James Franklin Ward

WARD

Posted By: Carolyn Logan (email)
Date: 2/6/2006 at 15:39:28

[The following is the transcription of a hand-written document dictated by my great grandfather James Franklin Ward in his seventy-first year. He died at age seventy-two. The document was discovered in the archives of the Humboldt County Museum, Humboldt, Iowa, where J. F. Ward established a hardware store in 1867. He died in 1902 and is buried in the Union Cemetery in Humboldt. I have inserted punctuation in order to make the account easier to read. Carolyn Saul Logan]

James Franklin Ward, an Account of His Life
I was born in Lexington, Scott County, Indiana the 22nd day of October, 1826. The first thing I recollect was the fall of meteors; my mother took me to the window and raised the curtain for me to look out. It was a grand sight. They looked about the size of a hen’s egg. They struck the ground and bounced up five or six feet, almost like a hail storm.

The next [thing I recollect] was a visit to my aunt twenty miles away. They had a large house and a large sugar orchard. They showed me through the attic filled with sugar molded in a large dish pan and piled up higher than my head. I shall remember as long as I live this visit to my aunt.

My aunt visited us quite often and always brought a good supply of sugar cakes and cookies. Her boys would bring a big wagon load of apples for winter.

Our house was a two-story brick with two storerooms below and living rooms above. The stairs ran up a wide hall, the hall doors were almost always open.

One Sunday morning father went to meeting. Mother opened the hall door and there stood a large dog. She soon saw the dog was mad. She took the cowhide that hung behind the door, opened the door, and whipped the dog on the head. The dog tried to bite her. When Father came home Mother raised the window and told him there was a mad dog in the bedroom. He put up his horse and brought a fork from the barn. By that time there was about fifty men there and they put up ladders and raised all the windows in front. Then Father made a dive at the dog and caught it on the fork. It landed out of the windows and it made things lively below. They chased him out of town then shot him.

After the mad dog excitement we had another--a horse thought he would explore the upper rooms. He came up into the hall above and we had another surprise. So we called for help and three men came and blindfolded the horse and backed him downstairs. The marks of his shoes are on the steps to this day.

The next thing I remember was election day and there was a big crowd in front of a saloon and a whiskey barrel on end with one of the candidates on it making a speech. At the close of his talk he said, “This day when you cast your votes, will you vote for a man that has always had an honorable name or a man right from the Prison walls?” At that his opponent kicked the barrel from under him and there was about fifty fights before they got through. After the fights were over they marched around with fife and drum and it ended up in a big thunderstorm.

My mother’s father lived in Kentucky and was a slave holder. He had forty slaves but sold all the bad ones and set the balance free. Several years before the war he bought land from them, about twenty-five acres apiece, and started them for themselves. They would come to visit my mother, eight or ten at a time. They would set my mother in the best room and then the old cook would get up a big supper which all the crowd enjoyed and had a good time.

They would tell what they went through when they were slaves and how they fooled the overseer. One of the darkies was sent to do the whipping. The slaves were sent down to the tobacco house to see the one whipped where they had a post in the center of the house. The darkie would strike the post and the slave would yell every stroke so the overseer thought he was getting a good licking, when it was the post got it all.

We had a small farm at the edge of town and had a cave with about twenty feet of room. All over the walls were petrified snakes, bats, frogs, and almost every creeping thing and a hole the size of a barrel that ran under the town. The cave had a gravel bottom and spring water that covered the bottom. My father made a door frame and set it in front and built up on each side with stone so it made a grand milk house. But when it rained hard the water came through that hole in the wall and upset the crock and made a river of milk.

There was an old Scotch merchant who kept a good stock of groceries and dry goods. He boarded with us for several years and he told my mother to cut him a big slice of bread every time she baked and for me to go down to the store with it. He’d meet me at the door and would say, “Aye, aye, fine boy,” and he would spread it with butter and then sugar. He was quite well off but he took his nephew in to clerk for him and he soon got all the old man had. He skipped out and came to Des Moines and was quite a prominent man there. The old man went to the poor house.

One day a carriage drove up and enquired for a leading Methodist church member and said they would stop overnight with him. They said they were missionaries going to their appointments. There were two men and two women and they had a fine rig. They stayed overnight and said they would preach that night so father lighted up the church and sent a boy around town to give notice of the meeting. One of the men gave a short address and had the hat passed for a collection. They started on their way next morning. They stopped at the next town, preached and had the collection about half taken when in stepped two officers and sprung handcuffs on them and started back with them to the Prison. They had broken out and stole the livery rig and their fine clothes. The money they got was given back to the givers.

A few months after, a man and his wife drove up to our house. He said he was looking for a place where he could get his wife a good boarding place for two or three months as he would be away that long. Mother let her have the best room in the house and the man brought her trunk up to her room. They had a nice carriage and horses. She stayed two months. Father had gone out of town and mother was alone when the same carriage drove up again. The man hitched his team and run up to his wife’s room, was there half an hour, when he came down with the trunk and tied it on the carriage and his wife came down all wrapped up and stepped into the carriage and they drove off and never paid a cent.

The day arrived when we bid good-bye to Lexington. A big Pennsylvania wagon stopped at the door with four horses. We parted with our friends and took our places in the covered wagon to travel over one hundred miles. My mother made me a bonnet that would tie on. After traveling two or three days we crossed a river. The driver put me on the off house and I held onto the hames. We had got to the middle of the river when the driver give his whip a flourish. It wrapped around my bonnet and the last I saw of it, it was floating down the river and Oh! What a scream.

After traveling almost a week we landed in Indianapolis where we stopped several days with John F. Ramsey and then at Bellville, where my father rented a Hotel which he run for several years.

The next move we located at Crawfordsville. There my youngest sister was married and they started for Iowa. It was settled I should go with them. My sister’s husband bought a fine horse and a saddle to fit me. They had their horse and buggy. I had ridden five hundred miles when we came in sight of the grand prairie. I thought it a wonderful sight and we stopped overnight. The prairie was burning for forty miles at twelve o’clock, and we had to get out and fight the fire. There were four or five teams and we had a lively time for three hours.

Next morning we started and traveled all day. It was fifty miles to the next house and it was dark when we got there so we had to put our horses in the barn or a shed covered with hay. The man was sick but there were two women there. They had cooked our supper over a fire outdoors and it was slim. We had hardly finished eating when one of the hardest thunder storms it seemed I had ever been in came up. They had a big dog that was afraid and he jumped at the door but one of the women held the table against the door, then the dog stopped before the window. Then they opened the door and the dog jumped in and shook himself and wet everyone in the room.

When we came to the Mississippi River we drove onto the steam ferry and landed at Fort Madison. Our next stop was at Keosauqua. We landed there in the spring of 1837, and I was a few months over ten years old. I rode five hundred miles on horseback and was glad when we were through.

Our house was two stories in front. The kitchen was one story. The River was in the front.

A few days after we landed I was out on the porch looking down on the river. I saw forty canoes with four Indians in a canoe with their furs piled in the center. It was quite a sight for me. They were on their way to St. Louis where they sold their furs and bought American horses, new saddles, bridles, and guns, and in three weeks came back single file. When they got in front of our house the chief rode out and came up to the porch. There was a lady calling on my sister that could talk Indian so she came out and talked with him. He wanted bread and meat but she told him we had none so he reined his horse back and bowed to her very polite and galloped off after his crowd.

The first Sunday after we arrived, Dr. Games, a partner of my brother-in-law, said to me, “Don’t you want to take a ride?” So we went out to the barn to hitch up the horses. One bridle was missing, so he pointed to a house on the hill and told me to go up there and borrow a bridle. When I got to the house the old man was reading his Bible and I told him Dr. Games wanted to borrow his bridle. He said, “Tell Dr. Games any other day in the week he can have it but not today.” So we hitched up one horse and drove around town. The brick masons were busy—the town was full of the ring of the trowel and the hod carriers climbing the ladders.

There was a mill built that ground wheat and corn but they had no bolt so we had to eat graham. There was a mill where we could get white flour on the other side of Keokuk but it was quite a ways to go.

The next year after I arrived at Keosauqua, a small steamboat arrived, loaded with goods for the Indians. The owner was Captain Phelps, agent and trader. I thought I would look around the boat and while I was doing that, the boat started on its way. I rode about eight or nine miles around the bend and I got quite well acquainted with the captain.

The next year I and two or three young men went up to the treaty the government bought the land agency. On our way up there we stopped at Blackhawk’s grave. There was a pole in the center, about twenty-five feet high and a red line running around it like a barber pole and the American flag a flying on it. One of the boys, Clay Colwell, and his father, was at the burial of old Blackhawk and he said they dug a hole 5 or 6 ft. deep, laid poles across it and covered it with grass, then with dirt. Then they dug a slanting road down into it and tied old Blackhawk on his pony with provisions to last him through to the happy hunting ground. Then they filled it up. The government graded it up and put up the flag staff and the flag.

When we got into the village there was 2200 Indians, one company of Dragoons and 500 papooses with whooping cough. I just run down to our tent and covered my head with a quilt and stayed there till next morning and missed a big war dance. There were 500 warriors danced. I stayed a week and never had the whooping cough yet.

The interpreter lived in a large hewed log house and the Governor and his twelve assistants boarded with the Interpreter. There was a nice lawn in front of the house.

There was a large platform in front of the Council house with benches on it for the Governor and his twelve men. They made a speech every day while the council lasted and it was a week. They got all the flour and turnips they wanted.

Old Keokuk and his 12 men marched down to the village four abreast to counsel with themselves. Old Keokuk had a panther skin on that fit on his head and its tail brushed the ground. There were quills set in the back and stuck out about a foot and on the quills was bells that rattled every step they took. They were fine looking men. The governor and his men with their uniforms looked grand.

The Indians in the village were having a good time. One man came in from Illinois with a load of apples and another with melons and the young Indians got into the feed trough and throwed out apples to the balance.

The man jumped out with his whip and while he was chasing them the front of the wagon was filled with Indians so it kept him busy after the boys. It was the same with the melons, so I didn’t see them sell ten cents worth.

Two or three days after I arrived at the village, I thought I would go and see my old acquaintance, Captain Phelps. While I was talking with him, an old friend of his he had not seen for several years came along. After talking some time, the old friend said, “I must tell you of my adventures with the Sioux Indians.”

There was a war party came in with a lot of prisoners. I heard a great racket down in the village so I went down to see what it was about and there tied to small trees were a dozen prisoners and one girl about seventeen years old. I saw by her dress that she must be a chief’s daughter so I started in on a trade for her. It took two hours to make it. I gave the Indian that claimed her seven American saddles and bridles for the girl. I took my knife out of my belt and cut the bark that she was tied with and she stepped out a happy girl. I took her up to my house and had a good supper. After the village got quieted down, I had three ponies, one for her to ride, one for me, and one for provisions and tent. Then we traveled all night and stopped in a grove all day and started again at night and we kept that up until we reached the Sioux village and then there was a lively time.

Two big Indians gathered her off her pony and run up to the chief’s tent and the Indians got hold of my feet and hugged them and carried me up there and put up a tent alongside of the chief’s and spread new buffalo robes on the floor for me.

I stayed there four days and made arrangements to come up every month with goods. In the morning of the 5th day, when I stepped out to start there was twelve ponies loaded with fur, as much as could be belted on them for a present to me which I sold for four thousand dollars. I made a fortune out of the Sioux. This sale of land will throw me out of a job.

That was the last time I ever met Captain Phelps.

When the treaty was finished up there was two big wagons drove up to the agency with four big mules to each wagon with seventy boxes of silver. Each box had one thousand dollars in half dollars that was paid out to the Indians. They bought all the horses in Van Buren county and my horse with the balance.

Van Buren Biographies maintained by Rich Lowe.
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