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 41
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Mr. R. W. Williamson also recounts some of his hunting adventures. He says: "I was an early settler of Warren county, and, like my father, was very fond of a gun. My first hunt alone was one which would now be considered quite a successful one for an old hunter, inasmuch as I captured three raccoons in one night; and my second hunt was one in which I killed eight deer in four days.
" Only a few days after this we had an adventure with a noted prairie wolf, long known in the neighborhood, and which was not much afraid of the dogs; but I had an immense greyhound which could capture any coyote. I got word one morning that the wolf was near our place and my brother and myself went in pursuit of him. It was but a little while until we found him and the hound soon overtook him and ran violently against him, knocking him down and keeping him so until the other dogs came up and got hold of him. He played possum and we all thought him dead. So I thought I would just tie him on behind my saddle on my mule and carry him home. The mule was a very wild one, and before I had an opportunity to complete the work my brother turned around and said, 'look there, what jumps that
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greyhound is making,' and as I looked I saw him going about twenty feet at a jump; I thought I would put the wolf down and go and see what the tracks in the snow some twelve yards distant were, and as I went toward my brother he turned in the direction of the place where the wolf liad been left, and to his utter surprise saw the wolf quite a distance down the road, running as well as ever. We then had quite a chase before we succeeded in catching him again; and I congratulated myself that I had thus been prevented from tying that wolf on my mule, for had it come to life after I had mounted the mule I should certainly have been thrown and the mule would probably have killed itself, for a live wolf on a mule's back would certainly have been a new kind of rider, as I was the only one who had ever ridden him. Since that time when I capture a wolf I am sure to ascertain that it is dead before I take any risks with it. I captured eight more wolves that winter, which was that of 1856, and none ever fooled me again. One of them was so savage that when it got hold of my dog's leg I was compelled to pry its mouth open with the gun before it would let go.
"My next adventure was not long after this, when several of my neigh- bors and myself agreed to go on a hunt on 'Brush Ridge,' and it is brush ridge sure enough. One T. Lamphear was along with us. He was a lame man, who, when he got under headway down hill, would run so far into the brush that he could scarcely get out again. As is always the case with hunters, each man thought lie had the best dogs in the county, and it was but a little while until they found plenty of wild cats, three of them in one lot. I shot one, and after running about an hour Lew McGinnis' hounds ran east after one of the remaining cats and mine ran west after the other, in the direction of where Bevington now stands. Mr. Stiles and my brother were with me. The dogs scared the wild cat into a hollow log about forty feet long, and hollow all the way through, the dogs going in at both ends. There was some terrible fighting in there for quite a while but finally this ceased and the dogs came out without the cat. I was the largest man in the crowd and proposed to the others that they crawl in and bring it out, but as they were not certain that it was dead nor how many others might be in there they declined to venture in, and we had no axe there to cut into the log with. I was auxious to show more scalps than any other member of the party, so I drew my coat, but forgetting that I was always sure to swell when I got into a place where there was much pressure on both sides of my head, as liad happened to me when a boy. I had tried to go through a crack or opening between two logs in the stable and had got fast and re- mained there until my brother pried the log up and gave me room to get out. But I crawled into the log for quite a distance until I came to a small place through which I crawled with great difficulty. I went on, thougli, until I came to another such place where I found I could go no farther. I then reached out my hand as far as I could and could just touch the cat's nose. I got my finger on one tooth and drew it toward me and started back- ward with it. I was all riglit until I came to the sinall place in the log again and got fast so that I could get neither forward nor backward. I
then called for help but it seemed at first that little could be done. I could feel myself getting larger all the time. I therefore insisted that they must pull me out, and John, my brother, knowing the difficulty, rushed in and took me by the heels. I was too much for him, so Stiles went in and took John by the heels and both began to pull and the buttons began to fly.
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They continned to pull until they rescued me from my predicament, with my vest torn off, and my shirt and pantaloons badly torn and several abra- sions in the skin, but I hield on to the wild cat all the same and brought it out, saying as I emerged 'we will beat Lew McGinnis anyway.'
"In 1858 I had a boy by the name of Wesley Johnson living with me, who was very anxious to have a wild cat hunt, and so we went over into the woods on North river, and ' Old Rattler' soon put a cat up a tree, which one we killed without difficulty. In about twenty minutes more the old dog had treed another np a tall white-hickory. Johnson had lost his gun-caps and couldn't shoot the cat. He was just about that age when a boy thinks a new knife is a fortune. He climbed up the tree about thirty-five feet, and cut off a limb with his knife, and putting his hat on the end of the stick was about to thrust it to scare it off, when suddenly the limb broke to which he was holding, and he started to fall head first; but he had an uncommonly large foot, and his ankle catching in a fork that stood straight up, he was suspended by one leg. I knew that it was certain death for him to fall that distance, and was at a loss to know what to do. I told him, however, to hold on, and he caught hold of a limb and began to raise himself up, and pushed his foot ont of this precarious situation. I was thinking about the danger which he had just almost miraculously escaped, but the boy was thinking of something else. After he had extri- cated himself and turned a complete summersault, holding on with all his strength, and with his back to the tree, I felt very much interested to know whether or not he was hurt. The boy replied: 'Everything is all right, if I only have not lost my knife,' at the same time feeling in his pocket. He knew that he had been hanging head downward, and was afraid lest his knife had slipped ont and was lost. He still had the pluck, however, to climb higher and scare the cat off, and we captured it after a bloody fight.
"From this time on John S. McKimmy became a partner in my hunting excursions, and we have had many adventures and" hunted a great deal, killing a large number of turkeys and deer, which we formerly sold in Des Moines by the wagon load."
Alex. McGinnis, a resident of Jefferson township since 1852, had by far the most dangerous adventure wnich ever took place in the county. In the winter of 1852 he started out one morning to hunt deer. The morning was pleasant and he went away very thinly clad, having on a coat without sleeves. This he obviated as best he could afterward by slipping a pair of old stockings, which had been on his gun, over his arms. He wounded a deer and followed it over on to South river bottom, but it began to blow up so hard that he stopped hunting for deer and began shooting wild turkeys, of which he soon had four. He then started home, carrying the turkeys. Reached the bluffs north of the river abont one hour before dark, when he found that the storm was so severe that he would be compelled to turn his back to the wind. He therefore turned around and struck off in a south- easterly direction, in hope of finding some settlement, that he might save his life. The country was strange to him and he knew nothing of his whereabouts, or where such settlement might be found. He wandered along, carrying two of the turkeys and his rifle abont sixteen miles, going from one patch of timber to another, thus sheltering himself as best he could. Finally he set the gun up by a tree and hung the turkeys up near them. Resumed his wandering, still going in a southeasterly direction, until finally he lost his hearing, so that he could not even hear himself
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walk, and his eyes were closed, so that he was compelled to open them with his fingers. He could yet think, and then began to realize for the first time the extremity of his danger, and wandered on in this earnest, although seemingly hopeless task of finding help in this hour of direst need, until finally he found fresh cow-tracks, which he followed until he came out into a road. This he kept about half a mile and found a house-the residence of Abel Smith, in Squaw township. This was about one o'clock in the morning, and he had thus been ont in the cold with nothing to eat, lost and wandering aimlessly over the county, for perhaps sixteen or seventeen hours. For sixteen miles of this distance he was followed by the large grey prairie wolves, whose howling on his track he could hear ever and anon as he sped onward in this race with cold, hunger and death. When he reached Mr. Smith's house his feet were so badly frozen that no feeling remained in them, and it required some time in cold water before sensation returned. His socks were frozen to his feet, the bottoms and sides of which peeled off as thick as harness leather. His ears were swollen to the thickness of a man's hand, and one of them burst. After staying a short time at Smith's he started on his way home, and by making loose moccasins of sheepskin he walked seven miles to Dan Braught's, and Mr. Braught took him on horseback further on his way to old John Smith's, where Josiah Davisson now lives, and the next day he reached home. The next morning after his departure his brothers, David and Lewis McGinnis, and David McClure started on the search for him, and followed him by his tracks, found first two turkeys he had left, and the gun and the other two which he had carried so far before leaving. They found that he had trav- elled about forty miles in all, through a pitiless, blinding storm. Mr. McGinnis soon recovered his wonted health, and suffered no serious or lasting injury from his adventure, but he never cared to again put himself in a similar danger. He says he was perfectly conscious all this time, and never thought more vigorously in his life, either before or since. He thought of the condition in which his family would be left in this new country in case of his death, and of his old father, who was living with him, and had been a soldier in the war of 1812. Mr. McGinnis remains a resident of this county, and is a thrifty, enterprising, successful farmer.
In 1868 Mr. R. J. Graham, then as now a resident of Indianola, killed the first and only lynx ever seen in the county. He was hunting squirrels in the woods on Middle river, about five miles northwest of Indianola, when he found this fierce animal and killed it. It measured five feet in length from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail. This was in Sep- tember, 1868.
Many other incidents of great interest are related, but these are sufficient to show some of the dangers incurred, as well as the sports enjoyed by our old settlers.
TRADING POINTS.
Oskaloosa was one of the chief trading points for Warren county in the early times, and Des Moines another, although settlers sometimes went to Missouri for groceries. Thus Ulysses Berger, soon after he came here, in May, 1846, left his wife and family and returned to Savannah, Missouri, for groceries and provisions. It is said, as illustrating the hardships of early life, that a few days after his departure Mrs. Berger let the fire go
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out, and, as there were no matches in the country in those days, her only resource was to go to a neighbor's for some of this necessary element. It was before breakfast this untimely accident was discovered, and the nearest neighbor was William Hurst, near the site of Glasscock's mill, more than four miles away. But she made the journey and returned with fire in a small brass kettle, reaching home in time to get breakfast before the dinner hour.
The journey was often long and wearisome. The sloughs were not bridged, and in the spring it was no uncommon thing for a passenger on the stage from Des Moines to Oskaloosa to make his journey on foot and carry a rail with which to help pry the stage out of the mire. This was "high-toned " traveling, and from this may be imagined what sort of a journey was that of a lone settler and an ox team.
Oskaloosa was quite a pioneer town itself then, and accommodations were limited. It is related that on one occasion the boarders at the Canfield House had rather a late breakfast. It happened in this wise: The landlord had noticed that his larder was running low, but he was in hourly expecta- tion of supplies. One evening the pantry was bankrupt, but the host was in hopes his team would come with provisions before morning. But "hope deferred maketh the heart sick" at every dawn. The landlord looked wist- fully down the divide in vain. Finally he mounted a horse and rode to a house down the road, where he secured a little meal and half a side of bacon from a settler and started for home. The half-dozen hungry boarders sat in front of the cabin pining for the flesh-pots of civilization, and soon their spirits arose and "their mouths began to water, for away to the south came the plucky landlord, riding like a jehu, and holding aloft the half-side of bacon as a sign of relief."
But the great attraction at Oskaloosa was the mill and the general stores established at an early time.
Fort Des Moines was the nearest trading point where mail matter, cloth- ing, groceries and the necessary family supplies could be secured, and the stock in trade at that point was oftentimes not nearly sufficient to supply the urgent demands of the settlers.
It was, at that time, a very small place, with only a single row of cabins extending along the west bank of the Des Moines river, and another row extending along the north bank of the Raccoon river, forming an angle between the two rivers, little dreaming that before many years it would bear the honored title of the Capital of Iowa.
These cabins had been built for the accommodation of the garrison, and in them all the business of the place was then transacted. In one of these cabins, on "Coon Row," occupied by P. M. Casady, the post-office was kept, he being the postmaster of that general delivery.
The mail matter was kept in a dry goods box marked "Phelps & Co., Fort Des Moines, Iowa," from which he gracefully distributed the precious missives to the anxious inquirers, who had traveled, perhaps, many weary miles on foot to receive from the rude box the long delayed letter that brought a message of love from the dear ones far away.
The place being so small, and the means of transportation to it being so limited and irregular, they were unable to supply, regularly, the now increasing demand from all around them, and settlers in these parts thought themselves happy if they were not compelled to go on far beyond there to Oskaloosa, Keokuk or Burlington to obtain the necessaries of life.
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
Corn, the staple article among the pioneers as food for man and beast, was a scarce, high-priced article then in the new country, especially where the first crop had not yet been raised.
In order to secure this and other necessary provisions they were often under the necessity of going to Oskaloosa, and sometimes as far down as the Mississippi river to Keokuk and Burlington, a distance of about two hundred miles, to supply the wants of their pioneer homes. After stores and trading points began to be established in this county, the merchants for many years were in the habit of going to these distant points on the river to purchase their stock of goods and bring them through by wagon trans- portation.
Occasionally a number of families in a community would club together, make out a list of what they needed, and send off to the trading post as many men and teams as necessary, or as could be obtained, to procure and bring home supplies for all, and thus to a great degree they worked together, and to one another's interest as one great family.
In this way, also, they took turns in going to mill, to the stores, for the mail, etc., and when a cabin was to be raised, or a neighbor assisted in any way, all within reach or hearing turned out with one accord, quite willing to lend the helping hand, and enjoy in common the feast and frolic that was sure to accompany all such gatherings.
In this isolated condition, pioneer life here, as elsewhere, was one of stern realities and serious trials, especially for the sick and aged ones, while so far removed from points of supply, and almost completely cut off from commu- nication with the outside world. If a stranger from any distance came into the new settlement he was treated with unusual cordiality, and questioned with unabating zeal, with regard to the great world-matters without; and if he saw fit to accept the urgent invitation of the settlers to share their hum- ble hospitality in welcome for many days, he might rest assured that he must pass through that long siege of innocent questioning by the inquisi- tive settlers, from which he often would derive as much pleasure and profit as they.
GROWTH OF THE COUNTY.
The official act of the legislature, naming Warren county, and defining the boundaries thereof, bears dato January 13, 1846. So it appears that the county was not named and laid out until some three months after the appearance of the first settler.
The Indians had left, and the whites had not yet appeared in large num- bers. Although the county contained but a single citizen, yet the white man had marked it for his.
During the first three years the county was in an undefined state of exist- ence or non-existence. In one sense it was a county, in another it was not. It was named and laid out. So that in point of fact there was a region of territory described as Warren county, in the then unorganized State of Iowa, as early as January, 1846. But there was no county organization proper, no county government, and but few citizens for several months. In a few months, however, the new county gained citizens, but in other respects it continued for three years in the same undefined state.
The work of organization was only begun when the county was named 21
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and. laid out. It remained to hold an election, and organize a county gov- ernment. This was not done until 1849.
Thus the early settlers were for a time in a peculiar situation. They dwelt in, but were not properly citizens of, Warren county, since there were no county courts, or other authority to control their actions, and they were still, in these respects, under the discipline of another county.
For judicial and other purposes the new county was still a part of Marion county, and so continned until its formal organization was completed. It does not appear that there was much call for the exercise of this authority or that the loose and ill-defined county government produced any bad re- sults. "The laws are for those who need them," and the early settlers dwelt together in harmony that did not call for the interference of sheriff or judge. This is a somewhat remarkable feature of Warren county, and contrasts vividly with the early experience of some other counties.
The county seems to have prospered well during this period of loose, half- formed organization. The settlers were too busy with their own affairs to intermeddle with those of others, and so had little occasion to call for the authority of the law. But it was soon apparent that the business affairs of the community called for a county organization. Roads should be laid out, a county-seat located, and other preparations made for a thriving and pros- perous future. So in 1849 the county was formally organized in the man- ner spoken of more fully under the head of "organization."
The people in the county at the time of the organization were mostly native born Americans, and from that time to the present the population has been mostly of that character. The county filled up steadily and rap- idly. Nearly always the new-comers were poor in purse. Few men of means came to Warren county in the early days. But although they came almost without exception poor in pocket, they brought with them industry, economy and intelligence, so that in the course of years, wealth has been the result. The growth of the county never slackened or came to a stand- still, except for a very short time, but continued steadily year by year. The brunt of the pioneer battle was borne by the very early settlers, for within a few years the great hardships of pioneer life had disappeared, and the people lived in comfort.
At the time of the organization, in 1849, the county contained 649 men, women and children. In 1850 this number had increased to 943, which shows the rapid growth immediately after the organization. In 1851 the population was 1,193, and in 1852 it had increased to 1,488. At this time there came a throng of immigration, mostly from Ohio and Indiana, and in 1854 the population numbered 4,446. The influx of new-comers continued, and in 1856 the county numbered 8,000.
This closes the first decade of the county's history, and certainly shows a remarkable degree of progress. At this time came the financial panic of. 1857, which, of course, was not without its effect in Warren county, although it could not bring ruin to the pioneer farmers of central Iowa to the extent it did to the capitalists in the Eastern States.
Passing over the next ten years, which include the war period, it will be interesting to note the increase of population a decade later. In 1867 the population had grown to 13,162, and in 1869 to 15,810. In 1870 the county numbered 17,280. In 1875 the population was 18,541, and in 1878 it is estimated at 20,000.
According to the census of 1875 there was a total population of 18,541,
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8,195 of whom were born in Iowa; 9,337 were born in other States; and 651 were born in foreign countries. There were 194,265 acres of improved land, and 167,178 acres nnimproved, and 158,737 acres in cultivation, which was enclosed with 885,186 rods of fence. There were 47,157 acres of spring wheat yielding 654,679 bushels of wheat, and 61 acres of winter wheat- returning a yield of 910 bushels; 80,280 acres of corn, with a yield of 3,561,365 bushels; 294 acres of rye, yielding 4,136 bushels; 8,391 acres of oats, witli 281,510 bushels; 1,782 acres of barley, yielding 40,818 bushels, and 110 acres of buckwheat, yielding 1,594 bushels. There are in the county about 35,000 acres of natural timber, and 550 acres of planted timber, and 182,696 rods of hedge; 42,071 bearing apple trees, bore 33,560 bushels of apples; 169 pear trees, bore 23 bushels of pears; 303 peaclı trees, with 21 bushels of peaches; 346 plum trees, bore 81 bushels of plums, and 3,371 cherry trees yielded 606 bushels. From 14 acres of grapes in vineyard, 59,400 pounds of grapes were gotten, and 29 gallons of wine were pressed, while 44,743 vines yielded 207,878 pounds of grapes, the amount of wine compressed being 560 gallons. The number of head of live stock was as follows: Horses, 10,766; mules and asses, 610; milk cows, 8,520, from which 515,910 pounds of butter, and 5,055 pounds of cheese were manufactured, and 14,115 gallons of milk sold. There were 22,505 head of cattle; 78,935 head of swine sold for slanghter, and there were 13,081 head of sheep, of which 2,665 dogs killed 734 head; 1,213 stands of bees produced 10,413 pounds of honey and beeswax. The value of farm products was $2,208,392; of market garden produce, $17,861; of products of the orchard, $27,889; of small fruit, $10,173; of the products of the lierd, $888,061; of the dairy products, $91,392, and of the products of the forest, $70,013, making a total value of the products of the soil of $3,313,781. There were 26 coal mines open, employing 95 hands, which raised 8,472 tons of coal, valued at $24,399. The total valne of the real estate of the county as returned by the assessor, and equalized by the Board of Supervisors, was $3,764,775; the valne of personal property, $1,318,406; value of railroad property, $91,805, making a total assessed value of $5,- 174,986.
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