Des Moines Valley Early Settlement

CRESAP, MUIR, NEDDY, GAINES, CAMP, STILWELL, PALON, BISSETTE, MCBRIDE, AMANT, MASON

Posted By: Volunteer - Rich Lowe
Date: 11/14/2006 at 15:00:09

Van Buren Democrat
Bonaparte, Iowa
January 19, 1870
Volume 1; Number 1 [first issue]

HOME NEWS AND GOSSIP.

DES MOINES VALLEY

Its Early Settlement – Keokuk – The “Half Breed” Tract, Etc., Etc.

MESSRS. EDITORS - - I have had quite a pleasant interview with my esteemed friend, Dr. Roger Cresap, who is the oldest settler of the Des Moines valley above Farmington, and who was an early settler at the foot of the rapids where Keokuk is now situated.

The doctor can give information regarding the early settlement of this country that will certainly add material!y [sic] to the interest of THE DEMOCRAT. I have just procured from him some facts relating to the early history of this section for the publication in another paper, which I hereby furnish your journal.

He was born in Allegheny county, Md., September 20th, 1809. He lived in Virginia a short time; went to Tennessee in 1828; went to Chattanooga for a short time; went from there to Northern Alabama. From there he came to the foot of the Des Moines rapids, Wisconsin territory, where Keokuk is now situated. He landed there about the 1st of April, 1833. He was then on his way to Galena. His, as well as six other steamboats were delayed, to light over the rapids.

The delay gave him an opportunity to talk with some of the people who lived at that point.

Dr. Samuel C. Muir had lived there; was a well educated gentleman and a noted physician, a graduate of Edenburgh, and was a surgeon in the United States army. Dr. Muir died a short time before Dr. Cresap’s arrival. Several of the inhabitants advised and importuned him to locate there and take the place of Dr. Muir who was the only physician there. He concluded to do so.

He rented a cabin from a Mr. Neddy. John Gaines, Isaac. R. Camp, Moses Stilwell, Joshua Palon, and Paul Bissette each had houses of moderate dimensions. Madame St. Amant and her son-in-law, William McBride, lived in a log house about one mile above the landing, and near to a pretty, clear spring, that gushed from a ledge of rocks on the bank.

These were all the buildings he remembers, except the principal structure, which was one story high and contained six rooms. It was the business house of this section of county – or rather it became so after the fur company left it. A store and tavern were established in it. The rooms were used for merchandising, drinking, fiddling, fighting, dancing, and sleeping in, and much of the time, in the various departments, quite a brisk business was done in that establishment, which gained for it a wide-spread notoriety, and it was dignified notoriously by the appellation of “Rat Row.”

Money was tolerably plenty, and Rat Row was really the treasury department of this section. The general banking business of the “Row” was transacted between the hours of supper and breakfast.

While he lived there he noticed many hard cases and some quite depressed character. He left there in 1834 and came to this point, where he made his home, and has continuously resided on this quarter section, on a part of which is situated the town of Bonaparte.

Since he moved to this point he has made many visits to Keokuk, and has watched with lively interest the growth of that place.

The city of Keokuk is well situated, but it is on what is called the “half breed tract,” and that tract was cursed by “midnight decree” concocted on the 8th day of May, 1841, by a band of land sharks, and signed by Judge Charles Mason, about twelve o’clock in the night, which decree was, from its date, branded with fraud and infamy by nearly every man who had knowledge of the history of the case.

The decree title being the only one, legally recognized, to any lots or lands in that 119,000 acres, has been, and now is, a serious taint on the titles, and a ruinous clog on the improvement and prosperity of the city of Keokuk, as well as to the towns and lands of the notorious “half-breed tract.”

Here we have good titles, a remarkable healthy region surrounded by a very productive agricultural country, abounding in stone coal, find building rock, and good groves of timber, which with our water power and railroad facilities, gives us encouragement to hope that our village will grow to be a town, and, it may be, not very long hence, a city.

From the foregoing scraps, you can already see, that you may extract from the doctor considerable information to make your new paper interesting.

M.