Sand Spring-1859

BOWEN, TAFT

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 9/9/2008 at 09:12:15

Dubuque Weekly Times
June 16, 1859

Sand Spring, Delaware County

This young town is a point of considerable importance, it being just now the western terminus of the Dubuque Western Railroad. The cars on that road leave Farley daily on the arrival of the morning train from Dubuque on the Dubuque and Pacific road, arriving at Sand Spring, fifteen miles from Farley, about eleven o ‘clock, a.m. A four horse post coach – Walker’s Line – stands ready to take passengers from Sand Spring to Marion in the afternoon of the same day. This arrangement must be very satisfactory to the public.

Sand Spring is in the Southeast corner of Delaware county, and on the western part of Bowen’s Prairie, one of the finest tracts of land in that part of the State. The name was given spontaneously by early settlers, on account of the Spring, in which sand – almost as white as snow – is constantly bubbling up. The Spring has given notoriety to the country around it for years. The valley through which its waters run, was, originally, we are told, a favorite resort of wolves; and the early settlers in that neighborhood have many wolf-hunting adventures to recount.

The place has also been noted in past years as a resort for cattle in a dry season. The Spring was selected by many of the border settlers as worthy of entry and location, but they waited too long. The lucky man to secure it was Aaron Taft, of Ohio, who located the land around it in 1851, after an extensive tour through the State. The following year Truman H. Bowen, of Albany, N. Y., on a visit to his brother, Asa C. Bowen, who had located warrants largely in that vicinity, selected the spot embracing the Spring, for a dairy farm, and after considerable negotiation, Mr. Taft consented to sell it. Mr. Bowen secured the Spring and 240 acres of land. The first building was erected in 1856, by A. C. Bowen, who had moved his cabin from the east side of the prairie to Sand Spring, dropping it directly in the traveled road from Cascade to Delhi – and, as it afterward turned out, directly in the railroad track.

In 1857 the Dubuque Western Railroad was laid out, and that spot being selected for a Station, Mr. Bowen sold to the Company the undivided half of his farm for a town site. Three buildings were put up in the fall of that year.

The next spring, Rev. L. Bolles, Jr., of Ware, Massachusetts, selected that locality for the center of the Exodus Colony, and bought forty acres for their town site. Messrs. Sherwood and Cummings, owning land directly South, also laid out forty acres, making an aggregate of 200 acres laid out into town lots. Twenty-five houses in all have been erected, containing about 125 people.

Mr. Cadwell, the hotel keeper, has a Hall in his house, capable of holding 150 people, and weekly religious meetings are held there, the Methodists and Baptists alternating. The first sermon was preached in the town by Mr. Bolles, in May, 1858.

Mr. Bowen is superintending a Sabbath School of about thirty scholars. He, by the way, is a well educated man and was, for several years, the editor of the New York Educational Journal. In Albany he moved in the highest circles, and is a blessing to any community, large or small.

Mr. Bowen has built a brick structure over the Spring, so that little fishes can play there on a rainy day, without getting wet! The watering place is worth examining.

Mr. Bolles is finishing a large building designed for six or eight families; and occupants are expected as soon as it is completed. Several other buildings are also progressing, and among them is a freight depot.

The merchants of the place are Yoran & Karst, J. D. Newton, and W. H. Sherwood. The mechanical force embraces two blacksmiths, one chair maker, one tailor, and several carpenters and joiners.

Breaking and fencing are the order of the day on the lands around Sand Spring, and the country is rapidly filling up, mostly with Eastern people; and with the settlement of that charming prairie, the growth of the village of Sand Spring will undoubtedly keep pace.

Considerable freight is passing over the Western road, making Sand Spring a lively place. We congratulate our friends there on the bright prospects of their town. Their enterprise and industry, we trust, will be amply rewarded.