History of Linn County Iowa Part 35

Julius E. Sanford was one of the platters of the city of Cedar Rapids, and was a wide-awake, enterprising young man who for a while was in partnership with N. W. Isbell. Mr. Sanford was a native of Connecticut and was well educated on coming west where he took up the practice of the law and engaged in real estate. He removed to Dubuque in 1845, where he died in 1847, leaving a widow, Henrietta E. Sanford, who in 1848 married David Wilson. She died in 1898. Perit Sanford, who figures in early real estate transfers, was the father of Julius Sanford, and heir of the estate, as the son died without children.

Thomas Craig was an old settler in Linn county, and one of the best known men in the community. Mr. Craig was odd in some ways. He wore a white overcoat and had a fondness for horses. He was a stanch Methodist, and at times would be reprimanded, for he refused to lead in prayer. Mr. Craig died many years ago, respected and honored by all with whom he had come in contact. One of his daughters was married to N. B. Brown and another to Jesse Beechly, who recently died in his old homestead in Franklin township.

Dr. Eber L. Mansfield was born in Canaan, Ohio, in 1821. He received a cla.s.sical education and also took a medical course later. On leaving home his father gave him a horse, saddle-bags, and an outfit, and he started out for himself. He taught school in Kentucky and then came overland on horseback to Iowa in 1847, crossing the Cedar river near the lower bridge. He was a.s.sisted by W. W. and M. A. Higley, two young men who later became his friends and fellow workers in the upbuilding of Cedar Rapids. The gold fever of 1850 took the doctor away from his practice, and by August, 1850, he had arrived at the gold diggings. On the way he had made money, as he doctored a great many who were sick with fevers. He purchased two teams and did teaming from Sacramento to Shaw's Flats for about two years when he got tired and sold out, returning by way of Panama and New Orleans. He came back to Cedar Rapids, which city remained his home until his death. Dr. Mansfield was one of the best known and most successful physicians of his day and generation. He invested in city real estate, in bank stock, and was stockholder in insurance companies. His was a rugged, strong character.

He early saw the possibilities of the city, and was one of the first to invest in its real estate. He erected brick buildings in the heart of the city which are now owned by his children, and are very valuable.

William Rogers, a native of Ohio, where he was born in 1830, came to Linn county and settled in Rogers Grove in the early forties. Mr.

Rogers was an enterprising man and was one of the first to erect a saw mill and to raft lumber down the river to Muscatine in order to find a market for it. In an age when straw sheds were common he went to work and erected one of the best and largest barns in the country. In this barn he stacked his grain and threshed it by walking the horses over it, the wheat dropping through the floor to a floor below where it was cleaned. Mr. Rogers died many years ago, one of the best known men in southern Linn county. His widow, Elizabeth McNie, is still living, making her home with her son, James M. Rogers, of Fairfax township.

Chandler Jordan, born in 1820 in the state of Maine, came to Linn county in 1844, where he made his home until his death a short time ago. Mr. Jordan was a lifelong member of the Baptist church, which he supported and in which he was an active worker all his life. He was interested in the public schools, and in public affairs in general.

Jordan's Grove is named in honor of this st.u.r.dy old pioneer.

G. W. Matsell, for many years a resident of Buffalo township, where he owned some 2,000 acres of land which he purchased at an early day, was a well known character in New York city in the old days of Tammany Hall. He was chief of police and a prominent politician for many years till the breaking up of the party with which he was closely a.s.sociated.

Then he came here where his family still resides. Mr. Matsell of course spent much time in New York, where he had financial interests, but he liked the west and enjoyed the summers in Iowa. He was a democrat of the old school, but never entered into the game of politics after coming west, having had his fill of it in the New York political ring for many years.

The Matsell home was a hospitable one and many were the people George Matsell entertained during his residence in Iowa. Visitors came from all over the country, for he was well known. Mr. Matsell entertained royally and knew how to entertain. The history of New York city cannot be written without the mention of G. W. Matsell, police chief, a member of the Committee of Seventy, and a well known character for many years during the stormy days of the Civil war. His son still resides on the old homestead.

Robert Safely was a native of Scotland. He emigrated to New York at the age of fourteen. He saw the first engine to run with steam in the state of New York. For many years Mr. Safely was master mechanic for the old B., C. R. & N. system, and was a familiar figure on the streets of Cedar Rapids up to the time of his death, a short time ago. Mr. Safely was an expert mechanic and up to the time of his death was interested in everything pertaining to mechanical science.

Many of our earlier citizens only remained here for a shorter or longer time and left for other parts where they later attained to prominence.

Who does not remember W. H. Ingham, one of Kossuth county's pioneers, who lived in this county in 1850 and for five years was engaged in surveying and locating lands for early settlers? Judge Thomas Burke, a noted character of Seattle and now wealthy, tried his luck at the law here waiting for clients who never came. When Mr. Burke was picked up by J. J. Hill on the coast then every one wanted this once briefless barrister as his legal adviser. Bishop C. C. McCabe lived here for a number of years, and no one had any idea that the rollicky, fun-making, joking young beardless lad in the employ of Judge Greene and others would develop into a great lecturer and a Methodist bishop. Dr. J. T.

Headley, of lecture fame, practiced medicine here in the late sixties, and was a quiet, una.s.suming man, who minded his own business and devoted days and nights to books and science. Here lived for some years the eloquent divine, Rev. Fawcett, a person of great eloquence and force of character who left Cedar Rapids better for having lived in it.

One cannot forget Rev. Elias Skinner, now living in Waterloo, also a Methodist minister of force and eloquence who at various times lived in Linn county. Rev. Skinner, despite his eighty-three years, is well and hearty and can relate many things which occurred in this county in the fifties and sixties. He writes as follows:

"I think Linn county is about the very best county in Iowa.

Five different times I had my home in old Linn. I never did anything worthy of special mention at either time. In each of the four places where I lived I blundered into doing things which I would rather not have recalled. So please excuse me. I write with pencil because I can't guide a pen.

"Yours,

E. SKINNER."

COL. DURHAM TO THE OLD SETTLERS--ADDRESS BEFORE a.s.sOCIATION.

AUGUST 1902

_Ladies and Gentlemen of the Old Settlers' Society_: In calling this a.s.semblage to order I wish to say to you all, to the new-comers, the strangers who honor us with their presence, that, in the name of our society, we bid you a most hearty welcome and say as a good hostess would, come again.

Many of you I knew in territorial times, when we were seeking and establishing new homes, in the far new country beyond the Mississippi, and aiding in our humble way to lay the foundation of the present famous commonwealth of Iowa. The first settlements were made along and near the Mississippi river. There were but two counties, Dubuque and Des Moines, and the country was called the Black Hawk Purchase. The purchase negotiated with the Sac and Fox Indians, by General Scott and Governor Reynolds, at the close of the Black Hawk war, consisted of a strip averaging about fifty miles wide, beginning in the northeastern part of the state and running to the north boundary of Missouri, though not on a straight line, at a point fifty miles west of the river. It was under the jurisdiction of the territory of Michigan, and was represented in congress, as a territorial delegate, by George Wallace Jones.

In 1837 a few townships in the northwestern part of this county were surveyed by a surveyor general deputy named Haight. And soon thereafter Edward Crow and a few other adventurers came. Their only roads were fragments of Indian trails. They were delighted with the country and the smooth, polished surface of the unbroken prairie in all the grandeur and sublimity of its primeval state. Sages have sung of the charms seen in the face of such solitudes and I would say that I never felt nearer the great Creator and Ruler of the universe than when in regions before untrod by civilized man, where the forces of nature reigned supreme, and no sounds broke the silence except the hoo-hooing of owls, the drumming of pheasants, the bugle notes of the swan, the quacking of smaller fowls, the barking of prairie wolves, and in a timbered country, the hungry, desolate howl of the large wolf, and sometimes, though seldom, the piteous wail of the panther. It's no wonder that Moses retired to the top of a distant mountain with the roar of thunder and the flashes of lightning beneath him to talk with G.o.d.

In 1838 another strip of country was acquired from the Indians, embracing the remainder of Linn county. Possession was given in 1839, when a continuous immigration commenced, which dates back to the coming of many of the families represented here today, our respected secretary among them, and not long after that our treasurer. Previous to its organization in 1839, Linn county was, with Jones county, attached for judicial, revenue, and election purposes to Jackson county. In 1838 the territory of Iowa was struck off from Wisconsin, Robert Lucas was appointed governor by President Van Buren, and William Wallace Chapman was elected first delegate to congress, with both of whom I was acquainted in the const.i.tutional convention in 1844. Governor Lucas was a Virginian by birth, though raised in Ohio, where he had served as governor. He was one of nature's n.o.blemen, not for pomposity and fine equipage, but for all the traits that make up true manhood--modesty, courage, honesty, integrity, patriotism, and morality.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COURT HOUSE, MARION]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WAPSIE RIVER AND MILL Built in the '50s at Central City]

Soon after the organization of the territory the Missouri war began.

This related to the boundary line between the two states. It lasted some time, but like the Ohio and Michigan war, was bloodless, though a good deal of patriotism and red tape and military t.i.tles were shed. The trouble was finally settled by the surveyors and the courts.

In 1839 Linn county was organized. The first officers were John C.

Berry, commissioner's clerk or auditor; Hosea W. Gray, sheriff; Dr.

Tryon, clerk of the court; Luman W. Strong, Samuel C. Stewart, and Peter McRoberts, county commissioners. Squire Strong was a potential factor in all Linn county affairs. Mr. Stewart was distinguished for his piety. His wife was a sister of those st.u.r.dy pioneers, the Scott brothers. In 1840 the territory contained 43,000 inhabitants; Augustus C. Dodge was elected delegate to congress, and George Greene a member of the territorial council, or senate, to represent Cedar, Linn, and Jones counties. In 1841 the remainder of Linn county was surveyed by the United States deputies, with all of whom I was acquainted and in their camps--but chiefly with Mr. Welden.

After these surveys were made, claim-making and improving and trading became very lively, and the ratio of immigration increased all the time. There was more disturbance and trouble and fighting about claims than from all other causes put together. I will give only a few instances of the many with which I am acquainted. A man by the name of Wolcott, near Mount Vernon, had his claim entered. He reported it to the claim a.s.sociation. They sent a committee of three men to the intruder and demanded that he should release and cancel his purchase, which he refused to do. Whereupon they procured a conveyance and told him that he must go to Dubuque with them. Knowing the settler's law was against him, he made no further resistance, but went before the register and receiver, cancelled his entry, and his money was returned to him. The matter came up shortly after that before the grand jury at Marion on the charge of coercion and kidnapping. Samuel Hunter, Sr., of Hunter's Cross Roads, was one of the jury, Joseph Williams was judge, P. W. Earle, clerk, and Nathan Peddycord, of Yankee Grove, was another juryman, and I was foreman. William Abbe and Squire Waln of Mount Vernon were witnesses. Robert Smith was secretary of the claim a.s.sociation and Oliver Day or Allison Willits president. No bill was found and the matter stopped and never reached the supreme court.

Another claim case originated in the Dry Creek country, and came to a climax in a rather exciting way. There were a number of us attending an Indian banquet and pow-wow at a place called Wick-i-up Hollow, near the Cedar river, two or three miles south of the Oliphant and Ashlock neighborhood. The regular guests were seated in a semi-circle in the wick-i-up; we were only callers. The exercises consisted of short talks, chants and choruses, each keeping time with a deer's bladder dried and filled with air and some buckshot in it to make it rattle, all accompanied with the music of a sort of home made fife. The banquet or dinner to follow was being cooked by the women. It consisted, as far as I could see, of dried venison, stewed dog meat, beans, and pancakes.

Before the dinner was ready some of our party went outside and renewed a quarrel that had been pending for some time about their claims.

Pretty soon the lie was pa.s.sed, and it was immediately followed by a blow, and directly five or six were in the fight all at once. The struggle and angry shouts of the combatants frightened some of the Indian women who were near and they ran screaming away. This broke up the exercise in the wick-i-up and the braves rushed out, thinking that their women were being misused, for a brave man will always resent an insult to his wife. The fight so disrupted everything that we left without waiting for dinner, especially as some had to withdraw for repairs. The Chambers were in it. William Garrison and some of the Nations were in it, but not Carrie with her little hatchet. John Hunter and, I think, Dyer Usher, were there, but not in the fight. The case came up before his honor, Aaron Usher, a justice of the peace, who fined some of the partic.i.p.ants $1.00 each, which ended the litigation and the claim dispute.

The last claim case I will mention was of much greater magnitude, and out of it originated the Bill Johnson war, in which several lives were lost, including one Indian. It began in Buchanan county. William Bennett and a man purporting to be Bill Johnson of the Canadian patriot war were the principles in the extensive trouble. Bennett was an enterprising, public-spirited man and had a quant.i.ty of workmen and retainers helping build the first grist mill at Quasqueton, on the Wapsipinicon river. He was a man of st.u.r.dy muscular frame, swarthy complexion, dark eyes, strong jaws, a man who would be a good friend or a bad enemy. Johnson was older, tall and angular, with black bushy hair, on whose lips shone no smile, under whose brow lurked treason, stratagem, and spoil. I became acquainted with Johnson in a rather romantic way, which you will excuse me for relating, as it shows some of the perils and hardships incident to the settling of a new country.

On the 12th of November, 1842, a deep snow fell and remained till the next April, with additions during the winter. It has always since been called the hard winter of 1842 and '43.

During the winter my friend, Anderson Chambers, later a prosperous business man of Muscatine, and I had been up in the country between the Wapsipinicon and the Volga. The snow drifts were so deep and the day so dark that night overtook us several hours ride from any human habitation. Before dark we went into a little scattering timber on a small stream and under the bluff hitched our horses to a bush. We found some dry poles and got some dry rotten wood out of a tree, sc.r.a.ped away the snow with our feet, and with the aid of a flint and some tow and powder, we managed to start a little fire. Matches were not then in use. We cut some brush and laid it on the ground, spread one horse blanket on that to lie on, and with another to cover us and our saddles for pillows, we slept through the long night until daylight, when we resumed our ride. About the middle of the forenoon we came in sight of an improvement in the edge of the timber, and I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled that a frontiersman's log cabin was there. We went into the house, which was neat and clean, and told them of our hard experience during the preceding night and day. They kindly sympathized with us and soon made us comfortable. It proved to be Bill Johnson's place. Kate Johnson and another young lady, Miss Kelso of Davenport, were there. They busied themselves about setting us up a fresh, warm, ten o'clock breakfast. I relished it more than any other breakfast I ever ate, the zest of which was no doubt heightened by being served by so charming a hostess, and me a susceptible bachelor, too.

Johnson explained his being there in this wild region by saying that he had partic.i.p.ated actively in the Canadian patriot war against the Dominion of Canada, that the attempted revolution had failed, that he had lost all his property by it, and had been driven and chased all through and among the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence river in his boat with his daughter Kate, that a reward had been offered for him, that he had given up all hope of success and determined to seek safety and quietude by coming to this country. All this seemed plausible, as I heard the brave deeds of the patriots rehea.r.s.ed in song and poetry. But in escaping that trouble he ran into the jaws of another at the outset.

It seemed that in coming into a strange neighborhood, instead of making the people his friends by conciliation and prudent conduct, he got into trouble at the start by taking possession of the claim of one of the Bennett party. They remonstrated and he promised to pay for the claim, but never did, though Johnson claimed that the trouble was about the location of the county seat. Not long after I was at his place, after giving him notice, they determined to oust him. They took him out in the brush and gave him a very severe flogging, loaded him and all his belongings into sleds and sent him out of the country. He applied for aid at Marion and Dubuque, and Surveyor General Wilson, a New Hampshire man, took him and his daughter Kate to Iowa City, in his fine Boston made sleigh, to interest Governor Chambers in his behalf. When the hostilities came to an end, the result was disastrous to both parties.

Bennett became a fugitive and his mill building was stopped. Johnson was shot. Kate found her a loving, trusting husband. Hosea Gray made considerable money out of it; Ormus Clark, the first permanent settler of Central City, spent a lot of money for defense, and Colonel Preston laid the foundation of his splendid fame and fortune as an attorney from it.

The public land sales had been advertised for this winter and the people were illy prepared to go to Dubuque to enter their claims on account of the deep snow, some for scarcity of clothing, and all for scarcity of money. Many had saved their last 12-1/2 and 6-1/2 cent silver coins and their 5-franc pieces to make up the necessary sums. In view of the difficulties in the way, a ma.s.s meeting was held, and George Greene was appointed a special agent to go to Washington City for the purpose of having the land office removed to Marion. He went and saw the commissioner of public lands; he saw Stephen A. Douglas, chairman of the committee on public lands, and President Tyler, and came back with an order for the temporary removal in his pocket, which I doubt if any other man could have done. He stood luminous among all the bright men who first settled in Linn county, or the territory either. The people of Linn county, and of Cedar Rapids especially, should ever remember his labors and efforts in those early days which brought them prominence and prosperity. All now acknowledge Linn county to be without a peer and Cedar Rapids is the best interior city in the state, except Des Moines with its immense coal beds.

The land office was located in the first, and then only brick house in Marion. Judge Berry afterwards dispensed boundless hospitality in it.

It was built and owned by William H. Woodbridge, or "Democ Woodbridge,"

a very enterprising young man. He was one of five from this county who enlisted in the Mexican war. He was with Scott's army of invasion and the Mexicans "welcomed him with b.l.o.o.d.y hands to a hospitable grave."

Another of the five, Major McKean, as he was then known, who was a member of the first const.i.tutional convention in 1844, and later a brigadier general in the union army, lies buried in the Marion cemetery. Another of the five, Captain Sausman, who gallantly bore the flag at Chepultepec, died in California. Captain Gray is alone, and alive and likely to be, as you would think if you could see him running an intricate surveyor's line through a section. The fifth one, Samuel D. Thompson, is with us amply provided for in his declining years by a munificent government, in recognition of his military service in nearly all the wars since the time of Anthony Wayne, and as the old song says:

"There is no more work for brave old Joe.

He's gone to the place where all good soldiers go."

The land sales drew large numbers from all the surrounding country, and made lively times here. Joseph F. Chapman and Oliver S. Hall, Sr., hotel keepers, flourished. Those who had the money got t.i.tles to their lands, and those who had not still held their claims until such time as they could enter them at private sale. In the spring the land office was moved back to Dubuque.

In 1844 the first const.i.tutional convention was held at Iowa City. The const.i.tution failed of ratification. In 1846 another convention was held and the state fully admitted under that with our present boundaries. Iowa was then the most western state, and a line drawn south from Sioux City, its western limit, would have run further west than any other state or territory, except Texas, which was annexed the year before. It now occupies a conspicuous central position in the American union, and a leading one in agricultural productions. It is honored with two members of the president's cabinet and the most influential member of the American senate.

After our acquisition of California the waves of emigration westward began, sweeping over the great American desert, as it had been called, planting agriculture and industry in its path, forcing its way through the mountain pa.s.ses and over the sun-dried plains, to the Pacific ocean at the Golden Gate, where floats the commerce of oriental Asia.

"No pent up Utica contracts our powers; The whole of this boundless domain is ours."

When I look in the faces of this mult.i.tude I see before me but few who were men and women grown when I first came here. Some of you gray-haired ladies and gentlemen were then, as the Indians called them, pet.i.te squaws or skinneways. Your fathers were Niseshin Sh.o.m.oko men.

But I think scarcely more than a dozen are now living in this county who were then men and women. And

"I feel like one who treads alone A banquet hall deserted, Whose music is hushed, whose guests are gone, And all but me departed."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ISAAC BUTLER Pioneer Resident of Springville]

CHAPTER XX