Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Klinkenbeard's Flood (1840) and Another Flood (1851)

In the year 1840, there resided in Jefferson County, on Cedar Creek, a personage of German extraction named Joseph Klinkenbeard. He was one of those original characters found in all communities, but more especially conspicuous in the early settlements, where a man could permit his real character to show itself without restraint. He was naturally rough and uncouth, and very fond of whisky, and, when under its influence, his peculiarities were very marked. He swore like a pirate when affairs went roughly with him, but he could pray, and did pray, when frightened into it.

Klinkenbeard had built a cabin in a depression on the banks of Cedar Creek, which was inhabited by himself, wife and children. A miller by trade, he naturally felt most at home along the water-courses.

In the month of August, 1840, a trememdous flood fell upon Cedar Creek and its valleys, which, had the country been as thickly settled as now, would have marked its course with death and devastation. As it was, however, no particular damage was sustained by the settlers, the greatest sufferer being the unfortunate Klinkenbeard. On the memorable August night, while the windows of heaven were opened and the rain was descending, he retired, with his family, in fancied security, not dreaming of the ocean of waves that was accumulating from the many swollen tributaries that poured into Cedar Creek above his cabin. The family were awakened from their sweet dreams of peace by a sudden heavy blow against the side of the house from some object that struck it with all the violence of a battering-ram, causing the very logs to creak in their "notches" and "saddles." This afterward proved to be an immense log of driftwood carried before the flood. "Klink" sprang out of bed into water that had silently stolen into the cabin to the depth of three feet. As the watery current rushed up around his surprised limbs in their abbreviated garments, he let off a howl that would have done honor to a Dog-Rib Indian.

"Klink" and his wife took in the situation, and at once began to lug the children and what garments they could lay hold of that were floating around in the eddying waters, up the ladder into the loft of the cabin. The waters were rapidly rising around them, and at short intervals fallen trees and logs of drift-wood struck the cabin with a boom that sounded like young thunder. The unhappy Klinkenbeards sought refuge in the loft of their cabin. There was not standing-room between the loft and the roof, and they had to accommodate themselves to the situation. "Klink" sat with his naked legs hanging down the ladder-hole. The flood raged and roared without, and rose higher and higher within. By and by "Klink" felt something touch his toes and tickle the soles of his feet. With a string of oaths, the use of which had made him conspicuous as the "wickedest man" in Jefferson County, he jerked his knees clear up to his chin, then straightened himself up as well as he could, and commenced removing the clapboards in the roof above in order to escape thereon. When he had made an aperture sufficiently large, he put out his "shocky" head to take a look at the situation. But it was pitchy dark, and he could see nothing, until, for a second, a flash of lighning revealed to his terrified gaze, the extent of the ocean of water that surrounded his cabin. Just then the cabin began to tremble to its very sills. The surging, seething water rocked it to and fro. The water had reached the loft, and was lifting the boards upon which they had taken refuge. "Klink" got out on the roof and lifted his wife and children out after him, and achored them as best he could, while he himself straddled the "comb," and braced his naked knees against the wet, slippery clapboards. As the flood surged madly on, the domed cabin quivered for an instant, loosened itself from the earth, swung around, and was swept onward with the tide, a la Noah's ark, while the unwilling voyagers clung to the clapboards "tooth and toe-nail." Excessive terror had roused in Klinkenbeard the recollection that there was a Power that ruled the storm, and to that Power he turned for relief. He coughed his heart out of his throat, and, as the frequent flashes of lightning revealed the lines of anguish in his horror-stricken face, he offered the following brief petition for relief to Him that ruled the storm:

"O, Lord! Old Klinkenbeard has been a very wicked man in his time, but he sees the folly of that wickedness now. He has used up a mighty sight of 'corn juice,' too, but it is all washed out now. But, Lord, You promised You would never again destroy the world with water, but with fire. Old 'Klink' can stand heat, but neither he nor his family can swim; and here You come in the night, when we are all asleep, with another d----d flood. If You can't have mercy on old 'Klink,' have mercy on his family."

"Klink" prayed on, and onward floated the frail cabin with its living freight, every instant expecting to be engulfed in the dark waters of the Cedar, till suddenly a rude shock stopped the progress of the cabin, nearly dislodging the family on the roof. When daylight glimmered in the east, and the clouds began to break away, Klinkenbeard saw that Providence had heard his rude prayer, and that his cabin was fast-wedged between two twin trees that grew on the banks of the stream.

When the neighbors discovered the perilous situation of the miller and his family, they hastened to convey them, weak and shivering, in canoes to their own homes, where the family was provided for until the father could look about for a new building-site.

The old rhyme that says

well applied to the unstable Klinkenbeard. While looking for a site for his cabin, he chose a knoll on which to locate, remarking that "he be d-----d if he wouldn't build so high this time that God Almightly couldn't get at him with His d-----d old floods.

Another flood occurred in 1851, when the various water-courses in the county rose much higher than during the flood of 1840. The country being by this time more thickly settled, the water did far more damage to property in the lowlands, which were all overflowed. Along Skunk River, especially, the damage was very great, destroying and damaging a large number of houses and washing away farm improvements. At Rome, on Skunk River, a shingle was nailed to a tree which stands in the bottom near Millspaw's mill, and which still bears the shingle, showing the water at that point in the valley to have been over fifteen feet in depth.