CHAPTER VI.
CASS TOWNSHIP (CONT'D).
SETTLERS OF 1856 AND 1857.
The Barlett brothers, E. W. and Daniel, came to Lewis in 1856, the former at once opening a general store. This he conducted until the following year, when he erected a steam saw-mill on section 2, Cass township. He ran it for a short time and then sold it to E. W. Davenport.
Joseph Warnock started a grocery, and E. W. Henderson and M. T. Jones general stores, in 1856. Mr. Jones afterward ought the Lewis grist mill, and, in connection with his mercantile business, conducted it until his death in 1863. Childs & Chapel then took the store and Keyes & Peck, who had originally owned it, again assumed the proprietorship of the grist mill.
John Keyes was one of the shrewdest and most enterprising business men, promoters and politicians of the early years. He was trained in the commercial world before he came to Cass county and, as the senior member of Keyes & Peck, established a thriving general store at Lewis in 1856. In the same year he interested the citizens of the town and vicinity in the water power advantages of the Nishnabotna at that point, organized a company, built a dam at Lewis and constructed a grist mill. After conducting the business for a short times [sic time] Keyes, Peck & Company disposed of the mill to M. T. Jones, the merchant, who operated it, as stated, until his death in 1863, when it reverted to Keyes & Peck who, soon afterward, sold it to S. M. B. Wheeler, the last named gentleman remaining the proprietor until the late 'eighties. The following is a description given of the mill property by a publication about twenty-five years ago: "The mill is not supplied with the late improvements in machinery, and until these are put in the water power will continue to be the most valuable part of the plant. The dam is about eighty feet wide and nine feet in heighth, furnishing a very valuable power. The building is thirty by sixty feet in dimensions and three stories in height. The business done is mostly custom work, though some flour is made for the trade. Mr. Wheeler has retained the ownership of the mill since the first purchase, but has rented it part of the time." The proprietor noted was a well known citizen of Lewis. The year of his purchase of the mill marks his settlement in the town. He was a New Yorker and raised a family of twelve children
Besides founding the mill power at Lewis, Keyes & Peck were also proprietors of the ferry boat used on the East Nishnabotna river, as a section of the road from Lewis to Council Bluffs. In November, 1858, the county purchased it of them for $210 and operated it until the fall of the following year, when Thomas Meredith completed the bridge across the river.
E. W. Davenport came to Lewis from Massachusetts in 1857. In partnership with L. W. Ross he purchased the Bartlett saw-mill and, erecting it in Pottawattamie county about a mile over the line, operated it there until 1862. In the meantime he had secured sole proprietorship of the mill, and being a surveyor by profession had served the county in that capacity during 1861 and 1862. In the latter year he removed his mill to Lewis, where he ran it for one season. In the spring of 1864 he removed it to Eight-Mile Grove, selling it soon afterward. Mr. Davenport's wife was one of the first teachers in Lewis, and was considered as good a teacher as her husband was a surveyor.
Among the other arrivals in the town of Lewis for 1857 was Samuel Disbrow, an Ohio blacksmith, who opened a shop which he kept in brisk operation for thirty years. When he came here he found R. Temple, the pioneer of his trade in Lewis, and another of his craft by the name of Ford. Mr. Disbrow conducted his business in both the west and the east ends of the town, at different times, and eventually added a wagonshop to his regular line.
FIRST ADDITION AND PRESENT TOWN AREA.
George M. Elsey, the pioneer merchant of Lewis, made the first addition to the town, filing it November 9, 1857. W. N. Dickerson and others made one the following year, as did Charles H. Evans, of Mahaska county, and Joseph H. Macon, of Cass. In the fall of 1865 a resurvey of the town was made by the county, and the plat filed on the 25th of February, 1866. The town now, with its various additions, covers the west half of the southwest quarter of section 11, the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter, and the east half of the northeast quarter of the southwest quarter of section 11, and the east half of the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 14, or a total of nearly 320 acres.
SETTLERS FOR 1858-60.
E. W. Henderson came from Connecticut in 1858, and upon his arrival at Lewis embarked in the dry-goods and hardware trade, but his business was not profitable and he failed in 1859. In the fall of 1858 he had been elected clerk of the district court, and entered upon the duties of his office on the first day of the following year, serving one term of two years. On the whole Mr. Henderson seems to have been better adapted to official than business life. After serving his term as clerk of the court in Cass county, with Amos Gridley, he went to the Colorado mines. Together they bought a claim and after working it profitably for three years sold it, through an agent, to a New York company. The selling price was $100,000, but the agent defrauded them out of all but a few thousand dollars of this sum. Mr. Henderson remained in Colorado, where he was advanced to office and became locally prominent. Mr. Gridley returned and engaged in farming near Pacific Junction.
Among the merchants well known in Lewis during the '60s were S. M. Childs and L. O. Reinig. Mr. Childs organized a dry-goods business in 1864, and three years afterward Mr. Reinig bought an interest in the firm, the two conducting the establishment until 1879. In the latter year Mr. Reinig founded the bank of Lewis and continued in that line until his death in 1887.
C. W. Baker, a Maine man, commenced the general merchandise business in 1869, at the east end of town, and removed to the east side of the new square in 1880. S. F. Martin kept the first exclusive hardware store in Lewis, during the '60s, and C. C. Reynolds established himself in the same line in 1871, locating in the old east end of town. When the railroad was built into town he erected the building afterward occupied by Kennedy Brothers. Among the earliest druggists of Lewis was Dr. M. J. Davis, who opened a store in 1867, in partnership with James Morris.
RAILROAD FACILITIES SECURED.
In the '60s it became evident that Lewis was too far removed from the county's center of population to be conveniently situated for the transaction of official business, but the repeated efforts of Grove City to have the county seat located there were unavailing. Its supporters might have succeeded finally had they not failed to secure the location of the railroad station at their town. But when, in 1868, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific road passed them by, in favor of Atlantic, the pretentions both of Grove City and Lewis were completely overshadowed by the advantages of the newer town. As Lewis failed to secure railroad facilities for twelve years thereafter, her growth was naturally retarded. On the first of January, 1880, the first train was run over the Atlantic Southern Railroad, as the new branch was called which the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific had built from Atlantic to Griswold, and the growth of the town has since been more rapid.
"Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pg. 97-99.Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, August, 2018.
