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1915 History

CHAPTER II.

ORGANIZATION OF AUDUBON COUNTY. (CONT'D)

From History of Audubon Co., Iowa (1915)
by H. F. Andrews

PIONEER CONDITIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS.

It is impossible, at this time, for people who have not experienced similar life and scenes, to realize correctly the privations and hardships which confronted the pioneer settlers; and it is difficult to delineate by pen or picture an accurate description of what they endured. It cannot be fully accomplished. When they came here an unbroken wilderness extended north to the confines of the Arctic ocean; they were twenty miles from the borders of the most primitive civilization, without a human habitation to shelter them, not a highway or bridge on which to cross the streams within the limits of the county; only a few trails made by the Mormons. It was a wilderness, but it was a beautiful one, not a desert. The nearest grist-mills were Tam's mill, to the east, on the Coon river, or to the south, on the Nodaway river in northern Missouri, many miles distant. The nearest stores where goods, groceries and family supplies could be obtained were at Des Moines and Kanesville (Council Bluffs), and the nearest postoffice was Des Moines.

The first demand on the settlers was to provide places of abode. They brought only a limited supply of food and provisions, also seed for starting their first crops, and the commonest articles for household use, plows and implements for farming, and a few common mechanical tools. They brought their trusty rifles, upon which to depend for defense, if necessary, and upon which to depend for venison and game to supply them with meat.

After providing their shelter, the next serious claim was a supply of food. Elk and deer were abundant, as well as many kinds of small game. To the uninitiated this may, at first thought, suggest luxurious living and a land of milk and honey, so to speak. It is far from the real fact. A taste of venison or game now and then is a dainty; but for steady diet, it soon becomes unpalatable and tiresome. Then, a feed of bacon, salt pork or most anything for a change is delicious. Still, people can exist almost wholly on game, if it becomes a necessity.

PIONEER IMPROVEMENTS.

The first cabins were built of logs (timber was abundant) and without floors. Afterwards, floors were made of "puncheons," split from logs and hewed to place. Rock or mud and sticks were used in the construction of fireplaces and chimneys. The cooking was all done at the open fireplace, even the bread being baked before the fire in tin "reflectors," articles unseen or unheard-of by the present generation, or in Dutch ovens.

Stables then, and many years later, were built by setting forked posts in the ground, with a frame of poles for the roof, covered with wild hay, banked up with manure, as it was used, which made comfortable shelters for stock. When they became difficult of ingress and egress, from accumulation of manure, the stable was moved, as it was cheaper and easier than to move the manure. Verily, methods of agriculture have evolutionized.

The expense of erecting buildings, breaking out and fencing farms greatly exceeded the first cost of the land; but it was done by the bone and muscle of the pioneer, which did not call for cash, a scarce item in those days. Farms, at first, were usually fenced with high, zigzag rail fences, split out from the finest oak and walnut timber. Such improvements would be an expensive luxury now; it was cheap then.

LIVE STOCK.

Hamlin and Jenkins both brought horses and cattle in 1851. As the settlers multiplied, stock increased and soon hogs and poultry became common. The Herricks, who came from near Beloit, Wisconsin, by way of Dubuque and Des Moines, brought several hundred sheep, in 1854. They were the first sheep brought to the county. "Folly" Herrick says it was his job to herd them along the ridge where John now lives. Uncle "Natty Hamlin" brought a large hand-mill, which was used alternately by the neighbors for grinding corn and buckwheat. Many people grated new corn as a substitute for meal and flour.

FIRST DEATH IN THE SETTLEMENT.

The year of the first settlement had not ended when the little colony was visited by the sad affliction of death in childbirth of the wife of Philip Arthur Decker, in December, 1851, which found them wholly unprepared for the calamity. She was a daughter of the widow Hoggard and sister of John and Betsy Ann Hoggard. There was not even lumber at hand from which to make a coffin for burial of the poor lady. Then Nathaniel Hamlin, John S. Jenkins and James Kincaid (perhaps others) split out slabs from basswood timber and fashioned from it a rude box as best they could, in which they placed the body, acted as pallbearers and buried it in the field on top of the hill in the northeast quarter of section 17, now in Exira township, now owned by Julius E. Herrick. The grave has been unmarked for fifty years.

MILLS.

About 1852-3 John Countryman built a water-power saw-mill on the east bank of Troublesome creek in section 13, in what is now Exira township, near the Strahl place. It was the first power-mill of any kind in the county, and was doubtless of valuable assistance to the early settlers, in furnishing the first supply of sawed lumber produced within the county. It was of short duration, and probably went out of use when the steam saw-mills were erected in 1856 by Green and others, and by Ballard. We have failed to discover when Countryman left the county. He built the first frame house here, which he afterwards sold to Dawson Glasgow. The building of the steam-mills in 1856 were most important events, and probably did more to develop the county than any previous enterprise.

Howard Jay Green and Franklin Burnham, who came here from Maquoketa, Iowa, in 1856, were prominent in developing the business of Audubon county. They came expressly to erect and operate a steam saw-mill, and made a contract for the necessary materials and machinery therefor before coming here, as follows:

"Contract
"S. S. Vail & Company agree to furnish Green & Burnham, of Maquoketa, Jackson county, Iowa, a steam engine of ten-inch bore and twenty-inch stroke and a circular saw-mill complete, with the exception of boiler, boiler irons, sheet-iron chimney and breeching, for the sum of ten hundred and thirty-three dollars, or, provided Green & Burnham order the boiler, boiler irons, sheet-iron chimney and breeching after this date, we agree to furnish the same with the said engine and saw-mill fixtures complete for the sum of seventeen hundred dollars. Said boiler to be forty-inch diameter, fourteen-inch flues and twenty feet long. Said chimney to be twenty-six-inch diameter, fifty feet long, with breeching to match same. The above machinery to be completed on the first day of April next. Said machinery to be made in a good, substantial, workmanlike manner.

"We, the said Green & Burnham, agree to pay to S. S. Vail & Company the sum of one hundred dollars on contract and two-thirds at the time of delivery of the machinery and the remaining one-third in four months from the time of delivery.

"To this writing the different parties subscribe and agree.

"Keokuk, January 15, 1856.

"S. S. VAIL & COMPANY,

"By S. Armitage."

The huge boiler was brought up the Des Moines river from Keokuk on a small steamer to near Fort Des Moines; thence by ox teams over the old stage road, via Hamlin's Grove, to the mill site in section 17, now in Exira township. The other machinery was shipped from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, down the Ohio river; thence up the Mississippi river to Keokuk, and then brought here by teams. It is claimed that the road through the Big Grove was specially prepared for hauling these heavy loads. Green and Burnham erected the mill themselves, assisted by Charles L. Chapin, in 1856. The three families at first lived near the mill in separate dwellings. The mill was a success from the start, and turn out something like ten thousand feet of sawed lumber a day, with its big circular saw. Green was the sawyer for many years.

About the same time, Dr. Samuel U. Ballard erected a steam saw-mill on the east side of the Botna river in the timber near his residence in section 25, in what is now Oakfield township.

About 1858 Joshua A. and Elam W. Pearl, brothers, erected a waterpower saw-mill on the Botna at Oakfield. Alva B. Brown and Julius M. Hubbard were also interested in this mill. The saw-mills supplied abundance of lumber for building purposes, and the few people here then improved the opportunity by erecting frame dwellings; a few of the more enterprising ones built frame barns, and several frame school houses were built at that period. Still the people had to go a long distance to get their grain made into flour and meal. About 1859 Mr. Green, with John McConnell and Henry S. Myers, who had secured an interest in the Green & Burnham saw-mill, met the desired want by attaching a flouring-mill to their business. From that time onward the steam flour and saw-mill was one of the busy places in the county. In 1866 the town of Louisville was laid out and platted there by Nathaniel Hamlin. The mill was then owned by Nathaniel Hamlin, George T. Poage and Levi Zaner. An attempt was made that year to change the county seat to Louisville, which failed of success. It continued to remain one of the best business points in the county until the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad was put through from Des Moines to Council Bluffs in 1868. That event supplied the county with pine lumber, which was preferred rather than the native lumber for building purposes. Tlie old mill had its day in the economy of developing this part of the country, and passed away. Its old steam boiler broke through the bridge at Panora, while being hauled away for old iron, and was dumped into the Coon river, where it found a last resting place.

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Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, July 2022, from History of Audubon Co., Iowa (1915), by H. F. Andrews, page 58-62.