Samuel S. Scott 1812-1897

SCOTT

Posted By: Joe Conroy (email)
Date: 9/26/2010 at 10:09:36

Dubuque Daily Herald
Dubuque, Iowa
8 Jan 1897
Page 8

The Other Shore.

Death of Samuel S. Scott Yesterday Afternoon.

One of the Earliest Pioneers of Dubuque and this Vicinity -- Came Here in the Early '30's.

Yesterday afternoon about 2 o'clock Samuel S. Scott, one of the earliest pioneers of this city and this vicinity, and for the last quarter of a century a veritable landmark of Dubuque, laid down this life's burdens and passed to that other shore which knows no sorrow or affliction. He has been in a helpless condition for some time past, and for the last five weeks was cared for by the charity organizations. His condition had been growing worse, and the past day or two it was to be seen that the end was not far away. He was probably known better to residents of recent years as the proprietor of the little eating house that stood at the foot of Second street alongside of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad track. The following is a brief story of his life as told by himself to Mrs. Alma Farmer, who put it into print in the form of an autobiography:

I was born in St. Clair county, Ill., June 23, 1812; my father was a farmer, and as soon as I was old enough I assisted him upon the farm. I generally attended school for a few months each winter, although the educational advantages of those primitive days were but few. The teachers "boarded around," and were less competent than many of the scholars in our district schools of today, and we seldom had a lady teacher, while perhaps now a majority are of that sex.

When 19 years of age, I went to work for a neighbor, John Thomas, who afterwards, during the Blackhawk war, became a colonel, and remained with him working from "sun up to sun down," at $7 per month, for three months, when stories of the rich lead mines in northern Illinois reached me and I decided to go to Galena and try my fortune there, and saying good-bye to my home and friends, I went to St. Louis, where I took passage up the Mississippi river on the steamer Delaware, where I met and formed the acquaintance of five other young men also en route for Galena -- Martin Hayes, two Crawford brothers, James Roberts and John Dick, and we "messed" together.

When the Blackhawk war commenced in April, 1832, we repaired at once to Galena, where we enlisted in Capt. H. H. Gear's company and were set to work, protected by a strong guard day and night, building a fort, block house and stockade. After four months of fighting, Indian allies captured the old and brave warrior, Blackhawk, and delivered him to the Indian agent at Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien. Shortly after being mustered out of service, William and Thomas Sublet and myself built a skiff and, taking provisions enough to last us three weeks, on the 15th of September, 1832, paddled down the Fever river and up the Mississippi to the mouth of Catfish creek, just below Dubuque, and taking possession of the valley where the Sioux Indians had lived, we staked out a town and called it Sioux Village.

We returned to Galena Oct. 1 and joined a government surveying party and were thus occupied for two months when we again went to our village at the mouth of the Catfish and worked there till April, 1833, when United States troops from Fort Crawford, in command of Lieut. Jefferson Davis, came and drove us to the islands in front of Dubuque, claiming that as the pending treaty with the Indians had not been ratified we were trespassers.

On the ratification of the treaty in June of that year, we returned and built a cabin in Langworthy Hollow, at the head of what is now known in Dubuque as West Locust street, and mined with indifferent success for two years, when I went to White Oak Springs, Wis., where I was a miner for six months, but sold out in the fall of 1837, was married, and in the spring of 1838 I moved to Bellevue, Iowa, where I opened the Iowa House.

When we built our cabin in Langworthy Hollow, as already stated, we had for neighbors James and Lucius Langworthy, Orrin Smith and Thoms McCraney, and a mile south of us lived Jack Parker, Ignatius E. Wootton, Thomas Kelly, Patrick Quigley, J. Dougherty, "Indian Kate," Leroy Jackson, J. O'Regan, Edward Langworthy, Woodbury Massey, John McKenzie, J. A. Langton, Robert Waller and Jesse P. Farley.

After running the Iowa house for eight months, I became a farmer but soon gave that up. I then ran the little steamer Great Western the summer of 1839 and other boats later on.

In the spring of 1844 I moved to White Oak Springs and went to mining, which I continued till fall, when I moved over to Galena, and in the following spring moved to Aldenrath's Diggins, where I entered forty acres of land, upon which I lived for eight years, except that during the summers of 1852 and 1853 I was mate on the steamer Enterprise, running between Galena, Ill., and Portage, Wis. During one trip we continued on up to the dells of the Wisconsin river, which, from the rapid current of the stream, the Indians had appropriately named the "wild rushing river."

In the fall of 1853 I sold my farm and moved to the Fever River bottoms, near Strawbridge's Furnace, where I kept a small hotel. In the spring of 1854 I bought twenty acres of land on the stage road leading from Galena to Shullsburg, where I ran an hotel and a peddler's wagon over the surrounding country until the fall of 1855, when I sold out and moved to Seales Mound, where I ran a restaurant in the depot for a year and then went to Galena. Here I bought and shipped grain for a merchant, and in the spring of 1858 I began selling patented articles, which I continued for several years, and, in fact, have kept in this line down to date and have lived most of the time in Dubuque.

If time and space permitted I could relate many interesting scenes and events of my life steamboating, mining, hunting and fishing, and may do so at a later period should the public by its reception of this little history seem to invite me to do so.

Thus my life has been migratory and, although "my ways have been ways of pleasantness and all my paths the paths of peace," yet, like a rolling stone I have gathered no moss -- accumulated no riches, and at times have been kept very busy in keeping the wolf from the door.

As already stated, I have tilled every position on a steamboat -- first in 1830 on the Great Western, and last in 1870, on the tow-boats, rafters and packets. When I first went up and down the great Father of Waters there were no towns between St. Louis and St. Paul. A cluster of log cabins would constitute a landing, as we called them, and they were few and far between. What is now the city of Burlington had, when I first saw it, two or three log cabins and was known as Flint Hills, while Keokuk had half a dozen cabins, and I recollect that it was at Keokuk I first saw Indians in 1831, and they were genuine ones -- drunk, dirty and quarreling. I have lived in and near Galena and Dubuque since 1831 -- in Dubuque for the past quarter of a century, and hope I may in this beautiful city round out a hundred years of life.