USA > Iowa > Clinton County > Wolfe's history of Clinton County, Iowa, Volume 1 > Part 42
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road." A bridge was to be built across the river from bluff to bluff above Lyons and Fulton, grading was actually done for many miles toward Maquo- keta,-and then the inevitable smash followed. Among the remains of the project was a dike across a ravine between Eighth and Ninth streets north, and a pond of water above it. One pleasant Sunday evening in the sixties at near nine o'clock, stay-at-home husbands on Seventh street were startled by the rushing in of their wives crying, "There's an awful flood going down the slough, and I was afraid the footbridge would be carried away before I could run off from it." The water of the Calico pond had eaten its way through the dam, and the waters swept down towards the river at a terrific and irresistible rate. Great damage was done on its route, and the Fifth street footbridge carried away. An aged couple named Jones lived at the south end of the bridge, and Mr. Jones and others went out on the bridge when they heard the torrent coming. and went north on the light structure to witness the sight. Mrs. Jones became alarmed for their safety, followed and warned them, and all ran back, but she went down with the structure. Both her legs and both her arms were broken, and she soon died, the last victim of the faulty scheme.
Then followed various plans, elsewhere recorded, for a railroad from Chi- cago via Fulton and Lyons "Westward Ho." If the reader desires details as to the mix-up ensuing, let him peruse history. Here we record that such a plan was so far carried out that work for a bridge was well begun on the Illinois side, a block below the present ferry landing, and then was abandoned for a crossing at Clinton, which had superseded New York. In this latter town the reason for the change was said to be because the landholders of Lyons would not give the road the ground desired, while the Lyons idea is that the man- agers of the road, the owners of the bridge, and the possessors of the farms just secured at acre prices, were all one crowd-wheels within wheels con- trolled by the same minds-who foresaw millions in the transfer and new deal. However all this may be, Lyons got left, and with the road and the pushers of road and town, Clinton advanced a pace, until it now stands about three to one in population and manufactures, including railroad shops. But this was not quite all. Lyons secured laws requiring a spur to be built from Clinton up. with, it was said, the proviso that "all trains should run through" our town. The "Plug" was finally built, but no trains ever ran "through" it. Clinton even stoutly resisted the laying of the two miles of rails. securing an injunction against the work, which Judge French dissolved, with the re- mark that "No city could enclose itself within a Chinese wall and keep others out."
Perhaps a side incident of that little contest will be worth repeating.
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Immediately after the injunction was dissolved a heavy snowfall occurred, still further delaying track-laying; whereupon the Mirror remarked that Clinton was so bent upon preventing the construction of the short line that it not only applied to the earthly courts, but carried up the suit to the court of heaven and obtained another temporary injunction, which was soon dissolved by the rays of the sun in the same heavens. From the pulpit across the street, next morning, the paper and its editor received a solemn rebuke for their irreverence !
A few years more and Lyons capital and enterprise, assisted by Anamosa and intermediate points and farmers, constructed the Midland road, seventy miles long, and held quite a little jubilation upon the passage of the first train. Local citizens and Editor Booth of the Anamosa Eureka made congratulatory speeches. One friendly resident of Clinton said privately that "now he could die happy-a lot of stations will be located along the line, and Lyons is dead from this day." Another omen.
Still later came another road through the town, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, giving another outlet to Chicago and connecting with Milwaukee and other points in Wisconsin, with Dubuque, St. Paul and Minneapolis, with Marion and points beyond-with only a slight skirmish between the track crews of the new line and the Northwestern, which meanwhile had raked in the Midland at forty per cent.
Had the original intention of crossing from Fulton to Lyons been fol- lowed, affairs on the Iowa side would have been different. With the strong men of Lyons, the strong men of Clinton, and the stronger capitalists from east of us, all working together : with the occupancy of our site by railroads and shops and yards and other manufactures and business, overflowing to the south, we believe this year's census would have shown a population of fifty thousand inhabitants, instead of half that number.
"IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN."
Railroads and rivers, however, were not all the interests relied upon to make a city here. In comparatively early days, manufactures began to flourish-flour-mills and saw-mills, foundries and machine shops, sash. door and blind factories, and other valuable enterprises, flourished together. Private and state banks were started and safely conducted. Upon the advent of the railroad from Chicago, Lyons became a great market for grain, pork and other farm products. A capacious steamer, with a broad bow for teams, fer- ried over loaded wagons and their loads were shipped to Chicago (for one
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reason, it was said, that every carload crossing at Clinton, over ferry and bridge or on bridge alone, was tolled at ten dollars), and after the Racine & Rock Island road was built, a large proportion of our shipments went to Mil- waukee. Hogs were not shipped alive in the sixties; the farmers slaughtered them at home, brought them in frozen for forty miles or more, selling at very low rates before the Civil war, when dressed pork brought as high as fourteen dollars per hundred weight. They were stacked up by the purchasers like woodpiles in winter in the eastern and middle states before the use of "stone coal" became common. And there was railroad competition in those days; the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul gave rebates, and Lyons dealers shipped grain to Milwaukee; Fulton kept buyers on this side, and if Clinton people wanted much wheat or feed they came up here after it. Clinton had the rail- road and Lyons had the trade.
But the unequal conflict could not continue; the railroad was the heavy factor ; Clinton was a division point; round house and machine shops employed many men, and train crews lived there; manufactures sprung up, business places multiplied, population increased, and Lyons was distanced. The older town doubled its saw mills, and the younger outdid it in that and other con- siderations; the older had a paper mill, and the younger had one too, as well as other enterprises which Lyons had not.
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Lyons, however, by combination with other portions of the county, held the lead in politics for a while. Not long previous to the removal of the county seat from De Witt to the river (in which Lyons joined with Clinton), a Republican convention was held at the county center, in which Clinton was badly worsted, greatly to the outspoken indignation of a resident of the last named town. He swore by all the gods that "the time would come when the tail would wag the dog," and when Clinton city could be stronger than the country, and then Lyons would be shown what was what. The third proph- ecy, too abundantly fulfilled already.
One of the great enterprises undertaken in 1856 was the building of, for those days, a magnificent hotel, the Randall House. Sanguine parties of Lyons guaranteed Mrs. Randall, of Baltimore, ten per cent on her investment, and she sent a nephew, R. T. Spence, here to look after the business. A year earlier the Dement House had been put up in Fulton and was "full from cellar to garret for a year." The Randall House was built and furnished through- out in suitable style-the break of 1857 came, and the hotel was not even opened. Later the "Riverside Institute" of the Currie Brothers, occupied it a few years; attempts were made to maintain a hotel and boarding house there, but nothing ever succeeded. And after about fifty years it was bought by (28)
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sixteen Lyons men at a hundred dollars each; later traded to a South Dakota man for land, who came down, took it to pieces from top to bottom, loaded everything but the lots and cellar on to trains of cars and transported it to the land of the Dakotas.
AN EXAMPLE IN PATRIOTISM.
If there was a town or city in Iowa that did more for its country during the Civil war, according to its population, we do not know which one it was. When the news from Sumter arrived a public meeting was called, and old Washington Hall was crowded. Mayor Magill presided, and delivered one of the most patriotic, forceful and stirring speeches of the period; others fol- lowed; Mark Jones sang national airs with a rousing chorus; and resolutions to fit the hour were adopted, speeches, songs, and resolutions being cheered to the echo. Rev. A. J. Kynett closed his remarks by relating what had passed between two typical sons of the South and the North. The first was vehement and declamatory ; the second replied, noting the impulsiveness and bravery of the Southerners, while, said he, "Northerners are calmer and more deliberate; they take time to think over vitally important matters, then they pray over them, and when they do conclude they must fight, then look out for hell!" Lawyer J. H. Flint sprang up with "That's me, Mr. Chairman; I agree with Brother Kynett; give 'em hell!" and the reverend had to get up again and ex- plain that his friend had misquoted him.
Then came the enlistments; in almost no time a company of infantry was enlisted; H. P. Cox was elected captain, N. B. Howard, of Bryant, first lieuten- ant, and Charles Snowden, of Clinton, second lieutenant. The company was enrolled in the Second Iowa Infantry as Company I, and made a glorious rec- ord at Fort Donelson and in other engagements, returning at the close under Capt. H. H. Green and Lieut. J. F. Conway, both of Lyons, and both sur- viving at about three score and ten years of usefulness and honor, the one as a Methodist preacher and elder, the other as bookkeeper for the Joyce Lum- ber Company.
Judge Leffingwell was also early in the field with a call for the "Hawkeye Rangers," speedily enrolling a company, of which he was made captain, with S. S. Burdett, of De Witt, first lieutenant, and W. H. DeFreest, second lieuten- ant, which became Company B, First Iowa Cavalry. Burdett succeeded as captain. J. T. Foster was captain from August, 1864, to February, 1866, was in April, 1866, appointed a lieutenant in the regular army, serving in Califor- nia and Nevada for three years.
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In 1862 the Twenty-sixth, the Clinton County Regiment, was raised, in which Lyons took chief part, four companies being organized here-Com- pany A, Capt. S. R. Williams; Asa Franklin, first lieutenant and A. D. Gaston (from Company B, First Cavalry), second lieutenant; Company E, Capt. John Lubbers; Edward Svendson. first lieutenant, and Hansen, second lieu- tenant; Company G, Capt. James H. Heavy, John Quinn, first lieutenant, and Philip McCahill, second lieutenant; Company K, Capt. N. C. Roe, N. D. Hub- bard, first lieutenant, and Lucian Pomeroy, second lieutenant. Companies E and G were known as the German and Irish companies, respectively. Gaston came home as captain of Company A, and is now in Washington; Svendsen, captain of Company E, Fritz Horn, first lieutenant ; Quinn, captain, McCahill, first lieutenant, and John Kane, second lieutenant, of Company G; E. P. Wat- son, captain, and C. J. Hanle, first lieutenant, of Company K when mustered out. Nothing but a complete roster would show the mutations in our six companies. The colonel of the Twenty-sixth Regiment was Milo Smith, of Clinton; lieutenant-colonel, S. G. Magill, of Lyons; major, Samuel Clark, of De Witt; surgeon, A. T. Hudson, of Lyons; assistant surgeon, William Mac- Quigg, of Camanche, and quartermaster, J. H. Flint.
Every company from Lyons and the county made a memorable record, including Company A, Sixteenth Infantry, Capt. J. H. Smith, later colonel of the regiment, a few of whose men were from Lyons, notably Lieut. Peter Miller. Eloquent pens and voices have paid them many tributes, but none 1more than they merited.
With time and space at command, many amusing incidents might be re- corded, but few of which can be recounted in these pages. Letters written after battles in which our county men were engaged found their way to the Mirror office, from which extras were speedily issued with lists of dead and wounded, and farmers sometimes waited over night to see how "their boys" fared. While one letter from the battle ground was being put in type, an old white haired man came in and asked if we had the list; we took the letter and began to read, and when the name of Beck was reached his father dropped his head, could only say, "My son," and departed, amid the respectful silence of all.
At St. Louis, while the Twenty-sixth was awaiting transportation south, Lieutenant-Colonel Magill saw on a steamer bound down with a regiment from another place a former Lyons character on board in major's uniform. He was a tall, straight, soldierly figure, but in this town had been addicted to "prohibition" drink, did not stand well, and doubtless had been snubbed by Mayor Magill; but he was an ex-army officer, and all such men were in de-
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mand in those days. The Lieutenant-Colonel rushed aboard, and going up
to the Major, exclaimed, with his hand out, "Why, -, how do you do?" And then the impressive officer got even with Sam Magill; coolly look- ing him over without a glimmer of recognition. he said in the stiffest possible military manner, "If you have any business with me, sir, there is my orderly." turned his back to his superior officer, and walked off. "Damn his old car- cass," said Magill, as he told the tale, "I wanted to kick him."
While the Twenty-sixth Regiment was in Helena, Arkansas. Lieutenant- Colonel Magill, Major Clark and Surgeon Hudson obtained passes one morn- ing, crossed the river and rode around the country. The next day they used the same passes and continued their explorations. Going through a piece of timber, they rode up to a house to make some inquiries, and while the women of the place parleyed with them, two or more rebels turned the corner of the house and Magill and Clark found themselves looking into the muzzles of double-barreled shot guns; therefore they surrendered, but Hudson, a little in the rear, wheeled, put spurs to his horse and took the back track, the road circling through the woods. A mounted rebel followed him, cutting straight through the timber and fired on the surgeon's horse, but his own horse, not obeying the pressure of the rider's knee, went one side of the tree, while the gun went on the other side, and thus Hudson escaped. The affair was re- ported and the captives at once dismissed; and when they returned paroled prisoners they found their titles and occupations gone, and returned North. Years afterwards, upon presentation of the facts, with influence behind. Ma- gill and Clark's record was changed and they were paid the full amount of service that they would have received if they had completed their term of en- listment-a nest full of eggs for a few months' service.
Professionally speaking, in the sixties and for some time later, Lyons stood even better than in business. At that date, Rev. George F. Magoun was the pastor of the Congregational church, and Rev. A. J. Kynett of the Methodist, the one becoming the president of Iowa College at Grinnell, and the other secretary of the Church Extension Society, of which he is said to have been the founder, with headquarters at Philadelphia. in which capacities they nearly filled out their days. Their colleagues at the time and those here later have been worthy compeers and successors in their work.
In the law, A. R. Cotton, W. E. Leffingwell and L. A. Ellis were unex- celled. We have heard a well informed business man say that Judge Cotton was the best counsel in the state; an attorney of Chicago, an ex-general of the great war, said that Judge Leffingwell's three days' argument in a riparian case there was the greatest plea he ever heard; and Senator Ellis was second
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to neither nor to others in his line, having been district attorney for sixteen years, and full of practice thereafter. Judge Cotton went to Congress from this district; Judge Leffingwell missed it only because he was a Democrat; and Mr. Ellis because but one could go at a time and Cotton was one lap ahead. Later Ellis was in the State Senate and did great work in the revision of the code.
Doctors Lothrop and Hudson were leading physicians and surgeons, and after the war they returned, and soon Dows, Wetherell and MacQuigg, who had also been in the service. Meanwhile Drs. J. and H. Farnsworth settled here. Of all these, only Doctor MacQuigg survives. And it should be added here that many other first class practitioners followed them, part of whom are still here and part in other climes. Doctor Lothrop's last work was the writing of the "History of The First Iowa Cavalry Volunteers," pub- lished by the regimental society.
Among the newspaper men who cut a narrow swath for a time in Lyons in Civil war times was W. P. Furay, from Bellevue, who pulled into Lyons and started the Constitutionalist, an opponent to the war; but he was too erratic to last more than a few months. He was a good writer, but not suited for this locality at that time. He was a good speaker and a good fighter too. An incident of his career is recalled thus : One day a Republican called at his office to "lick the damned rebel." and after a little verbal and physical dis- cussion, so far changed his mind as to subscribe for the Constitutionalist, paying in advance for more copies than he ever received. The Mirror had welcomed its competitor with the remark that the American flag was hoisted over its material to save it from the danger of being dumped into the river, to which statement the newcomer emphatically objected. In localizing on the scrap referred to, the Mirror man said something that greatly angered the editor of the Constitutionalist, who came back with threats. If Furay had been as steadfast and industrious as he was capable and strenuous, the paper would not have been compelled to be transmogified into the Advertiser of today.
The first school taught in Lyons was in a log house down on the banks of the river; it was taught by Miss L. S. Boyington (afterward Mrs. John Reed Boyd) in 1842. In 1860 the writer found Mr. Baker teaching in the brick school house on Fourth street, with other schools in different parts of the town.
During the great war of nearly fifty years ago, Chicago dailies were twelve hours in reaching Lyons, the Evening Journal arriving the next morn- ing and the Morning Tribune in the evening. Our first news came from
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the Davenport Gazette and Dubuque Times. Two small steamboats plied be- tween these points daily, often meeting at the Lyons wharf.
Capt. H. F. Cox, of Company I, Second Infantry, was wounded in the leg at Fort Donelson, and it was known that he would come up on an up-river boat on a certain day and a large crowd went to the landing. Some of his kind friends took a couch or something of the sort to carry him from the boat on to his home, but when they sought to do so, he replied, "Take that bier away ; I'll not be carried off the boat on that," and, as painful as it was for him, he worked his way down the gang-plank on crutches.
"To be or not to be, that was the question" in Lyons at the city election on March 4, 1877. Consolidation or not with Clinton was the issue. Many did not vote on it and the ballots cast stood, for one hundred and fifteen: against. four hundred and ninety-four ; majority against, three hundred and seventy-nine; the one hundred and fifteen being perhaps one-seventh of the full vote of the town.
But 1894 told a different story. The contest was renewed after seven- teen years' rest, and consolidation won, the relative numbers of ballots cast being practically reversed.
"WE STILL LIVE."
Notwithstanding the loss of our municipal title, the name Lyons is yet in use, the postoffice, independent school district. township, railroad depots and express offices all retaining the old name. (In the strife over consolida- tion, some of the standpatters declared that if that project carried, nothing would be left us but the cemeteries, and they only because they were outside the city limits; since when, the largest one has been transferred from the care of the city to a corporation, and now deeds for its lots are made out as from the "Oakland Cemetery Association of Clinton" to purchasers.) And fur- ther. manufactures have increased here. The Disbrow Sash Factory has doubled its capacity ; Struve's Model Roller Mills are doing an increased business; the Champion Feed Mill's output is immense; the United States Steel Lock Factory is growing; the Ingwersen Wood Factory employs a large force, with a corresponding production ; the Andersen & Winter Furniture Factory makes and sells great quantities of goods; Pelton's Engine Works have a sound reputation ; the new Stamp Vending Company are getting up a most novel and useful machine; Reick's shop is doing good work; and others of less note, but yet of importance, are running within our limits, lumber yards, fine drygoods and jewelry stores, complete groceries, meat markets. bakery, merchant tailors, clothing and shoe stores-all things needed are kept
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at our doors. The postoffice has long been in the second class, with clerks for each branch of its work, and an all-night clerk, four city carriers and two drivers of rural routes. The first figures obtainable, as previously mentioned, give the postmaster's commission for three months as twenty-six and one- half cents! Is not that a very fair increase for seventy-five years? By the way, when Lyons was annexed to Clinton, the postoffice department prepared to cut it out or cut it down to a sub-station, not half filling the postmaster's requisitions for supplies, in anticipation of the change: but Representative Curtis prevented that move by informing the proper officials of the state of affairs here, and that Clinton was pledged not to interfere with the office; and it holds its own or increases, and all hope it will continue to do so.
The North End is one of the very best parts of Clinton city. Its high wagon and foot bridge, with a ferry boat crossing the river under it half the year, is one of the best pieces of property in the city. It is on the auto highway from Chicago to Council Bluffs and Omaha; better for the Fulton gardeners to cross than the lower one, and used by supply teams from Clinton wholesale houses to customers in Fulton. The lines of Lyons are not only cast in pleasant places, but many of them are likewise profitable ones.
With the closing of the nineteenth century, and the lessening of the log supply above, rafts ceased to come down, and prices were high. The oper- ators wanted mills "nearer the stump," and in a few years all the saw-mills here were closed. This threw many men out of their jobs, and a portion of them went north or south to work for the same firm or others. This told on both ends of the combined city, and only by the establishment of other fac- tories was the loss made good.
There was one very serious drawback to saw-mills, great as they were on our river. Most of the men employed therein had work with them only about one-half the year, and of those few found winter work. In the manufactures succeeding, practically speaking, all hands labor all the year round.
A REMINISCENCE OF EARLY DAYS.
(By William Graham, of Dubuque.)
While on my way to establish myself in some part of Iowa in August, 1856, I called on my friend, J. T. Van Deventer, a lawyer in Buffalo, New York, who told me that he was interested with a party of gentlemen in build- ing a new town at Clinton, Iowa, and made me promise to visit him there before winter. To fulfill this promise I took passage on October 13, 1856, on
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the steamer "Greek Slave" from Bellevue, where I was then stopping, for Clinton. It was the first time I had ever been on the river below Bellevue, and I enjoyed the trip greatly, reaching Clinton just at dark, and found quar- ters at the Iowa Central Hotel, which now constitutes the north half of the Windsor House, and was at that time the only brick building in Clinton ex- cept a dwelling on Fourth avenue built and occupied at that time, as I have been informed, by the late A. P. Hosford, and which has since been de- molished.
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