Early Wapello County Days

ISRAEL, STREET, WAPELLO, BLACK-HAWK, JOHNSON

Posted By: Sharyl Ferrall (email)
Date: 12/29/2005 at 21:54:11

Early Wapello County Days
J.A. Israel Writes to Old Settlers Recalling Life in the Pioneer Days.

The graves of General Joseph Street and Chief Wapello, this county's most historic landmarks, lie about a half mile east of Agency, but a short distance from the grove where the Wapello county old settlers have gathered for many years past for their annual reunion and picnic. The graves of these two men are endeared to the hearts of the pioneers, many of whom were personally acquainted with the beloved Indian agent and the venerable chieftain. At the reunions for years past the last resting place of the man who looked after the welfare of the Indians in the early day before this section was opened for settlement and the chief, who was a power among his people, have been visited by the old settlers and reminiscences of the days gone by have been indulged in by the pioneers who resided in the county before the advance of civilization.

Monuments For Graves.
The Pioneer Lawmakers' association of Iowa petitioned the Twenty-ninth general assembly to appropriate a sufficient sum to mark the two graves, which are in a dilapidated state of repair, owing to the ravages of the weather. They are now marked with masonry built up to the height of two feet. The stone caps are badly shattered and the inscription on them are almost illegible. They read as follows:
In memory of
GENERAL JOSEPH M. STREET
Son of Anthony and Mollie Street
Born Oct. 18, 1872, in Virginia
Died at the Sac and Fox Agency,
May 5, 1840.
__________
In memory of
WA-PEL-LO
Born at Prairie du Chien, 1787
Died near the Forks of the Skunk
March 15, 1842 -- Sac-Fox Nation

General Street and Black-Hawk.
General Street was apointed agent of the Winnebago Indians by President John Quincy Adams and was assigned to Prairie du Chien, Wis., where in 1832 Black-Hawk, after being defeated in the battle of Bad Axe River, was taken prisoner by the Winnebagoes and delivered to General Street, who took the chief to St. Louis and turned him over to the government authorities.

Agency House Still Stands.
The treaty of 1837, which had been signed in Washington, where General Street went with a large party of chiefs and head men of the tribe, narrowed the confines of the red man's territory in Iowa down to still smaller limits and resulted in the establishment of the agency at what is now known as the town of Agency, and near which the graves are situated. The old agency house, built sixty years ago, is still standing, and although slightly remodeled preserves much of its former outline.

Death of General Street.
General Street was taken ill in November, 1839, and did not live to see the realization of his cherished hopes regarding the prosperity of the tribes. He died in the spring of the following year. When the Indians heard of his death they came to the agency and requested the family to bury the dead soldier on Indian land, saying that they would give his widow a section to include the grave and a half section to each of the children. The government opposed this plan, and although the children got none, the Indians were determined not to sell the land on which the grave was located, and that section was reserved for Mrs. Street by the treaty of 1842.

Chief Wapello's Demise.
Wapello was born at Prairie du Chien and later removed to Rock Island, where he set up his lodge, not far from that of Black Hawk. He died less than two years after General Street, his intimate friend and adviser. During his last illness he requested that his body be interred alongside that of General Street and his body was brought thirty miles to be interred according to his wishes.

No Reunion This Year.
This year there was no gathering of the Wapello County Old Settlers' association in the vicinity of General Street's and Chief Wapello's graves. Twice was a date set and all arrangements made for the event when rain interposed and the plans of the direcotrs of the association were for naught. J.A. Israel, a former resident of Agency, now tax agent for the Colorado & Southern railway at Denver, Colo., was assigned as a speaker on the excellent program arranged for this year's reunion, but he was unable to attend. He wrote a letter to Elijah Johnson of Agency, one of the directors of the association, however, that it might be read to the pioneers as a greeting from one who was formerly of their number. Mr. Israel's letter is replete with reminiscences of the early life of the county and it will no doubt recall to the nimds of many pioneers remembrances of their childhood days. Mr. Israel's letter is as follows:
"Denver, Colo., Aug. 21, 1903
"Elijah Johnson, Esq., Agency, Iowa
"My dear Sir:
"I beg to acknowledge receipt of yours of the 13th inst. advising me of the date of the old settlers' meeting and that my name was on the proram for a short address.
"I regret exceedingly that it will not be possible for me to be with you on the occasion, as nothing could afford me more pleasure than to meet with the few remaining pioneers of Wapello county and grasp them by the hand and look into their faces as they relate their experiences of long ago.

Owe Much to the Pioneers.
"I have a respect for the pioneers in that part of Iowa that borders close to reverence. My childhood, school and early manhood days were spent among the, and whatever success I have made in life is to be attributed to the lessions learned from the early settlers in the southeastern portion of Wapello county. And although they have nearly all joined the silent majority and are reaping their reward; in memory they still live and their works and traits of character have left such an imprint on the present and will in turn upon future generations, that while time lasts their influence will continue to be felt.
"I know something of the hardships and privations endured by these people having come among them with my parents fifty years ago, when -- there were no railroads, telegraph, telephones, bicycles, automobiles, street cars, carriages, riding plows, cultivators, corn planters, reapers, hay rakes, trashing machines, pumps, pianos or organs in the country and when the farmer's stock in trace consisted of a wagon with a wooden skein and linch pin, a span of hoses, (oftener a yoke of oxen), harness of a kind that the young men of today would not be able to recognize if they saw it, a crude breaking plow; a diamond plow, a hoe, possibly a wooden fork, a home made rake, an axe, scythe and grain cradle, which he stocke dhimself, and a knot maul and iron wedge, and in nearly every neighborhood there was someone who had a froe and a hand saw.

Residences of Logs
"The country residences and many in the towns were of round logs and covered with clapboards, and weighted down with logs to hold them in place. There were few stoves in the country and the cooking utensils limited; furniture, also was meager, consisting generally of a home made bedstead, with either slats or cord for a bottom, a trundle bed, a very few split bottom chairs, spinning wheel, a few knoves and forks with bone handles, and never more than two tines (they did not eat their pie with forks in those days.) In fact, they did not have much pie; they required a stronger kind of diet.
"The literature of the day was extremely limited, but there was one book that could be found in every household and was read more than any other -- the Bible -- and it was indeed a "guide to their feet and a lamp to their pathway," and when they gathered at the fireside or in the grove or the school house for worship, they would sing the good old songs with the "spirit and the understanding," until the country round would resound with the echo.

Organs Not Fashionable.
"Churches, organs, and choirs were not fashionable in those days, as you will remember; and schools -- wouldn't you like to step into one of the old log school houses and see the faces of the boys and girls, as they used to be, arranged on their separate sides, with the big girls and boys nearest the teacher, and ranging down to the little ones around the stove -- all seated on sawed or split slabs with wooden pins for legs, and a board fastened to the wall for a writing desk, and a good supply of black haw or iron wood 'persuaders' in easy access to the teacher.

"Three Cornered Cat."
"And then at noontime, get out and play 'town ball,' 'three cornered cat' or 'bull pen' or a little later, after they got so they would allow the boys and girls to play together, to play 'King William.' And, oh, what a pleasure ti would be to go to one of those old fashioned spelling schools at Elm Grove, Shaws, Union, Old Ashland, or Tick Ridge. It makes me homesick to think of it, but I realize that they are all gone, never to return, and they, like our friends, live only in memory.
"I place a higher emphasis on the energies of a people than on their positions or their resources. The position and natural resources of Wapello county were the same centuries agoas now. But it is the energy of the pioneers and their offspring that has given them so great and rapid an advance in the present, and hopes of still greater glory in the future.
"In vain would have been the natural resources and position for commercial men and women of intelligence and resolution to wrest from obstacle and every kind of disadvantage victory, where to an inferior class would have been defeat.

Were Mistaken.
"The tide of immigration in southern Iowa seemed to be westward along the Des Moines river. Consequently, immediately after the 'New Purchase,' that portion of Wapello county was first settled. Wood and water were considered essential and the prairie land that did not have a piece of timber with it was considered worthless. In this, it has been proven they were mistaken, for today some of the richest parts of the county are what were then boundless prairie, but they did not dream of wire fences and stock laws.
"The revolution in the past fifty years seems to be complete and I doubt if the people living in any other period of the same length will see so many changes and improvements as have the pioneers now living in Wapello county.
"As I look back over this period I am dazed as in a dream, and as I think of the heads of the families who inhabited the cabins fifty years ago, I am reminded that they nearly all are dead, and their children who were your playmates and schoolmates, and mine also, (when we had the time to play or go to school) have, many of them, passed away also. Many of them gave their lives as a sacrifice on the altar of their country, and many of those who blazed the way to the advanced civilization of today may be slumbering in unknown graves without a monument to mark the spot or a page in the history to record their deeds, living only in the memory of those who knew them. Let us cherish and keep it green while we live and teach our children to do likewise.

The Weary Pilgrim.
"The weary pilgrim slumbers,
His resting place unknown/
His hands were crossed, his lids were closed.
The dust owas o'er him strown;
The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf,
Along the sod were blown;
His mound has melted into earth,
His memory lives alone."

"So, let it live unfading,
The memory of the dead,
Long as the pale anenome,
Springs where their tears were shed,
Or raining in the summer's wind,
In flakes of burning red,
The wild rose sprinkles with its leaves,
The turf where once they bled."

" 'Yea, when the frowning bulwarks,
That guard this holy strand,
Have sunk beneath the trampling surge.
In beds of sparkling sand.
While in the waste of ocean,
One hoary rock shall stand,
Be this its latest legend --
Here was the Pilgrim's land.'

"Hoping that conditions will be favorable and that all will have a pleasant and enjoyable time. I am very truly, the friend of the pioneers,
"J.A. Israel"
_______________________________________________
-source: Ottumwa Daily Courier; Saturday, September 19, 1903
-transcribed by Sharyl Ferrall