Early Days in Cerro Gordo County ~ by Enoch WILTFONG

WILTFONG, LARGE, HENRY, GRIFFITH, WORKMAN, CAMPBELL, LONG, BYFORD, VAN PATTEN, MORRIS, WILLIAMS, GREEN, TENNEY, SHEPHARD, GLOVER, EAGER, MORLEY, TREVIT, HUNT, GOHENE, HARRIMAN, KUMBLEY, DAVID

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 4/7/2011 at 00:33:20

Early Days in Cerro Gordo County
By Enoch WILTFONG, Los Angeles, California

THE writer of this article was born in St. Joseph County, Indiana, near South Bend, February 25th, 1834. Some time afterwards he was taken by his father [Elijah WILTFONG] into Laporte County, Indiana, some nine or ten miles east of Laporte, which was then a small town, and there lived until the year 1853. Then with his father and family he moved to Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, driving an ox team, my father another, each of us having two yoke of oxen. My mother [Elizabeth (LARGE) WILTFONG] drove a pair of horses before a light spring wagon. Having arrived near our journey's end, as we approached the east bank of the Shell Rock River, which was very steep but short, just at the falls of the river, we locked three wheels of my wagon, I being in the lead and no road. All things being ready, I started down the bank and over went my wagon, nearly end wise, spilling my little brother George, who was then quite a little boy, into the water, giving him quite a wetting, as we had to get him out from under some bed clothing. Then we got the wagon on its wheels again. All hands then crossed over the river without any further trouble, and drove about fifty rods and pitched our tent for the night.
This was about the 3rd day of August, 1853. Our number in family then was seven. In a few days my brother Hiram, who was then about seventeen-years-old, joined us. Then we went to work cutting and hauling logs for a house, splitting shakes for roofing and hewing out puncheons for a floor. We built it on a nice little hill, from under the side of which flowed a beautiful spring of nice cold water. We rolled up a pile of logs, then covered it with lime stone rock, then set it on fire, burnt it up. There is where we got our lime for building a chimney and plastering the cracks between the logs so that our house might be warm, Then we put up about forty tons of wild grass hay as we thought, for we had fifteen or twenty animals to feed. Our nearest neighbor then was six or seven miles away, at what was called Rock Grove, down the river, and Lime Creek west of us.

Winter came on, then rail splitting was the order of the day, with now and then a day put in hunting for deer. We would some times get a nice fat one, too. My father killed a nice fat young black bear, and one big fat elk also. This happened after we had lived there a year or two. The first winter and spring we got rails enough to fence in forty acres of land with a seven rails high fence all around. We hired a Mr. Joseph HENRY to do some rail splitting. We lived very well for a new country. We had to go some thirty miles for provisions and mail matter — Chickasaw, in Chickasaw County. Then Charles City later was located in Floyd County.

The first school house was built in Rock Grove some seven miles, where I went about two months to school to a lady teacher by the name of Sarah GRIFFITH. A nice young lady she was, too. By the way, I boarded with a family by the name of WORKMAN, where there were two more nice young ladies, so I became very much interested with the younger one. (But!) But what? Well she sacked me. Our school house was logs of wood rolled up in a square and calked with mud. Our nearest mill was in Chickasaw, Chickasaw County. Our school house was our place for preaching and Sunday school. In 1854 the Indians gave the settlers quite a scare, but did no damage that I remember of worth mention.

In 1855, I think it was, that father laid out the town of Shell Rock Falls, just east of our house on the opposite side of the river. I carried the poll books to Mason City for the first election ever held in Cerro Gordo County. Mr. Robert CAMPBELL, J. B. LONG, and myself were the judges; Henry Van PATTEN and J. R. BYFORD clerks. Mason City had some half dozen or more log cabins, if memory serves me right.

There was one case of freezing to death that comes to my mind. That was an old man and his wife that lived in Worth County. They were brought to our house by my father and both buried in a big box together, as they were frozen in such a crooked way that we could not get them in the coffins, as Mr. Richard MORRIS had one made for each. We buried them in the timber south of our house.

Perhaps some of the old settlers of Mason City will remember of Reuben and David WILLIAMS tending Mr. GREEN'S cattle on the outlet of Clear Lake; how they got lost in a snow storm and had to stay out all night. Then early next morning they were found just west of Mason City, being so badly frozen that they were made cripples for life. The weather has been more severe in later years than it was during my stay, I think, as I have heard of more deaths by freezing than before.

I am not certain that there was any rail road west of the Mississippi River until near 1858 or 1859. In 1861 the cars ran to Cedar Falls, Black Hawk County. Our market was then Cedar Falls, some sixty miles distant, then the rail road terminus. I made one trip to McGREGOR'S Landing with a load of wheat, and got sixty cents per bushel. That is about one hundred miles in an easterly direction from Shell Rock Falls.

Charles City got to be something of a market in the fifties, as they got a good flouring mill and stores, etc., there, Plymouth sprung into a little town some two miles in a northwesterly direction from Shell Rock Falls in the fifties. It was laid out by the Messrs. TENNEYS, if my memory serves me right, with a small store kept by a Mr. SHEPHARD. Mr. A. J. GLOVER was the first man to have a store in Shell Rock Falls; that was in 1855. He also had a portable saw mill Then afterwards he put up a little flour mill with one small run of burs. L. S. EAGER bought Mr. A. J. GLOVER'S store in '56, and afterwards built a nice frame building for his goods, and put in a nice little stock himself in later years.

Mr. A. J. GLOVER sold his mill property to a Mr. MORLEY, who afterwards sold the mill property to my father, who enlarged the building. Then I learned a little about the milling business and ran the mill, one or the other, at different times, and finally I did a good deal of grinding; had customers come twenty miles or more for grinding, as our mill was the furthest west at that time in the country.

The first bridge building that was done across the Shell Rock River was what was called an arch bridge; the TREVIT Bros, were the builders I think. But it fell before being completed and broke the thigh of one of the workmen.

The bridge was being built just below the mills at that lime which was in the year of 1858 or '59.

Thinking of cold winters in Iowa reminds me of a storm that J. M. HUNT and myself were caught in while on a trip from Shell Rock Falls, Cerro Gordo County, to Cedar Falls, Black Hawk County. As we were on our way home the storm was so severe that we drove our teams down a steep hill into a nice grove of timber well sheltered from the storm. There we remained for half the day or more, roasting and eating corn. Then in the evening we hitched up our teams and drove over the river and stopped for the night at Mrs. GOHENE'S and her son's, who was a young man. She had her right leg amputated between the ankle and knee. J. M. HUNT told them that one of his eyes froze shut — "so did one of the other mule's eyes freeze shut too" He made the remark, I suppose, in that way for a joke as he was driving a mule team.

In the year 1856, the neighbors of Shell Rock Falls built a small house and had about three months of school taught in it. Then in 1860, I think it was, we built a pretty good school house just east of town on a nice little hill. There in the winter of 1860 and '61 the school was taught by Walter HARRIMAN, a young man who had partly decided to emigrate with me to the Pacific coast, but afterwards declined. Then in the year 1862 I emigrated [to California].

NOTE: Enoch married in Cerro Gordo County on August 31, 1856 to Julian "Julia" A. HUNT. Rev. Thomas TENNEY performed the ceremony. Julia was born in New York, April 23, 1827, and died in Cascade, Clackamas, Oregon, May 24, 1873. She was interred at Sandy Ridge Cemetery, Sandy, Clackamas County, Oregon. Enoch was married second circa 1878 to Mahala (KUMBLEY) DAVID, born July 11, 1848, Indiana, and died February 19, 1940, Riverside County, California. Enoch died in 1913, Los Angeles County, California. Mahala and Enoch were interred at Mountain View Cemetery, San Bernadino, California.

Hiram A. WILTFONG was born in Indiana in 1835,and died during the Civil War at Ft. Pillow, Tennessee, March 8, 1863. He was serving as a private with Company B of the 32nd Iowa Infantry.

SOURCE: CORBIT, Robert McClain, Ed. Iowa Historical Record Pp. 536-39. State of Iowa Historical Society. Iowa City. 1896.

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, April of 2011