History of Cherokee County |
History of Cherokee County |
| OLD TIMES ARE RECALLED BY A FORMER CHEROKEAN - In a reminiscent Mood A. J. Gleason of Galva Reverts to Incidents of the Long Ago in Cherokee County A.J. Gleason, an old-time resident of Cherokee county, now in the harness business at Galva, sends us the following: Not long ago, by the kindness of my sister, Mrs. F. T. Stiles, I got hold of a copy of The Democrat, and as I looked the columns over my mind went back to the early history of Cherokee, and as I thought of the changes that have taken place there in the last forty-one years. I thought, “how time makes changes”. The first time I drove over the ground where Cherokee now stands, it was raw prairie, only one house in sight, and that was the home of Geo. W. Lebourveau. That was in December, 1869. The town at that time was up the river about two miles, or near what was afterwards called the Beckwith mill. There was one or two stores, feed barn, saloon, with a few other buildings. The old stockade was in a good state of repair, but the U. S. soldiers had been taken away. In the spring of 1870, the trains got to running, and then the town was removed to it’s present site. About the first men to put in stocks of goods were Vandercook and Van Epps, on the north side of the street, about where the Ross building now stands. Z. A. Wellman put in a stock of drugs soon after, also H. A. Fife, with a general line of merchandise. Mann street was built up with a string of little frame buildings, with any old thing for a sign to let the public know what there was to sell or trade. J. D. F. Smith opened a law office soon after, and H. C. Kellogg and C. H. Lewis were in the law business. “Dick” Herrick was in the drug business. Jas. Archer opened a warehouse for the handling of grain, and the way he managed to weigh the grain was somewhat primitive to the facilities of today. He had a set of platform house scales and would run them out to where the farmer had the load, near the platform, load on four sacks, weigh them, take them into the house, dump them into a bin and then run the scales out to the wagon, again load on four more sacks, until the load was on at the bin. His warehouse would not hold more than two cars of grain, and as it took so long to unload a wagon there was no very great danger of getting filled up. Soon after that, C. E. P. Hobart and C. Snyder opened an elevator, with spouts in the side to empty the grain, and then the farmers thought they had things down fine. Thousands of bushels of wheat and other grains were handled in this way. Geo. A. Johnson was clerking for H. A. Fife and Mr. Allison was in the store of M. Vandercook. A. L. Porter was the main guy at that time, as Mr. Van Epps had sold out to M. Vandercook and had located at Sioux Falls. I remember very well a little excitement in Cherokee one day when Wm. Nettleton’s team broke loose and had a little run of their own. They started from Jas Archer’s warehouse and took a scoot up across the country where the M. E. church stands today, and the carpenters that were building the house for Dr. R. L. Cleaves ran out and tried to stop the team by throwing a board in their faces knocking one of them down to the knees, but before he could drop the board and get the horse by the bit, they were up and gone again. They took a circle around and came down the hill on Cedar Street and back to where they started from and that started a team belonging to a man by the name of Scott, from Spring township. They headed north, going over the ground where the Congregational church now stands, up the hill to the west, turning south and going over the ground where the court house now stands and striking off to the south. Two or three men who had saddle horses standing on the street mounted and struck after them. They came back in about two hours with the team, part of the harness, but no wagon. They found them filed up in a ditch about where the Geo. W. Banister place is, or where he lived a few years ago. M. Ward opened a harness shop therein the early 70’s followed soon after by Meeker & Barnum. I thought that making harness was about the climax of life, so I went in there one day to see about getting a job. But, Mr. Meeker put a wet blanket on that right away by telling me to (illegible) learn the blacksmith trade. I did not take to blacksmithing at all, so I went back to the farm. I thought that if I could ever get to be a good a harness maker as Geo Moore was at that time (I thought he was certainly the prince of mechanics) I would be the happiest man alive. Time passed wearily on, and I was still plodding on after the plow in my cow-hide boots until the fall of 1877, when I was drawn on the jury, and the trial of Cochran and McFarland came for robbing the home of A. C. Gilmore, south of town. What time I was not on the jury, I was in Meeker’s shop pulling waxed ends. When the trial of C and Mcf. Came on, I did not know a thing about it, so I got stuck for the week. I shall never forget how Mr. Herrick worked up a sweat when making his plea at the end. I know he never sweat one-half as much hoeing potatoes as he did that warm afternoon. Well, Messrs. Kellogg and Herrick cleared the defendants and let them go. That seemed to be about the end of the harness shop of Thos Hopkins. This brings to my mind a little circumstance that happened just about that time. A circus came to town and Mr. Hopkins dressed up in his best, topped out with a plug hat, went to the show. Chas. Lake, who was working for Mr. Meeker, got bowled up, and going down to the show he met Mr. Hopkins, and saying, “Hello Hop,” he gave that plug hat a slam, and that put Mr. H’s ears and nose out of business right away. They said that it took Mr. Hopkins an hour to get the hat off. The facilities for earning money at that time were not as easy us now. Alex Fraser of Aurelia loaded up about thirty bushels of potatoes, hooked up an ox team and went over to Cherokee to see if he could get enough out of the load to buy a pair of cow-hide shoes – about two dollars. He tramped around town for two or three hours, and not being able to sell them, finally found man that said he would take them if Mr. F. would carry them down cellar and not charge him for the labor. Mr. F told him to go to --- and drove down to the river south of town and dumped the whole load into the Little Sioux and went home barefooted. At time if a man had a horse team and a wagon with a good box on it, he was considered pretty well fixed. The young men did not wear patent leather, needle pointed shoes, but were glad to get one pair of cow-hide boots each year. C. A. Stiles used to haw, gee and swing the ox gad over the 12-ox breaking team for E. B. Bailey at the princely salary of $15 per month. As Charley was said to be as good a hand as could be got, he got the highest salary (ineligible) price, eight months in the year. I find by looking back over the last forty-one years that a great many of the old pioneers have gone to their last resting place, and that the young men are taking their places in the business world. When I go over to Cherokee, I do not find but very few of the old timers. I was in Cherokee three weeks ago, met Fred Carpenter, spoke to him; saw “Dad,” but as I was in a hurry did not stop to speak. It has been a long time since I left there, (1882) and I have been there but very few times since. I must bring this letter to a close, or you will think that I am wound up for good. Kind regards to the old timers, and hoping your declining years may be happy, I beg to remain, yours respectfully, A. J. Gleason. (Source: The Semi-Weekly Democrat, Cherokee, IA, Thurs, May 19, 1910, pg. 2) |
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