Iowa History Project
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HISTORY OF IOWA
VOLUME I
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CHAPTER 1
(Pictures included with this chapter are:
Boulder in Buchanan County - Glacial Marking on Rocks, Des Moines County)
Nature's supreme laws of never ending change
from one degree of development to another, seem to pervade the universe.
Man in all ages has been slowly reading these immutable statutes,
unwritten, and only to be known through careful observation and patient
investigation.
A little gained by one generation handed down to
another, since the first appearance of man upon the earth, has made the sum of
human knowledge. For how many ages on some other far off planet human
intellect has been slowly pursuing the same great study we have no means of
knowing.
Here the astronomer has discovered the existence
of other worlds, has carefully computed their size, has measured their distance
from the earth and each other, has observed their motion, their satellites, and
learned some of the laws which govern them. He has even constructed a
plausible theory as to how these planets were formed from the original
elements.
As to the comparative antiquity of the eastern
and western continents of our own earth, recent investigation brings evidence
to reverse the old belief that Asia and Africa were earlier formations than
America. Agassiz says:
"First born among the
continents, though so much later in culture and civilization than some of more
recent birth, America, so far as her physical history is concerned, has been
falsely denominated the 'new world.' Hers was the first dry land lifted
out of the waters; here the first shores washed by the ocean that enveloped all
the earth besides; and while Europe was represented only by islands rising here
and there above the sea, America already stretched one unbroken line of land
from Nova Scotia to the far west."
In our limited world the investigators have
explored the beds of ancient rivers, lakes and seas; the caverns of rocks and
mountains, and penetrated deep into the earth in search of knowledge that may
be derived from rock formations, animal and vegetable fossils. These to
the scientist reveal much of the story of earth's growth; its stages of
development; its desolations and changes through the agencies of fire, water
and air. In these reservoirs have been found keys to earth’s prehistoric
changes. They reveal to the student a history of its geological growth,
vegetable and animal development for millions of years before written history
begins. Scientists explore every known country, every island of the
ocean, examine rocks, clays, gravels and fossils in pursuit of knowledge of the
past. From these they read much of the story of the earliest formations,
convulsions, growth and population of the earth with almost as much certainty
as though the events had been inscribed in legible characters on imperishable
tablets. If is from these evidences that we learn some of the history of
the remote past, relating to the land we live in, which men have named Iowa.
Professor Samuel Calvin has well said:
"The finding of a single
genuine prehistoric arrow-point may enable us to write up an important chapter
in the history of a people that no historian ever saw, and concerning whose
existence there is not even the shadow of a human tradition. When, as is
often possible, we may add the knowledge gained by exploring their homes, their
shrines and sepulchers, we are in a position to write up somewhat more fully
the portion of their history which deals with their daily occupations and their
domestic life. Many records tell of other facts than the mere presence of
human occupants in a region such as Iowa. Vegetable remains preserved in
peat bogs in the mud that accumulated at the bottom of ancient ponds and lakes
enable us to reconstruct the prehistoric forests. With such vegetable
remains are usually found bones of the animals that lived in the forests.
Human weapons or human skeletons are often there too. So in records
preserved in the peat bog or in the lake bed, science may rehabilitate in a
general way the prehistoric landscapes, and may see them enlivened with
multitudes of struggling creatures, man among the rest; all bent on
accomplishing the two great objects for which living things below the higher
planes of humanity seem to strive,-' to eat and to escape being eaten.'
Not only may we restore the forests in the shadow of which prehistoric
man lived, we may know the size and habits of the animals that roamed through
the forest; those that man chased and those from which he in turn fled; we may
even go farther and determine the climatic conditions under which all this
assemblage of animal and plant life existed."
Geology unfolds to us a wonderful history of the
most remote periods of time, which reduced to language reads like a fairy tale.
It tells us nearly all we know of the countless years that passed away
while the continent, of which Iowa is a part, was in the process of formation.
Professor Calvin continues:
"These geologic records,
untampered with, and unimpeachable, declare that for uncounted years Iowa,
together with the great valley of the Mississippi, lay beneath the level of the
sea. So far as it was inhabited at all, marine forms of animals and
plants were its only occupants."
During the ages of submergence, the sedimentary
strata of Iowa, as well as of all the adjacent States, was being formed on the
sea bottom. This formation contains a record of a period of duration
altogether incomprehensible. Centuries pass while the light colored
limestones so well represented at Anamosa are slowly forming by an
imperceptible sedimentary accumulation. Other ages come and go while the
limestones represented in Johnson County are forming. About this time a
small portion of northeastern Iowa rises above the sea, while all the vast
region south and west is still buried deep beneath the all pervading water.
Odd shaped fishes and a species of ferns mark the highest point reached
in the evolution of animal and plant life at this time.
Ages again go by while the sediment of the sea
is forming beds of rock which appear in Marshall, Des Moines and Lee counties.
Then slowly come the Coal measures and rocks above them. Ferns and
air-breathing creatures have made their appearance. The sea gradually
recedes to the southward and the surface of our whole State is visible.
Later forests and other forms of vegetation cover portions of the land;
birds appear in the woods and a few small rat-like animals are found, as well
as reptiles.
But another great change comes; the waters again
cover the northwestern portion of the State and ages come and go before the sea
recedes, never to return. Iowa has finally been raised above the sea
level and the waters drain toward the ocean, forming great rivers, and plowing
deep channels through the oozing sediment. The sun and wind finally dry
the surface; forests and rank vegetation again make their appearance; animals
come forth from Nature's nurseries and spread themselves over the land, and
roam through the jungles, preying upon each other in their struggle for food.
The climate is that of the tropics, and myriads of forms of life are
evolved.
All of the conditions are now favorable for the advent
of man, but no evidence is found of his existence on any portion of the earth
at this period. The rivers, which ages later were named the Mississippi
and Missouri, were then carrying the inland waters to the sea which reached as
far north as the Ohio river.
Where the upper Missouri now flows through the
prairies of Nebraska, the Dakotas and Montana, where lakes spreading over a
large portion of these States. Remains of forests and strange species of
animals, long since extinct, have been found in the sediment that was formed in
these lakes. Tropical trees such as the cypress, magnolia, cinnamon, fig
and palm flourished in Iowa, Dakota, and far northward into British America;
tropical birds sang in the forests; huge reptiles crawled about in the rank vegetation
and swamps.
Then came the Tertiary period. Iowa was a
part of the land area which then made up the half formed continent of North
America. The drainage of the State must have been much the same as now,
although the altitude above sea level was several hundred feet lower.
In the beds of Tertiary lakes were entombed
animals and plant remains which man in these late generations has found.
The sediment exposed to the action of the atmosphere has been converted
into vast plains and prairies. In many cases the lakes have been
gradually filled and converted into dry land. Modern streams, such as the
Yellowstone, Missouri and the Platte rivers cut their way through these old
lake beds. The surface of the sediment underwent continual changes
through erosion. The remains of plants and animals were thus slowly laid
bare, and the scientist was able to read the story of their lives. Such
beds are believed to be the only places of importance where the records of
Tertiary plants and animals have been preserved. While none of these lake
beds have been found within the limits of our State, it cannot be doubted that
the conditions which prevailed upon our western and northern boundaries were
not unlike those which obtained here.
The animal inhabitants of this period consisted
of opossums, a strange species of squirrel, beavers and gophers. There
were large hoofed animals not unlike the rhinoceros; others bore resemblance to
the tapir and the swine family. There were creatures with three hoofs to
each foot and three toes on each hoof, of a species related to the horse.
There were others resembling camels, oxen and cud-chewing animals that
seemed to be a combination of the deer, the camel and the hog. There was
a family of short jawed animals resembling the panther with sharp, knife-like
teeth. There were saber-toothed tigers more powerful and cruel than the
Asiatic species; there were monkeys, foxes and wolves. Huge snakes,
lizards and turtles infested the swamps. Bright winged birds flitted
among the forests and open glades. Bats and myriads of strange insects
were present preying upon others.
Throughout the Tertiary period the climatic
conditions appear to have been remarkably uniform over regions extending north
to Greenland and westward to Montana. Iowa, and all adjacent regions far
north and westward reveled in the luxuriance of a tropical climate. The
air was balmy and laden with the odor of flowers and fruits. The bright
summer days seemed never ending. A listless languor sent the birds and
beasts into the shade at midday. Tropical vegetation grew spontaneously;
brilliant foliage and flowers, luxuriant ferns and clinging vines mingled with
the forests and open vistas in landscapes of surpassing beauty.
But in the course of time a change was
perceptible. The intense heat of the long summer days was tempered by
refreshing breezes, and the nights became delightfully cool. The winters
were slowly growing colder. Snow storms came and piercing winds swept
over plain and forest. Tropical plants were stricken with early frosts;
ice formed in lakes and streams where it had never had before appeared.
The more hardy animals sought the shelter of wooded ravines and deep
gorges. Snow fell to unusual depths; year after year it came earlier, and
winter continued later. The earth became frozen to great depths; fruits
and trees disappeared. As the snow piled higher each succeeding year, and
the summers were too short and cold to melt it, all animal life perished.
The pressure of mountains of snow and the percolating rains converted the
mass into a solid sheet of glacier ice that not only covered nearly all of
Iowa, but reached out over the northern half of North America.
The ice sheet of this period had its southern
margin south of the latitude of St. Louis. The ice was slowly moving
outward from the center of accumulation, grinding over the underlying rocks,
crushing them into the finest powder. Fragments of enormous size were
frequently caught in the lower portion of the flowing ice and carried forward
bodily, grinding the rock strata into rock flour, and being themselves planed
and grooved on the lower surface. All bowlders of crystalline rock which
we find strewn over our State were carried from their native ledges in British
America by these ice sheets of what geologists call the Quaternary period.
Another climatic change slowly came, and the ice
began to melt. Rivers were gradually formed, carrying on their turbid
waters the soil made by the grinding ice. This was deposited over the
surface of the State, forming yellow clay.
Professor Samuel Calvin, State Geologist for
Iowa, has told how the soils of the State were produced by the action of the
ice in the glacial period. He says:
"Glaciers and glacial
action have contributed in a very large degree to the making of our
magnificent state. What Iowa would have been had it never suffered from
the effects of the ponderous ice sheets that successfully overflowed its
surface, is illustrated, but not perfectly, in the driftless area. Here
we have an area that was not invaded by glaciers. Allamakee, parts of
Jackson, Dubuque, Clayton, Fayette, and Winneshiek counties belong to the
driftless area. During the last two decades numerous wells have been
bored through the loose surface deposits, and down into the underlying rocks.
The record of these wells shows that the rocks surface is very uneven.
Before the glacial drift which now mantles nearly the whole of Iowa was
deposited, the surface had been carved into the intricate of hills and valleys.
"To a person passing from
the drift-covered to the driftless part of the state the topography presents a
series of surprises. The principal drainage streams flow in valleys that
measure, from the summits to the divides, six hundred feet or more in depth.
The Oneota, or upper Iowa River, in Allamakee County, for example, flows
between picturesque cliffs that rise almost vertically from three to four
hundred feet, while from the summit of the cliffs the land rises gradually to
the crest of the divide, three, four, or five miles back from the stream.
Tributary streams cut the lateral slopes and canyon walls at
intervals. These again have tributaries of the second order. In
such a region a quarter section of level land would be a curiosity. This
is a fair sample of what Iowa would have been had it not been planed down by
the leveling effects of the glaciers. Soils of uniforms excellence would
have been impossible in a non-glacial Iowa. The soils of Iowa have a
value equal to all of the silver and gold mines of the world combined.
"And for this rich
heritage of soils we are indebted to great rivers of ice that overflowed Iowa
from the north and northwest. The glaciers in their long journey ground
up the rocks over which they moved and mingled the fresh rock flour from
granites of British America and northern Minnesota with pulverized limestones
and shales of more southern regions, and used these rich minerals in covering
up the bald rocks and leveling the irregular surface of preglacial Iowa.
The materials are in places hundreds of feet in depth. They are not
oxidized or leached, but retain the carbonates and other soluble constituents
that contribute so large to the growth of plants. The physical condition
of the materials is ideal, rendering the soil porous, facilitating the
distribution of moisture, and offering unmatched opportunities for the
employment of improved machinery in all of the processes connected with
cultivation. Even the driftless area received great benefit from the
action of glacier, for although the area was not invaded by ice, it was yet to
a large extent covered by a peculiar deposit called loess, which is generally
connected with one of the later sheets of drift. The loess is a porous
clay, rich in carbonate of lime. Throughout the driftless area it has
covered up many spots that would otherwise have been bare rocks. It
covered the stiff intractable clays that would otherwise have been the only
soils of the region. It in itself constitutes a soil of great fertility.
Every part of Iowa is debtor in some way to the great ice sheets of the glacial
period.
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"Soils are everywhere the
product of rock disintegration, and so the quality of the soils in a given
locality must necessarily be determined in large measure by the kind of rock
from which they were derived.
"From this point of view
therefore, the history of Iowa's superb soils begin with first steps in rock
making. The very oldest rocks of the Mississippi Valley have contributed
something to making our soils to what they are, and every later formation
laid down the surfaces of Iowa, or regions north of it, has furnished its quota
of materials to the same end. The history of Iowas soils,
therefore, embraces the whole sweep of geologic times.
"The chief agents
concerned in modifying the surface throughout most of Iowa since the
disappearance of the latest glaciers have been organic, although the physical
and chemical influences of air have not been without marked effect. The
growth and decay of a long series of generations of plants have
contributed certain organic constituents to the soil. Earth worms bring
up the material from certain depths and place it in position to spread upon the
surface. They drag leaves and any manageable plants into their burrows,
and much of the material so much taken into the ground decays and enriches the
ground to a depth of several inches. The pocket gopher has done much to
furnish a surface area of loose, mellow, easily cultivated and highly
productive soil. Like the earth worm, the gopher for century after
century has been bringing up to the surface fine material, to the amount of
several tons annually to the acre, avoiding necessarily the pebbles,
cobbles and coarser constituents. The burrows collapse, the undermined bowlders
and large fragments sink downwards, rains and winds spread out the gopher hills
and worm castings, and the next year and the next, the process is repeated;
and so it has been for all the years making up the centuries since the
close of the glacial epoch. Organic agents in the form of plants and
burrowing animals have worked unremittingly through many centuries and
accomplished a work of incalculable value in pulverizing, mellowing and
enriching the superficial stratum, and bringing it to the ideal condition to
which it was found by the explorers and pioneers from whose extent dates the
historical period of our matchless Iowa.
It is estimated that the last invasion of Iowa
by the glaciers was from 100,000 to 170,000 years ago. For many years
scientists have been investigating the causes which have produced the great
treeless plains of the Mississippi Valley. East of Ohio prairies are
unknown, but as we go westward they increase in number and size. In
western Indiana, and from there to the Rocky Mountains west and north the vast
prairies* prevail, although groves are often found, and the margins of lakes,
rivers and creeks are generally bordered with the same extent as trees.
From 98' of longitude west and treeless plains become almost a desert.
* Prairie is a French word signifying meadow. It was first
applied to the great treeless plains of North America by the French missionaries
who were the discoverers of the prairie regions of the west.
The soil of prairies varies in formation and
quality to almost as great an extent as in the timbered regions. In Michigan,
Indiana and Illinois the prairies are inclined to be quite level, the surface
soil is a black vegetable formation to six inches to five feet or more in
depth. In Iowa the prairies are more rolling, affording better
surface drainage.
In southern Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas,
western Nebraska, northern Missouri, and western Kansas, the vegetable
formation is lighter, sand and gravel being quite common on the surface.
Along the first river bottoms, the soil is
generally a deep rich alluvium. The second bench often presents a mixture
of sand and gravel while the bluffs show soil of a lighter color, with clay
near the surface. Large bodies of broken land, cut up into steep hills, generally
extend back from the water courses, through which deep ravines have been cut in
all directions. This land is generally covered to some extent with growth
of stunted oak and hickory trees, among which are thickets of wild plum, crab
apple and hazel bushes. These lands were called "barrens' by the
early settlers. The soil of this hill land is productive, producing
grain, grass and fruit of excellent quality. The "Missouri
slope" is the name given to that portion of Iowa which is drained into the
Missouri River. The soil is a bluff deposit, generally destitute of
surface stone and gravel, or rock strata beneath, and produces excellent crops
of grain, grass, vegetables and fruit. The bluffs along the Mississippi
River rise to a height of from one to two hundred feet, everywhere intersected
with deep ravines. They are generally treeless, but in some places
small timber is found. Northern Iowa is but gently rolling fifty
miles west of the Mississippi, while the southern half of the state is more
broken into hills and valleys, and has large tracts of woodland.
Although essentially a prairie state, almost
every variety of surface soil is found, showing conclusively that it is not the
peculiar soil formation which causes forests to grow in one locality and
prairies to be found intermingled with them.
After more than half a century of investigation
of the causes which have produced the prairies, the problem is yet unsettled.
No theory yet advanced explain satisfactorily why the treeless plains begin
in certain sections of Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas and
Louisiana, without any noticeable difference in soil or surface. In many
places in the states where the prairies predominate, remains of forests are
found that show evidences of having existed for hundreds of years, and among
the mare prairies which furnish no indications of ever having been covered with
trees. The origin of the prairies is one of the most interesting problems
that has engaged the attention of all thoughtful people who have seen them
before they were touched by the plow. Scientists have sought carefully
for evidences to sustain the different theories advanced. Professors
Whitney and Hall, who made early geological surveys and examinations of
portions of Iowa, gave considerable attention to the origin of prairies.
Whitney says:
"The cause of the absence
of trees on the prairies, is the physical character of the soil, and especially
its exceeding fineness, which is prejudicial to the growth of anything but a
superficial vegetation. The smallness of the particles of soil being an
insuperable barrier to the necessary access of air to the roots of deeply
rooted vegetation. Wherever, in the midst of the extraordinary fine soil
of the prairies, coarse and gravelly patches exist, there dense forests occur.
The theory that fineness of soil is fatal to tree growth finds its most
remarkable support in the fact that in southeast Russia the limits of the black
soil of Russia is an earth of exceeding fineness, so fine indeed that it is
with the greatest difficulty that the air can penetrate it so as to oxidize the
organic matter which it contains. It is easy to see why plains are
likelier than mountain slopes to be treeless, it being toward the plains that
the finer particles of the material which is abraded from the higher regions is
being constantly carried. The more distant the region from the mountains,
and the broader its area, the more likely it is that a considerable portion of
it will be covered with a fine detritus, whether this be of sub-aerial origin,
or deposited at the bottom of the sea.
"The exceedingly fine soil
of the typical prairie region consists in large part of the residual materials
left after the removal by percolation of rain and other atmospheric agencies of
the calcareous portion of the undisturbed stratified deposits, chiefly of the
Paleozoic age, which underlies so large a portion of the Mississippi Valley.
The finer portions of the formations of more recent age in the Gulf
States have also over considerable area remained treeless."
Professor James Hall says:
"Throughout the prairie
regions the underlying rocks are soft sedimentary strata, especially shale’s
and impure limestones. Most of these on exposure disintegrate readily and
crumble to soil. The whole soil of the prairies appears to have been
produced from such materials, not far removed from their present beds.
The valley soil, containing a larger portion of coarse materials than
that of the uplands, seems to have been adapted to the growth of forest
vegetation. In consequence of this we find such localities covered with
an abundant growth of timber. We sometimes meet with ridges of coarse
material, apparently drift deposit, on which from some cause there has never
been an accumulation of fine sediment; in such localities we invariably find a
growth of timber. This is the origin of the groves scattered over the
prairies, for whose isolated position and peculiar circumstances of growth we
are unable to account in any other way."
Dr. Charles A. White, who made a later
geological survey of Iowa, in discussing this subject says:
"It is estimated that
seven-eights of the surface of Iowa was prairie when the State was first
settled. They are not confined to the level surface, but sometimes are
quite hilly and broken; and it has been shown that they are not confined to any
particular variety of soil, for they prevail equally upon alluvial, drift and
lacustral. Indeed we sometimes find a single prairie whose surface
includes all of these varieties, portions of which may be sandy, gravelly,
clayey, or loamy. Neither are they confined to the regions of, nor does
their character seem at all dependent upon the formation which underlies them;
for within the State of Iowa they rest upon all formations from those of the
Azoic to those of the Cretaceous age inclusive, which embraces almost all kinds
of rocks. Southwestern Minnesota is almost one continuous prairie upon
the drift which rests directly upon not only the hard Sioux quartzite, but also
directly upon the granite.
"Thus whatever the origin
of the prairies might have been, we have positive assurance that their present
existence in Iowa and the immediate vicinity is not due to the influence of the
climate, the character or composition of the soil, nor to the character of any
of the underlying formations. The cause of the present existence of
prairies in Iowa is the presence of autumnal fires. We have no evidence
to show or to suggest that any of the prairies ever had a growth of trees upon
them. There seems to be no good reason why we should regard the forests
as any more natural or normal condition of the surface than the prairies are.
Indeed it seems the more natural inference that the occupation of the
surface by the forests has taken place by dispersion from original centers, and
that they encroached upon the unoccupied surface until they were met and
checked by the destructive power of fires. The prairies doubtless existed
as such almost immediately after the close of the Glacial epoch."
The International Cyclopedia, in an elaborate
article on the prairies, says:
"The origin of the very
fertile prairies of the valley of the Mississippi River proper has been the
subject of many theories. How a soil so rich upon which most of the trees
of neighboring forests flourish luxuriantly when protected should have failed
to have been covered with them in a state of nature, is the question. It
is answered by some vegetable physiologists thus:
"The excerements of
vegetable growth from the roots of trees and plants, and even the annual
accumulation of their own leaves after a continuous growth of the same species,
become poisonous to the genera which emit them, though perfectly nutritious to
plants of different families. It is claimed that the long continuance of
forest growth on a rich soil made constantly richer by its own annual deposits
of leaves, dead wood and excretions from the roots, finally makes it unfit for
their growth. Sickliness and decay produce more dead wood so that fires
finally destroy utterly what the soil refuses to nourish. Rank weeds and
grasses follow, which in their turn ripen and dry in autumn, make food for new
flames that destroy the remnant of tree vegetation, and even the young wood of
new species which might otherwise hold their ground. Tree roots cannot
live when their tops are destroyed. Perennials, on the other hand, have
an extraordinary power to preserve life in their roots under the action of
prairie fires. Once in possession of the soil it is easy to see that
annual autumn fires, where there are not animals enough to feed down the summer
growth, will not only preserve the ground won from the forest by grasses, but
will singe the surrounding forests, and wherever they are sickly from the cause
first named will finally consume them. Ages of the continuous growth of
grasses and other perennials have assimilated those qualities of the soil that
become noxious to trees; and in nature's rotation of crops, the soil has again
become fitted for their growth. It is only necessary to check the prairie
fires for a new crop of forest to dominate the grasses. Trees were
beginning to resume possession of the prairies when the settlements began.
The increase of the buffalo decreased the food for autumn fires by so
much as they pastured upon the grasses. The moisture of the ground
contiguous to streams, and the sweetness of the late summer grasses in those
places, would naturally make spots where the trees could have time to get
rooted in the absence of fires."
It will be seen from these quotations that the
subject of the origin of the prairies is by no means settled. Little, if
anything new, has been developed during the last quarter of a century by
scientific investigation to throw new light upon a subject that will always be
of interest in the Mississippi Valley. The fact that prairie and forest
conditions have been found on all of the continents, and among the islands,
when first seen by men, show clearly that the solution of the problem cannot be
found in local or climatic conditions. Some of the treeless plains are
the most fertile lands known; some are level as the lakes; some are barren
deserts of drifting sands; others are lofty elevations rising into hills and
mountains; they exist in the Arctic regions, in the temperate latitudes and in
the torrid zones; some are entirely destitute of sand, gravel or rocks of any
description. Others are thickly strewn with granite bowlders, and in
others arise enormous ledges of rocks. In some places in Kansas the
prairies are covered with flat limestone, in sufficient quantities to fence the
land into fields with walls, as in New England and Pennsylvania with cobble
stones.
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