HISTORY OF O'BRIEN COUNTY

CHAPTER II.

FIRST BEGINNINGS.

ONE SESSION OF THE FIRST 1860 BOODLE BOARD.

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Several curious facts may be observed in connection with the above bills. The county was then nineteen months old only, and with practically no revenue in actual cash. Even in this year 1914, after fifty-one years and final prosperity, and with seventeen thousand people, at no session of outboard will there be allowed bills in such aggregate. Another curious thing is the fact that these bills are practically for even hundreds of dollars. Here are twenty-one large bills, which, in the ordinary course of business, for items such as digging a well, transcribing records, surveying roads, stationery, etc., there would ordinarily be odd cents. Every one of them rounds up with even dollars and most of them with even hundreds. Another interesting item is the bill of Archibald Murray for two thousand dollars for a county building, which is none other than the colossal old log court house, and still, with a two thousand dollar allowance for a building spot, many charges of hundreds of dollars are allowed for office rent. When we add to this also the fact that the whole written record of all that the board did in creating the whole debt, together with all other business, was written on twenty-four sheets of foolscap paper, not even bound, this office rent falls a joke with the rest. Then observe that J. A. Gilbert is allowed seven hundred dollars for superintending swamp lands, and then the fact that in still another meeting of the board they allowed the blessed James W. Bosler a special fee of one thousand dollars for securing to the county these same swamp lands, and then the fact there never were but two hundred and forty acres of swamp land in fact in the county, and then the final act of this board to make a contract with this same Bosler to build a bridge which, of record, they valued at five hundred dollars, and for the same deeded to him fifty thousand acres of what the bunch concluded were or might be swamp lands, and which he sold all over the East for good title lands, it is plain they were cutting and slicing things up with both edges of the knife. We may perhaps also add a smile at the fell swoop in a one-line bill, with no intemization, of eight thousand dollars for bridges, to John S. Jenkins. The name of this same John S. Jenkins appears in hundreds of places in the deeding of these fifty thousand acres of so-called swamp lands, as they were handed down and divided up into parcels among the bunch, as the deed records show. Then also add the little item of even two hundred dollars to this same John S. Jenkins for making a map of the county, which was none other than the map made by these gentry to show purchasers the people they were deluding at the other end of the line also. However, itemization would have been of no avail, as the list on its face shows it to be a straight-out steal anyway. (4)

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As none of the bridges were ever heard of afterward, it all seems humorous, when not serious. But all this is but a specimen of what scores of counties in those early times had to endure, only O'Brien county caught more than its share. They labored at more than one session with this precious swamp land. Even back of this board meeting on October 30, 1860, is this dainty and humorous solemn entry by the court relating to these same swamp lands:
"Office of County Judge,
"October 30, 1860.
"The court has this day awarded a contract to Lewis McCoy for selecting the swamp lands of O'Brien county and properly returning same, which work is to be performed during the year 1861, for which he shall receive the sum of two thousand dollars, and, being satisfied that the said McCoy will perform said work, said amount is hereby ordered issued.
"I.C. FURBER,
"County Judge."
Many other sums were allowed at different times, with this same clause in it, namely. "Being satisfied that said work will be done, the warrant is ordered issued." It seems almost a wonder that they should have even gone to the trouble of such formalities.

EQUAL DIVISION OF THE SPOILS.

J. L. McFarland, salary county judge	$500.00
David Carroll, recorder	500.00
Henry C. Tiffey. treasurer	500.00
James W. Bosler. attorney fees	500.00
Archibald Murray, old account against the county	500.00
William Payne, old account against the county	500.00
Total	$3,000.00

We call attention to the fact of the division on various items being not only even hundreds of dollars, but each bill exactly the same. They were

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each carrying out the Golden Rule, "to do unto others as they do to you," at least squaring up with each other.

THEY EVEN SCALPED THE SOLDIER'S BOUNTY MONEY.

Archibald Murray	$1,166.66
William Payne	$1,166.67
I. C. Furber	$1,166.67
Total:	$3,500.00

The record recites that this bounty was paid them, they being credited to O'Brien county as soldiers. Mr. Schee's Army Record fails to enumerate them. But the more humorous thing was that these same worthies were all drawing all sorts of big salaries as county officials at the same time. It will be observed in this instance, however, they did not divide on even hundreds but exact cents, but they they were dealing with each other now. The "divvy" must be fair. It was all simply a series of schemes of diverting the several issues of warrants into the pockets of this bunch of looters. However, they were evidently looking out for one possibility, that in event

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they were sued they might have some semblance of an excuse of a consideration, and a soldier's bounty had an appealing sentiment.
Still a further humor had to be added, in that the O'Brien county board, at a later session, awarded the neat sum of one thousand dollars for very valuable services as financial agent in selling these soldier bounty bonds of seventeen thousand five hundred dollars at twenty cents on the dollar, that they, the patriots of O'Brien county, might divide it up among themselves.
As a sort of finis addendum, the board allowed C. C. Smeltzer, an attorney from Fort Dodge, the sum of three thousand dollars for services to the county as legal advisor during the year 1860, which, be it observed, was the first year of the county. We may well stretch our imaginations to conceive what on earth they needed with three thousand dollars in legal advice, when all they needed was a warrant book and a bottle of ink, except that they were dividing things up among them about even. These items will perhaps be sufficient to explain the general plans of these schemers. These schemes took on varying phases of both the serious and humorous.

FIRST THINGS DONE.

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Mrs. Roma W. Woods established the first circulating library.
Judge A. H. Hubbard held the first term of court.
Adam Towberman was foreman of the first grand jury.
The Sioux City & St. Paul was the first railroad.
Sheldon was the first railroad town.
Sheldon was the first incorporated town.
A. J. Brock was the first mayor in the county.
The O'Brien Pioneer was the first newspaper published in the county.
R. F. McCormack was the first editor.
Luther E. Head was the first physician.
The brothers, Benjamin and Charles Epperson, the first African homesteaders.

THE FIRST RECORD ENTRIES.

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On June 3, 1861. the first levy was made to build the first school house in the county.
In September, i860, John S. Jenkins made a map of the county, he being the first surveyor.
The records show that James W. Bosler was the first attorney in the county. The county was detached from Woodbury, and C. E. Hedges made copies of the Woodbury records, or so much thereof as pertained to O'Brien county.
Archibald Murray built both the old log court house and the "not over eighteen foot square" court house.
The first tax list was published by Zebeck & Frieney.
John H. Gofer was made chairman of the board of supervisors for 1862. and also was county judge for the term commencing January 1, 1862.
On June 1, 1862, John S. Jenkins resigned as county superintendent and George Hoffman was appointed.
On June 1, 1862, James R. M. Gofer was appointed treasurer and recorder.
On June 1. 1862, George Hoffman was appointed sheriff in place of A. Murray. There is no record of how or when Murray got into the office.
On January 1, 1863, Moses Lewis and Daniel Clark were sworn in as supervisors and H. G. Tiffey as district clerk.
On March 2, 1863, James R. M. Gofer resigned as treasurer and recorder and David Carroll was appointed.
On March 2, 1863, John H. Gofer resigned as judge and John L. McFarland was appointed.
In March, 1864, H. C. Tiffey was clerk of the board of supervisors.
On June 2, 1864, David Garroll resigned as treasurer and recorder and John L. McFarland was appointed.
On September 5. 1864, Moses Lewis dug a well for the court house.
On September 2, 1861, the county bought the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 36, in township 94. range 39 (Old O'Brien), for county purposes.
On March 29, 1861, Judge A. W. Hubbard appointed Samuel Parkhurst, of Cherokee county, Edward Smeltzer, of Clay county, and James Gleason, of Buena Vista county, commissioners to locate the county seat of O'Brien county, and on August 28, 1861, the first two commissioners did so locate same on the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 36, township 94 north, of range 39, being Old O'Brien town, bought of H. C. Tiffey.

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HISTORY OF ABOVE OLD RECORDS.

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On January 1, 1870, the new officers qualified: John W. Kelly, chairman, and H. H. Waterman and Obediah Higbee, members; Samuel Hubbard, sheriff; R. B. Crego, treasurer, and John R. Pumphrey, deputy treasurer; Archibald Murray, as county auditor, and J. F. Schofield, as surveyor. It will be observed that at this date, under the then new law, the office of county auditor was created and some of the duties exercised bv the county judge passed to the district court and the office of county judge abolished.
On January 25, 1870, John H. Schofield resigned as county superintendent and Stephen Harris was appointed.
In 1870 a new court house was built by J. G. Parker and on July 20, 1870, it was accepted.
A ferry boat was ordered built March 22, 1870, to cross the Little Sioux, under county supervision, near H. H. Waterman's residence.
On October 24, 1870. Samuel B. Hurlburt resigned as sheriff, and George McOmber was appointed. On January 1, 1871, B. F. McCormack was chairman and C. W. Inman and T. J. Fields, members; McAllen Green, recorder; Stephen Harris, clerk of courts, and John R. Pumphrey, deputy.
On February 25, 1871, the treasurer's office was declared vacant, and the sheriff ordered to take possession of the office. John R. Pumphrey was appointed to fill the vacancy. A suit was ordered against Rouse B. Crego, treasurer, in May term, 1871, and bond of Pumphrey accepted February 27th, and the office delivered over to him on that day. On March 14, 1871, R. B. Crego was ordered to appear before the board to make settlement.

THE OLD COUNTY DEBT.

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county is building a home for the poor and unfortunate, costing twenty-five thousand dollars, with the full amount on hand in the treasury, without even a levy necessary. When we see this done so easily, we, in looking backward, may wonder how such a debt was created. But as portions of that debt of two hundred and thirty thousand dollars were even handed down to as late as the year 1908, when the last bond was paid, and as the people passed through many phases of argument during all these years, we will give the matter notice. Our debt was often exaggerated to several times the above amount. But when we realize that this large debt from 1860 to 1881 bore ten per cent., and that from 1881 to 1886 it bore seven per cent, and that from 1886 at five per cent, interest, and still later only four and one-half per cent, the county deserves no extended slams and need ask for no pity, for such was its vitality, even in those years, to so soon rally as to recommend itself to eastern financiers at four and one-half per cent, which proves the rockbottom value of the county. It was almost as good as a national bond. The county paid thirty thousand dollars on it in 1880 and about ten thousand dollars and more at times each year thereafter.
Macaulay, the historian, claimed and proved that the public debt of England was a public blessing. In one sense this has been probably true in O'Brien county. It has caused a vigilance and watchfulness on the part of public officials as to expenses and kept the need of economy prominently before the people. We have already made note of several causes. The county was organized before it had self government. It was born too soon. Its general elections in 1861 and 1862 only had seventeen and nineteen votes. A set of men from abroad, who did not in fact become its permanent citizens and had no such intentions, did the organizing. The real citizens, so few in number, were busy opening up their farms and were outvoted.

THE AFTERMATH AND THE COUNTY TREASURY.

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matters, but to its townships and school districts, and entered into individual business disasters. They all got likewise in debt and tangled and intertwined in many ways. Defalcations were numerous both in county and townships, as well as school treasurers.
One actual occurrence will be cited as a sample. One school treasurer became short one thousand one hundred and two dollars. It is one of the duties of that office to make an annual report to the county superintendent, and that official a like report of the whole county school finances to the state authorities. The school treasurer's report plainly showed a shortage. The report was referred back. The school treasurer could not make it good. The bondsmen did not want to make it up. They were called in. A committee was appointed to examine same. This committee was friendly to the bondsmen. This committee finally hit on the scheme of making a report, and giving the school 'treasurer credit for the sum short by this simple entry, "By error, $1,102." As any one can see, that did not put up the money. It went through, however, but that school treasurer is still short that amount of money. "By error" would not make good, when there was no error. He had simply spent the money. A member of that committee in later years was asked in presence of the writer how under the sun he could ever make that report. He replied that they had to make it "add up," and the bondsmen couldn't afford to pay it. This is cited to show the then environments. Both county, township and school affairs were chaotic, no real settlements, and the records indefinite and all too brief. We have shown that the whole record before the board of supervisors from 1860 to 1865 was, in fact, kept on twenty-four pages of foolscap paper, and yet so much bad work was done.
For many of those years Clark Green's store was the only store in the county, and Pumphrey's the only bank. The pitiful appeals of the "grasshoppered" homesteaders for credit and groceries and clothing became too strong. It took thousands of dollars to carry such a situation. Clark Green was too honest and too generous and had too much heart to withstand such appeals. He, in fact, dished out his groceries and merchandise right and left. These matters all connected themselves too closely with the public funds, the store, Pumphrey's bank and the county funds. Both Pumphrey's bank, the store and the county officials were all pressed to the limit for loans and favors. Clark Green and his store broke up in 1879 and he made an assignment for the benefit of his creditors. He and John R. Pumphrey had for years been in partnership. Four years later John R. Pumphrey himself, with his store there, went to the wall at Sanborn. The writer once heard a

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substantial farmer from Grant township get it off in the court house thus:
"These public funds are curious things. Part of the time John Pumphrey has them, part of the time B. F. McCormack has them, part of the time the store has them, and part of the time they are in the county treasury."
In fact, John Pumphrey's bank, the only one in the county up to 1874, was nothing more than a clearing house for the speculations on county warrants and bonds and school warrants. There was no well defined code of honor between public funds and private ownership. Its citizenship became too much imbued with the idea that they were all entitled to a share. There was no bank capital. The public funds simply were moved through the bank. The funds were loaned to individuals and a profit made. The common pasturage idea engrafted onto things by the Bosler-Cofer outfit did not scon lose its force. Indeed, the further fact existed that at no time in the whole of Mr. Pumphrey's banking career, from 1869 to 1881, could he ever have made fully good the public funds. It probably was not wholly his fault. The Boslers and Gofers were doing the dictation work. He followed suit. In fact, there was never a time when he was worth a single net dollar and in later years could not have paid to exceed fifty cents on the dollar had it all been called at any one time. Each new lot of money coming into the treasury simply filled the place of that which had just been paid out. No wonder public officials had their troubles. The very bank itself through which the public funds were moving was in an utterly chaotic condition. When once thus reduced in credit, the county warrants to twenty-five cents on the dollar, even good first-class financial management would have had a hard struggle, as it in fact did even as late as 1879, when the county and its board of supervisors succeeded in placing the county on a cash basis, as will be shown elsewhere. Thus, for example, to buy legitimately a record book, needed as a necessity for the county and worth but ten dollars, required a county warrant to be issued for forty dollars. Speculation in warrants became much of a business, very much so by capitalists from Des Moines and Sioux City and other places in the East, who saw the final good qualities of the county and that it ultimately would cash out, just as the county has in fact been doing and have now finished up since 1879. Even the later legitimate citizens were almost compelled to participate in the handling and speculation on these warrants and indebtedness. While at the present stage of the county's prosperity this would not be justifiable, yet in these years it could not be escaped from. These speculators of necessity had to allow real citizens to hold the offices, but it took a long time to get the con-

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trol or majority. These honest citizens could not in the first years have retrieved the situation and those sharpers held on as long as they could.
During the excited discussions of the years from 1875 to 1881 over these debt questions, much censure has been heaped upon the heads of many real citizens and sundry of the officers who assumed the duties of officials. More or less was deserved, yet the impartial critic must mitigate to quite an extent these censures on many of those officials. The real citizens and officials made but a small part of the money. The big money was fleeced out in the first five years, during the Bosler-Cofer ascendency. Much of the big speculation was made by such people as Weare & Allison, of Sioux City; Polk & Hubbell, of Des Moines, and a Mr. Miller, of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The writer saw this man Miller several times when he was here in his efforts to clinch the bonds and judgments he held. He was a small-sized man, a determined fighter and business all over. He had laid out forty acres right in the heart of Ann Arbor and would never let it be lotted up, but held it as a fine residence property. He made much of this money out of the sundry new counties in this section of country.

PESTIFEROUS JOHN S. JENKINS.

Road from county seat. "O'Brien to Plymouth county line" $200.00
Road from "county seat in direction of Spirit Lake" 200.00
Road from "county seat in direction of Spirit Lake (second division)" 200.00
Road from "county seat in direction of Cherokee" 200.00
Road from "county seat to Clay county" 200.00

Then he followed this all up very industriously with five charges of $2,000 each for bridges on each of these roads. D. A. W. Perkins, in his history, gives it as four items of $2,000 each, but, on reading it closely, it is in fact five, because he divided the roads in the direction of Spirit Lake first in bridges Numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5, at $2,000,
and then a second whack of bridges Numbers 6, 7, 8 and 9 on road to Spirit Lake, at $2,000;
then followed with bridges Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 to Cherokee, with another $2,000,
and likewise to Plymouth, Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4, with $2,000;
then Numbers 6, 7, 8 and 9, $2,000, making in all five whacks, or ten thousand dollars.

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Then he modestly puts in a bill of only two hundred dollars for making the county map of same. This same pestiferous individual appears among the swamp land deals and deeds with Bosler and Cofer. They were all indeed Swamp Angels to O'Brien county. Even in later years Chester Inman is allowed six thousand dollars for one single bridge.

TWO CURIOUS SWAMP LAND CONTRACTS AS LATE AS l872.

THE IRON BRIDGE AT WATERMAN FORD, ON THE LITTLE SIOUX.

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quite a large cost. The bridge was partly under way, with the lumber on the ground and the main heavy frames up, when a tremendous freshet in the spring swept it all away. It had been so arranged, however, that the full price of this structure was paid, notwithstanding the thing was not completed. Then the iron bridge was undertaken. It was curious that it was let in sections. The one big span in center, with piers, was called an improved patent tubular arch bridge, eighty-one feet long, at a cost of four thousand dollars, to be completed December 15, 1872, and to be able to sustain two thousand pounds to the lineal foot. On the same day a contract was let to Charles Foster, of Cherokee, to build five sections or approaches, each sixteen feet in length, or eighty feet of approaches, at a cost of one thousand dollars. Later still "additional approaches" were added, until the total length was one hundred and ninety-three feet. Still later, ice breakers and sundry items of all kinds were needed. It was often alleged in later years that this iron bridge cost the county in grand total up to the date it washed out, in 1897, the total of about fifteen thousand dollars. It was claimed that they kept up this iron bridge improvement to keep out of sight other bad work.

OTHER CURIOUS EXPENSES EVEN UP TO 1872.

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of the warrants were in partnership in these deals, but of that no one will ever know. It was not until 1878 that the citizens really got up "on their ear" and determined to get both sides of these impudent expenses stopped.

SWAMP LAND SWINDLE.

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from the United States. These Bosler-Cofer-Carey deeds have continued to this day on all these lands to hamper real owners in trying to sell or to make loans thereon. However, the Eastern loan companies now generally understand it and pay no attention to them. Unfortunately, however, these bogus deeds appear on every genuine abstract of title on lands named. Not one of the bogus title owners ever came into court to actually claim title or ever took possession. The fraud was too patent as soon as it was looked up by parties. But this was not the whole of the graft. These same gentry, Bosier, Cofer & Company, continued so long in control of the records and received payments for taxes, that they would receive the tax money from both the bogus title man and the honest title man and enter one on the records and pocket the money from the other. Such things and doings, however, have often placed our county in a false light and such matters have also been often exaggerated.