Crow, Samuel M. (1819-1894)

CROW

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 12/2/2016 at 01:13:43

Advocate-Tribune newspaper, Indianola, Iowa, Thursday, May 21, 1885, p.2

Pioneer Sketches
Frontier Life of an Old Settler

Samuel M. Crow
Born and raised in Pulaska county, Ky. When sixteen years old my father moved to the state of Illinois, Putnam county, in the year 1835. That country was quite new at that time. I lived there five years. Went from there to the state of Missouri, to Livingston county, now Mercer county, in the year 1840; that country was quite thinly settled at that time. We were fifty miles from the county seat and forty miles from the nearest post office; that was a little unhandy to go for our mail matter, but that did not trouble us so bad as it did to get the money to pay for our letters. Postage on letters at that time that came from any other state was twenty-five cents, upon delivery. To give the reader some idea of the difficulties we had, one of my neighbors in medium circumstances – for a new country- heard there was a letter in the office for him from the state of Illinois. He did not have the money to pay his postage so he concluded he would borrow it from some of his neighbors. He started out the next morning to borrow the money, and rode all day, but did not find the man that had that much money. In the evening one of his neighbors, a good, clever fellow, said he did not have the money, but he had some beeswax, and he would let him have that, so he took the little cake of beeswax and went on his way home rejoicing. The next morning he struck out for the post office, then at Novetown, forty miles, with his little cake of bees wax and got the money and lifted his letter from his old friend in Illinois. This man was our justice of the peace. We had no church organization for some time after the country was settled. We had preaching occasionally, and at one of our meetings the preacher made an appointment for the next Sunday, provided it was not a good bee day he would be on hand. I was not there that day. That was a great country for hunting, as there were bees, turkeys and deer in abundance. It was a great place for sport, such as shooting matches and horse racing, and plenty of whiskey, which they could buy for beeswax and deer skins, and buy it very cheap – they called it sod corn whiskey, and through the exercises of the day they would have plenty to drink, and in the afternoon about four o’clock they would commence finishing up the exercises of the day, and very frequently some difficulty would take place, and then there would be a row; they called that public ragen - a very appropriate name it would seem from the noises they would make very frequently some fights and some arrests and then it would take a part of the next week to try the cases before a justice of the peace. The shooting matches and horse racing were on Saturday. The currency we had was principally individual promissory notes, we called them cash notes and very frequently the were passed around until you could not hardly read them. I lived there six years, then in February, 1846, I came to Iowa. My family then consisted of myself and wife, at that time; where we moved from to North river where we now live it was a hundred miles between houses; and when we got here the cabin I built the fall before we moved was not finished and we lived in a bark house, built by the Indians, till in April; we then moved in our own cabin twelve by fourteen feet square on North river. One family besides ourselves lived in Lynn Grove, twelve miles from Des Moines, at that time inhabited by the soldiers and Indians. This at that time was the territory of Iowa, had not become a state. No county seat located this side of Oskaloosa, Mahaska county. Our first child born May 6, 1846. Our nearest grist mill at that time was Oskaloosa, sixty miles. This county settled up very fast and it was not long until Polk county was organized and the county seat located at Des Moines and we commenced business. I was elected justice of the peace under the territorial law published in 1843. I was at a very great loss to do business – I had no code. I went to Des Moines to the clerk to know what to do. They had two codes in the town, he let me have one; I have it yet. I held court in my little log cabin; P. M. Cassady was one of the attorneys that attended my court at that time. I held the first court ever held in Lynn Grove. We had some good social times visiting each other and have a good social chat. Myself, wife, and children would all get in to the wagon and the roads were a little rough and the bottom boards in the wagon box were loose and they would slip apart; we would stop occasionally, count the children to see whether they were all there or not, fix the boards in the bottom of the wagon box, then go on thinking what a good time we would have when we got there.
We would go to church the same way, then held in our log cabins; all of us would go, stay till after dinner and have a good time, generally. God bless the old settlers. Myself and wife were at the old settlers meeting last fall and had a good time. We intend going next fall. It does me good to meet them, hear them talk and have a good hearty shake hands.
S. M. Crow
The above was written out by the subject of our sketch himself. At his request we send it verbatim, just as he wrote. He has been nearly forty years in Warren county. We would have made some alterations if we had been permitted to but we did not wish to alter or amend unless it was satisfactory to our subject. He has been a great friend to the common schools, the church, and society. His noble wife has been the same. Their house has been a home to the stranger in a strange land. He has held the office of Justice of the Peace off and on for nearly forty years and holds that office at present. The writer has been intimately acquainted with him for over thirty years, and has found him a citizen of great worth. He has seen Warren county from its birth until the present. No one has reason to call him dishonest. In previous numbers of our sketches we have given the hardships and privations of the early settlers of a new country, Samuel Crow has seen all of these, he being on the pioneer list nearly all of his life. He is now enjoying the fruits of his labor, living in one of the best portions of the great state of Iowa. No man enjoyed the meeting of the early settlers more than he did at their meeting last fall. He will attend again this fall if providence permits. May the young take heed to his admonitions and follow them. May he like Jacob of old go down to his grave as a shock of corn full ripe, as one of the early pioneer’s of Warren county is the prayer of the writer.
L. S. S.