Grand Excursion

PRICE, DONAHUE, KRAUSE

Posted By: Anne Hermann (email)
Date: 1/15/2008 at 07:33:43

Jackson Sentinel
December 15, 1870

A Grand Success

No other result was expected from the efforts of Maquoketa, from the moment the excursionists saw the crowds of citizens and people from the country waiting at the depot grounds to welcome Davenport at its railroad management. The crowd led by Luppy’s band, President Price, Directors M. Donahue and R. Krause and a host of Davenport business men, rode in carriages, buggies, or wagons, or as they pleased “made tracks,” not quite in dress parade order, for the Masonic and Odd Fellows, Schrader’s and other halls; and for offices innumerable; and for parlors and sitting rooms whose name was legion. Thereat and therein such royal welcomes” Such hand-shakings. Such house warmings and shin roastings. Such importunities to be comfortable here and to luxuriate there. And, at length, such pressing invitations to fill up each side of three fifty-feet tables in Schrader hall, and each of a like number in the large store-room under the hall. Then the fruitless efforts, aided by whole bevies of waiters fair and winning, to dispense and cause the disappearance of entire flocks of young gobblers and bouncing chanticleers, robbed of their winter garments and done up in the nicest of brown without and the richest of “fixings” within. And then the supplementary breast works of pastry; the overflowing reservoirs of the best extracts of Gun-powder and Java! – Surely such a dinner was never before seen, nor skillful hands of most accomplished women ever prepared so bountiful a repast.

Of course a speech must follow. This from Hon. Hiram Price deservedly the hero of the day, and he to whose energy and self sacrificing endeavor, more than to any other man, the success celebrated by the excursionists was due. The words of President Price were few and well chosen. They recalled the promise of a year ago, made by him in that same street, and pointed, with honest pride, to present performance. They congratulated Maquoketa on its enterprises, its people on their liberality, and the outside world on its happiness in being connected, as now, with so prosperous and promising a town as Maquoketa , and so rich a country as the garden of Jackson county.

Among the pleasing and interesting incidents of the occasion was the exhibition, by contractor E. W. Baker, who graded the south part of the road, of the first spike driven on the D. & St. P. R. R. This had been extracted from the tie by Mr. Baker, one side planed smooth, and engraved by Mr. E. Baldwin, the Davenport jeweler, thus:

“First spike driven on the Davenport & St. Paul Railroad by H. Price and M. Donahue, July 9, 1870."

And so the great event in Maquoketa’s history was duly celebrated, and at three o’clock the larger number of the DeWitt and Davenport Excursionists were “all aboard” for home, leaving many however to join in the dance, and return to day with the citizens of Maquoketa this evening to be the guests of our citizens. A right oral welcome is due them. Let us emulate if we cannot equal, their generous hospitality.