History of Linn County Iowa Part 1

History of Linn County Iowa.

by Luther A. Brewer and Barthinius L. Wick.

INTRODUCTION

The history of Linn county is covered by the events of only a few years, if compared with the history of communities east of the Mississippi. The s.p.a.ce of one life-time embraces all that has happened here since the first white man looked upon our goodly heritage. True, that life has been prolonged beyond the scriptural three score and ten years. Robert Ellis, who came to this community more than seventy years ago, and who was one of the very early settlers, yet lives in a hale and vigorous age on land he "claimed" at that time.

But if the history of the county does not cover many years, it yet is a history crowded with happenings of interest, some of the incidents being more or less stirring.

History is defined as a record of the past. It does not concern itself with the present. It has been the purpose of the editors of this volume to treat somewhat at length of the early days in the county. Those conversant with events occurring prior to the Civil war are rapidly moving on, and it is high time that their recollections of beginnings here were gathered and put in permanent form.

This has been attempted--how imperfectly done no one realizes more keenly than we realize it. But like little Mary Wood of the story, we have done the best we could in the few months given us to prepare the pages which follow. We have done some things which need not be done again by any one who follows us. We have made definite some things in our history as a county that heretofore have been matters of uncertainty. It is felt that the present volume will make an excellent starting point for some future chronicler.

The task of the historian has been an arduous one--far more arduous than can be imagined by any save those who have done similar work.

Withal the task has been one of pleasure and of inspiration. The pursuit of knowledge in this instance has really been a delight.

We have been taught many things by our work that add to the sum of the pleasures of living in a day crowded with all the conveniences of the twentieth century. Our respect for the courageous pioneer men and the equally courageous and self-sacrificing pioneer women of our county has been placed high. n.o.bly did they suffer, enduring privations now undreamed of, and never complaining that theirs was a hard lot. We stand with uncovered heads and with a reverent feeling in their presence.

It is not possible to make due acknowledgments to all those who aided in gathering the material in this volume. Many who came here in the early years of the county have been consulted, and always with profit.

The drudgery of the work of making this book has been greatly lessened by their courtesy and their help. We thank them all. Some of them have been credited with their a.s.sistance in the narrative itself. In addition to the names mentioned in the text we desire to give thanks for aid and counsel to N. E. Brown, perhaps the best posted man in Cedar Rapids on the early history of the city; to Ed. M. Scott, for most valuable aid in the preparation of the chapter on banks and banking; to Capt. J. O. Stewart and Col. W. G. Dows for appreciated a.s.sistance in the writing of the chapter on our military history; to Carle D. Brown, of the Commercial Art Press, who gathered most of the ill.u.s.trations for the volume; to W. F. Stahl, for aid in giving the history of the United Brethren church in the county. Robert Ellis, Mrs.

Susan Mekeel, Mrs. Susan Shields, Mrs. Elizabeth Hrdlicka, Augustus Abbe, J. H. Preston, C. G. Greene, J. S. Ely, Wm. Smyth, C. F. Butler, L. W. Mansfield, and many others have a.s.sisted in gathering much valuable material concerning the lives of the pioneers.

Much that has been gathered concerning times far removed from the present, is from "hearsay," hence it has been difficult to be certain as to the correct facts in some instances. Inaccuracies may be found, but these are due to unavoidable omissions, largely on the part of those who have related these happenings and not from any sense of bias or prejudice.

All prior county histories have been consulted as well as the early state gazetteers, Andreas' _Atlas_, Carroll's _History_, _History of Crescent Lodge_, _History of the Bench and Bar of Iowa_, _History of the Courts and Legal Profession_, _Proceedings_ of the Linn County Historical Society; and the files of the newspapers published in the county in an early day. It is needless to add that the early city directories have been largely used with reference to the business men of Cedar Rapids in the early days.

References to persons have been confined to mere statements of facts and have been free from undue flattery on the one hand and from anything derogatory on the other. The members of the legal and medical professions have been referred to at some length for the reason that the lawyers and doctors were important factors in pioneer days, both in the organization of the county and in the promotion of the various enterprises in our towns.

Trusting that this history may be of some value in preserving material which ere long would pa.s.s beyond reach of preservation, this work is respectfully dedicated to the early pioneers of the county, whose lives and careers the authors have attempted to describe in the following pages.

LUTHER A. BREWER BARTHINIUS L. WICK

CHAPTER I

_The Birth of Iowa_

Iowa is known as a prairie state. Prairie is a French word and signifies meadow. It was the name first applied to the great treeless plains of North America by the French missionaries who were the first white men to explore these regions.

As yet scientists have not been able to explain the origin of the prairies. Different theories have been advanced, but the interesting problem is without satisfactory and conclusive solution.

Aga.s.siz, the scientist, maintained that America is not the "new world."

"Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters," he wrote; "hers the first sh.o.r.es washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth besides; and while Europe was represented only by islands rising here and there above the sea, America already stretched one unbroken line of land from Nova Scotia to the far West."

Iowa, also, was born, had a beginning sometime. Just how many years ago this interesting event took place it is difficult to approximate. Prof.

Samuel Calvin, state geologist, says that "geological records, untampered with, and unimpeachable, declare that for uncounted years Iowa, together with the great valley of the Mississippi, lay beneath the level of the sea. So far as it was inhabited at all, marine forms of animals and plants were its only occupants."

The soils of the state were produced by the action of the ice in what is known as the glacial period. We are told how by Professor Calvin:

"Glaciers and glacial action have contributed in a very large degree to the making of our magnificent State. What Iowa would have been had it never suffered from the effects of the ponderous ice sheets that successively overflowed its surface, is ill.u.s.trated, but not perfectly, in the driftless area. Here we have an area that was not invaded by glaciers.

Allamakee, parts of Jackson, Dubuque, Clayton, Fayette, and Winneshiek counties belong to the driftless area. During the last two decades deep wells have been bored through the loose surface deposit, and down into the underlying rocks.

The record of these wells shows that the rock surface is very uneven. Before the glacial drift which now mantles nearly the whole of Iowa was deposited, the surface had been carved into an intricate system of hills and valleys. There were narrow gorges hundreds of feet in depth, and there were rugged, rocky cliffs, and isolated b.u.t.tes corresponding in height with the depth of the valleys.

"To a person pa.s.sing from the drift-covered to the driftless part of the state, the topography presents a series of surprises. The princ.i.p.al drainage streams flow in valleys that measure, from the summits of the divides, six hundred or more in depth. The Oneota, or Upper Iowa River, in Allamakee county, for example, flows between picturesque cliffs that rise almost vertically from three to four hundred feet, while from the summit of the cliffs the land rises gradually to the crest of the divide, three, four or five miles back from the stream. Tributary streams cut the lateral slopes and canyon walls at intervals. These again have tributaries of the second order. In such a region a quarter section of level land would be a curiosity. This is a fair sample of what Iowa would have been had it not been planed down by the leveling effects of the glaciers. Soils of uniform excellence would have been impossible in a non-glacial Iowa. The soils of Iowa have a value equal to all of the silver and gold mines of the world combined.

"And for this rich heritage of soils we are indebted to great rivers of ice that overflowed Iowa from the north and northwest. The glaciers in their long journey ground up the rocks over which they moved and mingled the fresh rock flour from granites of British America and northern Minnesota with pulverized limestones and shales of more southern regions, and used these rich materials in covering up the bald rocks and leveling the irregular surface of preglacial Iowa. The materials are in places hundreds of feet in depth. They are not oxidized or leached, but retain the carbonates and other soluble const.i.tuents that contribute so largely to the growth of plants. The physical condition of the materials is ideal, rendering the soil porous, facilitating the distribution of moisture, and offering unmatched opportunities for the employment of improved machinery in all of the processes connected with cultivation. Even the driftless area received great benefit from the action of glaciers, for although the area was not invaded by ice, it was yet to a large extent covered by a peculiar deposit called loess, which is generally connected with one of the later sheets of drift. The loess is a porous clay, rich in carbonate of lime. Throughout the driftless area it has covered up many spots that would otherwise have been bare rocks. It covered the stiff intractable clays that would otherwise have been the only soils of the region. It in itself const.i.tutes a soil of great fertility. Every part of Iowa is debtor in some way to the great ice sheets of the glacial period.

"Soils are everywhere the product of rock disintegration, and so the quality of the soils in a given locality must necessarily be determined in large measure by the kind of rock from which they were derived.

"From this point of view, therefore, the history of Iowa's superb soils begins with first steps in rock making. The very oldest rocks of the Mississippi Valley have contributed something to making our soils what they are, and every later formation laid down over the surface of Iowa, or regions north of it, has furnished its quota of materials to the same end. The history of Iowa's soils, therefore, embraces the whole sweep of geologic times.

"The chief agents concerned in modifying the surface throughout most of Iowa since the disappearance of the latest glaciers have been organic, although the physical and chemical influences of air and water have not been without marked effect. The growth and decay of a long series of generations of plants have contributed certain organic const.i.tuents to the soil. Earth worms bring up fine material from considerable depths and place it in position to be spread out upon the surface. They drag leaves and any manageable portion of plants into their burrows, and much of the material so taken down into the ground decays and enriches the ground to a depth of several inches. The pocket gopher has done much to furnish a surface layer of loose, mellow, easily cultivated and highly productive soil. Like the earth worm, the gopher for century after century has been bringing up to the surface fine material, to the amount of several tons annually to the acre, avoiding necessarily the pebbles, cobbles and coa.r.s.er const.i.tuents. The burrows collapse, the undermined boulders and large fragments sink downwards, rains and winds spread out the gopher hills and worm castings, and the next year, and the next, the process is repeated; and so it has been for all the years making up the centuries since the close of the glacial epoch. Organic agents in the form of plants and burrowing animals have worked unremittingly through many centuries, and accomplished a work of incalculable value in pulverizing, mellowing and enriching the superficial stratum, and bringing it to the ideal condition in which it was found by the explorers and pioneers from whose advent dates the historical period of our matchless Iowa."

The last invasion, we are informed, was from 100,000 to 170,000 years ago--somewhat prior to the recollection of the "oldest inhabitant."

CHAPTER II

_The First Inhabitants_

Who were Iowa's first inhabitants is a question of some interest.

Archeologists tell us that there have been found in the Mississippi Valley the remains of two distinct prehistoric races. The first human skulls discovered resemble those of the gorilla. These skulls indicate a low degree of intelligence. The first inhabitants were but a grade above the lower animals. They were small in body, and brute-like in appearance.

Next came the "mound builders." There are evidences that these had some degree of intelligence. Copper and stone implements have been found in the mounds. Whether they built towns and cities or tilled the soil is not known. Pieces of cloth discovered in the mounds would indicate some knowledge of the arts. Their number, their size, color, customs--all are lost to us. We know they existed, and that is all. Several of these mounds have been explored in Iowa. They are found in the eastern parts of the state from Dubuque to Burlington. Many interesting articles have been found in them--sea sh.e.l.ls, copper axes and spools, stone knives, pottery, pipes carved with effigies of animals and birds. Skeletons and altars of stone were unearthed a few years ago in some of these mounds, and in one were discovered hieroglyphics representing letters and figures of trees, people and animals.

These mounds have also been discovered in the central part of the state, the valley of the Des Moines river being especially rich in them. Sometimes they are in groups, as though built for defense. It has been suggested that probably the conquerors of the mound builders were the immediate ancestors of the Indians.

When on June 25, 1673, Marquette and Joliet fastened their frail craft to the west bank of the Mississippi river where the Iowa enters it in Louisa county,[A] the only people living in what is now Iowa were the American Indians. When these venturesome explorers came ash.o.r.e and ascended a slight eminence they beheld a scene of rare beauty. As far as the eye could carry they looked over an expanse covered with green gra.s.s waving in the gentle wind like the billows of the sea, with here and there a grove of oak, elm, walnut, maple, and sycamore. All was peaceful, calm, and restful; the stillness of the desert prevailed.

That the country was inhabited was indicated by a thin column of smoke which arose some few miles inland from a small grove. The travelers soon reached the spot. There they found a small company of Indians in a village on the banks of the stream. The Indians were probably the more astonished of the two parties. They looked with wonder upon the strange beings who had come among them so unceremoniously and unannounced. It was probably their first view of the white man. Recovering somewhat from their astonishment, they made overtures of friendship by offering the pipe of peace.

It was soon discovered that the band was a portion of the Illinois tribe. Marquette had enough acquaintance with the language of this tribe to enable him to hold an intelligent conversation with his hosts.

He told the Indians who their visitors were, and why they were there.

He expressed the great pleasure he and his companions took at meeting some of the inhabitants of that beautiful country. They in turn were given a cordial welcome by the Indians, one of the chiefs thus addressing them:

"I thank the Black Gown Chief [Marquette] and his friend [Joliet] for taking so much pains to come and visit us.

Never before has the earth been so beautiful, nor the sun so bright as now. Never has the river been so calm or free from rocks which your canoes have removed as they pa.s.sed down.

Never has the tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it today. Ask the Great Spirit to give us life and health, and come ye and dwell with us."

This was an eloquent speech and demonstrated the sincerity of the welcome.