Early History of Prairie City by Lieutenant Ora Martin

GRIFFIS, DRAPER, CLARK, HAYES, DEAKIN, SHEARER, JEFFRIES, MAIN, NORRIS, SCHULENBURG, PORTER, BROWN, MARTIN, HUNNEL, WARNER, MCMELLEN, WILSON, ELLIOTT, MEANS, WIGGINS, BIDWELL, COOMES, FRENCH, LAUGHLIN, MACY, MCCONNELL, RINEHART, MILLER, BUNDY, HANES, REMSBURG, REPLOGLE, VAN SLYCK, BUTTERS, CONWAY, ROACH, MEANES, MINSON, HERSHMAN, BOYD, SHEPHERD, DOWDEN, JENKS, ROBINSON

Posted By: Deborah Gilbert (email)
Date: 9/4/2016 at 18:31:43

Included d in the book: A Window Into Prairie City's Past as seen thru the files of the Prairie City News: Taken from the Prairie City News August 10, 1922

In the Autumn of 1851 James Hickland Elliott, wife Julia, son Wickliff and daughters Martha and Mary, were picking their way along the old Indian Trail which the stage coach had recently begun to travel from Oskaloosa to the new settlement at the mouth of the Raccoon River, known as Des Moines. the old Indian trail, perhaps centuries old to the Indians, was little known to civilization. Quie true, some early pioneers had tarted a settlement about Tool's Point and Vandalia, but the rolling prairie on the divide between the Des Moines and Skunk rivers was almost unknown to white man.

Here lay the virgin soil; no plow had ever broken the sod which was fringed with native timber several miles to the north and south.

As these sturdy pioneers drove along through the tall, waving prairie grass, as high as the horses' backs in places, large flocks of prairie chickens arose before their wagon. When the sun rose in the morning, it came up as out from the sea; no trees broke the sky line to the eastward and as it shone down upon the rolling prairie through the day, wind waved the tall golden grass like the colors of waves upon the sea. When Old Sol got far off in the west and shadows began to fall over the grassy valleys, nature sent the wolf out to serenade them all night with his weird howl, and migrating water fowls kept up their quacking and honking through the night.

Mr. Elliott left his home, leaving his crop in the field and selling it with his cows for almost nothing. The locality he had left was stricken with a swamp fever and his neighbors were dying of cholera, so he took his little family in a wagon, drawn by two horses and went to seek a home an future for his little ones. His misfortune in low swamp lands prompted him to seek a home on high ground, and upon seeing the beautiful country about where Prairie City now stands, he decided to stake his future on the little town he intended to found here and name Elliott.

He had heard of Vandalia in the timber to the southwest. Government surveyors had a year or so before passed over the divide and left stakes driven in mounds built of sod, but a prairie fire had burned off most of the stakes and high prairie grass hid many of the mounds so nothing but a trail marked any traces of civilization on the land where Prairie City now stands.

Mr. Elliott picked his way southwest to the nearest timber near Walnut Creek and there built a temporary cabin, in the timber in order to have wood to burn that winter. This was 1851, on what is now the Jim Vroom farm.

John Q. Deakin was the founder of Vandalia and saw the place as early as 1849. Mr. Elliott visited him and he tried to influence him to settle near Vandalia. Mr. Deskin believed that the prairie would not be settled up soon enough for Mr. Elliott's children to attend school, and the winter winds were severe and no fuel was to be had on the bald prairie.

This did not present a very encouraging prospect to many, but Mr. Elliott was tired of cleaning timber lands, as he was born in Kentucky, and returned to his cabin on Walnut Creek on w hat is now the Jim Vroom farm and started cutting trees to build his home on the spot where Prairie City now stands. Hence started the town, Elliott, its first name.

As the land was not very well marked, he made the mistake of building his firt cabin on land that he had not entered. This cabin, the first mark of civilization in Prairie City was built on the preesent site of the D. R. Schakel home. It was a good little cabin for those days and served as a home for his family. Wood had to be hauled from Walnut Creek and there was no road. Mud was deep in the sloughs and the creeks had to be forded, and it was slow picking his way over the pathless prairie.

When he was ready to raise his log cabin, there was no one about to help him and he was obliged to go to Vandalia to get men for his house-raising. Among these men were Stephen Riffle and Jacob Brunner.

The prairie must have been beautiful in the spring of 1852 when these pioneers saw it. At this time of the year the grass was a tender green and wild prairie flowers were peeping through. In the summer wild roses grew in abundance. The early flowers were low like violets and strawberries, but Dame Nature saw to it as the grass grew taller, flowers with long stem peeped out from the waving sea of green.

To the north and south of this lone cabin the native timber fringed the prairie. There the wild crab, plum and cherry trees scented the air with their fragrance.

A mile west of his cabin Prairie Creek started from a large slough in which frogs sang all summer.

In the fall these pioneers would load up the wagon with the family and pick their way to the native timber, there to gather wild crab apples, plums and grapes. The women and children usually picked the fruit while the men hunted wild game and bee trees.

Prairie fires would sometimes sweep the prairie when the grass was dry and in winter the snow and tumble weeds piled high about the little home of the pioneer.

As a protection against prairie fires, in the fall, the grass had to be plowed up for fifty feet about the rail fence which held his stock from running wild on the prairie. Sometimes when the wind blew during a prairie fire, a large tumble weed would come rolling across the plowed strip and lodge against the rail fence or cabin and spread the fire.

Wolves were numerous and would come right up to the cabin, and carry off the poultry and young stock.

When he broke the virgin sod, centuries old, and planted his crop, it had to be gathered in the fall or prairie chickens would come and eat it. Wild pigeons would come in clouds.

Large prairie owls sat about on the ground, seeming to twist their heads entirely around watching you as you walked about them. These birds turn white in the winter.

But Mr. Elliott had a staunch heart and believed in living up to his conviction that he would some day found a town here.

In the meantime two miles west of Mr. Elliott's cabin, William Means ahd built a tavern on the stage coach road which ran from Oskaloosa to Des Moines, passing along the divide where Prairie City now stands. This was in the spring of 1852. A passenger hack line, owned by Frink and Walker, left mail at Tool's Point near Monroe, Iowa.

In February, 1852, Mr. Elliott and his family drove a long sled made from native timber across the pathless prairie and through the woods to Vandalia to do some trading at Deakin's store.

He arrived in Vandalia safe and sound, but on the way back to their little cabin way out on the prairie they were caught by a howling blizzard which swept across the country. He hurried the horses as fast as they could go to reach their little home before the blinding snow cut off their vision and covered the tracks which he had made in the morning. To be lost out in such a storm meant that he and his family might freeze to death. On making Walnut Creek he had lost his way and missed the ford, but in crossing the creek on the ice, the ice gave way, and the sled settled down in the water, which ran into the sled, wetting his family and their provisions. As the water was not deep, the horses pulled the sled out of the creek and he hurried his horses home, but their clothing froze on them. Luckily the storm abated and Mr. Elliott found his cabin, and starting a fire in the fireplace, soon had his family thawed out.

Some few years after this a settler named Drake lost his way out north of town in a blizzard and froze to death. It was some time before his body was found.

James Elliott built a store west of the public square, about where Jenks’ store now stands, and carried a general stock. One night the store was robbed. No one knew whom to suspect, until one day some one was out hunting on the prairie north of town and found a brand new boot. When the town folks heard of this they suspected the thieves left town by a north trail. Daniel Shepherd had some men hired to work for him and they were under suspicion. A posse of men went out and along with Dan Shepherd they searched these men, living on Squaw Creek. They found a bolt of cloth in the corn shock near their home. Shortly after the man under suspicion, together with his wife and family, left. Dan Shepherd informed Mr. Elliott, and they followed him. He stopped for the night near a log cabin over on the Newton road. Mr. Elliott was determined he had his merchandise hid somewhere and a watch was kept on him. In the night the fugitive was seen to enter the log cabin and take from the loft Mr. Elliott’s goods. They arrested the man and tarted to bring him back to Prairie City, in the night he escaped them, so they brought the family back to Prairie City. They recovered Mr. Elliott’s goods but had the woman and children to feed that winter.

Anderson Boyd settled on what is now the Hanel farm in 1853, and Mr. Elliott soon had other settlers stopping off at his little cabin looking for land. Mr. Elliott now found his cabin on land that did not belong to him. His line ran through what is now the alley in the south part of town between Hartzel Dowden’s and Clarence Jenks’ property, so he built another cabin which took just west of the Farmer’s Cooperative elevator, near the large cottonwood tree still standing.

The prairie breaking plow was a massive fair and required four or five yoke of oxen to pull it. Two oxen made a yoke. The virgin sod on the prairie was centuries old, and it made tough plowing. After the sod was broken and stood awhile it gave off a peculiar odor.

William Robinson, one of the first settlers in town, built the first frame house from native lumber hauled up from a sawmill very near Red Rock. The boards for this house were dressed with hand plane. The cellar for this house was originally a cave, used by some earlier settlers. This frame house still stands one block south of the square in Prairie City, and the original cave is now the cellar under that house. This is perhaps the oldest structure now standing in this town.

One fall he snapped his corn and piled it up as high as his house. A heavy sleet and rain came and froze the ears of corn together into a solid mass. He picked a hole in the side of the pile and took out enough corn to use the pile for a stable for his horses. The corn born stood up all winter.

Minson was an old prairie breaker who came to Prairie City about 1852, and broke about ten acres in the west end of town and in town. Sod broken two or four inches deep was better than ten inches deep, so it took several years for the sod to rot and break up. The first crop cut a rent in the sod and corn was dropped in. Some years it yielded as high as twenty-five to thirty bushels to the acre. Potatoes planted in the sod gave fairly good yield.

About 1853 August Hershman settled in Prairie City. The fractional piece of ground north of the alley north of the public square was not taken up yet and this adjoined Mr. Elliott’s land on the north. Mr. Horseman had decide to get it and spoke to his family about starting for the land office in Des Moines Sunday night.

His little boy heard this and when he came over to Elliott’s cabin to play with Elliott’s little Boy, Wickliff, he told the folks his father was going to Des Moines to get that land entered. Mr. Elliott heard this and being desirous of getting possession of the land upon which the north part of Prairie City now stands, though he had no money, got on his horse and rode to Des Moines, sold the horse for fifty dollars and entered the fraction, and as he walked out of the land office he met Mr. Horseman coming in to enter the land, but Mr. Elliott had it in his name, so Mr. Horseman took other land.

Mr. Elliott walked back from Des Moines carrying his saddle home. He had left but one blind horse.

Jord Meanes came and settled here about 1852 or 1853. In 1853 a minister chanced along and preached the first sermon in the Elliott cabin.

Tool’s Point and Vandalia had started settlements and Elliott (now Prairie City) began to blossom and new faces came from all parts of the country.

Now the settlers coming along the stage coach road would see the little cabins setting out on the prairie and soon it began to take on the aspect of a settlement.

In applying for a postoffice the little settlement known as Elliott was informed there was another postoffice in Iowa named Elliott, so they changed the name to Prairie City. This was in 1856.

Next year settlers were spreading out from Tool’s Point and Vandalia, and Newton was being settled.

1857 saw the first Christian church, founded by Capt. J. P. Roach; 1858 the first Methodist Episcopal church (now the Star Theatre).

Here and there a patch of prairie would be broken and when fall came the corn in shock would be the only thing in sight on the prairie except a lone cabin and straw barn.

When a newcomer arrived he or she was usually taken abut the prairie by the other settlers and suitable location picked out. One thing very important was to pick out a location for the cabin near to drinking water. As prairie fire had burned off the survey stakes, mounds had to be hunted and counted from a known marker.

Some mistakes were made and settlers located on land other than that which they had entered at the land office.

Early pioneers usually shared their cabins with homemakers but many times the newcomers slept in their wagon or under it.

As nails were expensive and hard to get, little or no metal was used in constructing these early cabins. Over the door was usually hung the squirrel rifle and powder horn.

While Indians were never numerous or bad about these parts, the wary settler best be prepared for an emergency, as well as wolves and hawks, which preyed upon the poultry and young tock frequently.

Sometimes the cabin floor was laid of ‘puncheon’ slabs hewn from logs and sometimes it was the ground.

The good housewife saved all the meat rinds and hickory ashes and made soft soap in a huge iron kettle. It was truthfully said they were often obliged to cook the meal, wash the baby and feed the dog all out of the same kettle. If they did not happen to have glass for the windows, oiled paper let in the light. Sometimes a sheep skin with the wool taken off served for a window glass.

Before flour mills were built the settler hauled his grain many miles to the mill, and if flour or meal ran out, the women folks ‘pestled’ corn or scraped it on a grater. Often it was soaked to soften it. The nearest mills were Des Moines and Pella. Sometimes there would be many wagons at the mill ahead of the settler, so he must wait his turn.

When the long winter nights came there were few books to read and poor lights to ready by. When the members of the family became sick, doctors were few and far between, so the good mother usually did the nursing and doctoring. When their loved ones should die it was customary n those ays for the whole neighborhood to go to the burying. The little graveyard on the hillside west of Prairie City contains the graves of many of the little village founders.

John Butters came to Prairie City in 1856 and built his cabin on the north side of the present White Pole road in the southwest corner of the Highland Park division. Mrs. Emma Head, the oldest person about, died in this cabin in 1857.

Samuel Butters and wife Margaret Conway, married in Ohio and came to Prairie City with the father and built a log cabin near the northeast part of Prairie City, where Carrie Wiggin’s residence now stands. Mrs. Butters, still living (1922), is perhaps the oldest old settler living hearabouts, being past ninety-one years of age. To this venerable old lady is due the greatest respect for the hardships she and her companion endured in the early days on the frontier like most people of those days she made the best of hardships. They toiled and planned the future of this little town. The stage coach passed her cabin door. She cooked for the stage driver and when the snow drifted high and the trail was lost, she and her husband boarded the stage coach passengers and drivers. Many times she worked all night in the little cabin preparing food for the tired and weary travelers.

Many times in the winter mornings the folks awoke to find the snow covering their beds as the winter winds drove it through the cracks in the roof.

One evening she was out milking when a wolf walked into the house. Prairie chickens would come up in the yard and she would the the gun and shoot them and cook them.

Indians camped on Squaw Creek north of town and they would come to her cabin and beg for flour. One day she gave a squaw some flour and they kept coming after that. She had her spinning wheel as did most all the housewives in those days, and did all the weaving for the family on an old weaving loom.

There was a pond where what is now the northeast part of Prairie City and the men folks hunted ducks on this marsh in season.

The good housewife used to gather pumpkins in the fall and mash them up and lay the pumpkin on the cabin roof to dry in the sun. This they called pumpkin leather. It kept all winter and could be cooked when needed.

The men folks would go to the timber and bee trees and the honey served as sugar.

There was no tree to get a switch to make the children mind, but one ay in spring later on, a man came along with a wagon load of maples and evergreen sprouts, and mot of the large old trees in Prairie City and vicinity came from that wagon. Later a nursery near Newton furnished most of the fruit trees.

Once they heard a noise outside in the night, and going out in the snow found a stage coach in the snow with the horses on one side of the rail fence and the stage on the other. The deep snow had packed hard as high as the fence, and the drivers had lot their way. The drivers wore full beards and when they came into the little cabin to get warm by the fireplace, the ice melted from their beards and ell to the floor. She baked them cornbread late that night.

The old stage coach came into town on the divide about the same as the railroad now runs. After reaching Walnut Creek it turned north to the head of the creek and went on to East Des Moines.

There were some deer about and occasionally large game was found in the thick timber.

But like most all early settlers their toil was not in vain. They saw the great opportunity for the future.

Jacob Replogle came to Prairie City from Rock Ridge, Virginia, in 1854, and settled south of Prairie City on Prairie Creek. He built many of the houses of the early settlers, dressing the lumber by hand plane. His daughter, Mrs Nellie van Slyck, still lies in Prairie City (1922) and is eighty-one years old. She remembers the wild prairies and the timberland near Pleasant Hill in the fifties. She remember the early house-raising of the pioneers.

While their lives were exposed to many perils, as a rule men and women were a light-hearted set. Their frolics began with the building of the cabins and were continued whenever an occasion was presented. When a newcomer was ready to put up his cabin, after he had hewn the logs to measurements, he invited all his neighbors to assist. Neighbors in those days meant anybody he or his friends might know. ‘House-raising’ was regarded as great fun. The early cabins were build from round logs with the bark on. Soon it was considered a mark of elegance to chip a place along two sides of each log. The next step was to hew what would be the inside and outside of the cabin walls, so that it presented a flat surface.

The ‘house-raisers’ were entertained with plenty of food and drink and songs and joking and general merry-making prevailed If a fiddler could be had, an old-fashioned Virginian reel was the order of the day.

Weddings were a signal for a charivari (shiveree), and the folks came on horse back and in wagons for miles around. They usually called at the father of the groom’s house, and escorted the young man to the home of the bridge. There were not enough seats so the girls sat on girls’ laps and the men sat on the floor.

Young men went many miles to call upon girls and when a girl became engaged it was said she was ‘bespoke or promised. If a young swain went a long ways to see a girl it was a good idea to take along something to eat in case he did nutmeat the old folks’ approvals.

Quilting, wood chopping, turkey shooting, horse racing and foot racing were popular in those days. Physical strength was apt to be the cause of much boating among the younger men and sometimes led to vicious fist fights. The ‘best man around ‘ seemed to be an envied title.

Wolf hunting was great sport. When the snow was deep a man on horseback could outrun a wolf and club him to death with a long club.

When you approached a settler’s cabin you were pretty certain to be greeted by a pack of hounds and coon dogs barking at you.

Neighbors swapped a great deal in those days and ‘store clothes’ were scarce. Still the settler’s latch string was nearly always left out for a traveler and while they had little to share they were very hospitable.

An eastern traveler once asked an Iowan if there was a place to wash. ‘Have you a handkerchief?” ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, my friend, down there is the creek.’

A list of names of the early settlers of Prairie City is in possession of the writer showing where they subscribed to fend the Westview graveyard, and J. W. Elliott, son of the pioneer, has supplied as near as he can recall from memory the order of the early settlers coming to Prairie City and hereabouts. Some names are missing, but with the cooperation of others who may know the missing names, a complete list may be made. Old records are hard to find and the courthouse records do not show all the early settlers’ names.
Twas said that Caleb Bundy, minister and blacksmith, married and buried more people than anybody for miles around. In 1856 he built his cabin one-half mile east of Prairie City near the Charles Wilson farm. He represented Jasper county in the State Assembly in the sixties.

Levi Remsburg, his partner in the blacksmith business, came to Prairie City in 1857 and built a blacksmith shop on the corner southwest of the public square. He made the first breaking plows, using old saw mill blades.

About 1856 the three Hanes brothers, Anson, Jackson and Charlie, who had arrived and entered about 350 acres southwest of town, were over on Skunk River bottom and camped for the night. The light of their campfire attracted the attention of a young white girl, and she came into their camp. She said she was being carried away to Utah by a party of Mormons and asked them to take her to eerie home. She said she was stolen from her home in Terre Haute, Indiana. The Hanes boys told her they would protect her and a lively time followed when her Mormon captors found the Hanes boys had her. But the Hanes brothers won out. She lived in Elliott (Prairie City) with some family for a while and later, when one of the settlers went back to Indiana, they took her home.

Some of the First Settlers:

Harvey J. Griffis came with his father from Lewis county, Kentucky, to his place five miles west of Monroe, He came in 1850

William H. Draper came from Cumberland county, Kentucky, to Vandalia October 17, 1850.

Lewis Clark came from North Carollina to Vandalia in 1851.

Edward W. Hayes is perhaps one of the first white children born in Jasper county (1846). His father William Hayes, came shortly after the Deakins and Shearers.

James Jeffries came in 1855.

Daniel Main came to Prairie City in 1856.

James D. Norris came to Vandalia in 1847 from Brown county, Ohio.

Isaac Porter came from Decatur county, Indiana, to Vandalia 1855.

Edward Schulenburg came to this country in 1853, and married Sarah, daughter of Jacob C. Brown, Keeper of the Elk Horn Tavern at Tool’s Point.

Dr. Phillip Martin came in 1849 or 1850 and married Mary, also daughter of the Elk Horn Tavern Keeper.

Robert C. Brown came in 1845 or 1846, and was the son of the tavern keeper.

The Hunnel family came among the first.

Mathew Warner came among the first from New York state to Vandalia in 1853; he was accompanied by his father-in-law, Mr. McMellen, and settled just east of Vandalia.

L. P. Wilson, Oneida county, New York, came to Prairie City in 1854. Mr. Wilson once housed four families in his cabin, which was 18x22. He was one of the first constables in these parts. He used to buy buffalo right in Prairie City for one cent a pound, there were plenty of buffalo within fifty miles of Prairie City. When he came here in a prairie schooner there were two houses. They were J. H. Elliott and William Means.

J. Wiggins came to Prairie City in 1857 along with Doctor Bidwell.

Isah Coomes came among the earliest settlers in 1854, when Des Moines and Mound Prairie townships were one. The first election ever held was at Sand Ridge schoolhouse. He was justice of the peace for eight years.

John C. French came fro Knox county, Illinois, in 1856. He had one of the first corn planters in the country, manufactured by G. W. Brown, of Galesburg, Illinois.

J. L. Laughlin came to Prairie City in 1859 with J. W. Macy. He worked with one horse for a dollar a day, his wife also working in the field. Their first shanty was built of native lumber and the next spring the lumber shrank and cracked so he told of being able to run the stovepipe out in almost any part of the house. His first shanty was 16x20.

Franklin McConnell came from Posey county, Indiana in 1855, when the whole country northeast of Prairie City was wild and unsettled for miles around.

J. S. Rinehart came to Prairie City on the fourth of July, 1854. He came with his father and mother from Richland county, Ohio. There were about four families living in Mound Prairie township when they arrived.

Thomas Jefferson Miller came from Highland county, Ohio in 1854. There was a long string of Prairie Schooners in the procession.