of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 234-236
SEVENTY SIX TOWNSHIP. This township was organized in October, 1853, and comprises township 76 north of range 3 west, with the exception of that portion in the southeast part lying east of Keokuk Lake and Muscatine slough. It is regarded as one of the best townships in the county. The main body of land is prairie and the farms are highly cultivated. There is no village or railroad station in the township. The residents do the most of their trading at the county seat and some at Letts, in Louisa county. The people of this locality have excellent schools, which keep open nine months in the year. The average attendance for the eight sub-districts is seventy-nine, and the average cost per pupil for the school year is $3.87.
The Thorntons were the first settlers in this township and the second in the county. Err Thornton settled on the land now owned by Martin Beck and John Tomfeld. Lot Thornton took a claim just north of this on land now belonging to the Eisele estate. Adjoining this latter, on the north, Levi Thornton located on land now in possession of Thomas and James Hackett. Colonel George W. Kincaid arrived in the township from Lafayette, Indiana, October 12, 1839, and ate his first meal at the hospitable home of Lewis McGrew, who had settled in the township, on section 38, some time previous thereto. At this time Robert Davis was living on section 1. In the '40s, about 1842 or 1843, the father of Robert and Lee Beatty settled on section 9, and at about the same time Henry D. Hendrix and sons, Charles, William and Ira, settled on section 33. In the very early '4Os Charles Mathis was on section 3, Jones Greene on section 4, and Addison Reynolds lived in the townshIp early in the '40s, but owned no land. He worked the land of his neighbors. The Kincaids first settled on section 4, an "eighty" of which he sold to John McGrew, with a log cabin thereon he had built, in 1842. McGrew immediately moved into the cabin and this cabin was also the home of the Kincaids until Colonel Kincaid had finished the erection of a cabin on an adjoining "eighty" on the east, into which he moved. Colonel Kincaid raised his first crop in Seventy Six township on section 1, in 1840, and his second crop on Judge Williams' farm in section 36, Lake township.
John McGrew came to Muscatine county in 1834, where he found the Thorntons, Levi, Lot and Err, on their claims in Seventy Six township. He remained here two days, then spent a short time in Muscatine, and finally returned to New Boston. In the following spring he returned to the Thornton settlement with Philip Wagner and each of them staked out a clam in Louisa county, near the Muscatine line. Here McGrew remained until in 1842, when he bought the Kincaid "eighty" on section 4; so that, McGrew's residence in Muscatine county must be computed from the time he settled on section 4. Philip Wagner never came to the county to live.
WHEN THE THORNTONS CAME. James Thornton, now living (1911) at Ashland, Oregon, sent the following communication for publication: "I received from my sister-in-law a copy of the seventieth anniversary edition of the Muscatine Journal. I find the names of my father, Levi Thornton, and his two brothers, Err and Lot, at this time settling at Muscatine. My father was the oldest and had a wife and five children, four boys and a girl; also my mother's sister, Miss Polly Black, lived with us.
"Err and Lot Thornton, their mother and sister, constituted the other family that started from Lafayette, Indiana, in the spring of 1835, and came to New Boston, Illinois, and stopped there with a cousin of my father's named Jesse Willetts. Here they planted thirty acres of sod corn. After this they decided to take up claims in the Black Hawk purchase and some time in June the three brothers and two other men crossed the Mississippi river at the mouth of the Iowa river. There was then a family here by the name of Shook. The party then proceeded up the bluff to where the river bottom widened and there they located their claims. My father, Levi, located the one below Whiskey Hollow; Lot the next and Err the next. Then they went up the river to Pine creek, where they got dinner and took the steamer back to New Boston.
"Shortly after, Err and Lot and three other men took oxen and one wagon and went over to the claims to put up houses and my father stayed with the families and loaded the wagons and followed, reaching the claims on the 4th of July, 1835. They built two log cabins and here the winter was spent. The cabins built, they began cutting hay for the cattle. The mosquitos were thick and gave us no rest. My father and his brother, Err, and a man named Oliver Dimon, went to what was then called Casey's Landing and took the first rock from the bluff to make a grindstone to sharpen our scythes. Oliver Dimon mowed for us till he was taken sick with the fever and ague and, becoming weakened, he went away and never returned. A blacksmith shop was needed to sharpen the plows, so one was built, which was the only one between Burlington and Davenport. They then broke about eight acres of prairie land and let it lay till in February there came a thaw, when they sowed it in rye and spring wheat. This was in 1836. This was the first grain sowed in these parts and it made a good crop. This with the hay kept the stock in good condition through the winter. No more claims were taken that fall but in the summer of 1837 there was a large number of settlers between our claims and Muscatine. Levi Thornton was one of the representatives in the territorial legislature that met at Burlington in 1838 and 1839. He was generally known by the name of Colonel Thornton.
"In the spring of 1836 a family by the name of Holiday settled about four miles from us, up the bluff toward Muscatine. John McGrew did not come to this region until the spring of 1836. He settled near where Letts now is, on what we called the high prairie. I, with my older brother John, crossed the plains to Oregon in 1850, starting in October. We spent the winter with Robert and Sam Kinney and in the spring of 1851 we went to northern California and mined there about two months, returning to the Willamette in June. In November, I went again to the old home in Iowa, reaching there in January, 1852, going by way of Lake Nicaragua and New York on the first trip made by Commodore Vanderbilt's steamer. I stayed here till April, 1853.
"I bought my supplies for both trips from Peter Jackson. I was one of the boys that drove an ox cart to dam the Muscatine slough. I have been back but once, in 1873; have lived in Jackson county, southern Oregon, since 1854. My father died in 1840 and was buried in what was called the Kiser cemetery. My mother died in 1846 and was buried at the same place. In the spring of 1853 my brothers and I sold our possessions to Philip Wagner."
Back to Historical Index Page