|
EDITED BY JOHN C. Parish
| Volumn II |
February 1921 |
No. 2 |
| |
|
|
Copyright 1921 by the State Historical Society of Iowa
(Transcribed by Debbie Clough Gerischer)
The Old Military Road
Trailing diagonally across the State from Dubuque to Iowa
City is an old ridge road. It was laid out more than eighty years
ago to connect the little mining town on the river with the new
Territorial capital. The United States government was then fostering
the construction of military roads on the western frontier, and in
March, 1839, Congress appropriated twenty thousand dollars for such
a road to begin at Dubuque and run "to such point on the northern
boundary of the State of Missouri as may be best suited for its
future extension by that State to the cities of Jefferson and St.
Louis".
The road was ultimately extended beyond Iowa City, but to the
people of the Territory of Iowa in 1839 the opportunity offered by
the government meant simply access to the site of the new capital.
The road from Dubuque as far as Iowa City was immediately surveyed,
a United States army engineer named Tilghman directing the work
James, Lucius, and Edward Langworthy, the first two of whom had
crossed the Mississippi to the deserted diggings of Julien Dubuque
in 1830, were given contracts for the construction of the road from
Dubuque as far as the Cedar River. Edward Langworthy states that
after the surveys were made Tilghman engaged Lyman Dillon to plow a
furrow along the route, under his direction, for the guidance of the
contractors.
Meanwhile at Iowa City the town had been platted and the
capitol building begun. A temporary tavern known as "Lean-back Hall"
welcomed the travelers and tried to rival the hospitality which they
had enjoyed at Tim Fanning's famous log tavern at the other end of
the road. In the course of years Tim Fanning's tavern and "Lean-back
Hall" have disappeared; nevertheless incentive was not lacking for
two historically minded vacationists to retrace the old road on foot
in September, 1920. The writers of the articles that follow—Marcus
L. Hansen and John E. Briggs—set out one autumn morning from Iowa
City equipped with stout shoes and hearts, a tiny tent, an ancient
map, and all the information they could gather about the old
highway. Four days they walked on the way to Dubuque, their feet
treading the modern thoroughfare while their minds were busy with
the traces of deserted villages and the ancient secrets of living
towns, with the signs of departed traffic and the many reminders of
the vanished spirits of the Old Military Road. THE EDITOR
Phantoms on the Old Road
The Old Military Road! How foreign the expression to the
peaceful, early autumn calm that lay over the valleys dropping away
to the right and left of the ridge along which the road wound. My
comrade and I had shouldered our packs at Iowa City and, setting our
faces toward the northeast, had begun with ambitious strides to walk
the old thoroughfare from Iowa City to Dubuque—our only motive being
that furnished by the old books which told us that so the pioneers
of Iowa had done. We could well believe that the road was old but
why should it be called military? If in yonder groves where now one
sees the red barn gables shining between the trees there arose the
battlements of European fortresses, or if the deeply furrowed
crossroads that mark the county lines were international boundaries
where armed sentinels scanned the passports ere we proceeded, then
we might declare the name appropriate. But harvest fields,
many-tinted woodlands, and farmers who nod cheerily as they pass are
not military, and the name is only the heritage of other years. How
fain we would escape from the past! Last season's automobile is
discarded for the newer model and this year's clothes will be the
derision of next year's fashions. But geography binds us with bands
that only under the most unusual circumstances are broken. Long
after the mapmaker is gone the names that he sprinkled over the
sheet are still written and bear mute testimony to the nature of the
world in which he lived. Wall Street has no wall; Back Bay has no
bay; and the Military Road is no longer military.
Yet military it once was. Soldiers
planned it, surveyed it, and used it. Eastern Iowa in 1839 was the
frontier; the site of the territorial capital had just been chosen
on the wild bluff that rises above the waters of the Iowa. The
Mississippi River towns were full of men eager to venture forth into
the wilderness, and the Indian trails on the prairies were followed
by the ever-moving pioneers. That these irrepressible spirits would
soon come into forcible contact with the Indians who only
reluctantly had left their homes in the ceded "Forty Mile Strip"
seemed inevitable, and in order that the iron hand of the government
might be felt in the remotest valleys, roads were necessary whereby
troops might be readily sent from the permanent posts to the scene
of any disturbance. That one of these should lead from Dubuque, the
commercial and military center of the Upper Mississippi, to Iowa
City, the new capital, was logical; and by Act of Congress in 1839
an appropriation was made to pay for the surveying, grading, and
bridging of such a thoroughfare. Yet even from the first, the number
of soldiers who passed over it was surpassed by the incoming swarm
of settlers, and the military men did little more than leave their
name upon their work.
And as such it is known to this day by all who dwell by its
winding course. The college student who was painting the Ivanhoe
Bridge laid down his brush—he was working for the county—and
explained to us who pretended ignorance, that the real designation
of the trail we followed was the Military Road. The gray-headed sage
at Monticello who gossiped with us as we stopped to rest our weary
feet at the Depot Park declaimed on the sacrilege of rerouting a few
miles of the Military Road as some moderns favored; and at the
Trappist Abbey, kindhearted Brother Timothy, he of the twinkling
eyes, led us down to the pasture gate and with his walking stick
pointed out a cross-cut by which we might regain the Military Road.
All knew of the glory that once was the portion of the old highway.
All but the reporter of that village paper into whose town we
hobbled at noon. Jauntily he came out to interview these
pedestrians—perhaps they were transcontinental hikers about to favor
the town with a visit and the paper with a front page story.
Disappointment for all. To him the Military Road meant nothing and
when he heard of Iowa City— that was too common. Away he darted to
the nearby poolroom where he was sure he could unearth important
news. How discouraging it was thus at the very door of publicity to
have it slammed in the face! What permanent record would now be left
of this so historic a jaunt, In the dust of the road we left no
trail over which investigators could puzzle and students write
theses. And when the voices of the two travelers were stilled, who
then would take up the tale of the intrepid historians who not only
essayed to write of the pioneers but to live like them as well, This
thought added to the torments of legs already weary, and the
brightness of our spirits faded as the September afternoon darkened
over the landscape.
Misery loves company and to console ourselves as the darkness
gathered from the already gloomy valleys, we conjured up, one by
one, the shades of departed wanderers to accompany us—a procession
of phantoms of the Old Military Road. They were travelers whose
journeyings have already been forgotten: Leather Stockings who had
no Cooper; black-robed priests without their Parkman; frontier
Ichabods whose singing school escapades no Irving has recorded;
horse-thieves who were hanged before the first dime novel was
penned; all that motley band of men and women whose yellowed letters
are still unread, about the foundation stones of whose cabins the
roots of lofty trees are now entwined, and many indeed who never
wrote a letter, who never built a cabin but who, living, created
that great romance that hovers about the wooded watercourses of
Eastern Iowa, felt by everyone yet related by almost none. Among the
throng are Edmund Booth and his two companions who tell of how they
passed this way long before the rivers were bridged, and when few
features marked the passage across the seas of waving prairie grass.
Leaving Dubuque to make a residence in the West, they bid adieu to
the sordid associations of "Dirty Hollow" and to the rippling waters
of Catfish Creek with its busy mill, follow the dim trail that leads
to the falls of the Maquoketa where already a few cabins cluster
about the charming Cascade. Here and there are wagon ruts to guide
their horses' feet along the winding ridge that like a huge serpent
crawls on its way to the ford over the South Fork of the Maquoketa.
And now the lights streaming out between the logs of the cabin of
Daniel Varvel—first resident of Monticello—betoken a supper of ham
and eggs, corn dodgers and coffee, and a bed in the fragrant hay
piled high in the rude barn.
Early the next morning they are off again for there are streams
to be crossed, Kitty's Creek and Fawn Creek, before the site of
Anamosa is reached on the banks of the Wapsipinicon River. Booth
goes no further but his two companions, bound for Iowa City,
continue their way over the rolling prairie that stretches on to the
waters of the Cedar where the lounging inhabitants of Ivanhoe point
out the route to the new town. By hard riding they reach it before
the evening of the second day and are soon, no doubt, at the tavern
recounting their experiences by the way and listening perhaps to the
complaints of those, less fortunate than they, who wandering from
the ridge had found themselves lost in the prairie swamps or whose
horses tripped over the protruding roots. Glad are they all that the
road builders are already at work.
Yonder in our procession of phantoms is one driving five yoke
of oxen attached to a plow. Lyman Dillon is his name, and if the
story of Dillon and his furrow had not been somewhat discredited by
the historical critics his would have been the most honored position
in the group. For the old tradition relates that it was he who first
rescued travelers from the dangers of waywardness. Employed by
citizens of Iowa City, with his oxen and plow he threw a furrow
almost a hundred miles long extending from the capital to Dubuque,
and the wagons and riders that followed this guide beat a road by
its side which was the predecessor of the Military Road. However,
though the records have made mythical parts of this tradition, he
claims a role among these characters.
Now the shade of the real maker of the road, a United States
army engineer by the name of Tilghman, joins us. Under his direction
the surveys were made and contracts let for the construction of
bridges, the grading through the swamps, and the ditching beside the
road which cut a clean swath forty feet wide when forests or bushes
were encountered. At top speed one of Ansell Briggs' post riders
dashes by; but the commerce on the road increases and saddle bags
can no longer contain the correspondence of prolific scribes. The
Western Stage Company puts on four-horse coaches one of which now
travels along silently beside us. A Concord Coach! How little the
expression means to us who can describe vehicles only in terms of
cylinders. They were things of beauty in which any man would be
proud to ride, and pride our fathers did not lack. "How they looked
around them with a self-satisfied air as they took a seat and waited
for the stage to start" declared an old observer. "How they nodded
their heads and waved their hands at envious friends as the driver
gathered up the reins, cracked his whip and dashed away. "
It was not always ease and splendor. There came mud holes in
the road in which the polish of boots was lost as passengers
dismounted and struggled through with as much difficulty as the
lumbering coach. Here was a river swollen by spring rains and no
longer fordable, so passengers crossed the rushing waters in skiffs
and under the dripping trees awaited the coming of the other stage
which would discharge its load and turn back. And in winter there
was the cold that pierced the buffalo robes and the blinding snow
storms when all the drifted road was obliterated and the driver,
lantern in hand, stumbled before in search of uncovered landmarks,
his shouted words carried away by the swirling gale.
What a brave race these "knights of the lash" were!—not, it is
true, in the eyes of all their contemporaries. Pious Sunday School
teachers warned the fidgety boys to stay away from the "barns" where
there was nothing but loafers, rum and stories of the road; and one
mother lamented the waywardness of her prodigal son, saying, "I'd
jest as soon let that boy staid in that old printin' office as to
had him gone to runnin' with them stage drivers." Beneath the
corduroy suit, however, was usually as generous a soul as ever
crossed the western plains. Stories, indeed, he had, and whoever
climbed up on the box beside him and first judiciously praised the
teams, was sure to be a sharer in them; and many a half-frozen
traveler got the last drop from the whiskey bottle even though the
nearest tavern were ten miles away. The valley stretches of the road
that once reechoed his song now return no music but the strident
notes of the klaxon, and a whirring mechanism covers the ground once
trod by the flying feet of the gallant four.
But look at the passengers
who gaze from the windows of this specter carriage. That young lady,
with fair face almost hidden by bonnet, ribbons and curls, who seems
so calmly unconscious that her hoops-skirts are filling a much
larger proportion of the seat than the single fare entitles her to,
is probably the daughter of some frontier politician coming from
school in the East to be the reigning belle of the county town and
break the hearts of half a score of backwoods lawyers before she
discovers which one has the speediest prospect of being sent to
Congress. Those two high-hatted heads borne on broad shoulders over
which capes are carelessly flung are filled with balanced sentences
and classic perorations, for they are members of the Territorial
legislature proceeding to the assembly at Iowa City where they hope
to deliver their sentiments on the wickedness of banks and the
lethargy of the Indian agents with more gusto and gesticulations
than the cramped quarters of the coach allow. That solemn visaged
person whose eyes rest so dreamily upon the passing scenery would be
the victim of one of the "river gangs" west of the Mississippi if
they knew the riches hidden in his carpet bag, riches not his but
funds which he has begged in the counting houses and parlors of the
eastern cities. With them he will build a college for the sons and
daughters of the pioneers—an institution from which, he hopes, will
radiate an influence that will make of these prairies a Utopia.
Already he sees the brick walls of the "Academy" with its trim
cupola rising above the tops of the waving trees, the paths that
entwine on its campus and the white cottages that line the village
streets. The college was built and is now gone. Cattle graze along
the old lanes where once the daughters and sons of deacons strolled;
and the surrounding acres are as far from Utopia as the rest of
Iowa. Still it is fondly remembered by some gray headed men who
remain, recalling not the lessons in moral philosophy imparted
within its chilly walls, but the nights in the literary society
hall, the pranks played during prayers and solemn promises whispered
where the campus shadows were darkest. Other builders are there
among the spirits from the phantom world. They are the home makers.
On foot and on horseback they come, sturdy backwoodsmen who have
already hewed the forests in Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee, and
wiry Yankees from the States of granite and fish. Some bring nothing
but rifle, ax and stout heart; others guide beside them the
oxen-drawn wagon with tow-headed boys, "hoopless" girls, and panting
dogs trailing behind. Not only for Iowa are they bound; the lure of
California draws many. Eight hundred teams passed over the road in
the years 1851-1852 destined for the Golden State, proceeding as
solitary individuals or in large parties of men and women organized
and captained by old campaigners who could draw up the ranks to
deliver two hundred shots in ten minutes or in close quarters fall
upon the lurking redskins and with revolvers and "Bowie" give them a
"Tennessee fight". A later generation of gold hunters follows, those
who seek the hidden treasures of Pike's Peak. Like the "
Forty-niners", the ":Fifty-niners" pass clad in all varieties of
picturesque costumes as if on a gay pleasure jaunt accompanied by
bands of music to shorten the dreary stretches of the westward way.
Here also come the shades of those three small boys of Cascade who,
inspired by the sight of the passing throngs and fired by the
stories of the "Peakers" who stopped to ask for a drink, set out on
foot for the Eldorado provided only with high hopes and a dozen and
a half of eggs, and were overtaken by anxious friends only when the
steeples of Anamosa were within sight. More gorgeous cavalcades than
these are the troops of United States dragoons who pass and repass,
now hot on the trail of renegade Indians who have broken across the
treaty line and are terrifying the new settlers, now returning
leisurely, the manacled offenders in their midst. Here are other
avengers of the law that travel quickly forward, the energetic
county sheriff with his posse of farmers called from the plow and
flail, scanning the muddy bottoms for traces of those thieves who
with the frightened led-horses dragging behind, passed this way at
midnight. Who is this proceeding so cheerfully along with a smile
for everyone and a helping hand for the emigrant who is repairing
his broken wheel or axle t He is the frontier minister who christens
the cabin children, rewards the patience of the bachelor homesteader
with a bride, terrifies the souls of chronic sinners with warnings
of impending doom and prays over the first grave dug in the green of
the new cemetery. Perhaps it is the shade of Brother Taylor,
Methodist circuit rider, who shed so many tears in the pulpit, that
his hearers knew him only as "Weeping Jeremiah"; or it may be the
spirit of the Rev. Mr. Swerengen who never missed his appointments
in summer's heat or winter's cold, fortnightly about the home.
though he often ascended the platform so chilled by his struggle
through the wintry road that the over- coat was discarded only after
the discourse had waxed hot.
Far before us village windows begin to twinkle and as our minds
turn more to supper and bed our ghostly companions become dimmer:
lawyer and land agent hand in hand; pioneer doctor, dispenser of
pills, expert "bleeder" and healer of man and beast; friendly
neighbors on their way to a "raising"; their sons and daughters
returning from a spelling bee; and all that host of plain men and
women, good and bad, who compose the foundation upon which the great
figures of any generation stand. This passing pageant has revealed
to us a secret of the history of Iowa. What manner of men were they
who first cut the forests and broke the sod of the Commonwealth? One
person looking into the past sees in the dark ravine the evening
rendezvous where about the flaring flames are gathered the ruffian
gang who stole the horses and passed the bogus money, and he says
the original Iowans were cut-throats and ruffians. Again there is
the piercing warning in the rear. Another sees spire after spire of
school and church rising upon country lanes and village streets and
he declares that the foundation stone of the State was the idealism
of God-fearing men. A third sees the curling smoke that comes from
the hearths of a thousand cabins and he says the State was built
about the home.
Still we must look not in the valley or on the plain or in the
clearing to find the touchstone of the life of the State. Look upon
the road—that great artery that poured in all the elements of
weakness or strength, of lawlessness or order, of blasphemy or
godliness that struggled for the mastery and whose conflict
constitutes much of Iowa's story. Such a vision anyone may see who
after studying the way his fathers lived will venture out upon the
road to read the records that they have left.
But for us it has faded, and stretching out on the road before
is a yellow shaft of light growing brighter and brighter. There is a
warning signal sounded behind and we gingerly step aside as an
automobile rushes by, its gay occupants shouting and laughing and
singing. How like the present generation, we muse as the dark road
is retaken. How devoid of gratitude they unthinkingly pass over the
highways whose roughness has been worn smooth by the painful steps
of predecessors—the highways of law, of learning, of religion as
well as the Old Military Road.
Again we jump to right and left, but too late to escape the stifling
cloud of dust that fills the air so lately peopled by the shades of
the wanderers of yesterday. Gone now are the bits of our homely
philosophy. The law against unlighted motor vehicles should be
enforced, we angrily declare, and having wiped the dust from our
faces we shake our fists at the departing tumult and with husky
throats consign these travelers to a darker oblivion than has ever
befallen any of their fore-runners on the Old Military Road.
MARCUS L. HANSEN
Along the Old Military Road
During the four days that Mare and I walked over the Old
Military Road from Iowa City to Dubuque probably no less than twenty
sympathetic people invited us to ride in their motor cars. Hundreds
went by in a cloud of dust with never a sidelong glance. Of those
who deigned to stop, some rode in magnificent touring ears and some
in one-seated Fords; some were kind-hearted farmers on an errand to
town, some were professional tourists, and once near the end of a
thirty mile stretch three jolly girls insisted that our company
would be ever so pleasant. Not once did we condescend to accept, and
never did the good Samaritans fail to wonder at our stupidity. So as
we trudged along we were many a time compelled to explain to
ourselves such a ridiculous method of traveling. In the first place,
we reasoned, it would be fun to discover if the Representatives who
walked to the Territorial capital earned their three dollars for
every twenty miles traveled. We decided they did. Another excuse
that we tried to accept was that walking afforded the very best
physical exercise—and we were on a vacation.
But the principal justification was our desire to compare the
old road as we found it with the one that used to exist. To be sure
the route is almost identical, but the landscape has changed and so
has the traffic. In order to visualize pioneer scenes one needs to
go slowly, while halts and repose are essential if one is to sense
the romance of primitive travel and of the picturesque people who
have passed that way, of legends that may have been true, and of
villages long since forgotten.
At one end of the trail stands the Old Stone Capitol: it was in
the process of erection when the road was first built. Of the many
who enter the old building there are only a few who are reminded by
the well-worn steps, that they tread a pathway of the founders of
this Commonwealth. Governors, congressmen, judges, presidents,
far-sighted lawmakers, rough-shod pioneers, and travelers from the
ends of the earth have climbed those steps and worn away the solid
rock. Those hollowed stones, mute evidence of that pageant of the
past, are what make the place a shrine. To mount those steps,
forgetting the lapse of time, and to walk in imagination with the
notable personages of long ago in the presence of the things they
saw is to be thrilled by the reality of the lives they lived.
On the road to Dubuque it is a little more than a four hour
walk from the Old Stone Capitol to the Cedar River where only a
small summer shack marks the site of the once flourishing village of
Ivanhoe, Iowa. Before the road was surveyed a venturesome trader
named William E. Merritt, who pitched his tent on the bank of the
river was so deeply impressed by the "beautiful scenery" and the
stillness that " seemed to pervade the whole atmosphere", that all
through his life the village that later developed was held in tender
remembrance.
Anson Cowles laid out the town at the intersection of river and
highway. It is said that keel boats were built at this point for the
shipment of grain down stream in the spring, but Cowles' visions
were not of a commercial metropolis. He planned to establish a great
university to be governed by rules of his own devising. One-half of
the plat, when the land became valuable, he proposed to donate as a
permanent foundation. Not far from the campus was to be a large park
where he would assemble all kinds of birds and beasts that inhabited
Iowa, and teach them to dwell in harmony. His large and magnificent
residence was to be by the side of the road where he could entertain
strangers and point out the places of interest. In the garb of an
Indian chieftain he was to ride in a curious equipage—a chariot
built on a marvelous plan, drawn by six elk in trappings of beaded
buckskin, each elk to be ridden by an Indian in full native costume.
But all of this mental frost work was dissolved by an untimely
death, and nothing is left but tradition to tell of the foibles and
virtues of the chivalrous Cowles.
Not all of the Ivanhoe residents were imbued with such lofty
ambitions but some of them won recognition in other ways. One of the
earliest physicians in Linn County was Dr. Sam Grafton who hung out
his shingle in Ivanhoe. George Greene was both lawyer and school
master there before he was sent to the legislature and nearly a
decade before he became judge of the State Supreme Court.
Wherever the famous old thoroughfare of earlier years
intersected a river there a village was founded. Every one of those
pioneer settlements is now a prosperous city—with the single
exception of Ivanhoe. For some unaccountable reason this crossing
was never a popular place. The principal settlers either died or
moved to Mount Vernon, Cedar Rapids, or Marion. The timber along the
Red Cedar River, as the stream was then called, was a refuge for
horse thieves and dealers in counterfeit money. To this day the
grandsons of pioneer settlers speak in awed tones of the Ivanhoe
ruffians' rendezvous. But now every vestige of the village is gone.
Not one among thousands who traverse the old road ever heard of the
village of Ivanhoe and if inquiry were made perhaps few could
explain why the Ivanhoe Bridge was so named.
The three other river towns have survived— Anamosa, Monticello,
Cascade. There were only four or five settlers at the Buffalo Fork
of the Wapsipinicon River when the Old Military Road was surveyed.
The following year Thomas Cox was engaged to lay out a town to be
named Dartmouth. The place was later called Lexington, but when the
county seat was transferred from the village of Newport the name
Anamosa was adopted.
A story is told of three Indians—a Winnebago chief, his squaw,
and their beautiful daughter— who came one day to the village of
Dartmouth. They attracted attention on account of their cheerful
demeanor, easy dignity, and look of intelligence. The name of the
chief was Nasinus and his daughter was called Anamosa. They made
such a pleasant impression and the name of the girl seemed so proper
that the town was named in her honor. It is said that she afterward
fell in love with a young engineer and rather than marry the Indian
her father had chosen she ended her life by jumping from a ledge at
High Bluff. There is an air of romance and beauty in the
Wapsipinicon Valley and the earliest settlers wrote to their friends
of the charm of the hills. It was raining the day that we entered
the valley but in spite of the inclement weather the glimpses we
caught of turreted walls of clean gleaming limestone, the primeval
forest that seemed to close in on the highway, and the vistas that
opened down enchanting ravines, all contributed to a feeling of
complete fascination.
The surroundings lend credence to the old legend concerning the
name of the river. Long ago when the red men roamed over Iowa a
beautiful Indian maiden named Wapsie lived with her father on the
bank of the river. In another tribe two days away toward the setting
sun there dwelt a Sioux warrior named Pinicon. Now it came to pass
that Pinicon fell in love with the beautiful Wapsie and Fleet Foot,
his rival, determined to kill him. One day when the two lovers were
canoeing the jealous Fleet Foot watched from the shore. Talking,
laughing, and entirely unconscious of danger, Wapsie at some word
from Pinicon put her hand to his lips. Like a flash an arrow flew
from a thicket and pierced the heart of the unfortunate Pinicon.
Wapsie sprang to his side and in doing so overturned the canoe.
Together, the water closed over them—Wapsie-Pinicon. Their voices
can still be heard in the rippling stream that bears their names.
On an autumn day three years before the Old Military Road was
established, Daniel Varvel, a valiant native of Kentucky, came to
the mouth of Kitty Creek on the South Fork of the Maquoketa River.
The view that greeted his eyes was surpassingly beautiful: then and
there he decided to build his new home. Jack Frost had already
painted the well wooded hill sides with gorgeous splashes of crimson
and yellow and brown. Over the hills the fertile prairie extended
beyond the horizon. No home seeker had appeared there before, no axe
had disturbed the wild solitude, no plow share had ripped through
the sod.
For years the Varvel log cabin was a landmark in Jones County.
The wayfaring traveler stopped there for the night, it served as
headquarters for the men who laid out the old road, the mail that
came once a week was thrown off there. One by one other cabins were
built in the neighborhood. A two-story hotel about twenty feet
square was erected. The settlement grew and came to be called
Monticello. The traveler who now visits the flourishing city can
scarcely imagine such humble beginnings. Gone long ago are the
trails of the Indian and the smoke of his wigwam; gone too are the
primitive methods of travel and with them, perhaps, the spirit of
fine hospitality. Instead there are well arranged boulevards and
industrious factories, the sight of an airplane is a common
occurrence, and neighbors are no longer acquainted.
A little cascade in the north branch of the Maquoketa River was
a natural allurement for millers. As early as 1844 two pairs of
burrs made of limestone were busily grinding "very superior flour".
Within a few years Cascade was a prosperous village. While the stage
coach stopped for an hour at Steel's Tavern the enterprising young
real estate dealers boomed corner lots to the agents of eastern
investors. What a glorious future for a town, they said, where, the
power from a waterfall nine feet in height was available! To this
day at least one lot is owned by the heirs of those early
speculators. But alas, more than water is needed to make a great
city. No railroad came to Cascade and when the stages stopped
running the bright prospects were ended. Transportation is the magic
that produces great cities. In the days of prairie schooners and
stagecoaches the road from the port of Dubuque to the capital of
Iowa was a main traveled highway of commerce. When the weather was
fair in the fall of the year huge wagons were loaded with grain and
hauled to the market. Slowly, ever so slowly, the big horses or oxen
pulled their creaking and cumbersome load along the old road.
Returning they brought household supplies for the winter. The
passenger traffic was carried in fine Concord coaches or in "jerkies".
Gracefully poised on the strong leather trusses the stage coach
dashed by the slow freighter and, enveloped in dust with the team at
full gallop, drew up at the tavern with much grinding of hickory
shod brakes. The doctors and preachers rode horseback. As towns are
established in the wake of a newly built railway, so the pioneer
settlers took claims adjoining the Old Military Road. The most
desirable places were squatted on first, so that instead of
homesteads at regular intervals along the whole distance, several
families lived in one neighborhood miles away from another such
settlement. Through the efforts of George Wallace Jones or Augustus
C. Dodge mail routes were established and the cabin of some
prominent settler was selected for a post office. Then someone would
begin selling dry goods and groceries, a blacksmith would come to
shoe horses, a school would be opened, and a church organized.
The village of Pamaho affords a typical instance. Four miles to
the south from the Wapsipinicon River on the crest of a hill, a site
for a town was selected. For a number of years the people who lived
in the three or four cabins called the place of their residence
Pamaho. On account of the pleasant location the name was afterward
changed to Fairview. In the fifties the town began growing and
though handicapped by possessing no water power the rich
agricultural region promised steady development.
But the builders of railroads neglected Fairview and the
promise was never fulfilled. Without transportation the village has
died. Many houses that border the road are deserted and almost all
are in sad need of repair. The lawns have been seeded to rag weeds
and dandelions. Cornfields overrun the old gardens. Here and there
an old house has been left to decay: with the window panes broken,
the clapboards awry, and the roof fallen in, its appearance is well
nigh sepulchral. The silence that broods over the village seems to
indicate plainly that the people have all gone away. Throughout the
whole settlement not a person is stirring. No busy housewife is
hanging out clothes or sweeping the porch, no gardener looks up from
his hoeing, no loafer is sauntering storeward, no children scamper
hither and thither, and even the pigs and the chickens keep out of
sight. Long years have elapsed since the side streets resounded with
clattering hoofs and the rattle of buggy wheels. Those wheels are
now mounted on posts at the street intersections where they serve
the convenience of the rural mail carrier. The post office that was
maintained for sixty-four years has been discontinued for nearly two
decades.
No one would imagine that the church is in use: the tall grass
in the yard is untrampled and the windows have a vacant expression.
The school house, which at one time was no doubt a model, now seems
to be outgrown and deserted. The bustle of business in the "Fairview
Store" is a thing of the past. The board awning that once shaded the
windows is falling away and its function is performed by numerous
cobwebs. Not even a garage is maintained in the village. As the
curious traveler now seeks the lost site of Bowen's Prairie and
Ivanhoe, so before long Fairview will be gone.
It was noon on the fourth day of our pilgrimage. For
eighty-five miles we had followed the path of the famous old furrow.
Only the route is the same, we were thinking. The landscape, the
methods of travel, the habits of living—all are changed and little
remains of the past. Then away to the left far over the hill tops we
caught a glimpse of the gleaming slate roof of New Melleray Abbey.
All is changed, were we saying? Ah, no! Within yonder walls men are
living today by the old sixth century rule of Saint Benedict.
Ten miles from Dubuque over a macadamized stretch of the Old
Military Road and two miles through a beautiful forest that has been
set apart for a State game preserve, these pious monks live in
seclusion. Afar from the turmoil and strife of modern life they
quietly read the Lives of the Saints and follow the customs that
have prevailed in all Trappist Abbeys. In summer and winter, fair
weather or foul, they arise from their straw ticks at two o'clock in
the morning and spend two hours in prayer. Then an hour and a half
is devoted to mass before breakfast. They work in their fields until
nearly noon, then they sleep until two. An hour is allotted for
dinner. The rest of the day is consumed in deep meditation and
reading. At seven o'clock they retire.
By an ancient rule of Saint Benedict the brothers are forbidden
to speak. Only by special permission are any allowed to converse.
Their clothing consists of a long gown of brown wool: rough serge is
worn next to the skin. Bread, rice, and potatoes are their principal
diet: they never eat meat. The farm land, the buildings, and the
thoroughbred live stock are all owned in common.
It was after two when we bade adieu to the old monastery, and
the sun was just disappearing when we entered Dubuque. Behind us the
curtain of darkness was falling over a hundred miles of the famous
old highway replete with the memories of former times, and before us
the lights of Hotel Julien Dubuque awakened no thought of Tim
Fanning's tavern. We had arrived at the end of the trail.
JOHN E. BRIGGS |
