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 80
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In 1850-53, the recent discovery of gold in California filled even the pru- dent with visions of riches, and affected every county in the same stage of growth as Clinton at that time. Into her limits there came companies of railroad and land speculators, together with substantial settlers, who were destined to become the real authors of its wealth. As observed in the detailed chronicle of railroad
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HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
and land enterprises, for a season all went prosperously till it crumbled before the panie of '57 like the baseless fabric of a dream.
A digression is necessary to explain to the younger generation of readers how certain sections of the country could then have been brought to such a permanent standstill, and for them to appreciate the severity of the storm their sires had to weather, and to afford them useful lessons for the future.
The crisis of '57 was due partly to excessive importation of foreign goods and partly to the too rapid construction of railways with borrowed capital- just such enterprises as the projected L. & I. C. A partial erop failure dimin- ished the capacity of the country to pay for its imports in produce and com- pelled heavy coin exports. Confidence was disturbed by the failure of indi- viduals and corporations. It became impossible to negotiate paper. As in 1837, a struggle was inaugurated between banks and merchants, which ended as such struggles must, in the suspension of both. In October, the New York City banks suspended specie payments, and the example was followed through- out the country. Merchants and railway companies generally failed. The failure of a highly esteemed corporation, the Ohio Life and Trust Company, has generally been considered the starting-point of the panic. But the elements of a radical revulsion, in the shape of unduly expanded bank credits, excessive conversion of floating capital into fixed capital, the construction of an extensive railway system, with capital borrowed on call, chiefly from abroad, and last of all a partial crop failure, had been present for some time, and the result had been forescen and predicted. Prices fell 50 per cent in a few days. Money was so stringent that bankers were actually unable to borrow currency on gold bullion.
The Michigan Southern sold a guaranteed 10 per cent stock at 50 cents, and the Michigan Central an 8 per cent mortgage bond at the same price.
When the banks suspended in monetary centers relief came. Confidence gradually returned, money flowed into Wall street, prices improved, and many banks resumed in December. Many who had lost fortunes during the depres- sion recovered at least a part of them during the winter and spring. But it was several years before the commercial classes recovered from the blow and the West and South remained poor quite as long.
The stringency of commercial and financial matters, and the dullness of times during the months immediately following the break-up of 1857, cannot be understood except by those who went through those troublous days. Not only was the country without money, but it was also poor in commodities- not as in 1873, overloaded with products, and with merely the machinery of trade and business deranged. Those who remember only the latter panic, have no adequate conception of the earlier disaster. An incident connected with the lumber trade will show how Lyons, previously so prosperous and confident as to the future. was utterly prostrated.
Hosford & Miller, had, in the spring of 1857, begun their mill at Lyons, and in the summer started the saws. Mr. Hosford had bought two rafts of a Galena banker, paying $1,000 advance. On the timber being delivered, Mr. Hosford declined to take it, the financial storm having darkened the whole horizon, offering to resign his advance, and preferring not to risk working up the logs, or risk wintering them in the swift current of that year's high water. But upon the seller insisting upon sharing the risk, the rafts were delivered, as much lumber as possible cut therefrom before the early and severe winter that added so much to the gloom and distress of that time set in, and the rest of the logs hauled high on the bank by main force of the " bull-wheel." Discouraged by the outlook, Messrs. Hosford and Miller, like many other firms, busied
651
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
themselves temporarily elsewhere, leaving the Lyons interests in the hands of an agent, and the severity of the pinch can be perhaps appreciated, by the fact that in a place of about one thousand people, with a large back country, the agent did not transact business enough to pay his expenses, and had to be supplied with funds to live upon. In the spring, Mr. Hosford thinking that greater energy might revive trade, gave his personal attention to the yard ; but though they sawed up great piles of lumber, it was impossible to dispose of any worth mentioning. Then Miller, thinking that he could, perhaps, stir up some trade, endeavored to work off some lumber; but so torpid was the market, and so utterly depressed and inactive every building interest, that he only succeeded after many weeks in selling on credit one bill of about $80, to help build a small house owned by Peter Dick, just east of the present Riverside Institute, for- merly the Randall House, which was built by Ben Lake in '57.
RIVER REMINISCENCES.
Without reference to the great river that washes its eastern border, any his- tory of Clinton County would be decidedly incomplete. Not only has the Mississippi been one of the principal factors in the material development of the county, but, by its providing natural and ample drainage, has exercised a decided influence upon the health of the community, to say nothing of the magnificence that the rolling flood, whether tawny with melted snow, or glow- ing in the summer sun, lends to the landscape. For thirty years, the river steamer, except the crawling wagon or stage, was the only means of public transit or transportation. Without steamboats to stem the rushing current of the river, the full settlement of the Northwest, and especially of Eastern Iowa. would have been delayed, at least, a decade or two. While no town in Clinton County became so exclusively interested in navigation as several further down the river, yet, during their early days, the arrival of the steamer was the prin- cipal event in their somewhat monotonous life. The irregularity of their move- ments naturally stimulated the public interest. " As uncertain as a steamboat," was a popular expression that testifies to their erratic time-tables. However, in those days, travel on Mississippi crafts was more delightful, in some respects, than it has ever since been. The stream was, compared with its present pollu- tion by the wash from fields and town debris and sewage, clear and trans- lucent, the bluffs had not been shorn by the ax, the prairies stretched like a carpet down to the water's edge, or heaved their " soundless breakers " of vivid green against the horizon. Nor was there any lack of life, either, on board the boat crowded with the diverse elements that flock to a new country.
There was a freshness and fascination in the river trip, now departed from these waters. The sloughs and bayous during the season swarmed with wild fowl that, sometimes scared by the steamer's whistle, rose into the air in a whirring cloud. Deer standing on the bluffs, or cautiously stealing from one covert to another, occasionally added grace to the picture. A voyage up the Mississippi by steamer, in those days, was an enchanting journey. Even at a comparatively late day, so extensive a traveler as that great lover of Nature as well as Science, Prof. Louis Agassiz, could scarcely express his enthusiastic delight at the beauty as well as the fertility of the country along the grand river. Noble and beautiful as was the stream when the pioneers first beheld it, and, as related elsewhere, concluded to pitch their tents within sight of its waters, the imagination cannot help picturing what it must have been at a previous and
T
652
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
not very distant day in geologic time, when the expanse of waters spread across the present bottom, when the present bluffs were merely the banks, when such valleys as the trough in which Goose Lake lies, and the wide plain between the Fulton and the back bluffs, were the beds of the parallel bayous and through the broad channel poured the floods fed by the outlets of the whole southern system of British American Lakes, when the Red River of the North flowed southward, and the Minnesota, instead of being a mere tributary, was really the Upper Mississippi.
Without steamboats. the traffic on the river would have been small. Though the flat-boat and keel-boat might have furnished available transport down stream. the current would have prevented schooners being profitably employed, and made towing up stream too tedions and slow. For many years, boats ran independently of each other. though by tacit agreement, they often adopted a sort of system that brought them along at tolerably regular intervals. Fuel was at first. fortunately, very cheap. Squatters established yards at every available point along the river and their axes rapidly denuded much Government land of its most valuable timber, and many settlers quickly stripped their own timber claims to furnish the steamers with fuel, which could be consumed in the clumsy and wasteful engines in quantities that would make an English or Continental engineer faint. Though snags and sawyers were more numerous than now, low water was not so annoying nor did bars shift so rapidly as since the land has been plowed and the woods extensively cut down. Considering the craziness of some of the primitive craft, it is surprising that accidents were so rare. However, many were very stanchly built. Racing was not so prevalent as in the lower river, between the rival St. Louis and New Orleans packets, but there are traditions of many lively brushes between opposition boats, though it is doubtful whether any in the old time equalled some of the late trials of speed between the Keokuk Northern side-wheel and the Diamond Jo stern-wheel craft, notably the race in 1878, between the Alex. Mitchell and the Josie.
In 1864-65. the development of soft-coal mines near the river, led to that fuel displacing wood, to the great advantage of steamboat men. For about ten vears. 1863 to 1873, steamboat business was very profitable, and for a number of years after building the bridge at Clinton, the city was a great transfer point, being virtually the funnel through which flowed river and rail freight converging for re-shipment. But the multiplication of north and south Towa railways, and the construction of numerous bridges, has greatly dimin- ished that traffic. The river has been of great service to both Clinton and Lyons, as well as the back country, in providing cheap fuch, wood and coal being brought by barges at minimum cost. Discriminating railway tariffs, obliging shippers to send grain through to Chicago, have prevented the devel- opment of the warehouse and elevator business that was fondly hoped for in the early days before the practical omnipotence of railroads was demonstrated.
RAILROADS VS. RIVERS.
The records kept by bridges across the Mississippi, of the steamboats and barges passing up and down through them, show that the tonnage of the river's through traffic is materially diminishing each successive year, and gradually seeking the railroads. If the same decline continues for the next decade that has existed for the past one. the remuneration for river transportation compan- ies will produce small profits for those engaged in the business. The navigable season is growing shorter year by year. The brief space of time between the
653
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
opening and closing of navigation on the Upper Mississippi, at a season of the year when but a small portion of the cereals of the Northwest are seeking a market, seriously impairs its usefulness for carrying purposes. Before the advent of the immense net-work of railroads that now invade every productive portion of the Western States and Territories, it was customary to haul the products from great distances in the interior to the river towns, store them and await the opening of navigation ; but the railroads have revolutionized this custom, and the products that formerly sought the river towns for re-shipment, now pass through on the great trunk lines leading to Chicago. The uncertain stages of water in the river destroy the confidence in shipping, and persons desiring to ship ordinary classes of products prefer the rail lines that run almost parallel with it from St. Paul to St. Louis, at even greater rates than could be secured by the water route. The volume of water in the river is gradually growing less, and various causes are assigned for it. We do not know that any scientific investigation has ever been had as to the real cause, but innumerable theories are set forth. Among them we present the following as having come to our knowledge : The settlement of the country and breaking-up of the land adjacent to the great river and its tributaries, causing the heavy rain-falls, that formerly augmented these streams, to soak into the ground, is assigned by some as the cause. By others, it is claimed that the fall of snow is diminishing in the upper country, and the cutting of such immense quantities of the pine forests causes the actual snow-fall to melt very rapidly in the spring, and pass away with such rapidity as to make the volume of water reaching the Mississippi of such brief benefit, and to recede so quickly, as to make its results less apparent than in former years. These and many other various reasons are put forth for the low water, but all concede the great points, viz. : that the volume of water in the river is gradually diminishing ; that navigation is becoming more difficult and expensive, and that the business seeking the river is, year after year, falling off, while the railroad tonnage is rapidly increasing. As to the benefit to the navi- gation of the river by the improvement of the Rock Island and Keokuk Rapids, there are conflicting opinions, and the question admits of many views, from diverse standpoints. Looking at it practically, and in the light of the last ten years' experience, it can hardly be claimed that the benefit from this improve- ment has been commensurate with the expenditure upon it.
Nature has decreed that the river will ever stand as a monitor and regulator of rates of transhipment from the interior States to the seaboard, and as an invincible champion of the millions of people on its banks against any future extortions by all-rail routes, and viewed from this light, the improvements have been, and will continue to be, of great value. The reasons for the great decline in the river business are obvious. First, the change in the mode and manner of doing produce business requires it to be done in the shortest possible time ; and the railroads. crossing the river at all important points, penetrate the country where the bulk of grain is raised, gather it up in car-loads. and when once in the train, consume no more time in reaching the market at Chicago, than it would by stopping for re-shipment at the river crossing; and while Chicago is a market at all times of the year, having unequaled facilities to handle it expeditiously, there is no town on the Mississippi River possessing these advantages. They can only take what is required for home consumption.
All towns and cities on the upper river may be compared to mere way-stations on the rail and water routes, Chicago. the great entrepot of the West, being a tranship- ping point for all Western products, and a market that can be relied on, quickly reached, and making rapid returns to the provincial grain-dealer, enabling him
654
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
to do a heavy business on a small capital. No such facilities are offered by any other point on the river route. Returns are naturally so slow, and a market so uncertain by river lines, consequently making a heavy capital necessary, that they are being practically abandoned, and almost the entire product of the West is seeking the all-rail routes to the seaboard. Notwithstanding the facts and observations herein set forth, we must not lose sight of the item of the enormous lumber business done on the Mississippi River, which amounts alone, in 1879, to 1,350,000.000 feet. making this grand stream of incalculable value as a means for the transportation and distribution of this business ; and in point of value, its greatest benefits to the people at the present time are in this direction.
The following table gives the number of boats passing Clinton Bridge in both directions. The figures are suggestive :
YEAR.
BOATS. BARGES.
YFAR.
BOATS.
BARGES.
1865
1,049
514
1872
1,614
556
1866
865
697
1878.
2,085
393
1867
726
391
1874
.2,405
641
1868
1,252
321
1875
2,461
786
1869
1,058
540
1876.
2,986
991
1870
1,508
439
1877
2,763
617
1871
1,334
540
1878
1,950
913
The large increase from 1867 to 1878 indicates not so much the growth of river through traffic, as the development of the "tow" method of bringing down rafts, and the number of trips made by the raft steamers.
The following table of the first and last boats each year to pass the Clinton Bridge, affords a record of the virtual opening and closing of navigation :
YEAR.
FIRST BOAT.
LAST BOAT.
1865
Benton
March 20 Flora
Dec.
1
1866
Means
March 31 Lyons City
Dec.
1867
Savanna
April
7 Imperial
Nov.
28
1868
Iowa City
March 19 Lone Star.
Dec.
7
1869
I. C. Gault
March 30 I. C. Gault.
Nov.
30
1870
I. C. Gault
March 29 Lyons City.
Dec.
16
1871
Lyons City
March 9 Minnie Wells
Nov.
22
1872
Clyde
March 31 C. Lamb.
Nov.
20
1873
Tidal Wave
March 27 Lyons City
Vov.
19
1874
Emma
March 18 Lafe Lamb
Nov.
19
1875
D. A. McDonald
April
5 Savanna
Nov.
22
1876
Augusta
Jan.
2 Lyons City
Nov.
28
1877
Lyons City.
Feb.
28 Emma
Dec.
20
1878
D. A. McDonald
Feb.
25 Park Painter
Dec.
1 -
1879
Niota Belle.
March 14
During nearly all of the winter of 1877-78, steamers could have run above this point without being impeded by ice.
The first company organized by a consolidation of various independent owners, was the Galena, Dubuque & Minnesota Packet Company. The Itasca, War Eagle, Alhambra, Galena and Northern Light, are well remem- bered as old favorites.
In 1858, the Northern Line was organized and for many years ran power- ful packets between St. Louis and St. Paul. The Pembina, Minnesota, and, and their consorts, for several years offered safe and convenient transit to points above and below.
In 1867, the "White Collar Line," so named from a white band about the smoke-stacks, extended their trips southward to St. Louis.
655
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
In 1873 another consolidation resulted in the establishment of the Keokuk Northern Line, which has, notwithstanding severe losses by fire and ice in Alton slough and at the St. Louis levee, as well as from low water delays, bravely maintained river travel and greatly increased the comfort of travelers, especially by abolishing the bars on the boats. Commodore W. F. Davidson con- trols the line, which is represented at Clinton by F. A. Seavey, who occupies the Bucher warehouse. The present fleet numbers from nine to twelve steamers, both side and stern wheel. ranging in carrying capacity from five hundred to one thousand tons. With an increasing summer pleasure travel stimulated by the opening of new Northern resorts and epidemics in the South, passenger traffic bids fair to develop to an extent that will make the river men as sanguine
and prosperous as ever. The use of the river for cheap excursions has afforded wholesome recreation to thousands of persons in Clinton County dur- ing the past twenty years. To many they are the only available opportunity for an "outing."
In 1867, the "Diamond Jo" Line was established, plying between Fulton and St. Paul, and affording a competing route northward for Clinton and Lyons. In 1877, the line was extended southward to Burlington, and during the present year to St. Louis. The line comprises seven large boats, Joseph Reynolds, of Winona. its owner and manager, believing that stern-wheelers are more profitable than side-wheel boats, especially in consideration of frequent seasons of low water and the fact that the debris from saw-mills in Minnesota, is perceptibly increasing the number and height of the bars in the upper river. Col. I. G. Magill is the Clinton manager of the line's business, occupying two warehouses. one constructed during the past year upon a massive artificial levee of stone. G. W. Brayton & Son are the Lyons agents for both lines.
THE ENVOY.
In the palmy old days of steamboating, before railway competition began to be felt, and while river communication was considered to be the main factor in building future trading entrepots, the boats did not (as since) run in regular lines, but each was a rival of all others. Many were the ludicrous incidents of such a " cut-throat," Ishmaelitish competition. The business was almost as uncertain as placer mining. Sometimes a boat cleared an almost fabulous percentage of her value, and sometimes her roaring furnaces and big pay-roll ate up the receipts and surplus as well. As debts held against the boat, Captains were sometimes put to singular shifts to avoid being tied up by officers of the law on collecting bent.
Probably one of the most reckless of those captains who used to exercise their ingenuity in running the blockade was N. C. Roe, who, during 1855-56, ran the steamer Envoy, a trim, swift boat, which he purchased of the Nugents, of Lyons, when she did not owe a dollar on the river, and succeeded in running her in debt to the amount of about $50,000, thereby, of course, making her too expensive a luxury for any one to undertake to run. Frequently did R. pre- sage the tactics of the railroad kings of New York during the great Erie imbroglio, by-in order to have reliable, legal advice at hand when suddenly wanted-navigating the river with a shrewd lawyer retained on board to secure the boat's release if levied upon by legal minions. Roe had nothing of the river swagger about his style. "He was the mildest-mannered man that ever scuttled a ship," by loading her with claims.
The adventures and escapades of the Envoy, while under the command of this aquatic " Ancient Pistol "-in that he believed "Base is the slave that
656
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
pays "-should be chronicled by a pen no less vivacious than Mark Twain's, in " Old Times on the Mississippi," and they would afford material for a burlesque as absurdly funny, in regard to steamboating, as is "Pinafore " on the Royal Navy. Once, the Envoy lay at the Lyons levee to take on a Masonic excur- sion to Dubuque. The boat was crowded, but, when just about to cast off, a legal officer remorselessly tied her up, atfixing a strong hawser to a stout post on the levee. But, acting on legal advice, Capt. Estabrook, who was then run- ning as mate, emulating " Old Hickory " at New Orleans, took the responsi- bility : gradually paying out cable, he let the boat drift down stream till elose on the ferry-boat, and at the same time swung her head out into the stream ; then the engines were started under a full head of steam, the wheel swiftly revolved and the craft dashed off toward the channel, the deck hands simul- taneously paying out cable as rapidly as possible. By the time it stretched and tightened, the boat was well out in the stream, and under tremendous head- way. As the rope drew taut an effort was made to make it more secure on shore just as a sudden jerk brought up the steamer, so suddenly that she careened as if about to capsize. The passengers rushed to the other side, and R., for once, cursed the men and the levee loudly and compendiously, as the irresistible momentum of the boat. drawing on the rigid rope, tore the post from the ground with such force that it gyrated into the river, and was hauled on board as a trophy. After several lurches, as the crowd on deck rushed from one side of the boat to the other, she finally straightened up for Dubuque, where new trials awaited the "gallant captain." Officers of that city, with liens on the boat, boarded her, and, thinking to make sure work of the slippery skipper, removed the piston-heads from the engine. But they grievously under- estimated the resources of the irrepressible company of the Envoy. Upon finding that so doing would be strictly " legal," the Captain had his carpenters construct temporary piston-heads of stout oak. the engineers, as the hour for departure approached. quietly got up steam, and, when all were ready, the lines were quickly cast off, the bells jingled, and before the eyes of the astonished Dubuque officials, the crippled craft, as if by magic, floated out into the broad stream, majestically rounded to, and, with bands playing and whistles screaming in derisive triumph, aided by the powerful current, vanished toward Lyons and Clinton, where the excursionists were safely landed. That trip will always be memorable to many old residents of the three " cluster cities " who participated.
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