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 54
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90
A 'careful count shows a hundred and twenty houses and barns demol- ished or unroofed. These will average five hundred dollars apiece, $60.000. The damage to household goods is half as much. That to orchards and grove about the same as to goods. There are probably three thousand acres of timber down at forty dollars per acre. The damage to crops is much less than was supposed-all but the largest corn will still make a fair crop-and cannot be put higher than abont fifty-five thousand, making the whole amount of damage about three hundred thousand dollars.
Most of the farmers went vigorously to work next day building fence, and those who had any, to repairing their houses. Some were after car- penters by twelve o'clock that night. The sufferers generally bear their
438
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
losses bravely. The complaining is all done by the lightest losers. With those who saw the real fury of the storm, there is no feeling so deep as that of gratitude for life and thankfulness for family and friends. The destruction by flood was comparatively small, although the bottom farms have suffered greatly, in both crops and fences. The damage to buildings is not great, and no lives were lost by the flood. Middle river rose very. rapidly Thursday, coming down at one time in a wave more than a foot, high at Summerset, where it reached its highest flood mark. The bridge at Bevington is gone. The approaches to that two miles below are impassable. The Ball bridge is condemned for repairs ; and the Spring Hill bridge will have to come down in order to strengthen the piling, which is bent in. The McDonald bridge on North river is gone entirely ; and the one three miles below, swung around. One approach to the bridge a mile and a-half south of town, on South river, was washed out. The loss to the county on bridges will be four or five thousand dollars.
· Altogether, Warren county has been more severely scourged by the ele- ments than ever before in its history. But compared with our resources, the loss is a trifle, and there is no need to be discouraged and conclude that business must lag and enterprise be abandoned. A little more energy will repair the general loss in a year ; the individual losers will be encouraged and helped ; those whose material losses are hidden beneath the heavy anguish of broken home circles, will find some comfort in the sincere sympathy that reaches them from every side; and we shall be drawn closer together and made more neighborly by our calamity.
This is a very faithful account of the destruction of both life and prop- erty by the great Centennial storm, and now after the lapse of more than three years, there is little that demands change or correction. The damage there inflicted on the people of the county, has borne heavily upon many men and their families. But its ravages have been repaired for the most part, and all have kept cheerfully at work as though nothing had happened.
WARREN COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.
This society was organized in July, 1865. Its existence was a precarious one until 1860, when it was reorganized. The original members at this reorganization were C. W. Davis, M. A. Dashiell, J. D. McCleary, C. B. Lake, A. J. Applegate, J. I. Wakefield and S. P. McClure.
The officers elected were, C. W. Davis, President; M. A. Dashiell, Vice President; J. D. McCleary, Secretary; C. B. Lake, Treasurer.
Meetings have been held regularly every quarter since 1869, and the in- interest has been good.
The membership at present consists of C. W. Davis, M. A. Dashiell, J. D. McCleary, C. B. Lake, A. J. Applegate, J. I. Wakefield, J. D. Blake, T. S. Parr, W. S. Hull, T. W. Baugh, E. L. Baker, J. D. Holmes, W. M. Park, S. B. Miller, Thos. F. Kellehier, J. C. Marietta, J. H. Nicol, L. H. Surber, W. C. Davis.
The present officers are: President, J. C. Marietta; Vice President, W. M. Park; Secretary, J. D. McCleary; Treasurer, Thomas W. Baugli.
The matters discussed are those relating to the profession generally, as there is no question of sufficient local interest or importance to demand the time of the society. It has been useful to the county in making the physicians acquainted with each other and with the wants of the county.
439
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
. Aside from the members of the society, there are about seventeen physi- cians in the county who are not members, making a total of thirty-five physicians, or one for about every six hundred of population.
EARLY SETTLERS' MEETINGS.
In most counties the early settlers have formed themselves into associa- tions which have for their purpose the keeping up the memory of the days when all were laying the foundations of the future growth of the commu- nity, and to renew not only their old acquaintance, but to welcome the newer citizens to the soil to which they, the old settlers, had gained something of a prescriptive right. These associations usually keep up their meetings from year to year, until the association becomes one of the features of the county. But in Warren county we do not find that any such associa- tion has ever been formed, as a permanent organization, to be kept up with meetings each recurring year. But we find accounts of an occasional meet- ing of old settlers in the press of the county .. The first of these was on Washington's birthday, February 22, 1872, and is thus described in the Warren county Leader, of the 29th of the same month:
" The old settlers' festival came off at the National House last Thursday evening, as previously advertised, and proved one of the most felicitous oc- casions that ever transpired in our community .. There were between seventy and eighty ladies and gentlemen present, a majority of whom have been residents of this city and county for the past fifteen or twenty years. Of course the pleasant chat and social intercourse of such a convocation could take but one drift. The incidents and memories and reminiscences of other years overshadowed all other topics and formed the staple of the old set- tlers' converse. Anecdotes and stories of a local character were told with- ont end. To instance a few, Col. Henderson explained why Todhunter did not preach Margaret Whitmore's funeral sermon; from Enoch Crosthwait was received the true version of Williamson's celebrated debate with Squire Cozad, on the superiority of art over nature; the marvelous demon- stration of P. Gad Bryan, in the old seminary building during a revival, long years ago; the sensational trial of Goosick, before Col. Henderson (at that time county judge), for shooting a man a half-mile distant, in the big toe; the stupendous larceny of Johnson, who stole a horse; the reminiscence of an old citizen who buried his father on the land he had entered in order that he might hold it; the advice of Capt. Knox to a certain old lady to send her children to Sabbath-school as his mother used to send him, and her prompt reply that ' If that is the way children turn out who go to such places, I will keep mine at home.' All, and singular, with much more of the same sort, came out during the evening, provoking the heartiest mirth, and inciting all to merriment."
This was, perhaps, only preliminary to arrange for another, and greater, for we find in the Leader of the 6th of June, of the same year, an account of a great ont-door celebration on the 1st of June preceding. The occasion is thus treated by the Leader:
"On Saturday last, June 1st, the old settlers of Warren county, and hun" dreds of others, assembled at Alex. Ginder's grove, five miles east of this city, to renew old acquaintanceship and recall the events connected with the pioneer history of this part of Iowa. A large number of people gathered to celebrate the occasion. It was estimated that there were at
·
440
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
least 2,000 assembled-men, women and children. The morning was damp, and the threatening appearance of the weather prevented many living in the more remote portions of the county from being present. However, the clouds subsequently disappeared and a fine day followed, much to the grati- fication of all concerned.
" At the proper time, Col. P. P. Henderson called the assemblage around the speaker's stand, Lewis Todhunter, Esq., was elected chairman, and J. H. Henderson, secretary. Chaplain J. J. Cozad invoked the Divine bless- ing upon the day and occasion. Mr. Todhunter announced the order of exercises to be observed. He remarked that speeches would be made, in which many anecdotes might be expected of some of the old settlers there, about the stand, and for fear that they would speak of him, resolved to an- ticipate in part what might be laid at his door. He then related he was, on one occasion, earnestly importuned to preach the funeral sermon of a friend of his first client. His client entertained the idea that a man who who could practive law as well as he, liad certainly the qualities in him to preach. The recital was well received. He then referred to the fact that the platform on which he stood (and from which all the speakers spoke) was made of the logs of the first corn-crib ever constructed in that part of the county.
"Col. P. P. Henderson was then called for and gave. some of the items of the early history of old Warren. He called up many personal reminis- cences of the early pioneers, their trials, pleasures and hopes, and portrayed the noble and grand result of their labors.
"The dinner hour was announced, and, as of old, the grass-plats and shady nooks were sought, and from bountiful baskets a magnificent repast was spread. Among the good things observable on many of the snowy cloths were old-fashioned corn-bread, bacon, etc., which in early days figured so conspicuously on every pioneers' side-board. After dinner, a wagon-load of old settlers, both in point of years and dress, drove into and around the ' camp,' and proceeded to remove the paper collars from the necks of the male element withont distinction of persons, it being considered, on grave reflection, an innovation not to be tolerated on an occasion of the peculiar character of the one all had met to honor. Consequently, down came the paper collar precipitately. The committee which took this matter in hand was composed of D. G. Peck, E. W. Hartman, E. J. Kuhn, Wesley Ches- hire, Eph. Parkins, J. C. Watson, Andy Park, Lewis Parr, and H. Shiek. The work created a great deal of amusement.
" After dinner further addresses were made. Judge Maxwell was called and spoke most entertainingly. He dwelt upon the early history of the county, and paid a glowing tribute to its growth and expansion, which are mainly due to the energy and labors of the pioneers. P. Gad Bryan was escorted to the stand by a band of old settlers, and was introduced as Dr. Bryan. He made a humorons speech, in which he gave an account of his early life as a doctor, and recalled many old reminiscences which we have not space to repeat. J. H. Henderson was introduced as one who was born here, and made a few minutes' speech. J. S. McKimmy, the first constitutional lawyer in Warren county, was called for, and rehearsed his experience about hamn and hominy in early days. J. Chapelle Clark and E. W. Hartman were called for, and made appropriate speeches.
"J. E. Williamson, the ' music master' of old times, was announced. He came forward, 'lined ' Auld Lang Syne, as he said was formerly done, and
441
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
all united with him in singing it. On the whole, the occasion passed off very pleasantly."
Referring to this last, the Leader, in another paragraph, says: "It is reported that while the Hon. J. E. Williamson was singing 'Auld Lang Syne' at the old settlers' picnic, Saturday, a distinguished pioneer trio, to- wit: Col. P. P. Henderson, Col. P. Gad Bryan and Hon. Lewis Todhunter, withdrew to the friendly seat of a top-buggy, and wept as if their hearts would break. Subsequently, the buggy moved away unobserved by them, and the vast assemblage, gazing upon the affecting spectacle, was so over: come that not a dry eye was to be found on the ground except those be- longing to the horses."
DEPARTED PIONEERS.
It is our purpose to devote this chapter to biographical notices of some of the men who were early settlers of Warren county and who contributed largely toward its settlement and growth, and who have left its borders for other States, or who have died within its limits. The memory of such is often neglected in these rushing times of business, and it is well to return to them occasionally :
JOHN D. PARMELEE.
At another place in this work we have referred to the work of this pio- neer-this man who left the comforts of the paternal home in the East to brave the dangers and trials incident to pioneer life in the West. We now propose to refer more fully to his characteristics and to his life since he left Warren county. Mr. Parmelee was the eldest son of Rev. Simeon Parme- lee-a Congregational clergyman, who, at the ripe old age of ninety-eight, still lives in his native State-and was born at Westford, Chittenden county, Vermont, on the 3d of December, 1813.
... In 1836 he started West, and, after many delays, reached Iowa in. Octo- ber, 1840. He was in the employ of G. W. and W. G. Ewing, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who were then extensive traders with the Indians. His first trading point was located about two miles below the point on which Ottumwa now stands, and was in the country of the Sacs and Foxes. Here he married Miss Hulda Jane Smith, whose father was also connected with the Indians as a trader, on the 22d of February, 1843, and left the camp on the 12th of the following month for Raccoon Fork, where the new post was to be built. He made the journey with two sleighs contain- ing twelve men and provisions for building the trading post. He located the post at the east end of Court Avenue bridge, and began and completed the construction of the first house in Des Moines on the 15th of March, 1843. In the following June he quit the employ of the Ewing Brothers and took an interest in a saw-mill with Captain James Allen, at the point now known as Watts' mill, formerly Parmelee's mill, and thus known to all the old settlers. This he completed in March, 1844, and in 1846 put in a run of burs for grinding, which was the resort of the settlers for seventy- five miles around. As the population increased, Mr. Parmelee built a saw- mill about three miles below his previous location, on the land now owned and occupied by Mr. B. F. Roberts.
442
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
About 1849 Mr. Parmelee brought his first stock of goods into the county, and was actively engaged in merchandizing for the next ten years. - In April, 1860, he left the State and removed to Colorado, and was again soon engaged in running a saw-mill in South Clear creek. This he disposed of in a short time, when he tried gulch mining in the same sec- tion until, as a friend expressed it, "he was gulchied out." Then he re- moved to Deer Valley, where he engaged in keeping hotel and running a ranch, and at the same time built a toll road up Turkey Creek canyon, and then again in the saw-mill business, which latter he kept until the spring of 1879. He is now engaged in ranching, and is commissioner of Park county, Colorado.
Mr. Parmelee is a true man-one who never forgot a friend-with much of that bluntness of manner which is characteristic of the pioneer and the outspoken man, but he was always kind-hearted and charitable. To him many an early settler, who was poorer even than his neighbors, owes many thanks for favors conferred, when no other man conld or would accommo- date him. His position as the early miller of this section, made his the great begging place on the way of travel, and also from impecunions emi- grants. Yet he did all in his power to relieve the wants of all, and often showed too great a liberality on such occasions.
Mr. Parmelee has done well since he emigrated to Colorado, and is in such good health that he continues to work with much the same energy which characterized his young days. Let us hope his life may be spared for many years yet, and that among the recollections of a green old age the least may not be that he was the pioneer white man of Warren county.
JEREMIAH CHURCH.
No sketch of the pioneers of Warren county, or no history of its early days, would be complete which should fail to mention Jeremiah Church or "Uncle Jerry," as lie was known everywhere.
- From his autobiography, which contained his life history up to 1857, we glean some particulars of his lite. Uncle Jerry, as he was known to this generation and to his friends, and the name which expresses more fully than any other his relation and importance to this section of country, was born in the town of Jericho, now called Bainbridge, State of New York, in September, 1796. His advantages in the matter of education were lim- ited, and at a very early age he started out in the world for himself. His first adventure was in traveling with a museum of wax figures in the State of New York, but not being very successful he turned his attention to sell: ing goods from a peddler's pack, in Virginia and Kentucky. He then wan- dered for some years, traveling in several different States of the. Union, when in 1833 he returned to Pennsylvania, in company with his brother, and purchased the site of the town of Lock Haven in that State, laid out that town, and in October of that year made a public sale of the lots of the prospective city. Here he met with many ups and downs, but remained long enough to see the town of Lock Haven become one of considerable importance, having in 1842, as he says in his journal, "seven retail stores and groceries, one drug and two candy shops, three preachers, two meeting- houses (and one 'Jerry Church '), six lawyers, two doctors and two justices of the peace, and the balance of the inhabitants are what I call a fair com- munity." In the year 1845 he came west to Des Moines while the In-
443
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
dians were yet in possession of the country, and in 1846 laid ont the town of Dudley, about two miles east of Carlisle, on the Des Moines river, which place he abandoned in 1851, after the great freshet of that year had made sad havoc with his embryo city, and it was moved to Carlisle, in Al- len township, this county, which he had in the meantime laid ont. Soon after, he went to Kansas, and in furtherance of his mania for laying out towns he laid out the town of Franklin, near Lawrence, which, however, was another failure, and he spent most of the time for some years at Car- lisle until a few years since he went to Nebraska, and carrying out his de- sire for pioneer life, took a homestead. He remained in Nebraska until brought back by Dr. Hull to the home of his pioneer days, where, on the first day of November, 1874, Uncle Jerry breathed his last, and was buried by the loving hands of those who had known him so long and so well. We have sketched thus fully the details of his adventures. to show the natural bent of his life, and his nature as a pioneer.
While Uncle Jerry was never a prominent man in society, or in State or nation, yet he was of those men whom it was a pleasure to know, one of those strong, sensible, sturdy pioneers, to whom our country owes so much -one of those who were the forerunners of a more advanced civilization, who prepared the way for the inhabitants of the West, and moulded, to a great extent, the course and destiny of a great and prosperous country. Dangers had no fears for him, and his whole life was spent in their very midst. He was plain and blunt in the expression of his opinions, which were always strong and well taken. He was no fawning sycophant, and never cringed the knee to power or opinion, to creed or profession, but he possessed one of those strong, moral natures that scorned the ways of lit- tleness, and, from natural inclination, and not from policy, did right. With- out any of those accomplishments which polish men, lie was more a diamond in the rougli, one of God's noblemen, acting ont the inspiration of his law without guide or teacher, but always doing right as God gave him to see the right. He was scrupulously honest in all his dealings with his fellow-man, and would have scorned an advantage meanly taken. His na- ture was full of charity, which he possessed alinost to a fault, and no poor man or starving woman ever appealed for assistance in vain to his kindly heart. His sympathies were always with the poor and downtrodden, wliose best friend he was. To the children, Uncle Jerry was almost a divinity, so kindly in all his actions, so full of his narratives of adventures of frontier life, in which they delight, that lie was a welcome visitor at every hearth- stone, and the friend and intimate of all who knew him. Enemies he had none, nor could have had, for everything in his nature was such as to make only friends. Reared in the severe school of frontier life he abhorred, and his intense disgust was always excited by any exhibition of supposed su- periority, and nothing would call down upon the head of its luckless pos- sessor his anathemas more affectively than an exhibition of pride of rank, or birth, or wealth, for with him the rank was but. the guinea's stamp and not its pure unalloyed gold. In his religious belief he was a consist- ent Universalist, doubtless accepting the doctrines of that churchi as more nearly in full sympathy with his whole-sonled, generous nature. His religious faith was firm to the end, and liis last sad burial rites were performed by a minister of that denomination, the fortunes of which he had followed, and the success of which he had desired so long. He easily forgave every injury, and none was ever made through his
444
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
agency, but he did all in his power to heal. True always to every friend, having no enemies; a specimen of that noblest work of God, an honest man; exacting in the observance of right according to his idea, and vigor- ous in his condemnation of wrong; the friend of the poor and the unyielding enemy of snobbery and rank and pretence; the sturdy pioneer, but the firm friend of progress, education and advancement, he goes to his grave wept by all who ever knew him, by the friends of his youth and of his old age, by the young and the old, the rich and the poor.
TABOR W. MC KEE.
Tabor W. McKee was born in Hamilton connty, Ohio, January 2, 1801. His father, John McKee, was a native of Pennsylvania, of Scotch origin; his mother was a Leavell, a descendant of the Huguenots of France. His father was a soldier in the Revolution, fought the Indians under "Mad Anthony Wayne " in 1793-4, and was a soldier in the war of 1812. Tabor W. moved with his father to Wayne county, Indiana, in 1812, where he married Sarah Elliott (a sister of Judge Elliott of Indiana), on the 20th day of October, 1820, by whom he liad four children: Malinda, Wm. H .; Eliza J. and Edd R .; the three first died prior to his reinoval to Iowa, the last named is still a resident of Indianola. In 1830 he removed to Henry county, Indiana, where he resided until the 21st of June, 1853, when he moved to Iowa, locating in Indianola, August 8th, 1853.
During his residence in Henry county, Indiana, he resided on his farm, and engaged in farming, and buying and driving hogs to Cincinnati. He was one of the commissioners for Henry county, Indiana, from 1834 to 1836, and was sheriff of the same county from 1837 to 1839, and 1841 to 1843. In 1853 he engaged in the mercantile business in Indianola, in the building on the northwest corner of the Square, now occupied as a carpenter shop; he continued in that business until 1855, when he, in company with James Greene, H. H. Patterson and Dan. G. Peck, under the firin name of Greene, McKee & Co., built a saw-mill two miles west of town, on what is now the Frost farin. In 1856 he sold his interest in the mill and built the build- ing now occupied by W. W. Slone as a grocery, and formed a partnership with E. M. LaBoyteaux, and engaged in selling clothing, boots and shoes, etc., under the firin name of McKee & LaBoyteanx. He continued in that business until 1857, when he was elected sheriff of Warren county, and served until January 1st, 1860. In 1861 he was elected treasurer of the county, and in 1863 re-elected to the same office, and served until the first of January, 1866. Politically, he was a staunch Whig until 1856, when he joined the Republican party, to which he belonged at the time of his death. He was a strong friend to the colored race, and during the days of slavery assisted many of them on their " pilgrimage to the north star."
He was not a member of any church, but held to the doctrine of the Friends, or Quakers. He was a strong advocate of the temperance cause, and believed in total prohibition. He was a great Bible reader, and on matters pertaining to the Scriptures, was probably the best posted man in the county. He died July 14th, 1871, of erysipelas. His wife is still liv- ing; she is seventy-seven years old, and resides with her son, Edd. R. McKee.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.