MUSCATINE COUNTY IOWA HISTORY

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