Of Early Iowa - Frank Mathews - Aug. 1899 No. 3

MATHEWS, BOX, GIBSON, STEVENSON, YEOMANS, KILLBURN, ABBY, MCFARLAND, ARCHIBALD, MCHONE, DUKE, FOLSOM, BUCHANAN, SMITH, CORDELL, ESSLINGER, BREWER

Posted By: Deb (email)
Date: 9/21/2007 at 21:35:01

Mt. Pleasant Weekly News
August 2, 1899

OF EARLY IOWA

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Interesting Incidents Relating to the Early Territorial Days.

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Mr. Frank Mathews Writes Interestingly of his First Experiences in the State
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[FOR THE NEWS BY FRANK MATHEWS]

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[continued from last week]

The spring of 1838 my father built the first house on the north side of the river, which was on the present site of Lowell. Benjamin Box built one west of it, and about one hundred rods west, and up the river was the house of Edmond Archibald, a double cabin with entry between. The next house above that was John S. Stevenson’s, a member of the legislature afterwards. The next improvement above that was the Gibson farm. Mr. Gibson was a captain of militia. They used to tell a joke on him that maneuvering his men one muster day, and not remembering the proper order, and the men getting a little confused, he cried out, “D__m it, swing around like a gate. Up the river above him lived a Mr. Yeomans. Then came the town of Baltimore with three houses. Killburn came next and then John B. Abby. Below the town site was the house of Robert Box, who was a noted fighter. When sober he was one of the kindest clever and accommodating of men. But when drinking he was quarrelsome and very disagreeable to get along with. He was terribly disfigured, having lost a part of one ear, part of his nose, and one eye was gouged so that it turned about half around. His thumb on his left hand was bitten off, while his little finger on his right had been chewed until it was entirely stiff. His breast bones were calloused from blows that he had received. His cabin stood near where the big spring came out on what is now the McFarland residence. That was all of the improvements below the town site at that time. But up Mud Creek was the cabin of Melington McHone and James Duke.
During the spring of 1839 there was a severe drought and Grandfather Archibald, who lived with his son, Edmond, was then near eighty years old, and a zealous Presbyterian. He commenced to pray for rain. He first prayed once a day, then twice, and as the growth increased in severity three times a day he invoked the divine power. Well one night it came in a perfect deluge. It raised Mud Creek until it over flowed the whole bottom. Now McHone had about two acres of corn about eight inches high, and when the water subsided it had washed all the soil off as deep as it is plowed, which left the corn hanging by the tap roots. Now Mack was in deep trouble. His prospective supply of corn pone had greatly diminished. He came down to where they were working on the mill, and related his trouble. So all hands went up to his place and with hoes and shovels or what ever they could get they went to work at the corn, straightened it up and dug enough dirt around it to hold it up until he could plow dirt up to it again, which he did and raised a good crop. While setting up the corn the matter of grandpa’s prayer became the theme of conversation. Now McHone was a very profane man and swore with several sulphurous oaths, that if he prayed and did him damage again he would sue him for damage. McHone worked on the mill until it was completed, then followed hauling and breaking prairie for several years. Then he went to steamboating on the Mississippi and died at Hannibal, Mo.
Charles Duke did most of the hewing for the mill, and was a sinewy man and could wield a broad axe the best of any that I ever saw. McHone got on too intimate terms with his wife and he took her back to Kentucky and parted with her. What became of him or her I never knew.
In 1840 there came a man by the name _____ Stevens. He located on the claim now known as the Folsom place. He thought that he could get rich raising quinces, preserving them and selling the preserves. Canned fruit was then unknown and quince preserves were a staple article. He raised a large lot of apple, pear and quince trees; set out a large orchard of apples and pears and about twenty acres of quinces.
He made a tight fence around his nursery which kept the rabbits out. But how to keep them out of the orchard he did not know. About this time came to him a sample copy of eastern agricultural paper. It said to rub the trees with hogs lard and sulphur, rabbits would never gnaw them again. He applied the ingredients to about one – half of his trees and the next summer they all died. He then wrote to the editor of the paper demanding damages. The editor answered saying, that a nurseryman that was such a fool that he did not know the grease would kill trees, ought to go out of business and that rabbits were never known to gnaw dead trees.
Well, he raised some apples and pears and a few quinces. He said the quinces cost him at least a dollar a piece.
The winter of 43 and 44 was very cold and killed all of his quince trees. I think that winter was the coldest that I ever knew, and the ice froze nearly four feet thick.
On April 2, 1844, my father hauled wood across the river on the ice all day. That night it broke up and the ice cut off trees more than a foot through along the bank of the river.
In 1838, on the south side of the river above Smith and Cordell’s – the first place on the river, was where Friend lived, - I believed now owned by Wm. Archibald. Above him was a man by the name of Buchanan.
Had some children grown at that time.
Below Smith and Cordell lived Mr. Ewuebanks; below him a Mr. Esslinger, who was very superstitious. He claimed that by bending and twisting a hickory with on the right side of a deer path, he could spoil the sight of any ones rifle he was a mind to. I never heard of him spoiling any gun sights. But I heard of him threatening to do so if certain parties displeased him.
Robert Box had a sow and pigs which nested below his place. They were some improvement on the hazel splitter. One morning two of the pigs were missing, which Box laid to the depredations of wild animals. But his herd increased and for a time he had plenty of ham and bacon.
But luck as he called it, failed him, and ere long he had not even a shoat, and he said he did not even know where his winter’s meat was to come from. Mr. Brewer, who lived some distance below him, one day brought him two very large dressed hogs, and told him that her had heard of his bad luck, and that he wished him to take these and use them, as he had unusual good luck. In fact, had more hogs than any one in the neighborhood and Box thanked him very much. But says he, “Now Mr. Brewer, I do not want to hurt or insult you, but did you not take two of my pigs once?” “Certainly I did,” says Brewer. I had heard you say that to have good luck with pigs you must steal some to start on. And says he, “These are to pay for the ones I stole.” The hogs at that time ran wild in the woods. There was so much mast, as it was called, that they got in very good condition, but the lard was too soft and too yellow to be merchantable abroad. So in order to make them saleable it was necessary to feed them corn about a month, which would make a layer of white lard on the inside of the hog. Hog killing time was about the first of December when the first good tracking snow fell. By this time in each neighborhood a large pile of logs and wood were gotten together, and two or three nigger head stones were piled on top. This was set on fire and a hole about three feet wide and about five feet long and three feet deep was dug, and puddle and filled with water. The hot stones were thrown in until the water was the right temperature to scald hogs. Every man and boy that was large enough turned out very early in the morning to help. The best marksman slipped up to where the hogs nested, and shot as many as they could. Then each one took after a hog and followed it until they shot it or tired it out. Some times they would run a hog for half day and not get him. Several boys, each with a horse and a lizard sled, made out of a forked stick, would haul the dead hogs to the dressing place. There the older men and boys would scald and dress them wile the women would take the lard off the entrails, if the weather was not too cold for them. I should have said in the proper place that when the pigs were very young, two or three, or move men and boys with dogs, would slip up to the nests and mark the pigs, so at killing time each one would know his own. But if some one who had hogs in the woods did not get enough for their needs, the others divided so that there was plenty. If there were any for market they were loaded on wagons, and hauled to some town on the Mississippi river. There they were salted and cured, and in the spring put into a flat boat and floated to market, often reaching New Orleans.
Most of the slave holders bought their supplies from the boats and to have made one of these trips was considered equivalent to a tour of foreign lands.
The first comers to the Black Hawk purchase were more different than any class of people that could be brought together from the several states of the union now. They were there from the southern and middle states generally with a sprinkle of New England, English, Irish, Scotch, and few gents and ladies of color, some of them brought here as slaves.
A first it was hard for the eastern man to understand the southern, often with different names for the same thing. For instance a wagon. The easterner would have pole for tongue, reach for coupling pole, whiffle trees for double trees, box for bed. Their dress and manner were very different. Among the southern and western people every man of note had a nickname. Jesse Brown, who commanded at Ft. Madison, was called “The tall Cedar of Lebanon, “ Col. Wm. Thompson, “Black Bill”; J.C. Hall, “the Off Ox of Democracy.” The lawyers(Stars) at Burlington, one was “Cock Eye”, the other, “Bow Legs.” Dr. John Seliman, “King of the Hairy Nation,” Valencoart Venorsdoll, “Flitterfoot,” Daniel F. Miller, “the Ghost of Buster,” Silas Height, “Dot and Go One.” My father was called “Old Hermon”; Henry Johnson who taught the first school at Baltimore(now Lowell)”Henneker.” The first lawyer that I remember of seeing here was Bill Thurston. He was quite a politician and very noisy. He pettifogged at justice’s courts and would get religion at every revival, and would fall from grace before the next one. He was accused of hot stealing which many doubted. While hunting on an island he found a dead man who had a good watch; it was said he kept it and palmed off an old one that was of no account, for the one taken. He finally got an office of some kind in Washington City and I think he died there.
There was an old Presbyterian preacher who everybody called “Father Coles” who preached about once in six weeks at the cabins of the settlers, very often at Edmond Archibald’s. He was a good, honest old man but thought as most of other people at that time that whiskey and tobacco were one of the necessaries of life.
Once while preaching he commented on the hard time of the early settlers and said that corn meal and flour and bacon were not unreasonably high when we consider the distance they had to be hauled, but tobacco and whiskey, two things that the people could not do without, were outrageously high. He always took some spirits of rye or corn before he preached of the Spiritual Kingdom. He was the first preacher to preach and no one thought of censuring him. It was the fashion.
My father at that time kept a large glass bottle of whiskey on the mantle with two tumblers beside it and when a neighbor or stranger came in he was invited to drink and it was seldom refused.

(continued next week)