Van Buren Democrat
Bonaparte, Iowa
January 19, 1870
Volume 1; Number 1 [first issue]
HOME NEWS AND GOSSIP.
DES MOINES VALLEY
Its Early Settlement – Keokuk – The “Half Breed” Tract,
Etc., Etc.
MESSRS. EDITORS - - I have had quite a pleasant interview
with my esteemed friend, Dr. Roger Cresap, who is the oldest settler of the
Des Moines valley above Farmington, and who was an early settler at the foot
of the rapids where Keokuk is now situated.
The doctor can give information regarding the early
settlement of this country that will certainly add material!y [sic] to the
interest of THE DEMOCRAT. I have just procured from him some facts relating to
the early history of this section for the publication in another paper, which
I hereby furnish your journal.
He was born in Allegheny county, Md., September 20th, 1809.
He lived in Virginia a short time; went to Tennessee in 1828; went to
Chattanooga for a short time; went from there to Northern Alabama. From there
he came to the foot of the Des Moines rapids, Wisconsin territory, where
Keokuk is now situated. He landed there about the 1st of April, 1833. He was
then on his way to Galena. His, as well as six other steamboats were delayed,
to light over the rapids.
The delay gave him an opportunity to talk with some of the
people who lived at that point.
Dr. Samuel C. Muir had lived there; was a well educated
gentleman and a noted physician, a graduate of Edenburgh, and was a surgeon in
the United States army. Dr. Muir died a short time before Dr. Cresap’s
arrival. Several of the inhabitants advised and importuned him to locate there
and take the place of Dr. Muir who was the only physician there. He concluded
to do so.
He rented a cabin from a Mr. Neddy. John Gaines, Isaac. R.
Camp, Moses Stilwell, Joshua Palon, and Paul Bissette each had houses of
moderate dimensions. Madame St. Amant and her son-in-law, William McBride,
lived in a log house about one mile above the landing, and near to a pretty,
clear spring, that gushed from a ledge of rocks on the bank.
These were all the buildings he remembers, except the
principal structure, which was one story high and contained six rooms. It was
the business house of this section of county – or rather it became so after
the fur company left it. A store and tavern were established in it. The rooms
were used for merchandising, drinking, fiddling, fighting, dancing, and
sleeping in, and much of the time, in the various departments, quite a brisk
business was done in that establishment, which gained for it a wide-spread
notoriety, and it was dignified notoriously by the appellation of “Rat Row.”
Money was tolerably plenty, and Rat Row was really the
treasury department of this section. The general banking business of the “Row”
was transacted between the hours of supper and breakfast.
While he lived there he noticed many hard cases and some
quite depressed character. He left there in 1834 and came to this point, where
he made his home, and has continuously resided on this quarter section, on a
part of which is situated the town of Bonaparte.
Since he moved to this point he has made many visits to
Keokuk, and has watched with lively interest the growth of that place.
The city of Keokuk is well situated, but it is on what is
called the “half breed tract,” and that tract was cursed by “midnight decree”
concocted on the 8th day of May, 1841, by a band of land sharks, and signed by
Judge Charles Mason, about twelve o’clock in the night, which decree was, from
its date, branded with fraud and infamy by nearly every man who had knowledge
of the history of the case.
The decree title being the only one, legally recognized, to
any lots or lands in that 119,000 acres, has been, and now is, a serious taint
on the titles, and a ruinous clog on the improvement and prosperity of the
city of Keokuk, as well as to the towns and lands of the notorious “half-breed
tract.”
Here we have good titles, a remarkable healthy region
surrounded by a very productive agricultural country, abounding in stone coal,
find building rock, and good groves of timber, which with our water power and
railroad facilities, gives us encouragement to hope that our village will grow
to be a town, and, it may be, not very long hence, a city.
From the foregoing scraps, you can already see, that you may
extract from the doctor considerable information to make your new paper
interesting.