USA > Iowa > Warren County > The history of Warren County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, &c., a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics &c > Part 38
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This completes the enumeration of the earliest settlements in Warren county. It docs not comprise every township nor every man who came in those early days, but is as complete as we have been able to make it.
The Indians had not abandoned all title to this territory before the first settler came, but the number was not very great even when Parmelee came, and before the great body of the settlers came in 1846, 1847, and 1848, they were nearly all gone although they were to be seen occasionally even for few years afterward when returning to visit for a short time their former happy hunting grounds. Quite a number of them would come back during the "sugar water seasons," and spend some time here occupied in draining the "sugar water" from the trees and boiling it down. They would gather the water in huge troughs, sometimes twenty feet in length,
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and keep it there until ready to boil it down. After the departure of the Indians the settlers would gather up these troughs as they found them, just the thing in which to feed cattle and hogs. As soon as the " sugar water season " was over the Indians would disappear, and after a few years they ceased coming entirely. As might be guessed from their industrious habits, there was a great number of squaws in these Indian bands. With Indians thus peacefully and industriously disposed, the early settlers conld have no trouble, and there is no reason to believe that there was any.
The agricultural implements of the early settlers were much in contrast with those of the present. time. The only plows they had at first were what they styled " bull plows." The monld-boards were generally of wood, but in some cases they were half wood and half iron. The man who had one of the latter description was looked upon as something of an aristocrat. But these old "bull plows " did good service and they must be awarded the honor of first stirring the soil of Warren county.
It was quite a time after the first settlement before there was a single stove in the county. Rude fire-places were built in the cabin chimneys and they served for warmth, cooking and ventilation.
The first buildings in the county were not just like the log-cabins that immediately succeeded them. These latter required some help and a good deal of labor to build. The very first buildings constructed were a cross between " hoop cabins" and Indian bark huts. As soon as enough men could be got together for a "cabin raising " then log-cabins were in style. Many a pioneer can remember the happiest time of his life, as that when he lived in one of these homely bnt comfortable and profitable old cabins.
A window with sash and glass was a rarity, and an evidence of wealth and aristocracy which but few could support. They were often made with greased paper put over the window, which admitted a little light, but more often there was nothing whatever over it, or the cracks between the logs without either chinking or danbing was the dependence for light and air.
The doors were fastened with old fashioned wooden latches, and for a friend or neighbor or traveler the string always hung out, for the pioneers of the west were hospitable, and entertained visitors to the best of their ability.
It is noticeable with what affection the pioneers speak of their old log cabins. It may be doubted whether palaces ever sheltered happier hearts than these homely cabins. The following is a good description of these old land-marks, but few of which now remain:
"These were of round logs notched together at the corners, ribbed with poles and covered with boards split from a tree. A puncheon floor was then laid down, a hole cut out in the end and a stick chimney run np. A clapboard door is made, a window is opened by cutting out a hole in the side or end about two feet square, and it is finished without glass or trans- parency. The house is then 'chinked ' and ' daubed ' with mnd made of the top soil.
" The cabin is now ready to go into. The household and kitchen furni- ture is adjusted, and life on the frontier is begun in earnest.
" The one-legged bedstead, now a piece of the furniture of the past, was made by cutting a stick the proper length, boring holes at one end one and a-half inches in diameter, at right angles, and the same sized holes corres- ponding with these in the logs of the cabin the length and breadth desired for the bed, in which are inserted poles.
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"Upon these poles clapboards are laid, or lind bark is interwoven con- secutively from pole to pole. Upon this primitive structure the bed is laid. The convenience of a cook stove was not thought of then, but instead the cooking was done by the faithful housewife in pots, kettles and skillets, on and about the big fireplace, and very frequently over and around, too, the distended pedal extremities of the legal sovereigns of the household while the latter were indulging in the luxury of a cob pipe, and discussing the probable results of a contemplated elk hunt np and about Walled Lake. These log cabins were really not so bad, after all.
" We have seen a good deal of solid comfort about them, which, we pre- sume to say, in many cases money could not purchase for the millionaire. Still, as ' contentment is happiness,' wherever one is the other must follow, as a matter of course, whatever may be the condition or location in life."
The women equally with the men came to endorse the trials, and admin- ter her consolations to earliest settlers. Parmelee himself, though he came here in the spring of 1843, soon brought his wife with him. She had been raised on the frontiers, where very little opportunity presented itself for acquiring book learning. But she spoke the language of the Sacs and Foxes with a fluency equal to that of the Indians themselves. Much, in- deed, is due to the women who came with the earliest settlement, and took their part in its upbuilding. "The winds and the wolves might howl with- out the lonely cabin, but within there burned the pure bright flame of a woman's love."
The woods abounded in wild fruit and grapes in the early days, and much of it was of a delicious quality, and it was many years before tame fruits were generally planted, because they were not needed. These fruits have now almost entirely disappeared. Occasionally the crab apple, the wild cherry, wild strawberry and the blackberry are seen, but civilization has apparently ruined their quality, and they are no longer the rich, toothsome fruits which the early settlers knew.
Wild bees also abounded in those times, and furnished a delicacy to many a pioneer household, beside the sport of finding and securing it.
On account of the high price of corn during the first years, and the great inconveniences of procuring it at distant markets, they were compelled to be economical and judicious in the use of it, and used every means and effort within their power in making preparations the first year, so as to be sure of a crop the following year; and for this labor and care they were almost invariably rewarded with an abundant harvest. The labor, care and anxiety of one year was generally repaid with prosperity, peace and plenty during the next, and the majority of the pioneers found more pleasure in thus having a plentiful supply of the necessities of life and being able to give of their substance when the occasion required, to those in straightened, cir- cumstances around them, than in being dependent and needy themselves, and thus being on the receiving list. Oftentimes, indeed, such persons had the privilege of realizing the truth and beauty of our Saviour's sweet words of comfort, " It is more blessed to give than to receive."
While the early settlers were generally industrious, honest, generous and sympathetic, moving along peacefully in the even tenor of their ways about their daily duties, and usually temperate in their habits, still their customs and habits were not altogether of the same character as those of the present day.
Customs and habits that are now looked upon as quite improper and de-
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grading by society generally, though practiced still by a large per cent of the inhabitants, were considered by many of the early settlers as not so very much ont of place, while others of their number-perhaps no smaller per cent in proportion to the population than at present-were faithful to shun and frown down all such improper conduct. Still a good many of them seemed to deein it eminently proper and quite essential in starting off on a journey to take with them a handy-flask in their pockets, and sometimes the "wee brown jug" in their wagons, well filled with something to keep them warm and in buoyant " spirits," and also to have something along with which to accommodate their particular friends of like tastes and longings whom they might accompany or meet with on the way, and thus be able to sustain their cherished title of " hail fellows well met."
Warren was just like the other pioneer counties in this respect, and so we take from a neighboring county on the north a general illustration of this phase of pioneer customs. It is related by Judge Burns, the first County Judge of Dallas county:
" We and Squire Babb were returning from a business trip to the Fort in the winter of 1847-8. We met Corbell on the ridges east of the site of Waukee, going to the Fort on horseback for the mail. We had never seen Corbell before. Babb had seen him only once, but had no acquaintance with him at all. They stopped mutually, and eyed each other for a moment. Squire Babb addressed Corbell thus:
"'It seems to me, sir, that I have seen you before.'
"'No doubt of it, sir,' replied Corbell, 'I'm Squire Corbell, of Dallas county; have just been appointed postmaster in Penoach by the commis- sioners of the General Land Office, sir, and I'm goin' down to the Fort for the mail matter. What might your name be?'
"' My name, sir, is Squire Babb. I have just come to your county to seek a little rest. I have held many official places of honor and trust in my day. I was appointed by the legislature of the State of Indiana, one of the re-locating commissioners to re-locate the seat of justice of Fountain county, Indiana, and, sir,- By this time Squire Babb was out of the wagon and Corbell was off his horse. They rushed toward each other; they clasped hands and tangled congratulations followed. Squire Babb had brought with him from the Fort a jug of pretty large capacity, well filled with sweetened homiletic elaborator, and in order to cement the friendship just formed with Corbell, he lifted it from its hiding place in the wagon, and, with an introductory speech on hygiene, that was interlarded with affirm- ative responses from Squire Corbell, it was gracefully given to the latter, accompanied by this laconic sally : 'Squire, let us drink to a better acquaint- ance in Dallas." Corbell, taking the jug, replied: ' I will never refuse a friend, sir, in such trying times as those.' Babb then politely turned his back, and Squire Corbell proceeded at once to flood his epiglottis. Squire Babb now took the jug, saying: ' Here is to my friend, Squire Corbell, great Jupiter, prithee.' He then threw back his head, poised his jug on his pout- ing lips, a long gurgling current coursed its way toward his plastic epigas- trium, and the jug was grounded. Squire Babb then continued the colloquy : 'Now, Squire Corbell, I beg of you not to mention my name in connection with any office whatever. I have come to Dallas with no such purpose. I want the good people of Dallas county to let me enjoy the sweets of private life on the inellifluous waters of the classic 'Coon, the one great object I had in coming here. Yes, sir, yes, let me hunt the bear, the elk, the deer, and trap
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the pretty fur-coated tribes of the woods and waters, and office may go beg- ging for me.' Squire Corbell could hardly see how it was possible to com- ply, and would not promise Squire Babb. They drank again, then mounted and parted with a wave of the hands."
Many amusing stories are, of course, told by the early settlers about each other, but we have space for but a few.
Old Uncle Jerry Church was about the first merchant in this region, and " kept store," as it was then called, at Dudley. It has been said that when he began selling goods he put no inarks upon them, either of cost or for selling. When asked why this was so, he said: "I don't want any mark. I know very well that when I buy something for one dollar and sell it for three that I am making money, and I don't need any mark to tell me so."
One of the early physicians at one time visited a patient, a strong, plucky settler, with whom disease had dealt long and harshly, until the doctor saw that he must die. So he told his patient that if he had any business to settle up he had better attend to it. "Then, doctor," anxiously inquired the patient, "you think I must die?" "Yes," replied the physician, "I see no help for yon." "D-n the luck!" replied the patient, and turned his face to the wall and died, none the less plncky than the boldest of Bret Harte's heroes.
Another physician in the northern part of the county was once called to visit a patient sonth of Indianola. He made the outward journey all right, administered to the sick man, and started on his way home. Roads were scarce at that time, and the physician was soon lost. He wandered along, until finally in the distance he saw a light at the house of James Farley, near Palmyra. He applied for lodging, and was kindly cared for. He was directed to a bed with some of the young lads of the family, and, according to his custom, took the back part of the bed. The house was new, as well as distinctively pioneer, and there was no chinking and daub- ing. Some time during the night the physician in his restlessness threw his arm out at one of the cracks between the logs, and an old and friendly cow on the outside, looking, perhaps, for a new end, advanced and chewed the cuff of the sleeve of the doctor's shirt before he awakened.
At one time during the flood of 1851 Jackson Shoemaker was keeping a "grocery" at Dudley. A grocery then meant principally whiskey and other drinks, with a few cigars and such other luxuries as are considered necessaries in a new country. D. D. Cummings, now a resident of Green- field township, was one of the early settlers who was always up to mischief. He took a canoe and went down to Dudley, and hitching it to a fence some fifty or a hundred yards off, he climbed ont in the water and waded over to the "grocery." The proprietor was out, and Dave, after helping himself to the stronger cordials, began on the Havana cigars, which were then put up in bunches of about ten, with tape around them. He filled his clothes with them, and started back for his canoe. Near where it was tied was an old well, some ten or twelve feet deep, whichi, of course, he could not see, and so into it he stepped, and down he went under the water. Nothing was seen of him for a short time, but soon the bunches of cigars began to come up, pop! pop! and when Dave came up he began to swiin after them. However, his game of mischief was exposed, and the other settlers who were in the upper story of the old building at Dudley greatly enjoyed his discomfiture. It is probable that he was compelled to stand "treat."
The living, in those times, was not such as to tempt the epicure to leave
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his comfortable luxuries, or even necessities, in the East, in order to add to the population of this conntry. Flour was unknown at first and meal scarce. Meal of home manufacture was made by pounding boiled corn in a sort of mortar made in the top of an old stamp. The pounding would be done with an iron wedge fastened to a stick. Various other contrivances were used. As late as 1850 flour was scarce, and sold readily for ten dol- lars per hundred weight. Buckwheat was ground in coffee-mills. In this way flour was ground for many a toothsome "flap-jack." Coffee was made from corn, and the old-fashioned hominy, made by the housewife in a kettle, was both common and toothsome.
They had corn bread in those days "as was corn bread," such as many a resident of the county of this day knows nothing of; and the pone made by the grandmothers of the young people of the present day was something for pride.
Meat, of course, was very plenty and very cheap, but it was altogether wild meat, principally venison. R. M. Hightower, a resident of Otter township, who lives on the same claim he marked ont after coming from Missouri, in 1846, says he ate no kind of meat except wild meat for three years after his arrival. They had it salt and dried and fresh. John S. McKimmy says that when he came here, in 1849, the people with whom he boarded had no other meat for the first six inonths than venison. So it was all over the county.
The methods of living at that time are illustrated by an occurrence in the early history of Madison county, just over the line. The first marriage in that county took place April 19, 1849. The parties were David S. Smith and Jane Cason. The ceremony was performed by Seth Adamson, justice of the peace. The bride was fifteen years of age. Before the marriage Mr. Cason, father of the bride, spent a week riding about in Madison and Warren counties, visiting every family in order to obtain enough flour to make a wedding cake. He was unsuccessful, and returned very much dis- appointed. The bride and her brother, William T. Cason, now of Bev- ington, were equal to the emergency. They pounded corn in a sort of a mortar dug out in the top of a log. The corn was pounded with an iron wedge attached to a pole, which in turn was fastened' to a " sweep " which was fastened to the upper log of the cabin. Of the corn pounded in this way the finest was taken for the wedding cake, which, when sweetened with maple sugar and properly baked, was highly relished by the guests.
The first post-office was established in 1848, west of Ackworth, near the point where the Indianola road to that place enters the road running south to Hammondsburgh. The first postmaster was Colonel P. P. Henderson, who kept it at his residence, and the mail was carried from Des Moines by some of the settlers, who alternated in the work. It was a mail route of which this was the terminus. It was carried oftenest, perhaps, by Milt. Hamilton. Afterward a line was established from Fort Des Moines to Alexandria.
The first house in the neighborhood of where Ackworth now stands was built by Alex. Ginder, in the spring of 1846. David Lair, Dillon Hawortlı and Thomas Feagins built the same spring. Ginder's house was a little to the northeast of Ackworth, near where George D. Haworth now lives.
Wages, in those days, were about fifty cents a day. Good hands in some special kinds of work received seventy-five cents, and one, William Ginder, usually received a dollar a day for hewing timber. Rail splitters received
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
about fifty cents a hundred, so that in the early days, when they had the pick of timber, the very best hands could make about a dollar a day, but the pay was in trade, as but few of the early settlers had money, as that article was very scarce in the early days. It used to be said that old oxen was the only circulating medium. The California emigration which passed through here in 1848 and 1849 was a great blessing to the county, as it enabled the settlers to sell their products at handsome prices.
During the first years new settlers came into the county so rapidly that it was difficult to get enough provender to keep the stock alive through the winter. They would be driven daily into the timber along the streams and allowed to browse on the lind and elm trees. The cattle in the county were usually veritable "lean kine" by spring.
During the floods of 1851 the people were compelled to live on hominy and on corn bread made from meal made by pounding in a mortar or grating upon a grater, or ground in coffee mills. Although there were sev- eral mills they were on the river bottoms, and were surrounded almost as completely as if a new deluge had come.
To show what ideas of distance the early settlers had it is only necessary to remark that in 1856, when Enoch Crosthwait lived in the National House, and would go up town in the evening, the citizens would joke him about living so far out that he was compelled to bring his dinner when he came to town.
As before remarked, the first marriage was that of Colonel P. P. Hen- derson and Miss Martha Haworth, on the 16th of December, 1847. He procured his license at Fort Des Moines.
The first marriage license issued in this county was on the 30th of Octo- ber, 1849, to Franklin Berge, to marry Miss Arena Bales, and is the only one issued that year.
The second was issued on the 28th of March, 1855, to John Beeson, to marry Miss Polly Ann Haworth.
These have well been followed up, so that we are able to report the result for thirty years:
1849,1; 1850, 15; 1851, 8; 1852, 4; 1853, 36; 1854, 49; 1855, 48; 1856, 83; 1857, 114; 1858, 92; 1859, 66; 1860, 78; 1861, 96; 1862, 70; 1863, 70; 1864, 102; 1865, 161; 1866, 158; 1867, 141; 1868, 147; 1869, 155; 1870, 148; 1871, 148; 1872, 179; 1873, 160; 1874, 180; 1875, 167; 1876, 169; 1877, 169; 1878, 177; 1879 to October, 21st, 127-making a total of 3,320.
In the days of a State bank currency the Indianola merchants would publish in the papers lists of the banks whose bills they would accept in the regular course of trade. Generally these lists would be nearly a half column in length, and they would be revised every few weeks by dropping out some names and inserting others. By these lists farmers could tell before coming to town just what stores would receive whatever "wild cat" they had on hand.
Old time methods of banking were also forcibly impressed upon our early citizens by such news paragraphs as the following, in the Indianola Republican of December 6, 1855:
"The following banks were thrown out in Boston: Rhode Island Central Bank; Orno Bank and Ellsworth Bank, Maine; Searsport Bank, Maine; Royalton Bank, Vermont; People's Bank, Danby, Vermont.
"The following Indiana Free Banks have been wound up and their secu-
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
rities sold. The bills are worth, according to the sums realized, the follow- ing figures: Bank of Connersville, 87 cents; Wabash Valley Bank, 92 cents; Greene county Bank, 81 cents; Merchants Bank, Lafayette, 90 cents; Laurel Bank, 62 cents; Government Stock Bank, 80 cents."
Some of the cabins were also used as stopping places for travelers, and when this was the case the house could well be said "to be crowded to its utmost capacity." On such an occasion when bed time came, the first family would take the back part of the cabin, and so continue filling up by families until the limit was reached. The young men slept in the wagons outside. In the morning, those nearest the door arose first and went out- side to dress. Meals were served on the hind end of a wagon, and consisted of corn bread, buttermilk and fat pork, and occasionally coffee to take away the morning chill. On Sundays, for a change, they had bread made of wheat " tread out" by horses on the ground, cleaned with a sheet and pounded by hand. This was the best the most fastidious could obtain, and this only one day in seven.
Not a moment of time was lost. It was necessary that they should raise enough sod corn to take them through the coming winter, and also get as much breaking done as possible. They brought with them enough corn to give the horses an occasional feed in order to keep them able for hard work, but in the main they had to live on prairie grass. The cattle got nothing else than grass.
In giving the bill of fare above we should have added meat, for of this they had plenty. Deer would be seen daily trooping over the prairie in droves of from twelve to twenty, and sometimes as many as fifty would be seen grazing together. Elk were also found, and wild turkeys and prairie chickens without number. Bears were not unknown. Music of the natural order was not wanting, and every night the pioneers were lulled to rest by the screeching of panthers and the howling of wolves. When the dogs ventured too far out from the cabins at night, they would be driven back by the wolves, chasing them up to the very cabin doors. Trapping wolves became quite a profitable business after the State began to pay a bounty for wolf scalps.
One of the peculiar circumstances that surrounded the early life of the pioneers was a strange loneliness. The solitude seemed almost to oppress them. Months would pass during which they would see scarcely a human face outside their own families. The isolation of these early years worked upon some of the settlers an effect that has never passed away. Some of them say that they lived in such a lonely way when they first came here that afterward, when the county began to fill up, they always found them- selves baslıful and constrained in the presence of strangers. But when the people were once started in this way the long pent-up feelings of joviality and sociability fairly boiled over, and their meetings frequently became enthusiastic and jovial in the highest degree. It seems singular to note bashfulness as one of the characteristics of the strong, stalwart settlers, but we are assured by the old settlers themselves that this was a prominent characteristic of the pioneers. And some of them declare that this feeling became so strong during the early years of isolation and loneliness that they have never since been able to shake it off.
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