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         The present reader, surrounded by the comforts and luxuries of a civilized and cultured society, can scarcely comprehend the hardships and dangers suffered by those pioneers who bravely entered the new land where the barbarous practices of savage tribes were the only known law and power, and transformed it by their life’s labor into the fair country of to-day.

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         The murder of Oliver Atwood, an inoffensive minister, by the Musquakee branch of the Sac and Fox Indians, as related from personal recollection, by Asa Gregg, an old resident of Wapsienonoc Township, Muscatine county, will be interesting in this connection, not only to the residents of the southern part of this county, but to all readers:

         In the Winter of 1837-38, a party of Indians were encamped near Moscow, some three or four of whom were in the village one evening, at a low drinking house or grocery, kept by a man named Ross, who, in company with some half dozen other white men, got the Indians to perform a war dance, and in order to make the occasion one of general hilarity, frequent recourse was made to a barrel marked “old whisky,” called by the Indians Schutah oppo, or “fire water.” All became drunk, and Ross and his friends concluded to put the Indians out of the shanty. In the scuffle which ensued, Ross struck a brother of the Chief Poweshiek (named “Little Bear”) with a heavy stick of wood, rendering him senseless. The other Indians ran away, and Ross dragged the fallen brave out of doors and deliberately broke his skull with a rail. The Indians were much exasperated by this outrage, were determined on revenge, and were often seen by the settlers with their faces painted in token of their displeasure, but were kept quiet by the assurance that Ross would be punished by the laws of the white man. He was indicted for the murder, but owing to some trifling defect in the indictment, escaped punishment.

         The Indians, however, could not understand why a man whom every one acknowledged was guilty of a brutal murder, should be permitted to escape the just punishment of his crime in consequence of the omission of a word or two in a manuscript paper which they could neither read nor understand. They determined to seek redress in their own way, and with the utmost contempt for the inefficient laws of the white man, the avenger of blood was put upon the trail of the bloody-handed Ross, who knew full well that if he did not flee the country his doom was sealed. He therefore left as quietly as possible.

         The Indians being thus foiled in their attempts upon the life of the real aggressor, quietly awaited an opportunity to avenge their wrongs upon one of the same hated race; and it so happened that their victim was a Protestant Methodist minister, whose name was Oliver Atwood.

         Atwood, his wife and child, came to this country in the Summer of 1837, from the Northern part of Ohio. He was very destitute, but apparently willing to do any kind of work to support his family, and did work faithfully through the week, and on the Sabbath would preach for the pioneers. He was not very brilliant as an orator, or prepossessing in his appearance as a minister, but very quiet and harmless in his deportment; and, in justice, I must say that his sermons, viewed from a Methodist stand-point, had the merit of being extremely orthodox, for they were generally the identical sermons preached by the great Wesley himself, many years before.

         He and his family, and myself and family, occupied the same cabin nearly all of one Winter. He had moved on a claim of his own in the Spring, but having no improvement, he was unable to support his family by his labor at home, and consequently he had to seek employment elsewhere.

         The Indian traders were about that time engaged in building a new trading post further up the Iowa river, and he hired with them to assist in the work, and spent most of the Summer away from home; but in September, after notifying his wife of the time that he should return, started from the new trading post and arrived in safety at the old one, four miles south of where Iowa City now is.

         There he purchased some articles of clothing for his family, and a ham of meat, and started for home—a home he was destined never to reach alive.

         After waiting several days, the wife grew anxious, applied to the neighbors, and a messenger was sent to the old trading house to inquire after him, but he soon returned with the information that Atwood had left for home a week before. The settlement was then aroused and a general search was made, which resulted in finding the remains of Mr. Atwood where he had fallen, scalped. The location, as near as can be ascertained, was near Downey, Cedar County.

         The question may be asked, “How is it known that he was killed by Indians?” To a frontiersman this could not long remain in doubt. There are many ways of judging of such things that would be utterly unintelligible to a less practiced eye. But in this case, not only the signs at the place where he lay were perfectly intelligible to a hunter, but many other circumstances led to a certainty, not only that he was killed by the Indians, but pointed out the identical actors in the tragedy.

         It was well known that on the day that Atwood left the trading post, five Indians passed through the settlement and went to Moscow, and while there one of them said to a friend of Ross, “Ross may come back now;” and being urged to explain his reason, refused to do so.

         The tragical event above related, of course, cast a gloom over our infant settlement. As has been said before, this had been an unusually unhealthy season, the men had all been sick, and were in a convalescent state—but little better, physically, than downright sickness, and in no condition to make a successful defense of themselves and families should the Indians contemplate a more thorough vengeance, and of their intentions we could have no means of knowing, as they kept entirely aloof for some time.

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         There was never, so far as the writer is aware, any systematic attempt made by the whites to bring the perpetrators to justice. It is true that at the first land sale in the Territory, held in Dubuque in the November following the murder, the citizens of this region met and appointed a committee to report the case to the Governor of the Territory, which committee made out a report of the case, with appropriate resolutions to accompany it, and forwarded the same, but so far as is now remembered, it was never heard of in a more public way. The great difficulty was, no doubt, in getting at the facts with sufficient accuracy to make a good case before the courts.