USA > Iowa > Jefferson County > The history of Jefferson County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, &c., a biographical directory of citizens, war records of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics, portraits of early settlers and prominent men > Part 40
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This tract of land was forty miles in width, and is sometimes recalled as the "Forty-Mile Strip." The western boundary line was fixed with the general course of the river, as the reader will see by reference to a map. From the starting-point to Cedar River, the course of the line was nearly northeast ; from Cedar River to the northern terminus, nearly northwest. As affecting Jeffer- son County, the west line of this purchase entered the county not far from the center of the southern boundary line, and thence bearing a little east of north, left the site of the city of Fairfield about two miles to the west, and left the county from the northern center of Penn Township-probably a little west of the center.
With the expiration of the Indian limit of possession, there was a general rush of pioneers to the new purchase. As the Indians left the west bank of the Father of Waters, the bold, adventurous, enterprising pioneers descended the eastern bank and crossed over to enter upon and possess the land.
The Black Hawk Purchase was subject to the jurisdiction of the Territory of Michigan : and in September, 1834, the Territorial Legislature divided the Forty-Mile Strip into two counties-Dubuque and Des Moines. April 20, 1836, Congress passed an act creating the Territory of Wisconsin. The act went into effect on the 4th of July following, with Gen. Henry M. Dodge as
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Governor. On the 9th of September of that year, Gov. Dodge ordered a cen- sus of the two counties west of the Mississippi River. That census showed a population of 10,531, which entitled the settlers on the Black Hawk Purchase to six members of the Territorial Council and thirteen in the House of Repre- sentatives.
The first election for members of the Territorial Legislature was held on the first Monday in October, 1836. On the 25th of the same month, the Legisla- ture assembled at Belmont, in the present State of Wisconsin. At that session, the counties of Des Moines, Lee, Van Buren, Henry, Muscatine, Cook (now Scott), Slaughter (now Washington) and Des Moines were created out of the original Des Moines County.
" An act to divide the Territory of Wisconsin and to establish the Territo- rial Government of Iowa" was approved on the 12th of June, 1838, and became operative July 3, 1838.
When Henry County was erected, in 1836, its jurisdiction extended as far west as the western boundary line of the Black Hawk Purchase, as heretofore described.
In 1835, settlements had extended west from the Mississippi River to the Skunk River Valley, in Henry County. Until August of this year, it is not known that white men had ever penetrated to any part of the territory of the county whose history we are writing. At that time, however, John Huff, a native of Kentucky, but then a citizen of Hancock County, Ill., and now a resident of Fairfield, and five other men-William Johnson and four Morris brothers, Robinson, John, Daniel and Shelton-came over from the Skunk River settlement on a prospecting tour, and spent two or three days in what is now Round Prairie Township. They were not only "spying out the land." with a view to future operations, but looking after the haunts of the bee as well. At that time, the woods abounded with wild bees, and in the space of two or three hours they found ten "bee-trees." They cut a part of them and " marked" the others and left them standing for future use. The men were so pleased with the lay of the land at Round Prairie and thereabouts, that each of them selected a claim. Mr. Huff "marked for his own" the land on which Thomas Lambirth settled in May, 1836, and on which his widow still lives. After " setting their stakes," on which they inscribed their names, Huff and his com- panions returned to their homes. Johnson and the Morris brothers never came back to improve or occupy their claims.
When they reached the Skunk River settlement, Huff set to work to make some honey-barrels, with a view to visiting the woods along Skunk River and its tributaries to hunt the bee and make its industry a source of pecuniary profit to himself. He made three barrels from staves manufactured from linn-trees ; and about the 1st of October, accompanied by a young man named Levi John- son, he loaded his barrels on a canoe and started up the river. When they reached the mouth of Brush Creek, they "pitched their tent " and went into camp. In a few weeks they had found and cut enough bee-trees to fill their three forty-gallon barrels, lacking about five gallons. By this time, October had gone and November had come, cold and bleak, and it was deemed advisable to break camp and start for more comfortable quarters. Another canoe, or "dug-out," was necessary for the transportation of their honey, camp outfit, tools, etc., and a large tree was felled, cut to a suitable length and fashioned to suit the purpose. Their stock in trade was taken on board, and the trip to Carthage, Ill., via Fort Madison, where Huff expected to find a market for his honey, was commenced. When they reached Rome, an untoward accident
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occurred. The canoe in which the honey, tools, etc., was being transported was capsized, and everything that would sink went to the bottom of the river. One of the barrels was not quite full, and floated along on the surface of the water. It was secured and hauled out on the shore and stored away in a copse of brush, where it remained undisturbed for nearly two weeks, although as many as five hundred Indians were encamped there at the time.
As soon as Huff found he could not rescue his goods without suitable imple- ments, such as hooks, etc., he started for Burlington, and walked the entire dis- tance barefooted. He told the writer that he had an opportunity of riding with an ox-team, but that it went too slow to suit his convenience. When night came on, he would go into camp with the driver of the team, and when morning came, he would remain by his camp-fire until the sun warmed the earth so his feet could stand it. The ox-team would move on ; but before nightfall he would overtake it and go into camp again.
He made the trip, secured a pair of shoes and some grappling hooks, and, at the end of eleven days returned to the scene of the wreck, and succeeded in raising his treasure in an undamaged condition. Where the mishap occurred, the water was about fifteen feet in depth, and Huff offered an Indian $1 if he would dive down and get his rifle, which had gone to the bottom with the other " traps." As cold as it was, the Indian made two plunges, but failed to bring up the gun. Huff tendered him the promised " dollar of the daddies," but the Indian said : "No ; me no get him ; half dollar enough." The rifle, a skillet, skillet-lid, pot for rendering honcy and some other camp utensils were secured, when another start was made for the original point of destination, and this time successfully reached.
In January, Huff came back to look after the bee-trees he and his com- panions had found in August. During the time he was engaged in this work, he visited his claim, but failed to make such " marks " or improvements as would give evidence of its being taken. a neglect that resulted in his loss of that particular tract of land. In February, he returned to Illinois, where, on the 3d day of March (1836), he married Miss Sarah Woodward, of Hancock County. In April, he came with his wife to Briggs', on Lost Creek, a short distance from Fort Madison. Leaving his wife there, he came on to build a cabin on his claim, but when he arrived there he found it occupied by a cabin, two of the corners of which had been partially burned away. He had neg- lected to comply with the claim-law in vogue among the settlers, and realizing that the fault was his own, he went over to what is now Cedar Township and made another claim in Section 1, which is now included in a farm owned by Tilford Gilmer. June 17, 1836, he brought his wife from a relative's in Henry County (whither she had gone from Briggs'), and went into camp. There was no shelter other than that afforded by the boughs of the trees. All their worldly goods were brought on horseback. The prospect was not very in- viting, but they had brave, resolute hearts. Huff cut some forks and poles, and peeled some bark from the trees, and out of them made a shelter and protection against the hot suns and rains. A place for a cabin was selected. The place selected was in the midst of a grove of young hickories, from which enough were cut and peeled to fashion a cabin. With the help of his wife and her brother, David A. Woodard, then a boy, and one or two neighboring settlers, the cabin was raised and made ready for " housekeeping."
In the month of February, 1836, James Tilford, Samuel Scott Walker and Thomas Lambirth came over from Morgan County, Ill., on a prospecting tour, hunting lands for a new home. When they reached Round Prairic, they
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were so pleased with the "lay of the land," that they determined to " pitch their tents " in that locality. Ignorant of the fact that Mr. Huff had been there and "staked out " a claim, Mr. Lambirth selected the same ground that Mr. Huff had chosen, and proceeded to the erection of a cabin very nearly at the present residence of Mrs. Sarah A. Lambirth, his widow, and J. P. Chezum, her son-in-law. Mr. Walker made a claim on what is now the Haskett farm, including the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 25, and the east half of the southeast quarter of Section 26. Mr. Tilford made a claim between the claims of Lambirth and Walker. After building their cabins, these pio- neers returned to their homes in Illinois.
On the 16th of May following, James Tilford, the father of Mrs. Lambirth, with his son Joseph, then a lad of ten years, and Thomas Lambirth and his wife, and Samuel Scott Walker and his wife and two children-Elizabeth, aged six years, and Mary Frances, aged four years-came to occupy the claims and cabins mentioned above. Between the time the cabins had been built, and the return of their owners in May, the Lambirth cabin had been partially destroyed by fire. Two of the corners had been so nearly consumed that repairs were immediately necessary. How or by what means the fire was communicated to the cabin, never transpired. By a few, it was supposed some claim-hunters had fired it to destroy evidence of the land upon which it was built being claimed. Others attributed the work to straggling Indians, who were maddened at the thought of white people coming to occupy the country; but no one believed the fire to be the result of accident.
These first pioneers were accompanied by Joseph Craig, James Samuels, William and David Brown, Joseph Tibbs and David Stephenson, all unmarried men. The Browns were not suited with the country, and, after spending a few days in prospecting, went over to near Mount Pleasant and selected claims, where they settled. Samuels, Craig, Stephens and Tibbs were equally dissat- isfied, and returned to Illinois.
IN THE WILDERNESS-CROSSING CEDAR CREEK-MRS. LAMBIRTH IN NETTLES.
The teams and wagons that hauled the goods and effects of Tilford. Lam- birth and Walker from Morgan County, Ill., were the first to penetrate this part of Iowa. There were but very few, if any, established roads in any part of Henry County, and certainly there was not a wagon trail this side of Cedar Creek. Hundreds of the first pioneers to the "Forty-Mile Strip" of Iowa had no definite point of settlement in view when they left their old homes to found new ones in the Far West beyond the Mississippi: but, bold, fearleas, deter- mined and resolute, they pushed on and on until they found a locality to suit their fancy, and then pitched their tents or lived in their wagons-those great, schooner-like concerns of the Conestoga (Pennsylvania) kind, that would hold about as much as an ordinary canal-boat-until cabins could be reared.
When the pioneer cavalcade, if such it may be called, reached the banks of Cedar Creek, it came to a sudden halt. The water was high. There was no ferry. The banks were steep. No wagon had ever essayed to cross before, and it became necessary to cut the banks down so the teams and vehicles could descend on the one side and ascend on the other. The work was soon accom- plished on the one side, and then, mounting horses, two or three of the men. with spades in hand, crossed to the other side and cut away the bank. This completed, the men crossed back. Lambirth's wagon, drawn by three yoke of cattle, was in the advance, and was first driven down into the water. The rear end of the wagon-cover was loosened and turned back, and Mrs. Lambirth
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raised to a seat to be carried over. Joseph Tilford sat in the forward end of the wagon to guide the wheel-oxen, and Mr. Lambirth rode a horse by the side of the forward cattle to guide them to the crossing. When the opposite bank was reached, Mr. Lambirth lifted his wife down from the place to which he had lifted her but a few moments before, and carried her out on the bank and sat her down on a log in the midst of nettles as high as a man's head. And thus it came to be recorded that she was the first white woman to cross Cedar Creek. Her cousin, Mrs. Walker, the wife of Samuel Scott Walker, was in the next wagon, and was the second white woman to cross that stream. The frontier cabins were reached soon afterward, where the struggles, hardships and priva- tions of pioneer life were commenced in earnest. As an instance of their isolated condition, Mrs. Lambirth relates that it was nine and a half months after their arrival in Round Prairie Township before she saw a white woman, except Mrs. Walker, who accompanied her from Illinois.
It may be explained here that Mr. Tilford did not bring his family with him when he came with Lambirth and Walker, but left them at their home in Illinois, where they remained until 1840, although he continued to occupy and improve his claim. He made frequent visits to his family, but raised a crop on his Iowa claim every year from 1836 to the time of his death, December 28, 1860.
PLOWING THE VIRGIN SOIL-THE FIRST CROP.
Soon after the arrival of the above-named pioneers at their frontier cabins, arrangements were made for planting a crop of corn, and James Tilford, assisted by the lad Joseph, heretofore mentioned, commenced turning over the prairie sod with an eighteen-inch breaking-plow, drawn by three yoke of cattle. The father held the plow, and Joseph cracked the whip and guided the team. Thirteen acres were turned over and planted to corn, which afterward yielded about twelve bushels to the acre. A part of the ground thus cultivated in 1836 is still included in the Lambirth place, and the other part is included in the homestead of W. B. Frame, which is a part of the original Tilford claim. Mr. Frame having married Miss Harriet, one of the Tilford heirs. A fair crop. of potatoes was also raised this year, which were the first raised in the county.
Soon after Tilford, Lambirth and Walker had completed 'their cabins and returned to Illinois, John Huff came back to look after his claim interests, and found that his claim had been "jumped," and a cabin built upon it. As men- tioned elsewhere, he went over to what is now Cedar Township and selected another claim, which he went to occupy on the 17th of June. It is thus very clearly established that while Huff, William Johnson and the four Morrison broth- ers were the first white men to visit this part of the country and select claims, the honor of being the first actual settlers and cabin-builders belongs to Thomas Lambirth and Samuel Scott Walker and their families. James Tilford and his son Joseph are entitled to at least a share of this honor, for, as already shown, they came with the Lambirth and Walker families and remained during the summer of 1836, made a crop of corn, etc. The elder Tilford made the county his home until his death. Joseph grew to manhood on the "old planta- tion," a part of which he now owns. And it is worthy of remark that of these first settlers not one of them ever became a party to a lawsuit in any court. The land they selected as claims has always remained in the ownership and pos- session of the respective families, and, not a foot of it, amounting in all to about nine hundred acres, was ever mortgaged for a dollar.
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During the summer of 1836, a very considerable number of claim-hunters visited the country west of Skunk River and in the Cedar Creek region. Many of them selected claims, which they came to occupy the following season. Some made immediate improvements and came with their families to occupy them in the summer and fall of 1836. So far as can be remembered by John Huff and Mrs. Lambirth, the following list embraces the entire population when the sum- mer of that year faded into autumn, and autumn whitened into winter :
James Tilford and his son Joseph ; Thomas Lambirth and wife ; Samuel Scott Walker, his wife and two children : John Huff and wife ; Amos Lemon, his wife and five children; Isaac Blakely; James Lanmon, his wife and six children : David A. Woodard (a boy who came with John Huff, now a resident of Neosho County, Kan.); Col. W. G. Coop, his wife and three children : Noah Wright, his wife and one child ; Harmon J. Sikes and three brothers, all unmarried ; George Stout, his wife and three children; Samuel T. Harris, his wife and eight children: David Coop, his wife and two children : John Mitchell and wife ; George Troy, his wife and two children ; Ballard ; Fred Lyons and Lambeth Morgan, both unmarried; Isaac Bush and a man named Mount, the two last named being the last arrivals in the fall of 1836. Total, sixty-nine. The names of the heads of families and the number of children here given are quoted from memory, and may not be exactly correct, but are believed to be nearly so.
A majority of those named above settled in Round Prairie, but some of them settled in other parts of the new "El Dorado." Samuel T. Harris selected a claim and settled about seven miles east of the present city of Fair- field. Ballard made a claim some two miles northeast of Fairfield, and built a camp in the grove on the land now owned by Eli Hoops. Ballard came to the country more as a bee-hunter than with the intention of becoming a per- manent settler and tiller of the soil. Ballard's hunts for bees were mostly confined to the timber along a small stream that was known to the early settlers as " Ballard's Branch," but now called Crow Creek. But in a few years, the country became too thickly settled to suit Ballard's idea of prosperity and suc- cess, and he moved on further west.
Mills, stores, groceries, etc., in those days, were " few and far between." The nearest place where goods of any kind could be had was at Mount Pleasant. The nearest mill was in Schuyler County, Ill., known as Rall's Mill, at the place now known as Brooklyn, more than one hundred miles distant. In 1836 and 1837, but little flour was used by the settlers. They used corn-bread almost exclusively. Wheat-bread was only used an special occasions. The Lambirth and Walker families and Mr. Tilford brought some flour with them when they came in May, 1836, but only enough for their own use, for life in a new country creates wonderfully good appetites. All the settlers of 1836 brought some provisions, but in many cases the supply was very limited. When they gave out, those who had money would generally fall back on Fort Madison. Those who were "short," managed as best they could. And there were instances, as will be shown in another paragraph, where fam- ilies were reduced to the necessity of living upon elm bark. In such cases, when the facts became known, the generosity and goodness of those who were more fortunate, showed itself in good deeds.
Tilford, Lambirth and Walker raised the only corn and potatoes produced in the Round Prairie settlement that year. John Huff raised some potatoes on his claim in Cedar Township. Another squatter living near Huff also raised a " patch " of corn. These were the first crops raised in what is now Jefferson
FAIRFIELD
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County. In the fall of that year, Col. Coop sowed some wheat, which was har- vested in 1837, and Coop is believed to be entitled to the honor of raising the first crop of that cereal. But very few of the other settlers of that year came in time to make a crop, and hence, when the winter came on, the settlers, as a rule, were ill prepared to meet and contend against its pressing needs.
VISIT OF A LEE COUNTY PIONEER TO ROUND PRAIRIE .- TROUNCING A MIS- SISSIPPI RIVER FERRYMAN.
In the summer of 1836, Hawkins Taylor, Esq., an early settler in Lee County, but now a resident of Washington City, visited Round Prairie and its settlers, most of whom were his relatives. While the material for this volume was in course of preparation, the attention of Mr. Taylor was called to the undertaking through the columns of the newspapers of Fairfield, and under date of the 6th of November, 1878, he addressed a letter to the Ledger, giving an account of that visit, together with some other reminiscences of that period, from which the following paragraphs are selected :
" In the spring of 1836, Scott and Combs Walker, cousins of mine, James Gilmer, Burton Litton, Hardin Butler, - Hardin, and probably some other families that I have now forgotten, settled in the Round Prairie. They were all from Adair County, Ky., the same county that I came from. On the 4th of July of that year, was the first sale of town lots in Salem, Henry County. The sale had been extensively advertised. I attended it. There was no house nearer the town at that time than the timber on Little Cedar, some two miles off. There was a large attendance at the sale for that day, probably fifty peo- ple. I ate dinner with Father Street, the proprietor of the town, one of the most intelligent men I ever met. I intended to go to Round Prairie, to visit my friends. There was no road, but the old man Street gave me the course, and I succeeded in reaching Scott Walker's that evening. The Cedar Creek bottom was then one mass of pea-vine, and for some distance the lower part of Round Prairie was a thick mass of black-jack, plum, crab and hazel-bushes. It was accidental that I found my way. Round Prairie was then in full bloom with prairie flowers, and was a beautiful sight, and a most desirable place for a settlement, as I thought. My friends had all built themselves cab- ins, and had little patches of corn planted in the edge of the timber, and had some prairie broken. There was not a sawed board about their cabins. The floors were puncheons, the doors clapboards, and the roof boards laid on ribs and weighted down with other poles. They all had cows and plenty of milk, corn-bread and butter, and were as content as they could be.
" Hardin Butler was the grandson of John Butler, one of the most noted Indian scouts that ever was in Kentucky. That fall, Hardin, like the children of Israel of old, took his young wife and his household goods and went to his father's, in Illinois, to winter. His father had plenty, and he had raised no crop in Iowa.
"At that day, nearly the entire immigration to Iowa, south of Skunk, crossed the Mississippi River at Fort Madison, and the man who managed the ferry there was a rough, brutal bully. When Hardin drove on the ferry-boat, one of his cattle ran off. He went for the cow, but just as he got to the boat the ferryman cast-off. Butler's wife was not well, and was greatly alarmed at crossing the river, and doubly so when she found her husband was not with her. Butler waited until the boat returned, said not a word to the ferryman, went on to Illinois, spent the winter at his father's, and returned in the spring with his family and stock, and with him he brought two or three of his cousins. After
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he had all safely landed in Fort Madison, he said to the ferryman, 'You were on this boat last fall,' and gave him a terrific drubbing, his friends keeping all others off until the ferryman hollowed murder, when they took him off. When he saw how badly the fellow was punished, he said to his friends, 'Why didn't you take me off sooner?' 'Oh!' said they, 'it was an old debt, and we thought you had better pay the interest with the principal.' It was some time before the ferryman was on duty again, but it was the last time he was ever known to treat a passenger on the boat unkindly. It was to him a good lesson, and the people of Fort Madison were greatly delighted that the ruffian had been trounced into a good, accommodating ferryman.
The winter of 1836-37 was a terribly severe one, and the cabins of the set- tlers were poor protection against the wintry blasts. Snow commenced to fall early in November, and fell to a great depth and continued to cover the ground until the first spring month was well advanced, so that it was with difficulty the men could get around to attend to their domestic duties or prosecute the plans laid out for the "campaign" of the spring and summer. The trails lead- ing toward the settlements in Henry County and the trading-places on the Mis- sissippi River were so blockaded as to render travel by teams almost, if not quite, impossible. Provisions grew scarce, and suffering from hunger fol- lowed.
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