CHAPTER III.
SETTLERS PRIOR TO COUNTY ORGANIZATION (CONT'D).
THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF CASS COUNTY
BY R. D. MCGEEHON.
"During the year 1846 the United States Government purchased from the Pottawattamie Indians what now comprises some ten cuonties of western Iowa. This territory was known, when I came here, as the Pottawattamie Purchase. These Indians had a village or town on the north side of the 'Botny near the mouth of Indian creek, and had their burying ground on the hill above the town. During the fall of 1846 the Indians were moved to Kansas.
"During this year the Mormons were driven from Nauvoo, Ill., and they started to emigrate to Salt Lake. When they reached the Missouri river several thousand of them scattered up and down the river, making settlements in various places. The largest body of them founded a town on the present site of Council Bluffs, calling it Kanesville; some twenty families came back to Indiantown where they built cabins and cultivated the old Indian fields. The last of them left Indiantown for Salt Lake in the summer of 1852. At Indiantown they were successful in having a postoffice established, in 1847, called Cold Spring. The mail was carried from Kanesville on horseback once a week.
ARRIVES AT INDIANTOWN.
"On the 12th of June, 1852, I arrived at Indiantown accompanied by two other young men named George Shannon and Morris Hoblit. We made claims on sections 13 and 14, Grove township, and built the first hewed log house in the county. The house stood about where Selden Kirk's barn now stands. It was eighteen by twenty-four feet, one and one-half stories high, and had two twelve-light windows in it. The people that saw it thought I was aristocratic, as it was the first house in the county with twelve-light windows, and a door made of sawed lumber. The lumber we got at Coonville, now known as Glenwood. At that time there were twelve families living in what is now Cass county. Wm. Hamlin lived in a cabin at the lower end of Ballard's Grove. Jos. Everly lived on what is known as the Hawes farm in Washington township. An old man by the name of Reeves lived on the 'Botny, just above the mouth of Turkey Creek. Peter Hedges lived at Gaylord's Grove in Union township. The Callens lived in the vicinity of Indiantown in a cabin left by the Mormons.
"A short time after we had settled in Turkey Grove I was at Indiantown, and Mr. Vinnage told me that Mr. Byrd and his boys had gone up on the 'Botny near the mouth of Buck creek to take up claims. In July a regular frontiersman named 'Doc' Marshall took up a claim and settled on what is the Rodgers farm on Turkey creek.
OBTAINS A COOK FOR FIFTY-FOUR YEARS.
"The first of September I started to Bloomington, Ill., for the purpose of getting a cook. I left the other boys to finish the house. I got back October 7th, and the cook was with me! The boys were at Mr. Vinnage's near Indiantown, and they were rejoiced to see us--especially the cook's brother, who had been doing most of our cooking for the past six months. The cook has done the cooking now for fifty-four years!
A MAIL ROUTE OF '52.
"In the spring of 1852 the government had established a mail route from Des Moines to Council Bluffs, running once a week. The route traversed was as follows: From Indiantown up the north shore of the 'Botny to the lower end of Ballard's Grove; there it forded the river and followed the trail to Nat. Hamlin's place in Hamlin's Grove; thence to Morrisburg on the Coon river, thirty-five miles from Hamlin's, and no house in all that distance; then on to Redfield, to Adel and Des Moines. There were three houses in Morrisburg, about a dozen in Redfield, perhaps twice that many in Adel, and not over a hundred in Des Moines.
"The journey to Bloomington and back was made with a light wagon, with canvas cover, as far as Des Moines; thence to Oskaloosa in a two-horse hack; to Peoria in an old fashioned Concord coach; from Peoria to Bloomington in a one-horse buggy. The entire distance was 400 miles each way, and the time consumed was four weeks; this would be considered slow business these days. The nearest railroad was 400 miles distant.
"The Mississippi on the east, and the Missouri, on the west, were the only means of conveying passengers or freight to the borders of Iowa, and from the steamboat landings they had to be transported to their destination by horse or ox team.
"My wife stayed at Mr. Vinnage's, while her brother and I went to Coonville with an ox team for provisions, a few cooking utensils, some goods for bedding and winter clothing.
FIRST WINTER OF TURKEY GROVE.
"On November 18th we left Vinnage's for our own home at Turkey Grove. The snow was nearly a foot deep and where we forded the 'Botny the ice was strong enough to drive across with two yoke of oxen and our wagon. We arrived at our house a little before dark and found from two to three inches of snow all over the floor. We swept it out, built a fire in our mud and stick fireplace, and got something to eat. We made up our bed on the floor, and lying down with or feet to the fire slept the sleep of the tired. The next morning the snow was three feet deep in the timber, and from one to ten feet deep on the prairie. The winter of '52 and '53 was long and severe, with many sudden changes and heavy storms. In digging a grave at Indiantown January 2, 1853, they found the ground frozen to a depth of five feet.
"Our nearest neighbor at that time was four miles away, the next one about eight, and then came the settlement around Indiantown. The first six months that we lived at Turkey Grove, Mrs. McGeehon saw just one woman. The spring of '53 saw George and Abbott Wakefield settled on what is now the Mrs. Geo. Wakefield farm. During the summer Jesse Eller, Clabourne and Tipton Marion settled in and around Turkey Grove. In August Dr. Morrison settled at Morrison Grove; a part of his farm is now cut up into town lots forming part of the village of Anita. In the years 1854 and 1855 settlers began to dot the country in all directions, wherever there was timber; as timber was one of the first necessities of the settler, the most desirable tracts were those where timber and good prairie were contiguous.
"The county seat was now established at Lewis, and as a result that town and vicinity got the largest portion of the emigrants, as will be seen by the State census of 1856. The county at that time contained 148 families, consisting of 815 persons--448 males and 367 females--a trifle over one-half of these living in Cass township.
GETTING FOOD IN PIONEER TIMES.
"The nearest point at which we could procure clothing, provisions, etc., previous to 1855, was at Council Bluffs, and the only method of travel was to yoke two or three yoke of cattle to a covered wagon and camp out on the road. It took at least a week's time to make the trip one way; and when we had arrived there we could buy flour for $10 per 100-lb. sack, and a side of bacon, three to four inches thick, for 22 to 24 cents a pound. Corn meal was from $1.50 to $2.00 per 100 pounds, and others things in proportion. In the spring of 1853 Morris Hoblit took three yoke of oxen and a covered wagon and went down into Missouri for provisions, seed corn, potatoes, or anything else he could get that we needed. For seventy-five miles of the distance traveled there was no road or track of any kind to be seen. He was gone over three weeks and traveled over 250 miles; he got corn for 30 cents a bushel and had part of it ground. Potatoes were 75 cents per bushel and the poorest I ever saw; but Hoblit thought they would do for seed.
"The first three years we had no meat except what our rifles furnished us. Deer were plenty, and any good hunter could kill all he needed in the fall and winter, but during the summer they were seldom seen. In the winter of '54 and '55 Doc. Morrison killed 150 deer. The hams he salted and smoked for use during the summer. Our principal diet, until we got some sod broken and raised potatoes and other vegetables, was corn bread, venison, butter and milk, with now and then mush and milk for a change.
"In the fall and early winter of 1854 Doc. Morrison, Peter Kanawyer and I bridged the streams and staked out a road from Dalmanutha, eighteen miles east of Morrison's to Indiantown, a distance of forty miles. The next spring we got Frink, Walker & Company to put their four-horse coaches on it from Des Moines to Council Bluffs. This brought the emigrants for California past our doors, and gave us a market for corn, hay, potatoes, butter and eggs, or anything eatable that we had to sell, and brought me the first money I received after coming to this country for anything I raised or produced. Corn brought us $1 per bushel, hay $10 per ton, and other things in proportion. This may seem a little high now-a-days, but I paid as high as $2.50 for corn when I first came out here.
CHARACTER OF FIRST SETTLERS.
"The first settlers of Cass county were comparatively poor people. A few hundred dollars was about all the best of us could boast of. The land was not surveyed, and no land office yet established; which gave us a chance to make some improvements and get a little money saved up to pay for our homes when the land came on the market. The fall of '53 I made a preemption on 160 acres in section 13, which gave me a year to prove up and pay for at the rate of $1.25 per acre.
"The first settlers of Cass county, I suppose, were like the first settlers of any new country. Some of them were people who had lived on the frontier all their lives, but the most of them were people who had been brought up on farms in eastern Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, with now and then one from Maine and other New England States.
"As a rule all were good neighbors, and everybody living within ten or fifteen miles was considered a neighbor. If a new settler came in and wanted help to put up his cabin he let the people know what day he wanted them, and everybody for ten or more miles around would turn out and help him. If one of us was going to Council Bluffs for provisions, everybody was at liberty to send for anything wanted that could be brought. If one was sick everybody would be anxious to know what he could do to help the one in trouble. This created a feeling of love and brotherly regard among the first settlers that will last as long as one of them is left on top of the ground.
"Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pg. 58-62.Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, August, 2018.
