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It is the opinion of George Frain, who settled in Iowa Township in 1838, that its first white inhabitant was Clement Squires, who, with his wife and two children, settled two miles south of Rochester in the Spring of 1837. He was a man of bad reputation, and removed to the South in 1840.
In the same Spring, Thomas Lingle and family (including his sons Solomon, John and Jacob and his daughters Kate, Betsy, Lydia and Susan, of whom Jacob, Lydia and Susan died while there) settled about Section 14. After a few years he moved to Big Grove, north of Iowa City, thence to Dubuque, Iowa.
As to the advent of Robert G. Roberts, authorities are at variance. While the Indians stated that his daughter Eliza was the first white woman to cross the Cedar River at Rochester, it is claimed that he first went to Muscatine county in August, 1836.
Mr. Frain was told that Mr. Roberts returned to Cedar County and Iowa Township in the Summer of 1837, and purchased his claim from Clement Squires for $20.
Be that at it may, these were the first settlers of Iowa Township and that portion of Cedar County west of the river.
Their nearest grist-mill being in Illinois, their coffee-mills served to grind buckwheat. In 1837, Messrs. Roberts and Lingle built a horse grist-mill for grinding corn and buckwheat. They made the stones out of some prairie boulders which they found in the neighborhood. This mill was patronized by pioneers who lived thirty miles further west.
The houses of the early settlers were made of logs in or near the timber, and covered with clapboards, or “shakes,” three or four feet long, which were made from a conveniently sized tree that would split and drive easily. The clapboards were fastened down with weight-poles extending the entire length of the cabin or house—one weight-pole being necessary to each row of clapboards. The weight-poles were kept in place and at the required distance from each other by knees—small pieces of timber. The lower end of the first knees rested against an eve or log-pole; the first weight-pole against the upper end of the knees; then came other knees and other weight-poles, and so on until the roof was completed. Sometimes, and in a majority of cases, not a single nail or piece of iron, for latch or anything else, would be used about a pioneer’s cabin. The doors were hung upon wooden hinges and were fastened with wooden latches, or, may be, with a pin; the latch was raised from the outside with a string, and, among the early settlers, the “latch string was always out,” and everybody was welcome.
Tobias and James Stoutenburg, alias James Case, a relative, and Hugh Warren, a brother-in-law, and blacksmith, settled in the Fall of 1838. Except . . .
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. . . the last named, these were men who had left their Michigan homes, as it was reported, to avoid the odium of a bad reputation; and it was, perhaps, fortunate that they remained but one year.
Mr. George Frain, now of Rochester, settled in Iowa Township in July, 1838. Mr. Frain was the first to raise apples and other fruit from his own culture in Iowa Township; he also burned the first kiln of brick in the township and tanned the first leather in the county. He afterward moved to Rochester.
Mr. Peniwell and relatives settled opposite Rochester, one and a half miles distant, and the Friend family settled in their cabin in 1838. Jacob Scott, Jacob Weimer, E. J. Hilton and wife, Sylvester Hilton, _____ Beaver and Samuel Farr settled here in the Fall of 1839. David Allen and family, consisting of a wife and three children, from Fayette County, Ohio, settled on the claim made by Hugh Warren, about the 1st of April, 1840. His sons, Jeremiah and James S., settled near him. William Graham settled there in the Spring of 1840.
Ebenezer A. Gray and wife moved to Iowa Township from Ohio in May, 1839. His father, Thomas Gray, came at that time, and remained only a short time and then returned to Ohio. His brother-in-law, William Maxson, with his sons, Jonathan (now Postmaster at West Liberty), Kurts and Thaddeus, farmers, came with them. Mr. Gray’s children, at that time, were Amanda, Thomas and Ann.
After three years Mr. Maxson moved to a prairie farm in Springdale Township.
Mr. Gray built a log-house, 12 by 16 feet, near the site of his present comfortable residence, and has continued to reside there, with his family, to the present time, and is the oldest resident of the township.
Before all these settlers and probably, before Cedar County had any other inhabitants, an Indian trading post was established one mile above the site of Rochester, on the opposite side of the river. It was operated by a Frenchman named Coté, but was owned by other parties. They kept a keel boat moored near their trading house, which they used for transportation purposes—for bringing up goods and taking down the furs and such other commodities as they bought from the Indians. This was, probably, the first boat ever introduced on Cedar River by white men. This old trading house was occupied in 1838 by a preacher named David Burns.
During that year, William C. Long came out and viewed the country, and in the year following moved his wife out, together with his father and mother, Robert and Eliza Long, and his brothers, Evan B. and Parker Long. They arrived at Martin Baker’s December 5, 1839, intending to move into the old trading house, but as it had just burned down, they lived four weeks in another small building on the east side of the river. They then moved into Iowa Township and lived with Jasper Scott.
July 5, 1840, Evan B. Long died, and the death of his mother, Eliza, occurred soon after, so that Robert and his son Parker went to Indiana in that year.
Mr. William C. Long, or “Long Bill Long,” as he is often called, (on account of his height) and family now reside in Tipton.
Jasper Scott died in Iowa Township. His son George is a resident of Atalissa; two other sons, William and Jasper, are in California, while John was killed by the Indians in Oregon.
