SKETCHES & ANECDOTES
THE OLD SETTLERS & NEWCOMERS
by Col. J. M. Reid, Attorney at Law (1878)
Page 3
Compiled by Sally Youngquist __ with
the help of Barbara
Vicksburg,
Miss, Sept. 27, 1885
MR. EDWARD JOHNSTONE, President
MY DEAR SIR: -- Sometime since I received an invitation to attend your Reunion
at Keokuk to be held the 30th inst. I had determined to attend that
meeting and revive the memories of the past, but along this journey of life we
are subjects of disappointment. I left my home in Chicago, Ill., on the 12th
inst., for Jackson, Miss., to take car of a suit in the Chancery Court,
involving a large amount of money, with an attachment on 250,000 acres of land.
I expected to have been through with that, in time to be at your reunion, but
fate and the law’s delay determined otherwise. I did not get through with my
suit till last evening – and came here this morning. I find myself “stuck” here
for the day and shall not get home in time to visit you on that occasion when
there will be a happy meeting of old settlers and old friends. There are no
friends like OLD
friends. How I shall miss the pleasure I had anticipated and hoped for, I
cannot tell you. I want to tell you of many things, past long years since. I
came west in the summer of 1835, fifty years ago, half a century, can it be
possible? How time flies! “We take no note of time, but from its loss.” Yet
I have kept some notes of things; a journal, daily, for over sixty years (that
shows me what most men call an old man,) 74 years old, and NOT ASHAMED
of my past life.
I took
possession of “Old Fort Des Moines,, ten miles north of your city, on the first
of June, 1837 (?), when the United States Troops left for Leavenworth, leaving
me there alone, so far as white men were concerned, with about three thousand
Indians around me, the Sac and Fox Nation. I soon formed the acquaintance of
Old Black Hawk (called Muk-e-tah-Mosseka-ka) and his wife (mo-a-e-quah) and his
son Nash-eash-kuk; and old Keokuk, (Pash-c-pa-ho) and others, Frank Labessier,
the half-breed, &c, &c. Then came in the Kilbournes and Colemans, and many
others who proved fast friends during eight months of fighting troubles with the
border ruffians sent by the Reddick ring from St. Louis to dispossess us under
the “Spanish Claim.”
That fall we
laid out the town of Keokuk, and the town of Montrose. WRIGHTS will never
forget the hog-stealing cases tried before old justice Gaines, of Keokuk, who
now lies buried in your cemetery, and who was a well meaning man, but much
governed by the early practices of that early period. They, (the Wrights) will
not forget the whiskey jug that stood by the seat of justice, and the tin cup
passed from time to time to the jurors called to try the “thieves,” (for they
were not examining for a probable cause to bind over to a higher tribunal, but
the J. P. claimed and exercised the power to TRY and punish all
malefactors.) Do
the Wrights remember the occasion? The good old man (Wright) has gone to the
happy home above, but I believe some of the family still live north of and near
your city, and I hope will be at your meeting. I cannot say more now, but hope
to meet your association at some future time.
Please express
to your Association my regrets that I am unable to be with you at this meeting.
I enclose you
my resemblance of the 50 years agone and now, that you may see how the young man
looked when he emigrated to the west and fought prairie fires, and how he looks
now, while yet hale and and hearty, and still fighting “the world, the flesh and
the devil.”
With kindest
regards, I am truly,
Yours,
HENRY S. AUSTIN