of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 282-284
THE COUNTY SEAT. Muscatine, Iowa, is a town noteworthy in many ways. Its name, which is without counterpart on the map of the world, connects it with one of the most interesting tribes of North American Indians, and its location on commanding heights overlooking the Mississippi at the apex of the great bend of the river westward below Davenport, gives to it a charm hard to parallel, and one to which no resident or visitor is insensible.
When in the early days of the middle west the Mississippi was the main highway of transportation, the importance of Muscatine to Iowa was undoubted. By reason of the "short haul" afforded by it to the interior, it became the port of entry for towns as distant as Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Anamosa. As conditions changed, and in America railroads as distributing agencies began to usurp the function of the rivers, Muscatine's promise of becoming the foremost town of the state was not realized, but composed, as its population was, of men and women from the middle and New England states, it was assured of a place by no means without significance.
Between 1850 and 1860, the Muscatine bar, with a membership including Stephen Whicher, W. G. Woodward, D. C. Cloud, Jacob Butler, Henry O'Connor, George W. Van Horne, J. Scott Richman, Jerome Carskaddan, Dewitt C. Richman, Thomas Hanna and William F. Brannan, might challenge comparison with the bar of any community, and the clergy, led by spirits as diverse as Rev. Father P. Laurent and Dr. Alden B. Robbins,---the one from Dijon, France, and the other from Salem, Massachusetts,---were of an intellectual grade in nowise interior to that of their brethren of the forum.
Nor was it alone the law and the gospel that commanded attention and respect. Authorship, as exhibited in the public address and journalism, was honored by Charles Woodhouse, J. Scott Richman, G. w. Van Horne, J. Carskaddan, Hugh J. Campbell, Henry O'Connor, John Mahin and Edward H. Thayer; and as exhibited in lyric verse, by Dewitt C. Richman. Medicine was represented by Dr. George Reeder, Dr. C. O. Waters, the Doctors Thompson, Dr. Christian Hershe, Dr. D. P. Johnson and by others, while as for the mercantile class, representatives were legion: The Steins, Isett and Brewster, Henry Mollis, Greene and Stone, Chambers Brothers, John Lemp, Luke Sells, the Jacksons, the Weeds, I. L. Graham, Pliny Fay, Moses Couch, Douglas Dunsmore, George W. Dillaway, George B. Denison, G. A. Garrettson, Smalleys, James Hatch, A. F. Demorest, Joseph Bridgman, Marx Block, R. M. Burnett, H. W. Moore.
With 1860 there came throughout the land the agitation over slavery, and at Springdale, just beyond the county line, John Brown mustered and trained his band for the attack on Harper's Ferry. Tremont Hall was the Faneuil Hall of Muscatine, and here there might be heard anti-slavery songs by the Hutchinson family and anti-slavery speeches by Wendell Phillips. The Civil war itself came in 1861, Muscatine (banner spot of Iowa) sending to the field men of the stamp of General Edward Hatch, Colonel Charles Compton, Colonels Hill, Hare, Keeler, Horton, Kincaid and Major John, and as its representative abroad G. W. Van Horne, United States Consul at Marseilles, while at home watch and ward were kept by faithful women.
The war over (1865-1877) the history of Muscatine becomes a tale, first of picturesque log-rafting on the Mississippi coupled with the development and expansion of the sawmill industry under the Hersheys and the Mussers, and next (1876-1893) of cattle companies under Underwood and Clark, of the sash and door industry under the Huttigs and William L. Roach, of the high bridge over the Mississippi, of the first street railway and the Heinz pickle works. The period, too, had its intellectual phase. In landscape and portrait painting, success was achieved by J. E. Sinnett, Mrs. F. L. Dayton, Miss Mary Ament and Miss Hattie D. Van Horne. In caricature, John McGreer proved himself a rustic Hogarth. In music, there became known Mrs. Sara B. Hershey (Marsh) and the Misses Nanny and Esther Butler, and in education and science, R. W. Leverich, F. M. Witter, F. Reppert, Suel Foster, J. P. Walton, Thomas Brown and T. N. Brown.
Between 1892 and 1910 there has gradually supervened for Muscatine a great past, have been definitely numbered, and those of the Muscatine of the present change. The days of the town of the '50s and '70s, of the Muscatine of the are at the dawn. With the construction of the high bridge in 1891, there was begun a series of public improvements still in course of realization. In 1892 the street railway was advanced from mule power to electric power. In 1895 Pappoose creek was housed, brick paving was instituted and the new Congregational church edifice was built. In 1900 the chapel was built at Greenwood cemetery. In 1901, the public library was dedicated. In 1902 the Hershey Hospital was built. In 1903 the Young Men's Christian Association building was completed. In 1906 the new filtration plant was opened. In 1908 the Hershey Bank building and the building for the German-American Savings Bank were erected. In 1909 there were completed the postoffice building and the new county court house, and today, 1911, the Muscatine State Bank is completed and occupied, while the First National Bank is about to be occupied, and there has been duly incorporated a company for the construction of the Moscow Canal. Meanwhile, the Muscatiners, George M. Whicher and Ellis Parker Butler, the one through the pages of "Scribner," and the other through those of the "Century" and other periodicals, have won distinction in letters, while George Gray Barnard has won eminence in sculpture.
Years ago, in his own home, a citizen of Muscatine began to practice a trade learned in Hamburg, Germany,---the cutting of pearl buttons, and for this the material used was the mussel shell of the Mississippi river. In the '50s the Mississippi had made Muscatine the entrepot of the state. In the late '60s and in the '70s it had created for it the lumber industry. In the '90s and 1900's it was to lift it to that position of the greatest pearl button producing center in the United States, doubling its population and enhancing its wealth. And while for seventy-four years progress in town has thus been taking place, the county has not fallen behind. At West Liberty and in the various townships---Bloomington with its Samuel Sinnett, Sweetland with its John A. Parvin, Lake with its Samuel McNutt, Fruitland with its sweet potatoes and melons, and Seventy Six with its Sons of Erin---there has also been progress.
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