Chapter Eleven

FACTS AND INCIDENTS ABOUT MAHASKA PlONEERS.

There is no better way to learn of the struggles and embarassments of the early settlers than to relate the actual experiences and leave the reader to make his own comments. So we have decided to devote a few chapters to the recital of some of these interesting fortnightly happenings and incidents in the lives of the piorieers, just as they have been given to us by the old-timers themselves. Some of these are most pathetic, some heroic and others amusing, but all of them are interesting to the readers of this generation. They illustrate the wonderful resources of those whose life on the frontier had brought them so close to the heart of nature and the unshrinking tenacity with which they threw their lives into the struggle for the conquest of the wilderness.

In the year 1843 Mr. Matthew Kinsman took a claim just east of Wright, building his cabin in the edge of the timber. In the fall of that year he made a trip to Pickerell's mill down on Skunk river below Brighton, about sixty miles distant, to lay in a supply of flour and meal for the winter.

During his absence one afternoon Mrs. Kinsman took violently ill. Their neighbors were several miles distant and she was alone with one daughter eight or ten years old and one or two younger children. Toward evening she felt that she must have relief before morning. There were no roads or pathways leading to the homes of her neighbors, or the child could carry a message. It was approaching evening and the child would be almost sure to lose its way. In her desperate loneliness she heard the tinkling of a cow bell on the prairie. She bundled up the little girl and sent her out into the gathering shades of the evening with the instruction to keep the cow moving and to follow her until she should reach the home of its owner and to tell him to make all haste to come to her assistance. It is not difficult to imagine the double anxiety and suspense under which the good woman labored until she was sure of the safety of her child. The little girl obeyed her instructions strictly and brought the relief in a short time. A messenger was sent to Mr. Kinsman and found him at the mill patiently waiting his turn. He mounted his fleetest horse, and leaving the grist in the care of others he covered the distance home in the shortest possible time. No doubt there are a number of persons still living who knew Mr. and Mrs. Kinsman during their residence in this county. The pioneer who told us this story said he would ask for no better neighbors than they were for a whole lifetime.

In the fall of 1842 while the Indians still had possession of this territory, a party of seven hunters came up from Jefferson county and remained two weeks hunting mostly in the timber along Spring creek and the Skunk river. Judge Campstock, his two sons, A. J. and Samuel, and William Pilgrim were members of this hunting party. Painter creek and Spring creek were named by this party of advance nimrods. Painter Creek was so called because while camped on that stream they were serenaded by what they supposed to be a panther. The season of 1842 was unusually dry, and the hunters found pure water in Spring creek, which was supplied by a number of unfailing springs along its course. Hence the suggestive name.

The party killed five deer and other smaller game and from thirty-six bee trees secured two barrels of strained honey of excellent quality.

There were doubtless a goodly number of bears in the primeval woods of Mahaska county, but the following records are the only instances that have come down to us where this animal has appeared on the scene within the limits of the county:

Mrs. S. A. Phillips tells us in her book of reminiscences of Mahaska county that her uncle, Aaron Cox, and a Mr. Coontz, killed a young bear southeast of Oskaloosa. Samuel Coffin, who came early to the New Purchase, killed a young bear over on Skunk river early in the '40s, and a full grown bear was killed by Butler Delashmutt and William Frederick in the forests of Harrison township sometime in the '40s.

Wolves were bold and plentiful in the earlier years. Russell Peck is said to have shot seventeen from his cabin door during the winter of 1843-44. During the same winter Dr. Boyer, who was quite a hunter, found himself the owner of ninety-three scalps at the close of the season. A bounty of fifty cents was paid on each wolf scalp until the summer of 1845. At their meeting in July of that year the county commissioners decided that it was making too heavy a draft on the county funds and abolished it.

Game was abundant and that of the very choicest and best. Dr. W. L. Crowder, of Oskaloosa, says that when a boy in his father's generous home over on Spring creek, in Monroe township, he has often heard his mother remark that in that early day she had many times placed the kettle filled with water on the crane over the fire and then called to her husband that she wanted a turkey. He had but to take his gun from the antlers over the door and slip quietly down the creek a few rods to a cleared spot where the corn and wheat grew. This was one of their haunts. A single shot brought down the choicest of the flock and he was back with his prize by the time the water was sufficiently hot to dress it.

Prior to May 1, 1843, settlers were not allowed to cross what was called at that time the "dead line," which marked the division between the lands then open for settlement and those which belonged to the Indians. Anyone crossing this line into the New Purchase must receive permission from the military authorities or from the Indians, who were the owners of the land. For months before the opening day, scores of enterprising men would take the risk and wander about over the new territory selecting their claims in advance. On two such escapades Dr. Boyer was caught by the dragoons and required to give an account of himself. On the first offense he told the judge before whom he was brought that he was on the hunt of a bee tree to replenish his supply of sweets for his family. It was an unwritten law in the early days that the bee hunter was a quite privileged character. He was not prohibited from hunting bees anywhere and was allowed to cut the tree when found. As the time was so short when all restraint would be removed, any excuse was accepted and the Doctor was exonerated. The second time he was taken as far as J. P. Eddy's trading post where Eddyville is now located. There the guards got on a spree and Dr. Boyer was miles away before they came to themselves.

W. A. Delashmutt tells us that himself and sixteen other settlers were marched to Fairfield by the dragoons through the April mud and snow, only to be promptly released by the kind hearted old judge before whom their case was brought. They had been taken from their camp over on the Des Moines river. They were not only released, but an order was given on the commissary for a month's provisions for seventeen men, which had been appropriated by the soldiers.

Mr. George DeLong, of Scott township, came to Iowa in 1842, locating for a time in Wash- ington county. Mahaska and Keokuk counties were at that time under the jurisdiction of Washington county, it having been first organized. He says that six feet of snow fell that winter at various times and during most of the winter from November until April snow laid on the ground three feet deep. Grains of all kinds were plentiful but it was a hard winter on the settler. Stock froze to death for want of protection and attention which could not be given them and for the want of food, packs of wolves driven to frenzy howled about the settlers' cabins and menaced everything living.

Mr. DeLong relates that on one of the crispy cold nights of that winter he was at Pickerell's mill waiting his turn for his grist in company with twenty-five or thirty others. They almost always had to wait a week at the mill and often twice that time. Men would bring with them a supply of provisions to last them; for a time and when it was gone they would subsist on parched corn and wheat until the end of the probation. On this particular night they were all seated around the great fireplace in the mill parching corn and wheat and telling stories to pass away the time. To their surprise there suddenly dropped down from the half-open 10ft above a hog weighing one hundred and fifty pounds or more. It had been frozen out of its nest and in wandering along the bluff against which the mill was built it had quietly walked on a plank which led into an opening of the second story of the mill and while settling itself the loose boards gave way. It had no more than landed on the floor than some one said, "Let's kill it and eat it." The suggestion was acted upon at once and Mr. DeLong says in thirty minutes it was dressed, skinned and slices of it being roasted on the end of a stick by the hungry settlers. Some one furnished a supply of salt and a feast was installed that made everybody happy.

According to the treaty of 1842, made at Agency City, the Sac and Fox Indians were to leave the state in 1845 for their reservation in Kansas. In October of that year the government furnished teams and wagons to convey the women and children and the aged men across the country from their camp south of Fort Des Moines to their destination in the southwest. But the able-bodied men to the number of about five hundred went down the Des Moines river in canoes to the Mississippi river, thence by steamer to St. Louis and up the Missouri to Kansas City. They passed Mahaska county one morning in a long line of canoes stretching up and down the river as far as the eye could see. Those who witnessed the scene describe it as an impressive spectacle. Most of them seemed cheerful and as they floated down the current past their old haunts they were jabbering to each other in seeming hilarity. R. I. Garden, who was a witness of the pageant, says that as they passed his father's cabin in Scott township they espied the family canoe pulled up on the shore, but on the opposite side of the river to which his father had gone on business. Two of the Indians left their canoes and waded toward the shore to add another boat to the number of their fleet of canoes, but his vigilant mother called to them, whereupon they returned to their boats amid the laughter and derision of their companions. It was the powerful arm of civilization that made the mother's entreaty respected. While on the surface they seemed light-hearted, there must have been some serious and thoughtful minds among them. They were looking for the last time on the graves of their fathers and their delightful hunting grounds. With subdued and broken spirits they were drifting down the beautiful waters of the river they loved to sure oblivion and extinction as a race. There is eloquent blood in the veins of the genuine Indian. He spends his life in communion with nature and nature always inspires and elevates her children. In a few more generations the true Indian character will be lost. An amalgamation has been going on for years in the southwest that has produced a hardy and resolute people, just such a mixture of races as is necessary for harmony and the conquest of the rugged hills and extensive plains of the region which they now call their home land.