Iowa History Project
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EARLY SETTLERS' HOMES
The covered wagon in which the early settlers came was usually the first home that they had in Iowa. The women and children slept in the wagon; the men and older boys, on the ground in the open. The weather was often cold when they arrived and, if so, a rough shelter was usually built first. An "open-faced" camp, as it was called, was common. Three walls of logs were put up, with a roof of split logs and brush. A big fire was built across the open side. A camp of this kind could quickly be built by two or three men or boys.
BUILDING THE HOUSE
The early settlers always looked for a place that was heavily timbered. Although it took time and work to clear fields for planting in such a location, the pioneers preferred it because they needed the logs to build the cabins and the wood for fuel.
The home of the early settler was a one-room log cabin, which was built as soon as possible. No nails, no hammers, and no saws were used. Axes, froes, augers, and large jack-knives were the only tools they had. The cabin was heated by a fireplace at one end of the room. Before breakfast the pioneer boy went to the spring, or creek, to wash his hands and face.
To build a log cabin was no small task. First the trees had to be cut down, trimmed, and notched. Some of the logs were split into rough boards. This was done with a froe, which was a kind of iron wedge. A log chain was fastened around the end of a log. Horses then dragged the log to the place where the house was to be built.
As soon as enough logs had been dragged together the neighbors gathered for a "house raising." Four walls with two gables were quickly put up. It took strong men to roll or lift the logs and fit them into place. Roof logs were laid from gable to gable. Clapboards were laid on these like long shingles. Weight-poles were then laid across the clapboards and fastened with wooden pins to hold the roof in place.
The logs in the gables were held in place by long wooden pegs driven into holes drilled with a large auger. The largest clapboards were used to make a door, which was hung on wooden hinges. Spaces between the logs were filled with chips and daubed with clay.
A fireplace, made of small logs, stones, and clay, was built across one end of the house. The chimney was built o flogs and lined with clay. The floor was made of clay, which was pounded until it was hard and smooth. For a window, a small hole was cut in one of the log walls and oiled paper was used instead of glass.
Sometimes the pioneer families improved their homes later by getting a door that was made of sawed boards; by putting in two or three larger windows of glass, and, by laying a puncheon, or split log floor.
In northwestern Iowa the earliest homes were made of sod. This was because timber was scarce and sod plentiful. The sod was got by using a breaking plow with which a furrow was made. The sod was then cut into sections and these were laid, one on top of the other, like brick. For the roof, prairie hay was placed on poles and then sod was put on top of the hay.
THE FURNISHINGS
The furnishings of the home were as simple as the cabin itself. Sometimes there were not enough plates to go around for all of the family. The father, mother, and oldest boys ate first at a small round table. The smaller children ate at a second or even a third table. Over the door there hung a rifle with powder horn.
A few heavy iron pots and pans were all the cooking utensils of the early home. All cooking was done over the open fireplace. Dough for bread was put into an iron pan with a heavy iron lid over it. Then it was shoved into the fire and buried in hot ashes until it was baked.
There were no carpets or rugs in the early homes and but very little furniture. It is said that when one settler called on a newly-married pair he found them sitting on the earthen floor of their shack, eating mush out of an iron pot with one spoon between them.
A shed was built for the livestock. Two rows of posts were driven into the ground and hay stuffed in between them. The roof was made by putting hay on poles. One side of the shed, usually the one to the south, was often left open.
After a few years the pioneer families often could afford to get a few more things. They might add another room to the house or build a larger and better house.
In spite of all the hardships and inconveniences, the early settlers tell us that they enjoyed their homes and were happy. Perhaps that was because they had to build the houses themselves and had to make the furniture. They appreciated what they had because they had to work so hard to get it.
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No store or mill was within fifty, or perhaps a hundred miles, for many early Iowa pioneer families. They could not have to eat what we have today. Indeed, they thought they were well off if they had enough of the very plainest foods for their large families.
THE FIRST CROP
The first thing that an Iowa pioneer family did after choosing a site for the new home was to mark off a "claim." Until a settler could buy the land from the Government and get a deed for it, his and was called a "claim." The settlers measured their land by "stepping it off." They marked it with stakes or, if it was timbered land, by blazing trees along the lines of the claim.
As soon as the land was marked off, the first crop was planted. Sometimes the settlers came too late in the spring to plant corn and wheat. A "truck patch," as it was called, of potatoes, turnips, and a few other vegetables, was planted.
Corn was the first regular crop. The roots of the cornstalk, it was believed, loosened the soil better than the roots of any other plant. Thus the land was put in shape for other plants. Only a few acres could be cleared on timbered land for planting the first season. Each year, however, the farmer tried to clear a few more acres and have them ready for planting for the next season.
The first year was usually the hardest. The crop was small. The flour or meal that the pioneer had brought with him often gave out before the first winter was over. There was one thing they could do to get food. Wild game was plentiful. As long as their ammunition lasted they could get plenty of meat although there might be very little bread.
NOT MUCH MACHINERY
The pioneers brought but little farm machinery. A plow, a shovel or a spade, and a hoe were about all they brought. They did not have room for more in the covered wagon. Often they used their axes to chop holes in the ground in which to plant their first crop of corn.
Many of the plows that they brought from the East were too light and too weak for use in Iowa. It took a big strong plow and from four to six yoke of oxen to turn over the tough prairie sod for the first time.
HARVESTING THE CORN
What a task it was to harvest the crop! Only the simplest tools were used. The idea of a corn-picking machine would have seemed ridiculous then. The corn, stalk and all, was stored in the barn. Later a "husking bee" was held. The neighbors came to help. Games were played and, if a "fiddler" could be found, a dance was held.
Major Byers in his poem on "Iowa Pioneers" says,
"The husking corn, where many a bright eye shone---
The kiss to him who found the lucky ear."
THRESHING THE GRAIN
Binders and threshing machines were unknown. The grain was cut with a "cradle." The cradle was like a scythe with several long wooden fingers attached to it. These fingers held the grain together in a bunch after it was cut. The grain was then tied into bundles by hand.
To thresh the grain, a small plot of ground was cleared and the earth pounded down hard. The sheaves or bundles of grain were laid in a circle upon this plot of ground. The sheaves were unbound. Then horses or oxen were driven around and around on this circle of bundles until the grain was well trodden out. Another layer of bundles was then put on the first one and the horses or oxen were driven around again. After the grain had been trodden out of several layers of bundles the straw was raked off and the grain heaped up.
After the grain was partly threshed in this way it had to be separated from the chaff. Windy days were best for this. The grain was poured slowly from one pan or box to another so that the wind could blow away the chaff. This was done a number of times. When there was no wind a sheet was waved to make a breeze.
Some of the grain had to be ground into flour. Only small and simple mills were to be found, and they were often far away. Sometimes the pioneers ground the grain into meal themselves. They would grate it over a rough iron surface, or they might pound it into meal in a stump that had been hollowed out by burning a hole in it.
WILD FOODS
The early farmers put up much wild hay. Their stock needed it for the long, hard winters. The hay was cut with a scythe and raked over by hand to dry. When it was ready to store away it was piled in a stack beside the barn.
The pioneers depended, for much of their food, upon the things that nature gave them. Bees were common in the woods of Iowa. One man tells us that when he was a boy his father and neighbors gathered honey from twenty trees and stored it in a barrel. The honey was used in place of sugar.
Hunting in early days was not just a sport. It furnished most of the meat for winter. While the buffalo had moved farther west, ahead of the settler, deer, bear, and smaller game were still plentiful.
The pioneer's life was hard but most of the people were healthy and happy.
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The history of Iowa's schools begins with the history of her very first settlements. From the beginning we find the pioneers wanting and getting schools. The first schools were begun even before Iowa had been opened to the white people for settling.
THE FIRST TEACHERS
Mr. Berryman Jennings was the first person to teach a school in what is now Iowa. During the months of October, November, and December of 1830 he taught school at the "head of the rapids" in Lee County. Dr. Isaac Galland furnished the room, fuel, furniture, and board for Mr. Jennings. Dr. Galland's children and the children of a few neighbors attended the school.
Mr. Jennings, in a letter, said: "This schoolroom was like all other buildings in that new country, a log cabin built of round logs or poles, notched close and mudded for comfort, logs cut out for doors and windows, and also for fireplaces. The jamb back of the fireplaces was of packed dry dirt, the chimney topped out with sticks and mud. This cabin, like all others of that day, was covered with wide clapboards. This was to economize time and save nails, which were scarce and far between. There were no stoves in those days and the fireplace was used for cooking as well as comfort."
Soon after Mr. Jennings started his school another was opened at Keokuk. Mr. J. K. Robinson was the teacher. He taught from December 1830 until the following spring.
Mrs. Rebecca Palmer was the first woman teacher in Iowa. She began teaching at Fort Madison in September 1834.
THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
The early schools had practically no equipment. There were no such desks, blackboards, or maps as we have today. The seats were usually long benches made of planks or split logs. For desks they fastened planks to the wall. The blackboard, if they had one, consisted of a plank or two fastened to the wall and painted black. Erasers were made of sheepskin with the wool side out.
The pupils had no regular textbooks but brought whatever they had at home. Their parents, in some cases, had brought books from the East. Some pupils brought Bibles, others almanacs. The few books which the teacher might have made up the school library.
There were no taxes to support the schools. Parents paid according to the number of children they had in school. The teacher received little pay and "boarded 'round" among the families of the pupils. The schools were far apart and pupils often had to go several miles. Schools only lasted a few months each year.
The subjects taught were reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, spelling, and geography. Spelling was considered very important. To be able to "spell down the room" was a real honor. In writing, the boys and girls used pens that had been made of goose quills. The children's mother made the ink at home from maple bark and copperas. The teacher would write a sentence on a sheet of paper. Then the pupils would practice their writing by copying the teacher's sentence.
"Singing Schools" were very popular. When someone who could sing moved into a neighborhood, that person became the leader of the singing school. The people of the settlement would gather at the school or at home in the evening and sing. Sometimes the young people would start a "lyceum." This was a society where young men debated or gave orations, and the young women "recited"; that is, gave readings. The singing schools and lyceums meant much to the young people. They had no other places for entertainment. Besides, they learned much at such meetings.
ACADEMIES AND COLLEGES
As more settlers came to Iowa the people began to talk of better schools. Some people even began to think of starting colleges, or institutes and academies, as they were called. An academy at Denmark, in Lee County, and one at Mt. Pleasant were the first to be started. The latter later became Iowa Wesleyan University.
Grinnell College, which was opened at Davenport as "Iowa College" in 1846, is usually spoken of as Iowa's first college. It was stated by the "Iowa Band of 1843." This "band" was made up of a group of young men from New England who had bound themselves together to do missionary work in the new territory. In 1859 Iowa College was moved to Grinnell. Its name now is Grinnell College.
Daniel Coe, an Eastern man who never saw Iowa, gave money and land for a Presbyterian college at Cedar Rapids. The institution bears his name and is now called Coe College.
Other early church schools that were started in the new state were Cornell College at Mt. Vernon, Central College at Pella, and Drake University at Oskaloosa. Drake was later moved to Des Moines.
A number of other church schools were later started. So many, in fact, that Iowa became a leader for colleges west of the Mississippi. The early people were determined to have right at home, for their boys and girls, schools of the kind that they had known in the states from which they came.
STATE COLLEGES
When Iowa became a separate territory, the United States Congress set aside two townships of land or about 46,000 acres. This land was to be used by Iowa when it became a state for the purpose of starting a "seminary of learning."
In 1847, a year after Iowa became a state, the two townships of land were put in charge of a board of trustees. The board was to start a State University. The land was sold to start a fund but the university was not begun until 1855. It was located at Iowa City, then the capital. In that year a president and several teachers were employed and a small building was rented. When the state capital was moved to Des Moines in 1857, the university was moved into the old capital building, which still stands on the campus of our university.
Congress also gave Iowa, some years later, more than 200,000 acres of land to be used for an agricultural and mechanical college. The college was located at Ames in 1868 and is now called Iowa State College.
When the state orphanage at Cedar Falls was closed, the General Assembly decided to use the buildings for a state normal school. Young men and women were to be trained at this school for teaching. The Iowa State Normal School was opened in 1876. It is now the Iowa State Teachers College.
One of the widely known educational leaders of Iowa rendered his best service to the state through the State Teachers College. Dr. Homer H. Seerley became its president in 1886 when the institution was young and small. He continued as president for forty-two years. When he retired the Iowa State Teachers College was one of the foremost teacher-training institutions of our nation.
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The first white men to see Iowa land came by water. Marquette and Joliet traveled in a canoe. French trappers and trader, the next white men to come, also came by canoe. Rivers were the only routes of travel that the first white men of Iowa knew.
RIVER TRAVEL
Eastern Iowa has many rivers that flow into the Mississippi. These rivers did much to bring settlers into the state. The pioneers could follow the streams as they came to look for land. If we can imagine Iowa as having no roads at all we can see why rivers were used so much. Men could travel easily and swiftly in their canoes. Flatboats could be loaded and floated downstream to market at small expense. For a number of years before Iowa land was opened to white settlers, steamboats had been puffing up and down the Mississippi. The Virginia had made the first steamboat trip up the great river to the site of St. Paul, Minnesota, as early as 1823.
River steamboats were built in Iowa. Some of them were crude and clumsy affairs. The N. L. Minburn was built at Iowaville in 1852-1853. It made a number of trips on the Des Moines River and down to St. Louis. It also made one long voyage up and down the Missouri. The Minburn's last trip was to New Orleans, and it sank in the Gulf of Mexico. The owners of the Minburn made money with it.
A bad accident happened to the steamer Dubuque in 1837. One of its boilers exploded and twenty-two people were killed. Accidents, however, did not happen often.
LARGE RAFTS AND BARGES
Great quantities of logs were "rafted" down the Mississippi in early days. These logs were cut from the forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota and then floated down the river to the sawmills of Dubuque, Clinton, Davenport, and other river towns.
Some of the most interesting times along the Mississippi were on days when large rafts came down the stream. The largest rafts are said to have been more than five blocks long. The average length was three blocks.
Steamboats and log rafts were not the only river travelers. Settlers oftentimes loaded a barge or flatboat with their products and floated them downstream to a market.
RIVER IMPROVEMENT
To improve the rivers so that steamboats could travel on then was considered to be a very important thing, Both Congress and the early settlers were interested in it. In 1846, just before Iowa became a state, Congress passed a law by which the Territory of Iowa was given land for river improvement. The law said that half of the land lying within five miles on each side of the Des Moines River, from its source to its mouth, should belong to Iowa. The money which the state received when the land was sold was to be used to improve the Des Moines River.
The "Des Moines River Improvement" question for a time set the people of central Iowa wild. While it was in its glory the boats did a good business. An Ottumwa paper in June 1854 said, "Since our last issue the steamboats have had fine times on the Demoine. The Globe, Sangamon, Col. Morgan, Julia Dean, Time and Tide, J. B. Gordon, and Alice have all made trips up, some of them going as high as Demoine. All of them returned to the Mississippi with loads as heavy as they could bear."
The "Improvement" project proved a failure. Politics entered into it and there is said to have been such scandal.
SMALLER RIVERS
It was thought that steamboats would travel up and down the smaller rivers too. When permission was given to build a toll bridge at Iowa City, the agreement stated that the bridge must be built so that it would not stop travel on the Iowa River.
Iowa City and other settlements on smaller rivers in eastern Iowa hoped to become river ports. A number of towns were started along these rivers. Those which later were fortunate enough to have a railroad come to them lived and grew. Others, however, are only memories.
Steamboats on the smaller rivers in Iowa went as far as Fort Dodge on the Des Moines River, Iowa City on the Iowa River, and Waterloo on the Cedar River. Regular trips, however, were made only on the Mississippi, the Missouri, and to Des Moines on the Des Moines River.
RIVERS AND LAND TRAVEL
While the rivers made travel by water possible, they made travel by land difficult. It was hard to cross the larger rivers in the covered wagons. As travel became more common, ferries were started at certain places on the larger rivers. Wagons, cattle, and horses were loaded on a ferry and taken across the river. The owners of the ferries made money before bridges were built. Shallow places ("fords") could be found in the smaller rivers where a wagon could be driven across the stream. This was called fording the river.
Toll bridges later took the place of ferries. A toll bridge is one where a fee, or toll, is charged for driving across it. Many of them were built by private persons or companies.
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The first roads in Iowa were the Indian trails. These trails were sometimes paths that had been made by the buffaloes as they crossed the prairies or went through the woodlands. The white men usually followed such trails. If they did not, they tried to follow the ridges or high ground in order to keep off the soft swampy land.
OUR EARLY TRAVEL
New trails were hard to follow and had to be marked. To mark the one from Dubuque to Iowa City, a man was hired to plow a furrow all the way. He used several yoke of oxen and a breaking plow. It took him a number of days to cut the long furrow. Other methods were also used to mark trails. In timberland, trees were blazed. On the prairies, stakes were driven into the ground certain distances apart. Where trails were much used, the heavily-loaded wagons cut deep ruts in the ground that could be followed.
Soon after Iowa land was opened for settlement, in 1833, the Government established roads known as territorial or military highways. These roads led from one important town or fort to another. They took the shortest route possible and did not follow section lines as did the roads that were later laid out. Some of the main highways in eastern Iowa still follow these early trails.
We have learned that a Frenchman named Tesson brought the trees for Iowa's first orchard on the backs of pack mules. That way of traveling and carrying goods was not used later. Most of our first settlers came in covered wagons and oxen were used to pull them. It was a slow way of travel, ten miles a day being often a good distance.
Different ways of building roads were tried. One was by means of planks. One such road was built westward from Burlington and others were planned. The coming of railroads stopped a plan to have all cities in eastern Iowa connected by planked roads.
The building and upkeep of roads were left, in early times, entirely to the people who lived along the way or to the towns who wanted people to come to trade. There was no tax money at that time with which roads could be built, and state and federal aid had to wait for the automobile.
THE STAGE COACH
Stage-coach lines over all important roads. The first coaches were crude affairs. They were but little better than covered wagons drawn by two horses. Later, the "Concord" coach was used nearly everywhere. It was an interesting carriage, costing about a thousand dollars. It had seats for nine passengers and the driver. Four or six horses were used to pull the coach. From three to five miles per hour was considered good speed.
Fares usually were from five to seven cents a mile for a passenger. In the summer, when roads were good, the fares were lower than during the winter.
The arrival of a stage coach in a town was an important event. The stages tried to run on a regular schedule, as railroads and busses do today. When the coach came into a town the driver would sound a horn, crack his whip, and drive up to the station on a run.
The last stage coach went out of business in 1870. It was impossible for the coaches to compete with the railroads.
BAGGAGE AND MAIL
The stages carried baggage, mail and some freight. When the roads were too bad for the stages, the mail was sent by postriders. It was expensive to send mail that way. A charge of twenty-five cents was made for a letter weighing half an ounce. Sometimes the postage was paid by the receiver of a letter because it was not certain that the letter could be delivered.
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Ministers and missionaries played an important part among the early settlers. We may rightly say that the church and religion had much to do with the early life of our state.
EARLY RELIGIOUS SERVICES
Most of the pioneers were religious. The settlers gathered in someone's house, a schoolhouse, or out in an open grove, to hold a religious service. The ministers usually rode on horseback from one preaching place to another. A few hymns were sung; then the minister preached, sometimes for two hours or more.
The early preachers who were know as "circuit riders" lived a rough and rugged life. Charles Blanchard in The People of Iowa says of one of them: "Pitner was somewhat noted as a trapper and hunter-occupations that stood the pioneer preacher well in hand. He was especially given to bee-hunting. At one time on his way to conference he employed his skill in bee-hunting and loaded his buggy with honey, some of which he peddled to pay expenses on the way and with the remainder treated his preacher brethren at the conference. It was thus the old circuit riders and early Methodist preachers managed to live, in a 'land of milk and honey blest'! They ate the sweet and when they didn't have honey they were well satisfied with sorghum."
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
The Catholic Church and Jesuit missionaries were among the very first to do religious work in Iowa Territory. Professor M. M. Hoffmann in his book called Antique Dubuque says: "Existing records show that on July 10, 1833, at 'Cadfish near Dubuque Mines,' a Jesuit from St. Louis, Charles Van Quickenborne, who the year before had visited in the Half-Breed Tract in southeastern Iowa, baptized the children of a half-breed Fox Indian, Kennoche, and the grandchildren of Denis Julien, a widely known trader of the Northwest, who at Prairie du Chien had supported the British in the War of 1812. On July 12, 1833, he preformed a marriage at 'Cadfish' and two days later he married three more couples in the Dubuque village."
Father Mazzuchelli, a Dominican, in 1833 organized at Dubuque the first church on Iowa soil, and in 1835 the cornerstone of St. Raphael Cathedral was laid there. In 1837, Very Rev. Mathias Loras, of Mobile, was made bishop of Dubuque. He arrived in April, 1838, and his diocese included all of what is now Iowa, Minnesota, and a part of the Dakotas.
Father Mazzuchelli also founded the chapels of St. James, in Lee County, and St. Anthony in Davenport.
Bishop Loras visited the Chippewas, the Sioux, and the Menominees and sent priests to carry on the work that he started. Churches were organized at Ft. Madison, Burlington, Keokuk, Bellevue, Muscatine, and other points along the Mississippi.
Bishop Loras wrote interesting letters about his experiences among the Indians and the pioneers. Once, while conducting a service on July 4, he heard a strange noise. As he looked through a window he could see a band of Sioux Indians in a war dance. They were singing one of their death songs and showing the scalps of members of an enemy tribe. Bishop Loras was not frightened or discouraged. He wrote, "Instead of discouraging me these events have only inflamed my desire to labor in the civilization of these unfortunate beings, by imparting to them the blessing of the Christian Faith."
THE FIRST CHURCH BUILDING
The first church building in what is now Iowa was built at Dubuque in 1834. A man by the name of Johnson went from house to house to ask for money. He told the young men that some day they would be proud to say that they had helped to build the first church in the "new purchase," meaning the Black Hawk Purchase.
Over $250 was collected for this first church building. The gifts varied from twelve and one half cents (a "bit") to twenty-five dollars. The church was built of logs and was twenty feet square. It is said that the building was raised "without spirits of any kind." The preacher said in regard to the undertaking, "Well done! To collect the money, build a splendid house and pay for it, hold a two days' meeting, and receive twelve members all in four weeks."
While Iowa's first church building was to be used by all denominations, the men who were most active in raising the money were Methodists. Other prominent early ministers of that denomination were: Baton Randall and John T. Mitchell, the first circuit riders of the Dubuque region, and Barton H. Cartwright, the first Methodist preacher of southeastern Iowa.
OLD ZION CHURCH
Perhaps the most interesting of all early Iowa churches was "Old Zion" at Burlington. The building was 60 feet long, 40 feet wide; and it cost $4,500. It was started in 1836, inclosed and plastered in 1838, and completed in 1846.
Many important public meetings were held in "Old Zion." Governor Lucas, in 1840, held a council there with the chiefs of the Sac and Fox Indians, which wound up with an Indian show and war dance. Four sessions of the Territorial Legislature were also held in "Old Zion."
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN AND BAPTIST CHURCHES
The first Presbyterian churches to be organized in this state were at Ion, Allamakee County, in 1834; in Des Moines County, in 1836; at West Point, Lee County, in 1837; and at Fort Madison, in 1838. Launcelot G. Bell, Michael Hummer, John M. Fulton, and Enoch Mead are called the four "Iowa immortal Presbyterian ministers."
The Baptists were close rivals for first honors with other early Iowa churches, their first being organized at Danville, Des Moines County, in 1834.
THE "YALE" AND THE "IOWA" BANDS
One of the most important groups of religious leaders was the "Iowa Band." They came here to help certain men of the "Yale Band," which consisted of eleven young Congregational ministers who came west to work for their denomination in the Mississippi Valley. Some of them came to Iowa, one being Asa Turner, who for thirty years was pastor at Denmark, where he started Denmark Academy. Turner, with several others, pioneered the way for the coming of the famous Iowa Band.
The Iowa Band was made up of eleven young men who had been classmates at Andover Seminary. Seven of them were ordained on their arrival at Denmark. They started more than twenty-five Congregational churches in Iowa. It was J. J. Hill, a member of this group, who in 1846 placed a dollar on the table and said to his associates, "Now appoint your trustees to take care of that dollar for 'Iowa College.'" That is said to have been the beginning of the present Grinnell College.
One of the most famous of early Iowa Congregational churches is the "Little Brown Church in the Vale." It is located at old Bradford, near Nashua, and was built under the ministry of Rev. J. K. Nutting in 1864. It had been made famous through a song written by Dr. William Savage Pitts, an early day "singing master." The first stanza of the song is:
"There's a church in the valley by the wildwood,
No lovelier place in the dale,
No spot is so dear to my childhood,
As the little brown church in the vale."
OTHER EARLY CHURCHES
The first Church of Christ congregation was organized at Lost creek in 1836 and the first Quaker, or Friends', settlement was located at Salem, in Henry County, in 1835. The German Evangelical Lutheran church began about 1840 with organizations at Fort Madison, Keokuk, and Burlington. The oldest congregation of the United Presbyterian church is located at Crawfordsville, Washington County, where it was organized in 1836. The first church of the United Brethren in Christ was organized in Muscatine County in 1841.
The early ministers played an important part in the establishment of schools and colleges. They also took an active part in the early political and governmental affairs. A writer in describing the work of Rev. Asa Turner, of Denmark, Iowa, who was a member of the Yale Band, says of him, "Among the notable things in his active career was the stand he took for temperance and anti-slavery."
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