OSAGE - Nick and Mary Adams of Stacyville have a collection of old books, buttons and pictures that keeps them busy classifying and labeling.
William Biedermann of Osage expresses his historical interest by participating in the local historical society and Bicentennial commission.
And the late Hamlin Garland, one-time Mitchell County resident, wrote about early days in the county in "Boy Life on the Prairie" and other books.
People in Mitchell County are fascinated with history, and it's possible their fascination will lead history out of the domain of big, dusty books and into the realm of everyday life.
Biedermann, president of the Mitchell County Historical Society, is interested in historical events and places. He talked earlier this year about the first settlement of the county.
He said several parts of the county were settled at approximately the same time, rather than one part being settled and then another.
This simultaneous settlement took place mostly in 1852-53, although there were a few settlers in the county even earlier.
Leonard Cutler and a son, James B., were the first men to pass through the county and consider it for permanent settlement. That was in l853.
The next year, another Cutler son, David, and William Ramsdell took out the first claim in the county and built the first log cabin. They chose a site on the old Orchard road, which was in use until 1909.
The first family arrived in July 1852. L.S. Hart and his son walked from Michigan and took out a claim in what is now the southwest part of Osage.
About the same time, the Rev. Claus L. Clausen led a colony of Norwegians into the county. They founded St. Ansgar, the town being platted in 1856. This area later became well known for onions and other truck garden products.
The site that later became the town of Mitchell was initially settled just after these other two, in 1853. Mitchell was platted in 1854.
Other settlers and families followed these pioneers. Hart was joined by Dr. A.H. Moore, O.E. Tripp and Benjamin Whitaker. The claims of these four men formed the square of land now occupied by Osage.
Dr. Moore drew the first plat of the own in 1854. He named the town Cora, after his oldest daughter. However, his plat was never filed.
Several months later, the town was again platted, this time named Osage to honor banker and financier Orrin Sage, who had invested in the town. This plat was never recorded either.
An Osage town plat was finally recorded in 1856 when Dr. S.B. Chase and others laid out a slightly larger town on the site previously platted as Cora and Osage. This time the name remained as Osage.
The county had been formally organized about two years, the election for organization having taken place in 1854. There were 31 votes cast in that election.
The county was formed in 1851 by the Iowa General Assembly. The members named it Mitchell, either in honor of Irish patriot John Mitchell or in recognition of the John Mitchell who surveyed the county.
Other founding dates in the county are: Riceville, platted 1855; Stacyville, platted 1856; Mona and Orchard, platted 1869; Carpenter, platted 1871; Otranto, platted 1877; New Haven, platted 1878; Little Cedar, platted 1891; Mclntire, platted around 1895-96, and Toeterville, platted 1897.
After the county organization election, the placement of the county seat touched off a bitter controversy that lasted almost 20 years. The citizens of Mitchell and Osage each wanted the seat located in their town to attract more settlers and businessmen and to stimulate town growth and prosperity.
Originally, the seat was located in Mitchell, as that town seemed more centrally located than Osage. In 1856, there was an election to place the seat, which Osage won. The people of Mitchell were furious and contested the election results. However, the results were upheld by commissioners appointed after the election. The courthouse then was built in Osage and first used in 1858. It is the courthouse still in use today.
During these struggles, the southern boundary of the county was changed so that a 3-mile-wide strip of land that formerly belonged to Floyd County became part of Mitchell County. Citizens of the town of Mitchell claimed this was done so Osage would be more centrally located in the county.
Mitchell regained the seat through an election in 1860. However, another election the following year returned the seat to Osage, where it has remained ever since. The men of Osage went to Mitchell in 1870 and forcibly brought county documents to the Osage courthouse. The county seat location has been uncontested since that time.
Throughout the county seat controversy, Osage was growing due to another cause. The land office for the area, known as the Turkey River District, was moved in 1856 from Decorah to Osage. This brought many settlers into town and also spurred the development of several businesses.
One business not seen in most modern towns is that of the cooper - the barrel maker. At one time, there were five cooperages in Osage.
For many years, barrels were used to store goods that now come individually wrapped. Customers bought such items as fish, pickles and butter out of large barrels kept in the general store. And the settler often used barrels at home to store such things as salted prairie chicken breasts for the winter.
There were many mills in Mitchell County. The first settlers of an area usually built a saw mill on an available stream to provide lumber for homes and barns. Later, they were likely to add a grist mill for grinding feed and a flour mill to grind the wheat that was heavily grown in the early years of the county. According to an 1875 historical atlas of Iowa, there were nine flour mills, six saw mills and one woolen mill in Mitchell County.
Wheat growing gradually faded out of the county and what little flour was ground locally was kept in sacks, so the coopers began making butter tubs for the county's creameries. The tubs came in two sizes, the 53-pound capacity which sold for 29 cents and the 30-pound capacity which cost 25 cents. The demand for these tubs eventually fell off, too, and the coopers went out of business. The last cooperage in Osage closed in 1939.
Hamlin Garland's family was one that settled in Mitchell County in the late 1800s. His father brought the family into Iowa from Wisconsin around 1869, traveling by prairie schooner and herding a few cattle behind the wagon. Garland was around 10 years old at the time.
Garland spent his boyhood in Mitchell County and attended the Cedar Valley Seminary in Osage. Some of the books he wrote later in life are based on his experiences in the county.
Garland was immediately enthusiastic about the prairie and his books include descriptions of life not always available in history books.
In "Boy Life on the Prairie" he said that the prairie was "for the most part, a level land, covered with short grass intermixed with tall weeds and with many purple and yellow flowers."
The prairie was a marvelous place for a boy, and Garland wrote of exploring the land and watching small bands of wild horse's race across the horizon.
Although he loved the prairie wildlife, the young Garland was not so enamored of the work entailed in settling a farm.
Garland must have had some experience with fall plowing, for he wrote that the task "... meant moving toward and fro, hour after hour, with no one to talk to and nothing to break the monotony. It meant walking eight or nine miles in the forenoon and as many more in the afternoon, with less than an hour off at dinner. . . It meant dragging the heavy implement around the corners and it meant also many mishaps where thick stubble or wild buckwheat rolled up around the standard and threw the share completely out of the ground."
In other words: "Ploughing was lonesome, tiresome work."
Equally un-enjoyable tasks, apparently, were spring planting and milking cows. Of the first Garland wrote, "It was viciously hard work." The second he called a "peculiarly hateful task in summer . . . and worse in "autumn." One activity that provided at least temporary relief from the monotonous grind of chores was the old-fashioned threshing bee. This task always involved the neighbors in a certain area known as the threshing circle. Within this area, there was usually only one threshing machine. All the farmers used the machine and worked for one another with the understanding that each man would reciprocate by working for his neighbors.
On the day of the threshing the men gathered at the appointed home and began their work.
Threshing bees were hot, sticky work, for the women but, according to Mary Adams. She said the women spent all day cooking huge dinners and suppers for the threshers.
"That's where I learned to work," she said. "You had to run, not walk, all day long.
From an article in the Mitchell County Press-News; Author Unknown; no date available.
Transcribed in July 2002 by: Neal Du Shane
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