Eliphalet
Price
prepared by Hon. Samuel Murdock
(page 591-597)
I first met Eliphalet Price in early life
upon the border, where the civilized and savage
commingled to pursue a common road, and for more than a
third of a century he was my neighbor and my friend, and
what I have here to say over past life is but a tribute I
owe to his distinguished worth. He saw the country from
the great lakes to the Pacific Ocean a barren wilderness,
and peopled alone by the hunter and the savage, and he
saw the same territory rapidly converted into states and
farms and fertile gardens; and establishing over all a
government and a civilization based upon the principles
of exact justice and self-government, the greatest and
perhaps the grandest the world ever saw. In nearly all of
this development of empire, of human progress, settlement
and western civilization, with all their attendant
excitements, turmoils and passions, our old friend was an
ever constant, prominent and untiring worker, and to
write the history of such a man, to do justice to his
name and memory, and to carry him through all the varied
scenes and struggles of the last half century of western
life, in which he was connected, would require volumes.
He was born in Jersey City, in the state of New Jersey,
on the 31st day of January, 1811, and as he grew up he
received from his father the rudiments of a common
education, and when about eighteen years of age his
father took him to New York City and bound him as an
apprentice to learn the trade of a painter. This old
relic of feudal times, called master and servant, still
forms one of the chapters of the law of "domestic
relations," and although it has nearly vanished from
western civilization, it still clings with force to the
institutions of the older states, and at the time of
which we speak it was in its full force and rigor in the
state and city of New York, and as often made the
pretense for the very worst acts of tyranny and
oppression by the master over the apprentice. Here,
however, was a field for the genius of our friend and he
soon accomplished a thorough organization of all the
apprentices of the city into a strong society, with a
constitution and by-laws that taught the most tyrannical
master that they had rights which he was bound to
respect. This society soon raised a sum of money with
which they purchased a fine library of all the leading
works of that day, and it was here that our old friend
laid the foundation of that classical and historical
knowledge which made him famous in after years as a
writer and a scholar of no ordinary capacity. Vicissitude
and misfortune, however, overtook his old master and he
absolved young Price from his indenture, and this threw
him upon the world to make his own way through life.
About the beginning of the year 1831 he arrived in the
city of Philadelphia, and became the local editor of a
paper called the Market Exchange, and in this capacity he
soon brought himself into notice by his witty and spicy
articles, many of which are more witty and mirthful than
those of Ward or Nasby. But he soon tired of this work,
and, looking over for wider fields for his talent, in the
fall of that year he repaired to Washington city. He left
Washington some time in 1832, with the design of seeing
the far west and exploring the valley of the Mississippi;
traveled on foot to Pittsburgh, and after recruiting his
wearied limbs, embarked on a steamer for Cincinnati.
After remaining in this city for a short time he took
passage on a steamer for New Orleans, and when he arrived
in the latter city he found a large number of its
inhabitants stricken down with cholera. Here for the
first time since he left New York he found himself among
strangers, without a cent in his pocket, with a dangerous
and fatal disease raging around him. He repaired to the
wharf in hopes of finding some craft that would take him
beyond the limits of that scourge. At the wharf he found
a steamer with her clerk on shore checking goods that
were being shipped upon her, and upon inquiry the clerk
informed him that they were loading for the lead mines of
Galena, and requested him to take his place at the plank
and check for him a few moments while he procured a
little medicine from a neighboring drug store.
This he gladly did, and very soon the captain of the boat
came along and discovered that his clerk was absent and a
new man in his place, when he immediately followed his
clerk to the drug store, only to find that he had just
died of the fearful disease. Returning in a few moments
to his boat he immediately engaged the services of our
lamented friend as his clerk for the trip. Never was a
service more gladly accepted or more faithfully
performed, and in due time we find our young friend in
Galena looking about for some vocation that would give
him a living. But to him in his youthful days,
"fields always looked greener when they were far
away," and he turned his steps toward Iowa, arriving
in Dubuque some time in the fall of 1832.
It will be remembered that on the 21st of September,
1832, the Sac and Fox Indians had ceded to the United
States a strip of land about fifty miles wide, extending
from the Missouri to the mouth of the Little Iowa. This
treaty was to take effect on the first day of June, 1833,
but as soon as the terms of it were known hundreds of men
rushed across the great river, took up claims and began
prospecting in the lead mines of Dubuque. The Indians
protested against this inroad, and General Zac. Taylor,
who was the commanding officer at Fort Crawford, and who
was afterward elected President of the United States, was
ordered to proceed to the purchase and drive out the
settlers. This order he executed to the letter, and our
old friend with others was compelled to leave the
territory. Like all the others, he hung upon the border,
and on the expiration of the time he returned to Dubuque,
and was among the first white men who made a legal
settlement within the limits of what is now the great
State of Iowa.
In the fall of 1834 he, in company with a party of
hunters, explored the valley of the Turkey, and being
enraptured with its romantic scenery, its rich and
fertile prairies and its rippling stream, he determined
to make the valley his future and permanent home.
Returning to Dubuque to fulfill a contract he had entered
into with Father Mazzuchelli to build for him a Catholic
church, he again, in the fall of 1835, returned to the
valley of the Turkey, and, in company with C. S. Edson, a
person well known to old settlers of Clayton, spent the
first winter near the town now called Osterdock. In the
winter of 1836 a Mr. Finly erected a sawmill on the
Little Turkey, near the present town of Millville. He
shortly afterward sold out his mill and his claim to
Robert Hetfield and Mr. Price. In the erection of this
pioneer sawmill, Joseph Quigley, still living in
Highland, was the millwright, and Luther Patch, still
living and now residing in Elkader, was the sawyer. After
a time Price sold out his interest in the mill, selected
for himself a beautiful and fertile tract of land on the
north side of the Turkey, about five miles from
Millville, and on this he built his cabin.
In 1839 he married Miss Mary D. Cottle, a lady of
culture, education, and refinement, and his equal in
liberality and hospitality. Here upon his farm they
raised a family of eight children, five of whom are still
living. Two of these, R. E. and T. C. Price, now reside
in Elkader; another son is now the postmaster at Colorado
Springs, Colo., and still another resides in San Jose,
Cal. One of his sons fell at the battle of Tupelo, and
another son, a major of the Eighth Iowa Cavalry, was
wounded at the battle of Fort Donelson and afterward died
of his wounds. His amiable wife died in 1865 and he never
married again, but with his youngest daughter, who still
lives in Colorado, he kept the younger portion of his
household together to the last.
During his long residence of thirty-eight years in our
county he always took an active and prominent part in
State and county politics, and in the management and
organization of parties he had no peer in the State of
Iowa. In early times he was an ardent Whig, but upon the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise he threw his whole soul
and action into the Republican party, and was among the
very first, with voice and pen, to arouse the people
against the strides and encroachments of the slaveholder.
When the rebellion broke out he took an active part in
the organization of military companies, encouraged his
sons to draw the sword, and from the beginning to the end
of the great war his voice and pen was never idle in the
cause of the Union.
In 1845 he wrote and published the thrilling and
melancholy story of the "Mysterious Grave,"
founded upon no fact whatever, and from the statement
that these words, "Erin, an exile, bequeaths thee
his blessing," was found in the grave, the story was
copied into Irish papers, and many a poor Irish mother
wept over it as perhaps the grave of a lost and wandering
son. But perhaps his most successful story, one that
called forth the greatest and most numerous encomiums,
and one that was read at every camp fire in the army, and
in every cottage wherever the English language was
spoken, is the "Drummer Boy." It was published
in the Chicago Daily Tribune, and for tenderness of
expression, for ingenuity of theme, for elegance of style
and diction, for converting the ideal into reality, for
chaining the reader's attention and calling from him
emotions of sympathy and patriotism, for the ease of
deception and for its perfect and consummate delusion, it
is his masterpiece. No one doubted but that the story was
true, and the poor little "Drummer Boy," like
Charlie Ross, was found in every village and hamlet in
the land.
He took an active part in the organization of Clayton
County, and held the first justice court within its
limits. He was the first clerk of the Board of Clayton
County Commissioners, was elected the first School Fund
Commissioner, and served one term as a Judge of Probate.
In 1850 he took the United States census of the counties
of Clayton, Fayette, Winneshiek and Allamakee.
In 1850 he was elected from the counties of Clayton,
Fayette, Winneshiek and Allamakee to the State
Legislature, and it was at this session that he brought
himself into notice as one of the most skillful and
sagacious politicians of the State. He took an active
part in this Legislature, in the organization of the
school system of the State, and to his actions and
suggestions we are today indebted for some of our best
laws relating to schools. For many successive terms he
was elected Governor of the Lobby, and that body received
from him an annual message, that for keen wit and
withering sarcasm has never been excelled.
In 1852 he was appointed by President Fillmore as
receiver of the land office at Des Moines, and held the
office during that administration. In 1855 he was elected
Judge of the County Court of Clayton County, and held the
office for two years. During his term in this office he
resurveyed the roads of the county, established guide
posts and mile posts among them, remodeled the county
records, and gave names to the streams and townships.
When his term expired he had the satisfaction of seeing
his county's records and her finances established on a
safe and permanent basis, to become a foundation for
those who followed him for all time. He left every
official position that he ever occupied with clean hands,
and with a reputation for honesty, capability and
fairness. In the fall of 1864 he followed the brave
General Hatch through all his military raids in
Mississippi, and was an eyewitness of all the battles and
skirmishes this general had with the rebel General
Forrest.
He was for many years the president of the Old Settlers
and Pioneers' Association of the county, organized the
first meeting, and delivered before it one of the finest
and most eloquent speeches of his lifetime. Long before
any railroad had reached any part of the great west, he
called the people of the county together at a mass
meeting in Guttenberg, to discuss the propriety of giving
aid to a railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and
in his opening speech before that meeting he declared
with the most prophetic vision that he would live to see
Clayton County checkered with railroads, and this he
accomplished with some years to spare. Shortly after this
meeting he made another speech to a few of the old
settlers at Littleport, in which he said: "There are
men in this audience, as well as myself, who will live to
see a railroad passing up the Volga," and after the
road up this stream was completed he wrote to the author
of this article from Colorado saying in reference to it:
"My dream is fulfilled, my prophecy has come to
pass, and my mission will soon be ended, but Clayton
County, hail !"
One can hardly realize that giant form that towered among
us so long, that mingled in all our conventions, railroad
meetings, county seat courts, balls, parties and routs,
is gone forever, and that his voice and pen, which once
stirred the thoughts and hearts of thousands, are now
silent forever. Kind, courteous and social to all,
whether rich or poor, his sympathies were aroused to the
highest pitch at distress and sorrow, and he was at your
service, while his money flowed like water. The priest
and the layman, the tramp and the trader, the lawyer and
the farmer, the rich and the poor, all found a home and a
resting place at his house and a seat at his table. Ill
health at last forced him to take refuge in the Rocky
Mountains, and in the year 1872 he sold his homestead,
took the younger members of the family, and departed for
Colorado, leaving behind him the scenes of his early
triumphs, exploits, associations and hardships, upon
which his eyes were never to rest again. In Colorado he
began the same career which characterized him in his
early days in Clayton County, and with the vigor of his
youth he visited the camps of her miners, ascended her
highest mountains, looked down upon her widespread
plains, and with his voice and pen contributed to add to
her greatness and her resources. But old age and disease
were fast destroying his stalwart frame, and when the
fatal hour had come his death was like the blowing out of
a candle.
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