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 V

THE FIRST WHITE SETTLER ON THE WAPSIE

In the summer of 1836 there appeared a man upon the upper waters of the west branch of the Wapsie by the name of Sutton. He had come from the vicinity of Rolling Prairie, Laport County, Indiana, and was seeking a home in the new west. He had left his family on the east side of the Cedar River while he prospected the country. In the southeast quarter of Sec. 33-79-4 he found what best pleased him, and proceeded to erect there a log dwelling, the first house on the Wapsie erected by a settler. This land is now a part of the farm of M. B. Waters. He cut bass wood trees and split them, and afterward smoothed them with the broad ax and thus built a very comfortable and sightly dwelling. After it was completed he brought his family there. The family consisted of Mr. Sutton, his wife and nine children. When the land was surveyed, it was found that the house did not stand on their claim, but a few rods over the line on the claim of Enos Nyce. What a prospect was theirs! One lone family in an unknown wilderness. They had just halted their team at the door of the house. How small looked the house and how weak for protection against all the dangers that might be lurking in that strange land! No settlement nearer than twelve miles and no trading point nearer the the Mississippi river, twenty miles away.

One feels like standing with head uncovered in the presence of such a race. Off to the north and east stretched the unbroken prairie, covered with its luxuriant growth of grass, waist high on the uplands and shoulder high on the low ground. To the south and west lay a heavy body of timber, through which ran the Wapsinonoc. The spot seemed an ideal one for a home. Wood and water and grass were abundant and easy of access. The prairie grass was divided in places by paths, by the deer in their passage from the prairies to the shelter of the timber, and the gobble of turkeys in the woods was evidence that desirable game was plentiful. The woods were fringed by thickets of plum and crab-apple trees, and wild grapes and blackberries abounded. But the prospect was not all so pleasing, or the future so promising, for these were signs of other than these desirable things. At night could be heard the howling of wolves, the scream of the lynx, and at times the almost human cry of the panther, while the grass held many a rattlesnake. But the source of their greatest uneasiness and possible danger was from the Indians. While the Inians had ceded the land to the whites, and were apparently friendly, they still roamed over the country, hunting and foraging, and were jealous of the whites on this side of the Mississippi, remembering how recently they had been driven from the land they had possessed for generations, and deemed it a trick by which they had been deposed from the council grounds of their tribe and the graves of their fathers. The trail over which these Indians passed from Rock Island to their trading post on the Iowa River and out on the plains beyond was a short half mile away and in plain view of the Sutton cabin. So by these surroundings one can conceive the conditions confronting these pioneers. Fortunately there was no outbreak of open hostility on the part of the Indians, or overt act on the part of the whites, to lead to an open rupture between them.

In the fall of that year---1836---Enos Nyce appeared upon the Wapsie. He, with his family had emigrated from Indiana that spring and stopped for a time on the east bank of the Cedar River, camping with the families of Mr. Holaday and Mr. Wiley, while Mr Nyce forded the river and traversed the country west of it in search of a location. He selected a place near Comstock's Grove in what is now Iowa township, Cedar County, where he built a house and made hay. They had not been living there many months when Mr. Billips came along and fancying the location, offered Mr. Nyce $200 for his claim, which he took. He, then, in company with Martin Baker, a cousin of Mr. Nyce, again started on an exploring expedition of the country, farther south and west. They soon fell in with Mr. Sutton, who had been a neighbor of Mr. Baker in Indiana. He told them where he was located, and pictured the surroundings in such glowing colors that they went on direct to that place, and Mr. Nyce took a claim there, it being the west half of southwest quarter section 34-79-4 and northwest quarter of section 3-78-4. There he soon brought his family and with the help of the Suttons, proceeded to erect a log house and prepare for winter. As the Suttons did not remain there but a few years, to the Nyce's is given the credit of being the first permanent settlers on the Wapsinonoc. In 1838, Mr. Sutton died, as did also one or more of the children, and later, one cold winter night, when the snow lay deep on the ground, the family was awakened from their sleep by flames, and only had time to escape from the building in their night clothes before the roof fell in. One of the boys alighted on a bed of coals as he sprang from his bed. So disheartened was the family by the misfortunes that had overtaken them, that they gave up their claim and moved away going from there to Cedar Rapids.

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