williams, Henry C. Cowgill, Grove, Henry and William Gillett, Lewis De Laun, David Rhodes, Levi Decker, Jack Brahmer. Peter Sleeper, Edson Hoyt, Charles and John Riggs, Ransom Haines, Seneca Williams, Dean Davis, Jacob Bollinger, Thomas Snowden, John Burgess and Truman Clarke.
Probably the place now owned by Niles Wright, on Section 6, entered in 1841, was the first claim located in that portion of the county.
Bloomfield and Brookfield Townships, when settled, contained very little timber. One solitary tree stood conspicuous on a high rise in the rolling prairie, and as a landmark was known far and near as the "lone tree." The earliest pioneers were, in 1838-39, the Riggs and Decker families, Levi Decker being still alive, hale and hearty, able to do work in the harvest-field. John Riggs died while en route to California. The first houses were of logs thatched with hay. The first frame house was built by Decker, in 1841. The Hatfields were also one of the earliest families.
Nearly all the farmers had timber claims in the belt along the Maquoketa, in Jackson County, where the groves also furnished an abundance of the choicest maple sugar and sirup, which were a welcome addition to the fare at the settlers' cabins. In this portion of the county the old-fashioned, hearty rural amusements of Eastern sections obtained quite extensively, and rendered social life quite gay, considering the sparseness of the population. Everybody entered into merry-makings with a spirit that insured a jolly time to all that assembled. There were no envious aspirations for " style," neighborly feeling prevailed, and more absolute social democracy could not be well imagined. Corn-plowing " bees " were frequent, neighbors co-operating with each other, so that sometimes from twenty to thirty teams would be at work in one field. When the weather was favorable, husking-bees, not unlike those of New England, celebrated by Whittier and Barlow, with the difference that in the absence of the roomy barns, considered necessary in the older States, the husking parties assembled in the fields under the clear dewless sky, whence the moon shed a flood of clear light that made the work, if prolonged into the night, as easy as by daylight. The husking more often was finished by the hour of sunset, and the evening devoted to a bountiful supper, and, more frequently than in other rural portions of the county, to a merry dance. Turkey-shoots were a favorable amusement in the fall and early winter. Some- times there were friendly trials of speed between rival horses. So large a pro- portion of the earliest settlers were from New York and Pennsylvania, that there was an amount of sport carried on that would have seemed out of place to a New England community. The great drawback to the township's prosperity was the distance to market. The cost of hauling in many cases ate up the entire proceeds of the crops so laboriously raised. In one instance, a young man raised nearly a thousand bushels of golden corn, which he was com- pelled to actually let rot on the ground, in the winter of 1859-60, because he neither owned a team, nor could he at current prices afford to hire a team to haul it to Camanche or Lyons. It would command only seven cents a bushel at De Witt. Sheep-raising would have been remunerative had it not been for the depredations of wolves, who would travel incredible distances from their lurking- places in the timber, ravage the flocks, and escape before the farmers could effectively pursue them. During the past ten years, the annoyance has been greatly lessened, in the opinion of some, owing to the frightening away of the cowardly brutes by the whistles of the frequent railway trains traversing the gownship.
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