History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa

from Who's Who in Iowa, Iowa Press Association, Des Moines, Iowa
1940, by J. R. Perkins

The history of Pottawattamie County is interwoven with the story of the "Pottawattamie Purchase."  This 5,000,000-acre tract in Western Iowawas ceded in 1833 to three tribes of Indians. spoken of in the treaty as the "United Tribes."  The tribes, besides the Pottawattamies, were the Chippewas and the Ottawas.  The whole group came to be known as the Pottawattamies after the transfer to the Missouri River country.

The government drove a neat bargain with the Indians, for in exchange for 5,000,000 acres of land along the Missouri River in western Iowa, it came into possession of a like number of acres in Indiana and Illinois, including the Chicago Lake Front.

In transferring the Pottawattamies to the Missouri River the Indian Commissioners made a curious error and actually located them in the extreme northwestern part of Missouri.  This was about 1836.  In the summer of 1837 they were placed on steamboats and brought up the Missouri and loaded near the present site of Council Bluffs.  Probably the whole number of Indians did not exceed 3,000, but they spread out in different bands, according to allotment, over the Pottawattamie Purchase.

The celebrated "Billy" Coldwell was the half-breed chief of what may have been the dominant Pottawattamie band.  This particular group settled near a cold water spring that gushed from a yellow silt hill now within the limits of Council Bluffs.  A few days later, on August 4, 1837, a company of soldiers from Fort Leavenworth, acting under orders of General Kearney, arrived and set to work at once erecting a blockhouse on this bluff.  This blockhouse, famous in the history of Council Bluffs, was built as a defense against the hostile Sioux on the north.  Then the Dragoons, under Captain Moore, returned down the river to their post, leaving the Pottawattamie bands in charge of their chiefs and their first sub-agent, Dr. Edward James.

Chief Caldwell, variously designated captain, squire and "sanganash" was said to be the son of an Irish colonel in the Britsh army on the Detroit frontier.  His mother was the daughter of the Pottawattamie chief.

The soil of the Pottawattamie Purchase was rich and Dr. James, languidly assisted by the different chiefs, attempted farming, but evidence is not wanting that the Indians greatly preferred to angle in the Missouri for catfish and hunt and trap.  But the "Issue House" that the agent established was the center of attraction.  Agent James, assisted by Billy Caldwell, persuaded a few families to build log houses and fence fields.  Here and there blacksmith shops were set up and a grist mill was built on Mosquito Creek.

Assisting Dr. James was a certain Davis Hardin mentioned occasionally as "Assistant Farmer to the Pottawattamies."  Hardin, from whom the Hardins of Pottawattamie County are descended, remained in government employ for less than a year but he was thrifty and succeeded in acquiring a farm - probably a portion of the agency tract - west of the present Lake Manawa.  His settlement here in 1838 brought the first white woman, his wife, into the Pottawattamie Purchase to live and rear a family.  Hardin Township is named after a son.

In the spring of 1838, a Jesuit missionary, Father DeSmet, came up from St. Louis and began work among the Pottawattamies.  Billy Caldwell, himself a devout Catholic, and the chiefs of the other bands scattered throughout the Pottawattamie Purchase probably paved the way for the coming of Father DeSmet and his co-workers.  The mission was closed the summer of 1841 although Father DeSmet's special mission to the Pottawattamies ended the year before.

The Sioux Indians again threatened the Pottawattamies in 1841 and the following year a company of United States soliders, under Captain Burgwin, came up the Missour and built a fort about a mile northwest of Lake Manawa.

The abandoned fort that Dr. Burgwin had built became a new focal point for the Pottawattamies.  In fact, the sub-agency was removed from Caldwell's village to Fort Croghan, or the Burgwin contonment was sometimes called.  A new sub-agent came, R. S. Elliot, and a new chief for Billy Caldwell's old band, Laframboise.

The new village, built near the abandoned Fort Croghan, was the scene of another treaty with the Pottawattamies in the spring of 1846.  After that the Indian village was known as Council Point.  Under this treaty, the Pottawattamies were to be transferred to Kansas as fast as possible.

There is something of a gap in the history oif the Pottawattamie Purchase from 1843 to the coming of the Mormons in 1846.  But Captain James Allen, who established Fort Des Moines and made trails all over western Iowa, was the outstanding white figure of the Missouri country.

The Mormon vanguard, concluding the weary trek across southern Iowa from Nauvoo, Illinois, reached the Missouri River in June, 1846, escorted the last fifty miles by Captain Allen.  In fact the vanguard of the Mormons entered the Pottawattamie Purchase before the treaty was signed and Brigham Young reached Council Point less than 2 weeks after the Pottawattamies, under the terms of the treaty, were to be moved to Kansas.  Captain Allen had the chiefs of the different bands sign an agreement in which the Mormons were to locate anywhere within the Pottawattamie Purchase, prior to the removal of all the Indians to their new lands in Kansas.

Captain James Allen, ably assisted by Brigham Young and the Twelve*, recruited a battalion** of nearly 500 of the most vigoroius men among the 4,000 Mormons now assembled on the Missouri River.  This battalion, late in July, marched down the Missouri for Fort Leavenworth and then began its now historic trek to California.

By the first of September, Brigham Young led the great majority of his followers across the Missouri River and established what they called "winter quarters" on the site of the present town of Florence, adjacent north Omaha.

The Mormons did not remain very long on the Nebraska side.  They had trouble with the Omahas after Brigham Young started to Salt Lake with the first company of Saints in the spring of 1847.  That summer the Mormons began to drift back to the Iowa side.

Oscar Hyde, one of the Twelve, and a dominant personality, was not the Mormon head in all the Pottawattamie Purchase.  Under his leadership a log village grew rapidly and within another year it had a population of some 6,000 and was known as Kanesville, named in honor of Colonel Kane of Philadelphia, one of the few non-Mormon men of influence whio aided the Saints in their efforts to journey from the Mississippi to the Missouri and then on to Salt Lake.

With upwards of 8,000 Mormons in the Pottawattamie Purchase, and others drifing in every month, Orson Hyde presented a petition to the Iowa legislature requesting the organization of a new county that wound bound all of the Mormon settlements in western Iowa.

The situation is without parallel in Iowa History.  Here were thousands of people, almost suddenly set down in western Iowa and far enough from the state's center of population to be a law until themselves, clamoring for a new county.

But official Iowa had been watching this swift development along the Missouri River and the politiicans were already wondering who would capture the Mormon vote.

In fact, the first General Assembly of Iowa passed an act in 1847 that called "For the Organization of Pottawattamie and other counties."  The movements toward actual county organization were slow, impeded by controversies between the Mormons and the legislature; and when Pottawattamie was finally born, its boundaries were so vast and its organization so loose that it was unwieldy.

The original boundaries of Pottawattamie County were co-extensive practially with the Pottawattamie Purchase - 5,000,000 acres - embracing what are now Fremont, Page, Mills, Montgomery, Adams, Harrison, Shelby, Audubon, Crawford, Ida, and portions of Ringgold, Union, Guthrie, Monona, Sac, Carroll and Woodbury.  It was not until the beginning of 1851 that the Third General Assembly passed an act that called for other counties to be organized out of the original Pottawattamie boundaries and the county itself reduced to its original size - 614,400 acres.

A temporary organization was effected September 21, 1848.  The first county commissions were A. H. Perkins, David N. Yeardsley, and George D. Coulter.  Their first sessions were held in Kanesville although it had not been designated as the county seat.  But Kanesville was greatly in need of an official postmaster, and a Mormon, E. M. Green, was appointed.

By the presidential year 1848, Iowa became a battleground between the Whigs and the Democrats.  The Mormons were ninety per cent Whig, and as there were nearly 8,000 within the limits of the newly organized county, their vote might decide the state election.  So the Democrats in the autumn election succeeded in having the Mormon vote in Pottawattamie county thrown out on the grounds that Kane township, probably then as large as the present size of the county, had become illegaly organized.

Orson Hyde, the Mormom leader of Kanesville, suspecting a scheme was brewing to disfranchise his people on the grounds that their residence in western Iowa was but temporary, now assumed the initiative.  Having established the Frontier Guardian early in 1849, the first newspaper on the Upper Missouri, he opened up, editorially, on the politicians.  He had friends at court - in Iowa City - and a forensic battle was waged in the senate.  When the smoke cleared away, the attempts to disorganize Pottawattamie County were defeated.

Hyde continued to dominate the politics of Pottawattamie County and almost the whole of western Iowa.  Consequently, the poiliticians did not mourn when he and his people abandoned Kanesville in 1852, although many non-polygamous Mormon families refused to go to Salt Lake, remaining along the Missouri and becoming basic to the upbuildling and several communities.

But before the Mormons left Kanesville, they left it one of the great outfitting stations on the Missouri for companies of gold seekers.  Hyde, through the columns of the Frontier Guardian, mailed to many communities back east and in the Mississippi Valley, emphsized constantly that Kanesville was 200 miles closer to the gold fields than any other Missouri River town.  Many took him at his word and Kanesville's population jumped to about 16,000 in the spring of 1850.

The third General Assembly of Iowa provided, in 1851, for a county seat for Pottawattamie.  Two settlements competed for the honor, Kanesville and Pleasant Grove, eight miles north.  Kanesville, as might have been expected, received an overwhelming vote.  T. Burdick was the first judge to be elected in the county.  The first county representative to sit in the Iowa legislature was a Mormon, Henry Miller, on whose land Kanesville was built.  H. D. Johnson was elected to the senate in 1852.

The Mormon exodus from Pottawattamie County, and the large of southern families that drifted in, altered both the social and the policitical complexion of western Iowa.  The Whigs lost ground and the Democrats gained and by 1853, the year Kanesville became Council Bluffs, they were fairly well matched.

Of course a mere outline of the history of Pottawattamie County cannot and should not be a long list of names.  Upon the other hand, certain personalities, especially at an early date, stand out boldly.  The Bloomers came in 1854, and Amelia, already nationally known as an advocate of woman suffrage, strolled the plank sidewalks of Council Bluffs in "bloomers".  The Dodges came in 1855, and one of their number, G[renville]. M. Dodge, was destined for fame as a soldier and railroad builder.  The Folsoms were even earlier and Jeremiah Folsom was an associate of W. W. Maynard in the publication of the Chronotype, later the Nonpareil.

Fraternal organizations took early root in the county.  The Odd Fellows date back to 1853 and the Masons to 1855.  As has been noted, the Frontier Guardian, a Mormon publication, was the first in the county.  The Bugle, a Democratic paper, was started in 1850, of the time when the Mormoms completely dominated Kanesville.  A. B. Babbitt, who founded it, was not related to the Babbitts who took it over in 1856.  Jeremiah Folsom's Chronotype, founded in 1854, was Whig in politics.

Kane township, the first and very extensive, was followed by the organization of Rockford and Macedonia.  Keg Creek township, dating from 1853, had early strong families, including the Campbells, Fays, Orrs, Underwoods, and others.

Western Pottawattamie received certain strong types in this same period:  the Everetts, Baldwins, Tostevins, Mynsters, Stutsmans, Beers, Voo[r]his, Douglas[e]s, Robinsons, Tests, Bayliss, Treynors, and several other families of more than average strength.

Samuel R. Curtis, afterwards General Curtis of Pea Ridge fame, and Thomas Benton, Jr., were early, though temporary, inhabitants of Pottawattamie County.  Dr. Seth Craig and Dr. S. M. Ballard were early physicians.  B. R. Pegram was a widely known merchant and western freighter.  H. D. Harle, the Puseys and the Officers, the 2 latter families old friends of Abraham Lincoln, came in the middle 'fifties.

James Sloan was the first district judge and O. S. Bryant was the first non-Mormon man to sit in the General Assembly from Pottawattamie, although elected by Mormon votes.

When we come to the other portions of Pottawattamie County, there are certain historical difficulties, although the citizenship types are as high as anywhere.  Morover, there are settlements as old as Council Bluffs.  Take Macedonia, for example, located in the fine agricultural toiwnship of the same name.  West of modern Macedonia, less than a mile, was a Mormon settlement as early as 1847.

Honey Creek, in Rockford township, has a history nearly as old as Macedonia and also a Mormon background.  In fact, the Mormon settlements in practially every township in the county preceded all others.  To Honey Creek, however, came non-Mormon settlers as early as 1850.  Rockford township dates from the close of the Civil War although it had a Baptist church as early as 1856.

Outside of old Kanesville probably the heaviest Mormom settlements of the late 'forties were in what is now Hardin township.  Reece Price, a Mormon, is said to have been the first settler within the township, locating about 1847, for the original Hardin farm of a decade earlier was in the present Lewis township.  The Prices did not follow Brigham Young to Salt Lake.

Belknap township, with Oakland as a center, has an interesting history.  Mormonism took scant root in this section, although the stately oak groves sheltered some of their caravans for a time.  One of these, "Big Grove", finally became Oakland, a town beautiful for situation and the seat, for forty years, of a notable Chautauqua.  The Belknaps, after whom the township is named, came in 1854, followed by the Slocums, Reeds, Tobeys, Beards, Van Druffs, Walkers and Lymans.  The culture of the township is high and the general tone indicates an excellent social order.

Knox township has the distinction of having within its borders the second largest town in the county, Avoca, which is also the county seat for East Pottawattamie.

The history of the township goes ack to 1851, but a vigorous, non-Mormon group of settlers pushed in and, by 1854, the settlements were thriving.  Pacific was the original name of Avoca; later it bore the name of Botna, but after the coming of the railroad it received its present name.  The Hendersons and the Lewis families came to this vicinity in 1851.  Strong families like the Headleys, Bakers, and Davis soon followed.  Later came the Halls, Trues, Krutzingers, Townsends, Whites, Petersons and Hunts.  Men like Julius Priester, John Aker, and C. V. Gardner became prominent.  The first general store was opened by Norton and Jones.

It would be difficult to find a community in Pottawattamie County with more civic pride than Walnut in Layton.  The township dates from 1873 and at that time the Hinckleys, the Lodges, and the Orcutts were outstanding famlies.  The Holcombs and the Hixons were early identified with Walnut.  moses Thums became a miller in the town in 1872, and Daniel Cramer established the Walnut News in 1878, now the Wlanut Bureau, published by L. D. Wayne.

Lincoln, Wright, and Waveland are all rich farming sections whose present inhabitants, as well as the early settlers, were sturdy and dependable types.  Center and Grove townships do not have incorporated towns.

Valley township, with Hancock as its only incorporated community, has a history that dates back to 1852.  This section of the county was distinctly non-Mormon.  It is said that the earliest settler of particular note was A. M. Battelle who came during 1855.

Carson, in Carson township, was founded after the coming of the railroad in 1882.  But the settlement is much older.  There was a grist mill, Loshe Mill, in the early history of the community.

Through this very fertile section, two south central townships, Keg Creek and Silver Creek, boast a single town between them, Treynor.  It is a distinctly German settlement of the highest type.  But the Mormons were in this vicnity in the late 'forties and remained until 1852.

In the very heart of the county are three townships without incorporated villages - James, York, and Pleasant.  Washingtown township, south of York, has a single village - Taylor.  But through this range of townships is some of the richest land in western Iowa and many old, substantial famlies whose lives are interwoven with the social order of western Iowa.

Boomer township, as an organization, dates back to 1858 but its first settlers go back to early Mormon days.  Minden township, probably with its name originating from the town of Minden, Germany, has the most pronounced German background and was organized about the beginning of 1870.

Neola township, strongly Irish, had early Latter Day Saint families that were non-polygamous in their teachings and ideology.  The town of Neola, dating from 1868, had the unique distinction of possessing a population nearly equally divided between Catholics and Protestants.  Nevertheless, it is strongly unified and not a little credit is  due to the editor of the Neola Gazette-Reporter, Lawrence Merrill.

Of course, Council Bluffs, containing more than half the population of the entire county, has a history that is central, not only to the county itself, but to the state, and even the nation.  From the time of the Mormons down to the present it has known quite a few strong personalities - railroad builders, soldiers, and statesmen.  Among its eminent soliders were General Dodge and Captain Kinsman of the Civil War; General Matthew Tinley and Colonel Donald Macrae of the later conflicts.

An analysis of Pottawattamie County nationalities finds the early predominant types to be Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and irish.  The Mormon settlers were distinctly American and British.  There was a strong blending of the New England and Mississippi Valley settlers and not until the coming of the railroads after the Civil War did the more foreign elements arrive.

But the many nationalities, by the beginning of the 'eighties, had blended and Pottawattamie stood at the beginning of a new development.  The foreign born peoples, from the census of 1930, numbered more than 5,000, of whom the Germans led with 1631 followed by the Danes with 1421.  Te native white of foreign parentage, from the 1930 census, numbered nearly 16,000, so Pottawattamies' foreign-born and the native-born of foreign parentage constitute 35% of the population.

A decade after the Civil War, Pottawattamie County had a rare opportunity to become the greatest packing center in Iowa.  Either its citizens were devoid of vision, or, what is more probable, somebody tried to hold up the investors. But if the county lost a great packing industry - which means that the city of Council Bluffs lost it - its railroad development was second to none in the state, in fact, the county is distinctive for the railroads that traverse it.  Two of the state's thirteen lines enter the county.

The railroads changed the agrarian social order of the county and unified the hitherto scattered settlements.  The first railroad to enter the county was the St. Joseph, July, 1866.  The Northwestern came in 1867; the Rock Island in 1869, and the Burlington the same year.  The Wabash came in 1879; the Milwaukee in 1882, and the Illinois Central in 1899.  The Union Pacific established its eastern terminus in Pottawattamie County, at Council Bluffs, as early as 1863.  But the actual line of the road on the Iowa side was not laid until 1872.

The county, as a whole, is among the foremost.  It is, in fact, a little empire of rich soil, fascinating scenery - especially along the water courses - and substantial people.  Pottawattamie is a mosaic of many nationalities, cohesive and dependable.  Its history is thrilling and its present significant.