THE COUNCIL BLUFFS DAILY
NONPAREIL
July 12, 1876
Cyrus Herrington, a boy of sixteen, was accidentally shot at
Bartlett, Iowa, on the morning of the 5th of July by a pistol in
the hands of youthful companion. The ball entered about the elbow
of the right arm, and lodged close to the wrist where it still
remained as of the 7th.
Hamburg. Iowa, July 10, 1876
(Note: The following is a portion of a letter to the editor which
appeared in that paper.)
"....On the 6th instant I was at Bartlett in this county
......Among the old Settlers of the vicinity of Bartlett are John
Hendrickson, who dates his residence from 1846; H. C. Kingsbury
has returned to New York; Cornelius Feaster has moved to
Missouri; Reuben Queen is now living at Bartlett; and Samuel
Chambers who died last winter. In 1846 Mr. Hendrickson
spent about two weeks on the present site of Council Bluffs. He
says a Frenchman, named Hildreth, had about twenty acres of as
good corn as he ever saw near where the court house now stands.
He sold his claim that year in to a saint named Alexander Miller.
Mr. Hendrickson says that French and Indians of pure and mixed
blood, of the Pottawattamie tribe, lived about Bartlett from 1838
to 1847. He worked for the half breeds, and found them honest and
friendly, if you pleased them. They cultivated the land in
patches. He traded a yoke of oxen and a wagon to a half breed for
a cabin, seven acres of corn, a cow, fourteen hogs, seven bee
stands, an old wagon, and all his plows, hoes and empty barrels.
This claim was on Hendrickson's present farm, a quarter of a mile
north of Bartlett. At one time in 1846, Hendrickson was out of
flour, and short of funds, but made a raise by taking a wagon
load of watermelons to an Indian payment at Trader's Point. In
those days the feathered tribe was extra plentiful; swamp black
birds came in clouds, cranes, pelicans, geese, swan; magpies,
abounded. The growing crops had to be guarded against the raids
of blackbirds and geese. The cattle lived on the rushes in the
winter time, and the grass started early in the spring.
Hendrickson says that Mr. Kingsbury and himself were the first
and second tax-payers in Fremont county. The receipts were issued
at Austin, three miles north of Hamburg. Mr. Hendrickson is
sixty-seven years of age; he is opposed to the whole I. O. U.
policy, has never given a note or due bill in his life. I mention
this merely as a fact; I do not cast any reflections on that
venerable Benevolence, that candidate for the Presidency--Peter
Cooper......"