Iowa History

       An IAGenWeb Special Project

Join the IAGenWeb Team

History of Iowa

Volume I

CHAPTER XIII

After the death of Dubuque, the first white man known to have made a home in the limits of Iowa was Chevalier Marais, a scion of the French nobility and an adherent of Louis XVI.  When the French Revolution swept over his country and the lives of the nobility were in danger, Marais fled to America and for twenty-two years was a wanderer of the west.  In 1812 he married the daughter of the head chief of the Ioway Indians, established a trading post at the mouth of Buck Creek in the present limits of Clayton County, and lived there several years carrying on trade with the Indians and fur dealers.

An agent of the American Fur Company, Colonel J. W. Johnson, had in 1808 established a trading post at the Flint Hills, near where Burlington stands.  His first shipment of merchandise was received on the 23d of August of the same year, from Bellefountain factory and was valued at $14,715.99.  These goods were exchanged with the Indians for furs and skins.  On the 28th of March, 1809, Colonel Johnson reports having procured he following:

In 1812 the trading house was destroyed by fire and Colonel Johnson reports the loss of building and furs at $5,500.  In 1820 Le Moliere, another trader, had  established a trading post six miles above the mouth of the Des Moines on the Iowa side.

In 1820 Dr. Samuel C. Muir, a surgeon in the United States army, was with a command stationed at Fort Edwards (now Warsaw, Illinois).  He crossed the river and built a cabin where Keokuk now stands.  he had married a beautiful and intelligent Indian girl of the Sac nation and their home was on a little Iowa farm where he cabin stood.  Some years later an order was issued by the War Department requiring officers of the army at the frontier posts to abandon their Indian wives.  Dr. Muir, who was a native of Scotland and a graduate of Edinburgh University, refused to desert his wife and resigned his commission.  He lived happily with his wife in their modest and beautiful home on the banks of the Mississippi until 1832, when he was stricken with cholera and died suddenly, leaving his Indian widow and five children destitute, as his property became involved in litigation which consumed most of it.

In 1821 Isaac R. Campbell explored the southern portion of the territory embraced in Iowa and afterward settled near the foot of the Des Moines Rapids in Lee County, where he opened a farm and kept a public house.  In writing his recollections of southern Iowa at that time, he says:

"The only indications of a white settlement at the time of my first visit at the Rapids was a cabin built by Dr. Samual C. Muir on the site of the present city of Keokuk.  The next cabin built by a white man in that vicinity was about six miles above, where a French trader, Le Moliere, had established a post.  Another Frenchman, M. Blondin, had a cabin a mile farther up the river.  At the head of the Rapids the Indian Chief, Wapello, with a band of his tribe, had a village.  This was near where Louis Honore Tesson, a French trader, had established a post and secured a grant of lands in 1799.  The ruins of his buildings and his old orchard were here found."

Peter A. Sarpy, a French trader, had, as early as 1824, been engaged in the Indian traffic at a place called Traders' Point on the east shore of the Missouri, near the south line of Pottawattamie County.  In the same year Mr. Hart, a French trader, explored the western rives and valleys of Iowa along the Missouri and built a trading post within the present limits of the city of Council Bluffs.  Quite a settlement of traders, hunters, and trappers gathered in the vicinity.  Francis Guittar, a French trader, built a cabin there in 1827, and carried on trade with Indians and white hunters and trappers.

In 1828 Moses Stillwell with his family came to Puch-echu-tuck (a name given by the Indians to the point at the mouth of the Des Moines, where Dr. Muir had his home).  In the spring of 1829 Dr. Isaac Galland with his family settled on the west shore of the Mississippi opposite the upper chain of rocks in the lower rapids, where Nashville now is.  It was called by the Indians Ah-wip-e-tuck.  Dr. Galland labored long and hard to build a city here, but he was unsuccessful; the city went to Puch-e-chu-tuck and became Keokuk.  However, the establishment of the first school, [Established in 1830.  Taught by Berryman Jennings.] and the birth of the first white child [Eleanor Galland, a daughter of Dr. Galland, born 1830.] within the limits of the State made this place notable.

In his book descriptive of early Iowa, Dr. Galland says:

"As we passed up the river we saw the ruins of old Fort Madison about ten miles above the rapids, near a sand bluff rising perpendicular from the water's edge.  On the second day after our keel boat reached Shoe-o-con or Flint Hills.  an Indian village of the Foxes stood at the mouth of the Flint Creek; its chief was Ti-me-a.  In 1825 I took a trip with an ox team and an Indian guide up the river.  We passed Wapello's village and crossed the Des Moines River on a raft.  We ascended the high lands above Grave Yard Bluff (now Buena Vista).  We followed the divide, passing a lone tree standing on the bluff, which was a landmark for the Indians.  In the fall of 1825 I settled at Quash-qua-me village, where my father-in-law, Captain James White, had purchased the old trading house and a tract of land adjacent, which was an old Spanish grant made to Monsieur Julian, on which he lived in 1805.  Captain White made his first trip to this point on the steamer Mandan, which was the first that came to the foot of the Rapids."

In 1830 a trading post was established on the Iowa River in the present limits of Johnson County.  John Gilbert was the agent in charge and was probably the first white man to make a home in that part of the State.  The post was near Poweshiek's Indian village.  Goods were brought up the river in keel boats to be used in exchange with the Indians for furs and skins.  The following year Colonel George Davenport explored the Cedar River in a canoe to a point above the mouth of Rock Creek, where he established a trading post and carried on a profitable traffic with the Indians up to 1835.

In 1831 Mr. Campbell settled at Puch-e-chu-tuck.  The earliest settlers at this place after Dr. Muir and Moses Stillwell, were Amos and Valencourt Vanausdol, John Connelly, John Forsyth, James Thorn, John Tolman, John Gaines and William Price, most of whom had Indian wives.  Here the American Fur Company had erected on the river bank a row of hewn log buildings for the use of their agent in his traffic with the Indians and for the collection of skins and furs.  The place was called "Farmers' Trading Post."

In September, 1834, a meeting of half-breed Indians was held at this place to prepare a petition to Congress requesting the passage of an act to authorize them to sell their lands in the tract known as the "Half-breed Reservation."  There were nine families living in that vicinity and , after the adjournment of the meeting above mentioned, the citizens held a council at John Gaines' saloon, to consider the prospect of building a city at this place.  After some consultation, John Gaines proposed, and it was agreed, that the future city should be named for the Sac chief, Keokuk.

In August, 1835, Major Gordon with an escort of troops crossed into the Black Hawk Purchase, traversing the region lying between the Mississippi and the upper Des Moines rivers.  He described the country as surpassing in beauty and fertility almost any known region of the great West.

During the time occupied by the various explorations of the east and west borders of our future State, the territory had passed nominally under the jurisdiction of various organized territories.  After Missouri was admitted into the Union as a State on the 4th of March, 1821, after the adoption of the famous "Missouri Compromise," all that portion of Missouri Territory north of the northern boundary was left without civil government until 1834.  Although no portion of the territory west of the Mississippi River, north of Missouri, had yet been acquired o the various Indian tribes and nations occupying it, and white men could only enter the territory by permission of the Indians, still attempts were made from year to year to settle in that section.

In June, 1829, James L. Langworthy, a native of Vermont, purchased an interest in the Galena lend mines and attempted to procure an interest in Dubuque's old "Mines of Spain."  Securing Indian guides he explored the country between the Turkey and Maquoketa rivers to find the lead mines formerly worked.  He made friends with the Indians and gained their permission to work some of the mines.  The next year with his brother, Lucius H. Langworthy and a company of miners, he began work.  A village of Sac and Fox Indians which stood at the mouth of Catfish Creek had been depopulated y an attack of Sioux Indians, who killed nearly all of its inhabitants.  There were about seventy empty houses standing here when the miners from the Galena region crossed to take possession of the abandoned "Mines of Spain."  Some of the reckless miners thought to intimidate the Indians by burning these cabins and thus prevent their return to the mines.  In June, 1830, the miners on the west side of the river determined to organize a local government.  They held a meeting and elected a legislature consisting of James L. Lanworthy, H. F. Lauder, James McPheters, Samuel Scales and E. M. Wren and instructed them to report a code of laws.  This pioneer law-making body gathered around an old cottonwood log for a table and proceeded to business.  Mr. Lanworthy was chosen clerk and kept the records.  The following is a copy of the code adopted:

"Having been chosen to draft laws by which we as miners will be governed, and having duly considered the subject, we do unanimously agree that we will be governed by the regulations on the east side of the Mississippi River, with the following exceptions:

"Article I.  That each and every man shall hold two hundred yards square of ground by working said ground one day in six.

"Article II.  We further agree that there shall be chosen by a majority of the miners present a person who shall hold this article, and who shall grant letters of arbitration, on application having been made, and said letters of arbitration shall be obligatory n the parties so applying."

The regulations referred to on the east side of the river were the laws established by the superintendent of the United States lead mines at Fever River (Galena).  Under their code the settlers elected Dr. Jarote their first Governor and it is known that their laws were obeyed and the acts of their legislature as rigidly enforced as have been the more formal acts of later years.

Settlers began to pass over to the new colony in large numbers, but as the invasion of the Indians' country was in direct violation of treaty compacts, the United States Government was called upon to expel the intruders.  under orders from the War Department, Colonel Zachary Taylor, commanding the military post at Prairie du Chien, sent Lieutenant Abercrombie with a company of soldiers to drive the invaders back to the east side of the Mississippi.  A detachment was left at the mines to protect the Indians in possession of their property.

At the Flint Hills Samuel S. White and others had entered the Indian lands, erected cabins and staked off claims, but they also were driven out and their cabins destroyed.

The treaty, by which the "Black Hawk Purchase" was acquired, was ratified on the 13th of February, 1833, and on the 1st of June following the Indians gave possession, removing to their reservations.  The new territory thus opened to settlement had not yet been named Iowa, but was known as the "Black Hawk Purchase."

On the 1st of June, 1832, there were probably not more than fifty white people living within the limits of the future State; but for many years the fame of the beautiful valleys, groves and rivers, amid the fertile prairies covered with nutritions grass and brilliant with wild flowers, had reached the distant East.  But it was reserved from settlement and in sole possession of Indians, their ideal hunting ground.  Thousands of people were waiting impatiently for the removal of the red men from such a fair land.  When the time came for the Indians to go farther west, the white top emigrant wagons thickly lined the paths leading into the land of promise.  The home seekers were crowding the ferries and exploring the creeks, rivers, groves and prairies for the best springs, timber and farm locations.  Minerals, town sites and water power were sought for.

When the troops were withdrawn from the "Mines of Spain" in June, 1833, the Langworthy brothers crossed the river again and resumed work at the mines.  Settlers flocked in, a frontier village began to grow up and a school was opened.  All obstructions to settlement having now been removed, before the close of the year there was a population of about five hundred in the vicinity of the mines.  A pioneer among the early inhabitants of this first Iowa village gives the following description of the place in that year:

"The valley resounded to the woodman's ax; the sturdy oaks fell before them on every side.  The branches were used for fuel, and of the trunks were constructed rude log cabins without doors or windows.  Three openings served for the entrance of light and the settlers, and the egress of the smoke.  The winter of that year shut us in from all communication with the outside world, with a short supply of provisions, and not a woman in the entire settlement.  There was plenty of whisky, and the demon intemperance stalked everywhere during the long winter evenings and short bleak days.  the cholera claimed many victims, and the sick lay down and died with no gentle hand to nurse them, no medical aid to relieve, and no kindred or friends to mourn their untimely fate.  We had no mails, no government, and were subject to no restraint of law or society.  Drinking and gambling were universal amusements, and criminals were only amenable to the penalties inflicted by Judge Lynch, from whose summary decrees there was no appeal.

"In the spring of 1834 a transient steamer came up from St. Louis bringing provisions, groceries, goods and newspapers.  A few women also came to join their husbands, and from that time on we began to exhibit some elements of civilization."

It is related by Eliphalet Price that the first American flag raised by a citizen of Iowa was made by a slave woman and run up in Dubuque by Nicholas Carroll immediately after 12 o'clock on the 4th of July, 1834.  The same authority says that the first church in Iowa was built in Dubuque in the fall of 1834.  Mr. Johnson, a devout Methodist, raised the money by general subscription among the citizens and the church was used by various denominations for several years.  The first Catholic Church erected in Iowa was a stone edifice built in Dubuque in 1835-6, through the efforts of a French priest, Mazzuchelli. *  

*Eliphalet Price, in "Annals of Iowa." October, 1865.

Next to Dubuque, Fort Madison was one of the earliest places in the limits of Iowa occupied by the whites.  In 1832 Zachariah Hawkins, Berryman Jennings and several other young men, crossed the river and made claims in the vicinity of the old fort.  Their claims were purchased the next year by Nathaniel and John H. Knapp, who proceeded in 1835 to plat a town.

In October, 1832, before Iowa was open to white settlers, a little colony crossed the Mississippi River at the head of Big Island, landing about two miles below the Flint Hills.  They explored the country in that vicinity and selected claims for future farms.  They built cabins and fences, and in February, 1833, moved their families, stock and farm implements to their claims.  They had begun to break up the land for crops, when the commander at Fort Armstrong sent a detachment of troops to drive them off.  Their cabins and fences were burned by the soldiers and they retreated to the Illinois side, but prepared to return as soon as the Indians were removed.

Morton M. McCarver and Simpson S. White with their families crossed and made claims within the limits of the city of Burlington in 1833 and established a ferry across the river to carry emigrants with their teams and goods.  They were the first settlers in Burlington.  In the fall William R. Ross brought a stock of goods and opened the first store in the place.  In November, 1833, the original town was laid out and platted by Benjamin Tucker and William R. Ross.*

*John Gray, a friend of the proprietors and a Vermonter, suggested the name, and it was decided to call the new town Burlington for the city of that name in Vermont.

In this same year of 1832 settlement was made near the mouth of the Skunk River.  This region was seen to be especially fertile with convenient supplies of wood and water.  Among those who staked out claims in this vicinity were Joseph Edwards, Jeremiah Buford, William Lee, Young L. Huges, Joseph York, Jeremiah Cutbirth and John Moore.  Their claims were in the vicinity of the town of Augusta as now located and in what is now Lee and Des Moines counties.  They cut logs and built cabins and fenced and broke up land for farms.  But the Indians had not yet parted with possession of their lands, complaint was made to the authorities and a company of soldiers came upon the settlers one day and drove them from their claims to the east side of the Mississippi.  They were determined to hold their new homes and, after the troops were sent away, the squatters again crossed to the west side, took possession of their claims and thus became among the earliest settlers in Iowa.  John Whittaker with his family joined them early the following spring.

The first settler to cross the Mississippi River and open a farm in the vicinity of old Fort Armstrong was Captain Benjamin W. Clark, a native of Virginia.  He had emigrated to western Illinois before the Black Hawk War and, in 1833, when the lands west of the Mississippi were opened to settlement, he took a claim.  He soon discovered coal, which he mined; he planted an orchard and established a ferry across the river, the only one between Burlington and Dubuque.  In 1835 he built a large public house and the next year laid out the town of Buffalo, and built a saw mill near the mouth of Duck Creek.  His son, David H. Clark, was the first white child born in the Black Hawk Purchase in the country laying between Burlington and Dubuque, April 21, 1834.

For several years Buffalo did a large amount of business and had the prospect of becoming an important city in the future.  But tow rivals soon sprang up in Rockingham and Davenport, the latter destined to become the large city of this region.  Rockingham was laid out in 1836 by A. H. Davenport, Colonel John Sullivan and H. W. Higgins.  It was several miles up the river from Buffalo, opposite the mouth of Rock River.

The original claim upon which Davenport was laid out was made in 1833 by R. H. Spencer and A. McCloud.  Soon after Antoine Le Claire purchased it for one hundred dollars.  In 1835 it became the property of a company of eight persons who proceeded to lay out a town named in honor of Colonel George Davenport.  A long and bitter contest arose between Rockingham and Davenport as to which should be the county-seat.  It was finally decided in favor of the latter.  This proved a death blow to Rockingham, which eventually disappeared from the map.