West Liberty History 1838-1938

Source: One Hundred Years of History
* Commemorating a Century of Progress in the West Liberty Community * WEST LIBERTY, IOWA
LOG CABIN HISTORY

Chapter XVIII

THE FIRST POST OFFICE

With the surveying of the land and opening of roads from river points to the capital, which road crossed the Cedar river in the northeast quarter of section 25-78-3, at Overman's ( then Bogg's ) ferry, a post office was established in the Bagley-Clark-Corns settlement, and S. A. Bagley was appointed postmaster. The office was kept in his dwelling, in the southwest quarter of section 1-78-4, and the house stood on what is now the right of way of the B. C. R.& N. R. R., just north of the Iowa City road. To. Mrs. W. A. Clark was given the honor of christening the new office and she said, " Let it be called West Liberty," and so it was. The labors of the offive were not onerous nor the emoluments great, as the mails were not heavy in those days. Sometimes the office would receive its mail twice a week; sometimes once; and sometimes once a month. Newspapers and periodicals were rare, and postage on letters twenty-five cents. It may be known that in all the low financial ebb of the people they did not indulge in any unnecessary correspondence.

With the removal of the capitol from Burlington to Iowa City in 1839, this road became traversed by a daily coach which carried the mail. The travel on this line of coaches at times was great and it has been known to pass in as many as seven sections. It was an inspiring sight to see the coaches with their four horse teams come into the station one after another. The establishment of this highway across the country diverted emigration from other routes, and it became a great artery of transportation of home-seekers to the farther west. So the silence and seclusion of the settlement was forever broken up, and it became a part of the great throbbing life of the nation. As many as a hundred and fifty teams in one day have been counted, emigrants and freighters, passing along this road, and there was no hour of the day but that crack of the heavy ox whips could be heard, and the cries of the teamsters was incessant as they urged their weary beasts over hills and across valleys. At night the gleam of camp fires could be seen through the darkness, wherever grass and water afforded the necessaries for a camp. In the spring, on the thawing out of the ground, the condition of the road became something dreadful. The highway was lined with wrecked and stranded vehicles, and the air tremulous with the anathemas of disgusted travelers and teamsters.

The year of 1840 was uneventful as regards new accessions to the various settlements as there were but few of them. On the lower Wapsie, Joseph Wesson took a claim in the north half of section 24-77-4; also I find that a man by the name of Hunt occupied a cabin in the northeast quarter of section 14-78-4, near the present residence of John Rejhal, at that time. E. T. S. Schenck and Egbert Smith came that season, Schenck purchasing the claim of Asa Gregg, and Smith buying large tracts of land out on the prairie, farther to the west. But if the year was not fruitful as to number of accessions to the population of the valley, it was fruitful as to the material progress the community was making. Hitherto they had been living in a most primitive manner. Churches they had none, schools they had none, mills they had none, but that season they opened a school, and two young men, Daniels and Eggleston, attempted the erection of a water power sawmill on the creek, just below the junction of the east and west branches, near where the Indians had their ford in the southwest quarter of section 24-78-4, but, lacking the necessary engineering knowledge for the work, they failed when it came to putting the Wapsie into harness to work for the benefit of man. For, true to its western nature, it rose in its rage and swept away the feeble barriers that had vexed it and flowed on in its meandering course. But the huge log the boys had sunk for a mud sill to the dam remains to this day.

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