History of Linn County Iowa Part 104

Mrs. Ruth A. Dale, of Cedar Rapids, sister of Elias Doty, now living near Bertram, where the family settled in the early days--1839--has distinct recollections of pioneer life in the county. She states that Aretas Crane and Daniel C. Doty, brothers of Elias and James M. Doty, the pioneers, settled at Ft. Stevens, now Davenport, in 1836 or 1837--1836 she believes is the correct date. Daniel Doty and his son, J. M. Doty, and his son-in-law, Aretas Crane, pa.s.sed over the ground on which Cedar Rapids now stands in 1837. This being the fact, it is evident that these people were the first white men to look upon the present site of the city, with a view to finding a permanent settlement for themselves. They, however, after looking over the ground concluded that the site afterwards known as Westport, and somewhat later as Newark, was the preferable location. They returned to their home at Middletown, Butler county, Ohio, and arranged their affairs. James M.

Doty and Elias Doty, sons of Daniel Doty, returned to the county in 1839 and took up a claim at Westport. There they started what was, without question, the first manufacturing plant within the limits of the county, and possibly in the state. This was a pottery. The date of its establishment was probably in 1840. Later the same year Elias Doty began the erection of the first saw-mill in the county.

The Dotys were induced to come to Iowa through the fact that their brother, Daniel C. Doty, was at the time engaged in steamboating on the Mississippi, his headquarters being at Davenport.

In this connection the following extracts from a letter written by Elias and J. M. Doty to their parents and dated May 2, 1841, are of interest:

"I have my mill frame up, that is, the lower frame. The upper frame is almost ready to raise. The millwright work can be done in about six weeks from the time we raise the frame. I have commenced the race. I have three hundred feet in length of a race and two hundred feet dam. As soon as I get water to it, it will be ready to run.

"There are hard times enough here for anybody. There is nothing that will bring cash that I know of. For my part I am hard run to live. I would like to have some money. It has not come yet.

"I cannot say that we are all well, but we are able to keep about. We had a great deal of sickness last fall. I cannot say that I like this country, it is too cold for me, the ground freezes from two to four feet deep. The frost is hardly out yet. The trees look like winter time. I think I will leave this place as soon as I can get my business settled, and money enough to carry me away. I have between two and three hundred dollars coming but can't get enough to buy myself a shirt. I bought corn last fall at three cents per bushel. I have three claims and want to sell them.

"Last night was a pretty moonlight night. Parmelia kicked up a fuss and after all night's watching about six o'clock this morning after a bright sunrise she was delivered of a prosperous looking son, weight nine pounds, seven ounces."

VOTE OF LINN COUNTY 1910

The vote of the county in November, 1910, for governor was as follows:

Twp. Rep. Dem.

Bertram 33 75 Brown 209 102 Boulder 76 90 Buffalo 40 27 Cedar 133 127 Clinton 52 64 College 49 95 Fairfax 60 111 Fayette 94 35 Franklin 385 182 Grant 124 95 Jackson 166 51 Linn 57 57 Maine 225 79 Marion 519 391 Monroe 99 66 Otter Creek 67 63 Putnam 43 96 Rapids 1761 2443 Spring Grove 83 22 Washington 145 168 ---- ---- 4420 4439

In addition to the above there were 382 votes cast for other candidates.

SOME MUNIc.i.p.aL FIGURES FOR CEDAR RAPIDS

The net taxable value of property in Cedar Rapids for the year 1910, on the one-fourth valuation, is $6,579,183. In addition the city has a mulct tax revenue and an income from licenses, police court fines, etc., of about $60,000 per year, giving a little more than $300,000 available for city purposes.

The real estate valuation for 1910 is $21,280,294, and the personal property is valued at $5,026,438. The valuation twelve years ago was one-half of the above amount. It has increased at the rate of one million dollars per year since 1898. This increase is largely due to improvements and new buildings. Land values have doubled in the past twelve years. For 1911 the valuation will go above these values as the city has increased in value so fast that it will be necessary for the a.s.sessors to raise the valuation on all property for 1911 at least three million dollars, which will bring the total valuation to nearly thirty millions by 1912.

EARLY DAYS IN LINN

IN CEDAR RAPIDS REPUBLICAN JUNE 20, 1910

Being in a somewhat reflective mood today I shall attempt to acquaint you of a few incidents in a life as memory unfolds them to me. It will be necessary before narrating these incidents to introduce to you my friend and acquaintance, Colonel McIntyre of Indian Creek bottom, familiarly known as "Pinkey" by his cla.s.s mates at West Point. The colonel measured six feet two, symmetrically proportioned, tipping the scale at a trifle over two hundred pounds, eyes of steel grey, beard auburn, bordering slightly on the reddish and a military bearing in keeping with his long years of service as a disciplinarian. The incidents of this life take me back some years to that little cabin, that stood on the east side of the road running north and south past Indian creek bottom, built from roughly finished logs hewn from the trunks of trees cut from the nearby forest. Time does not seem to efface from memory recollections with the boys and girls of the spa.r.s.ely settled neighborhood, attending spelling schools and such like. The unfolding of memory reveals to me versions of the old place and the childhood days spent beneath the clapboard roof as vividly as though it were but yesterday.

A little farther on up the road from this cabin, perhaps a half mile, there is a fork in the road, one fork leading on to what was then known as Turkey Grove and now to feather ridge, the other on to the Inn dwellers cave on the "Pinican" bluffs. On the flat iron point where the road forks was erected the first school house in that vicinity and is still standing as a monument to the men who were not afraid to do what they knew to be right regardless of the whims and petty clamorings of dissatisfaction that continually sway committees from the paths of rect.i.tude and right. From this nucleus of education there go forth its quota of youth each year to enter higher inst.i.tutions of learning or grapple with the more serious problems of life. The impressions I received while attending this school by the pleasant grove have not been eradicated by the conquering of new worlds or by the glamour of political conquests. Youthful dreams and the bewitching smile of some fair maid were a source of great pleasure to me; a smile from Miss Rose LaBelle during school time would set my heart going at a two minute clip and detract materially from my studies and the routine of school work.

From this miniature "college" have gone forth men and women who are now wielding an influence almost nation wide in its scope. Some are gradually wandering from the truths that were enunciated and make a cardinal principle of its teaching and are now searching in hidden paths of sociology for new light. I now recall an event that happened while attending this school that conveys to my mind another fact tending to establish the truth of the proposition, that "ingrat.i.tude"

is no dream.

One bright morning in early spring when all nature seemed aglow with freshness and beauty, myself and a number of girls were the first to arrive at school, the teacher, Miss Theresa McCurty, being a little later than usual. On entering the school house we were held spellbound and speechless for a moment by a strange musical yet weird sound which seemed to come from the rear of the room. It took considerable effort to muster up courage to make an investigation, but finally a search was started and on approaching the rear end of the room the same musical weird sound would be at the other end of the room. Now in order to discover what it was that was making this strange weird noise and put the intruder to rout and discover if possible what kind of a looking monster he was, it was decided that two of us would go around to the rear and the rest remain in front and keep a sharp lookout for whatever it might be, when all at once one of the girls let out an unearthly scream and pointing at some object in the corner of the room shouted, "There it goes." We all gave chase, although some of the girls were rather timid on the start, and succeeded in capturing the intruder alive. It turned out to be a large white wood-mouse. What to do with this new and unruly possession was the important question now up for solution. Some were in for dispatching it at once, others said let's turn it loose, but Miss Orrie, who always had an eye for business when there was any fun in sight, suggested putting it in the teacher's desk and the result was that Miss Orrie had her way and we proceeded with all haste to carry out her plan, the girls holding up the lid of the old fashioned teacher's desk while I dropped the musical wonder in.

This done, we went about our play as though nothing was ever expected to happen, impatiently waiting for something to happen, but not quite sure what. We didn't have long to wait.

Now the teacher, Miss Theresa McCurty, was of the type of spinsters who are apparently self-willed and thoroughly versed in the art of throwing round them an atmosphere of ability to convince others of their dependence only on themselves in case of emergency to take care of themselves.

We had barely completed the capture and imprisonment in the teacher's desk of the musical wonder, when Miss McCurty arrived, ready for her day's work of training the youthful intellect. It seemed as if this morning in particular she was more precise than ever and went about her work very deliberately.

It was her custom (a custom that the "Blasting at the Rock of Ages"

ought not to minimize) to read a chapter from some book of the bible every morning to the scholars before commencing the further duties of the day, and that chapter which speaks about bearing false witness was the one chosen for this morning, a very fitting prelude too, to the further developments of the day. We were more prompt than usual in taking our seats after school was called this morning with an evident desire to impress the teacher as being very attentive to our studies, but at the same time keeping one eye in the teacher's direction, so as not to miss any of the movements of the teacher in case the antic.i.p.ated fun was thrust upon us. Lowell Taylor, the boy who couldn't keep still if he had to, was bubbling over with mirth (every school has them) and was severely reproved for not keeping quiet and for disturbing the whole school by his antics. After delivering to Lowell this short lecture on disobedience she went to her desk to get her bible and as she lifted the lid out jumped the prisoner and such a screech as she let out seemed to almost freeze the marrow in your bones and sent the cold chills chasing up and down your spinal column as with one bound she made the first row of seats and in a jiffy was clean to the farther end of the room, perched upon the rear desk with her skirts tucked snugly around her shaking limbs and terror pictured in every line of her face.

In this position she remained impervious to all efforts to induce her to come off her high perch, until a second chase had been made and the intruder ejected from the room.

By recess time she had again settled back in the old well beaten path and a.s.sumed her usual calm and dignified way, her reason, which had been so suddenly dethroned by the advent of the harmless mouse, was again gaining mastery of the situation. With the return of reason came the tangled threads of suspicion, that perhaps she had been the victim of a designing bunch of scholars and that a huge joke had been perpetrated on her. With this object in view she began a systematic search for evidence and among the girls she struck a responsive chord.

They were ready to convict any one in order to exculpate themselves.

They gave the whole plot away and every last one of them persisted in their innocence so eloquently that the teacher was fully convinced of my guilt. She therefore proceeded to relieve her pent up feelings by putting into action several of her "suffragette" ideas about personal liberty. She restrained me of mine for the next two weeks during the noon hour.

EARLY DOCTORS IN THE COUNTY

The following extracts from a paper read in December, 1910, before the Iowa Union Medical Society at its meeting in Cedar Rapids, by Dr. H. W.

Sigworth, of Anamosa, himself a pioneer physician in Linn county, is of interest:

I left northeastern Linn county thirty-four years ago.

In 1856 I commenced the study of medicine in Pennsylvania. After that I was a tramp schoolmaster, farmer, student at Wisconsin university, and U. S. soldier. I graduated from Rush in '63. After looking for a location in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, I located at Waubeek--think of it--in Waubeek, in Maine township, in 1863.

I had tried it a month at Fairview, in Jones county, before going to Waubeek. By the way, old Dr. Ristine made his first start in Iowa in the same historic town of Fairview before locating in Marion.

Northeastern Linn county at that time was very much on the frontier.

There were no bridges on the Wapsie from Quasqueton to Anamosa, but at Central City; now there are five. At Waubeek we had a postoffice but no regular mail carrier. Any one going to Marion took the mail sack and brought back the mail.

Our first mail route was on Friday morning. It left Quasqueton horseback, making Paris, Central City (which was formerly called Clark's Ford), Waubeek, Necot (Perkins), Anamosa. Sat.u.r.day it would return over the same route.

The earliest doctor of whom I can get any word of locating in this territory was Doctor Ashby at Paris. When I came in 1863, Doctor Patterson was at Central City. Dr. Lanning was at Paris. He sat next to me at Rush in 1861 and 1862. Dr. Stacy lived out the Anamosa and Quasqueton road at Valley farm. I never met him. He sent me my first case of fractured thigh in June of 1863; a boy, eight years old, who lived in a sod house with a board roof, two miles north of McQueen's (now Hill's Mill), now owned by Coquillette. The splints were made with an axe and pocket knife out of an old cradle found on the roof of the house. Extension on the ankle was by the top of an old shoe with strings through the foot-piece of the Liston splint. Results all right.

At Paris, after Lanning came Drs. Byam, Mrs. Dr. Byam, and my brother, M. P. Sigworth, Fullerton, McTavish, and Ellis, all of whom I knew, and not one of them alive now.

Where the thriving village of Prairieburg now is was a cross road, the northeast corner lying out to commons for years.

The first doctor to locate there was Dr. Young. He drove a little sorrel horse in a light rig with one wheel dished, which made a crooked track, and his disposition was something like the track of his buggy.

Following him at this place was Dr. Ellis, who went to that place from Paris.

At Central City after Dr. Patterson came Mitch.e.l.l, a state of Maine Yankee. At an early date a majority of the people here abouts were from the state of Maine, henceforth the name of Maine township. The Jordans, Friesons, Clarks, Waterhouses, were early settlers from the state of Maine.

Dr. Mitch.e.l.l was a good doctor and a fine man. Poor fellow, he lost his life by having administered to him by a mistake a teaspoonful of poison when he was to have a tonic.

After his death at Central City the place was filled by Drs. Ristine, Fisher, McTavish, my son, Dwight Sigworth, and Percy, a scientific fellow. This field is now filled by Drs. Fisher and Woodbridge.

Waubeek was in the field of Dr. Love, he going northwest to Nugent's Grove at times. Dear old Dr. Love was a splendid man, a first-cla.s.s diagnostician and a good physician and surgeon. If he lacked anything it was aggressiveness in surgery.

While at Waubeek I had for co-laborers Drs. Phipps, Scott, Bowers, and Grimm. Bowers tried to commit suicide by taking a teaspoonful of poison which made him very sick, but he ultimately recovered. Dr. Grimm was known as the Dutch doctor.