Part 33 (1/2)
Of a different type of mankind was the progressive, enterprising and enthusiastic Nicholas B. Brown, who purchased Shepherd's claim, the most prominent figure in the history of the early days of Cedar Rapids.
Mr. Brown arrived in 1840, purchasing the rights of Shepherd with Addison Daniels and others. On August 4, 1841, he began surveying what was then known as Rapids City. He improved the water power which Brown early foresaw would make the town. A saw mill was completed in 1842 and the waters of the Cedar began to make its machinery hum; this was the first real enterprise of which the town could be proud. A woolen factory was also erected by Brown, which was later disposed of to the Bryan family. In 1846 and 1847 a grist mill was also added. On account of his many enterprises in which he had to depend on others Mr. Brown was involved in much litigation, but he was a born fighter for whatever he thought was right and acc.u.mulated a fortune because he had the tenacity of purpose to hold on to what he had purchased. As a pioneer he did some excellent work and certainly was one of the shrewdest business men of Cedar Rapids in his day and generation.
Mr. Brown was born in the state of New Jersey in 1814, removing as a young man to the state of Kentucky. His first wife was Catherine Craig, daughter of Thomas Craig, one of the pioneers. She lived only a few years. His second wife was Susan Emery, daughter of one of the early settlers of this city. Mr. Brown died in 1880, one of the most honored and respected men in the community, survived by his widow and two sons, Emery Brown and Harry Brown. The widow died in 1909, one of the best known and most respected in the city, having personally known nearly all of the settlers in the '50s and '60s.
Dyer Usher is said to have hunted and trapped in Linn county as early as 1836 in company with one Jim Ames; how true this is cannot be ascertained, but he did come to locate in 1838. He came of a st.u.r.dy family, was born in Ohio, and at the age of eighteen in 1832 he crossed the Mississippi, being one of the first white settlers to step upon Iowa soil. Mr. Usher brought the first divorce suit in Linn county.
This business has grown by leaps and bounds since that time. He attended for a number of years the old settlers meetings and was a well known figure in the early days in this county. Mr. Usher was thrifty, honest, and fair in his dealings. He died December 11, 1894, at the age of eighty years. His widow, Rosanna Harris, died in 1909 at Covington at the age of seventy-nine. She was born June 6, 1829, in London, Canada, and with her parents emigrated to Iowa in 1845. She was united in marriage to Dyer Usher July 29, 1847. To this union were born twelve children, of whom five survived her: Willard R., of Alberta, Canada, Mrs. Alice Harris, of Estherville, Mrs. A. H. Miller, of Cedar Rapids, Mrs. Ray Lockhart, of Sh.e.l.lsburg, and Dyer N. Usher, of Covington. She had been a resident of Linn county for sixty-three years.
It is still a disputed question as to who was the first actual settler on what later became Cedar Rapids. It is true that Shepherd ran a sort of hotel or tavern and was the best known man in this part of the country in that early date, but it is not likely that he was the first man to build a log cabin here. Philip Hull had been located in the lower end, when Ellis arrived in 1838, and Ellis also found William or Wilbert Stone in possession of the land on the west side of the river, and he was the one who staked out what he called ”Columbus” in 1838, having previously staked out Westport and sold his claim to John Henry.
Information as regards William Stone has lately been discovered through a daughter residing at North Liberty. She states that her father's name was James Wilbert Stone, but he was commonly called William or Billy; that he was born in the state of Rhode Island and drifted west into Iowa in 1832 or 1833, and that he always a.s.serted that he built the first cabin on land which later became Cedar Rapids. It is said that he drifted west by way of Muscatine or Rock Island and followed the Cedar river as far as Ivanhoe, later coming to the rapids of the Cedar river.
Mr. Ellis says that he knew William Stone very well; that he was a quiet, congenial, splendid fellow, and at this time resided on the west side, having a claim along the river extending northward to the bluff, and that a Mr. Galloway claimed south of a large cottonwood tree on the same side of the river. Stone and Galloway were on good terms and owned the adjoining claims. John Young and a man by the name of Granger, O.
Shepherd, and Philip Hull were the owners or claimants of the land on the east side of the river. The daughter of Stone a.s.serts that her father always said that he first located his claim on the east side of the river. It may be that Stone may have moved across the river after Shepherd erected his tavern, and made claim to the land near and adjoining the rapids. It is intimated by Ellis that Stone and Shepherd were not on the best of terms and Shepherd, being a large, pompous kind of a person, he might have driven the more quiet and less a.s.sertive new neighbor across the river. The daughter of William Stone, or James Wilbert Stone, Mrs. Elizabeth Hrdlicka, states that her father bought goods and traded with the Indians for furs for some years, and that the last time her father talked to her he told her that he was sorry he ever gave up the town of Cedar Rapids but did not think then that it would amount to anything. In 1843 he removed from what was Cedar Rapids to the Iowa river and married Elizabeth G. Brown and settled in Oxford towns.h.i.+p, Johnson county. To this union were born two girls: one, the eldest, died and the second girl, Elizabeth, now Mrs. Hrdlicka, was taken by her grandfather, Joseph Brown, on her mother's death when the daughter was only four weeks old. After the death of his wife Stone removed to Hudson, St. Croix county, Wisconsin. He returned to see his daughter about once a year. He died at the age of forty-eight years in the state of Wisconsin.
It seems from the story of the daughter of Stone, who is still living, that James Wilbert Stone was undoubtedly the first actual settler on the site which later became Cedar Rapids. From investigation it seems that Shepherd may have jumped Stone's claim and for that reason Stone removed across the river.
In Bailey & Hair's _Gazetteer_, 1865, the following mention is made of William Stone: ”The next [town site] in order of time was called Columbus, built by William Stone, in September, 1838. He abandoned his town the next spring, then being a single log cabin. The site was that occupied by the present city of Cedar Rapids.”
Mr. Stone was a speculator and a trader and had made some money trading with the Indians prior to the advent of Shepherd. This is true, that Stone did not harbor any people of unsavory reputations, and his whole life bears the imprint that he was a gentleman even on the frontier.
Such a person people would not remember as well as a frontier character like Shepherd. Shepherd, on the other hand, whatever may have been his failings, was a man of a big heart, who attracted people to him. He had the love of adventure, and it is not any secret but that he harbored thieves and gave them more or less encouragement. Mr. Stone, on the other hand, was an honest, quiet man, the opposite of his neighbor, and it is not to be wondered at that they did not get along.
Another settler who came here at an early date was O. S. Bowling, or Bolling, who came in the summer of 1838 making a claim on the west side of the river and in whose honor Bowling's Hill in the south part of the town was named. Mr. Bowling was a quiet man, a good neighbor, and one universally loved by the old settlers.
In June, 1839, came Thomas Gainor and David W. King. These gentlemen found Wilbert Stone, the Lichtebarger brothers, and the claims of Young, Hull, Ellis, and Bowling. It is said that Mrs. Rosanna Gainer, wife of Thomas Gainer, was the first white woman to locate on the west bank of the river and consequently would be the second woman to locate in what became Cedar Rapids, Mrs. Osgood Shepherd being the first. Mrs.
Gainer did not reside long in Cedar Rapids, as she died June 8, 1840, giving birth to a daughter who also died the same summer.
David W. King became one of the most enterprising of the men of that early day. He ran a ferry, platted the town of Kingston, and died, the owner of much land, in the autumn of 1854. His death caused much sorrow in Cedar Rapids.
In July, 1839, arrived Isaac Carroll and family, consisting of nine persons, all of whom were well known by the early settlers. A son, Rev.
George R. Carroll, has written interestingly of the Carrolls, Weares, and others of the early settlers in his _Pioneer Life in and Around Cedar Rapids from 1839 to 1849_.
Another early character was John Vardy, who arrived in July 1841, and built, it is stated, the first frame house at the corner of Third street and Sixth avenue, during the summer of 1842. Mr. Vardy was a cabinet maker and an all-round person in the use of tools. He removed to Texas in 1856 where he died in the fall of 1878.
Another of the old settlers was Thomas Downing, a native of Posey county, Indiana, and a tailor by trade who at the age of nineteen drifted into Iowa and in the early '40s came to Linn county. He was a clerk in the Daniels Company store, removing in 1855 to Waverly to conduct a business for Greene Bros., of Cedar Rapids. He died in Waverly in 1896.
Samuel F. Hook was another of the residents of Cedar Rapids who came in 1845 at the age of twenty-one, a native of the state of Virginia. He died in 1848, and it is thought he was one of the first, if not the first, real store keeper within the boundaries of what became Cedar Rapids.
J. H. Kelsey was born in New York state in 1819, and arrived in Cedar Rapids in 1848. He was a carpenter by trade. He removed to Vinton in 1863, going later to Nebraska where he pa.s.sed away some time ago.
[Ill.u.s.tration: METHODIST CHURCH, CENTER POINT]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SOUTH MAIN STREET, TROY MILLS]
Steve L. Pollock, a native of Pennsylvania, arrived in Cedar Rapids in the early '40s and married Marilla Lucore, a daughter of one of the early settlers, in March, 1844. He was the pioneer blacksmith and is supposed to have built the third or fourth house in the city. Harrison Campbell, it is stated, was the owner of the first blacksmith shop, in 1843. Mr. Pollock emigrated west in 1865 and died in Hood River, Oregon, in 1902. He was a brother-in-law of William Stewart, one of the old settlers of this city, both of them well and favorably known among the early pioneers of Cedar Rapids.
Hiram Deem was a native of Ohio and at the age of twenty-eight or twenty-nine located at Cedar Rapids and hired out to N. B. Brown. He helped to build the dam across the river, erected saw mills, and otherwise was a very useful man in a town with the boom spirit that Cedar Rapids had at that time. He was also one of the first justices of the peace and many a sc.r.a.p was settled in his house, which stood on First street on the west side. He entered the army and died from exposure in a hospital boat in January, 1863.
What later became known as ”Time Check” was first entered by Farnum Colby, who came here in 1839 and made his claim along the river about a mile northwest of the First avenue bridge near Robert Ellis's claim. He was a native of Pennsylvania and a very useful, hard-working man. From here he removed to Olin, Jones county, where he died some years ago.
In the early '40s also came Charles R. Mulford from Hoboken, New Jersey, and at once began as a town merchant, opening a store in the Vardy house on Third street and Sixth avenue. He was one of the most wide-awake business men of that day and had a good business, but was caught with the gold fever and emigrated in 1849 to California, where he died.
One of the best known men in the state in an early date was Col.
William H. Merritt. Mr. Merritt was born in New York city September 12, 1820, and received a fair education at Lima Seminary. At the age of eighteen he was compelled to rely on his own resources and sought the west, settling in Rock Island, Illinois, where he obtained a clerks.h.i.+p.