The pioneer history of Pocahontas County, Iowa, from the time of its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 18

Author: Flickinger, Robert Elliott, b. 1846
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Fonda, Iowa, G. Sanborn
Number of Pages: 1058

USA > Iowa > Pocahontas County > The pioneer history of Pocahontas County, Iowa, from the time of its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 18

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began to exist in the seas under the

This locality is interesting because forms known as articulates, (with a it is the most northern and western segmented body like a worm,) radiates point in Iowa at which the strata of (having a radiate structure like a this or any other sub-carboniferous flower) and mollusks. The Pots- formation is found. It is also the dam sandstone, a soft, friable forma- most western point at which any tion found in the channel of the Upper paleozo'ic (ancient life) strata has Iowa river for a distance of twenty been observed within the limits of miles from its mouth, in Allamakee the state. In the section of country county, is the oldest rock in this sec- south of Pocahontas county, all the tion, and it is supposed to rest on the rock strata exposed within the limits Sioux Quartzite. Overlying this for- of this state belong to the Lower, mation are the lower magnesian lime- Middle and Upper coal measures, all stones, buff colored dolomites, in the of which have a slight southwesterly bluffs that border the valley of the dip. This dip carries the Upper coal Upper Iowa, and the St. Peter's sand- stone, a gritty, light colored rock, gen- *Geology of Iowa, 1870-page 208.

8 87654 7 6 5 4

Generalized Section showing the relations of the Geological Formations along the Mississippi, from the north line of lowa to the mouth of the Ohio.

1-UPPER CAMBRIAN, co-ordinate with, but in Iowa not a part of the lower Silurian age, represented by the Potsdam or St. Croix sandstone along the Mississippi and Upper Iowa rivers in Allamakee county,

2-SILURIAN AGE, Oneota or Lower Magnesian limestone capping the bluffs and valley sides of the same rivers in the same locality. Over it are found the St. Peter's sandstone which at McGregor is called the pictured rock, the Trenton limestone of Winneshiek county, the Galena lime- stone of Dubuque county, the Maquoketa shales along the Little Maquoketa river and the Niagara or upper magnesian limestone found at Farley, Anamosa and Le Claire.

3-DEVONIAN AGE, the Wapsipinicon series, including the Independence shales of Buchanan county and shales of Fayette county.

4-Cedar valley limestone, exposed at Waverly, Rockford (shale), the Old Capitol quarry near Iowa City, and in Muscatine county, and contain- ing fossils of mollusks and corals.

5-CARBONIFEROUS AGE, Kinderhook shales and limestone beds at Burlington and in Pocahontas county.

6-Augusta limestone in bluffs of Des Moines and Louisa counties, including Burlington and Keokuk beds, with their crinoid (lily-like, star- fish) fossils.

7-St. Louis limestone that usually forms the floor of the coal-bearing strata.

8-Coal measures, in which the veins or beds of coal are found; formed under, and therefore before the Nishnabotna sandstones of Guthrie and Montgomery counties, the sandstones and shales of Woodbury county, (all of which are shore .deposits), the Niobrara or chalk beds along the Big Sioux river, the gypsum beds of Webster county and the surface drift that covers the entire state.

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PIONEER HISTORY OF POCAHONTAS COUNTY, IOWA.

147

TOPOGRAPHY OF THE COUNTY.

erally, but having shades of red and mountains, there were only islands, yellow at McGregor that give rise to reefs and shallow waters marking the local name of "Pictured Rocks." their future site, for none of the coal- The Galena limestone in which the bearing strata and other rocks now lead is found and that forms the found upon their slopes 13,000 feet high bluffs along the river at Du- above the sea had yet been formed.

buque and northward, also repre- sent this age. The Upper or later Silurian period includes the ex- posures in the area extending from Scott county northwestward through Fayette. The Niagara limestone found at Farley and other places in Dubuque county, at Le Claire, Scott county, and as far west as Anamosa, belong to this period. This forma- tion affords the best and greatest amount of building rock in the state and the quarries at Anamosa are re- markable for the uniformity and pre- cision of the strata.

The age of Fishes was followed by that of the coal plants, called Carbon- iferous. This age has been divided into three periods of time, each rep- resenting a distinct formation of rocks known as those of the lower, middle and upper coal measures. It was commenced with a preparatory marine period called the sub-carbonif- erous or lower coal measure that had its consummation in a long era of ex- tensive continents, covered with for- ests and marsh vegetation, and sub- ject at long intervals to inundations of fresh or marine waters. This sub- carboniferous period in Iowa extends

Southwest of this area there is a belt 50 miles in width and 200 miles in from Lee and Louisa counties in the length, extending from Davenport to southeast part of the state, through Washington to Franklin and thence Muscatine on the Mississippi in a northwesterly direction to Mitchell west to the eastern part of Pocahon- and Worth counties on the north line tas county. The rocks that occur in of the state, where the rocks that are this belt at Burlington, where the exposed belong to the next age, that beds are 147 feet in thickness, along of fishes, called Devonian. During the Iowa river in Tama, Marshall, Hardin and Franklin counties and this age the waters of the sea began to be inhabited by the reef-building along the Des Moines in. Humboldt corals, turtles, sharks and scale fishes, and Pocahontas counties, have been and in the marshes and upon the referred to the Kinderhook beds of islands there appeared seaweeds, ferns, that period. The rock is a light ground pines and conifers. The lime- brown or buff-colored limestone, and stone found at Rockford, Waverly, usually contains small fossil remains.

the Old Capitol quarry near Iowa City and at other places in the district just named, are referred to the Hamilton

The carboniferous or coal measures proper are found in the country south of the region just named, along the period of this era. The oil wells of Des Moines and Raccoon rivers; while Western Canada are traced to the the upper coal measures are found in limestone beds formed during this the southwestern part of the state, era in that section. During this De- from Wayne to Madison and thence to vonian age when the strata of the Harrison county. It will thus be per- rocks last named formed the surface ceived that the rocks formed during of the earth's crust in this section, the carboniferous age, occupying the the continent of North America was central and southern part of the state, to a great extent a vast sea with a are the surface rocks of the greater very limited amount of dry land. In part of Iowa, and indicate the geo- place of the Rocky and Allegheny logical age of this section of country.

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PIONEER HISTORY OF POCAHONTAS COUNTY, IOWA.

It is by their organic remains or an- lakes to sink and become buried in imal and vegetable fossils that the the accumulating vegetable deposits. stratified rock-beds are distinguished This luxuriant vegetation grew under and the strata of the different dis- the influence of fresh or lake water tricts are classified. and formed coal only where there were

Iowa is near the center of the great marshes and the deposits of vegetable interior region between the Allegheny debris afterward became covered by and Rocky mountains. This vast ex- deposits of sand, clay or other rock panse of country unbroken by mount- material, the result of a submergence ains and untouched by the sea, has that let in the saline, or seawater been termed a great basin. Every- with its period of abundance of aquat- where are evidences of the compara- ic, (water), or marine life. It was tively recent elevation of the surface during this more recent period that that has lain for ages near the level of the gypsum beds upon the tops of the the sea. The deposition of each later bluffs and hills in the vicinity of Fort formation carried the old shore line Dodge, and other stratified rocks over- farther and farther southward until lying the coal-beds, were formed. It at the close of the carboniferous the will be perceived that the luxuriant the land surface had been extended to forests and vegetation that once ex- the central portion of what is now the isted throughout this section of coun- state of Arkansas. The Gulf of Mex- try and furnished the material for ico and the five great lakes of the lake the coalbeds, were all destroyed, for region are now the diminutive rem- all existing forests are found above nants of that vast body of water that the drift deposit, a material of still once covered the central part of North later formation than the gypsum beds America.

and many feet in depth.

At the commencement of the car- boniferous era, a vast sea of shallow

THE DRIFT AND BOULDERS.

The term Drift, includes the clay, water spread out over what was soon sand, gravel and boulders that con- to be the heart of a great continent. stitute the covering, in unstratified A long period of quiet existed while form, of the rock formations through- the great beds of limestone, formed out Iowa. Its depth or thickness for the most part from organic re- ranges from a few to several hundred mains, were laid in sheets. Subse- feet and its greatest depth is found quently, over the marshes and dry along the watershed or divide, near slopes there grew rank forests of lepi- the summit of which Pocahontas dodendrons-trees of great size, hav- county is located. Whilst it is found ing scaly or sectional bark with leaf to be from 50 to 100 feet in other parts scars-conifers and other varieties, of the state, along this ridge its depth and their luxuriant growth continued ranges from 150 to 250 feet, so that until the creeping centuries had ac- wells rarely reach the stratified rocks cumulated vegetable debris (rubbish) underneath it.

sufficient for beds of coal. Trees and

The drift is composed of more or less shrubs grew rapidly, shed their leaves finely pulverized formations that ex- and fruit and then dying formed the isted in other forms prior to its pres- accumulations of vegetable remains. ent location and arrangement. A While great stumps stood in the large part of it was doubtless derived swamps the debris of the growing from the rock formations that under- vegetation and also the drift borne by lie it, many of which in Iowa are soft the waters accumulated around them, and easily pulverized, but a consid- and occasional logs floated over the erable part, including all the boul-

149

TOPOGRAPHY OF THE COUNTY.

ders, came from some northern local- be seen only in this humble position ity.

of usefulness in the walls of buildings,

The clay of the drift has a brown but there they will remain to attract or buff tint and is commonly called the attention of future generations to joint clay, because it breaks into their wonderful and interesting story.

angular lumps when dry or ex-

Two very large boulders may still posed to the air. It is always more be seen in Pocahontas county; one on or less impure and its yellowish color the east side of section 9, Dover town- is due to the presence of peroxide of ship, known as "Hunters' Rock, " and iron, which becomes red when burned. the other on the northwest corner of as in brick or tile. The proportion of section 33, Bellville township, called lime in it is so great that the water of "Lone Rock." The former is about all our wells and springs, though seven feet in height above the ground healthful, cool and excellent for man and twelve feet in diameter. It is lo- and beast, yet holds so much carbon- cated on the edge of a slough, about ate of lime in solution that it is too twenty rods west from the road run- hard for washing purposes until the ning along the east line of the section, carbonate has been precipitated with and many a wild duck has been brought borax, potash or sal-soda.

to the ground by the hunter stationed Sand and gravel constitute a very small proportion of the drift in Iowa, and the former as regards its fineness is very variable. The gravel however, upon or behind this rock. Lone Rock, in Bellville township, is located but a few rods south of the highway and it was originally egg-shaped, resting on wherever it is found, is a character- its larger end. It was' about forty istic constituent and was derived feet in diameter at the surface of the from rocks that are either silicious ground, and the exposed portion (flint-like) or granitic (composed of though now reduced to fifteen was quartz, feldspar and mica), and no about twenty-five feet in height. doubt a large part of it existed as This rock, in the early days, in the ab- gravel, before the glacial epoch.

sence of groves and buildings, was an

The drift in Iowa was evidently attractive object to the passing emi- formed at two different periods. The grant, and when the first settlers earlier drift mantles all the surface of came to this county, about ten years the state except the extreme north- later, they found the inscription, eastern corner of it, while the later "1848," painted on the south side of drift is represented by a lobe that ex- it, or more correctly, cut with a red tends one-third the way across the stone chisel or hammer. By its tow- state, where it enters from the north, ering height, it became a conspicu- and as far south as Des Moines.

Upon the surface of the drift, in many localities in Pocahontas county, there were originally numerous bonl- ders or rounded stones and they

ous landmark, guiding the lonely traveler on his way, and in its grate- ful shade the weary pilgrim sat down and refreshed himself.

Another large boulder, 20 feet high ranged in weight from fifty pounds to and 30 feet in diameter at the surface one or more tons. Nearly all of these of the ground, might have been seen surface rocks, commonly called "nig- in the early days on the west side of ger heads," have now been removed the SW. ¿ of Sec. 33, (Harrold farm) from their home on the prairies and Lincoln township, six miles north of utilized in the erection of the first and Lone Rock; but only the base of it some of the most substantial walls in now remains. The fact was noticed this section; In a few years they will by the early settlers that the ground

150

PIONEER HISTORY OF POCAHONTAS COUNTY, IOWA.

LAKE

MICHIGAN

NEBBASK

LINOIS

SAS

ENNESEE

GULF

MEXICO

SKETCH MAP OF THE INTERIOR COAL REGION OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

Throughout the shaded portion, the surface rock formations belong to the Carboniferous or coal-bearing strata .- From the Iowa Geological Survey, through the courtesy of Samuel Calvin, State Geologist.

151

TOPOGRAPHY OF THE COUNTY.

around these large boulders was re- to the concretionary character of the moved to the depth of about two feet mass of which it was originally a part. on the south and east sides. The

Rocks have been formed chiefly in cause of these depressions was not two distinct ways; first, by being so- very clear, but most persons attrib- lidified from the molten state by uting them to the standing or bur- cooling, and second, by being spread rowing of the wild animals that fre- out in layers or strata, through the quented them as places of shelter, agency of water. The primary rocks, called them "buffalo wallows." or those of the Azoicage, were formed

The boulders, found chiefly in the in the way first mentioned, if we ac- later drift, constitute a very conspic- cept the supposition that the entire uous and characteristic feature of it mass of our earth was, in the first although they form but a very small period of its life, in a molten state. proportion of its bulk. In North- This primary formation is called gran- western Iowa there are two varieties ite and it is generally believed to be of them, some being composed of the oldest variety or type of rock granite (quartz, feldspar and mica) open to our observation. In all parts and others of quartzite. Those of of the earth wherever the base of the granite formation are by far the most aqueous (formed by water) or strati- numerous and some of them are pro- fied rocks has been upheaved to the digious in size. surface, that base has been found to

Pilot Rock, a huge granite boulder rest upon granite. This igneous (formed by fire) type of rock forms the base of the stratified rocks every- where, and at one period the surface of the earth was entirely composed of it. Granite is the oldest and most durable of all rock formations; it is a close, compact body composed of fragments of other stony matter so firmly cemented together by heat that the whole forms one solid mass without any indication of pores, fissures or layers.

along the Little Sioux river in Chero- kee county, was so high and afforded the Indians a survey of the surround- ing country so extensive that they called it the "Big Stone" and the river near it Stone river. They left upon it the only inscriptions that tell of their occupancy of this territory. A similar boulder, 2} miles distant from Waterloo, 28 feet high, 30 feet long and 20 feet wide, after the re- moval of the earth around it, but originally projecting only eight feet above the ground, has become famous because in 1890, this giant monolith after resting undisturbed for count- less years and buried by the deposits of ages, was converted into building stone and then transformed into a large and beautiful stone church in the city of Waterloo-the First Pres- byterian. In its rough state it was estimated to have weighed more than 2500 tons.

THE GLACIAL PERIOD.

It is the general belief that the boulders and all the later surface drift, in which they are chiefly found in Iowa, were accumulated and trans- ported here through the agency of ice, during the glacial period that occurred subsequent to the carboniferous age; and that the earlier and later sheets of drift indicate two distinct eras of the glacial period. Glaciers are accu- mulations or streams of ice 200 to 5,000 or more feet deep, fed by the snows

These boulders generally have a somewhat rounded form but seldom and frozen mist of regions above the present any appearance of having limits of perpetual snow, and they de- been waterworn, as the pebbles do. scend 4,500 to 7,500 feet below the Their rounded forms seem to be due snow line before the heat of summer

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PIONEER HISTORY OF POCAHONTAS COUNTY, IOWA.

melts them, their movement being their native ledges, the quartzite ex- somewhat similar to that of cold pitch. posures in the extreme northwestern It is believed that during the earlier corner of Iowa and. the southwestern era, as indicated by the earlier sheet part of Minnesota. This quartzite of drift, the glacier covered the great- boulder is not found north of these er part of North America, extend- exposures of the Sioux quartzite ledges ing approximately as far

south- mentioned, nor further east, even in ward in the Mississippi Valley as the Iowa, than a line nearly due south line of the Ohio and Missouri rivers; from New Ulm, Minnesota, their that the later glacier, as indicated by most eastern exposure. The buff- the later sheet of drift, extended as far colored magnesian boulders of the south in Central Iowa as Des Moines southeastern part of the state have and that both glaciers gradually re- been traced northward to their origi- ceded northward, the later one nal ledges in Northeastern Iowa and within the limits of the frigid Southeastern Minnesota. And the

zone, where it is now producing phe- granite boulders, found throughout nomena similar to those seen in the all parts of the state but most plenti- drift of Iowa .*

Fach era of the glacial period must traced to the granite cliffs in the re- have been one of elevation of the gion of country north and west of northern part of this continent, ac- Lake Superior. companied with a very low tempera-

fully in its northern half, have been

The drift in which the boulders are ture, and the period was followed by found, contains other materials which one of unquestioned depression, re- indicate that a great part of it has sulting in a higher temperature that also come from another section. The caused the disappearance of the ice in earlier or lower part of the drift is a immense floods along the valleys. bed of clay that usually contains no The former was the period of the marine fossils but only drifted logs gathering and transportation of the and other accumulations of vegetable earth and boulders, and the latter the material. In the later drift fossils period of their deposition and distrib- are occasionally found, but, like the ution by the inland waters.

The rocks, large and small, in the period when the drift was formed, bottom and sides of a glacier, make it they invariably belong to the eras of a tool of vast power, as well as mag- the older rock formations.

nitude, for scratching, plowing and

Rare substances, such as lumps of planing the earth and rocks over copper, impure coal, pieces of wood which it moves. The grinding of the and other traces of vegetation found rocks against one another and those of near the surface of the earlier drift the bottom against those underneath have either been transported to this it produces very fine powder which section and therefore are strangers in forms the deposit called boulder clay it as certainly as the granite boulders; or drift.

or, as is stated by McGee in regard to

The most convincing proof of the the latter, "The remains of ancient northern origin of the boulders is trees, logs and stems of coniferous . found in the fact they can be traced woods are so widely distributed as to northward to their original ledges. prove that the older drift sheet was The brownish red quartzite boulders, covered with soil and clothed with occasionally found throughout North- forests before the later ice invasion western Iowa, have been traced to commenced."*

+pana

"Iowa Geological Survey, 1892, p. 141.

boulders, instead of representing the

153

TOPOGRAPHY OF THE COUNTY.

In sinking a well a few years ago on the SE } of Sec. 22, Lincoln town- ship, then occupied by Charles Kezer, at a depth of 96 feet, the workmen, who were using a 24-inch auger, struck the decayed trunk of a very large tree, pieces of which, six inches in length, were brought to the surface. The large size of the tree was indi- cated by the fact the auger was em- bedded its full width in the tree. The workmen were able to distinguish the bark from the body of the tree and the latter resembled cedar wood. A few pebbles were found underneath the log. The clay in which it was em- bedded began within six feet of the surface and extended as far as they continued to bore, 110 feet.

Similar logs have been struck by the well-diggers in Sherman, Cedar and other townships of this county. Some pieces of wood found at a depth of 60

A mass of copper found in Lucas Glacial period, under the idea that ice county, south of Des Moines, must either in the form of icebergs or gla- have traveled 460 miles southward, if ciers, which is more probable, trans- it came, as is most probable, from Ke- ported the earth, pebbles and boul- weenaw Point, south of Lake Superior, ders of the drift. Glaciers, like those the nearest known district of native of the Alps, are known to have trans- copper. ported these materials long as well as WOOD IN WELLS. short distances and to make scratches upon the rocks beneath them precise- ly like those found at Burlington, Council Bluffs and other places in Iowa.

The trees over a continent of great forests were rooted up or broken off with the first movement of the ice and either partly ground up or carried and deposited with the drift, some- times in beds of vegetable material, at other times as scattered logs, limbs and roots.

The subsequent melting of the gla- ciers resulted in a long period of im- mense floods while the waters were subsiding, and their boundaries finally became limited to the great lakes in the north and the Gulf of Mexico in the south. After the subsidence of the flood many lakes along the rivers disappeared and the rivers dwindled to about one-tenth their former size.

"The valley in Clinton township, feet in a well on the farm of John that commences near the place where Bartosh, Center township, are before Pilot creek enters the Des Moines riv- us as we write; they are very light and er and, extending southward, first as most of them look like cedar. The a deep ravine, to the Van Alstine wood thus found in the drift is not farm on sections 24 and 25, then petrified nor converted into coal, but broadens out into the stone quarry is merely mineralized so that it is but flat, has been a section of considerable slightly combustible. We cannot sup- interest to those whose attention has pose that these trees grew in this sec- been attracted to it. Here the ledges tion while the drift was accumulating of limestone seem to have been up-

any more than they now grow in the gla- heaved by some mighty force that has cial region of Greenland unless it were broken and seamed the original layers during the period between the earlier in all directions, as if by an explosion and later drift. The forests whence while the rock was heated; and the this wood came were no doubt north- stones when struck with a hammer, ward, but their exact location prob- give that sonorous sound peculiar to ably can never be known.

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The pioneer history of Pocahontas County, Iowa, from the time of its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 18

Author: Flickinger, Robert Elliott, b. 1846 Publication date: 1904 Publisher: Fonda, Iowa, G. Sanborn Number of Pages: 1058

Author: Flickinger, Robert Elliott, b. 1846
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Fonda, Iowa, G. Sanborn
Number of Pages: 1058