FOOTNOTES End of document
ILLUSTRATIONS
LUTHER A. BREWER _Frontispiece_
B. L. WICK 4
LEWIS FIELD LINN 8
A SCENE ON THE CEDAR RIVER AT CEDAR RAPIDS IN THE FIFTIES 12
RESIDENCE OF ISAAC CARROLL IN 1839 12
AN EARLY LAND DEED 16
SHEPHERD'S TAVERN 20
GEOLOGICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 24
THE ASTOR HOUSE 28
DOUBLE LOG CABIN BUILT BY WILLIAM ABBE 32
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN CEDAR RAPIDS IN 1851 36
RESIDENCE OF WILLISTON JONES 36
DANIEL SEWARD HAHN 40
LINN COUNTY SCENES 44
GOING SHOPPING 48
INDIAN SCENES 48
FORMER PASTORS UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH, LISBON 52
SAMUEL W. DURHAM 56
SOME EARLY MEMBERS UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH, LISBON 60
PRESENT DAY SCENE 64
AN OLD LAND RECEIPT 64
STEAMBOAT ON CEDAR, 1887 64
DR. JOHN F. ELY 68
JOHN A. KEARNS 72
A. J. REID 72
C. S. HOWARD 72
WILLIAM STICK 72
THE VARDY HOUSE, CEDAR RAPIDS 76
FRANKLIN BLOCK AND RESIDENCE OF P. W. EARLE 76
THE LISTEBARGER CABIN, CEDAR RAPIDS 76
MR. AND MRS. GODFREY QUASS 80
MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM GIDDINGS 80
MR. AND MRS. ISAAC MILLBURN 80
MR. AND MRS. W. A. LACOCK 80
J. P. GLASS 80
F. A. HELBIG 80
PROF. H. H. FREER 84
REV. GEO. B. BOWMAN 84
JOSEPH MEKOTA 84
W. F. SEVERA 84
DR. J. S. LOVE 88
J. H. VOSMEK 92
FR. T. J. SULLIVAN 92
DR. E. L. MANSFIELD 92
HON. JAMES URE 96
JUDGE J. H. ROTHROCK 96
J. J. DANIELS 96
L. J. PALDA 96
BRIDGE AT THE PALISADES 101
THE PALISADES OF THE CEDAR 101
BARNEY MCSHANE CABIN 104
CABIN IN "CRACKER SETTLEMENT" 104
UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH, LISBON 108
MAIN STREET, MOUNT VERNON 108
ALEXANDER LAURANCE 112
OLD M. E. CHURCH, MOUNT VERNON 116
STREET SCENE IN LISBON 116
SCHOOL AT FAIRFAX 120
METHODIST CHURCH AT FAIRFAX 120
THE CHAPEL, CORNELL COLLEGE 124
CARNEGIE LIBRARY, MOUNT VERNON 124
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AT SCOTCH GROVE 128
WOOD-BURNING ENGINE, 1879 128
MAIN BUILDING, CORNELL COLLEGE 132
SOUTH-HALL, CORNELL COLLEGE 132
HENRY BRUCE HOUSE, SPRINGVILLE 136
FIRST SPRINGVILLE BAND 136
THE "OLD SEM" CORNELL COLLEGE 140
BOWMAN HALL, CORNELL COLLEGE 140
BUTLER PARK AT SPRINGVILLE 144
BUSINESS DISTRICT AT SPRINGVILLE 144
PICNIC AT HOME OF GEO. L. DURNO, SPRINGVILLE, IN 1884 148
ILLINOIS CENTRAL DEPOT, CENTRAL CITY 148
METHODIST CHURCH, CENTER POINT 152
SOUTH MAIN STREET, TROY MILLS 152
M. E. CHURCH, TROY MILLS 156
MILL AT PRAIRIEBURG 156
AT OLD SETTLERS' REUNION, MARION 160
A PARK SCENE IN MARION 160
COURT HOUSE, MARION 164
WAPSIE RIVER AND MILL AT CENTRAL CITY 164
ISAAC BUTLER 168
PUBLIC SCHOOL AT SPRINGVILLE 172
METHODIST CHURCH, SPRINGVILLE 176
HOME OF J. F. BUTLER, SPRINGVILLE 176
METHODIST CHURCH AT PALO 180
SCENE AT SPRINGVILLE 180
EARLY VIEW OF SPRINGVILLE 184
FIRST STORE IN SPRINGVILLE 184
LUTHERAN CHURCH, LISBON 188
MAIN STREET, LISBON 188
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AT SPRINGVILLE 192
THE BUTLER FARM AT SPRINGVILLE 192
CORNELL COLLEGE IN 1865 200
A STREET SCENE IN MARION 204
THE DANIELS HOTEL, MARION 204
REV. SAMUEL M. FELLOWS, A. M. 208
COMMERCIAL HOTEL, CENTER POINT 212
BRIDGE OVER THE CEDAR AT CENTER POINT 212
W. F. KING, LL. D. 216
MAIN STREET FROM THE NORTH, FAIRFAX 220
MAIN STREET LOOKING WEST, CENTRAL CITY 220
AN OLD GRAVE AT SPRINGVILLE 224
REV. J. B. ALBROOK, D. D. 224
PROF. HARRIETTE J. COOK 224
MRS. MARGARET MCKELL KING 224
BAPTIST CHURCH, CENTRAL CITY 228
OLD BARN AT CENTRAL CITY 228
JAMES E. HARLAN, LL. D. 232
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, CENTRAL CITY 236
CHRISTIAN CHURCH, CENTRAL CITY 236
SCENE AT TROY MILLS 240
MILL AND DAM AT COGGON 240
HIGH SCHOOL, CENTRAL CITY 244
BRIDGE OVER WAPSIE AT CENTRAL CITY 244
T. S. PARVIN 248
WEST ROWLEY STREET, WALKER 253
MAIN STREET, PRAIRIEBURG 253
MAIN STREET, SPRINGVILLE 256
QUAKER MEETING HOUSE AT WHITTIER 256
WHITTIER 256
MAIN STREET, CENTRAL CITY, FROM THE SOUTH 261
GENERAL STORE AT COVINGTON 261
UPPER WAGON BRIDGE, CENTRAL CITY 264
HENDERSON BRIDGE, CENTRAL CITY 264
BAPTIST CHURCH, PRAIRIEBURG 268
MILWAUKEE BRIDGE, COVINGTON 268
THE "OLD SCHOOL," COGGON 272
SOUTH SIDE MAIN STREET, COGGON 272
SCENE ON THE CEDAR AT CEDAR RAPIDS 276
BIRDSEYE VIEW LOOKING EAST, CEDAR RAPIDS 276
CEDAR RIVER DAM, CEDAR RAPIDS 276
QUAKER OATS PLANT, CEDAR RAPIDS 280
STREET RAILWAY STATION AT BEVER PARK, CEDAR RAPIDS 280
VIEW OF CEDAR RAPIDS FROM THE ISLAND 288
RAILROAD YARDS AT CEDAR RAPIDS 288
FATHER FLYNN, CEDAR RAPIDS 296
PUBLIC AND COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS IN CEDAR RAPIDS, 1910 300
BIRDSEYE VIEW OF CEDAR RAPIDS IN 1868 304
FATHER SVRDLIK, CEDAR RAPIDS 307
BIRDSEYE VIEW OF CEDAR RAPIDS IN 1889 312
FEDERAL BUILDING, CEDAR RAPIDS 320
AUDITORIUM, CEDAR RAPIDS 320
PART OF ZOO IN BEVER PARK, CEDAR RAPIDS 328
A SCENE IN BEVER PARK, CEDAR RAPIDS 328
SIXTEENTH AVENUE BRIDGE, CEDAR RAPIDS 336
FIRST STREET, CORNER SECOND AVENUE, IN 1869 336
FIRST U. B. CHURCH WEST OF MISSISSIPPI RIVER 344
COE COLLEGE BUILDINGS 352
SINCLAIR PACKING PLANT, CEDAR RAPIDS 360
BLACK HAWK 366
A WINNEBAGO INDIAN 366
THE SLAVE DANCE OF THE SAC AND FOX 366
CEDAR RAPIDS COUNTRY CLUB HOUSE 368
GEORGE GREENE SQUARE 368
RIVERSIDE PARK, CEDAR RAPIDS 368
CEDAR RAPIDS IN 1856 369
THE OLD BLAIR BUILDING 371
MONTROSE HOTEL, CEDAR RAPIDS 376
S. C. BEVER 384
THOMAS GAINER 384
E. D. WALN 384
REV. ELIAS SKINNER 384
J. M. MAY 392
CAPT. A. BOWMAN 392
E. M. CROW 392
FATHER LOWRY 401
ST. WENCESLAUS CHURCH, CEDAR RAPIDS 404
ST. WENCESLAUS SCHOOL, CEDAR RAPIDS 404
THE LATE VERY REVEREND DEAN GUNN 408
QUAKER OATS TRAIN 412
SCENE ON CEDAR RIVER 412
ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH, CEDAR RAPIDS 412
MERCY HOSPITAL, CEDAR RAPIDS 416
JUDGE N. M. HUBBARD 422
VIEWS ALONG THE CEDAR RIVER 424
PARK VIEWS IN CEDAR RAPIDS 432
IN AND AROUND MT. VERNON 436
R. D. STEPHENS 440
ADDISON DANIELS 440
J. B. YOUNG 440
I. M. PRESTON 440
S. S. JOHNSON 444
THOS. J. MCKEAN 448
N. W. ISBELL 448
WILLIAM GREENE 448
O. S. BOWLING 448
INDEPENDENT HOSE COMPANY, CEDAR RAPIDS, 1875 452
CITY RESIDENCES, CEDAR RAPIDS 456
VIEW OF MARION, 1868 460
JAMES E. BROMWELL, SR. 464
T. M. SINCLAIR 468
J. O. STEWART 468
COL. T. Z. COOK 472
SOME EARLY CURRENCY 476
STREET VIEWS IN CEDAR RAPIDS, IN 1910 480
MAPS
LINN COUNTY 1
SHOWING BLACK HAWK PURCHASE 184
SHOWING DES MOINES COUNTY SUBDIVIDED 185
AFTER THE SAC AND FOX CESSIONS OF 1837 190
LATE DIVISION OF BLACK HAWK PURCHASE 191
SHOWING THE TWO CESSIONS AS AT PRESENT DIVIDED 197
REPRODUCTION OF THE FIRST MAP OF CEDAR RAPIDS (Part 1) 316
REPRODUCTION OF THE FIRST MAP OF CEDAR RAPIDS (Part 2) 316
[Illustration: MAP OF LINN COUNTY]
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.
Agassiz, 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 shores 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 illustrated, 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 buttes corresponding in
height with the depth of the valleys.
"To a person passing from the drift-covered to the driftless
part of the state, the topography presents a series of
surprises. The principal 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 constituents 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 constitutes 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
constituents 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 coarser constituents. 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 shells, 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 ashore 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
grass 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 passed 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.
Marquette and Joliet were then invited to a feast which meanwhile had
been made ready by the squaws. Afterwards Marquette wrote a description
of this banquet, and it is of interest to reproduce it here:
"It consisted of four courses. First there was a large
wooden bowl filled with a preparation of corn meal boiled in
water and seasoned with oil. The Indian conducting the
ceremonies had a large wooden spoon with which he dipped up
the mixture (called by the Indians _tagamity_), passing it
in turn into the mouths of the different members of the
party. The second course consisted of fish nicely cooked,
which was separated from the bones and placed in the mouths
of the guests. The third course was a roasted dog, which our
explorers declined with thanks, when it was at once removed
from sight. The last course was a roast of buffalo, the
fattest pieces of which were passed the Frenchmen, who found
it to be most excellent meat."
The Frenchmen were so delighted with the beauty of the country and the
hospitality of the Indians that they remained with their friends six
days. They explored the valleys, hunted and fished and feasted on the
choice game they captured. The natives did all they could to make their
stay one gay round of pleasure. They welcomed the coming guests with
genuine hospitality, and when they could keep them no longer speeded
them on their way in the true spirit. Six hundred of them escorted
Marquette and Joliet to their boats and wished them bon voyage.
This discovery attracted but little attention at the time in Europe,
and many years passed before what is now known as Iowa appears in
history.
THE MOUND BUILDERS
The Mound Builders, from what information we have been able to obtain,
must have lived in the Mississippi valley and at one time or another
way back in some remote age they must have resided on what later became
Iowa. Chronology is not definite as to when or how the Mound Builders
arrived in the new world. It is merely speculation when one says that
traditions point to a time two or three thousand years ago when the
Mound Builders resided in the Mississippi valley and lived in villages
and towns. It is true, that in various parts of the old world records
have been found of other races which have preceded the races of which
history has any definite record. As the North American Indians had no
written language prior to the arrival of the Europeans, their
traditions, consequently, go back but a short time at best.
It is true that there have been found on the American continent various
bones of animals which no longer exist, and there have been found
relics of a race of men who were far different from the Indians as the
whites found them on their arrival. In North America these pre-historic
races have been called Mound Builders, and they have been the first
inhabitants of the vast plains of what later became the United States.
Still, it may be possible that the Mound Builders may have driven out
or exterminated some other preceding race of people, who had dwelt in
this country for ages before the Mound Builders made their entrance
into what is known as the New World. Who knows?
[Illustration: B. L. WICK]
In Johnson's _Encyclopedia_, Vol. 1, page 125, one finds the following:
"Remains of the Mound Builders are spread over a vast extent of
country. They are found on the sources of the Alleghany, in the western
part of the state of New York, and in nearly all the western states,
including Michigan and Iowa. They were observed by Lewis and Clark on
the Missouri a thousand miles above its junction with the Mississippi.
They lined the shores of the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Florida,
whence they extended through Alabama and Georgia into South Carolina.
They are especially numerous in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin,
Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Texas. Many of these remnants were
evidently designed as works of defense or as large towers in war. No
inconsiderable number appear to have been formed as sepulchre monuments
or as places of burial for the dead, while others seemed obviously to
have been constructed as temples or places of worship or sacrifice."
While Linn county and Iowa have not as many mounds of as much interest
as, for example, the Circle Mound in Ohio, still there are a number of
mounds found in eastern Iowa and a number in Linn county which would
appear to have been constructed by Mound Builders, or, at least, by
some pre-historic race long since extinct. Some mounds found near Palo
would indicate that they must have been constructed a long time ago,
for even trees of large dimensions have been found growing on top and
around these mounds. The remnants certainly give evidence in places as
though they had been constructed for religious purposes, which
evidently is true of nearly all such remnants which have recently been
discovered in Yucatan and Mexico.
Some stone implements and ornaments have been found in some of these
mounds. These implements are all flint spear and arrow heads and have
been worked with much care and skill. Some pottery has also been
discovered, at times ornamented and at other times very coarse. Some
copper implements have been found of a kind and quality as discovered
in the copper region of Lake Superior, which, undoubtedly, have been
worked by the Indians and perhaps by the Mound Builders. No bones have
so far been discovered to indicate that the Mound Builders had the use
of any domestic animals. Very seldom have human skeletons been found,
which might attest to the fact that these had been dug ages and ages
ago. No tablets of any kind have been discovered, which might indicate
that the Mound Builders had at no time a written language.
Science has held that the Mound Builders were an agricultural people
and compared with the Indians much more civilized, and that the
Mississippi valley was densely populated until the arrival of the
Indians. Whether the Indians exterminated them or they were driven
away, or they voluntarily removed from this part of the country is
still a debatable question.
"If it is really true that there were pre-historic peoples,
then the oldest continent would be, in all probability, the
first inhabited; and as this is the oldest continent in the
formations of the geological period, and as there are found
relics of man in England in identically the same strata as
are shown in Linn county, why may we not reasonably expect
to find relics of man--relics as old as any--in Linn county?
If man once existed here, why may he not have always existed
here? It is certainly unreasonable to think young Europe
should alone have early relics of man.
"What place the Mound Builders are entitled to in the
world's history, since they have left no relics but mounds
of earth, which mounds are probably funeral pyres or places
of sepulchre, we can simply conjecture. We believe some rude
carvings on slabs have been exhumed at Grand Traverse,
Michigan, Davenport, Iowa, and Rockford, Illinois. These
carvings may have reference to the sun, moon and stars; we
believe the savants favor such an interpretation. As to
where he lived, careful geological study of his mound may
some day determine. He was a link in the chain of man's
existence; tracing it to its source we may discover some
hitherto unknown facts regarding man's origin, or the
ancient history of America. This continent may have been
more intimately connected with Asia than is at present
considered....
"Compare the average life of these nations with the age of
the Cedar valley; compare historic age with Cedar valley,
whose channel has been cut down through the rocks between
one and two hundred feet. Look at these old Devonian rocks,
with their fossils as fresh as of yesterday. Look at the
clay soil that overlies the rocks. Has it been changed in
fourteen hundred or in six thousand years? Now look at those
mounds that are on the crests of so many ridges, and say how
old they are! Forests of giant trees have come and gone over
them, how many times? Those mounds were built by the people
known as the Mound Builders. What of their life? What of
their age? What of their history? We have the mounds, and
substantially the mounds only. But these mounds are an
interesting study of themselves. We have not observed these
mounds only in the valley of the Cedar river, above and
below Cedar Rapids; our observations find them in positions
as follows:
"LOCATION OF MOUNDS NEAR CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
Number
of
No. Location Sec. Twp. Range Mounds
1 N. W. 1/4 S. W. 1/4 35 83 7 11
2 S. 1/2 S. E. 1/4 16 83 7 14
3 S. 1/2 N. W. 1/4 16 83 7 11
4 N. W. 1/4 N. E. 1/4 17 83 7 3
5 N. 1/2 N. W. 1/4 20 83 7 11
6 E. 1/2 18 83 7 11
7 W. 1/2 18 83 7 11
8 N. W. 1/4 N. W. 1/4 24 83 7 12
------
Total 84
"No. 1 has eleven mounds, situated on the crest of a divide.
The general direction of locations is from north to south,
or south to north. The correct location, I believe, is from
south to north; that is, they point to the north. These
mounds are now raised about three feet above the level, and
are uniformly thirty feet in diameter. Counting from the
south, the sixth and seventh are generally within a few
feet--come very near touching each other; the others are as
near as, may be, two diameters apart. These remarks will
apply to No. 2, No. 3, No. 5 and No. 6. No. 2 has eleven in
a line (as No. 1,) and then three mounds to the east appear
to be parallel, and may have had the remaining eight removed
by cultivation. No. 4 is on the bottom--second bench land;
are a little larger in size; the others, to make out the
eleven, may have been destroyed by cultivation. No. 7 has
eight in position, and then a valley intervenes, and the
three additional, making the eleven, are on the ridge next
to the north. No. 8 has twelve. They are on the crest of a
divide which passes around the head of a deep ravine, and
follow the divide at the angle. Most of these mounds (No. 8)
have been lately opened, but we think no relics were found.
We have been careful to find the place that the earth
composing the mounds was taken from. Generally, the banks
of a near ravine indicate, by their shape, the place. Under
the strongest sunlight, in a mound cut through the center,
we could detect no indication or difference in the clay to
show that it had been removed or disturbed, or that there
had been any remains in it to discolor the clay in their
decomposition.
"Let it be observed that the mounds are substantially north
and south in line of location. They are eleven in number,
uniform in size, and, I believe, cover every ridge in the
vicinity of the rapids of the Cedar having the direction
sufficient in length on which the mounds could be placed.
They are built in the locality the least likely to be
disturbed, and in the shape and of the material the most
enduring. There certainly was intelligence displayed in
their location and in the selection of the material of which
they are constructed, as well as in the design of their form
and positions. There may have been more mounds than these,
but these are all that are left--all that are left of that
race which might have sent from their number emigrants to
people the new land, to the far west, the last continent,
fresh and vigorous from the ocean, the newest born, the best
then adapted for man's material and mental
development."--_History of Linn County_, 1878, p. 319.
J. S. Newberry, in Johnson's _Cyclopedia_, says:
"From all the facts before us, we can at present say little
more than this, that the valley of the Mississippi and the
Atlantic coast were once densely populated by a sedentary,
agricultural and partially civilized race, quite different
from the modern nomadic Indians, though, possibly, the
progenitors of some of the Indian tribes; and that, after
many centuries of occupation, they disappeared from our
country at least one thousand, perhaps many thousands of
years, before the advent of the Europeans. The pre-historic
remains found so abundantly in Arizona appear to be related
to the civilization of Mexico; and the remains of
semi-civilized Indian tribes now found there are, perhaps,
descendants of the ancient builders of the great houses and
cities whose ruins are found there."
Researches concerning ancient mounds have been carried on in a most
scientific manner by Dr. Cyrus Thomas. His chief work and research have
been embodied in a monograph of over 700 pages and found the 12th
Report of the government publications.
Major J. W. Powell, whose studies of this subject have been considered
authoritative, in his _Pre-historic Man in America_ has the following
to say:
"Widely scattered throughout the United States ...
artificial mounds are discovered which may be enumerated by
thousands and hundreds of thousands. They vary greatly in
size. Some are small so that half a dozen laborers with
shovels might construct one of them in a day, while others
cover acres and are scores of feet in height. These mounds
were observed by the early explorers and pioneers of the
country.... Pseud-archeologists descanted on the Mound
Builders, that once inhabited the land, and they told of
swarming populations who had reached a high condition of
culture, erecting temples, practicing arts in metals and
using hieroglyphics.... It is enough to say that the Mound
Builders were the Indian tribes discovered by the white men.
It may well be that some of the mounds were erected by
tribes extinct when Columbus first saw the shores, but they
were kindred in culture to the peoples that still
existed.... Pre-Columbian culture was indigenous, it began
at the lowest stage of savagery and developed to the highest
and was in many places passing into barbarism when the good
queen sold her jewels."--J. W. Powell, quoted in _Larned_,
Vol. I, p. 45.
Thus scientists do not agree whether or not the Mound Builders were
closely akin to the Indians. However recent investigators seem to agree
with Thomas and Powell that the early inhabitants were much like the
later denizens of the American prairies in their mode of life and means
of subsistence, in their weapons, arts, usages, and customs, in their
institutions and physical characteristics, they were the same people in
different stages of advancement.
John Fiske, one of the scholarly writers on American history, has the
following to say on the early races in the United States:
"Whether the Indians are descended from this ancient
population or not, is a question with which we have as yet
no satisfactory method of dealing. It is not unlikely that
these glacial men may have perished from off the face of the
earth, having been crushed and supplanted by stronger races.
There may have been several successive waves of migration of
which the Indians were the latest."--Fiske's _Discovery of
America_, Vol. I, p. 15.
"The aboriginal American, as we know him with his language
and legends, his physical and mental peculiarities, his
social observance and customs, is most emphatically a native
and not an imported article. He belongs to the American
continent as strictly as its opossums and armadillo, its
maize and its golden rods, or any number of its aboriginal
fauna and flora belong to it."--_Ibid._, p. 20.
An Iowa investigator, C. L. Webster, some years ago examined several
mounds on the banks of the Cedar river near Charles City and "found the
skulls small which would show an extremely low grade of mental
intelligence."--_American Naturalist_, Vol. 23, p. 1888.
This may go to show that the early inhabitants were different from the
nomadic Indians that the first whites saw as they landed on the bleak
shores of New England in the eleventh century.
Most writers on this subject are led to believe that we have conclusive
evidence that man existed before the time of the glaciers and that from
primitive conditions he has lived here and developed through the same
stages which may correspond to the development of primitive man in
Europe and Asia. Whether the first settlers in Iowa then, were Mound
Builders, or Indians, or some other race may never be known, for a
certainty. It is enough to say, that man existed and lived on what has
become known as Iowa many, many centuries ago, and he left few if any
remains which can testify to his stage of development or to his mode of
living. This is no doubt true, that man existed in Linn county
countless ages ago, but whether it was a different race, or simply the
Indian race at a different stage of development may never be known and
thus will always remain a mystery.
INDIANS
When the first white settlers located in Linn county the Red Men still
occupied the land, and even after treaties had been fully ratified,
Indians were slow to give up these choice hunting places along the Red
Cedar and the Wapsie. It is needless to say that the rights of Indians
were not protected and they invariably were set aside and driven away
as fast as possible. Still nearly all of the early settlers were very
friendly toward the Red Men, and in return received many favors from
their hands. Of course, the Red Men were jealous of the whites, who
gradually kept coming in and drove the Indians away. The Indians who
most frequented this part of Iowa after the settlement by whites were
the Sac and Fox and Winnebagoes. The Winnebagoes were a remnant of a
warlike tribe, and at one time in Wisconsin were very powerful. These
joined with the Sac and Fox in the Black Hawk war and were driven
across the Mississippi river after the signing of the treaty of peace.
[Illustration: LEWIS FIELD LINN]
The pioneers in this county from necessity had to be friendly with the
Indians. Many of the early settlers were able to speak the Winnebago
language, such as the family of William Abbe, the Edgertons, the Usher
family, the Crows, and many others. The Winnebagoes lingered around in
this part of Iowa in the thirties and forties, when they were finally
removed to Minnesota, much against their own wishes. But the Indians,
rightly in this respect as in many others, were not considered, for the
white men ruled and looked out for their own selfish interests and did
not consider the side of mercy, justice or the rights of the weak as
against those of the strong.
The Winnebagoes were considered a hardy race and respected by the
whites, who showed them many favors. While the Winnebagoes had fought
in the war of 1812 under Tecumseh and had sided with Black Hawk,
perhaps reluctantly, in the war of 1832, they were rather friendly
toward the whites, although they very much objected to disposing of all
their lands east of the Mississippi river by the treaties of 1825 and
1837, when they were removed to Iowa. In Linn county they remained for
a longer or shorter period of time along the rivers such as the Cedar
and the Wapsie, and especially around Cedar Lake, along the Palisades,
in Linn Grove, Scotch Grove west of Cedar Rapids, and in other places
where there was much timber. While they were at times heartless and
cruel, their relations on the whole with the early settlers in Linn
county were those of friendship, and they showed the whites many favors
in the early days when the scattered pioneer families were unable to
acquire sufficient food during the winter months to subsist upon. The
Indians always helped the whites, and frequently went out hunting,
bringing back a deer, fowls, or prairie chickens, which they divided
among their own people and the whites. They early became fond of the
dishes made by the white women, such as hominy, honey cakes, johnny
cakes, and other delicious dishes found in the homes of the early
settlers on the frontier. In no instance has it been reported that any
white woman was ever assaulted by any Indian in this county. In many of
the cabins of the early settlers there could be found only women and
children, the husbands having left for the river towns to bring back
provisions, and this fact was frequently known to the Indians. The
early pioneer women used to say that they feared the rough border
ruffian more than they did these traveling bands of Indians, who never
assaulted anyone or ever carried away property by stealth, as the
border ruffians were frequently accused of doing.
The story of the Winnebago tribe of Indians can not be passed without
some notice. The name Winnebago is said to mean "the turbid water
people," and they are closely related to the Iowas, Otoes, and the
Missouri tribes. They used to call themselves the Hochangara, meaning
"the people using the parent tongue," thus, perhaps, intending to
convey that they were the original people from whom others sprang. They
are first mentioned in the Jesuit Relations of 1636 and 1640. It is
said that they were nearly annihilated by the Illinois tribes in early
days and that the survivors fled back to Green Bay in 1737 and that
they resided on the banks of Lake Superior but once more drifted back
to Green Bay and towards Lake Winnebago, stretching southwest towards
the Mississippi river. On one of the islands in the lake which bears
their name they made their abiding place for a number of years and here
they buried their dead and dwelt in peace around their fire places.
In 1825 the population was estimated to be 6,000. By the treaties of
1825 and 1832 they were compelled to cede their lands to the
government, certain tracts of land being reserved on the Mississippi
river near what is now known as La Crosse. Here they suffered from
several visitations of smallpox, which plague is said to have carried
off nearly one-fourth of their number.
From 1834-35 they were removed to Iowa and lived along the many rivers
in the northeastern part of the Territory as far as the banks of the
Cedar and the Wapsie rivers. White settlers came in, driving the Red
Men out: hunting became poor and the Indians could not subsist and
they were again removed to the Blue Earth reservation in Minnesota in
1848. On account of the Indian outbreaks in 1863, committed by the
Sioux tribe, and in which the Winnebagoes took no part, they were again
removed to the Dakotas, where several hundred perished from cold and
hunger. There are now only about 1,200 under the Omaha and Winnebago
agency in Nebraska, and about 1,500 in the state of Wisconsin.
The Sac and Fox were also the early neighbors of the whites in this
county. The Fox was an Algonkian tribe, first found on the lakes, and
who were driven south by the Ojibwa where, for self protection, they
united with the Sacs and have been since known as Sacs and Foxes. They
were always friendly to the British, joining them in the Revolution as
well as in the war of 1812. After the Black Hawk war they were removed
to Iowa and from here removed again to the Indian Territory from
1842-46. Many of the tribes kept coming back to their old hunting
ground and finally they were permitted to remain on the Iowa river and
provision for them was made by the legislature. About 400, known as the
Muskwaki, are still found, survivors of some of the early wanderers in
eastern Iowa in the early thirties. The Sacs and Foxes and the
Winnebagoes were always on friendly terms with the whites and were
sworn enemies of the Sioux.
Mrs. Susan Shields, a daughter of William Abbe, was on intimate terms
with the Winnebago Indians, who used to gather at her father's home on
Abbe's creek frequently. She learned to speak the Winnebago language,
and remembered seeing many wigwams, or tepees as they were called, at
the lower end of what is now Cedar Rapids. She speaks of the Indians as
being kind to her and that her first playmates were Indian girls of her
own age. Her brothers also played with the Indian boys and they learned
to ride Indian ponies and to shoot with bows and arrows. No trouble
ever arose among the young of both races in these days; rather the
white boys were envious to see the liberties granted the Indian boys
and how they were permitted to roam any place at pleasure, never having
any chores to do.
Robert Ellis understood more or less of the Indian jargon, and still
speaks of his many escapades among the Sioux, the Winnebago, and the
Sac and Fox. At one time, about 1839, some 300 Winnebagoes were camped
on what is known as McCloud's Run. It was late in the fall and very
cold; word came in the night that the Sioux were coming to exterminate
the tribe. At once they broke camp and forded the river near the mill
dam, first getting the women and children across. The white settlers
were frightened. By nine o'clock the next morning the camps were up on
the west side of the river and the gay young bucks had brought in
thirty-eight deer which had been shot during the early morning, which
were served to the hungry lot who had worked all night. While the Sioux
had been in the neighborhood no attack was made upon the Winnebagoes at
this time.
Mr. Ellis also relates that he and two friends camped one night on the
Cedar above Waterloo, where they were hunting. One morning in
mid-winter a party of Sioux came to the cabin. They could do nothing
but invite the Red Men in and offer them provisions and anything they
had. While the Indians kicked against the whites killing their game,
the friendliness of the whites seemed to satisfy them, and they left
their new found friends in possession of their camps. After this
discovery by the Sioux Mr. Ellis and his friends made a hasty retreat,
not wanting to meet their dusky companions again when they might return
in larger numbers.
Mr. Ellis relates another incident of his life among the Indians. He
came to an Indian camp near Quasqueton on his way to Ft. Atkinson and
had to spend the night in the camp. Unfortunately nearly all of the
Indians were drunk and insisted on killing every one. The squaws, who
were sober, and a few of the old men, got Mr. Ellis to help, and all
the drunken bucks were tied so they could scarcely move. Mr. Ellis then
retired, and in the morning all were sober and untied, and then the
squaws and the old men who had been sober started in to get gloriously
drunk. Mr. Ellis wanted to hire an Indian to show him the way to West
Union, but the Indian shrugged his shoulders and replied, "wolf eaty
you." Mr. Ellis started out alone afoot over the snow covered prairie
on a cold winter day and finally reached a cabin late at night, nearly
overcome from cold. He still believes he would have perished if it had
not been for the words of the old Indian which kept ringing in his ears
all day and which added courage to his exhausted spirits.
At one time a large number of Muskwaki Indians were camping near Indian
creek, and as the winter was severe and snow deep the Indians were out
of food. They came to the home of Susan Doty, who gave them the best
and only thing she had--hominy--which she warmed on the fire and gave
to the Red Men, who expressed their thanks by grunting and continually
asking for more, till the entire supply was exhausted. From that time,
when the Indians returned from the hunt with a deer or two Mrs. Doty
was always remembered with a good share of game.
When the Indians lost ponies they would go to the old settlers like
Usher, N. B. Brown, the Hunters, Oxleys, or Dotys, asking them to
assist in catching the thieves. One day Usher and Brown came to Doty's
with an Indian chief who had lost his pony. Hunter was also called in,
and off the party started in pursuit of the horsethief, who was caught
near Viola and who made himself scarce at once, for he was branded as
an outlaw by the Indians, who would shoot him at sight. The Indian was
more than happy in getting back his pony. These men who were willing to
help the Indians were sure to get anything they cared for which could
be procured by the red brother. A white man who would help an Indian to
recover stolen property was forever a friend of the Indians of the
tribe.
The Indians in Linn county during the thirties and forties dressed in
skins, lived in tepees, and owned ponies; all wore government blankets
and had guns, also procured from the government. The men and women
dressed much the same. The women carried home the game, looked after
the tepee, made maple sugar, which was traded to the whites for sugar,
flour, and woolen goods. Flour especially was much relished by the
Indians. The localities much frequented by the Indians were along the
Red Cedar and Wapsie rivers, Cedar lake, Indian creek, the Palisades,
Linn Grove, Scotch Grove, and Prairie creek. In these places they would
remain for weeks at a time, when they would all pull up and leave on
some hunting trip, not returning till in the fall or spring of the
year. Where they went to no one knew, and where they came from no one
inquired. But the Red Men in early days in this county were all treated
with due courtesy by the whites, who, in turn, were spared by the
Indians. The best of feeling always existed among the whites and
Indians.
The Sioux very seldom came into this part of Iowa. William Abbe and
Robert Ellis were the agents for the government in supplying the
Winnebago Indians at Ft. Atkinson with food, thus these men were well
acquainted with the Winnebagoes, who, in turn, were on terms of
friendship with the Sacs and Foxes. The Winnebagoes, like the other
tribes, became addicted to the use of fire water to such an extent that
they would sell their guns and ammunition for whiskey. One of the early
experiences of W. H. Merritt as a young store keeper at Ivanhoe was to
clean out the store single-handed of a crowd of drunken Indians who
intended to take possession of the store for a sufficient length of
time at least till they could consume the large quantity of whiskey
stored therein, but they had not figured on the courage of the young
man who later distinguished himself during the Civil war. Young Mr.
Merritt drove out the intruders and saved the store, as well as the
property of the company for which he worked.
Many of the old settlers tell stories of the quantity and variety of
food these wandering tribes of Indians were capable of consuming, which
seemed to be beyond the comprehension of the white man. Mr. Ellis
relates how he and William Abbe were notified to forthwith procure beef
cattle for an Indian conference at Ft. Atkinson. These men promptly
drove a large number of young cattle to Ft. Atkinson from Linn county,
and the Indians consumed in a very short time rations which were
expected to have lasted for several weeks.
Others have left records of straggling bands of Indians who were fed at
some pioneer cabin and consumed quantities of food at a sitting several
times more than the ordinary white man could eat in a week. But then it
must be remembered that these Indians did not have their regular meals
three times a day, by any means. They seemed to go for days and for a
week without eating much of anything, and when a feast was set before
them they did full justice to the repast.
The Indians had an abnormal fondness for sweets. The making of maple
sugar, especially in Wisconsin, had been one of the industries of the
aborigines; a little was always made in Iowa. The season for sugar
making came when the first crow appeared; this occurred about the first
of March, while there was yet snow on the ground. As a substitute for
sugar the Indians were very fond of honey, and it was said by the early
settlers that the squaws could smell a bee tree further than anyone
else. These bee trees were claimed by the Indians, and woe to the white
man's son who by stealth or otherwise would encroach upon the Indian's
rights in this regard.
While the Indians were called cruel and merciless during the Black Hawk
war and later, the pioneers of Linn county found them friendly,
hospitable, devoted and loyal friends. Many instances have been cited
how the Red Men risked their own lives even to assist their white
friends. While they never forgave an injury, they never forgot a deed
of kindness.
[Illustration: A SCENE ON THE CEDAR RIVER AT CEDAR RAPIDS IN THE
FIFTIES]
[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF ISAAC CARROLL IN 1839]
CHAPTER III
_Iowa Historically_
We take the liberty of quoting here a chapter from "The Louisiana
Purchase," by C. M. Geer, in _The History of North America_, Vol. VIII,
edited by Guy Carleton Lee, and published by George Barrie & Sons,
Philadelphia, 1904. It gives in brief space the more important
historical facts connected with the formation of the State.
"The governmental experiences of Iowa before its admission
into the Union as a State were many and varied. Its
discoverers were the missionary priest Jacques Marquette and
the explorer Louis Joliet, who were living at St. Mary's,
the oldest settlement in the present State of Michigan. On
May 13, 1673, with five Canadian boatmen, these two men left
on an exploring expedition, and on June 25, 1673, landed
near the mouth of Des Moines River.[B] By right of discovery
France claimed jurisdiction over the country thus visited
until 1763, when the Territory was ceded to Spain. On
October 1, 1800, it was ceded with the rest of Louisiana
Territory from Spain back to France. On the 30th of April,
1803, it was in turn ceded to the United States by France as
a part of the Louisiana Purchase.
"These changes of government had little effect upon what was
to constitute the future State of Iowa, because the Indians
remained in almost undisputed possession. Although
discovered and claimed by France in 1673, no attempt at
settlement was made until 1788, when Julian Dubuque, a
Canadian, obtained from Blondeau and two other Indian chiefs
a grant of lands. This claim was twenty-one miles long and
extended from the Mississippi westward nine miles. The grant
was confirmed, in a qualified way, by Carondelet, Spanish
governor at New Orleans. Dubuque engaged in mining and
trading with the Indians, making his headquarters at the
place which now bears his name. The question of the validity
of his claim to this great tract of land came before the
United States Supreme Court in 1854, and the decision of
that body was that his grant was only a temporary license to
dig ore.
"In 1799, a trading post was established on the Mississippi
within the present territory of Iowa. This settlement and
the one at Dubuque were abandoned, so that Iowa was
practically an unknown and undesired country at the time
when it came under the control of the United States in 1803.
It was at that time Indian territory, occupied by the Sacs,
Foxes, and Iowas, with the still more warlike Sioux on the
north and east.
"On the 31st of October, 1803, a temporary government was
authorized for the recently acquired territory. By Act of
Congress, approved March 26, 1803, Louisiana was erected
into two Territories and provision made for the
administration of each. The upper part was known as the
District of Louisiana and included Arkansas, Missouri, and
Iowa. This was placed temporarily under the jurisdiction of
the Territory of Indiana. On July 4, 1805, all this northern
district became the Territory of Louisiana, with a separate
Territorial government. The legislative power was vested in
the governor and three judges to be appointed by the
President and Senate. This condition continued until
December 7, 1812, when the Territory of Louisiana became the
Territory of Missouri. In 1821, Missouri was admitted into
the Union, and this admission of Missouri carried with it
the abolition of the government of Missouri Territory, so
that for a time Iowa was without any government. It is a
question how much law remained in force in Iowa after the
admission of Missouri. It is probable that the only civil
law in force was the proviso of the Missouri bill, which
prohibited slavery north of thirty-six degrees thirty
minutes north latitude. No provision was made for that
portion of the Territory of Missouri until June 28, 1834,
when Congress attached the present State of Iowa, together
with other territory, to the Territory of Michigan.
"On July 3, 1836, it was included in the newly organized
Territory of Wisconsin. On June 12, 1838, the Territory of
Iowa was constituted by Act of Congress. This Territory
included 'all that part of the present Territory of
Wisconsin which lies west of Mississippi River and west of a
line due north from the sources or headwaters of the
Mississippi to the territorial line.'
"From the time of the purchase in 1803 up to the date of the
organization of the Territory in 1838 there had been a
gradual increase in the knowledge of this land and a growing
appreciation of its value. There had been parties of hunters
and trappers who made temporary settlements on the banks of
the Mississippi in the period from 1820 to 1830. It was not
till steam navigation was established on the Mississippi
that there grew up a demand for Iowa lands. Southeastern
Illinois and northwestern Missouri were settled and the
pioneers naturally looked to the equally desirable lands in
Iowa. Various exploring expeditions also contributed to a
desire to settle in the territory. Lewis and Clark added to
the knowledge of its western borders by their expedition in
1805. Pike in the same year traversed another part of the
Territory, and these explorers brought back accounts of its
great fertility and of its desirability for settlement.
"The government established a broad strip of neutral ground
between the Sioux in the north and the Sacs and Foxes in the
south to keep these tribes at peace, and in 1830 acquired
lands on the Missouri to be used as Indian reservations.
Here and there in the Iowa Territory were white men who had
gained the friendship of the Indians and lived with them.
There were trading posts of the American Fur Company and
miners at Dubuque, who were licensed by the government to
work at that point. Iowa remained the home of the Indians
until the close of the Black Hawk War, when General Winfield
Scott, on September 15, 1832, concluded a treaty of peace
with the Sacs and Foxes, by which the Indian title was
extinguished to that part of land known as the Black Hawk
Purchase. This was the eastern part of Iowa and extended
along the Mississippi, from Missouri on the south to the
'Neutral Grounds' on the north, and westward a distance of
fifty miles. It contained about six million acres and was to
be surrendered by the Indians on June 1, 1833. This gave the
first opportunity for the legal settlement of Iowa by
citizens of the United States.
"June 1, 1833, was fixed as the day on which the Indians
were to be removed from the Black Hawk Purchase and the
lands opened for settlement. The would-be settlers came in
large numbers to the banks of the Mississippi, ready to
cross and get the choice of the land. United States troops
kept guard on the western shore of the river and prevented
any persons from entering the Purchase before the appointed
time. At precisely twelve o'clock, midnight, June 1st, there
was a wild rush of settlers from East and South and the
settlement of Iowa was begun.
"There was a rapid increase in population until the separate
Territorial government was established, June 12, 1838. The
first capital was Burlington, and the place of meeting of
the legislature was in a church. Robert Lucas was appointed
Territorial Governor, and William B. Conway, Secretary. The
Territorial Legislature met on November 12, 1838.
Burlington continued to be the seat of Territorial
government till 1841, when Iowa City became the capital.
"The Territory of Iowa had a heated dispute with the State
of Missouri over the boundary line between the two.
Missouri's northern boundary was the parallel of latitude
passing through the rapids of the river Des Moines. There
were two rapids, eight or ten miles apart, and the dispute
was as to which of these was meant, Missouri insisting upon
the northern and Iowa on the southern one. Each government
tried to enforce its authority. In the attempt to do this,
Governor Boggs, of Missouri, called out the militia; then
Governor Lucas, of Iowa, called out his soldiers. Five
hundred men were under arms. On the petitions of Iowa and
Missouri, Congress authorized a suit to settle the
controversy, which resulted in a decision favorable to Iowa.
"Further treaties were made with the Indians by which
additional land was gained for settlement. A large tract of
land was opened to settlers on May 1, 1843, and on the
preceding night there was a rush of land seekers similar to
that which had occurred ten years before; over a thousand
families settled in the newly opened lands within twelve
hours.
"The very rapid increase in population led to a demand for
statehood. On July 31, 1840, the Territorial Legislature
passed an Act by which it called for a vote of the people on
the question of assembling a constitutional convention. In
August the vote was taken, resulting in the defeat of the
proposition by a vote of two thousand nine hundred and seven
to nine hundred and thirty-seven. Another vote was taken in
1842, resulting in the same way, but on February 12, 1844,
the suggestion of a constitutional convention met the
approval of the majority of the electors, and without
waiting for a Federal Enabling Act a Constitution was
adopted by a convention which met at Iowa City, October 7,
1844, and finished its work November 1st of the same year.
This Constitution was submitted to Congress by the
Territorial delegate.
"Here again there was the effort to balance a northern and
southern State. Maine had been admitted into the Union in
1820, and Missouri in 1821; Arkansas in 1836, and Michigan
in the next year. Now, it was proposed to admit Florida with
Iowa. At this time Florida was much below the required
population. The Congressional debate on the subject was a
long and interesting one and brought out clearly the growing
jealousy between North and South. This feeling was
especially strong at this time because of the probability
that several southern slaveholding States might be formed
from Texas.
"There was furthermore a dispute of considerable importance
over the general boundary of Iowa. The Constitution
submitted to Congress by the Territorial delegate provided
that the boundary should be as follows: 'Beginning in the
middle of the main channel of Mississippi River opposite the
mouth of Des Moines River; thence up the said River Des
Moines in the middle of the main channel thereof, to a point
where it is intersected by the old Indian boundary line, or
line run by John C. Sullivan in the year 1816; thence
westwardly along said line to the old northwest corner of
Missouri; thence due west to the middle of the main channel
of Missouri River; thence up in the middle of the main
channel of the river last mentioned to the mouth of Sioux or
Calumet River; thence in a direct line to the middle of the
main channel of St. Peter's River, where Watonwan River
(according to Nicollet's map) enters the same; thence down
the middle of the main channel of said river to the middle
to the main channel of Mississippi River; thence down the
middle of the main channel of said river to the place of
beginning.'
"An amendment was proposed in Congress which substituted the
following in place of the boundary as given above:
'Beginning in the middle of St. Peter's River, at the
junction of Watonwan or Blue Earth River; with the said
River St. Peter's running thence due east to the boundary
line of the Territory of Wisconsin in the middle of
Mississippi River; thence down the middle of the last-named
river with the boundary line of the Territory of Wisconsin
and state of Illinois to the northeast corner of the state
of Missouri in the said River Mississippi; thence westwardly
with the boundary line of said State of Missouri to a point
due south from the place of beginning; thence due north to
the place of beginning in said St. Peter's River.'
"Of especial interest was the attitude taken by Samuel F.
Vinton, representative from Ohio, in regard to the admission
of Iowa. He believed that the Western States should be small
in area in order that the West might not be deprived of its
share in the government of the nation. It seemed to him that
the policy so far pursued in the West had been wrong because
the States were so large that they were sure to contain two
or three times as large a population as the Atlantic States.
There was at the time a provision under consideration that
Florida might be divided, when either East or West Florida
should contain a population of thirty-five thousand. Vinton
contended that if Florida was to be divided, there should be
a provision for dividing Iowa, because it was safer to give
political power to the West than to the Atlantic States, for
the West was the great conservative power of the Union. He
stated that though the spirit of disunion might exist in the
North and in the South, it could not live in the West,
because the interests of the West were inseparably connected
with both, and it would hold the two sections together,
because it had no prejudice against either North or South
and, what was of greater importance, the West was a grain
growing country, and so must look equally to the
manufacturing North and the cotton growing South for its
market. Therefore the West must be conservative whether it
wished to be or not. Vinton believed that instead of five
there should have been at least twelve States in the old
Northwest, and that to partly offset this injustice, small
States should be formed west of the Mississippi. After
considerable debate in the House, the bill for the admission
of Iowa passed that body and was transmitted to the Senate,
which it passed March 3, 1845.
"After a vote for admission, the constitution was submitted
to the people of Iowa, who made serious objections to it.
One objection was directed against the small salaries to be
paid, which, it was feared, would result in getting only
inferior men for official positions. The restrictions on
banks and corporations proved an unpopular feature. The
limitation placed upon the extent of territory claimed by
Iowa was unsatisfactory to many, though the State would
still have an area of forty-four thousand three hundred
square miles. This reduction of area was the greatest
objection, so that when the vote was taken many who were in
favor of statehood voted against forming a state of such
reduced area, and the Constitution was rejected by a vote of
seven thousand and nineteen to six thousand and
twenty-three.
"The governor called a special session of the legislature,
and a bill for the re-submission of the constitution was
passed over his veto. This was defeated by the people in
August, 1845. On January 17, 1846, an Act was passed which
provided for a new constitutional convention. This body came
together in May and adopted a new constitution which did not
differ greatly from the earlier instrument. The boundaries
given in it were a compromise between those originally asked
by the people and those granted by Congress. The matter was
actively discussed in Congress when the new constitution
with the changed boundaries came before that body, but the
arguments were essentially the same as those previously
advanced. An exciting campaign followed in Iowa, and the
constitution was adopted, August 3, 1846, by a small
majority. On the 4th of August the president signed the bill
which settled the boundary question in accordance with the
second constitution, and an Act was passed December 28,
1846, by which Iowa was admitted into the Union."
[Illustration: AN EARLY LAND DEED FROM THE U. S. GOVERNMENT]
CHAPTER IV
_Iowa and Her People_
"In all that is good Iowa affords the best."
Thus a few years ago wrote one of our state's most distinguished
citizens.[C]
And his utterance found a ready response in the hearts of the men and
women of our fair land, so that today the expression is an axiom. Every
Iowan believes firmly in its truth.
There is no fairer land under the benevolent sun. Here plenty reigns,
and prosperity has her home. Cheerful industry has redeemed the land
that once was the home of wild animals and untamed savages. Iowa's
waving corn fields; her meadows of luxuriant grass; her hills dotted
with magnificent houses and barns; her landscape made more picturesque
by the presence of fattening herds; her school houses and higher
centers of learning on almost every hill; the smoke from the busy
industries of her thriving cities and villages; her soil the most
fertile of any known; her waste land less than that of any other equal
area; her percentage of illiteracy the lowest; her mineral resources
abundant; her numerous streams affording water power inferior to
none--all these things and more rightly tend to make Iowans proud of
their State.
Now, as a half century ago, Iowa offers "to the lawloving and the
temperate; to the enterprising, the vigorous, the ambitious, a home and
a field worthy of their noblest efforts."[D] She throws open to the
world her exhaustless stores of wealth, her golden opportunities, and
says: "Behold your reward."
N. H. Parker, writing more than a half century ago, drew this glowing
picture of the future Iowa:
"As the immigrant mother leads her sons and daughters into
the undeveloped paths of wealth--as civilization elevates a
race out of the sloughs of semi-barbarism--as national
prosperity exalts a land--or as science raises the human
intellect from darkness into dazzling light--thus Iowa, with
rapid strides, ascends the precipitious sides of
prosperity's mountain range, bearing her sons and daughters
to loftier, and still loftier peaks, and revealing to their
gaze still wider and richer vistas. And the summit of this
range she will never reach; for her onward progress cannot
be stayed, until her arterial streams are dry--until the
agricultural life-blood in her veins has ceased to flow,
until her great metallic heart has been emptied. Upon the
topmost summit, then, Iowa will never stand, for through
countless ages yet to come, her progress--that must be
forever onward--must be upward also."[E]
The people of Iowa do not stand still. Not satisfied with present
achievements, they go forward, doing well to-day the tasks that
are theirs, and striving earnestly to make the future better and
more glorious than the past.
We can not do better here than by quoting a toast to the future of Iowa
given some years ago by O. J. Laylander, a loyal son of the state:
"In the few minutes allotted to this toast scant justice may
be awarded so worthy a theme. We love you, O Iowa, lusty
child, resting in the mighty arms of the Missouri and the
Father of Waters, laughing beneath the warm kisses and the
love tears of gentle May; crying aloud to all the world:
'See how I grow! How strong I am! How happy and healthy and
beautiful!'
"Iowa is glorious now. The great, green carpets, fresh from
the springtime cleaning, shimmer in the glorious sun. The
broad, black belts of loam await with open pockets the
hiding of the golden grain. Living, glowing mines of gold
stud the prairies' endless velvet folds. The countless
castles of the farm are bound into great bundles by the
sounding wire. Above every door that opens upon honest toil
is inscribed in letters of gold the motto, 'Rich, rich,
rich.'
"Such is Iowa today in its wealth of land and stock. Each
year the unfailing field fills the bins to bursting and
grows the meat for millions.
"Material Iowa, with great leaps, has gone forward in the
world's race. Manifest destiny was misread by even the
wisest of our grandfathers. Even thirty years ago no prophet
dared choose the gorgeous hues necessary to a true picture
of the Iowa of to-day.
"Yet not alone in industrial lines has Iowa set the pace for
the states. In politics she has crowded New England off the
stage, and bold Ohio sits quietly at her feet. In literature
and in arts she stands unashamed. Comfort and culture walk
hand in hand, and happiness is a perennial contagion.
"Some fifty years ago there came to Iowa a sturdy boy. Today
he calls his own one thousand billowy acres which have risen
in value in steps of ten until one hundred thousand dollars
would not tempt him to yield his title. One June afternoon
he sat on his piazza in sweet reverie. He reviewed the
wonderful development of the grand old state, and sent his
imagination in search of greater possibilities. From the
hedge the thrush poured forth a song of love. The humming
bees thrust their honeyed tongues into the flowers on the
trellis at his side. The south wind was heavy with fragrance
brushed from the blooming bushes. All nature conspired to
steal the old man's senses and soon reverie gave way to
sleep and dreams, and this, they say, was the dream: He
dreamed that it was the year nineteen hundred and forty-one,
and he was celebrating his hundredth birthday. He had seen
comfort and culture become as common as the summer sun.
Literature and art had countless country devotees. People
had ceased to hurry, and worry was unknown: and then he
dreamed that he died, and sought admission at the golden
gate. To his amazement he was halted and informed that he
was at the wrong place. Greatly grieved, he parleyed with
the guard: 'I never wittingly did a human soul a wrong. I
was rich, but it was not my fault. Why must I, who have
always tried to do my duty, go to hell?' 'No one said
anything about hell,' was the reply. 'To the annex--the
second gate to the right. You Iowa people complain so much
about celestial conditions and make so many comparisons with
Iowa that we have concluded to colonize you a few thousand
years and send you all back to Iowa.'
"That the future of Iowa shall be such that if you shall not
wish to come back, you shall at least wish to stay as long
as possible, is my sincere desire."[F]
Calhoun made the assertion on the floor of the United States Senate
that he had been told that "the Iowa country has been seized upon by a
lawless body of armed men." Senator Ewing, of Ohio, and Senator Clay,
of Kentucky, had received similar information, the former asserting
that he would in no way object to giving each rascal who crossed the
Mississippi to the westward one thousand dollars if by that means he
might get rid of him. And these distinguished statesmen were not alone
in this view. To many in the east the first comers to the territory
were "land robbers," "idle and profligate characters," "fugitives from
justice," "lawless intruders," and worse. They were squatters "who
feared neither the laws of God nor man."
Doubtless those who made these assertions were honest and sincere. They
believed that only the most desperate characters, the outcasts of
decent communities, had the hardihood to explore this _terra
incognita_. They could not comprehend how persons living in settled
communities, and surrounded with many of the comforts of life, could be
so fool-hardy as to leave all these things for the sake of making a new
home in a wilderness inhabited only by wild animals and wilder and more
dangerous Indians.
But there is another side to the picture. Personal observation is
always more to be depended upon than hearsay testimony. One of the most
trust-worthy of the early writers on Iowa is Lieut. Albert Miller Lea.
He had spent some years in the "Ioway District"; he had made a tour of
observation across the state; he had most excellent opportunities for
observing and studying the character of our first settlers. His
testimony cannot be impeached, for he was a man far above the practice
of deceit. In his _Notes on the Wisconsin Territory_, particularly with
reference to the Iowa District or Black Hawk Purchase, published in
1836, he gives this vivid and truthful picture of our early
inhabitants:
"The character of this population is such as is rarely to be
found in our newly acquired territories. With very few
exceptions, there is not a more orderly, industrious,
active, pains-taking population west of the Alleghenies,
than is this of the Iowa District. Those who have been
accustomed to associate the name of _Squatter_ with the idea
of idleness and recklessness, would be quite surprised to
see the systematic manner in which every thing is here
conducted. For intelligence, I boldly assert that they are
not surpassed, as a body, by an equal number of citizens of
any country in the world.
"It is a matter of surprise that, about the Mining Region,
there should be so little of the recklessness that is usual
in that sort of life.... This regularity and propriety is to
be attributed to the preponderance of well informed and
well-intentioned gentlemen among them, as well as to the
disposition of the mass of the people."[G]
Two years later another personal observer says: "He who supposes that
settlers ... who are now building upon, fencing and cultivating the
lands of the government are lawless depredators, devoid of the sense of
moral honesty, or that they are not in every sense as estimable
citizens, with as much intelligence, regard for law and social order,
for public justice and private rights ... as the farmers and yeomen of
New York and Pennsylvania ... has been led astray by vague and
unfounded notions, or by positively false information."[H]
These people knew the pioneers, and their testimony is entitled to
credence. As a class even the "Squatters" were not idle, or vicious, or
ignorant. They were young men, strong and hardy, full of courage and
adventure. "There was not a better population on the face of the
earth," is the testimony of Senator Benton. "They made roads," says
Prof. B. F. Shambaugh, superintendent of the Iowa State Historical
Society, "built bridges and mills, cleared the forests, broke the
prairies, erected houses and barns, and defended the settled country
against hostile Indians. They were distinguished especially for their
general intelligence, their hospitality, their independence and bold
enterprise. They had schools and school houses, erected churches, and
observed the Sabbath.... The pioneers were religious, but not
ecclesiastical. They lived in the open and looked upon the relations of
man to nature with an open mind. To be sure their thoughts were more on
'getting along' in this world than upon the 'immortal crown' of the
Puritan. And yet in the silent forest, in the broad prairie, in the
deep blue sky, in the sentinels of the night, in the sunshine and in
the storm, in the rosy dawn, in the golden sunset, and in the daily
trials and battles of frontier life, they too must have seen and felt
the Infinite."[I]
No greater tribute has ever been paid to the pioneers of our state than
that given by a distinguished native of the state, Hon. Robert G.
Cousins, on Iowa Day at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha on
Sept. 21, 1898. The following extracts from that masterly oration are
worthy of preservation here:
"I have asked five of the ablest and most noted Americans
what they regard as the chief thing or leading feature of
the Trans-Mississippi region and they have invariably
answered, 'Its men and women.' The other day I met one of
the oldest settlers of eastern Iowa--one of those original,
rugged characters whose wit and wisdom have lightened the
settlers' hearts and homes for many a toilsome year--one of
those interesting characters who never bores you and whom
one always likes to meet--a man whose head is silvered and
whose countenance is kind--and I asked him what he regarded
as the principal feature of our Trans-Mississippi country,
and he replied: 'Well, I'm no scholar, but I've been round
here nigh onto sixty years and I reckon 'bout the most
important thing is the folks and the farms.'
"Iowa became a separate territory, with the capital at
Burlington, in 1838, and was admitted into the Union in
1846, and has been in it ever since. It makes little
difference whether it was first settled by the whites at
Dubuque for mining purposes in 1788, or, for trading
purposes, at Montrose, in 1799, or opposite Prairie du
Chien, in 1804 or 5, or in Lee county at Sandusky in 1820,
or on the lower rapids at what is now known as Nashville, in
1829; or whether the first settlements for general purposes
were made at Burlington and Davenport in 1832. The main fact
is that it was well settled--not by dyspeptic tourists nor
by invalids who had come west out of curiosity and New
Jersey, nor by climate seeking dilettanti with two servants
and one lung--but by the best bone and sinew of the middle
states, New England and the old world. I do not know that
there were any dukes or lords or marquises or duchesses, but
there were Dutch and Irish and Scotch and Scotch-Irish and
English and Americans, and they had home rule right from the
start--at least they had it in the first school which I
attended. The men and women who settled the Hawkeye state
were not those who expected to go back 'in the fall,' or as
soon as they could prove up on their claims. They were
stayers. They were not men to be discouraged by winter or by
work. They were men who knew that nobody ever amounted to
much in this world unless he had to. Most of them began
simply with the capital of honesty, good health and their
inherent qualities of character. They built their cabins in
the clearings and, watching the smoke curl up in the great,
wide sky, felt just as patriotic for their humble rustic
homes as e'er did princes for their castles or millionaires
for mansions grand.
"To build a home is a great thing. It doesn't matter so much
about the dimensions. 'Kings have lived in cottages and
pygmies dwelt in palaces,' but the walls of a home always
add something to inherent character. In the formation of
character there are always two elements, the inherent and
the adventitious--that which we bring with us into the world
and that which our surroundings give us. Somebody said
'there is only a small portion of the earth that produces
splendid people.' Our pioneers got into a good place. They
had left doubt sitting on a boulder in the east and packed
their things and started for the west. Rivers had to be
forded, trees to be felled, cabins had to be built--the
rifle must be kept loaded--so much the better, there was
self-reliance. Corn and coffee had to be ground, and on the
same mill--so much the better, there was ingenuity. Teeth
had to be filled, and there was no painless dentistry.
Disease and injury must be dealt with, and the doctor fifty
miles away. Life must be lightened, lonely hearts must be
cheered, and the old friends and comrades far back in the
states or maybe away in fatherland, and the cheering letter
tarrying with the belated stage coach--hold fast, thou
sturdy denizen and gentle helpmate of the rich and wondrous
empire, infinite goodness guards thee and the fertile fields
are ready to reward.
[Illustration: SHEPHERD'S TAVERN Erected in 1838, Looking West. The
First House in Cedar Rapids. Present Site of Y. M. C. A. COURTESY
CARROLL'S HISTORY]
"Ah, pampered people of the later generations, when you
imagine modern hardships, think of the courage and the
trials and the ingenuity of pioneers when there were no
conveniences but the forest and the axe, the wide rolling
prairie and the ox team, the great blue sky, the unsolved
future and the annual ague! Complain of markets in these
modern times and then think of your grandmother when she was
a blooming bride, listening through the toilsome days and
anxious nights for the wagon bringing home the husband from
a distant market with calico and jeans purchased with
dressed pork sold at a dollar and a half a hundred, and
maybe bringing home a little money, worth far less per yard
than either calico or jeans. Maybe it is all for the best,
human character was being formed for the development of a
great and loyal and progressive state to shine forever among
the stars of the federal union....
"Civil government in Iowa proceeded with its rapid
settlement. The pioneer became a model citizen. He knew the
necessity for the laws that were enacted. He did not feel
oppressed by government. He had experienced the losses of
robbery and larceny and knew something of the embarrassment
and inconvenience of being scalped. There was no hysteria
about trusts and combines because they had practiced
combinations themselves for mutual protection. If any one
would learn the true genius and exemplification and
philosophy of self-government, government of and for and by
the people, let him study the records of pioneer life, the
institutional beginnings, and the evolution of their laws.
It would be worth our while on some suitable occasion when
time permitted to talk over the interesting incidents
attending the administration of justice in the early days of
Iowa, the incidents of its territorial legislatures, the
birth and growth of its statehood and the character of its
officials. But the greatness of our state is not contained
in any name. Its official history is the exponent of its
industrial life and character. Its greatness is the sum
total of its citizenship. In order to be just, John Jones,
the average citizen, must be mentioned along with our most
illustrious officials. Somebody said that the history of a
nation is the history of its great men, but there is an
unwritten history which that averment overlooks. The growth
of a state is the progress of its average citizen. The
credit of a commonwealth is the thrift of its John Jones and
its William Smith, and the character, prosperity and
patriotism of the individual citizen is the history of Iowa.
"The population of 97,000 which she had when admitted into
the union had increased to 754,699 at the close of the Civil
war. Of these about 70,000, almost one-tenth of the
population, were in the war--a number equal to nearly
one-half of the voters of the state. Who made the history of
Iowa during that great struggle of our nation's life? John
Jones, the average citizen, whether he carried a musket
helping to put the scattered stars of state back into the
constellation of the Union, or whether he toiled from early
dawn to lingering twilight in the fields or in the shop. The
best civilization is that which maintains the highest
standard of life for its average citizen.
"Since the Civil war the state of Iowa has increased in
population to almost 2,225,000 of people, and most of the
time has had the least illiteracy of any state in the Union.
Doubtless for that we are indebted to many of the older
states, whose enterprising and courageous citizens
constitute so large a portion of our population. With but a
century of statehood and with an area of but 55,475 square
miles, the state of Iowa produces the greatest quantity of
cereals of any state in the Union. As long ago as the last
federal census, taken in 1890, it produced more corn, more
oats, more beef, more pork than any state in the Union. Not
long since I was introduced to a gentleman from New York
city. He said, 'Oh, from Iowa--ah--let me see, that's
out--ah--you see, I'm not very well posted on the geography
of the west.' 'Yes,' I said, 'it's out there just across the
Mississippi river. You can leave New York about noon and get
your supper in Iowa the next evening. It might be worth your
while to look it up. It's the state which produces more of
the things which people eat than any other state in the
Union. It has more miles of railroads than your state of New
York, more than Mexico, more than Brazil and more than all
the New England states combined.'
"The value of Iowa's agricultural products and live stock in
round numbers for the year 1892 was $407,000,000, to say
nothing of her other great and various industries and
enterprises. She produced that year 160,000,000 pounds of
the best butter on earth of the value of $32,000,000. The
Hawkeye butter ladle has achieved a cunning that challenges
all Columbia. The Iowa cow has slowly and painfully yet
gradually and grandly worked her way upward to a shining
eminence in the eyes of the world. The state of Iowa has on
her soil today, if nothing ill befalls it, ninety million
dollars' worth of corn. The permanent value of land is
estimated by its corn-producing qualities. Of all the
products of the earth, corn is king and it reigns in Iowa.
"Industry and nature have made the state of Iowa a creditor.
Her soil has always been solvent and her system of farming
does not tend to pauperize. She is a constant seller and
therefore wants the evidence of the transaction to be
unimpeachable. She has more school teachers than any other
state except the Empire state and only three and six-tenths
per cent of her population are illiterates. The state of
Iowa has yielded the greatest dividends on her educational
investments. She has become illustrious on account of her
enlightenment. She has progressed further from 'primitive
indifferent tissue' than the land even of Darwin himself,
and in her escape from protoplasm and prejudice she is
practically out of danger. Marked out in the beginning by
the hand of God, bounded on the east and west by the two
great rivers of the continent, purified and stimulated by
the snows of winter, blessed with copious rainfall in the
growing season, with generous soil and stately forests
interspersed, no wonder that the dusky aborigines exclaimed
when they crossed the Father of Waters, 'Iowa, this is the
place!' Not only did the red men give our state its
beautiful and poetic name, but Indian nomenclature runs like
a romance throughout the counties and communities. What
infinite meaning, what tokens of joy and sadness, of triumph
and of tears, of valor and of vanquishment, of life and love
and song there may be in these weird, strange words that
name to-day so many of our towns and streams and counties:
Allamakee, Chickasaw, Dakota City, Sioux, Pocahontas,
Winneshiek, Keosauqua, Sac, Winnebago, Tama, Nodawa,
Competine, Chariton, Comanche, Cherokee, Waukon,
Muchakinock, Washta, Monona, Waupeton, Onawa, Keota,
Waudina, Ioka, Ottumwa, Oneska, Waukee, Waucoma,
Nishnabotna, Keokuk, Decorah, Wapello, Muscatine, Maquoketa,
Mahaska, Ocheyedan, Mississippi, Appanoose, Missouri,
Quasqueton, Anamosa, Poweshiek, Pottawattamie, Osceola,
Oskaloosa, Wapsipinicon.
"Ere long some westland genius, moved by the mystic
inspiration of the rich and wondrous heritage of Iowa
nativity, may sing the song of our legends and traditions,
may voice in verse the wondrous story of his illustrious
state. Maybe somewhere among the humble homes where blood
and bone and brain grow pure and strong, where simple food
with frugal ways feeds wondering minds and drives them
craving into nature's secrets and her songs--somewhere along
the settler's pathway or by the Indian trail where now the
country churchyards grown with uncut grasses hide the forms
of sturdy ancestors sleeping all in peaceful ignorance of
wayward sons or wondrous progeny--somewhere where rising sun
beholds the peasantry at early toil and leaves them in the
mystic twilight ere their tasks are done, where odors of the
corn and new-mown hay and vine-clad hedges by the shadowy
roadside linger long into the night-time, as a sweet and
sacred balm for tired hearts--somewhere, sometime the song
of Iowa shall rise and live, and it will not omit the
thought of that gifted son who said: 'Iowa, the affections
of her people, like the rivers of her borders, flow to an
inseparable union.'"
CHAPTER V
_The Geology of Linn County_
BY WILLIAM HARMON NORTON, PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN CORNELL COLLEGE
It is said that a certain county in Kentucky, underlain by limestone,
always goes democratic; while a county adjacent, underlain by
sandstone, is as invariably republican. Certain it is that a deal of
politics, economics, and history depends at last analysis more or less
upon the processes past and present which belong to geology and
physiography. The rocks, the minerals they contain, and the water they
store, the hills and valleys into which they have been carved, and the
soils to which they weather, largely control the industries, locate the
cities, and outcrop even in the social, intellectual, and moral life of
the people. The metropolis of Linn county, for example, owes its name
and place to the rapids of the Cedar, and the rapids find ultimate
cause in the fact that some millions of years ago nature stopped laying
a softer rock upon the ocean bed and deposited upon it one of more
resistant texture. In the eastern part of the county the Chicago &
Northwestern Railway runs for very good and sufficient reasons where
once rested the edge of a long tongue of glacial ice, and west of Cedar
Rapids its route is determined by the course taken by the turbid floods
issuing from the melting glaciers. The streets of Mount Vernon and
several of the main highways of the county do not lie with the points
of the compass but follow the direction of flow of ancient ice-streams.
The distribution of forest and prairie is due to geologic causes. The
values of farm lands are markedly affected by the same influences, and
we can even point out a little area which differs from its surroundings
in its inhabitants and in their literacy, language, architecture,
manners, and morals, primarily because it belongs to what geologists
classify as the deeply dissected loess-covered Kansan drift sheet.
The inductive history of Linn county, reasoned out from what we have
learned of the lie of the land, the shapes of hills and valleys, the
soils and subsoils, and the underlying rocks, is a wonderfully long
one. The first chapter that has been opened to inspection in the
geologic record of our area is that of the deepest rocks probed by the
first deep well drilled at Cedar Rapids. At a depth of 2,150 feet from
the surface--1,417 feet below the level of the sea--the drill
encountered a hard red siliceous rock which may be taken as the
equivalent of the _Sioux Quartzite_, which comes to the surface at
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and at Baraboo, Wisconsin. This well known
building stone is used in a number of the business blocks and private
residences of Cedar Rapids, as for example in the old office building
of the _Republican_. Belonging to the Algonkian, an era so remote that
its age must be reckoned in scores if not in hundreds of millions of
years, the quartzite at the bottom of the deep well tells of time
inconceivably remote when Linn county was part of a wide sea floor on
which red sands were washed to and fro and finally laid to rest in
thick deposits of sandstone. Tilted and folded and hardened by
pressure, the Algonkian rocks were uplifted from the sea to form dry
land of mountainous heights. After the lapse of ages the old land sunk
beneath the sea, and again and again with intervals of uplift and
subaerial erosion there were laid upon it sea muds, impure limestones,
and thick sandstones during a long succession of geologic aeons.
Samples of these deposits can be seen in the well drillings preserved
in the Y. M. C. A. at Cedar Rapids and in the collections of Cornell
College. For many millions of years Linn county was thus sometimes land
and sometimes sea, but neither land nor sea was tenanted by aught but
the humblest of living creatures. These ancient deposits concern us
because they are the aqueducts by which artesian waters of purest
quality are brought to our doors from their sources far to the
northward in other states.
[Illustration: INDEPENDENCE SHALES on C., R. I. & P. Ry. below Cedar
Rapids]
[Illustration: BLUFF AT KENWOOD PARK]
[Illustration: EXPOSURE OF BRECCIATED LIMESTONE IN MILWAUKEE CUT AT
LINN JUNCTION]
[Illustration: "THE BLOW OUT," PALISADES]
[Illustration: A FIRST SETTLER, NEAR MT. VERNON]
[Illustration: PALISADES]
The most recent of the formations which are pierced by the drill, but
which do not come to the surface within the limits of the county, is
the _Maquoketa shale_, reached in the eastern townships at a depth of
somewhat more than 300 feet. This impervious bed of altered clay stops
the descent of ground water, which thus is stored in large quantities
in the overlying limestones and supplies some of the important wells of
the county such as that of the town of Mount Vernon. At the time when
these sea clays were laid, eastern Iowa was under sea, but so near was
the low lying land to the north and east that vast quantities of mud
were brought in by its rivers forming deposits nearly 300 feet in
thickness.
THE SILURIAN
With the lapse of ages physical conditions changed and Linn County was
covered with a warm shallow coral sea in which were laid the massive
limestones which now form the country rock in the eastern tier of
townships. In some of the quarries one may see the ripple marks into
which these coral sands were heaped by the pulse of the waves, and one
may pick out of the rocks casts and moulds of ancient sea shells,
corals, and trilobites, which formed the highest forms of life then
tenanting the Iowa seas.
The lowest beds of the Silurian belong to the _Hopkinton stage_, and
are exposed along the Buffalo. At Hill's mill and at Nugent's quarries
some layers are crowded with a characteristic fossil--a plump bivalve
shell as large as a walnut, which goes by the name of _Pentamerus
Oblongus_. The _Gower_ stage of the Silurian rests upon the Hopkinton
and embraces two types of rocks distinct in their appearance and uses.
The _LeClaire phase_ of the Gower is a hard, brittle, crystalline,
magnesian limestone, or dolomite. Normally blue-gray in color, it is
often oxidised to buff. It is well exposed at Viola and on the Cedar
river from the Cedar County line to a mile or so beyond the Upper
Palisades, southwest of Bertram. The LeClaire forms mounds in places
reaching fifty and even eighty or ninety feet in height in which little
semblance of bedding structures are to be seen. Here and there the rock
is conglomeratic, consisting of rounded masses of the rock cemented by
a less resistent matrix. The cavernous recess in the rock wall of the
Palisades, misnamed the Blowout, is due to the solution of the weaker
matrix and the dislodgement of the rounded masses. The rock may consist
also of angular broken blue-gray fragments in the matrix of a buff and
friable limestone sand. Again, the mounds, at least in part, may be
made up of massive limestone with little trace of structure of any
sort. On the sides of the mounds and merging into the conglomeratic or
other structures the rock of the LeClaire often is stratified and the
layers dip outward at angles surprisingly high. In places these tilted
layers may show sharp folds. The rock of all structures is
fossiliferous. Even the broken fragments of breccia are porous with
moulds of minute fossils which have been removed by solution. The
massive rock is largely made up in places of stems of crinoids--stone
lilies which grew in the greatest profusion in these quiet waters--and
the tilted layers may be made of casts and moulds of unbroken shells of
little bivalves. Occasionally the saucer shaped tail and head-shields
of a characteristic trilobite are found piled together and unbroken.
Coral are very common in this ancient reef rock, a form resembling
honeycomb being especially noticeable. And as one floats down stream
at the base of the cliffs he can hardly fail to notice large tapering
segmented shells, either straight or slightly curved, representatives
of the cephalopod mollusks.
The picturesque rock walls of the Palisades, which rise perpendicular
for as much as ninety feet from the water's edge, are due primarily to
the great resistance of the LeClaire rock, due to its chemical
composition--for dolomite weathers far less rapidly than a
non-magnesian limestone--and to the fewness of those planes of weakness
called joint-planes. The joints of the LeClaire are distant and
vertical. The stone breaks down, therefore, in immense blocks where
undercut by the river which leave for ages the scarp behind them as a
vertical wall.
Because of its qualities the LeClaire is one of the best lime rocks in
the country. The impurities of the clay, the iron and silica which it
contains, may run as low as one-third of one per cent. The large per
cent of carbonate of magnesia present makes it a cool lime, slow to
slack and slow to set, and it is to such limes that architects, masons,
and plasterers now invariably give preference over the so-called hot
limes burned from non-magnesian limestones. The hardness and durability
of mortars made from the LeClaire rock limes approaches that of cement,
and after thirty-five or forty years of weathering, joints in mason
work seem almost as fresh as when first struck.
The extreme hardness of the rock and the slowness with which it
weathers make it specially valuable for crushing for macadam and
ballast.
The _Anamosa phase_ of the Gower limestone is typically exposed in the
large quarries at Anamosa and Stone City, Mount Vernon and Waubeek. It
is a light buff or yellow limestone, with constant, parallel, and
horizontal or gently inclined laminated layers. The limestone is soft
to work but hardens on exposure. The saw encounters no obdurate
materials and the chisel finds the fracture even and regular. Bedding
planes are so even and smooth as to be at once ready for the mortar
with little or no dressing. Much of the stone can be split horizontally
to any desired thickness, while the distant joints permit the quarrying
of blocks beyond the facilities of transportation or any possible use.
Many layers are so homogenous that they can be wrought into fine
carvings.
As a dolomite the stone is far more resistant than a purer limestone.
In the Mount Vernon cemetery tombstones of this material, whose dates
run back to the forties and early fifties, have been so little affected
by superficial decay that the tool marks are almost as fresh as when
the chisel left them; while marbles of half their age have broken down
into ruin.
The Silurian rocks of the county measure about 300 feet in thickness.
They are confined pretty closely to the townships of the eastern tier,
but extend beyond their limits up the valleys of the Cedar and
Wapsipinicon.
THE BERTRAM LIMESTONE
As the Silurian limestones sink below the surface because of the
westward dip, they are succeeded by a bed of rock, named from its
outcrop at Bertram, and found along Big Creek as far north as Paralta
and Springville. This is a heavily bedded gray rock which weathers
almost white. At a number of places along Big Creek it forms
picturesque cliffs, and hillsides covered with huge boulders of
disintegration. At one point it is seen to overlie the Anamosa beds of
the Silurian, and several exposures are known where it is succeeded by
the Otis limestones of the Devonian. But as it contains no fossils, so
far as is now known, it can not be said to which of the two ages it
belongs.
THE OTIS LIMESTONES
The lower beds of the Otis, as exposed at the base of the Otis
quarries, along the Cedar south of Cedar Rapids, at Springville, and at
Coggon, consist of soft magnesian limestones, fossiliferous with many
moulds of small bivalve shells of Devonian age. These pass upward into
drab non-magnesian limestones carrying the principal fossil of the
magnesian beds in considerable numbers. The upper limestones of the
Otis differ within rather wide limits. The most common type is seen at
the base of the high cliff at Kenwood on the right bank of Indian
Creek--a hard, brittle ringing and thinly laminated limestone. Often it
has been subjected to strains under which it has broken, and has been
re-cemented with little displacement of the parts. Occasionally it is
brown, and highly crystalline.
THE INDEPENDENCE
At the Kenwood cliff the eight feet of the Otis at the base is
succeeded by thirty feet of buff shale and clayey limestones--a
formation known as the _Independence_ from its discovery in a shaft
sunk at that city. The Independence is exposed at many points near
Cedar Rapids both on Indian Creek and on the Cedar. On the Wapsipinicon
it is well seen at Cedar Bluff (sec. 24 Spring Grove Tp.), at the
"Wolf's Den" a mile up valley, and again in the railway cut north of
Coggon. In the long cut of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway
west of Linn Junction the Independence is seen in one place as a blue
clay shale carrying a number of fossils characteristic of the shaft at
Independence, but elsewhere the formation is unfossiliferous in the
natural exposures so far studied.
Wherever found the Independence contains nodules of silica, which may
reach a foot in diameter, and often angular fragments of the same
material which may be as fine as sand. The formation is marked by
irregularities of deposition, channel cutting by drift currents, lenses
of calcerous material, and rapid lateral change in the form and
constituents of the rock. All of these characteristics point to the
deposition of this formation in a shallow sea near shore.
Indeed, some of the beds were apparently laid in marshes such as are
now found along low ocean shores. Thin seams of coal formed in the
Independence were once peaty deposits preserved by the presence of
water from the decay which returns dead vegetable matter to the air. In
1871 such a seam of coal, not exceeding an inch in thickness, was found
at a depth of ninety feet in a well on the farm of Mrs. C. Hemphill,
near LaFayette. Pieces of the coal were taken to Cedar Rapids and
Marion. A mining company was formed, and without seeking for any expert
advice from geologist or mining engineer, and without any tests of the
extent and thickness of the seam, a shaft was sunk after the precious
fuel. Water was encountered in such quantities that expensive pumping
machinery was used, and in all several thousand dollars were wasted in
a search which any competent geologist could have told was foredoomed
to failure.
THE DAVENPORT LIMESTONES
The sea over eastern Iowa deepened after the deposition of the
Independence, for there was now deposited upon its floor limestones in
place of shales. The lowest of these, known as the _lower Davenport_
beds, are hard, compact, and of finest grain, and so far as known are
unfossiliferous. The _upper Davenport_ is a tough, gray,
semi-crystalline limestone which contains an assemblage of fossils of
many species. Highest of these are the first vertebrates to appear in
Iowa so far as our records go. Fishes which swam over our area left to
be imbedded in the limestones their hard enameled teeth and fin spines.
The most common of the Devonian fishes was a small shark.
In several other counties the lower and the upper Davenport limestones
retain the attitude of their deposition. But everywhere in Linn county
they have been broken into bits and re-cemented, forming breccia. These
brittle rocks could hardly give way to such immense stresses without
causing sharp and violent vibrations to run through the crust of the
earth, and we may therefore list great earthquakes as a part of the
history of our area in Devonian times.
The best exposure of the breccia beds is that of the cut of the
Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway west of Linn Junction. The
brittle lower Davenport has here been broken and rebroken into a mass
of small sharp-edged fragments, while the tough heavily bedded upper
Davenport ledges have been fractured to large blocks, which sliding on
each other have smoothed and grooved their sides. The breccia beds may
be seen in the upper eleven feet of the Kenwood cliff, at Troy Mills,
and in the cliffs along the Wapsipinicon valley as far down as near to
Central City.
THE CEDAR VALLEY LIMESTONES
The Otis, Independence, and Davenport limestones form a group called
the Wapsipinicon, from its outcrop along the river of that name in Linn
county. The remaining limestones of the Devonian are grouped together
under the name of the Cedar Valley. These consist of limestones of
various types, sometimes crowded with fossils, and sometimes destitute
of any trace of ancient life. They occupy the western townships of the
county.
THE CARBONIFEROUS
At the close of the Cedar Valley stage the sea retreated westward from
our area, and Linn county became dry land. For long ages its rocks were
covered with rich soils supporting a luxuriant vegetation, probably
tropical in its aspect. We know that running water channelled this
ancient land, for when at last in _Pennsylvanian_ (Coal measure) time
the land sunk slowly beneath the sea, there were deposited in such
channels clays and sandstones, which perhaps are only remnants of wide
sheets of similar deposits now removed by denudation. A mile and a half
south of Marion (southeast quarter of section 12, Rapids township) a
well twenty-three feet deep penetrated a bed of dark shale which
carried leaf impressions of a number of ferns characteristic of the
undergrowth of the Carboniferous forests. A third of a mile southeast
of Lisbon, and again about two miles south of the same village, at
Bertram at the east end of the railway bridge, and on the old county
road between Cedar Rapids and Marion, are exposures of sandstone which
in some instances contain fragments of the logs drifted from perhaps
distant uplands and water-logged and sunk in these ancient sand beds.
The Bertram outlier contains many rolled coral fragments and worn bits
of shells of the Devonian, included in Carboniferous deposits, much as
the same fossils may now be found in the river deposits of the present
age in the sand bars of the Cedar.
MESOZOIC AND TERTIARY
For a succession of geologic ages our county, in common with eastern
Iowa, seems to have remained dry land, for no deposits of the sea are
found upon it. On both sides of the continent mountain ranges of Alpine
height were uplifted, and during the immeasurable years worn down,
grain by grain, to flat and featureless plains. But no deformations are
recorded in our county history and the lands seems to have remained so
low that little erosion was possible. We are permitted to conceive that
over our savannas in Mesozoic times there roamed monstrous reptiles of
strange shapes, such as are known to have existed in adjacent states.
In the later ages of this era it is not impossible that during the
great submergence which brought the Cretaceous sea over the Great
Plains from the Arctic to the Gulf, including western Iowa, our area
also may have been inundated and huge swimming reptiles such as are
found in the deposits of Kansas and Nebraska may have disported
themselves where now our rich farm lands lie open to the sun, while in
the air featherless cold-blooded creatures larger than any bird winged
their way on leathery pinions.
[Illustration: THE ASTOR HOUSE Erected by John Young in 1839, Looking
South The Second House in Cedar Rapids COURTESY CARROLL'S HISTORY]
During the millions of years which are included in the Tertiary ages
Linn county was undoubtedly dry land. On our grass lands pastured a
succession of strange and uncouth mammals evolving into higher and
higher forms. Among these denizens of the county were probably herds of
pig-like creatures, three toed horses little bigger than foxes, and
ancestral monkeys swarming in the trees, for such are known to have
existed in other states. But these chapters in the history of the
county can not be written from any local records.
THE GLACIAL EPOCH
The warm climate of Tertiary times changed slowly to one of arctic
cold. The winters lengthened and the summers becoming ever cooler and
yet cooler failed at last to melt the winter snows. Vast sheets of
glacial ice, such as that which shrouds Greenland today, covered much
of the continent. The geologic panorama thus presents our area as
buried beneath one after another of slow-moving glaciers hundreds of
feet thick. The proofs of their existence are found in almost every
cutting which goes below the soil. Any quarry will show the rock deeply
rotted and pitted by long preglacial decay. Here and there upon its
surface will be found remnants of the deep red residual clays, the
subsoils of preglacial times. Upon these clays formed from the decaying
rock rest stony clays in which clay, sand, and stones faceted as only
glacier ice can facet, are mingled pell-mell together, as only glacier
ice can mingle. Occasionally is found the unmistakable track of the
glacier left on the underlying rock scraped smooth and marked with
parallel scorings, as at the north end of the cut of the Chicago,
Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway at Linn Junction.