USA > Iowa > Delaware County > The history of Delaware county, Iowa, containing a history of its county, its cities, towns &c., a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers > Part 34
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A few days after the Nicholsons, Joel Bailey, who had assisted in the sur- vey during the previous season, Cyrus Keeler and John Keeler came from Milwaukee. They had intended to locate where Hopkinton now stands, but, arriving there in March, they found that Nicholson and his sons were ahead of them, and they came up the river and located on Sections 10 and 15, Town- ship 88-5 (now Milo), at the place since called Bailey's Ford. Here they built a cabin and "broke" abont twenty acres of prairie-the first breaking of any considerable size in the county. The Keelers were the cousins of William B. Ogden, late of Chicago. Cyrus died in 1846. Mr. Bailey has been closely identified with the history of the county from that day to the present. He pos- sessed, to a remarkable degree, the confidence and esteem of his fellow citizens. Modest. retiring and a man of sterling worth and unimpeachable integrity, he was often called to positions of honor and trust, and faithfully discharged his duties as an officer and as a citizen. He became first County Surveyor, when the county was organized, and served one term as County Judge. Judge Bailey now resides in Manchester, one of the oldest living settlers of the county, honored and respected by all who know him.
Bailey's Ford was afterward a station on the stage road from Dubuque to Quasqueton and Independence, and in 1855, a post office was established, called Bailey's Ford. Joel Bailey was appointed Postmaster, succeeded, about 1857, by Amos II. MeKay. The people of Delaware Center and Burrington obtained their mail at the office until the establishment of a Post Office at Man- chester, soon after which the office was discontinued.
The Land Office at Dubuque was established in 1838. Thomas Mc Knight, who was Deputy Superintendent of the United States Lead Mines, at Galena, in 1828-9, was the Receiver. The first entry made at this office was by Will- iam Phillips, who made an entry Nov. 1, 1838, of land in Jackson County. The lands in Delaware County were first proclaimed for sale Nov. 5, 1838. Abner Eads (William's brother) and Richard F. Barrett entered some land in Township 90 N., R. 5 W. (Honey Creek), Nov. 12, 1838. Eads lived in Galena, Il., and, undoubtedly, made his entry for speculative purposes ; wife and son spent the Fall of 1840 here. In December, 1838, one Jeremiah O'Sullivan entered land near Eads' Grove.
After building his cabin and breaking prairie in the Spring, Mr. Bailey worked, during the Summer of 1838, for Mr. Delong, at Cascade, Dubuque
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
County, and in the Fall, having raised some wheat and corn, Bailey and his employer carried a load of each to Sage's mill, on the Little Maquoketa, six miles from Dubuque, then the nearest mill the settlers had. When their grists were ground, they returned to Dubuque, where they peddled out their flour and corn meal. This was the first flour carried to the Du- buque market from the Western settlements. Thomas MeKnight, the Receiver of the United States Land Office, purchased one sack of the flour and then re- quested Mr. Bailey to wait until he found Mr. Morton, the Register, who, said Mr. MeKnight, must " patronize home productions," and who bought another sack. Thus, forty years ago the first load of flour carried into Dubuque from the West was peddled out in the streets of the town.
The next Fall, 1839, Mr. Bailey, having raised a crop of wheat of his own, again started for Sage's, still the nearest mill, with forty bushels of wheat, loaded on a wagon drawn by three "yokes of oxen." In two days, he reached the mill, but the water was low, several "grists " were ahead of him, and he was obliged to wait a week for his turn : while waiting, he boarded with the miller, and paid for his board by working in the blacksmith shop. When at last his " grist " was ground, he returned to Dubuque, where he peddled ont his flour as before and purchased some groceries, clothing, etc., and returned home -having been absent two weeks. There were no roads nor bridges then, and the trail was a hard one to travel. This was the first flour sent to market from Delaware County.
During the first session of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Iowa in the Winter of 1838-39, by an act approved January 25, 1839, James Fan- ning, John Paul and Benjamin C. Pierce, were appointed Commissioners "to lay out a territorial road running the most practicable route from Dubuque to the set- tlement in Delaware County." These Commissioners were directed to meet at Dubuque on the first Monday in June following, and "proceed to the discharge of their duties." The road was laid out to the county line east of Rockville. The Commissioners were very cantious about locating a road in Delaware County.
John W. Penn made a claim in a little grove, since called Penn's Grove, in the northern part of Township 88, Range 4, on the bank of Plum Creek, in 1838, and built a cabin in the Spring following.
At the close of 1838, the Delaware settlement had not increased very mate- rially, although the county had been visited and examined during the Summer and Fall by a number of men, some of whom afterward became actual settlers. At Eads' Grove the only families were those of William Eads and John Hinkle.
Early in the Spring of 1839, Silas Gilmore settled in the northern part of Township 90 north, Range 3 west (Colony), near the present residence of Law- rence McNamee, Esq. One B. T. Lounsberry entered some land in the vicinity of Eads' Grove, April 4th, and, eight days after, Eleazer Frentress, one of the earliest settlers in Dunleith, Ill., entered lands in the Grove, now (1878) oecu- pied by his son, John B. Frentress, and two brothers. Frentress also entered some land further north, at Hinkle's Grove (now York). May 22d, David Moreland, William MeMullen, William McQuilkin, Benjamin Reckner, wtih their families, and P. C. Bolsinger, arrived from Pennsylvania and located in the northern part of Township 90 north, Range 3 west, near Gilmore, where Colesburg was afterward founded. MeMullen and McQuilkin located on the prairie, about a mile west of Moreland's. Bolsinger went back to Pennsyl- vania, but afterward returned again and settled. This settlement was named the " Colony," by Judge Thomas S. Wilson, and from this the present township of Colony took its name.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
Mr. Moreland and his " colony" came from Uniontown, Fayette County, Penn. For eighteen years, Mr. Moreland had managed the stage line between Wheeling, Washington and Baltimore, and, in 1833, when Black Hawk was taken to Washington. he was transported from Wheeling in one of Moreland's coaches. In the Spring of 1839, he and his colony chartered the small steam- boat, " Fayette," Capt. Benedict Kimball, for $1,500, from Brownsville to Cassville. On this boat they loaded their household goods, supplies, farming im- plements, wagons, stock, etc., and steamed down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi to Cassville. Here they landed, and came across the country to the spot where they located. They were thus enabled to bring more of the conveniences of their Eastern homes than were enjoyed by any other family in the Delaware settlements at that time. They immediately commenced opera- tions, breaking prairie and building cabins, sleeping in their wagons, which were covered with oil-cloth, and cooking in the open air until their cabins were completed. Judge Bailey went up and broke some prairie for them that Spring. Missouri Dickson and family came in July, and settled at White Oak Grove, about four miles southeast of Moreland's. Samuel Dickson came about the same time. The Dicksons were hunters, withal, and many of their adven- tures are related. Hon. Eliphalet Price, in some sketches of early history, recently published, relates the following, of which Missouri Dickson was the hero :
A short distance from the mouth of the Volga, there is a tributary known as Bear Creek, which receives its name from the following hunting incident. Missouri Dickson and his brother Samuel, having started a large bear in the timber of Turkey River, late in the Fall of 1839, followed its footprints in the snow until they reached the vicinity of this stream, when they separated, Missouri following the trail, and his brother making a circuit, in the hope of heading off the retreat of the animal. Soon after they had parted, Missouri came up with the bear, which had curled down to sleep beneath an overhanging rock. He fired his rifle and wounded the bear, when it immediately turned upon him, and he fled in the direction of the creek. Dickson was wont to tell his adventure thus : " Fur half a mile or so, there wuz suthin' more'n daylight atween us, an' if Sam hadn't afired just as 1 wuz hoovin' it across the crik, there'd abeen one old bear hunter a considerably spiled."
Wellington Wiltse, Thomas Cole, James Cole, Albert Baker, A. J. Black- man, James Rutherford and, perhaps others, located near Moreland's. Some authorities state that Wellington Wiltse built a cabin on Section 4, Township 90, Range 3, in 1838, and that Thomas Cole, Albert Baker and Gilmore made claims in that year. Judge Bailey states that, when he was breaking prairie two weeks for Moreland, in June, 1839, only Gilmore and John Nagle were there. Nagle was just over the line, in Clayton County.
Gilbert D. Dillon settled in the east part of Township 88, Range 3, near Kibbee's, in the Spring of 1839, and built the first frame house in the county. So far as is known, he was the first Justice of the Peace in Delaware. Mr. Dillon is said to have been the first banker in Iowa. He settled in Dubuque in 1837, and, in connection with citizens of that place, established the Miners' Bank, of which Lockwood was President and Dillon, Cashier. They applied to the Legislature for a charter, and, in order to show sufficient reserve. Mr. Dillon went to Galena and borrowed $5,000, which was returned after a few days. The President and other stockholders soon borrowed the money they had put in, and appeared to be anxious to obtain Dillon's, also -some $5,000 or $6,000 in gold-leaving him to run the business with the deposits alone. He refused to discount any more of their paper, whereupon they secretly held another meeting and elected another Cashier. Dillon, hear- ing of their action, promptly buried the gold he had put in, and, when called upon, meekly gave up the keys of the safe, but the new Cashier found the bank
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
destitute of funds. Lockwood and his associates secured some wild-cat money and resumed business. Afterward, at the instance of Lockwood and Lang- worthy, Dillon was indicted for perjury, in swearing to a false statement of assets, but Messrs. McKnight and Gratiot staunchly stood by him, and the prosecution was abandoned.
Jacob Schwartz settled on the banks of Plum Creek, east of the lake, on Congressional Township 88-3, probably on or near Section 20, in the timber, in the early Spring of 1839.
Roland Aubrey, a Kentuckian by birth, went from Missouri to Illinois and enlisted as a volunteer, to serve in the Black Hawk war in 1832. His brother Aubrey (Auberry, in the History of Jo Daviess County, Illinois), was murdered and sealped by the Winnebago Indians, at Blue Mound, Wisconsin, in June, 1832. After the war, Roland married his brother's widow and settled in Southwestern Wisconsin. He states that in August, 1839, he came to Dela- ware County, Iowa, built a cabin near the center of Township 88-3, a short distance northeast of Schwartz's, made some hay, returned to Wisconsin and removed to his new home with his family in the Fall. Mr. Aubrey is still (1878) living near his original claim, hale and hearty, about 70 years of age, and in full possession of all his faculties. He was a strong, athletic man, a genuine specimen of a jovial, genial, rollicking Western frontiersman, and was very popular among the early settlers. Mr. Aubrey relates that in the Winter of 1839-40, he went to Schwartz's, early one morning. The snow, he says, was " crotch deep." Schwartz's boys, while he was there, took their axes, and called up three big dogs, saying that they were going out to kill a deer. One of the boys soon came to the door, his eyes as big as saucers, saying they had just killed a panther. Schwartz and Aubrey followed the boy, and saw that it was indeed true. The dogs had found the animal in a tree, whence he sprang among them. Before he could gather himself they seized him, and while strug- gling with the dogs one of the boys ran up and despatched the panther by crushing his skull with his axe. Aubrey says it was a full grown specimen.
Robert B. Hutson, John Clark and Michael H. Hingst settled near Eads' Grove. The Land Office records show that Ebenezer Taylor and William Davis entered land in the vicinity of the Eads settlement in 1839, and it is proper to remark that, for several years from 1839, lands were entered in various parts of the county by parties who never became actual settlers.
John Corbin and his wife, from Ohio, settled, this year, on Plum Creek, about four miles southeast of Penn's cabin.
Samuel P. Whittaker located in Township 87 north, Range 4 west ( Union), in 1839. His claim was southwest of the present town of Hopkinton.
Hawley Lowe and Jefferson Lowe settled west of Kibbee's.
Thomas Nicholson died in 1839, and was the first adult death in the county.
THE FIRST ELECTION.
July 29, 1839, the County Commissioners of Dubuque County passed the following :
Ordered, That an election precinct be established at the house of Jacob Schwartz, to be known as the Schwartz Precinct.
There is no record of an election at Schwartz's in that year, but that there was such is indicated by the Commissioners' records of Dubuque County, of date Monday, August 26, which provided for the payment of Judges of Elec- tion, Clerk and Messenger, of Schwartz Precinct, at the election held the first Monday in August, as follows : John W. Penn, Lucius Kibbee and Jacob
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
Swart (Schwartz). Judges, $1.00 each ; G. D. Dillon, Clerk, $1.00, and Will- iam H. Morning, Clerk and Messenger, $4.50.
At this election, the settlers of Delaware County voted for Dubuque County officers and for members of the Territorial Legislature; but in relation to the number of votes polled, the records are silent.
Lucius Kibbee served on the Grand Jury of Dubuque County in August, 1839. Leroy Jackson and William H. Whiteside were, also, Grand Jurors in that year, but not from Delaware.
The first religions services in Delaware, of which record or tradition remains, were held in 1839, by Mr. Simeon Clark, a Methodist preacher from Dubuque County, at the Moreland settlement, or colony. He was called Preacher Clark by the settlers, and " Cap-head " Clark by the ungodly boys, because he gen- erally went without a hat, having a handkerchief bound around his head. He was not an ordained minister at that time, but was an earnest exhorter, and generally preached to the settlers on Sunday, while out upon his bee-hunting expeditions. In the Summer of 1839, Mr. Clark and a Mr. Funston, also of Dubuque, traversed Delaware County, hunting bees. In relation to the first religious services by Mr. Clark, Mr. McNamee writes : "The first sermons he preached were in a little cabin occupied by four or five young men (names not given, but probably Gilmore, Baker, Thomas Cole and others), who were " keep- ing bach," as they termed it. Said cabin was the first one that was built in this township, and the first sermon that was preached in this township was in this bachelor cabin."
In the Fall of 1839, a war party of the Sacs and Foxes, or Musquakas, numbering twenty-five, under the lead of one of Keokuk's sons, stopped at Moreland's on their way to the head waters of the Volga, whither they were going to surprise a camp of Winnebagoes. While at the Colony, Jacob B. Moreland, then a lad of 18, sold them his dog for a deer and coon they had killed. This party afterward surprised the camp of Winnebagoes while the chief and his braves were absent hunting, killed twenty-five old men, squaws and children, and captured two of the chief's children.
During 1840, immigration to the Delaware settlements began to increase very considerably, and relatively large accessions were made to the population. Among those who sought homes in the groves and on the prairiesof Delaware in 1840, may be mentioned the following :
Clement Coffin. who made his headquarters at Eads' Grove, while he ex- plored the country, permanently located in the beautiful grove since known by his name, in the southern central part of Township 89 N., R. 6 W. (Coffin's Grove), and became one of the leading, influential citizens of the county ; at that time his family was located farther west than any other white family in this part of the Territory of Iowa.
Of Judge Coffin, Mr. Peet in his Centennial sketch remarks : "He was a genuine and true man to his friends ; of great fidelity to his trust ; entirely free from anything like hypocrisy ; he made up his mind with deliberation, and then expressed his opinion whether his hearers were pleased or not; and we always knew where to find him. He was a millwright, a carpenter, a dairyman, a wagon maker and a successful, energetic farmer. Mrs. Coffin knew how to draw around her wilderness home the wise and the good. She raised her family well. and fitted them for the highest and best social positions.
Daniel Brown had settled at Eads' Grove. Brown is said to have been the first blacksmith in the county. but Joel Bailey was a gunsmith, and, as we have seen, worked some at blacksmithing.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
Robert Gamble, William R. Evans, and perhaps others settled near Eads. Drury R. Dance had settled near Schwartz, and Oliver A. Olmstead located near Dillon's.
The Moreland colony received comparatively large additions to its popula- tion during this year. Leonard Wiltse and family (April), John Melugin and family, Drake Nelson, Nathan Springer, Amasa Wiltse, William Montgomery and James Montgomery settled in that vicinity. Abraham and William H. White- side, formerly of Jo Daviess County, Ill, located and probably settled on the North Fork of the Maquoketa in the Fall ; William H. Whiteside was one of the Judges of Election in Paul's Precinct, Dubuque County, in August, 1840.
Duncan McCullom settled in the southeast part of the county, near the Livingstons. Richard Waller, Joseph Ogilby, Elder Ira A. Blanchard (who was the first minister of the Gospel, Baptist) to settle in Delaware County, Orlean Blanchard and perhaps some others settled on Buck Creek, in Town- ship 87, R. 4 W.
Benjamin F. Moffatt settled on Plum Creek (east of the present town of Delhi), near Schwartz; between Moffatt's and Penn's Grove George and John Cutler built their cabins, and near them settled Moses Pennock. The Lindsey family, formerly at Eads' Grove, settled in this vicinity about this time.
Charles W. Hobbs came in 1840, and lived one year at Dillon's, then moved to Penn's Grove.
William R., Adin, John and Leverett Padelford, with their mother and three sisters, settled near the mouth of Honey Creek, in Township 89 N., R. 5 W. (one of the sisters, Delotia, subsequently married John Nagle, one of the first settlers of the Colony. Leverett Padelford, his mother and sister Sarah died here, and lie buried in a field south of Jones' woolen mills, and a little west of Acers' Addition to Manchester, with nothing to mark their last resting places.) Leverett Rexford, who was the brother of Mrs. Padelford, his son Francis, daughter Olive, and nephew, Valorus B. Rexford, came with the Padelfords.
About the same time, Joel Pike took up land in the same township, near Hutson's, and near the present site of Millheim.
Leroy Jackson, whose boyhood days were spent in the frontier settlements. of Kentucky, served in the Black Hawk war, and settled in Dubuque, in 1833. He was well skilled in all the arts of woodcraft, and frequently traversed the Delaware prairies on hunting expeditions. He took a plat of the lake, in 1837. In one of his hunting expeditions in 1840, he came to Nicholson's cabin. The father was dead and the widow did not wish to remain, and Jackson bought the sons' claim and property, consisting of thirty-five acres improved land, 160 bushels of wheat, 400 bushels corn, 2 yokes of oxen, 2 cows, 3 or 4 young cattle, 2 bbls. strained honey,* 1 barrel honey in comb, some hogs, hay, etc The price was $800, and Jackson paid $775. One of the Nicholsons afterward went to California. After making the bargain, Jackson returned to Dubuque, and induced Henry A. Carter, then in trade at that place, to join him in the purchase.
* This seems at this day to be almost incredible, but it must be remembered that at that time, wild bees were numer- ons, and this was a land literally " flowing with wild honey," if not with milk. The groves were full of "bee-trees," and the early settlers always had plenty of honey. Judge Bailey states that in 1840, the Spring was mild, and one afternoon in March, he took his bait box, went out and found two bee-trees, from one of which, he and Keeler took about one hundred pounds of nice honey. Their mode of finding the bees was simple. The hunter was provided with a small box, in the bottom of which a piece of honey-comb was placed; this box was pinned with a lid in which a piece of glass was set. There was also a slide by which the honey could be shut from the bees in the top. Sometimes a piece of hee bread was taken along to be burned to " toll " the bees. Arriving at the scene of operation, the hunter watched until he found a bee on a flower, when he would quietly approach with his open box, suddenly shut the lid, and the bee finding itself imprisoned would fly up against the glass, the slide would then be closed until the insect became quiet, when it would be gent'y opened and the bee would soon drop down upon the honey and go to work. The. box was then opened and the bee rising in the air would circle round a few times and then strike a " bee-line" for its tree. If it was near, it would be but a short time before there would be several bees return to the treasure the first had found, indicating some mode of communication between these industrious and intelligent insects; watching their flight, the hunter was soon able to determine what direction to take, and seldom failed to find the tree.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
Jackson moved to the Nicholson place in 1840, and in the Winter of 1840-41, built a house of hewed logs, for Carter, who removed thither the following Spring. This was the first house built on the site where Hopkinton was after- ward founded. While raising this house, it is said that Hugh Livingston, who was a very athletic man, picked up one the logs eighteen feet long, and raised it, without aid, to its place. Roland Aubrey imitated his example, but it is said did not handle kis log with quite the same case.
Jackson and Carter each entered a quarter section, in 1840.
William Bennett and his family returned to Eads' Grove in the Fall of 1840, but his restless disposition would not permit him to remain long in any one place, and in the Summer of 1841, he removed to Buchanan County and built a log cabin on the bank of the Wapsipinicon, becoming the first white settler of that county. April 16, 1842, he laid out a town there, employing Joel Bailey to do the surveying, and called it " Democracy," afterward changed to Quasqueton. He also built a mill there during the same year, but in 1843, sold out and went to Dubuque, where he had a tin shop for awhile.
Among those who settled on Buck Creek at a very early day (but dates of settlement are now lost), were Nelson Main, Silas Main, Charles Roff, Green, William Robinson and Aaron Blanchard.
By an "aet to organize, discipline and govern the militia of the Territory," approved January 4, 1839, the Territory was divided into three divisions. The counties of Clinton, Jones, Jackson, Dubuque, Clayton, Delaware, Fayette, Buchanan and Benton were constituted the Third Division. It was provided that " whenever a county or district of country is distant, or so detached that in the opinion of the Governor it would be inconvenient for the persons residing there to belong to a organized regiment, they shall be organized as a separate battalion under the command of a Major." According to the best infor- mation now accessible, there appears to have been a meeting held at "Schwartz's," on Plum Creek, in 1840, for the election of officers for a military company, at which John W. Penn was elected Captain, and John Hinkle, Lieutenant.
May 27, 1840, Daniel Brown was appointed Constable for Eads Precinct, by the County Commissioners of Dubuque, and July 20th, Wm. H. Whiteside was appointed one of the Judges of Election in Paul's Precinct, Dubuque County.
The early records of Dubuque County are imperfeet and do not show the appointment of Judges of Election in Schwartz Precinet or the creation of Eads Precinct, but September 14, 1840, the Commissioners of Dubuque ordered the payment of the following Judges and Clerks of Election and Messengers in Delaware County, at the election in August : Schwartz Precinct, B. F. Moffatt, D. R. Dance and Hawley Lowe, Judges : John Corbin and G. D. Dillon, Clerks; II. Lowe, Messenger. Eads Precinct, Daniel Brown, A. Dike and Thomas J. (G.) Eads, Judges ; Leverett Rexford and Valorns B. Rexford, Clerks ; Thomas J. (G.) Eads, Messenger. Michael H. Hingst, Wm. R. Evans and W. 11. Morning served as Grand Jurors at Dubuque, at the Fall term of court, 1840. Oliver A. Ohinstead and a William Bennett also served as Jurors in September, 1840.
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