"The History of Decatur County, Iowa: 1839 - 1970"

by Himena V. Hoffman
Published by Decatur County Historical Society, Leon IA, 1970
 
The Years of the Early Settlers, Pages 2 - 50
Transcription by Sara LeFleur

 “I want no handsomer or richer place than we have now and I could not be better satisfied this side of paradise.”
– Letter of Pamela Patterson, dated Plum Grove, May 4, 1853
 
The pen of PAMELA PATTERSON started to move more quickly over the yellowish lined paper she kept for letter writing. “Our county is improving very fast, the election is over and the county seat matter is settled. The present one is one-half mile east of us in fair view.”

She looked down to where the settlement would be and perhaps at the little cabin there, where her friend FIDELIA THOMPSON lived, then went to write of land prices, just a few dollars per acre of land for sale because of men who think nothing of leaving to go to California and, of course, of the Methodist Church to which she and her husband were so devoted. She closed her letter with an account of the quarterly conference of that church, the first to be held in the county.

She re-read the letter and thought as she came to one sentence, “What I wrote is true. This is no Garden of Eden or Paradise, but it is a rich spot of land in this sin cursed earth. I could not be better satisfied this side of paradise.”

She went to the door and again looked eastward. Soon there would be a little town near them, with stores and offices, and new cabins would be built. FIDELIA ad SAMUEL THOMPSON would have near neighbors. Perhaps someday the Methodists could build a church there.

PAMELA closed the door and started the evening meal. As she had written in her little, it would be wild game and cornbread, but there would be maple syrup for sweetening and fresh greens. JOHN would smile as he asked the blessing.

Just where was this county of which PAMELA PATTERSON wrote so proudly; what sort of land was it that she viewed with such satisfaction; and who were the people who had settled there?

Take a map of Iowa and look in the center of the southern tier of counties. There you will find Decatur County, organized in 1850 and named for a naval hero of the War of 1812.

As to the sort of country it was, it must be remembered that though so much has been written of those who crossed the plains, who migrated west, it is quite possible that there are those who assume that all crossed desert sands and over snow-covered mountains. As matter of fact, contrary to the impression given by “westerns,” many of those who came west by covered wagons in the days before the Civil War, settled in quite a different country. Surely those who came to Decatur County saw no sage brush ad no mountains.

As PAMELA PATERSON looked from her home, she saw the prairie. It was quite without trees, for even after Leon was settled, Mrs. SALES could count but two small trees in the town, but it was covered with flowers among the prairie grass. The prairie grass by summer would be long enough to look, on a windy day, like green waves. As to the prairie flowers, botanists have listed at least three hundred varieties, and it can be assumed most, if not all, of these could be found in Decatur County.

Of the amazing beauty of the prairie flowers HARRIET KELLOGG wrote, “The eye never rested on a lovelier scene. The prairie was a mass of flowers of every color, shaded and variegated in every variety.”

Mrs. KELLOGG seemed most impressed by the wild phlox, but others have written of the beauty of the wild roses, the wild asters, and the many yellow flowers in the fall.

LEWIS KOB wrote in 1857 of his location on what he calls Lay Dog Prairie, in Center Township, “It is the most beautiful place I ever saw. The Lilly is in full bloom now, other flowers beside.”

In the same letter he sends a message from his father which is similar to that written by Mrs. PATTERSON, “We have found paradise, not only of Iowa, but the whole world.”

Though both Mrs. KELLOGG and LEWIS KOB wrote of the prairie land, the county was not without timber. Along the streams and in the southern part of the county there were many trees. Walnut, oak, and elms were plentiful. Hard maples furnished sap from which both the white settlers and the Indians, who returned for that purpose made maple syrup and maple sugar each spring. In the timber, too, trees might be found in which the bees had stored honey, ad another sweet could be secured by the pailful. In the fall walnuts and hickory nuts were gathered as well as hazelnuts.

Most important of all the trees meant plenty of fuel and logs for the building of houses and as soon as lumber mills were in operation, other material for building.

In the timber, too, were flowers, some of which are remembered for their quaint names as bachelor’s britches, johnny-jump-up, and jack-in-the-pulpit. From the first of the violets till the last of the bright red berries, there was beauty in the woodlands.

As to the streams that flowed through the wooded section of the county, there were rivers. The most important of these, which we now call simply Grand River, went diagonally across the county. The early settlers called it Thompsons’ Fort of the Grand River of just Thompsons’ Fork. The other two are the Weldon River, named for an early settler, JAMES WELDON, and Little River, not far from Leon.

Besides these rivers there were numerous small streams, some of which can no longer be located. Jonathan Creek, Long Creek, Steel Creek, Magruder, and Elk Creek may still be marked but others can be remembered now only because of names given them in the early days such as Bad Run, Hot Pot Creek, Roaring Branch, and Turkey Run.

Fine springs of cold water were located and much prized by those fortunate to have them on their land.

Important as even the smaller streams and springs were to the pioneers, those who settled on the prairie found that water was easily located by digging a well and each settler was inclined to claim that the water from his well was of superior quality. Rain barrels held the “soft water” until cisterns were dug to keep an ample supply of rain water for household use.

This then was the country to which the settlers of Decatur County came, gently rolling prairie, small rivers and creeks where the trees grew. Here, too, along the streams were the hills and the bottom lands.

Mrs. KELLOGG wrote of the present location of Pleasanton, “A lovelier stretch of prairie, relived on either side by the dark lines of timber of Grand River, the eye need not desire.” Those who settled in the southern part of the county had the beauty of trees and hills, steep bluffs along the rivers, and less level prairie land.

The first comers to the county found, of course, no roads. Accounts of early travel tell of following an Indian trail or a “bee trace.” Sometimes it was possible to “back track” others. For instance, the first trip for mail for the settlers at Garden Grove in 1848 was made by following the tracks of two Missourians who went through Garden Grove in the early spring. The nearest post office was Princeton, Missouri.

When ALLEN SCOTT came in 1839 he went from the eastern part of Iowa into Missouri, then west and north. He did not know he had left Missouri when he settled not far from where Pleasanton is now.

When HIRAM CHASE came to Garden Grove ten years later, two settlers there, encouraged by one of the Mormon leaders, went to Dodge Point on the Chariton River to stake a more direct route for the new comers and were so successful that he distance was reduced from sixty miles to forty miles.

The first road in the county was a diagonal one which connected Garden Grove with ALLEN SCOTT’s place and went past ALFRED STANLEY’s cabin.

In 1851 the first state road went through the county, coming from the east through Bloomfield and west to the Missouri River. In 1853 a mail route was established.

As roads were at first nonexistent and always during this period few and not many well marked, those who went from one place to another in the county observed carefully the natural landmarks, the point of timber, the bend of the river, the rise of land. Sometimes trails were cut as that made by CALVIN JOHNSON, through the prairie from his home to the then very new settlement now called Leon. The sun and the stars helped to determine directions. A young hunter, lost by day, is said to have waited until night so that he could find his way home by the stars.

But though the roads had not yet been established and the count was sparsely settled, the count had been organized three years before Mrs. PATTERSON wrote of the dispute as to the county seat being settled.

In 1850, with ANDREW STILL as organizing sheriff, the county had come into existence and was divided into four townships, three of which had the last names of the commissioners, ASA BURRELL, WILLIAM HAMILTON, and JOSIAH MORGAN. The fourth township was named Garden Grove.

The county was organized on April 1, 1850, and the Board of Commissioners met on May 6 to transact business, including selecting the house of DANIEL MOAB as the place where court would be held until a county seat was located.

Mrs. KELLOGG lists fifty-two men as the voters in the county in 1850. Seven of these were HATFIELDS, REUBEN and his six brothers; six belonged to the STANLEY family, including two named ALFRED; WILLIAM DAVIS and his two sons, ENOS and AMOSA. Two VANDERPOOLS, ANTHONY and JOHN; four ROBERTS, one of whom was Dr. DANIEL ROBERTS, brother-in-law of OZRO KELLOGG; WILLIAM ONEY, at whose house the commissioners first; HARVEY DUNCAN and his sons JOSEPH JOHN and MERIDITH STILL; JOHN and ASA HOWARD; two MILLERS, FRANK and BRISON; a man named WILLIS, whose first name is not given; JOHN STILL; JOHN MCDANIEL; JOHN PATTERSON, JOHN BROWN; ALFRED LOGAN; PETER SCOTT; GEORGE ECKTON; ALLEN SCOTT; WYLLIS DICKINSON; OZRO KELLOGG; HIRAM CHASE; CALVIN RENFRO; GIDEON WALKER; and EDWARD WINTERS are also on the list, Mrs. KELLOGG include in her list not only the three commissioners and the organizing sheriff, but also the following who were the first county officer: School Fund Commissioner, HENRY B. NOTSON; county clerk, DANIEL WOOD; probate judge, MORDECAI SMITH; sheriff, JOHN STANLEY.

Though not on Mrs. KELLOGG’S list of the voters in 1850, some of these names and the following additional ones are listed as in charge of the first elections: VICTOR DOZE, JOSHUA MONROE, THOMAS KILGORE, CHRISTOPHER WAINWRIGHT, and SAMUEL MCDOWELL.

A decedent of any of the men on either list can rightly claim to belong to one of the first families of Decatur County with the same pride as the F. F. V.’s of Virginia, or those in Massachusetts who claim descent from a passenger on the Mayflower.

However, if the name sought is not on either list, the census of 1850 may be checked.

For instance, the name of FRANCIS BURRELL, veteran of the Revolutionary War and father of ASA BURRELL, and Mrs. BRISON MILLER is on the census report. JOHN LOGAN is not listed as a voter, though he was well-established in 1850, unless Mrs. KELLOGG made an error in listing the JORDAN who voted as ALFRED. DOZIER GAMMON did not arrive until December of that year and this was the year JOSEPH CREES took up land, so neither voted in that election and probably are not on the census list. These and others can be rightly included among the heads of first families of Decatur County.

The State Legislature in 1851 approved the establishment of Decatur County, and by and act passed authorized two men to select a county seat site which was to be done on or before a specified date. The year 1851 is known as “the year of the big rains” and flooded streams prevented the commissioners from selecting the place for a county seat within the time set, but on July 21 they notified the county commissioners that they had selected a place which had “good milling privileges and was in the vicinity of timber and building” and was on the main road from Des Moines to Independence, Missouri. The commissioners had named it Decatur City and it was to be surveyed at once and a log court house built.

From the first the selection was protested, because it was made after the time set had expired, but it was not until 1853 that an election was held and as Mrs. PATTERSON wrote, “The matter settled; three sites were voted upon the election, Decatur City, a site called Green Castle, two miles west of what is now Leon, and the site of the present county seat.”

It is evident that not much business was transacted at the county seat in these first years as it is said that WILLIS WARFORD, elected county clerk in 1852, carried all the important papers of his office in his hat.

Nor does it seem that schooling was a requirement for county office, for Mrs. KELLOGG tells of an election where the winning candidate for a county office could not read and write and adds “three other candidates for office could barely write their names, could not read writing any of them.”

The first District Court met a MOAB’s about six miles southeast of the present court house (1851) with WILLIAM MCKAY. The jury list will add other names to those already given, ELIJAH HOLE, SIMON HARMA, ISAAC CRAIG, and ANDREW RUDOLPH with others already named as voters. WILLIAM BRAMFIELD was prosecuting attorney.

While divorce was not common, the first cases were divorce actions, JOHN BLADES vs. MARIA BLADES, and ANN KNAPP vs ZELATUS KNAPP.

Though this court was held in a house, ELI LOWRANCE recalled in 1885 that in 1853 he attended a court session held in a place which had no sides and no flooring, just a brush roof held up by four stakes. The jury room was a corn crib. This must have been after the court house was abandoned in Decatur City and before the one was built in Leon.

As to one duty of the county clerk, the first marriage licenses issued were to THOMAS EWING and MARY ANN CARSON and THOMAS HALL and ELIZA EWING on May 1850. On September 20 of that year, JOHN ZIMMERMAN married HARRIET LAMB.

Also in 1850 ROBERT MCBROOM was married to SUSAN WINTERS, daughter of the Rev. DANIEL WITERS, by Justice of the Peace HIRAM CHASE. It was the first marriage in Garden Grove.

During the first years after the county was organized, the contest over the location of the county sea over shadowed all other issues in the county. When FRANKLIN PIERCE was elected President in 1852, one writer commented that to the people of this county the county seat matter was vastly more important!

The first two proposed when the election was held, were Decatur City, where it had already been established and a place named for that purpose, Green Castle on the TASH farm. It is said that FIDELIA THOMPSON, capable like her husband, SAMUEL, in doing things, suggested to PETER STEWART that the place where they settled would be a good location for the county seat ad that she also suggested it be called independence. PETER had come to THOMPSON’s to have Mrs. THOMPSON “tailor” him a suit (that being one of her skills), but before he left he and Samuel made plans to propose a third site for the consideration of the voters.

Mrs. PATTERSON does not tell of this nor of how the voters on Jonathan Creek held the they balance of power and of why they voted as they did. She simply wrote, “There were three sites picked. Ours, which is Independence, carried over the others.”

Perhaps in other letters she told of Dr. THOMSPON riding to the land office in Chariton as soon as the results were known, and of his bitter disappointment when he found that someone else already owned some of the land on which the town was be built. However, he purchased what he could ad he and his horse, both exhausted, made the journey back to what was to be the county seat. If such a letter were written and could be found, it might settle the question as to land donated by THOMPSON to the town, for existing accounts differ as to whether others joined in paying for it.

It is possible, too, that Mrs. PATTERSON wrote of PETER CARTWRIGHT STEWART’s trip to Decatur City and of how, between midnight and morning, he drove his oxen from that place to independence (Leon), hauling the county records, an act which those in Decatur spoke of as the “stealing of the Court House records.”

We can be quite certain, too that PAMELA wrote of the confusion in the mail after the naming of the new county seat for there was already Independence, Iowa. For a short time South Independence was used, but that did not seem satisfactory and a town meeting was called to select a new name. It is said that W. H. CHEEVERS suggested the name, Leon as it was short, “easy to spell and pleasant sounding.” Doubtless too it had an appeal for the veterans of the Mexican War. At any rate, it was the choice of the town meeting and approved by the town meeting and approved by the State Legislature in 1855. But all this would be in letter written later.

Doubtless, PAMELA had already written letters in which she told of the settlements at Garden Grove and Decatur and given vivid word picture of men and women she know in this new country about whom there was much interest. In fact, when the circumstances of their coming and the conditions of their lives are considered, it can be said that each of the some two thousand then living here, might have furnished material for a story or suggested a plot for a play. Though by now only the census records furnish proof that many of these once lived and proof that many of these once lived and perhaps died in Decatur County before the Civil War.

Fortunately, we do know something about some of them, among them those that we feel quite certain PAMELA PATTEERSON knew or at least had heard much about in 1853.

Of the first two settlers in Decatur County, ALLEN SCOTT and EDWARD WINKLE, who came in 1839, much more is known of ALLEN SCOTT and about him PAMELA must have heard many stories whether she ever met him or not.

SCOTT brought with him to Decatur County beside his teams, wagons, and household goods, three cows and forty hogs. Mrs. KELLOGG who secured her information from SCOTT himself, writes this of his first years in Decatur County. “The grass lay on the ground ‘shoe mouth’ deep” and the hogs, having a rage of several miles on the Grand River bottom, were a constantly increasing source of revenue. He always had pork and lard to sell to emigrants and settlers in the county, besides selling to Indians who wintered her. they paid cash when they had it and their credit was good to the amount of their annuity. They received from the government groceries which they made a practice of swapping for products of the farm. SCOTT went to Fort Des Moines and to the Pottawatamies at Council Bluffs. He traded with the Indians for ten years. He raised great crops of corn, potatoes, turnips, squashes and pumpkins. The first crops were raised without a fence around it, as he herded his stock.

ALLEN SCOTT’s wife was only fifteen when they started west and very much afraid of the INDIANS but she, too, became a very able trader.

Both DUNCAN CAMPBELL, in his account of ALLEN SCOTT, written for the History of Decatur County, published in 1915, and HARRIET KELLOGG, in her History of Decatur, tell of his business activities which included his trading post and store, a mill which must have been very profitable, and praise his generosity and hospitality. Visitors were constantly coming and going, not to mention the fact that at one time thirty-five persons lived at SCOTT’s place, some of whom it seems were friends and relatives who needed a home.

Mrs. KELLOGG does not tell much of some of SCOTT’s other activities either because she did not believe the stories about them or because she was inclined to look at the early settlers where through rose-colored glasses. She does not mention Sunday horse races, gambling, or the selling of whiskey which according to some accounts, took place at SCOTT’s nor does she tell, which according to some accounts, took place at SCOTT’s nor does she tell, as DUNCAN CAMPBELL, of the time irate neighbors suspended SCOTT from an oak tree in an attempt to force him to tell what he knew of some horse stealing, but cut the rope, convinced he had nothing to tell. Neither does she tell of the charge that he sold whisky to the Indians, without changing location. It was, however, because of the questions of jurisdiction that the whiskey selling charge was dropped. Just how true these and other stories of SCOTT are, is a matter of conjecture butt there are those still living in 1970 who can recall being shown “the hanging tree” and letters exist that tell of the gold rush in 1857 which ended suddenly when it was discovered that the gold rush in 1857 ended suddenly when it was discovered that the gold had been placed there by someone to increase the price of land, part of which was owned by SCOTT.

The story of the confusion over the where SCOTT was supposed to pay taxes was shared by other early settlers in the southern part of the county who thought that they were settling on land in Missouri. Doubtless, some of them brought slaves with them as did JOHN MCDANIEL whom records show set free a slave held in Decatur County as late as 1852.

Almost all of those who settled in the southern part of the county were from the Southern states. They are either Missourians or from states south and east who came to Iowa by way of Missouri. REUBEN HATFIELD and his brother who came in 1840, where Tennessee; ELI CASH, who came in 1845, was a Kentuckian who settled first in Missouri. WILLIAM and SARAH HAMILTON who, with their thirteen children, came in 1843 were form Missouri, JOHN and ELIZA LOGAN who came in 1884 were from Kentucky; MATHEW and JANE HOUSTON were from Tennessee. GARRET GIBSON came up from Missouri in 1842 and was employed by JAMES WELDON.

All of the settlers I’ve mentioned were as I have indicated, Southerners, and as Missouri claimed nine and one-half miles north of what is now the Iowa boundary, it was not only a matter of being mistaken as to when they had entered Iowa but also a question of disputed.

One of the first settlers in the county, however, was not a Southerner, WILLIS DICKINSON, who in his way was as colorful a character as anyone who ever lived in the county, was from Connecticut. He came to Hamilton township in 1840 and soon after built a log cabin in which he lived until his death fifty-two years later. It was a very primitive dwelling without a window until the last few years. He brought books with him and acquired more as the years passed, but during the day he read in the doorway or removed a block of “chucking” to let in light. At night he read by the light of a crude lamp he made which burned oil or melted grease. He owned nearly six hundred acres of land and seems to have received money far in excess of his expenditures from his family in the East, but his way of life never changed. In fact, as the years passed and those around no longer lived as in pioneer days, he became the more fixed in his habits. Though he welcomed company and continued an interest in public affairs, he became known as a hermit and less and less inclined to leave his own land.

It is said that his cabin was well kept, the meals that he liked to serve visitors were always enjoyed and the liquor, methylgin was made from honey, potent as well as of excellent qualities.

The interest in WYLLIS DICKINSON was increasing by the fact that not only did he leave a home of wealth to settle here and live alone, but by the fact that he was a nephew of EMMA WILLARD, scholar and writer who founded the first college for women and a cousin of the poet, PERCIVAL. Attempts have been made, too, to establish and connection between him and the poet, EMILY DICKINSON, but as so far no proof of that is offered.

Another early settler, MILES WASSON who came in 1843, was an example of those families were from the South, for his father was from North Carolina. The family, however, migrated to Illinois when MILES was a child and then to Missouri.

To these people who came to Decatur ten to fourteen years before PAMELA PATTERSON wrote her letter, Decatur County in 1853 seemed to be well-settled and to them no longer on the frontier.

MILES WASSON could remember going to Fort Des Moines in 1843 to collect pay for horses and other commodities he had sold the Indians and finding no house on the entire trail. GARRET GIBSON, too remembered such trips.

JOHN LOGAN remembered when the post office was forty miles away ad a letter cost twenty-five cents, though a pound of bees wax could be used as a substitute for that amount of money. He and his wife brought six children to live where there were no schools, no churches, and no doctors. The nearest mill was twenty miles away.

Mrs. ECKTON told of the kettle of corn kept constantly before the fire to make it soft enough to grate. Day after day there must be enough “grit” for bread. It was too far to go to have it ground at the mill. As long as she lived she kept the spinning wheel which had made it possible for her to have warm clothes for her family.

ELI CASH’s widow remembered when only F. B. MILLER, ASA and JOHN BURRELL, JOHN MCDONALD, and NATHAN LOWE were their neighbors in Morgan township.

However, many of those who had come in the last four or five years, as well as those would come later, would experience the hardships of pioneering.

Among these were JAMES STONE who came in 1850, HENRY NEWLIN who came to Woodland that same year, SAMUEL MENDENHALL who came in 1851, JOHN HAGAN, German emigrant who was married here in 1850, JAMES WOODMANSEE, first permanent settler in Decatur township where JAMES STILL had settled earlier ad then gone elsewhere, JOSEPH CREES who had bought land in what is now Grand River township.

SPENCER AKERS, after having gone across the plains to California in 1850, returned by the way of Panama in 1851 and settled in Decatur County. I. N. CLARK came in 1851 and started a store south of what is now Leon. GEORGE A. HAMILTON, brother of JOSEPH and JONATHAN HAMILTON, also early settlers, located in what is Long Creek township in 1851. S. F. BAKER arrived in 1850, and in spite of hardships he encountered, his brother JOHN also migrated here in 1850.

DAVID and ASENTH SHINN, who came in 1853, may have been enroute when PAMELA wrote, “DAVID bringing such books as a pioneer teacher needed.” The DOZIER GAMMON family had already arrived shortly after the election mentioned.

It is of these and a few other pioneer families that records have furnished much of what will be written of this period in the pages which follow.

Almost all of the settlers who have been mentioned so far lived on the farms in the county but while Leon had not yet been settled in early May of 1853, there were the beginnings of two of the towns and of these Mrs. PATTERSON doubtless wrote in other letters.

The first of these was Garden Grove which had come into existence as a stopping place for the Mormons enroute to Utah, and it is established that as many as two thousand were there at one time. Cabins were built and a temple, also of logs, constructed where the people assembled not only for worship but to discuss the business of the settlement and for the dances often enjoyed by the Latter Day Saints. It never the intention of these people to make a permanent settlement at Garden Grove. It was a stopping place, and the number there varied as wagon trains came and went on westward after the animals had rested, the food supply replenished, and the time favorable for travel. What is known as the “great trek” started in May of 1851 and by 1853 nearly all had gone on to their destination. Besides their cabins and the temple they left the buildings where blacksmiths’ shops had been located, wagon shops, the site of a mill whose motive of power had been cows or oxen and a “rope walk.”

The first permanent settlers in Garden Grove came in 1848, deciding upon this location because of the enthusiastic accounts given them by Dr. DANIEL ROBERTS who told of it as not only well-timbered, well-watered, and exceptionally advantageous as to health, but also giving the opportunity to buy what the Saints had already built and land they had already cultivated. It is said that WILLIAM DAVIS bought the Mormon holdings for $400, so it was secured at a bargain price.

There were eighteen in the first group that came: WILLIAM and RUTH DAVIS and five children, ENOS and MARY DAVIS and little daughter, OZRO and HARRIET KELLOGG and three little boys, also three young unmarried me, AMOSA DAVIS, ASABEL DAVIS, and JOHN BROWN. They reached Garden Grove on October 18 and doubtless came by way of Artillery Grove, an important landmark on the otherwise unbroken prairie, located at the edge of Wayne County rather than by the other route which Mrs. KELLOGG describes as through the second tier of counties and including a passage through “a fearful gorge” named Grave Hollow.

HARRIET KELLOGG writing of their first winter says, “True, they had forty miles to mail or receive a letter, Princeton, Missouri being the nearest, for three months they were effectively isolated from the world. But what did it matter? There was plenty to eat, and the river furnished abundance of water, besides the snow was three feet deep on the level and every good house keeper knows that makes the best of water. Among the Mormons were mighty hunters who sold us turkey at twenty-five cents and prairie chickens at five cents each. We made butter that sold at ten cents a pound and had wheaten flour unbolted, buckwheat flower, and corn meal. The horse power mill of the Mormon was a great convenience, as we did not have to parch our corn, boil our wheat, or do as some southeast of us in the county did, boil corn and grate it.”

During this first winter only five of the cabins had windows. In one of these Mrs. ENOS DAVIS taught a subscription school, the first school ever held in Decatur County. The light from the window came through glass borrowed from a Mormon woman enroute to Utah who loaned this treasured possession for the causes of education. The school benches were hewed logs and the texts were whatever books were available.

MARY ANTHONY DAVIS may have been related to SUSAN B. ANTHONY, but whether that is true or not, she had the same initiative as this suffragist leader. She not only taught this first school but later was the first teacher to draw money as a public school teacher. It would also seem that ENOS and MARY DAVIS offered meals and shelter to paying guests at their home after they moved to a farm near Garden Grove and that Mrs. DAVIS was the first successful cheese maker in the county. Doubtless she, too, wrote interesting letters for Mrs. KELLOGG refers to the “able pen of MARY DAVIS.”

As to Mrs. KELLOGG, the first years in Garden Grove must have been busy ones, for very soon her three boys had a little sister named JOSEPHINE who was to become the county’s first woman Superintendent of School, first newspaper woman and first, and so far only woman orator. Though Mrs. KELLOGG’s success was sometimes credited to her KELLOGG and Northrup descent, anyone who reads her mother’s county history knows she was also the daughter of a brilliant mother.

Of the first comers to Garden Grove, death came very soon to ASABEL DAVIS who became very ill while on a hunting trip in the southern part of the county. His brother ENOS, and a Mormon leader spoken of as FATHER FARRAR, first found shelter for him in a HATFIELD cabin, but as there was no medication of any kind and no woman at the place to assist in his care, he was brought back by sled through a blizzard to Garden Grove where he died.

Between 1848 and 1853 other families settled in or near Garden Grove, HIRAM CHASE and family arrived in the fall of 1849. JOSIAH MORGAN came in 1850 and joined with a few others who took up land on Jonathan Creek where a trapper, JONATHAN STANLEY, had lived. DANIEL WINTERS, a Baptist minister, settled near Garden Grove, and his calling gave the location the name Gospel Ridge. MORDECAI SMITH and family came with WINTERS. R. M. MCBROOM came in 1850 and the first of the CURRY family arrived at about that time as did the Z. W. KNAPPS. JOHN THOMAS, brother-in-law of RUTH DAVIS, came in 1849. As they were Quakers, the Quaker form of speech was used in the WILLIAM DAVIS and JOHN THOMAS families. HENRY G. STILES came in 1856.

As these and others came, Garden Grove became a flourishing settlement and by 1853, though the Mormon moved west, it had a store or two, a blacksmith shop and a mill, OZRO KELLOGG had added on to the Mormon-built cabin in which he lived. It was now “The California House,” a stopping place for travelers. The other small settlement was Decatur City, surveyed in 1851 when it was selected as location of the county seat. A log court house was built and the settlement was started. Mrs. KELLOGG states that there were five families who lived in Decatur City while it was a county seat, but she names only the HOUSTONS, who had owned the land where the towns was established, the NOTSONS, and the BLACKS, in front of whose house was the store and perhaps the post office. Considerable land had been taken up in the township and the farmers there considered Decatur City their town. In 1853 Decatur City was a small settlement with an empty court house and an anger at the men who at the last minute had added Leon to the list of sites to be vote upon at the election on a county seat location and sent men on horseback to rally the votes in parts of the county that would be favorable to their choice. It was proud, however, of having the only church building in the county.

Besides hose who had come to Decatur County from other states, two groups of emigrants from Europe had come to the county with the idea of settling here and establishing towns, but by 1853 both had failed as far as their settlements that were to grow into cities were concerned.

One group was from Germany and is said to have included merchants, physicians, mechanics, and laborers. So little is known of this colony that even its location is a matter of conjecture though it does seem certain it was northwest of Decatur City. Though at first the prospects seemed good an epidemic of some sort came, though what he disease was the physicians could neither diagnose nor cure. Many died and few survivors left the settlement. It is possible that some marriages took place between families in this colony and the Hungarians in the county. Both FRANCIS VARGA and EMORY DOBZY married women named ZANDERS (SANDERS). LADISLAUS MADARAZ, where first wife was a Hungarian countess, married SOFIA OSTOLOCK, a German. However, there is not real evidence to support this theory nor does one know whether when, at the first wedding in Morgan Township, the German emigrant, JOHN HAGAN, was married by JOHN LOGAN to a girl also born in Germany, either were in anyway connected with this German colony.

The first of the Hungarians to arrive was L. UJHAZY who settled in 1850 on the bank of Grand River and included in the land that he claimed what is now the town of Davis City. The next year LADISLAUS MADARAZ, THEODORE MAJTHEUYI (MAJTHENYI or MATHENJI), and FRANCIS VARGA arrived. These men and others who joined them were all followers of KOSSUTH and his attempt to secure Hungary’s independence from Austria and all had attained at least some distinction in their native land. What they hoped to do was to establish a place to which other Hungarians would come. Plans were drawn for a city to be called New Buda built around a square named Kossuth. By 1853 though a few others had joined those who came first, it was evident that city would exist only on paper, UJHAZY, sadden by the death of his wife, had moved to Texas, taking some of the group with him.

From this it can be seen that neither of the attempts by those that came from Europe brought many to the county though those of the Hungarians who did remain became leading citizens.

The period from 1839, when ALLEN SCOTT came to 1853, when Leon became the county seat were years when settles came in rather small number to Decatur County and from 1848 were years when those who had were tempted both by the discovery of gold and high wages paid there, to leave for California. MILES WASSON, more fortunate than many who went, came back with money to buy land.

From 1853 to 1860, is the period of rapid growth. In 1854 the census showed 3026 in the then ten townships. In 1856 there were 6280 and by 1860 there were 8677. In other words the population tripled between 1854 and 1856 and over twice as many came between 1856 and 1860 as came before 1852.

It should, I think, be of interest to known from whence these settlers came. I have already written as the directions from which the first settlers came. Those in the southern part came from Missouri and were often from families from Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas and Kentucky. It is probable that some of those who settled in what they thought was Missouri returned there when it was decided that boundary of that state was nine miles further south. Names of some of those knows to have settled in the County in the early days are missing from the lists of those here in 1850. For instance, EDWARD WINKLER, who came the same year as ALLEN SCOTT, CHAMP CLARK, for whom his famous nephew was named, and STEPHEN LEVERIDGE.

Those in Garden Grove came from Ohio for the most part, though both the KELLOGGS and the CHASES had first lived in New York. Between 1850 and 1853 and increasing number had come to all the townships form Indiana and Illinois as well as Ohio.

As to those who came in such large numbers between 1853 and 1860 a study of the biographies of early settlers as given in The Biographical History of Decatur County – 1887 and information from other sources indicates that while there was still immigration form the Southern states, including some who came because their anti-slavery sentiment were not acceptable, the greater number came from Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, a trended started in 1850.

Doubtless, not only PAMELA PATTERSON but many others wrote letters telling of how the little settlements in the county were established and grew, each with its place of business.

In Garden Grove, HENRY NOTSON brought in a stock of goods in the early days of the settlement and a man named BLADES has a little store. In 1854 G. W. PIPER had the leading store where A. B. STERNS agreed to work with the understanding that he did not work on Sunday or “clerk” whiskey. In a few months STERNS bought the store and took in his brother as partner. This store became not only the most successful in the county but one of the ones doing to biggest business in this section. ORZO KELLOGG, who first owned the California House, sold it to a man named DAWES so it was known as the Dawes house during the years just before the Civil War.

There were not banks in Decatur County until after the Civil War, but there were men in Garden Grove who had money to loan. One of these was HAWKINS JUDD. Perhaps CALVIN JOHNSON did also; at least, he loaned money to JOHN LOGAN when he had trouble because he had not entered his land in the early days when on land office was near.

Decatur City continued to grow between 1853 and 1860 even if it was not the county seat. It was surrounded by the fine farm land whose owners came to Decatur City to buy supplies, to get the services of a blacksmith ad to attend church.

The little settlement around the DAVIS mill started in 1854 when WILLIAM DAVIS built a log house there for his residence and set up a saw mill operated by water power. The next year he had built a frame house and interested W. H. CHEEVER in laying out the townsite. DAVIS built the first store building in 1856, and here G. W. JENREE sold goods to those who came to the mill or lived nearby. DAVID COWLES operated the mill for WILLIAM DAVIS and also built his frame house.

The settlement of Pleasanton, then called Pleasant Plains, was started in 1854 by 1856 has some fifty inhabitants. The post office which had at first been at ALLEN SCOTT’s was still called Nine Eagles. DANIEL BARTHOLOW laid out the town though WILLIAM LOVING and WILLIAM SNOOK many have been the ones who first established the settlement. Dr. GEORGE HINKLE was also the store keeper. WILLIAM SNOOK, the blacksmith, and A. W. MOFFIT mended and perhaps made shoes.

At Florence afterwards called Prairie City (where the town of Van Wert would be located when railroads were built) there was also a store owed by GEORGE BIGFORD and the Douglas mill, and a few houses.

While farming was he basic industry, the businessmen and the tradesmen made up each little settlement where also were found most of the offices of the professional men.

An industry most essential in this new country was that of the mills. Repeatedly the early settlers mention in letters and diaries the hardship of making long journeys to a mill or of having to “grit” their corn because no mill was near.

There were two types of mills, the grist mills and the lumber mill. Just before the Civil War there was a woolen mill. Many of the early millers were also farmers. ALLEN SCOTT has a grist mill. It must have been rather profitable as he received $.35 a bushel for grinding corn.

JAMES WOODMANSEE established a grist mill near Decatur City in 1853 which is stated in his biography was “the only one in the county, in fact the only one in this part of the country and people came fifty miles to mill.” However, as to its being the first, it is known that ALLEN SCOTT’s horse mill first operated in 1846 and that the Mormons had a grist mill which the KELLOGG and DAVIS families used in 1849.

THOMAS KNAPP brought his saw mill from Keokuk in 1851. It took sixteen yoke of oxen, a pair of horses, and two wagons built for the purpose to bring it from the Mississippi to the banks for the Weldon River near Garden Grove.

JOHN MARSHALL had a saw mill at Garden Grove but after his little son was crushed to death between logs, gave up the project, though he had gone on nothing daunted when a fire burned the barn which they were using as a place of residence and destroyed all the family possessions.

JOSIAH MORGAN, for a time, operated the Mormon mill after the Mormons moved west.

Both DAVID COWLES and ROYAL RICHARDSON had mills in Hamilton township.

WILLIAM STOUT had one of the early sawmills in Center township and after 1860 ran a woolen mill. He also at one time had a grist mill.

HUGH BROWN who arrived in Garden Grove in 1854 became a miller but records are not clear as to whether he had a grist mill before the Civil War.

Scottish-born JOHN CLARK came to Decatur County in 1856 and purchased 1000 acres of timbered land. In Jefferson County he had ten years of experience as a mill owner and he, like TOM KNAPP, had his lumber mill hauled by oxen from Keokuk to Spring Valley. In 1857 he added two burrs and a carding machine and by the time the Civil War came had a thriving business, combing with his lumber mill, a grist mill and woolen mill.

While CLARK’s mills were by 1860 the most important mill in the county, there were others not mentioned that operated during this period, some of them of them very crude affairs and of course very small. On that was important, however, was the one at Davis City, operated by water power and on a site so favorable that after the Civil War JOHN CLARK purchased it and operated his business there.

The professional men in the county were the doctors, the lawyers, the ministers, and the teachers. The last include women, of course. The last two will be listed in the discussion of the church and of the schools.

There were, it would seem, more doctors in the county between 1853 and 1860 than there are in 1970 but their training and their concentration on their profession was quite different.

Dr. SAMUEL THOMPSON, Leon’s first doctor, had not attended any medical school but is described as “making up for this lack by natural ability.” Whatever his professional skill, it does not seem his practice received his first attention. Between 1851 and 1853 he devoted time to lad speculation, and was a leader in the relocation of the county seat. Soon after he became county judge, again depending on native ability as he had no legal training. In later years he held county offices. His wife as was mentioned earlier, took the place of a tailor, being skilled in cutting men’s clothing, so Dr. THOMPOSN’s residence was a busy place.

L. H. SALES also practiced medicine but he too was a county judge, and his chief interest seems to have been his hotel, the Sales House.

Dr. JOSIAH MCCLELLAND of Kentucky and his wife, AMANDA RHEA, of Tennessee, came to Leon in 1853 or perhaps not until 1854 as he spent a few months in Decatur City. He had prepared for practice by study in a doctor’s office in Missouri.

Dr. C. P. MULLINIX, who came to Leon in 1856, also acquired his training under another doctor.

ROBERT GARDNER, who was listed as “a botanic physician,” arrived in Leon before the War. Dr. GARDNER acquired much land and after the death of his widow between thirty and forty thousand dollars worth of property from the ROBERT GARDER estate came to Decatur County to be used to build a hospital.

B. F. RAIFF, and eclectic physician, came to Leon before the year but left to become an army surgeon.

JOHN P. FINLEY, who came to Leon in 1854, also left during the War, but returned in 1865 after serving as examining surgeon at Des Moines.

At Decatur, Dr. W. J. LANEY was the leading doctor and had the distinction of having studied at a medical school at Willoughby, Ohio.

Dr. G. W. BAKER settled in Decatur City at first, and at once aroused discussion because he insisted on fresh air for his patients even at night and ordered boiled drinking water be given freely to fever victims. It is a matter of conjecture whether the other doctors know that there might be typhoid germs in the water and so forbade its use, or whether Dr. BAKER know the reason why he could safely recommend boiled water. After the death of his wife, Dr. BAKER moved to Leon.

In Garden Grove the first permanent physicians was Dr. THOMAS JOHNSON, though there seems to have been a doctor named SMITH there earlier, and it is not unlikely that there were doctors among the Mormon emigrants. HARRIET KELLOGG pays tribute to Dr. JOHNSON who made long and difficult rides to make his home calls.

Over at Pleasanton, Dr. DAVID MACY set up his practice after seven years of experienced in Missouri. A son born at about the time he came to Iowa was named ODIUS, but I have no record as to how the name was pronounced or why it was given.

A brother of Dr. MULLINEIX’s settled in Pleasanton in about 1859. Whatever his training, he had a family background for his profession. Five of his brothers were also doctors.

There was at least one specialist in the county as it is recorded that “a cancer doctor” named PUCKETT settled here before the Civil War. Considering that there were no requirements except desire to practice medicine, there were perhaps others in the profession of which I have no record.

At this point it should be noted that the doctors of the period between 1840 and 1860 had a far different practice than that of today.

The chief causes of death were typhoid, pneumonia and tuberculosis, instead of heart trouble, cancer, and diseased such as arterial sclerosis.

Operations, such as are to so common today, were unknown. For instance, inflammation of the bowels most often fatal then, is now diagnosed as appendicitis, and the operation is not considered a serious one. In this connection, too, it may be noted that other ailments common among the pioneers have different names today. Sinus infection was called catarrh, arthritis was rheumatism and neuralgia from which so many women suffered would today be called a sinus or migraine headache or in its acute stage tic douloureux. Tuberculosis was of course consumption, and if the end came quickly “galloping consumptions” which may too have been cancer of the lungs. Influenza and virus infection were bad colds or the grippe or at worst pneumonia.

Epidemics were frightening and the doctors know little to do for diphtheria and typhoid. Smallpox, measles, whooping cough, and mumps took their toll. Vaccination for smallpox was possible but often neglected on the frontier and there were no preventatives for the so-called children’s diseases.

Nor were doctors called at once when illness came. Men died of pneumonia whose wives were relying on skunk oil as a cure for the grippe. Whiskey or bandy was the chief ingredient of many a home remedy. Sulphur and molasses and herb teas were medication for the sick and often given as a tonic to the well.

Doubtless whiskey and the brandy were also listed as preventatives by some. Any woman was supposed to be able to dose her family, unless the illness was severe. Some women considered particularly skilled in nursing would be summoned by neighbors. Obituaries of some pioneer women pay tribute to hours spent in homes of others helping care for the sick, not to pay but just as an accepted service.

Sometimes, too patent medicines were tried. Those “store medicines” did not seem to have been of much benefit except that most of them did include a pain killing drug and some contained enough alcohol to give a temporary feeling of strength. CARL HOFFMAN wrote in 1856 telling of his wife’s ill health. “She has been using Ayers Pectoral and Gilmans liniments.” Today we buy vitamins, cold cures, and arthritic relief with the same faith and lack of doctor’s prescription.

Doctors did perform amputations and were called in case of serious accidents. These accident were not those of today but instead of car wrecks and plane crashes were due to falling trees, run-a-way horses, attacks by wild animal, bites by poisonous snakes, and burns due to open fires and overturned kettles of boiling water.

The last two causes were particularly a danger to children. BARBRA DALE baby daughter of JAMES DALE, burned to death. A little daughter who died of burns was buried by the ALLEN SCOTTs near their home where her grandfather and baby brother’s graves may still be located. The stone marking the grave of a child named KETURAH warns the parent to beware of the danger of fire. Such a tragedy is told of in a letter of SAMUEL FARLOW whose baby daughter was scalded fatally when she fell into a pail of boiling water.

Doctors were not consulted for prenatal care and not often at birth. Babies of the first settlers came into the world assisted by a member of the family or a kindly neighbor. “Died at birth” is often written in family Bibles. Moreover, those that survived birth had the perils of the second summer ahead. The combination of heat, flies, and raw milk was often fatal. Whooping cough and measles were too often the cause of death. Also croup and diphtheria were dreaded diseases.

It is no wonder with all this that so many children died. For instance, of the sixteen children of JORDAN and ELIZABETH KOGER, six died in infancy. WILSON STONE had eight children by his second wife, but only two lived to maturity. Four of SOLOMON PENNIWELL’s twelve children died in infancy. LIZZIE BRESS BUELL lost all four of her babies. A rip through any old cemetery will supply the names of may other infants and small children.

In such cemeteries, too you will find evidence of the death of young mothers. Again and again you will find a man buried beside a first, a second wife and a third wife. It is noticeable, too, that the period between the death of one and remarriage is not long.

How often, too the rearing of children of the first wife was completed by the second wife. Three weeks after JAMES DALE arrived in Decatur County his second wife died, leaving six children under seven. Seven months later he married EUNICE DURHAM who cared for his children as well as their seven children. SUSAN HOFFMAN, left with three children, married Dr. G. W. BAKER, who had three motherless children, and cared for these six and two born after her second marriage. MARGARET CRUIKSHANK became stepmother to the children of both Dr. MACY’s first and second wife. When BENJAMIN SPRINGER came to Iowa with his second wife, she was the stepmother of eight children and had two of her own. These are but a few of many such records in family histories.

Life was shorter for both men and women. OZRO KELLOGG died at the age of thirty-nine. CARL HOFFMAN, who died of typhoid, was only thirty-five. ELI CHASE was in his early forties.

The life of a doctor then as now was not easy. Long hours and night calls just as today, and added to these the trips in heat and in cold over prairie and through the timber were a part of his life. His pay was un-certain and often in produce, not money. His medical training was most often meager and his supply of drugs limited but from all records left the patient relationship of the pioneer doctor could not have been better. He was well-loved if not well-paid.

Of the lawyers, too, it can be said that there were more in the county than there would be a hundred years later and that like the doctors they often had several other occupations. They, too had little formal training. Most of them studied in the office of another lawyer, others read law by themselves.

SAMUEL FORREY, who was one of the first Republicans in the county, and for years the leader of that party, had been a student in the law office of THADDEUS STEPHENS and was very proud of that distinction.

JOHN and JOSEPH WARNER who were at first carpenters working for their brother-in-law CARL HOFFMAN, both became lawyers.

ANDREW WARNER may have studied law before he came to Iowa as JOSEPH studied in his office in 1856. An oft repeated story is that of JOSEPH WARNER’s fall from a scaffolding while working on the Sales House and being so angry he declared he would never do another day’s work in his life and so, as an early county historian wrote, “He became a lawyer.” Becoming a lawyer cost JOHN WARNER his membership in the Brethren church, as that profession was forbidden. Both JOHN and JOSEPH were active Democrats and, like ANDREW, candidates for office. JOHN WARNER was State Senator in 1856, but ANDREW was defeated for office in 1858. JOHN WARNER combined keeping a hotel with law practice. JOSEPH WARNER was also a one term the minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

GEORGE HAWLEY was the first in the county to open a law office, but during the Civil War he went south to live.

P. H. BINKLEY was an attorney as well as an editor-publisher.

VINCENT WAINWRIGHT commenced practice in 1856 and at about the same time W. S. WARNOCK, who was later in business at Davis City, opened a law office.

As the activities of the attorneys centered around the court house, let us turn to the government in the county and the county office holder between 1853 and 1860.

Of course, when the county seat was moved from Decatur to what is now Leon, a court house had to be built. It was at first decided that PETER STEWART would build one for $1650.00. When he gave up the contract it would seem from existing records that a frame building was in use, as it was declared unfit, a court house was built. This building which was also then put in use, but as it was declared unfit, a court house was built. This building which was also the school house was destroyed by a tornado.

It is at this point that records are most confusing. In The History of Decatur County, published in 1915, it is twice stated that the tornado was in 1857. Mrs. KELLOGG gives the date as 1855. There seems to be an agreement that GEORGE T. YOUNG was the teacher whose quick action saved the lives of the children, yet in his biography in the Biography History of Decatur County, he does not mention this event and states he became county clerk in 1856. All records indicate that in 1854 a contract was entered into with ARNOLD CHILDERS o furnish brick and plastering for a court house for $900 and that F. PARSONS was paid $800 for the wood work and as there seems little doubt that this court house was the one that burned in 1874. We can only conclude that this tornado was in the summer of 1854 and 1855 and we can conjecture whether the frame building condemned was the one damaged by the tornado or whether a building was built and destroyed by wind. All accounts seem to agree that the building which was both a school house and court house was located where Slade Funeral Home is now (1970).

The only other building owned by the county before the Civil War was a one room log jail, with iron bars across small windows. It was one block west of the north west corner of the square.

THOMAS JOHNSON was our first county superintended of schools, a new office in 1858. SAMUEL THOMPSON first elected as county judge I 1852 continued in office until WILLIAM KELLY became judge in 1857. JOHN JORDAN was county treasurer and was followed in office by IRA RYAN. SAMUEL DUNN was clerk 1854-1855 followed by GEORGE T. YOUNG. The sheriffs during this period just before the War were JOHN STANLEY, JOSEPH PARSONS, and HARRISON WELDON. County commissioner, later called county supervisors, were regularly elected.

Township government was much more important than now. Each township had its elected trustees with responsibility for the township roads, the poor, in their jurisdiction and other matters. There was a township assessor, a justice of the peace, and a constable while only four townships were create in 1850, JUDGE THOMPSON added Decatur, Center, Richland, Eden and High Point. In 1856 he went to Princeton, Missouri on a business trip, leaving SAMUEL FORREY, county attorney, in charge of his office. He was surprised when he returned to find that Mr. FORREY had organized and named five more townships, Grand River, Long Creek, Franklin, New Buda, and Woodland. Later a township was organized called Prairie, which include what is now Fayette and Bloomington.

The only incorporated town in the county before the Civil War was Leon which reached that status in 1858.

Except for the postmasters, no representatives of the federal government lived in Decatur County before the War, but after 1853 when a post road was established, the location of post office and the naming of postmasters was very important. L. UJHAZY was post-master at Nine Eagles with the office on ALLEN SCOTT’s place. In 1858 this post office though still called Nine Eagles was moved to Pleasant Plains (now Pleasanton), W. S. WARNOCK was the first postmaster there.

HARRIET KELLOGG writes of JACOB WARNER as “the first postmaster” after the post road was established but does not say of what post office. JOSHUA DAVIS, brother-in-law of JOHN PATTERSON, is listed as the first Leon post-master in the History of Decatur County (1915) and ALEXADER UPDEGRAFF as the second.

G.W. PIPER is said to have been Garden Grove’s first postmaster. A. B. STEARNS held the office later.

THERON WESTERVELT, grist mill owner was postmaster at Westerville, sometimes call Milford.

Other postmasters appointed along the post road include one at Davis City.

W. F. CRAIG was an early postmaster at Davis City.

In 1858 the post office at Nine Eagles was moved to Pleasant Plains (Pleasanton). W. S. WARNOCK and ISACC WALRUP were postmasters.

The relation with the state government was through the members of the Legislature. In the Senate between 1853 and 1860 were NATHAN UDELL, 1854-55, and JOHN W. WARNER, 1856-1857, J. W. LANEY, 1858-59.

When JOHN WARNER was elected state senator in 1856, his brother-in-law wrote that the “the office was merely nominal in a pecuniary way but $2 a day for sixty days. The boarding is five or six dollars per week.” He represented a district that also include Wayne and Appanoose Counties.

The office during the period were filled by Democrats almost without exception again quoting from a letter of CARL HOFFMAN’s written August, 1856, “Our county is Democratic by about 150. I think our state is Democratic.” On July 13, he wrote, “The Democrats and the Republicans. The great question is Kansas.”

He also reports that A. J. WARNER was defeated in this election so at least on Republican won in spite of the Democratic majority.

Besides SAMUEL FORREY the Republican Party included ALFRED CUMMINGS, who was one of three men in New Buda township to first vote Republican. Dr. JOHN FINLEY, GEORGE HAWLEY, and FRANCIS VARGA though VARGA’s most active leadership came after the Civil War, were prominent.

In 1856 there was a strong sentiment for the Native American (Know Nothing) party in some parts of the county. in Hamilton township the majority of the votes were cast for its candidate.

By 1858 this party had almost disappeared and it may be assumes that most of its member in Decatur County joined the Republican party as did those of the Democratic party who were dissatisfied with their party’s stand on slavery. However, in 1858 the county again went Democratic.

It is probable, too, that the economic factors were also reflected in political shifting, though in Decatur County the panic of 1857 may not have been felt as much as crop failure of a crop surplus. However, that people here were aware of what was happening as early as 1855 is known by CARL HOFFMAN’s letter to his brother, “Do not keep any paper money on hand, for it is very doubtful currency. I hear of banks breaking every day. I will give two per cent for gold for what is owing me.”

As to crops there was a surplus of corn in 1857 and corn plowed under. In 1857 there was a drought and corn sold for $2.00 a bushel on the streets of Leo in the spring of 1858. Crops were fairly good in 1858, in spite of very late planting because of floods due to a terrific rain that washed out the first plantings even on level land and an August drought.

As to price in mid-July, 1856, corn was $.50 to $.70 a bushel, flour $.55 per hundred, molasses $.90 per gallon, sugar $.15 a pound, coffee $.18 per pound, butter $.10 a pound, and eggs $.10 a dozen.

The best land was selling for $15 but unimproved land could be secured for $2.00.

Though wages were low, labor seems to be available. Men worked for $.50 a day and a girl who “hired out” did well to get $5 a month. However, it would seem that some laborer particularly extra good worker, did get a dollar a day.

That the Panic of ’57 was felt here, in spite of the fact there were no banks in the county to fail, is indicated by the statement in a sketch of JOHN JORDAN which states that while he had been one of the county’s well-to-do men, “he lost heavily during the hard times of 1857.”

Many of those who came to Decatur County between 1853 and 1860, had little when they arrived and could say as HARRISON BROWN did, that they started life “with nothing but a warm heart and strong willing hands.” HENRY STANLEY told of starting life with but $100. G. W. RUDIBAUGH arrived in Decatur County with his wife, two children and $2 in money. TIMON YOUG and his wife could carry all their possessions when they walked from Chariton to Garden Grove. GEORGE T. YOUNG on his way west was out of money when he reached Leon, appealed to Dr. THOMPSON, who was a fellow Mason, and through him secured a job that paid him room and board. These but a few example of the many who came with little but became prosperous citizen.

Only a few were coming with their fortunes already made. HAWKINS JUDD was fifty-two when he and his family came. He had money to invest and to loan but “came for a change of climate as he had lost his health in Illinois” JOHN CLARK had already been successful as a miller before he purchased land in Decatur County and it would seem that S. M. MCLEAN and MAHLAN MCDONOUGH had money to invest when they arrived just to mention a few of those who had already acquired or inherited money when they came.

In whatever circumstances they arrived and in spite of floods and droughts, many of the early settlers were, by 1860, well-established for with new settlers arriving in such members land had increasing in value. HENRY WALTON’s 320 acres which he had purchased in 1857 for $660, which included both timber and prairie land, had increasing in value in just three years. LEVI CHASTAIN’s family was prosperous as was the family of ALICE COZAD who arrived in 1854. JOSEPH CREES had prospered also and was building a new house to take the place of his log cabin. DOZIER GAMMON had improved his 400 acres. The JOHN GARDNER family was already prospering as were the JOSEPH HAMILTONS. JAMES GAMMILL was doing well in Hamilton township. The GEORGE MACHLAN family had good land.

This list could be much longer, but this is enough to indicate what was happening in an economic way just before the War and about which those living in the county wrote with enthusiasm.

CARL HOFFMAN in his assessor’s report says of Center township in 1856 what could be said of all of the county. “Like most of the west it is settled by young citizen who migrated from Eastern, southern and north eastern states, a few came from Europe. The majority of the married portion is not thirty years of age. the prospects and appearance of the rising generation promises that this section will become famous for intelligence and industry.”

Certain it is that industry was require by the men who came as early settlers and by their wives and children.

The assessor’s report continues with this statement, “Schools are encouraged by every person and attended by children of all ages.”

This statement is of course, a little too inclusion. Not everyone in Decatur County was interested in schools and there were children before the War who attended little if any.

As has been mentioned earlier the first school in the county was the subscription school taught by Mrs. ENOS DAVIS at Garden Grove who also drew the first warrant on school funds. From this it would seem that the children of the families that came into the southern part of the county had only such schooling as could be given in the home and, if Mrs. KELLOGG is right as to some of those who, while candidates for office could not read nor write, those skills may not have been taught their children.

During the years between 1853 and 1860 the center of learning may well have been Garden Grove for the KELLOGS, the ARNOLDS, the MCLEANS, the DAVIS families, and the CHASE families were all much concerned about schools. HIRAM CHASE taught a school in 1851 of which it was said, “a profitable term was taught, not kept.” The school room was the kitchen in the CHASE home. In 1853 school was held at KELLOGG’S in the California House. There were no school buses but the teacher went a mile on horse back to bring two of his pupils to school. Some of the students came a distance of five miles “by foot or horse back.”

In 1853 a school house was built, but it burned down either before it was in use or on the first day of school. Accounts differ as to this. In 1856 a brick school house, octagonal in shape, was built and a HASTINGS was employed.

The first school in Leon was taught by H. V. WAINRIGHT in 1853 in a log building. After one term SARAH PATTERSON took his place and taught two terms. The next teacher, GEORGE T. YOUNG, taught his pupils on the first floor of the frame building used as a court house. When a tornado destroyed the building, used as a court house. When a tornado destroyed the building, he became a local hero because he was able to get all the children out before the building collapsed as he carried out the two littlest ones just in time. After this disaster school was held in room south of the square.

The first school in Pleasanton was, it would seem, taught by PERRY BAILEY in a log building and a little later a log school house was built.

The first school house in Decatur was also built of logs. In 1855 the teacher was Mr. JAMES.

At Prairie City (now Van Wert and also spoken of at first as Florence) a log school house 16 by 20 feet was built about 1858. It had puncheon slats seating six or eight on a slat. An undressed board placed on pegs driven into the wall served as a writing desk. It had only two or three windows.

Down in Eden township a school was opened in 1853 with DAVID SHINN as teacher. This, too, was in a log cabin on the RICHARD MEEK farm. The first school building was a frame building, the lumber coming from the mill of WILLIAM DAVIS. ROBERT DYE taught the first term in this building.

The first school in Davis City was taught by Mr. PATTERSON in 1857. A brick school was not built until later.

Throughout the county by 1860 there were schools in the different townships, but terms varied from three to possible seven months just as they did in the towns.

During the winter term the older boys, free from farm work attended which doubtless let to a larger attendance of older girls.

Sometimes thirty or forty were enrolled and all grades taught by one teacher. attendance was irregular and the teachers untrained according to present day standards but in spite of all this, some of those who attended school then, received and education of which to be proud.

As to text book, each pupil furnished his own and much of the instruction was oral. Fortunate were those who owned McGuffey’s readers, particularly the Fifth Reader with its selection of fine literature. Goodrich’s History of the United States was anther treasured text. Arithmetic was taught in every grade and “mental arithmetic’ emphasize. Penmanship was a fine art and ability to spell was stressed.

Discipline was often harsh. One pupil of those days recalled that when he sat on his teacher’s lap to learn to read, his teacher held a knife with which to “gently” prick him if he made a mistake. Another told of a teacher with a six foot whip which he used in a former school o vigorously that one of his pupils had been confined to his bed for some days.

In almost all schools a gad (whip) for the backs of the boys, a ruler for the hands of the girls, and a switch for the legs of little children were standard equipment.

As I have said the teachers had no training in teaching techniques and it may be doubted if some knew much more subject matter than some of our education majors today. A man who could lick the big boys was employed for the winter term. For the spring and fall term the teacher was most often a woman or as sometimes happened a teen age girl.

Though the business and professional men were important, it was the land owners, the farmers, who were most important. Because of this it should be of interest to know from where and how they came to Decatur County.

It is probable that the greatest number was from Ohio. Whether the term was used by all is not certain, but Mrs. KELLOGG calls the Ohioans “Tiffinites” and says the term was used in the central and southern part of the county. As the very influential ARNOLD family came from Tiffon, Ohio, it can be assumed that there is a connection there.

It should be understood, of course, that many of those who are spoken of as coming from Ohio may have been born in other states, often New York or Pennsylvania and often those listed as from Indiana and Illinois had migrated there from Ohio. when the hardships and difficulties of travel are considered, it is amazing to discover how often they moved and how far they traveled.

As to how they came, it is probable that the greatest number came in wagons drawn by horses or oxen, some came horseback, some may have made the first part of the journey by train, some came party way by boat. A few came to Chariton by stage, some even walked.

Records of how a few arrived still exist and are numerous enough to give a quite clear picture of how the journey to southern Iowa was made and the length of time spent in travel.

NATHANIEL CORNETT came from Lawrence County, Indiana, in twenty-one days; ALICE COZAD came from Warren County, Indiana, by team and wagon in one month. J. F. BAKER took six weeks to come from Ohio with a two horse team. W. F. CRAIG came down the Ohio and Mississippi to St. Louis and then by ox cart to Davis City. German-born TIMON YOUNG and his bride came by stagecoach to Chariton, then walked to Garden Grove, carrying their belongings. JOHN MCKIBBEN and his bride, HARRIET, who came to Garden Grove in 1857, made a somewhat slow journey as he brought with him a drove of sheep.

Some who came to Iowa had already made a long journey from another country. The largest group of these were from Ireland most of whom settled in Woodland township. The census of 1860 shows eleven Catholic families, a total of sixty-two persons. Of these, the largest number were from County Kerry and included WILLIAM GROGAN, who came in 1856, MICHAEL GRIFFIN, who settled in Woodland in 1857, MAURICE DAUGHTON in 1858, DENNIS and PATRICK MULLEN and PATRICK GROGAN. Also settling in Woodland township was JOHN BARRETT, leading the Rosary if there was not priest. THOMAS OWENS also came from County Cork at about the same time as did RICKARD (RICHARD) BARRETT, JOHN’s brother. EDWARD and STEPHEN CONWELL, who came from Donegal, Ireland, reached Decatur County in 1853 but did not settle in Woodland. Instead they took up land in Richland Township.

How much some of these Irish families moved about can be shown by the places of birth of the children of the MICHAEL GRIFFIN family. PATRICK was born in Ireland, 1850, HANNAH in New Jersey, 1851, DANIEL in Ohio, 1854. The last three ware born in Decatur County, Iowa.

The Hungarian emigrants have already been mentioned and there were those who came directly from Germany. But to turn the amount of land taken up by these first Decatur County farmers, we find that JOSEPH CREES had 480 acres “in one piece” and added another quarter of a section; SAMUEL METIER born in France, WILLIAM STOUT, one of the Brethren, ALLAN PRYOR and DOZIER GAMMON each entered 400 acres. ARETUS SHAW bought 360 acres in 1851. CALVIN JOHNSON, as devout a Presbyterian as JOHN PATTERSON was a Methodist, took up 1200 acres of wild land. H. S. WOOD took up 1300 acres of land though he did not settle there. ROBERT HOUSTON had 1000 acres. MAHLON MCDONALD bought 1000 acres near Garden Grove in 1854. These, of course, represent the large holdings. C. J. HOFFMAN exchanged town property for some 200 acres north of Leon. JAMES STONE had at first 160 acres, JOHN MILLER had 200 acres, JAMES DALE bought 240 acres of partially improved land when he arrived in 1856. LEWIS KOB purchased 85 acres of which twenty-five was prairie land, the rest equally divided as to being timber or brush land.

Of course, these figures represent only the amount of land first owned. Some bought the land to sell and disposed much of it to others than perhaps bought more. Others took first 80 acres, 120 acres, or 1600 acres then bought more land until their holdings exceeded those of some who took up large amounts at once.

Some of the settlers had difficulty with their claims and, according to Mrs. KELLOGG, in 1851 there were only five names on record, as having land in the county, it being considered perfectly safe to hold the land by claim or possession. An organization was formed, each member pledged to help the others in the right to hold their lands. However, as the tide of immigration increased, it was necessary to have a legitimate title from the state or the United States.

In was in this period when land was held by claim and possession that MILES WASSON, who had taken up land in 1843, returned from the Mexican War to find that someone else had taken up his land and sold it to JOHN LOGAN. Undaunted by this misfortune, MILES went to California and was successful enough as stated earlier to come back and buy back his claim.

JOSEPH CREES’ first land purchase was from the Hungarian colony but because of lack of a clear title he lost the thousand dollars he had invested.

Doubtless, these are but two of the many who suffered such disappointment, but these two are remembered because of the rather usual circumstance.

As to the availability of land I quote from PAMELA PATTERSON’s letter of May, 1853, “There has been a great quantity of land entered around Independence (Leon) since the first of the month. There is very little vacant land within two miles of the county seat. The west part of the county comes to market in July next. It is thought that by then the vacant land will all be taken up. But it will be cheap or you can buy a claim. Men think nothing of going to California.”

While the Indians, traveling enroute west, and new comers might buy garden products every family could be expected to have a garden, a responsibility of the women and girls with sometimes helps from small boys. Lettuce, onions, beans, squash, cabbage, and turnips were part of every garden. J. N. MACHLIN in an account of early days tells of Jerusalem cherries being raised as an ornamental plant. It was not until a later day that a variety of this plant became, as the tomato, a part of every garden. It is probable that melons were raised and of course pumpkins through these last grew most often in the corn field.

“Greens” were often eaten but though the leaves of turnips and beets were used, mustard and horse radish greens were much liked and the leaves of other wild plants gathered.

No one who lived in the county in the early days needed to lack fruit when it was in season nor material for canning and preserving.

Mrs. KELLOGG says this of the fruit and berries. “The wild plum flourished and was very productive,” she wrote. “As the wild nature of the soil was subdued it brought forth first strawberries and raspberries, then plumbs and blackberries, all in the greatest profusion and of superior quality in timbered and busy places. There was one variety, a large yellow plum tinged with red on one side which when pared and served with sugar and cream, excels any other fruit grown in the climate.” She also tells of a delicious plum preserve made with honey. Other pioneers added wild gooseberries and wild grapes to the list of food found in the timber.

However plentiful these fruits and berries, orchards were soon set out by the settlers. Again ALLEN SCOTT had the first for there is a reference to his having apple trees in 1843. When Mrs. PATTERSON cam in 1850, she brought two apple trees, two plum trees, two grape vines and seventeen currant sprouts. In 1851 OZRO KELLOGG brought from Davenport, apple, pears, and cherries of different varieties and it would seem peach trees or peach seeds. As in an article written by G. P. ARNOLD, there is a mention of a Fourth of July celebration held in KELLOGG’S peach orchard in 1854.

In 1855 the LUNBECK nursery was set up north of Leon with a stock of fruit trees.

It is of interest in this connection to notice that while trees for shade or for wind breaks could easily be secured from the timber, Mr. KELLOGG brought from Davenport mountain ash, arbor vital, and silver leaf maples and though flowers were so plentiful on the prairie and flowering shrubs I the timber, Mrs. PATTERSON brought a snow ball, a flowering almond and a lilac wither, also piney (peony) bulbs and Mr. KELLOGG brought bulbs. Many of those who came brought flower seeds so beauty as well as food was valued. Mrs. PATTERSON was almost as famous for her flowers as she was for her piety and her hospitality.

From whatever direction they came or how they came the settlers had one thing in common, they were, as the Irish had said, “land hungry” and they sought the economic advantages based upon cheap fertile land and the opportunities that came to those that settled in a section where all undertakings are in their beginnings. Not only land owners but store keepers, carpenters, millers, lawyers, and doctors found a challenge in a county in the process of settlement and, no matter what their occupation, took up claims or bough land. A study of old abstracts shows how land passed from one ownership to another and then sometimes back to the original. There were those who took up land and lived there all their lives, others were speculator who bought land to sell at a profit.

But while land was what the settlers sought, the choice of many as far as coming to Decatur County was concerned was due to many things, including letters such as Mrs. PATTERSON wrote in May of 1854. One member of the family would come, send back word of their situation and others would join them. SUSAN HOFFMAN, who came in 1853, was soon joined by four brothers, JOHN, JACOB, JOSEPH, and ANDREW WARNER. Later a sister ELIZABETH GIVENS and her family came. J. F. and S. F. BAKER were brothers, LYMAN CHASE followed HIRAM CHASE to Garden grove. OZRO KELLOGG’S brothers, RACINE and CHARLES, also came to Garden Grove. There were, as mentioned before, seven HATIELD brothers in the county at one time before the Civil War. WILLIAM GAMMON brought his wife and family as well as his mother and two brothers, to join his father, DOZIER GAMMON, who had entered land here. MAURICE DAUGHTON was a brother-in-law of DENNIS and PARTIC MULLEN. Not only these three but also JAMES DILLON, CORNELIUS HANNON, BARTHOLOMEW HOULIHAN, and

PARTICK GROGAN were influenced by WILLIAM GROGAN.

Through again land was the chief inducement there was the common bond of religion in the coming to the county of families of the Brethren Church who settled particularly in Center township. Called by the other settlers Dunkards or Tunkards, they were knows not only for their beliefs but also for their success as farmers.

Because the chief reason for settlement was land, the farmers were the most numerous and important of the settlers.

The size of the farms and the value of the land varied as it does today. Not many of those who came were able to purchase land that had been cleared and cultivated on which a house had been built. Most of them took up what they called “Wild land” and saw visions of the fine farm, good house and big barns that would some day be theirs. Visions that would turn into reality for the fortunate ones or perhaps I should say those who combined thrift and good judgment with the strength and willingness to work long hours and the courage to stick through the years of drought and grasshoppers, the times of low prices, and the months when the bottom lands were flooded. Nor did this success come without the hard work of wives who not only did the household tasks but often worked in the fields. It should be remembered, too, that the caring for the garden, the milking of the cows, and all the work with the chickens, turkeys, and ducks fell to the women of the family.

What was done by the SCOTTS, the KELLOGGS, and the PATTERSONS must have been done by others. In addition it was easy to transplant oaks, elms, and maples from the timberland. Doubtless, too, neighbors supplied each other with seed and slips. With all this it would seem that there was not need for the treeless prairie homes of which some wrote even after several years nor for Leon to have in 1856 just a small crab tree and a small cottonwood set out by Mrs. HAWLEY. Evidently not even FIDELIA THOMPSON had the interest in flowers and trees that PAMELA PATTERSON had.

In connection with the apple orchards came the cider mill and after sugar cane was raised in the county the nearest sorghum mill furnished molasses, a luxury which like sugar, had at first to be brought into the county.

Some of the settlers like WYLLIS DICKINSON kept bees but he was the one it would seem who made it a major source of income as at times he would have a hundred swarms. When the settlers first came, wild honey was so plentiful it sold for a few cents a pound.

Chickens were at first valued mostly for their eggs and geese for their feathers because wild game was so plentiful but by 1860 most families whether on the farm on in town raised chickens to eat and ducks, geese, and turkeys were raised on the farm.

As to livestock except those that walk or rode with someone else, all arrived with oxen, horses, or mules. The need for milk and butter meant that even the earliest settlers had cows. The first hogs were of the razorback variety and JOHN LOGAN is said to have had the first fine hogs, making their purchase in 1859. ARNOLD brought in Merino sheep in 1857.

It is not likely that much in the way of fine horses and cattle were in the county before the Civil War, but at the State Fair in 1854 the first prize in this period is given in a letter of CARL HOFFMAN’s written in July, 1858.

“We planted corn in the 8th of May but the soil was cold and damp. The best time of planting was from the 15th to the 20th. Corn in general did not come up well because of bad seed. Some replanted three times. What I planted came up thick for I’d been taught a good lesson in Ohio. I was very careful in selecting my seed corn.”

Then as now the weather was a deciding factor in farming. In 1858 CARL HOFFMAN wrote on June 13, “Tuesday it rained for three hours as hard as I have ever seen it ran. It washed out the corn on rolling land and on drowned it level it downed it out. We have a poor prospect for crops here except for fall wheat and rye.”

However in spite of too much rain or too little, of hail and tornados, or of invasion of grasshoppers, that came in such numbers as to darken the sky as they arrive, the farmer had their good years too and there was never a complete crop failure.

The houses that were first built on these farms were of log, and small. JOHN LOGAN’s 18 by 20 feet was one of the larger ones. Both HENRY NEWLINS and JOHN GARDNER’s were 14 by 16 feet. Early in the 1850’s some homes were built of whipsawed lumber. WILSON STONE spoke of his first Decatur County home as a plank shanty.

Glass for windows was scares during the first ten or twelve years of settlement and as for doors both ELI ALEXANDER and J. S. BAKER told of quilts hung at the door. VALVIN JOHNSON described his first home as having a clapboard door as well as roof.

Floors were not always put in the homes built. FIDELIA THOMPSON, wife of Dr. THOMPSON, at first had dirt floors as did ISAAC MILLER and many others. SUSAN HOFFMAN BAKER angered by a New York paper that spoke of her step-grandson as being of a “poor but respectable” Iowa family, exclaimed, “I’ve always been respectable, but I was never poor, I was the first woman in Center township to have all wooden floors!” ALLEN PRYOR also was proud that even his first home had puncheon floors as well as a clapboard roof.

But while the first houses were of logs, by the time Leon was settled and the lumber mills in operation frame houses were being built.

The second frame house to be built still stand (1970). It was built by KIM HICKMAN and has walnut weather boarding. The first frame house was built at about the same time on the VAN NOSTRAND place and stood until it burned.

The first two churches in the county were frame buildings. The one at Decatur City was built in 1853 and the one in Leon started just before the Civil War.

In 1858 a frame school house was built in Garden Grove.

Major J. L. YOUNG, in his account of Leon in 1859, mentions several frame store buildings and it would seen that new houses were being built, and most of the store buildings in and near the towns, were then frame stricture. However, the jail built in 1856 was a log structure with iron bars across the windows. There were also brick houses built before the Civil War. One, an “L” shaped structure was built by JAMES STONE in 1857. Another brick home was that of PETER STEWART. Both were made of brick on the farm were the house was built. The fact that the STONE house was in use a hundred years later indicates that the bricks were both well made and well laid.

However, it was not necessary that a frame house be built or one constructed of brick to have what was considered a fine house. A description of ht log built house of STEPHEN ARNOLD proves this.

“Mr. ARNOLD who came in 1857 built a comfortable log house with a brick chimney and hearth, a good cellar walled with brick, a well of living water right at the back door with a quick growing trees planted near it for shade. The house had three good rooms with chambers over them and a kitchen in back. The front yard was ornamented by post of flowers in great profusion and variety and also ornamental trees and shrubs. The south window of the sitting room was always gay with beautiful flowers and plants.

The heating of the home was done by fire places particularly it in or near timber. One of the earliest settlers near Pleasanton who ventured out on the prairie was WILLIAM SNOOK. Mrs. SNOOK recalled in her old age that because her house was heated only by two stoves other settlers feared she would freeze, but that her house was heated only by stoves other settlers feared she would freeze, but that her two stoves keeps them much warmer than the huge fire places that consumed so much wood.

While those who lived on the prairie had to haul their wood they had the advantage of finding it easy to dig a well and strike a vein of fine living water.

The furniture in the Decatur County homes between 1840 and 1860 was often home made or at least made by a local cabinet maker but of course often made of fine walnut supplemented as far as the first settlers were concerned only by what could be brought in a covered wagon. A folding rocker, a few cherished dishes or perhaps a little cradle might be shown as brought from “back east.” WILLIAM GROGAN and his wife brought his picture, painted by an artist in Indianapolis, Indiana. WYLLIS DICKINSON brought books as did Mrs. ENOS DAVIS, JOHN and PAMELA PATTERSON’s most beloved possession was their family Bible.

Cooking utensils were brought, most important being a cooper kettle and an iron skillet, together with some tableware. That was sometimes scanty as indicated by Mrs. KELLOGG’s story of a meal prepared in a farm home for a family of seven and spoons and cups for but two and only a quart cup in which to make coffee. However, in other homes there were sterling silver spoons and dishes not only for the family but enough to serve guests.

Though houses were small and furniture simple there families in most of them were large. For instance, SARAH and WILLIAM HAMILTON, who came in 1844, had thirteen children. LYMAN CHASE and ADAM MCCLAIN each had twelve, BENJAMIN SPRINGER had ten, JOSEPH CREES and his wife had eleven, as did Mr. and Mrs. JOSEPH BEAVERS. BENJAMIN AKERS had thirteen children by his first wife. His second wife was a widow with three children. He and his third wife had four children. This list could include more, but this is enough to illustrate what is meant by large families in small houses.

The size of the house also did not limit the hospitality of the owners at times as many as thirty-five lived at the ALLEN SCOTT place which include family, employees, and guests who might stay for months. Mrs. WILLIAM SNOOK said that when they first settled in the county, their home was never clear of “comers and goers” for a single night for several years, as their place was on the road to Princeton, Missouri. Tired men spread blankets on the floor and slept there, glad to have a roof over their heads. Mrs. THOMPSON told of haven seven men as over-night guests in their one room cabin when they had been in the county one a few weeks. This so exhausted their supplies that her husband had the problem of finding where more could be bought, a distance of many miles.

Children in the Brethren settlement would, when they saw wagons coming over the prairie, run to where they could see how the new comers looked. If they saw that they were dressed as those of their faith they ran back to shout, “Brethren are coming!” and by the time the wagons made their slow approach, food was being prepared and a welcome ready. The new comers lived with those already established until their own home was built.

When the first farmer arrived there were no stores or other places of business in the county and the first two places established (ALLEN SCOTT’s and in 1852 I. N. CLARK’s on Eden prairie) were really trading posts for the Indians with some supplies sold to immigrants. Mrs. KELLOGG says of the early days, “Our groceries were procured at Burlington or Keokuk, sugar by the barrel – both brown and loaf, coffee by the sack, also dried apples and peaches, cheese and raisins by the box, tea by the caddy, etc.” Doubtless, the “etc.” include salt by the barrel. However, as more settlers came in, the farms were grouped around small settlements that grew rapidly and here could be found the storekeepers and the tradesmen, and in or nearby the millers.

CARL HOFFMAN in her report as assessor for Center township in 1856 reports, “Leon now contains 300 inhabitants. There are twelve merchants, four lawyers, tow physicians, two ministers, five smiths, about twenty carpenters and a number of other merchants.” In connection with the township he reports two innkeepers, one shoemaker, a saddler, a mason, a tailor and a tinner whom we can assume were among the business men of Leon.

Major YOUNG, in account he wrote of Leon in 1859, listed as merchants in Leon in that year: WHARTON and RICHARDS, STEVENS and STILLWELL, GARDINER and BRADLEY, all in frame buildings. There were several other stores it seams that he did not list. AB GILLHAM and ALEXANDER UPDEGRAFF had a harness shop; M. H. WOOD was the shoemaker; and the BINKLEYS printed the Pioneer, the county’s only newspaper. Though it had been started in 1855 it evidently did not rate a mention in the census repot of 1856 unless it came under the classification of “other mechanics.”

There were no sidewalks in the town, but between 1865 and 1859 trees had been planted.

At Garden Grove, too, there had been many new families arrive between 1853 and 1856 and the little settlement had its stores and tradesmen. WILLIAM DAVIS furnished DON ROBERTS a few hundred dollars to start a store, but thieves broke in and stole most of the groceries.

The men often had other occupations. Both WAINWRIGHT and WARNOCK were also lawyers. GEORGE T. YOUNG worked in an office. Mr. CARY was also a minister when he taught in Garden Grove as was GEORGE ADAMS when he taught in Leon.

Whatever these schools lacked it must be conceded that those who attended them, were supposed to learn to write legibly and often write beautifully, to spell correctly even words they had never read or written, to solve problems in arithmetic and that include fractions and long division and to read aloud clearly and distinctly. On the other hand little was done is science, too often history was memorized and in geography to be able o sing states and their capital and to be able to bound the counties was too often the extent of the learning with perhaps certain facts require to be given by rote.

There were no organized sports but spelling matches sometimes between schools were major events. The champion speller status seems strange in later days of the football hero and the basketball star.

Music in the schools was a matter of the teacher’s interest and ability, but singing schools for old and young were held at night and much enjoyed.

Mrs. KELLOGG tells of a district Sunday School convention when L. M. HASTINGS was in charge of the music “with no instruments but the violin and no books for the children to sing form, he taught them both words and music for over thirty pieces. LUCRETIA KNAPP, LIBBIE BURNS, LIBBIE WOODBURY, also Mrs. KNEPP were grouped together to have the benefit of the book and he lined the hymns for the children until they learned them perfectly. At the time I thought it was the best singing I ever heard.”

L. M. HASTINGS was teaching at Garden Grove so in his school music must have been taught.

While many of the pioneers, including Mrs. KELLOGG, speak of the hardship of finding no church near there were among the early settlers those who at once determined that religious services should be held.

It is probable that the first of such services were held by the Baptists, as several of the families who settled in the southern part of the county in the early forties belonged to the church. By 1848 when settlers came to Garden Grove to make permanent homes a Baptist group had been organized by I. B. LEE and IRA BLAKESLEY. The members were Mr. and Mrs. REUBEN HATFIELD, Mr. and Mrs. ALFRED STANLEY, ANTHONY VANDERPOOL, Mrs. JOHN PRICE, and Mrs. JOHN GIBSON. IN 1850 A Baptist church was organized in Eden township and called the New Goshen church. during the years just before the War services were held by Baptist four miles southeast of Leon with the Reverend JOHN WOODARD as minister. Mr. and Mrs. ROBERT DYE, a Mr. and Mrs. BURNS, and SAMUEL C. THOMPSON were among the early members.

Besides the southern Baptists who came into the county before Iowa was a state there were also southern Methodists and a class of six is said to have been organized that include two women of the STANLEY families, a Mrs. MOAD and Mrs. VICKEY. By 1851 the center of the Methodists was at Decatur City and the First Quarterly Conference which is mentioned in PAMELA PATTERSON’s letter was held there in 1853 in the building that was intended to be the court house. JOHN and PAMELA PATTERSON of then walked the almost five miles to Decatur City to attend services, and the lantern they carried is still preserved. It was the PATTERSONs who established the Methodist church in Leon for very soon after his arrival Mr. PATTERSON set forth on a journey “hunting for Methodists” as he often told in later years. this trip took him into southern Missouri and by his request the Reverend G. KLEPPER came as far as the home of JOHN JORDAN and on March 3, 1853, organized a class with JOHN PATTERSON as leader which include the PATTERSONs, JOHN and ARTEMESEA JORDAN, WILLIAM and CYNTHIA BIRT, ISHMAEL BARNS, LOUANNA MCELVAINE, and ABNER HARBOUR. A Reverend BRIGGS was in charge of a number of churches in this district. Mr. PATTERSON went to a quarterly meeting at Albia, taking a day and a half to reach there.

The Methodist at Florence (Prairie City – afterwards for Van Wert) held services. JAMES BLAIR, not ordained until 1856, settled there in 1856.

Just as the PATTERSONs led in the Methodists in Leon, the ARNOLDS, particularly Mrs. ARNOLD, were the leaders in the Garden Grove settlement. A class of six was organized in there home, SYLVANIS and LUCRETIA ARNOLD, a daughter NANCY, JACOB, and MARY HENNING and the class leader named JACKSON. Services were held each Sunday and there was often “a-preaching” weekdays. Five others, related to the ARNOLDS, joined soon after as did CHARLOTTE SHAW and her father NATHANIEL SHAW.

The first Methodist church was organized in Decatur ad the first Methodist church building in this county was built in 1853.

The Methodists in Leon had a church building partly constructed before the Civil War. before that they met in the PATTERSON home, in the court house and in a school house. For a time they shared a room in the court house. For a time they shared a room in the court house, alternating with the Presbyterians.

As the PATTERSONs and the ARNOLDs are remembered by the Methodists the Presbyterians recall CALVIN JOHNSON who purchased land on Jonathan Creek in 1853 and, as PATTERSON went “Methodist hunting,” he combined a trip to secure corn with a search for Presbyterians. He found corn in the southeast part of the county and also here that a Presbyterian minister named SHIELDS would preach at the EVANs home in that vicinity sometime soon. Mr. JOHNSON asked that he be told that “there were lost sheep on Jonathan Creek” and urged him to come there to hold services. Soon after this, Mr. SHIELDS went to the JOHNSON home and held a meeting in their fourteen foot log cabin with its sod roof.

Soon after this Mr. SHIELDS came to Leon and held services at Dr. THOMPSON’s with so many in attendance that he stood in the door of the cabin so that the meant who stood outside and the women and children who filled the cabin to capacity could hear the sermon. Under the leadership of Mr. SHIELDS, a Presbyterian church (New Church) of eleven members was organized, and according to Mrs. KELLOGG “a Presbyterian (Cumberland) minister also came and preaches with success in Leon.” Records show a Cumberland Presbyterian church was organized in 1857 with JOHN WARNERS, the ROBERT PATTERSON’s, the W. P. BLAIRS, and the GEROGE T. YOUNGs, as leading members.

The first regular organization of the Christian church was on the first Sunday in June, 1854, though services were held earlier. JOSEPHS PORTER who led I the organization was the minister for twenty years of the twenty-five listed as the early members of the church. eight were members of the GARDNER family, including Mr. and Mrs. JOHN GARDNER, Mr. and Mrs. JOHN W. GARDNER, CATHERINE GARDNER, WILSON GARDNER, CHRISTINA and FRANKLIN GARDNER. Others were Mr. and Mrs. JACOB WITTER, Dr. and Mrs. MCCLELLAND, Mrs. and Mrs. W. W. ELLIS, Mr. and Mrs. RUBEN SHACKLEFORD, ANDREW MCELVAIN and NANCY WELDON.

The United Brethren first arrived in Decatur County in the early fifties and a church was organized in 1856. Charter members were Mr. and Mrs. CHRIST HEATON, Mr. and Mrs. WILLIAM STOUT, Mr. and Mrs. SAMUEL GARBER, SAMUEL SEARS, Mr. and Mrs. JACOB SEARS, HARVEY SPURLOCK and wife, JAMES OWNBY and wife, Mr. and Mrs. JACOB HEATON. The church was organized at the home of JAMES OWNBY and services were held in the homes of the members.

The plain garb of its members and the wearing of prayer caps distinguished this church from others in the county. Their ritual of washing of the feet was much discussed. Early services were led by the elders, SAMEUEL GARBER, WILLIAM STOUGHT and HARVEY SPURLOCK. IN 1857 LEWIS KOB wrote of attending a meeting at C. HEATON’s “and there were as many people there as I’ve seen in a common meeting near you.”

The Catholics who settled in Woodland township had no church building before the Civil War though by 1860 there were sixty-two of that faith in the township and EDWARD and STEPHEN CONWELL were in Richland township. Not only did these Catholics have no church building but no priest came to them. We quote from The History of the Catholic Church in Decatur County by Father HARKEN, “Seven families packed put forth an effort, to practice their faith. They made a journey by ox team and wagons to Ottumwa where eleven infants were baptized on September 16, 1860 by Father ADAM KRECKEL. For them to make such a trip by ox drawn wagons required four days. Those baptized that day were JOHN and ELLEN BARRETT, the OWENS twins, JOHANNAH and MARY ANN, and their brother JOHN, ROBERT and JOHANNAH GROGAN, MICHAEL GRIFFIN, RICHARD and ANN BARRETT, and EDWARD MULLEN.” But though they had no church and no priest came often to their settlement, the Catholics in the county said their prayer daily and often on Sunday gathered together to be led in the Litany and the Rosary by JOHN BARRETT. When they drove their hogs and cattle to Ottumwa they made their confessions and attended mass.

While the Mormons were in Garden Grove services were regularly held in a building constructed as a place for meetings of all sorts, religious services, business meetings, and the dances held by the Mormons which were always opened with prayer. As the Mormons continued to move on, this building was not kept in good repair and some of the last of their meetings may have been held in the large room of KELLOGG’s California House. The Mormon church is descried by Mrs. KELLOGG is a “hug” log building with a puncheon floor, an enormous fire place and puncheon benches all around the side.

Though the Salt Lake bound Mormons moved out of the county by 1853, there were in the county, even before they left, families who were followers of JOSEPH SMITH who did no accept the leadership of BRIGHAM YOUNG. The A. W. MOFFET family arrived in 1852 coming with but $9 in cash and his team and wagon. Mr. MOFFET baptized the first two converts to his faith, Mr. and Mrs. CHARLES WALKER. In 1855 EBENEZER ROBINSON and his family came to Decatur County where Mr. ROBINSON became a farmer though he had been for almost twenty years connected with the publications of the Mormon church. He, too, had oppose BRIGHAM YOUNG. In 1856 WILLIAM ALDEN who had lived in Nauvoo in 1845, came in Decatur County form Pennsylvanian where he had gone after difficulties arose for the Saints at Nauvoo. Mrs. KELLOGG says of this little group who later became part of the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints. “They are an industrious, God fearing community, highly respected and well spoken of by their neighbors.” This groups include others beside the there I mentions.

Because of the establishment of churches between 1840 and 1860 it would seen that there was a deep interest in religion among the early settlers I the county. This interest did, among a few, lead to there being some who were avowed “free thinker.” Whether they would be considered today as atheists, agnostics, or nonconformists, it is difficult to say, but it is very clear that they were not indifferent to religion. They read the Bible, they red and studied writing about religions of all sorts, but they did not accept the teachings of any of the established churches. Among these “free thinker” was ANDREW WARNER whose brothers, JOSEPH and JOHN, were leaders in the Presbyterian church though it estranged him from his family and ruined his carrier as a lawyer, he would not pretend to beliefs that he could not accept. DOZIER GAMMON and his son, WILLIAM, were among those who did not accept the teachings of the churches, but as it is said of WILLIAM: “Believed in doing right at all times and under all circumstances.” This group continued to exist in the county until the end of the century. Perhaps no men can give more thought to religion than they did, but the found that they could no accept the teachings of any of the churches.

That not all of those who attended church or considered themselves believers, were experienced in religious devotions is indicated in the experience of a Mr. WILLIAMS, a Presbyterian missionary sent to “established Sunday Schools in destitute places.” When he arrived in Decatur County he found that a crowd had gathered at a singing school at Decatur City. on his arrival there he was given an opportunity to present his plans at a meeting presided over by Judge SAMUEL THOMPSON. All when well and it seems that a Sunday School would be organized them and there, but a difficulty arose. Whoever was elected Superintendent must be able to open the seasons with prayer. Judge THOMPSON then informed Mr. WILLIAMS that none present could qualify in that respect and suggested that a meeting be held at the home of JOHN PATTERSON who would be well fitted to act as Superintendent. This was done and a Sunday School organized. According to the History of Decatur County, edited in 1915, this was in 1853, Mrs. KELLOGG says. 1852.

No account of the pioneers in any section would be complete without considering the hardships and dangers they encountered.

What some of there were in Decatur County has already been at least suggested by the descriptions of the small houses, often crowded with occupants enough to tax a ten room house. Mention, too, has been made of the distances that had to be traveled to get to a mail to by supplies, or to receive or send mail, in the days when there were not roads and no bridges.

In any consideration of life on the frontier two perils have not been mentioned that should have fuller consideration.

The first of these is that the land was being settled in this country was already inhabited by Indians. However, in Decatur County the Indians were much more of a nuisance than a danger though this does not mean that they were not feared or that there was never alarm that there might be hostile Indians threatening the settlers.

It is said that ELI CASH, who came to Decatur County in 1845, died as a result of pneumonia contracted when calling out to join other settlers to repel an Indian attack. Though the Indians proved not to be a war party but families coming into the county to make maple syrup the fear was very real.

In 1849 there was difficulty with the Indians over trouble that arose at a trading post kept by two brothers named FAULKNER ear what is now Terre Haute. A drunken young Indian broke into the post and was fatally beaten by the FAULKNERS who fled to Missouri to escape vengeance from the Indians. Unfortunately, for them captive in the cabin where the horribly mangled your brace, the son of the chief, was dying, with the intent of killing them is death. from accounts left by early settlers it would seem that the FAULKNER brothers had been guilty of a brutal beating of a drunken man after he no longer was any threat to them or their property, and that they were indicated by a grand jury for murder. As to the two held captive by the Indians their release was secured through the intervention of ALLEN SCOTT who prevailed upon the Indians to release them in return for the good in the FAULKNER trading post and two horses.

The young brave, whose name was MASCO, was buried on what was known as MCDANIEL’s place about a mile from Terre Haute.

Most of the accounts of the Indians, however, tell of them as being an annoyance rather than a danger, though often women were frightened by them. Mrs. SCOTT told of an Indian visitor who drew a huge knife and drew it back and forth across his hand. In later years she decided he had only been asking for a whetstone but at the time she expected immediate death and could hardly credit her good fortune when he took half a loaf of bread and left her unharmed.

In 1849 the settlers of Garden Grove were alarmed to see several hundred Indians coming across the prairie, but, as they came nearer, it was evident that it was no war party, but friendly Indians whose ponies carried not only the braves but squaws, papooses, reed wigwams, pot, kettles, and all sorts of animal skins, all this in a single file line a mile and a half long.

These Indians camped that year and several other years near Garden Grove. The women came daily to the homes of the settlers to swap something most often furs, for bread, cornmeal or meat. The men, whom Mrs. KELLOGG says “disdained work and business,” also came uninvited into the houses of the settlers and helped themselves to eatables. Their favorite camping place was along Grand River and their chief industry, carried on of course by the squaws, was making of maple sugar and syrup. This the settlers would have been glad to accept as swap, but a few visits to the Indian camp discouraged that. The squaws were extremely dirty themselves and had no idea of cleanliness in making sugar. Dogs slept in the kettles which were then used unwashed. One visitor saw a prairie chicken scalded for picking in the boiling syrup. A close examination of the sugar spoiled the appetite of anyone but an Indian for it.

CARL HOFFMAN in a letter dated 1855 wrote, “Last Sunday I made a visit to the Indians on Grand River about seven miles from there. They buy the privilege to make sugar, pay about five cents a tree, in money, fur or blankets. There are about three hundred of them. They are principally of the Pottawatmie nation, some half Sacs. They are well built, well formed, and indolent set of creatures. They are greasy, dirty, about half clad and are very fond of gambling. They live in tents made of reeds, have a beech cloth on and a blanket wrapped so the crown of the head is uncovered. Their children are bold and lively.”

I have found the names of but two of the chiefs. One of those who came in 1849 was known as CHIEF JOHN. He dressed like a white man and spoke English well. The other chief had the more picturesque name of KISH KOSH. Some recall a CHIEF POTTOROFF or POTOFF.

The Indians continued to come to Decatur County for a number of years. Early settlers such as ALLEN SCOTT and later I. N. CLARK fund trading with them profitable, but they were unwelcome guests in most homes and few of the women ever lost some fear of them. Their drunken condition after visits to places where liquor could be obtained made even that most friendly ones a menace though from accounts it would seem that their tendency to drink themselves into a drunken stupor meant that the blame for this condition should be placed upon those who sold the liquor.

The Indians continued to come to the county even after the Civil War but not frequently, or in such numbers. Mrs. PATTERSON recalled seeing fifty around the mill build by the Mormons at Garden Grove waiting to be fed. There were about three hundred camped within a mile of their claim cabin during the winter of 1850-1851, and settlers along Grand River recalled their coming in 1858 and 1859.

Early settlers in the Davis City area left records of a huge oak tree that was considered a sacred tree by the Indians who placed the sick in its branches because they believed death could not reach them. Also, near Davis City was a spring to which the Indians came to drink what they considered healing waters.

Not only did the Indians not mean any danger to the early settlers in Decatur County, but wild animals also were no particular threat. There were wolves but much more was written of killing them than of being attacked by them. In fact, I found but two accounts that mention any danger from them. They did however kill pigs and young calves and like the weasels and foxes killed poultry.

There were many snakes, mostly harmless and even the one most feared, the rattlesnake, gave warning before it struck. Five-year-old CALVIN HOFFMAN was bitten by a rattle snake, but his life was saved because his mother sucked the poison from the wound before she and little ADA LUNBECK carried him a mile to the doctor. Too often rattlesnake bites caused death.

Cinch bugs invaded the corn and there were no chemicals to destroy them. CARL HOFFMAN wrote in 1855, “Cinch bugs are pretty numerous in my corn and will destroy a third of it, I presume.” Grasshoppers, too, were destructive and one woman wrote of seeing them “come like a cloud over the sun and leave my garden bare.”

No account of hardships would be complete without telling of the weather. In 1851 there was almost constant rain from April to July, yet a late winter meant corn was harvested from July planting.

In 1856 CARL HOFFMAN wrote that snow that fell December 10 had not melted in mid-January. In 1857 there was a severe drought and in early June of 1858 a three hour downpour of rain not only covered the bottom lands with water, but flooded even level prairie land, which caused CARL HOFFMAN to write, “There is poor prospect of any crops except winter wheat and rye.”

Then, as now, there was no monotony in Iowa weather!

As to blizzards many stories are told of suffering and even death caused by such storms. For over a hundred years there have been those who have heard, they have said, calls for help sounding over the hills near what is Nine Eagles Park, where a mother and daughter, lost in a blizzard, had died.

Then, too, there were tornados, often written of as cyclones.

Though the life of the settlers who came to Decatur County before the Civil War included long hours of work, hardships and the difficulties of the Iowa frontier there were other things to record in diaries and to write about I the letters that went to family and friends “back east” or “down south.”

Much of the social life consisted of family gatherings. So often as has already been mentioned, one member of the family came to the county, others of the family followed. A gathering of the SHAWs, the WARNERs, or the GARDNERs, as of the HATFIELDs, of the GAMMILLs, or of either the tow unrelated HAMILTON families were happy occasions as were those of the BAKERs, the PATTERSONs, and other pioneer families. The men talked crops, the boys wrestled and talked hunting and fishing. The women prepared the food, did the dishes, and visited.

There were weddings, funerals, house-raising, and such events as corn husking and quilt parties to bring friends together. Sometimes too there would be a singing school or a spelling bee, and for those who did not consider dancing forbidden pleasure, dances. The first dances of which we have records were those at the Mormon settlement in Garden Grove.

From the records it does not seem that either Christmas or Thanksgiving were much observed, though in some families it would seem that Christmas was celebrated at home or perhaps recognized by services in church.

The first record we have of a Fourth of July celebration was written by GUY ARNOLD and tells of a picnic and program held in 1854 in the peach orchard by the KELLOGG hotel attended not only by those living in or near Garden Grove, but also by some form the Hungarian settlement. HARRIET KELLOGG wrote of a similar event in 1856 ad tells of the picnic tables being under a large willow.

It seems, too, that here were gatherings to welcome newcomers, many of whom were also newlywed, whose weddings journeys had been by covered wagon. Among these were HARRIET and JOHN MCKIBBEN, who came in 1852, and MARY and CHARLES MOORE. Sometimes the groom was no a newcomer; S. F. BAKER when back to Ohio to marry his wife and bring her to Iowa, as did DAN STEARNS.

Of course, too, there were many weddings that linked together families living in the county as did the first wedding in the county, that of ROBERT MCBROOM and SUSAN WINTERS in 1852. MARY PATTERSON married JOSPEH WARNER. Hungarian FRANCIS VARGA remarried in 1858 when MARY ZANDERS [Sanders] became his wife. MILES WASSON married RACHEL STOKES whose parents came to Morgan township in 1849. DANIEL GITTINGER married SARAH HAMPTON in 1854.

These marriages and many others increased the bonds of relationship among the pioneers and were often written about in the letters carried by stage to distant places, as were the births and deaths.

Much of social life centered in the church. going to church services and company for dinner were a part of Sunday for some families. When the Methodists met at the JOHN PATTERSON home, often thirty to forty, would stay for dinner. When weather permitted, the door was taken from its hinges to serve as a table. At meetings of the United Brethren (called Dunkarks or Tunkards in records of that time), beef soup and bread was served to all who came, and invitations to homes also given. Mrs. GARBER, for instance, always was prepared to serve a dozen or more guests. Elder CALVIN JOHNSON “and his pious wife” welcomed to Sunday dinner, not only Presbyterians, but also anyone else wishing a meal.

While the women had no organizations but the church, two fraternal organizations for men were established before the War. Grand River Lodge Number 78, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons, was organized on November 30, 1855, with SAMUEL THOMPSON, GEROGE T. YOUNG, and J. R. MCCLELLAND as officers and initiated JOHN FINLEY, PETER STEWART, and SAMUEL FORREY on January 16, 1856. Leon Lodge, 84, Independent Order of Odd Fellows was chartered October 8, 1856, with JOHN FINLEY, W. H. CHEEVERS, ARNOLD CHILDERS, and C. P. LATHAM as charter members.

In both these lodges the obligations were considered scared. No Mason appealed to a fellow Mason in vain and Odd Fellows cared for each other faithfully.

While Garden Grove was the center of culture in this period and the Hungarians came with the greatest educational background, there were others I the county who treasured books and loved music.

Many among the Irish families had fine voices and when there was singing in the Irish settlement others came to listen.

NANCY ARNOLD had the first piano in the county, instruments but there were gifted “fiddlers” in the southern part of the county; organs could be found in some homes and other instruments as well.

Not only WYLLIS DICKINSON but others, not Hungarians or “Tiffinites” read books. At least one copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was handed from family to family and there were fine copies of Byron, Keats, and Shelley as well as the best American writings in some homes.

Rich or poor every respectable home had a family bible, sometimes as only book.

As to newspapers and magazines every stagecoach brought a few. CARL HOFFMAN wrote in 1856 that he took the Weekly Union, published in Washington, D. C. Some subscribed to church papers. It can be assumed that copies of Godey’s Ladies Book were read and that copies of other magazines such as Harper’s New Monthly Magazine could be found in a few homes.

After 1855 a county paper, The Pioneer, was published in Leon, and in 1859, The Commoner, was printed in Decatur City.

There were also homes where, if there was a family Bible, no one could read it, and if a family record was kept the entries must be made by the minister, the teacher, or some other literate friend.

Long after the Civil War there were homes where the head of the family could boast that no one in his house wasted time reading and few in which no one had taken time to learn to either read or write.

Mention has already been made of the spelling matches. When this was between schools ore a contest open to all comers, it attached an audiences that packed the school house.

While there were no christening parties, going to see the new baby was a neighborly custom just as well observed as the welcome of new comers. Sometimes the two could be combined if the first visit was long delayed. For instance, baby ANNA GARDNER was born soon after the JOHN W. GARDNERS were settled in their newly built log cabin and little WILLIE YOUNG (BILL YOUNG) was born in the newly established home of the V. D. YOUNGs who came to Iowa in the spring of 1852.

There were no organizations of veterans, but it can be assumed that some ties exist between veterans of the Mexican War. these included ELI ALEXANDER who fought at Buena Vista, MILES WASSON, GARRET GIBSON, who when but sixteen had been employed by JAMES WELDON, first settler on the fork of the Grand River and who served in the Mexican War with the Indian Battalion, JAMES ROGERS who captured for pieces of artillery at the battle of Reseca, JOHN FISHER one of the first to settle in Morgan township. Doubtless, there were others with similar records.

Neither were there any organizations that represented distinguished ancestry, but even on the democratic frontier, there were those with family pride. FRANCIS ROSS did not forget that his great-grandfather, JACOB ROSS signed the Declaration of Independence. ELIZABETH LEE LOVING remembered her father was a LEE of Virginia related to RICHARD HENRY LEE. Her cousin, perhaps twice removed, ROBET E. LEE, stopped at the ROWELL home in Decatur City while hunting in Iowa territory before it became a state. MARY DAVIS’ father was a descendent of JOHN ANTHONY, a New England colonists. WYLLIS DICKINSON was a nephew of EMMA WILLARD, the writer and founder of a college for women. BARON VAN LEAR, a young German of distinguished family fleeing to this country because of too liberal political views, spent times in Garden Grove. Nor in such a list can we omit the Hungarians, LADISLAS MADARAZ, whose first wife was said to have been a baroness; FRANCIS VARGA whose first wife was said to have been a countess, and who had held the title of vice Lord Lieutenant of Torontal; IGNACE HAINER, Hungarian attorney and journalist who had been Secretary to Minister of Foreign Affairs on KOSSUTH’s cabinet; BARON MAJTHENJI, close associate of Governor UJHAZI who bought ASA BURRELL’S claim to add to the Hungarian land claims.

The Hungarians were proud of their past and of their learning. IGNACE HAINER in later years, too, listed himself as the county’s most extensive traveler. FRANCIS VARGA was called the finest Latinist in this section and shared distinction as a linguist with IGNACE HAINER, who had not only studied Latin but spoke four modern languages.

As I have said there were no exclusive clubs or social cliques, but if there was an aristocracy in Decatur County before the War, it was in Garden Grove where the KELLOGGs, the ARNOLDS, the MCLEANS, the two DAVIS families with their closest friends were highly respected and much depended upon in leadership. That the Hungarians agreed as to their status can be seen by the fact that quite close friendship developed between this group of what Mrs. KELLOGG calls “Tiffinites” and the leaders in the Hungarian settlements.

This section telling of the settlement of Decatur County and happenings in the county should not be closed without a mention of a few others of the early settlers about whom nothing has been said so far. JOHN BECK, born in Germany who settled in Decatur Count I 1855; JOHN BURNS of Garden Grove who came in 1855; JACOB and MARIA BRIGHT whose son, HENRY, married LORENA HARMON, daughter of DAVID HARMON, early settler of Morgan township; AUSTIN COWLES, who arrived in 1854; SAMUEL GATES, a Whig on arrival in 1855 but who became a Republican in 1856, should be noted. The SAMUEL HAMILTONs who came in 1857 and added to those of that name in the county though not related it would seem, to the JOSEPH HAMILTONS who had came in 1853 no to the WILLIAM HAMILTONS who came much earlier; GEORGE and ELIZABETH MACHLAN, who purchased land here in 1854 but did not settle until 1858, were others. The widow MCLAUGHLIN settled in Bloomington township in 1856; ALLEN and AMELIA PRYOR came from Ohio with a two-horse team and wagon in 1853. V. W. PIERCY, whose wife’s father had been killed in the Mexican War, and ROYAL RICHARDSON came in 1856; GEORGE RUDEBAUGH arrived in 1858 with a wife, two children and $2 in cash. DAVID and ASENATH SHINN, both teachers, married in 1852 and arrived in Decatur County in 1853; English-born JAMES STONE, SYLVANIA CULVER, whose grandfather had been a follower of WILLIAM PEN, and WILLIAM WEST came in 1854. Other pioneers were: DANIEL and MARY HINES, F. M. BRAMMER, MARCUS HUBBARD who arrived in 1855 and settled in a little cabin built by HENRY BLAKESLEY, JARED and MARIA WORDEN, D. F. EURITT who came in 1857 and was a United Brethren. These and many others were settlers in Decatur County before the War.

Some of the families had characteristics that had become descriptive terms before the War. “As pretty as a PATERSON” referred to the attractive daughters of ROBERT PATTERSON. “As smart as a LUNBECK,” recalled four brilliant sisters. “Talk as much as a WARNER,” referred to the four WARNER brothers’ flow of both conversation and oratory. “As numerous as the GARDNERS” in referring to large families was also used in relation to the GAMMILLS, the HATFIELDS, and perhaps to others. To be “KELLOGG” was to have an air of superiority while hospitality might be express, “You’ll be as welcome as at SCOTT’s place,” or among the Irish; thrift would be described as “as saving as Mrs. GRIFFIN.”

This then has briefly told the story of the settlement of Decatur County, Iowa, between 1840 and 1860, a suggestion at least of the life that he settlers lived, both its hardships and its pleasures.

A hundred years have passed since then, but the land that they cleared and were the first to plow is still producing crops, and hogs and cattle are still grown and sold. Only a few of the farms are still in the families, but he great-grandson of ELIJAH MENDENHALL, first to break ground in High Point, still farms the same land.

Only a few old houses have survived the hundred years. The frame house built by KIM HICKMAN still stands in 1970 as do several others.

Doubtless, there could be discovered in the county other pre-Civil War buildings including some that are new parts of more recently built structures.

None of the first places of worship are left, but the churches founded a hundred years ago still exist and present day church buildings congregations meet that include among their members, descendants of those who helped to establish the pioneer churches.

The little rural schools are gone, but one community school called the Mormon trail with its high school at Garden Grove recalls one phase of county history.

As for the little settlements of this period, none have grown large and some that once had a period of growth, have left little in the way of business places.

Many of the families once so numerous in the county are no longer represented by anyone of that name. This includes the GARDNERs, the WARNERs, and the GROGANs. The HAINERs and the VARGAs are others. Many of the descendants of the pioneers like the men PAMELA PATTERSON wrote about in 1853 have gone to California. Others are in Florida, some in the big cities of the East, some in distant lands. But wherever they have gone, they have taken something of the spirit of the pioneers with them, while those who are still in the county, who are descendants of the early settlers, recall them with pride.

Those who came first to the county are not forgotten. Each church has its records of its faith members in the early days. The Masons and the Odd Fellows recall their charter members and many families an heirloom perhaps and antique chair, an old book, a faded picture, or best of all a letter or diary written before the Civil War brings memories of them and of the early history of the county.

As PAMELA PATTERSON wrote in 1853, Decatur County is “no earthly paradise” but still there are those who want no fairer land. It is to them that this section of this history is dedicated.
  
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