USA > Iowa > Dubuque County > The history of Dubuque County, Iowa : containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc. > Part 40
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Among the new-comers who arrived during that year, and became prime factors in the building-up of the country and developing its resources, were W. G. Stewart, P. A. Lorimier, J. P. Farley, S. M. Mattox, L. Leach, J. M. Moore, W. R. Evans, M. Ham, J. M. Harrison, Peter Weigle, John Floyd, Solon Langworthy and wife, A. Levi, Mr. and Mrs. T. R. Brasher, J. Palmer, A. W. Harrison, James Pratt, J. Goldthorpe, T. McKnight, H. Hunter, John King, Alvin G. Harrison, A. Keseecker, B. F. Massey, W. I. Madden, M. H. Prentice, J. W. Markle, W. Dolan, Mr. and Mrs. Warner Lewis, R. R. Reed, G. W. Cummins, Guy B. Morrison, Mrs. J. B. Estes, Mrs. P. Corkery, Mrs. J. Paul, Mrs. V. De Lorimier, Dr. Allen Hill and family, Mrs. Martha Har- rison (cousin of Davy Crockett), Susan R. Harrison, Melissa E. Harrison, Martha Jane Stipp (now Mrs. J. T. Everett), and many others.
The morality of the settlement was such as would be expected to exist, if not flourish, in a mining community. While by no means paragons of moral- ity, according to the measure of self-constituted arbiters, yet their virtues and manly qualities, if weighed against those of many a parson, would go up like a rocket.
The permits granted miners, and licenses to smelters, coincided with the regulations adopted by the committee in 1830; but the smelter was required to furnish a bond providing for the payment to the Government the value of 6 per cent of all the lead manufactured by him. This latter provision produced great dissatisfaction, As pioneers, they had suffered privations and hardships enough, they argued, in opening the way for the advance of prosperity ; and to be subjected to a tax on the means of their subsistence was an imposition the Government could well afford to abstain from. This measure finally becaine so unpopular that the Government abolished its enforcement.
On January 10, 1833, occurred the first birth in the county, many allege in the State. It was that of a daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas McCraney. The event was properly acknowledged, not only by those immediately inter- ested, but by the people at large, and the event was regarded as a distinguished honor. The infant was christened Susan Ann, and grew to womanhood, when she married John S. Byrne, and still lives at Whitewater, in the county wherein she first made her appearance on the stage of active life.
At this time, society was in a transition state, so to speak. There were no courts for the redress of private or public grievances, no churches or school- houses. Every individual stood upon his merits, and, if dispossessed of a claim or insulted in good name or reputation, generally took the law in his own hands. But, as the population increased, the moral power of the better class of citizens began to assert itself by the institution of public worship, the establishment of schools, arbitration of business disputes and other means of reform. Catholic services were held in the residence of Patrick Quigley dur- ing the summer. He then lived on what is Bluff street, now adjoining St.
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Raffael's Cathedral, where mass was said by the Rev. Father McMahon-the first in the county.
The summer of 1833 dawned upon the settlement, rich in the promise of a prophetic spring. Nature and man's ingenuity combined to bring about a realization of what had been sought and hoped for. Emigration to the mines was large, and composed, as a rule, of men of substantial character, who came to improve their fortunes, and whose coming increased the value of material interests in their new home. The mines were regularly worked, and the returns therefrom remunerative. Huts, and, in remote instances, houses, were erected, stores opened, furnaces established, communication with Galena, Prairie du Chien and St. Louis was regular, farms were cultivated and every resource available at that early day, tending to develop the country and render it attractive to persons seeking homes west of the Mississippi, was employed with moderate success. Yet the privations the new-comers were forced to accept were met with courage and endured in patience, and this, too, at a time when men felt themselves standing on the brink of eternity. For, while they labored and watched, disease and death preyed upon the residents of Dubuque and the surrounding country with unparalleled violence. The spring had been peculiarly free from sickness, and the calls for medical attention, had such attention been accessible to call, were of exceptional rarity. With the first blush of summer, however, the scene changed. The miners and settlers were visited by an enemy more relentless than the Indian or the army. By an enemy that respected neither person nor condition, but laid the pallid arm of death within the cottages of the poor as also the more pretentious homes of the rich.
The Asiatic cholera made its first visitation to Iowa this year, and came down upon the settlements of Dubuque County with a violence only to be measured by the number liable to attack. The people were illy prepared to cope with what, in the light of its succeeding visitations, has proven an adversary more formidable than war or famine, and, as a result, many noble men and women fell by the wayside and perished.
The first fatal case was that of a man named Fox, who was buried at some point on South avenue-the first death in the county.
James Frith, a blacksmith, was taken next, and became food for the grave-worm, notwithstanding the efforts of neighbors to extend his lease of life. He was attacked while at work in his shop, located near the present corner of Bluff and Fourteenth streets, it is said, and so violent were the paroxysms under which he writhed that it required the services of several able-bodied men to hold him down. He, too, went the way of all flesh, after eight hours' suffering, and was buried on the ground selected for a graveyard about that time by Thomas McCraney, J. L. Langworthy and H. T. Camp, now devoted to park purposes and known as Jackson Square.
A day or so after the death just mentioned, a Mrs. Cullom, a beautiful and estimable woman who had accompanied her husband to this new country a short time previous to seek a home, incautiously inhaled the odor of a prepara- tion administered to Mr. Frith. Soon after, she, with her infant child, was taken down and survived the attack but two days. Her remains, with those of the child, were carried to the churchyard at the head of Main street, where she was laid to rest amid the daisies. These last were the first man, woman and child buried in the cemetery which served the county and city until Lin- wood was laid out and landscaped as a substitute.
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During the prevalence of the epidemic, business, mining, improvements and all sources of labor and independence, it is stated, came to a standstill. The newly improvised streets were empty, save by those who engaged in the work of aiding the sick and burying the dead. But two physicians were in the vicinity, Drs. Allen Hill and John Stoddard; and the afflicted were nursed, and those who died given burial, by the samaritans who, in times of danger and tribulation, rise up as unexpectedly as dispensations of Providence.
It is estimated that not less than fifty deaths occurred from cholera alone, during the summer, in the most thickly inhabited section of the prospective county. As a result, many who had come hither and escaped death, fled in fear, and still more, who were en route or anticipated coming, turned back or remained at home. Thus the population was practically diminished, and the winter and spring of 1833-34 was not anticipated with hope, though it should be said that the apprehensions in that particular were not altogether realized.
During this year, a man visited the mines in his pursuit of fortune, whose character and appearance attracted more than ordinary interest. Of finished address, accomplished manners, collegiate education, and the personnel of a gen- tleman, he impressed all with whom he associated as one whom unmerciful dis- aster or erratic characteristics had at some time left stranded, without sufficient resource within himself, or accessible to requisition, to " spar into deep water " and once more begin the voyage of life, guided by an experience taught in the school of adversity. Little by little, and only to those who, through courtesy and hospitality, had obtained his confidence, the story of his life was unfolded.
He had been a British army officer, commanding a company of Scotch Horse, but, owing to complications out of which he found it impossible to extri- cate himself, he finally solved the problem by resigning, and invested in the lottery of Western adventure. He located in a small, confortless hut, semi- distant between Peru and Dubuque, and there lived the life of a recluse. In time he became addicted to drink, and, neglecting the more important affairs of life to minister at the altar of Bacchus, Capt. Allenwrath at length became a hermit and an outcast, dying several years ago in penury, and buried by friends, who dropped a tear of sadness for days lang syne.
By winter, 1833, the population of the county was quoted at not far from 2,000, the major portion of which was, of course, located in the immediate vicinity of the mines. In William I. Madden's hollow there were fifteen or twenty cabins ; Langworthy's hollow was similarly populated, and fully a hun- dred miners lived in cabins built on the confines of what was known as bache- lor's hollow, where the water tunnel now is. Main street was a dirt road, unim- proved ; impassable during the rainy season by reason of the mud, and invisi- ble, for when "the wind blew, then the dust flew." On the corner of Second street, Baptiste Le Page maintained a residence, saloon and bakery, all in one, and one in all. He was, by the way, the first public baker in Iowa. Across the street lived a Frenchman, known to the public under the euphonious cognomen of "Calico ; " and across from " Calico " lived another Gaul named Sampier. A. & J. Levi owned a storehouse near the cen- ter of the block now bounded by Main, Locust, First and Second streets. Calvin Roberts lived in a log house, built by H. T. Camp, in the middle of the present thoroughfare between First and Second streets. Pat Finn's house, Lorimier & Gratiot's store ; and Hosea T. Camp's home, where the Julien House is at present ; Jacob Duvall's saloon and gambling-house, Edwin Mattox' store, and the store of an American named Coleman, who had ventured into
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Mexico upon one occasion, and assumed the airs of a veritable hidalgo in conse- quence (Ezekiel Lockwood occupied this store subsequently)-the three latter on the west side of the street-comprised the houses on Main, between Second and Third streets.
The Bell Tavern was then building on this square.
F. Gehon occupied a frame house constructed in Galena, and set up after its arrival in Dubuque, on the site of the Key City House. Woodbury Mas- sey's house and store adjoined; then came the stores of Sam Johnson and Lewis & Pease. North of Fourth street, James Fanning was erecting two tene- ments, and John P. Scott had goods in a cabin near the corner of Fifth street. James Rutledge owned a cabin between Seventh and Eighth streets, and a house stood between Ninth and Tenth, subsequently occupied by Mrs. N. F. Dean. These were all on the east side of Main street. On the west side were the stores of John Johnson, Emerson & Crider, Milo H. Prentice, who was the first Postmaster, there then being a weekly mail between Dubuque and Galena, carried by George Ord Karrick, and delivered from a candle-box in the store of Mr. P .; a German boarding-house, kept by Henry Pfotzer; Pat O'Marra's saloon; a cabin owned and inhabited by an adventurous Teuton, and three other cabins, the occupants of which are represented to have been outlaws. Beyond this, stretched Lorimier & Gratiot's corn-field. Houses were distrib- uted about the present metes and bounds of Locust, Bluff, Iowa, and other streets, now the residence portion of the city. The largest store of those days, it may here be observed, was near the corner of First and Locust streets, kept by Bogus and Williams, and for the times an "immense affair."
The limits of the city, or what it was believed would be comprehended within the limits of any city that should be built, were surveyed during the fall by George W. Harrison, an engineer from Galena, and included all that piece or parcel of land described as lying and being between First, Seventh, the river, and Bluff street; but Lorimier & Gratiot's corn patch was the most dis- tinctive feature of enterprise practically manifested at the time. 'The houses were, of course, of log, but the owners were generally prosperous, and, as fast as they could obtain lumber, did so, and completed additions. At this time, James, Ezekiel and William Lockwood owned a saw-mill at Chippewa, Wis., and in November, William Lockwood piloted the first raft of lumber that ever landed at Dubuque. It reached the town early in the morning, where it tied up just below First street, and before night the freight had been purchased, delivered, and in many instances prepared for building purposes.
No churches were erected this year, those who worshiped, as is said by men who remember the times, collecting at Woodbury Massey's cabin on Locust, south of Fifth street, where the Rev. Mr. Randall, from Illinois, occasionally expounded the faith as recommended by John Wesley, or at Mr. Quigley's house near the Cathedral, to listen to the Rev. Father McMahon.
During November, the first schoolhouse erected in the county was com- menced near the present site, but south of the German Theological Seminary, in the vicinity of Mineral street, and completed and occupied in December, when George Cubbage, a former resident of Wisconsin, began his administrations. During the Black Hawk war Mr. Cubbage and Henry Gratiot were taken prisoners by the Indians, who were disgusted with their prizes when they ascer- tained that both were bald-headed, and sold thein to a trader for a plug of tobacco each.
On Christmas Eve, 1833, a saloon near the corner of Second and Locust streets, was the scene of a tragedy, in which the proprietor, a man named
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Dickerson, was stabbed, and died from the effects during the following day. It seems that the firm of Casey & Osburn, smelters, near Center Grove, came to town on the day preceding Christmas, to superintend the shipment of a cargo of lead on the steamboat Miner, hence to St. Louis. Upon completing the delivery of his cargo on board the Miner, Casey accompanied the men to Dickerson's, where he paid for the liquor. When leaving the saloon, a party of roisterers out for a Christmas lark, surrounded Casey and insisted that he treat once more. This he refused to do, and during the altercation that ensued, Mr. Casey was roughly handled. He escaped from the crowd, however, and, returning to his furnace, enlisted a number of assistants and retraced his steps to Dickerson's. The house was closed, and an effort was made to arouse the pro- prietor by rapping at a rear door. This continued for a short time, when Dickerson suddenly opened the entrance, and, presenting a pistol, discharged its contents into the crowd. Thereupon Casey grasped his assailant, and, during the struggle for supremacy, some one in the crowd plunged a knife into the abdomen of Dickerson, who fell to the floor shouting that he was murdered. At this the crowd disappeared, and the victim of his own folly, after lingering a day in intense agony, yielded up the ghost and was buried.
There were no arrests, and the incident was soon lost sight of in the turmoil and whirl of exciting life in the mines.
This year occurred the first marriage in the vicinity, though not at Du- buque. Emily Willoughby, whose mother kept a boarding house in the settle- ment, was married at Jordan's Ferry, on the shores of future Dunleith, to William Dudley. The license was procured at Galena, and Mr. Cormack, a Justice of that bailiwick, officiated. On August 1 of the same year, he married Jesse P. Farley and Mary P. Jolinson.
The Rev. Aratus Kent, it should be added, preached the first sermon ever delivered in Dubuque, on the second Sunday in August, 1833, in an unfur- nished log cabin on Locust street, put up by Ezekiel Lockwood, with a box for a pulpit, and a number of rough boards appropriated for pews.
Dubuque was not the only settlement made during 1833. The same overtures were also made at Peru, Rockdale, Durango, Dyersville and Cas- cade.
Peru, however, was the most formidable rival encountered by Dubuque, and became a rival of no insignificant pretensions. A few settlers were resi- dents of Eagle Point, and, though much nearer Dubuque than Peru, most of their trading was done at the latter place, because of the advantageous terms there offered. Thomas McKnight, Thomas Carroll, Michael Powers, Brayton B. Bushee, Francis Gehon, M. Patterson, Felix McBride, Augustus L. Gregoire, Tuck Baker, Sam Morris and other enterprising men located there, establish- ing stores, smelting works and other industries, and for a time it seemed as if Peru was to outstrip Dubuque in the race for precedence. But, while assisted by substantial men, capital and other auxiliaries necessary to superiority, it lacked the great element of success. Some astute and observing commentator has said that there was one thing he had noticed, i. e., great rivers always flowed by great towns. The absence of this indispensable requisite forced Peru to yield the palm to Dubuque, and her business and business men gravi- tated to the latter place for patronage and profit. Thus Peru passed from the theater of action, and is only known to-day for the superiority of its strawber- ries, early cucumbers and green corn.
A settlement was also made out in the interior, at some distance from the center of business, by Chester Sage and Brayton B. Bushee. It was named
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Sageville, and to these gentlemen belongs the credit of having established the first saw-mill in the county. This mill was, early in 1834, supplied with two run of buhrs, and ground the corn and other cereals for the farmers who planted in that section.
Rockdale, now a suburb of Dubuque, was located by Richard and Robert Waller, Richard Bronson, James Pratt, William Hutton, David Hutton and others. The latter built the first grist-mill erected in Iowa, in 1834. It was originally constructed of logs, supplied with a single run of small French buhrs, with bolting apparatus and other arrangements to correspond. These mills were operated for many years, having been improved and rebuilt, and the Rockdale brand was among the best known to the market.
Rockdale is to-day a quiet, unpretentious village, with little to attract the traveler, and will be remembered in connection with the terrible storm by which it was visited on Tuesday night, July 4, 1876, entailing death and dis- aster unprecedented in the history of similar calamities which have occurred in the West.
Durango, known in early days as the "Timber Diggings," was first set- tled by Thomas McCraney, Presley Samuels, Nehemiah Dudley, Richard Marston, John R. Ewing and probably Capt. De Cillus, and for some time dis- puted their claim to superiority with Peru and Dubuque. It was a common remark in those times that the best men in the county were located at the " Timber Diggings " and Pin Oak, the latter settled by John Floyd, twenty- two miles northwest of Dubuque.
About the same time that Durango was selected as a site for the future metrop- olis, Capt. R. R. Read, Dr. Allen Hill, with Wm. Emery and Orrin Smith, became residents of a place since known as the Stewart farm, but failed to convince new-comers of the value resulting from investments there, and Stewart's farm, with Durango, lapsed into comparative obscurity.
The latter town is noted as the place at which a notorious desperado, named "Kaintuck" Anderson, died with his boots on, some time about 1837 or 1838. Anderson first came to the surface at Mineral Point, where he made himself universally disliked, and became the recipient of a well-deserved thrashing at the hands of Henry Hunter. He was a hard-loafing, hard- drinking, hard-swearing, thorough-paced braggart, it is said, always ready to resort to the "code," and invariably silenced by any manifestations of determination on the part of an opponent. After his flagellation by Hunter, he retired from the vicinity of Mineral Point, materializing, about the year 1834, at Durango. While residing there, he made an occasional visit to Dubuque, where, during one of these "hours of idleness," he encountered Thomas McCraney, by whom he was most ingloriously vanquished. It seems that Mr. McCraney had left Massey's store and was proceeding north, as Anderson was coming from that direction. Some words passed between them, when he drew a pistol and threatened homicide. Mr. McCraney, unappalled by his near proximity to danger, walked deliberately up to the prospective assassin and, disarming him, applied the pistol with such effect that Anderson begged for quarter. Hostilities were suspended, and the cowed assailant, having dressed his wounds in the store of Lewis & Pease, became invisible.
Upon another occasion, he was arrested out at the "Timber Diggings," by a Constable named Mayfield. While the latter's attention was occupied elsewhere, Anderson procured a rifle, and forced the helpless representative of the constabulary to indulge in such innocent whimsicalities as climbing trees,
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dancing hornpipes, standing on his head, etc .; and while engaged in this last feat of equilibration the disciplinarian escaped.
A short time previous to his death, he became involved in a quarrel with two brothers named Adam and Isaac Sherrill, and, being worsted in the encounter, he publicly proclaimed that he would shoot " Ad Sherrill on sight." This intelligence was brought to the knowledge of the intended victim, who was thus placed on his guard, and one day, seeing Anderson on the street in Durango, shot him dead. Sherrill was arrested, and arraigned before Joseph T. Fales, a Justice of the Peace, but acquitted.
Anderson's brother subsequently visited this section, presumably to avenge the decedent's taking-off; but, before any opportunity was afforded him, he was arrested for horse-stealing in Indiana, and the historian is denied the privilege of recording the means he contemplated employing in that behalf.
Improvements, though hardly keeping pace with time, were numerous, and the spring of 1834 witnessed a gratifying degree of progress in that behalf. The Bell Tavern, so called from the possession of a bell which was brought to Dubuque in March of this year, and elevated to its resting-place, the "first annunciator" ever sounded in the county, was completed in the spring by Joseph Bailey and William Sublett, who also kept it.
On the 12th of the same month, the first Sabbath-school ever assembled in this portion of Iowa was convened, through the efforts of Mrs. Woodbury Massey, Mrs. Adelina Peck, Mrs. Ezekiel Lockwood, Mrs. Susan Ann Dean, and others of the mothers in Israel, and included on its roster the names of many who have since grown to man's and woman's estate. Indeed, this year was made memorable for the success which attended evangelical labors. On Tuesday, April 8, Father John Johnson removed from Galena to Dubuque, and on the 20th of the same month he presided over the first prayer-meeting held in the county One week thereafter, the Rev. Aratus Kent preached in a log cabin put up by Noble F. Dean, already referred to, which was, at that time, occupied by Warner Lewis and family. On May 11, the Rev. Barton Randall organized the first Methodist society in Dubuque, and preached at the meeting, which was held at the house of Father John Johnson. The Rev. Mr. Wigley also became prominent at this time. Two weeks thereafter, a class- meeting was held at the Lockwood "mansion," and services were had during the summer, when there was preaching by the Rev. Randall, sermons read by young Dr. Stoddard and others, together with a camp-meeting beginning August 17, out at Simeon Clark's place, until the completion of the Methodist Church, for which logs were " got out" in July. The church was completed and ready for occupation in August following by the quarterly meeting of the con- gregation, at which the Revs. Randall and Bivens officiated. It was a com- modious edifice for the times, being 20x26 feet in size, 10 feet high, and costing $255. Its location was on the south side of the present Washington Square, and the expenses of its construction were defrayed by subscriptions ranging from 25 cents to $25, made up by the citizens, except about $60, which was contributed from St. Louis.
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