MUSCATINE COUNTY IOWA

HISTORY

WILTON, MOSCOW
and
YESTERYEAR
1776-1976

Pg 208

Traces: The First Town
By Marilyn MacCanon Brown

Transcribed by Lynn McCleary, April 20, 2015

They will not be here, not even in the attics,
not tucked into church cornerstones.
Even if you searched for them,
       digging deeply into the past.
       rubbing the old gravestones,
       scanning the old maps and deeds,
              what you seek
              would still elude you;
              there is hardly any trace.
 
The Mastodon bones were too early
and the automobile was too late.
Mud Creek would know.
Mud Creek would remeber
better than all the histories
and the old men reminiscing.
 
       Maybe the wind remebers.
On a certain hill outside town
when the breeze is right,
what you can hear of church bells,
the sounds of a blacksmith shop,
the tumult of the Wilton "Plug"
nearing the intururban trestle,
brings us close to the voices:
              the singing,
              arguing,
              paying,
              joking:
whispers -- like the Yankee Hollow murder;
silences, as when young men left for war.
 
Even the wind won't give
what you seek.
for there-is-hardly-a-trace.
       Surely
       the fog remembers;
       the fog will tell you.
During the fog, in its soft blear,
       it will only be a glimpse,
       but look for a scene of
              much prairie,
              much timber.
 
Don't let the settlement distract you:
the determined families,
plows, merchants, schools -
they have had their way here:
as much of them remains,
in spite of change.
       (Overlook the westward masses
       passing through
       in ferry over the Cedar.
       Let them be,
       They are shadows.)
 
Your chance will come -- you will see
not far from all of those,
smoke rising from hundreds of campfires,
dogs barking, gentle families, dust.
It must be a town
for cooperation, commerce,
reverence for the earth-drama.
       Children being taught respect
       (What endures?) They lived thrift,
       simpilicty, excellence.
Poweshiek. Provisions, dwelling, folkways.
(The survey said five thousand by here.)
 
       Look quickly before it fades
       and catch the vision you desired
       of their faces (immortal, proud)
       in glow of campfire.
 
The wind asks,
voices in the wind ask,
what endures?
Ask yourself, what endures?
       A few weak memorials:
       some arrowheads,
       a shy deer, crossing a cornfield.
 
But their trails
which they engraved
all through this area
sure as palmlines
beginning here and ending here
like a capital city.
       Mud Creek Knows,
       and the deer know
Beneath the commercialized land,
Alongside cable, basement, under paving,
and their sacred trails
       We walk them
       without knowing.
              But the good earth knows,
              it sifts the memory.
 
When you sift the histories
and hear the old stories,
keep close to those vanished people, their
earth-reverence, cooperation; draw from
the image something that endures. Ask
yourself, what endures?
              Keep close to it
              Like fog, presence.

Pg 211
Picture: J. B. Wacker Building about 1900 – Courtesy of A. Wacker Family

Picture: In For Fun Club, 1892 – Courtesy of Helen Shuger and William Nelson.
Starting with back row, left to right: Annie Allen Shuger, Luta Dove, Dora Horst Cookingham, Jennie Gates Meichert, Carrie Warren Johnson, Grace Colcord, Mary Pearl, Perney Schooley, Eliza Gates.
Whitmer, Vae Barr, Elizabeth Mahannah, Zella Wiley, Fannie Minister, Elthea Marshall Stamen, Marshall Stamen, Clara Ruff Dwyer, Jennie Hawley Downer.

Pg 212
Picture: Wilton Grave United Church of Christ

Picture: Wilton Presbyterian Church – Courtesy of Iva Lillge

THE END
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