Part 32 (1/2)
”The house was built by a man by the name of George, of German descent, and afterwards bought and occupied by Ambrose Harland who gave the little irregular tract and house the name of Ft. George in honor of its first owner and its having the appearance of being constructed to resist, not Indians, but cold winds as they swept up Indian creek.
Harland was a character, born in Kentucky, removed to Crawfordsville, Indiana, and was the sheriff of that county.
This was the home of Lew Wallace, the author of Ben Hur, and also the home of Henry S. Lane who first named Abraham Lincoln as president in a convention in Chicago in 1860.
Harland moved to Linn county succeeding Hosea W. Gray as sheriff, and was succeeded by me in that office. He was a six-footer and large and would fight, but once fell heavily before Perry Oxley's huge fist.”
The person who erected the house which appeared like a fort was no other than George Hesing, who owned the land and was a peculiar character in his day. He did plant cottonwood trees around the house and also sc.r.a.ped up dirt so as to keep out the wind and snows as much as possible from his yard. In a few years the trees grew up and the rubbish acc.u.mulated, and they gave the place the appearance and made it look like an old abandoned fortification. It is said that a certain Mr.
Willard having charge of the erection of a school house near this location named it the ”Ft. George School House,” which name it bore as long as it stood there.
A number of plats have been filed in the recorder's office at Marion, and these have again been transcripted for public use, but before towns could be platted a number of towns were staked out before the land was laid out and surveyed by the government; of these plats we have no record. The first plat was, no doubt, that of Westport, located on the banks of the Cedar river and near Bertram. This was staked out by Israel Mitch.e.l.l July 4, 1838. Ivanhoe was laid out some distance below at the present Ivanhoe bridge in the same year. Another town was staked out by J. Wilbert Stone along the Cedar river at the lower rapids within the corporate limits of the present Cedar Rapids. There is no record of any plat of this town. In 1844 Westport was again platted as Newark by James M. Doty. This is the first recorded plat and seems to have been filed November 21, 1844, by John Zinbar, recorder. (See Vol.
A, p. 301, Lands.) This is now a corn field and has long since been vacated.
New Linden was another town platted in the early days; this plat was filed by P. S. Embree, surveyor, April 15, 1853, being property owned by A. E. Simpson and A. P. Risley and located on sections 27 and 28, towns.h.i.+p 84, range 5, Brown towns.h.i.+p. This, also, now is nothing but a corn field.
Another was the plat of New Buffalo in the town of New Buffalo which is filed in Vol. 4, p. 217, of the Land Records of Linn county; this has also been vacated.
The plat of the town of Mayfield was made by J. M. May and filed for record in Vol. 143, p. 624. It bordered on the Cedar river and embraced lot 4 and part of section 34, towns.h.i.+p 83, range 7. It also has been abandoned, although May's twenty-five additions, re-plats, etc., made by Major May, are still parts of additions to Cedar Rapids. Major May was a man of enthusiasm, and speculated, believing, with Colonel Sellers, that in every enterprise he undertook there would be millions, but he died a poor, unknown and disappointed man.
Many of the old town sites have been vacated, and many of the old postoffices and country stores which one found throughout the county in the early fifties can no longer be found on the map. From _Iowa as It Is_, published in 1855, at page 153 we find the following notices concerning Linn county towns and postoffices: Spring Grove, Boulder, Central Point, Cedar Oak, Newark, St. Julien, Ivanhoe, and Hoosier Grove, besides such towns as Cedar Rapids, Palo, Marion, and Mount Vernon. The book also mentions Iowa Conference Seminary, with a three story building, and with Rev. S. N. Fellows as superintendent.
N. H. Parker in his _Handbook of Iowa_, issued in 1856, mentions a few more new towns not mentioned in the previous list, as follows: Fairfax, Lisbon, Lafayette, Mon Diu, Necot, Oak Grove, Prospect Hill, St. Mary, Springville, and Valley Farm. This author also speaks of the newspapers published in the county, the _Register_ at Marion, and the _Times_, the _Farmer_, and the _Democrat_ at Cedar Rapids.
Another handbook of the state, published by J. G. Mills, of New York, in 1857, mentions the towns set out in the handbook of a year previous and adds the new town of much promise by the high-toned name of Paris, located in Jackson towns.h.i.+p, near the present town of Coggon.
Few, if any, today can locate those villages and towns which sprang up from time to time over the county, and which long since have pa.s.sed out of history and memory.
Of the newspapers published at that time only the Marion _Register_ has continued to be issued. The others have pa.s.sed away and one does not now know who were the editors and publishers of these early attempts at journalism in the pioneer days. These newspapers, no doubt, did much in keeping open the spirit of the people and in advertising the state.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BUTLER PARK AT SPRINGVILLE]
[Ill.u.s.tration: BUSINESS DISTRICT OF SPRINGVILLE]
CHAPTER XIX
_Some of the Old Settlers_
It is, perhaps, impossible to say even now with any degree of certainty, who was the first actual settler in Linn county. However, it is not very difficult to mention at least some of the early settlers.
It is said that Dyer Usher and James Ames came up the Cedar river as far as the rapids on a hunting expedition as early as the spring of 1836; how long these men remained in what later became Linn county is not known, but it is not likely that they stayed very long. We have pretty good evidence that later during the summer came Daniel C. Doty, his two sons, James, and Elias, and nephew, Jacob Crane, as far as Bertram and viewed the country expecting to locate when land was thrown open for settlement. Mr. Doty was born in Ess.e.x county, New Jersey, in 1764, had early drifted west to Cincinnati, and by boat had come down the Ohio and up the Mississippi, landing at what is now Muscatine. His children were born in Ohio. They followed the Cedar river until they struck what became later Linn county to locate claims. There were no settlers here, and they found no people with whom to converse, but figured that here would be a good location to get cheap land when this land was opened for settlement. They returned to Ohio for their families, expecting to return the following spring, but they did not, in fact, return for three years on account of the financial depression.
Israel Mitch.e.l.l staked out the town first called Westport in July, 1838, which town was later called Newark, named in honor of Newark, New Jersey, where the family originally came from. Here Elias Doty, Jr., was born in October, 1841. Elias Doty, Sr., erected the first sawmill on Big creek in 1841, in the erection of which mill he was killed in the raising of the timbers. Daniel Doty, Sr., had the following sons, to-wit: James, Elias, John, and Daniel, all young men who early drifted west. Daniel C. Doty, the father of these sons, was never a resident of this county, but simply came here to find homes for his children. He died in Ohio in 1849; the widow died in Ohio in 1863 at the advanced age of ninety-eight.
James Doty, born in 1809, was the first real pottery maker in Iowa. He had learned the trade in Ohio. This crude pottery building was standing on the old homestead up to within a few years ago. At the time of his death, January 17, 1847, he had over three hundred jars, jugs, crocks, etc., ready for delivery. In this early day there was great demand for such merchandise as it was something every farmer had to have, and it could only be obtained in a few places and at high prices on account of the transportation.
Another Linn county pioneer well known in the early days was Israel Mitch.e.l.l, who staked out the town of Westport in 1838. Mr. Mitch.e.l.l was born in Kentucky, January 15, 1796, the son of Moses Mitch.e.l.l, of Scotch descent, and on the mother's side, Elizabeth Grant, of Welsh descent, and a near relative of Daniel Boone, the Indian fighter. As a young man Israel Mitch.e.l.l attended a Kentucky college and graduated therefrom. He studied for the ministry, but gave that up on account of his voice, and later took a course in medicine, but gave up the practice, as his step-daughter, Mrs. Slavin, writes, ”because he was too tender hearted.” He had studied law as well as surveying. After his marriage he removed to Ohio in the early '20s with his wife and two children, viz: Angeline and John Mitch.e.l.l. He soon drifted into Indiana, and from there he removed to Wisconsin, working in the lead mines near Apple river in the southwest part of the state as surveyor.
From Wisconsin he came by way of Dubuque to Linn county in the spring of 1838 in company with John, James, and Chamber Hunter, and Jacob Leabo. They all settled on the banks of the Cedar river in sections 32 and 33, towns.h.i.+p 83, range 6. Mr. Mitch.e.l.l was a widower at this time and he and his children stayed with the Leabo family. At Marion he married Mrs. Mary Ross, nee Mary Arnold, a native of Princeton, New Jersey, on November 7, 1845, Esquire Goudy, one of the first justices of the peace, performing the marriage ceremony according to the territorial laws of Iowa. Of this marriage were born five children: Luther H., Caroline, Israel, Boone, and Maris Morton. By her first marriage Mrs. Ross had four children. She died in Oregon in 1858.
Mr. Mitch.e.l.l sat on the first grand jury summoned in the county, was one of the first justices of the peace in the county, and was also the first probate judge. He acted as a frontier lawyer, did more or less surveying, at which he was an expert, and in many ways was a most useful man to the community. Mr. Mitch.e.l.l was a true southerner, his home was always open, and he did much entertaining. He spent much of his time interesting his friends and acquaintances in new enterprises, and in various ways tried to build up a great town on the banks of the Cedar river. Whether it was due to the failure of his new town to materialize or the western fever that got hold of him, we do not know, but just at a time when he should have remained he saw fit to emigrate, going with oxen overland with his family in 1847, locating about eight miles southwest of Portland, Oregon. Here he tilled the soil and became a noted surveyor. In 1873 he returned to Linn county to visit his old friends, giving glowing descriptions of the far west and especially of the Spokane country. On his return by way of San Francisco to Portland he fell in one of the gangways on the steamer, and received injuries from which he died a few days later after reaching home. Mr. Mitch.e.l.l was a member of the Presbyterian church and affiliated with the democratic party. J. J. Daniels, his old friend, described Judge Mitch.e.l.l as follows: ”He was truly an educated man, and in early life had learned the science of surveying, and this was the work he was particularly called for; when not engaged in this occupation he farmed and kept a ferry. When the writer became acquainted with him on the Cedar river he was an active man on foot and could swim almost equal to a duck; bathing in the Cedar in warm weather was his usual custom. He was a medium sized man and stood very straight and erect, having black hair a little tinged with grey, large blue eyes, a high, round forehead, and in appearance resembled Edgar A. Poe, and was equally as brilliant a poet as Poe, having enough ma.n.u.script to make a book of poems. He was truly a Christian man in many acts of kindness, and verified his profession of faith in a true Christian religion.”
Robert Ellis, Linn county's oldest living settler, was born in Westmoreland, county, Pennsylvania, January 20, 1817, emigrated to Ohio in 1837, later to Michigan, and started on foot to Iowa Territory in the winter of 1838. He remained for a few weeks in Cedar county and started again on foot looking for a claim in the timber near some river. Coming to the present site of Cedar Rapids the first man he found was a man by the name of Hull, who held down a claim where the T.
M. Sinclair Company packing house is now located; coming further up along the river he found the tavern of Osgood Shepherd. Mr. Ellis liked the place and staked out his claim on his present location near what is known as Ellis Park. He was at work there cutting wood one day when Shepherd came along with another man, and insisted that this claim belonged to him. Ellis was not easily frightened, and as Shepherd was going to attack him, Ellis raised his ax and threatened to chop his head in two if he took another step. This threatening att.i.tude on the part of Ellis frightened Shepherd and he and his companion retreated, Ellis never being disturbed afterwards. Shepherd never referred to the matter. The next summer when Shepherd's father died Ellis and Lichtebarger made the coffin and a.s.sisted at the burial, when Shepherd seemed to be very much touched by the kindness of these two men and thanked them profusely.