Chapter 10, page 75-98
Of all of Mills County's former towns, Hillsdale perhaps lies warmest in the memory of its former citizens. It was about the largest of the towns that faded. At its peak almost three hundred residents were claimed and most of them remembered the community with deep affection. Goldsmith's romantic verse that begins The Deserted Village might well apply to Hillsdale.
The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad and its successor, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (known variously as the C. B. & Q., the Q., or the Burlington, and currently the Burlington Northern) were responsible for both the town's founding and demise. When the line across Iowa was completed from Burlington to Pacific Junction in 1869, the town sites of Malvern, Hastings and Emerson were platted by the railroad's land agent.
This Company had been incorporated in Burlington, Iowa, January 15, 1852, and by March 22, 1854, it had completed seventy-five miles of its road from Burlington to Ottumwa. It was one of the roads specified in several acts granting land to railroads which completed their lines across the state. By these the B. & M. R. received a total of 390,072.23 acres of land of which 40,613 acres were in Mills County. It was given alternate (the odd-numbered) sections of land along its track, on both sides of the line and extending to a depth of six sections. Land at that time was sold by the government for $1.25 per acre, although the granted lands were directed to be sold at not less than double that amount. These lands and certain taxes often voted the railroad company by counties or towns, helped provide money for construction costs.
Almost midway between Malvern and Glenwood the initial railway line climbed a fairly steep grade after following one of the numerous branches of Silver Creek and went through a beautiful dale between low hills after it crossed the divide between the Waubonsie Creek and Silver Creek watersheds. There in 1872, on land owned by Isaack Kelley, Ruth Kelley, A.R. Dillehay and R.J. Dillehay but still on one of the odd sections (Section 27, Township 71, Range 42 West, Center township) originally granted the railroad company, some 160 acres or more were platted for a town, the surveyors laying it out in neat 300-foot square blocks, ten blocks deep north and south and from four to five blocks wide. The railroad crossed almost the center of the plat.
The lots evidently enjoyed a brisk sale. A decade later the need for a municipal government was recognized and on November 30th, 1881, an election was held to approve incorporation and this carried 35 to 10. Most of the lots sold were in the south two-thirds of the plat, so in 1899 some twenty blocks not sold in the north third were vacated from the corporation.
As soon as the town was started at Hillsdale a new church structure was built on land donated by Mr. Anthony Dillehay and into this the former Mt. Olive church moved. The building was completed in 1873, at the cost of $2,100.00, and prior to that the services were held in the homes of members. It was dedicated February 8, 1874, as the Hillsdale Methodist Protestant Church.
Hillsdale grew rapidly and by the end of the century it reached its population peak – a little under 300. It is uncertain as to how Hillsdale received its name. A Hillsdale Church History held that it was related to the topography – the community lying in the dale between two hills. Others believed that it was derived from an English settler whose name was Hillsdale.
Soon almost every type of commercial enterprise was represented in its business directory. The editor of The Malvern Leader visited Hillsdale and reported in his February 8, 1883 issue that he found from 250 to 300 inhabitants there, made up of an excellent class of citizens. It had been incorporated for about one year, with the Rev. Isaac Kelley as mayor, a temperance man so there were no saloons. The editor visited the school where Prof. Rogers, the teacher, said he needed as assistant because of the large enrollment. The IOOF lodge was one of the strongest in the county. Since it had lost its ritual effects twice by fire, it now had its own two-story building.
J. J. Kelley was at the old stand of Linville & Co., which occupied a large two-story building. There was a dry goods and grocery store managed by Elmer Kelley with Tilman Sawyers as clerk. Also he found the J. B. “Bart” Lewis grocery, ‘Squire Brent Shoe Shop which manufactured shoes to order and the “squire” also served as Justice of the Peace for Center township; and J. M. Wheeler’s store “on one of the hills,” offering drugs and groceries and the post office. There were Dr. J. R. Way and merchants C. N. Andrews and I. N. Pershall, with Hammers as village blacksmith and the Harmon and Runnells meat market. Mickelwait & Coats claimed to have the best elevator in the county. In a later issue of the paper it was reported that Hillsdale was to have a brickyard run by Mr. Joe Beason who had worked for Mr. Munson at Peaceville. In a short time it had an order for 300,000 bricks for Kelley’s.
But some citizens did not measure up to the high standards sought by the community and the town had a sturdy jail. The late night (telegraph) operator for the “Q” was convicted of petit larceny and not only fined $5 and costs but lost his job as well. As when Malvern’s pool man (pool hall operator) visited the town seeking a permit to start a parlour there, he was informed that such houses were not allowed.
Fraternalism abounded and there was an effort to form a Masonic lodge with expectations of sharing the Odd Fellows Hall. Hillsdale was linked to the rest of the county when a telephone line was built in August, 1883. Earlier in the summer, on July 19, a heavy storm struck the town with much damage to buildings and nearby crops. In 1884 there was a report of a “wild” freight on the railroad which sent three cars off the track just east of town. A new meat market, owned by Cokely & Gardner was started and C. M. Blue did a land office business making his new invention, a freezer-churn. In 1883 Elmer Harmon started a “shooting gallery” and Gus Seeger built a shop to manufacture the Seeger Bonanza Saw, “the finest thing,” wrote The Leader news correspondent, “in the line of a saw I have seen. “ Perhaps James C. Way took one along when he went to Nebraska the next year to a Wood Cutters Convention.
By 1888 another manufacturer was reported: the Hillsdale broom maker took a load of brooms to Glenwood January 2 to sell. Later that month a Literary Society was organized with L. B. Stringfield, president; Ed McConoughy, vice president; Jim Kelley, secretary and Wm. Scott, treasurer; which was to meet every Thursday evening. But a storm the next week not only forced postponement of the meeting but sent temperatures to thirty-six below and George Phelps, coming home from Egypt (the southwest Mills County community, not the land of the Nile) started from Bartlett Friday afternoon and didn’t get home until 3:00 a.m. because of the delayed trains. “Some of our young fellows,” reported the Hillsdale news writer, “are trying to introduce gum chewing into the suburbs, having acquitted the said habit down among the web-feet.”
At the March 8 municipal election in 1894 L. B. Stringfield was also elected major, with G. W. Ballard (2 yrs.) and J. Muldowney (3 yrs.), councilmen; J. B. Lewis, treasurer; R. T. Barnard, recorder; J B. Stroud assessor and J. F. Stout, street commissioner. That year J. F. Dyke opened a new hardware store. But the town at that time, said the news writer, “is badly in need of a butcher shop – we’ve had no meat in town for three weeks and it is impossible to get butter and eggs.” The writer also said, “It is to be hoped that the tobacco law will be passed as there is scarcely a building in town whose windows are not a conglomeration of discarded quids.” A severe storm in July of 1895 had a wind of great force and it started an empty box car eastward with such momentum that it coasted clear to Malvern, six miles away where it was stopped by Jim Maguire who manned the watch tower at the Wabash crossing.
The map on page 84 prepared several years ago by Mr. and Mrs. Tom W. White with the assistance of Mr. Cliff N. Kelly, lists many of the business houses and residential properties that were there between 1895 and 1899, as they remembered them. The north-south streets of the town recognized area counties. East of Fremont was Mills Street, then Page, then Montgomery and then East Street, the border avenue which was platted only to the main street from the south. East-west streets were numbered First to Ninth, with North Street as the boundary.
The Burlington depot, Mr. Jones agent, was on the north side of the tracks just west of Mills Street. A half block west of it was the Higgs Hotel and these were the only commercial structures north of the railway. Fourth Street slightly south of the rails, was the main street and is now County Road H-38 as it runs east to Malvern. West Street, the town’s west border, is now Highway 275. But then, this section-line road, as it came from Tabor seven and a half miles south, turned east to Fremont Street at First, then continued north to Seventh before going back to the section-line or present route.
On the side track just south of the depot was the (W. M.) Coats & (James) Mickelwait grain elevator, a $5,000.00 structure with a capacity of 15,000 bushels.
During Hillsdale’s existence this enterprise probably had the largest gross business in the town as it was in a highly productive farming area The stockyard, also an essential facility in those days, was on the siding a half block east of the elevator. Its main problem was a water supply for its well went dry during the drought of 1894 and it was necessary to haul water from other town wells.
Facing Fourth Street on the south side were a barber shop, a saloon and Dr. Way’s drug store. Just back (or south) of these buildings was the town jail, a sturdy, timbered structure built in August, 1885, which later served as a granary on the Wayne Hilton farm a mile south.
Just east of Dr. Way’s store, also fronting on Fourth, was the J. R. Lewis family general merchandise store which also housed the post office. South of it was the ice house, A board walk, that started at the corner of Third and Fremont, went north to Fourth (on the west side of the street) and then east to the middle of the block, then north again across the tracks, led to the depot. Also in this block, facing Fremont, was the meat market, housed in the community’s only brick building.
Along the board walk on Fremont were the IOOF Hall, a two-story building, and Mr. Thomas’s jewelry store. Other commercial buildings around the community were the Isaac Baldwin blacksmith shop (just west of the IOOF Hall); across Fourth Street and on the west side of Fremont another blacksmith shop (possibly that of C. N. Schade who moved his shop to Randolph in 1896), Howard Hitchcock’s 10 Pct. Grocery and the Harry Hammond Barber Shop. The Dr. Cross (M. D. and dentist) home and office was far north on Montgomery between Eighth and Ninth Streets.
The public school, a large two-story frame building, was located on Second Street about where the new school (still in use as a residence) was built to replace it after it burned in 1936. The initial Methodist Church building, put up in 1873, was at the corner of Fremont and Third on the site where the present beautiful brick structure now stands. This latter was erected at a cost of $35,000.00 after the other burned in 1957. The original United Brethren Church was a block south of the Methodist, on Fremont and Second Streets, and after it burned just before the turn of the century, it was replaced by a new structure at the corner of Montgomery and Sixth Streets.
The community also had two newspapers but these were short-lived. The first, Hillsdale Herald, was started June 23, 1889, by J. D. Graves, one of the merchants of the town. A copy of the second issue has been preserved by Mr. Cliff N. Kelly and it advertises the community Fourth of July celebration (“Picnic Dinner, Good Speaking, Fire-Works at Night, Etc.”) as well as goods from Mr. Graves’ store. It gives the Burlington time table, showing three east-bound trains (two passenger and one accommodation) and two west-bound.
The issue also printed a letter-to-the- editor signed, A Taypayer(sic taxpayer), that was sharply critical of the town councilmen for holding extra meetings, for attendance at which each received $1, although the town had an ordinance allowing only 50 cents per meeting. The meeting that particularly irked the letter writer was one held to get a refund of $3.00 on some road work (which was unsuccessful) and the cost of that meeting was $8.00. The editor evidently hadn’t time to put in a garden for one item was: “The Editor would like to buy a mess of vegetables now and then.”
There seems to be no record of how long the Herald continued to publish. An item in the Hillsdale news column in The Malvern Leader in its October 10th, 1901, issue reported that “J. D. Graves moved his printing press up by Mrs. Shults. Anyone wishing to see the editor will find him one door north of the Odd Fellow’s Hall.”
On September 7, 1901, another newspaper appeared, the Hillsdale Hare, strongly devoted to the Prohibition party, which at that time was probably Iowa’s third political party in point of number of adherents. Again Mr. Kelly has preserved a copy of this, the November 8, 1901 issue. And again The Leader’s Hillsdale news writer reported, in the October 24, 1901, issue, that “The editor of the Hillsdale Hare is gone – we don’t know where but it is rumored he has gone to see his best girl.” Since the editor of the Herald (J. D. Graves) was a bachelor and the type faces used in both the Herald and the Hare were the same, it might well be concluded the two papers used the same editor.
If the editor did go to see his best girl the experience definitely heightened his enthusiasm for the Prohibition party. In the next issue that Mr. Kelly preserved, almost all of the space was taken up with praise of that party. And it’s showing in general election which had been held the week before the issue was printed. Although the Hillsdale (or Center township) precinct had polled only 13 Prohibition votes compared to 144 Republican and 77 Democratic, the editor exulted: “Handsome gains in every precinct! The Prohibition vote increased over Three Hundred Percent over last year. Get in the Band Wagon! Prohibition is coming!” He published a county vote table to support his contention. In this the totals for 1901 were Prohibition party 217, Republican 1,437 and Democrats 1,129. In the preceding year’s election (the table showed), the totals were: Prohibition 67, Republican 2, 212 and Democratic 1,733.
The editor of both the Herald and the Hare had a lively pen and hearty sense of humor that showed in his writings although he devoted a minimum of space to community news. One item in the Hare was of special interest: “The last report from the R. R. surveyors is that the line through Hillsdale is much the best line that has been run.” Unfortunately, he was wrong, and in 1902 the railroad construction crews started on the new line which would take the tracks two and a half miles north of Hillsdale when it was completed in 1904.
Homes of citizens were scattered along the pleasant streets of Hillsdale mostly south of the railway. Many had attractive kitchen and flower gardens and generally well-kept lawns although Editor Graves, in preparation for the Fourth of July celebration, urged his fellow residents to tidy up by printing: “Our town would present a much better appearance if her streets, alleys and some of her lots were shorn of the Luxuriant verdure.” Many apple trees had been planted and supplied an abundance of fruit. Mr. Eugene J. Coleman raised raspberries and had enough that they had to be shipped out for sale.
Nor were recreational facilities neglected. In the unplatted area east of north Montgomery Street there was a baseball diamond. The news writer reported in 1888 that the town had three baseball teams. Just east of the diamond was a straight-away horse race track a little over a quarter of a mile long. There was clay pigeon shooting at Andrews Park near Hillsdale. The news writer remarked that “Hillsdale is putting on metropolitan airs.” The Prohibition convention was to meet there. A baseball team had been organized and a race track and bandstand planned. Also literary and musical programs and socials were enjoyed in the churches and school. When the Glenwood lodge came one spring night in 1895 to exemplify work for both the IOOF and Rebekah lodges, the meeting lasted until 3:00 a.m.
The affection of most of the residents for their home community was remembered by a former resident, Lulu Potts (Mrs. Gordon A.) Abbott, now of Pacific Grove, California, who lived in the town from 1899 to 1905 with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. T. R. Potts, brother and sisters. “I wish I could make you see Hillsdale as it was when we lived there,” she wrote to the author of this sketch recently. Then she recalled the neat homes, some with flowers and vines covering part of the house, the gardens and lawns fenced, and the pleasant streets. The hills that rise from the dale through which the railway ran seemed higher then, at least in memories of her childhood, and the warm cordiality of the neighbors and tradespeople was recalled.
Many householders kept a cow and perhaps chickens and other livestock. There was a community pasture north of the railroad tracks and west of Fremont Street and she recalled going with her mother to milk their cow, “Old Rose,” morning and night – a chore that was the more pleasant since a number of other residents also kept their cows there and milking time as a period of visiting an sociability.
The Hillsdale school had more than one hundred children of school age and an average attendance of sixty-five during those years. It was probably the first district in Mills County to “bus” pupils to school. One school building southeast of Hillsdale burned in the late 1880’s and its pupils were then brought to Hillsdale by bus – the bus consisting of a horse-drawn farm wagon with benches along the side and with a top from which curtains could be rolled down in inclement weather.
Mrs. Abbott recalls with zest her experience with the bus. One of her good school chums was Helen Clark whose parents lived near the school that had burned. Occasionally she would invite Lulu to her home to spend the night and they would ride there on the ‘hack” (as the pupils called the bus) which Lulu remembered as one of the delights of my life.” Her visit with Helen also permitted her to stay at school the following noon and share a sack lunch with the pupils who lived outside of Hillsdale and couldn’t go home for such refreshment.
The school had two rooms and while it was ungraded, it permitted pupils to advance at whatever speed each was capable of. It was considered one of the better institutions in the county. “There was a hall across the front of the building with the stairway,” Mrs. Abbott describes the school. “Heat was (furnished by) a huge stove in the middle of each room. A bench across the back under the hooks for wraps with rubbers and overshoes under it, held lunches and a bucket of water with drinking cup. I don’t remember any lighting. Teachers did their own janitor work. At one side of the half block grounds there was a long building, the middle for fuel, the toilets at either end and hitching for teachers’ horses.”
A statistical table published in the Mills County History of 1881 shows that the Hillsdale school had 142 different pupils but an average daily attendance of but 63. It had an eight-month term, with two teachers, a male who was paid $30.00 a month and a female paid $45.00. The cost per pupil per month was but 70 cents.
In 1901-02 there was such a large enrollment that the primary grades had to be moved to a former store building then vacant in the community. But as it was learned that the railroad would be moved north of the community, the population soon declined.
Still another of Mrs. Abbott’s memories illustrates the homely savor of life in Hillsdale. Her father served as justice of the peace and major at various times. Once as the town constable was attempting to arrest one of the well-known characters of the community who had an unfortunate thirst for strong drink, the culprit resisted his efforts to put him in the town jail. Mr. Potts appeared to assist and in doing so clipped the offender under the chin with such force as to knock him out cold. No one was more surprised than Mr. Potts who concluded that his victim had been about ready to go to sleep anyway. But the constable was highly impressed and lost little time in telling others of their mayors’ ability at fisticuffs.
News items from 1902 on increasingly suggested the coming change when the railroad would be lost. May 6, 1902, Mr. Graves’ store was burglarized, thieves making off with forty pairs of $3.00 shoes, $20.00 in cash and some ready-made clothing. In 1904 the IOOF lodge built a new horse shed around their hall, the news saying: “Improvements still go on even if the railroad has left us.” In 1907 C. J. Stark was assigned as pastor of the United Brethren Church and then he was also hired to paint the building. Increasingly buildings were moved to new sites.
On May 15, 1913, the county Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution vacating streets in Hillsdale and all of the alleys as many were no longer needed. By that time the municipal government had discontinued. The elevator had burned a year or so after the tracks were taken. The school continued until the general reorganization of districts and that part of its district east of Highway 275 is now a part of the Malvern Community district. When Highway 275 was paved in the early 1930’s a service station and auto repair shop was built on the road at Second Street but discontinued in the 1950’s.
Today there are a half dozen or so residences and the active United Methodist Church – and a few lanes to suggest where the pleasant village once stood.
Several years before Hillsdale was founded a cemetery was located one and one-half miles east of the town site. This continues to be one of the prettiest spots in the county. Land for the cemetery was given by Mr. Anthony Dillehay. The oldest known grave in the cemetery is that of Susan Anthony, dated 1852, so the cemetery predates the town by some twenty years. It is well maintained, neatly mowed during the growing season and kept clean and attractive. A tornado swept across the cemetery many years ago, tipping over and breaking a number of tombstones. Today some of these graves remain unmarked.
The cemetery has an area of between five and seven acres and the east half of this has never been plowed, so that the original prairie grasses and plants dominate the cover. Sometimes the grass is burned in the fall, as was much of Iowa’s original prairie, but the native grasses spring up again. As many of these are flowered this plot presents a continually-changing beauty throughout the year. Most of the better-known prairie grasses can be found there, some of them growing up to six feet high. Their root structure also invites study and some of these, such as the colorful Compass Plant, has roots running a dozen feet into the earth. Big Bluestem, Illinois Bundleflower, Blue Wildindigo, Daisy Fleabane, Pitchers Sage, Indian grass. Switchgrass, Little Bluestem, Hairy Grama, Bluffalograss, Prairie Acacia and Leadplant are some that have been identified. A growthy stand of sumac adds color along the north border of the plot.
