Hawkins Taylor Autobiography (1876)

Document Transcript

[Early Life and Family]

[p. 1] My father was born in Antrim County, Ireland, about 1763 and came to this country in 1781, then about 18 years old. He had a bachelor uncle living in Chester County, Pennsylvania, a man of wealth. My father, Samuel, was named after his uncle, and it was understood that he was to have his uncle’s estate. My father walked from New York to Pennsylvania and was a truly green Irish boy. His grandfather was well off, but by some means lost his property, and my grandfather died when my father was a child, leaving the family poor, which brought my father to this country, and I regret to say that I never learned much about the family in Ireland. They were Scotch-Irish and the strictest of old fashioned, blue stocking Presbyterians. My father had not much education, but was a man of strong mind and will and of the most independent disposition. He never owed a man a cent that he could not pay back at any moment, and was never sued for debt in his life and never had a lawsuit. His uncle was no doubt a stern man. He worked my father hard for a year and only gave him a wool hat when my father walked off and left him and never afterwards inquired after or heard of him or his estate. He went to Rockbridge County, Va., where there was a strong Irish Presbyterian settlement, where he learned the wagon-making business and married my mother, Catharine Walker. This was in the year 1790, then in one year he moved to Kentucky, the “Bloody Ground,” and the next year he settled in Green County (then embracing nearly all southern Kentucky) on East Fork of the Little Barren River, now Metcalfe County.¹ At that time, his nearest neighbor was five miles distant, and they had to go fifteen miles to help each other raise their houses. The country was full of hostile Indians, and the settlers, by turns, acted as scouts or paid scouts to watch the Indians.

An uncle of mine, Alexander Walker, acted as scout for three years, living on what he killed, mainly he dried his meat, and when in the settlements or at forts he would have bread, but for weeks at a time he lived on meats, berries and the meat that he killed. I have often heard him say that no meat was so sweet as dried coon meat. The section of county that my father settled in was rich bottom land, but very heavily timbered, requiring great labor to clear a farm. About 1800, my father removed to Barren County (or what is now Barren County) and made a farm, where I was born, Nov. 15, 1811. A year or two later, my father concluded to remove to the Territory of [p. 2] Indiana, and went and looked at the county and made a location near the Tippecanoe Battle Ground, and got all ready to move, but when ready, he found that he had been cheated out of his farm to a man by the name of Burke, who lived in an adjoining county, but who had a brother living on an adjoining farm, a man of wealth and the highest character, and as he had brought his brother to my father, he did no[t] question his honesty and made him a deal for the place and took his note for the money in three months, when he wanted to move. The money ($1,500, a large sum for that day) was not paid, and on inquiry, Burke was found to be a cheat. He had sold the farm, and my father lost the money. It happened that he had two other hundred acres of land on the East Fork, near where he had first settled (in Adair County then), and he at once moved onto that land and camped out until he had built him a cabin to live in. Although then over fifty years of age, he was in perfect health and a man of great industry. On that farm, he lived until his death on the 12th of Feb., 1849, with his boys, making a good farm. He built a brick dwelling in 1822, had a fine orchard and plenty. My mother had no health after my birth, and died after a long lingering illness, in the fall of 1822. She belonged in a day and of a family when women were strong minded as Christians and Bible readers. The Walker family was a family of ministers and people of brains. They had no political ambitions and no desire for wealth beyond a noble independence. They were anti-slavery. Scarcely one of them ever owned a slave, and when they did it was rather by accident than choice. Neither my father nor mother could have been induced to own slaves. The first thing that I really recollect, was my mother impressing it on my mind that I ought to be thankful that I was born white, instead of being born black, as I never could be enslaved.

There was three brothers of us: James, the oldest, was born on the 4th of August 1804, John Howe was born in May 1807. James was a man of great force of character and will, and would have occupied a high position if he had lived in a later day when there was opportunities, but at that day and in that section of the county, there was no schools. Neither James nor myself ever had three months’ schooling, though before his death, James was a good scholar and fine speaker, although he was but thirty years of age, and had been nothing but a farmer all his life, with the fewest opportunities. He was killed in August, 1834, by the fall of a tree, leaving one child.

John was never stout. He was a man of the finest morals and character, [p. 3] a man without a single enemy and was for many years a justice of the peace, an office at that time considered one of distinction. The justices of the county were the county court at that time, and the oldest justice (as such) was the sheriff of the county.

My mother was the purest Christian that I ever knew. She knew the scriptures by heart, and I do not think while I knew her had a thought that was not pleasing to her Maker. After a long life, since her death, it seems to me that her purity and her prayers has been all that has saved me in this world from destruction, for I have been, all my life, impulsive and a leader, and being thrown all my life in the midst of temptations, it has seemed to me that her ministering spirit has saved me. Losing her at eleven years of age, left no one at home but three of us, for three years, then my father married again. We kept house, I doing most of the cooking, my brother was the mainstay to do the work on the farm. It was a hard life, although it was of my happy days. My stepmother was a Virginian, a sister of Dr. Ellenor. She was of the Royal Virginians, but she was a Baptist by preference, and I did not like her. No person, in my mind, could fill the place of my own mother. I had always called her “Mammy,” but could not call the new mother “Mammy,” to do so would have choked me. It seemed I called her Mother. She proved to be a most excellent woman, a painstaking, careful housewife, and while she was never really one of us, she was good and made us all better off, and I got to love her, but I never did her the justice I should have. She loved me dearly. My father never allowed a lock to be used about the house, at least he never did until my stepmother introduced one or two, but that did not last long. She soon gave it up. Fortunately, he lived in a better day than this.

Except by fits and starts, I never met a lock until after I left home some years, but I always returned home on a visit every year, or at least every other year. There were no railroads there, and I had to make the trip on horseback, traveling five or six hundred miles, or by steamboat, twice as far, and then a couple of hundred on horseback. It always took me six weeks to make the trip, two weeks on the road, both going and coming, and two weeks at home. On one of these trips, I went home on a visit.

[Early Education and Jobs]

When I was ten years old, I made a hand cleaning off brick for the house. I was advanced as a boy. I had no books, and we had no schools that could be called schools. I went a few weeks to take James to a cripple who [p. 4] could neither write nor spell that it could be read, and he pronounced words worse than Pogrun of the Nasly Cross Roads. He spend most of his time in telling his scholars Bullivers Ghost stories, making them believe that ghosts were watching them all the time.² Going from and to school, I learned nothing, but he was the only teacher that we had. After John came home I learned what little I learned at school by attending a school taught by him for three months. I went through Pike’s Arithmetic in 19 days.³ I never attempted to study grammar from early boyhood.

I was intended for the law and was to study law with my cousin Cyrus Walker,⁴ one of the brightest lawyers that I ever knew. He was an honest lawyer and probably the ablest criminal lawyer of his day, on the circuit of his practice in Kentucky and afterwards in Illinois and Iowa. He lived to be 83 years old and only died a few years ago. Alexander Walker, the father of Cyrus, always said I had the eyes of Green Clay, the wealthiest landowner in Kentucky at that time. Walker had come west with Clay from Virginia to Kentucky and they were great friends. When I was 17 years old I went to my uncle’s, near Columbia, the county town of the county to study law with my cousin, but I soon tired. My nature was too restless to be still and besides I did not believe that I could ever succeed as a public speaker and was fool enough then to think that no man could ever succeed as a lawyer that was not a good speaker. I now have learned that nothing is so likely to spoil a good lawyer, as to be a good speaker. A good declaimer is too likely to rely upon his speaking power to carry his case, while if he lacks eloquence he relies on his understanding the case and any man can always tell what he knows.

[A First Taste of Politics]

In place of studying law I learned the tanner’s trade and when I got through, went to Missouri, expecting to follow the business. Up to that time, few boys had seen or knew less of the world than I did. Up to that time, there never had been a stagecoach within forty miles of where I had lived. I had never seen but one or two newspapers, in fact the only papers I had ever seen was Pat Darlys Spirit of 76 and Amos Kendall & Frank Blair[’s Frankfort] Argus, the one an old, the other a new court paper.⁵ Times in Kentucky had been very hard and the legislature had chartered a commonwealth bank. The money to be loaned to the citizens on real estate for debts. There had been much immigration from Kentucky west where they had bought land but could not pay for it, in this commonwealth paper and they refused to take it from [p. 5] parties to whom they had sold land. In Kentucky the question was taken to the courts where the Courts of Appeal decided that the law making the paper a legal tender was unconstitutional. The next legislature turned out the court and elected others in their stead. The old court would not give up so there were two courts of appeal.⁶ Darlys paper sustained the old court and Blairs the new, and there probably never was so exciting a political contest as that one. I was a boy of 14 but was an active and intense partisan. Cyrus Walker and Zachariah Taylor⁷ were the old court candidates for the legislature for the county. My father was an active old court man. James talked one day of being old enough to vote at the election. There was three days’ election and each voter spoke at any time. There was no telegraph then, but there were carriers at each precinct who rode to the county town as soon as the poll was closed each day, with the result. Fist fighting was common then and from the beginning to the end of the three days’ election, fights were on hand sometimes without blows but often two or three fights would be on hand at the same time. Walker and Taylor were both elected by 222 majority and the old court was sustained. The next year the same fight was fought over again with the same result and that ended the contest, but Blair, Kendall & Rowne turned the new court party over to Jackson⁸ in consideration of Jackson putting Barry in his cabinet and making Blair the organ of the party at Washington and gave the state to Jackson in 1825 and made Blair here his organ. Blair is still alive and in good health living near the city (Washington) at this time (1876).⁹

From that time up to this, I have been an active politician and will remain so as long as I live, no doubt. I was a Whig, then Republican, never a Democrat and never could be. I wanted Greely elected in place of Grant in 1870 because I believed him to be a better Republican than Grant, and I believed if he were elected he would be sustained by the better class in the South and also by the honest Republicans of the North and that we would have real peace in the South . . . God..[?]

[Lessons from Books and the Stories of My Elders]

Up to the time of my leaving Kentucky there were no public schools of any kind. There was no mail except a weekly on horseback once a week to the county seat and there were not a half dozen weekly newspapers coming to the county and not a single daily. The only school books that I ever saw were Dilworth’s spelling books with the three or four cuts, one of poor Troy who was being whipped for being in bad company and properly whipped. Another of the vain girl with pail of milk on her head that she spilled, in her glory of appearing in a new dress, the result of money from the proceeds of her [p. 6] milk, and one of the old man attempting to drive a young thief from his apple tree with tufts of grass. The little rascal paid no attention to the grass but when the old man saw that grass wouldn’t do, he took stones and soon made the little rascal come down. These three pictures were indelibly stamped on my mind never to be erased, the more so as I think because they were the only pictures in books that I had ever seen and my good mother never tired in showing them to me and impressing on my mind the moral of the lesson.¹⁰

The only other school book was Pike’s Arithmetic. We were fortunate enough to have a copy of Weems, “Life of Gen. Marion.”¹¹ That book I learned by heart. My mother had several brothers in the Revolutionary Army, in fact, they were all in the army most of the time, except her father, who died during the war. My mother then not grown had to go some nine miles to Lexington, Rockbridge Co., Virginia, for a physician. On her way, she heard a raven croaking. This was taken as a bad omen. My father did not get well, which confirmed the bad omen of the croaking of a raven, when going for a doctor.

Half of the old men in the county in Kentucky where I was raised were in the Revolutionary War and I have spent hours and hours listening to them telling of the incidents of the war. Many of them well stretched no doubt. Among others was Maj. Young, like my father a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, who had settled in South Carolina and was one of Marion’s men, all through the Revolutionary War. He was in the habit of coming and staying all night within every month or two and he and my father generally talked most of the night, I a most eager listener. The Tories caught Young once and cut him to pieces and let him for dead. When a lady found him and got off her horse and got a negro to help her lay him on her saddle and lash him on until she took him to her home and nursed him to life again. She kept him concealed until he was able to join Marion. A large part of Marion’s men belonged to Tory families. On one occasion, the Major and a brother soldier by the name of Walker went in sight of Walker’s home. Walker dared not go home, for all of his family were Tories, but he had not been home for a long, long time and had a craving desire to once more see home. They stepped into sight of the house, when they saw two of his sisters and two British officers on the porch. Walker drew a bead on one of the officers who was near one of his sisters and fired, killing the officer. When they took to the swamps, Young asked him if he did not fear to shoot at so great a distance for fear that [p. 7] he would kill his sister. Walker said he cared little then and that was the spirit of the Whigs of that day. Maj. Young had an old sword that he had carried through the war and said he meant to keep to kill Tories with. In the same neighborhood, an old Tory family by the name of Wisdom lived. Both men had large families and the children fought from the time they were ten years of age up to their oldest, being thirty years. Not a year passed that some of the Young and Wisdom families did not fight at a muster or at the elections. Two of the Wisdom boys served in the late war, but that did not relieve them of the odium of the father being a Tory. The Tories of that day had no hope of being forgiven, while the Rebels of today are not willing to forgive the Union men who fought to save the government during the Rebellion.

[Thoughts on My Childhood]

I was never a child to my recollection. I had no children for associates, my association was with boys much older and with men. After my mother’s death, I had to rely much on my own resources and frequently had to remain at home all night alone. There were only three of us for several years, my father and older brother. I was active and acted the part of a man from the time I was fifteen years of age. I traded, and I made a hand at log rollings. My father was a man of great respectability. He had no political ambition, but he had another and different and much better ambition, an ambition to owe no man and to do exact justice to all. He was stern and might be called a hard man, but he was just and we were connected with the leading families of the county, and while we had no slaves and it was known that my father was opposed to holding slaves, yet my brothers and I were great favorites with any and all families in the county. I had a happy faculty to make friends and was elected Capt. of the Military Company before I was 18 years of age, which was a high honor there and then. I was always moving and active, always getting more credit for ability than I possessed.

My oldest brother, James, married Esther Gilmore, a good woman, but she died in a little more than a year. She had given birth to twins. Both died, so he lost his wife and two children at the same time. Two years later he married Patsy Morrison. Two years later, he was killed by the falling of a tree, leaving one child daughter, a twin sister died at birth. My brother, John, married Miss Caroline Baker, a most lovely woman. They had two children, a son and a daughter. The son, a bright and promising youth, is dead. The daughter is married to a Mr. Welsh and is comfortably situated on a farm in [p. 8] Vernon County, Missouri.

[Leaving Home]

I left Kentucky for Missouri with a horse, saddle and bridle and $29 in money, on the 11th of April, 1831, when I was not quite 20 years of age. I had never been out of the neighborhood, had had no experience with the world and started solitary and alone, not knowing what I would do when I got to Missouri. I had a cousin in St. Louis, the sheriff of the county, a man of character and means, that I had never seen and I had an acquaintance that I did know, living in Hannibal. My Uncle Joseph Walker, who was as dear to me as a father, made me promise to stop in St. Louis, Mo. and see my cousin, whom my uncle knew well and loved. They had gone to Mo. many years before together and John K. Walker had remarried. I made the journey by myself, some six hundred miles all alone and at that day the road across Illinois was miserable. There were streams and few bridges. I had to swim many of the streams. I crossed the Ohio at Fords Ferry. The Fords were noted counterfeiters and a few days after I crossed there was a bitter fight between the Ford Gang and the regulators in which several were killed.¹²

[Visiting a Cousin in St. Louis]

I got to St. Louis on Sunday morning about 11 a.m. and went to my cousin’s, who was living in the jail as was the custom in Missouri. St. Louis then contained a population of about six thousand people and to me seemed a great city, never then having seen a town with a population of more than two thousand. I rode up to the jail and seeing a servant at the gate, I called for John K. Walker, whom I had never seen and who had neither ever seen or heard of me before that day. He came out. I told him who I was, but my uncle had given me no letter of introduction, never thought of it, nor did I. I had then never attempted to write a letter to anyone in my life, and my uncle did not write a letter a year probably. My cousin, one of the best noblemen, as an evidence of his character, he was sheriff, sixteen years, of St. Louis County and by law, then he could only hold that office of sheriff two terms of two years at a time. He held the office for eight times and the years between these times, he was collector of taxes and treasurer, so that he was twenty-four years sheriff and treasurer of the county and city in continuation and was then county judge until his death. But he had seen enough of the world to know that there were many impostors and without inviting me into the house he first inquired about the relatives in Kentucky that he knew. He had never lived in Ky., having gone from Virginia to St. Louis. It took him but a few minutes to satisfy himself that I was telling him the truth, when he ordered my horse taken care of and invited me into the house, but by that time my foolish Scotch-Irish blood was up. I had [p. 9] always been met differently by my relations and had made up my mind not to stop but go on to Hannibal, a hundred fifty miles further up the Mississippi River, but after much persuasion I agreed to stop, but I am sorry to say that it was only from love of my uncle, who I knew would be vexed with me if I did not stop. My cousin’s wife was an elegant lady but in rather delicate health. She took to me at once. She was very young, had but one child, almost a year old. I was attractive in my home-spun appearance. My hair was almost white and very young looking for my size and age. I remained three days and my cousin wanted me to remain with him, offering me good pay and his wife fairly begged me to stay as her husband was much away from home and there were nearly fifty prisoners in the jail, many of them desperate characters and she had no one but the guards in the home when her husband was away. I foolishly had not recovered from my reception. Though I had never seen such splendor as in this home, I felt that the city was too large for me. It was a great mistake, but it was so ordained by providence I suppose. I went from St. Louis on horseback to Hannibal, Mo., a little town of a few hundred inhabitants, remained there a week and went back to Kentucky. This time I went by water to the mouth of Salt Creek, twenty miles below Louisville, on the Ohio River. A mess of four of us went on deck at a few dollar’s expense. When I got to St. Louis, I went to my cousin’s, but found that the child had the small pox. It was prevailing badly in St. Louis, and I had never been vaccinated. I got vaccinated.

[Haskell, the Penitent Thief]

Our boat, the “Tom Triton,” did not carry more than fifty on the Mississippi. When we started from Hannibal a keen, smart, young fellow by the name of Haskell got on board and made himself very friendly with our mess, all as green as I was. We took to him greatly for he was so knowing and so useful on the trip down from Hannibal to St. Louis. A young Frenchman lost a fine handkerchief, but no one suspected our smart companion with being the thief. At St. Louis he bought, as he said, a great many clothes, giving as an excuse that he got them cheap. After leaving St. Louis a few days the weather was warm and we were all in shirt sleeves, there were but about a dozen passengers and all good fellows and we had been together long enough to get well acquainted. The captain came in and said he has lost a fine ruffled shirt that he had paid five dollars for in St. Louis to make a splurge in while at Louisville, where he was having a new boat built and was then ready to come out. We were all startled. I at once got up and told him, “There are my saddle bags, you can search them.” He nodded and said, “We won’t trouble you,” and at once went to Haskell and opened his bundles and found the shirt carefully tied up in a dirty shirt. We then concluded that the new clothes had been stolen, for in that bundle was the handkerchief that the young Frenchman had lost. I found that he had taken $5 out of [p. 10] my vest pocket, which was found in his sock. The deck was then on the upper deck and the cabin was below. The captain, a great powerful double fisted sailor, took Haskell who was about 25 years of age and spare built, below and took off his shirt and tied him to the capstan on the forward deck and got an inch rope. Haskell’s skin was fair and smooth as a woman’s. We were all on the upper deck looking on. Haskell was begging but the captain seemed unmoved. I was greatly excited and begged the captain not to hurt him too much. “Oh no,” said the captain. “I will only give him about 20 lashes.” He could have killed him in three, Haskell, tied down as he was with that tarred rope. The captain was very deliberate and seemed in terrible earnestness. He dallied in what was an hour as it seemed to me, but probably not more than ten or fifteen minutes, when he began to talk to Haskell, inquired about his father and mother, especially the mother. When the tears streamed down Haskell’s cheeks, it was evident that Haskell had been well raised and well educated. After talking to him a while, and Haskell making all manner of reform promises, the captain untied him and sent him ashore in the yawl, telling some stragglers on the shore who came to look on, that he was a thief. The captain did not intend to hit him, but wanted to make such impression on his mind that it would make him honest in the future. I never saw and do not know what became of Haskell afterwards.

[A Brush with Smallpox]

I landed at the mouth of Salt River and started home 80 miles on foot. At that time all the tobacco and other produce that was sold by the farmers Green and Cumberland Rivers was sent to New Orleans in flat boats. These flat boats were about 20 feet wide and 80 feet long and about 6 feet between the roof and floor. The sides were gunnels hewed and sawed out of huge cottonwood trees, and double floored with thick plank and planked up the sides and on top they would take from 50 to 100 hogshead of tobacco of about ⅔ of a ton or like weight of corn or bacon. There were thousands of these flat boats sent to New Orleans out of Cumberland and Green Rivers. They were prepared during the winter and sent out in early spring. It took five men to each one of them, a pilot and four oarsmen. They were unwieldy but it was the highest ambition of a young man to make a trip to New Orleans in a “Broad House” as they termed it and after making a trip he was a leader in his neighborhood. It took generally about six weeks to two months to make the trip after steamboats began to run so they could return by steamer which was then beginning to be the case. The hands who had gone down on the flat boats were beginning to return and the smallpox was in it and it was all along the river and more or less on all boats. My arm, when I was vaccinated, just as it began to get sore, I accidentally struck it against a sharp corner of the berth and rubbed off clean the scab and it at once healed, showing no signs of a pit. I supposed that it had not taken but I [p. 11] could now [do] nothing and had to take my chance.

Soon after leaving the river, I was taken sick and had a high fever. I rested and worked my way along for twenty miles and stayed all night. The next morning I was still sick and was fully convinced that I had the smallpox but I worried my way along. I could eat nothing, but made 25 miles. That day had been very hot and I suffered greatly. My fear was that no one would let me stop in their house. About sundown, I stopped at a county house. Every county house on that road took in travelers. I asked to stay all night. The woman, she was a widow, saw I was sick and at once asked me if I had been to New Orleans. I told her I had not, but admitted that I was not well but stoutly denied that I had the smallpox. I was surprised that she did not tell me that I was already broken out. She looked at me and I am sure that she thought I had smallpox but she showed that she pitied me. I told her that I wanted nothing to eat, that I wanted to go to bed. She took me in and put me in a nice clean, small back room, good clean bed and gave me a bowl of milk and bread. The room was clean and cool, and the bed good, and I had slept on a hard bunk on the boat and none the night before. The milk and bread seemed to cure me and I went to sleep and did not wake until the sun was shining the next morning, and I was as bright as I could be. Still, I was sure that I had the smallpox. I looked at my hands but no sign of smallpox there. I then stripped up my sleeves, but no sign on them. I then looked at my legs, and then got up and looked at the glass, but it was some time then before I could realize that I was really well and did not have the smallpox and when I did, I was indeed thankful. When I went downstairs, the landlady seemed to be as much surprised as I was, to see me well. She had gone to my room twice in the night to see if I was suffering, but found me sound asleep. I am sure this good woman had a good mark for taking in the sick boy when the chances were that he would cost much trouble. I ate my breakfast and walked home 38 miles. I found all well and greatly rejoiced at my coming back home again, hoping that I was cured of my roving notions. I remained at home about a month or less. I had an opportunity to do well, but could not, after seeing the new country, bear to remain in the old.

[Crossing the Prairie]

My father gave me a horse and saddle and I again set out for M[issouri]. I then crossed the Ohio River at the mouth of Salt River and crossed Indiana to Vincennes, through to Vandalia, to Springfield, to Irish Green in Sangamon County, where a colony of Adair County had gone and settled, the year before, mostly relations. It rained on me every day from the day I crossed the Ohio River until I got to Irish Green. I swam streams and in Illinois I crossed the Grand Prairie in the night (30 miles) and it was as dark as pitch, and the rain came down in torrents. When it lightened, the whole Prairie was alike a sea of water. [p. 12] Just before day, I struck a point of timber and came to a deserted log cabin, full of rats, but I took shelter in it and remained until daylight. It was a hard night. There was not a dry thread on me, but the flies were so bad that I could not travel across the Prairie in the daytime. That Grand Prairie, now worth from fifty to one hundred dollars per acre and now covered with farms and large villages, was the terror of all travelers. It was about 30 miles wide and without timber or settlement and the green-headed flies were so bad in the summertime that they could almost, if not [actually], kill a horse in crossing, but Congress chartered the Central R.R. and gave half of the land to the company. Capitalists built the road and now it is the richest and most productive part of the state. In crossing Indiana, passing a fire sign, I bought a ginger cake and ate part of it, which made me very sick. I threw away the balance and vomited up the balance, and I have never eaten gingerbread since. I had often heard my mother tell of an old woman by the name of Strout, who lived near us and who always had gingerbread and whiskey to sell at musters and elections, shortening her cakes with dog grease. This came to my mind so that I have never eaten any more ginger cakes. I remained a few days with my relations, and from there went to Morgan County and visited other friends and started for Mo. At Rushville, I met John R. Johnson, an old friend who had married a relative and lived in Mo. We started from Rushville. It was then late in August, and the weather extremely hot. We aimed to make Quincy that night (55 miles). The settlements on the road were from five to eight miles apart, and we rode hard. About the middle of the afternoon, both of our horses were taken with the colic. We were then 12 miles from Quincy but stopped with a ruffian, but it was the only chance. It was six miles to the next place. We doctored our horses all night and only got to Quincy the next evening on foot, leading our horses. The next day we got to Col. Patterson’s, who is a brother-in-law and a cousin of mine. Our horses were nearly ruined. I then went to Hannibal and went to work in a brick yard at $12 a month.¹³ I soon had charge of the yard. I worked there all fall, and while I was burning brick, the great night of the shooting stars took place.¹⁴ It was a still, clear night, and the shooting stars kept it as light as bright moonlight. In the winter, I took a job of clearing ground for Co. Wm. Patterson, and worked from the time I could see in the morning, until dark at night. I would work before breakfast.

[The Galena, Illinois, Lead Mines and the Black Hawk War]

In the spring of 1832, in April, I went to Galena lead mines.¹⁵ I started on the “Chieftain,” but she couldn’t cross the rapids, where we exchanged to the “Dove,” commanded my Capt. May (James May). I went to the mines with Hayden Gilbert, who had been in the mines and made some money. When we got to Galena, we heard that there had been a new discovery of mineral in Snake Hollow about 30 miles from Galena, and we at once started for the new mine on foot. That night we [p. 13] stayed on the –Monument-[?] at Gilmore’s, a man who had his family there. The next day we got to the new diggings, where there were about 150 men at work and great excitement. I took up several mineral claims and went to work. I joined in a mess with three others. We cooked for ourselves, living on bread, coffee, and mess pork. We cooked our own bread, shortening it with the grease out of the pork. We built a log cabin, covering it with bark and had double bunks, two on each side. We had some straw to lie on, and covered with a Mexican blanket. It was a healthy, rugged and happy life. We had just fairly got to work, when one night just after turning in, a messenger came to our tent at the lower end of the settlement and told us that the Indians had attacked and defeated Gen. Stilman,¹⁶ about 70 miles east of us, and were making for the river and would probably cross near us and be there this night. We all turned out, and by common instinct went to the camp of Major Anderson, who had been an old Indian fighter. When our party got there, there were about 100 there. Anderson selected a man by the name of Hillis and myself to go and see Hood, the man who had brought the news to the mines. Hood’s camp was on the upper end of the mining settlement. We found Hood in bed. He repeated the story to us, but said he had rode 50 miles that day to get the news to the camp and he was tired and needed to sleep, as he did not think the Indians could get there until the next day and it was uncertain which way they would go. The company had agreed to wait at Anderson’s until we got back, but when we got back, all were gone but about 15. There were about 30 Irishmen in the camptown, and most of them quarrelsome bullies, but every one of them had left and did not stop until they got to Galena, most of them getting there before day the next morning. By morning, there were 10 of us in camp and we went to Gelralton[?], a smelting furnace where Loring Wheeler had a store, furnace, etc., when Wheeler gave the store and place into the care of a man by the name of Cornwall and myself and he took his horse and went to Galena, about 22 miles and joined Stephenson’s Cavalry Company. Wheeler had almost the only horse there was in that part. All the hauling was done by oxen and mines had no use for horses. Wheeler thought he could protect that section of the country better by being with the command than otherwise. Stephenson’s Company was an independent company. There were no regular troops, and no volunteers in the regular service. Stilman had a regiment, but he had been defeated and dispersed by the Indians. Troops were being enlisted in Illinois and Gen. Scott was coming with regulars from the east, but they were not there and Blackhawk and his Indians were with us.¹⁷ I was taken with the ague and had the regular shakes every other day for a week, but I was too many for the ague.

[A Mining Claim at Dubuque]

Four years before that in 1828, the miners had slushed ore and discovered rich leads, where Dubuque now stands, [p. 14] but the Indians had them driven off and their outfits destroyed.¹⁸ The Indians were then all gone from Dubuque and on the ‘warpath’ and it was known that the Indians at the end of the war would have to give up their lands on the west bank of the river from Mo. up, including Dubuque and the miners were watching the chance of being the first at Dubuque. Notably was this case with the Langworthy Brothers, who had struck it a rich lead when at Dubuque 4 years before.¹⁹ While at Wheeling, a company of four, Lucian Langworthy being one, came and stayed all night on their way to Dubuque. They had a mining outfit and got some powder and started for Dubuque, in the morning. When near Dubuque, they saw Indians as they expected and fled to Galena, where a part of Stephenson’s command went out, but found no Indians, but found that it was surveyors establishing the northwest corner of the state of Illinois. The Indians killed stragglers as they could find them, but did not appear to be very near us, so about a dozen of us went back to the mine and built a blockhouse, a regular blockhouse. We had muskets and ammunition and had laid in a supply of provisions so that we could stand a siege of a few days. After building one blockhouse our party dwindled down to 5, and we concluded we would go down to Dubuque and see if we could not get possession. We took a couple of skiffs, a mining kit and a supply of provisions and blankets. We stopped at Jorden’s, opposite Dubuque, who had the ferry across the river and went over to prospect. We got our windlass up and ready for a fair start the next day and started to go back and we concluded that there would be a town there when the Indians were gone. So we staked off a claim of half section each, being a mile long and a half mile wide, where the town of Dubuque now stands. We gave good measure, driving good stakes at the corners. When we got across the river to Jorden’s, we found that he had sunk his ferry boat and hauled his canoes out into the bottom from the river and was all ready to leave for Galena, 16 miles off. The Indians had attacked the fort on Apple River, 12 miles east of Galena and had killed several people and orders had been issued for all miners to come into Galena. We left everything at Jorden’s but concluded that we would go back to the Snake Hollow Mine. So we, Cornwallis and I, got on our skiff and the wind, blowing fair, we sailed up to the mouth of the Hollow and as it was night dark we stopped in a vacant shanty. It had been an old Indian village and burying ground for the Indians. The shanty was covered with bark and that had curled up, and there was an army of rats and more mosquitoes than I had ever met at once before. We laid down in a bunk, and I had slept well. My partner kept watch all night, the rats and mosquitoes kept him awake. My forehead was one sore in the morning. When we got to the blockhouse in the morning, we found a half-finished letter that was left by Thiel Hill, [p. 15] one of the party we left there, and other indications that there had been a regular scare and stampede. We got our breakfast and looked around but saw no Indians nor any sign of any, but we concluded we would go back to Wheeler’s that day and see what was going on. When we got there we found that Wheeler had sent out for all to leave and go to Galena. So we went on to Galena.

[An Indian Attack Near Cincinaway Mound]

The next day about noon, a man came to town and reported that the Indians had killed two men on a little creek near the Cincinaway Mound.²⁰ I got an old horse and with sixteen others went to the scene of the murder. We found the two men that were murdered. There had been three of them at work on a little cornfield, one plowing and two sowing. The Indians had concealed themselves in the fence corner until the man plowing came to the fence and the other two were nearby, when they fired killing the one with the plow and one of the others. The other made his escape to the Cincinaway Mound and gave the alarm. When Gen. G. W. Norris, afterwards senator from Iowa, sent a runner to Galena to give the alarm, the Indians followed the man to the fort and then went back and scalped the two men that were killed, cut the heart out of one, took the horse and went to the river. We followed them to the ferry. We found they had drawn the staples of the lock on Jorden’s watch house, took a crosscut saw and sawed off about ten feet of a canoe that Jorden had hauled out into the bottom several hundred yards from the river, and dragged it to the river, nailed boards on the end, then they took three blankets, one belonged to me that I had left there two days before, and two from Jorden. They also took flour and meat that we had left and crossed the river. We could see the canoe on the opposite shore. The Sioux and Fox tribe of Indians lived together and owned their country in common. They had owned all northern Illinois and all of what is now Iowa and most of Minnesota. In selling their lands in Illinois, they claimed that they retained their burying grounds near Rock Island, including what is now the city of Rock Island, but it was not so in the treaty and when the settlers attempted to settle the town the Indians drove them off. Then the troops were sent against the Indians and they left. That was in the spring of 1831. In the spring of 1832, Blackhawk, the chief of the Foxes, again commenced the war and defeated Stilman, who was sent against them. They killed many of the settlers, and Lt. Vrain, the Indian agent.²¹ Keokuk and the Siouxs did not join the fight. They were west of the Mississippi, at Flint Hills, now Burlington, in southern Iowa. The three Indians that killed the men near Cincinaway Mound were no doubt messengers sent by Blackhawk to Keokuk, to get Keokuk to join him in fighting the whites. They had been seen the day before east of Galena and had no blankets. They no doubt saw the men before they got to Jorden’s. Jorden was a great friend of the Indians, and they no doubt expected help of him, but finding that he was gone, they no doubt prepared the canoe and put [p. 16] the provisions and blankets into it then went back and killed the men and took the horse to carry their provisions on their journey to Keokuk. They drove the staples in, securing the lock, leaving everything as they found it, except the blankets and provisions that they took, showing that they did not destroy the property of friends. I do not suppose that any white man would have treated any Indian so well in all the mining region.

[Visiting Galena and the End of the War]

We went back to Galena that night. We were not particular on the order of going. I had not been on horseback for a long time and the horse I rode was as rough going as any old plug that man ever rode, and the trip back was in the night. The night was dark as pitch, except when lightning and rain poured down in torrents. I was almost as completely used up when I got back as man could be. I remained in Galena about two weeks, doing nothing as there was nothing to do. I could get no horse to go to war with and there was no work to do. Of all places, Galena at that day and at that time was the most wicked. There were probably 2,000 miners in town, idle. There were not a dozen reputable families. What women there were, were the worst of the worst class. It was Sodom. It was impossible to tell when the Indian war would end, and there could be no mining until it did end. I could not stay and returned to Hannibal. It happened that the troops from Illinois whipped the Indians and captured Blackhawk soon afterwards. Gen. Scott brought several companies of regulars from the east, landing at Milwaukie and marched them by land to Rock Island. On the route, cholera broke out amongst them, and they never reached the Indians, but they brought the cholera, and from them it flooded the whole Mississippi River and country.

[The Journey to Irish Grove, Illinois]

When I got to Hannibal, I was to work in a tanning yard at $15 a month.²² I had a slight attack of cholera and did not recover entirely until the winter, but I worked on until the latter part of August, when with Col. Patterson and John Johnson, went to Illinois. We crossed the Mississippi at Hannibal and stayed with a man by the name of Adams, twelve miles back of Quincy. Adams had neither meat nor bread. He had quite a farm and plenty of stock, but he was a sloven old pioneer, who was used to living as he caught it. He had plenty of milk and had gathered bushels of plums that day, and he had at least fifty bee stands. He furnished us an abundance of honey and plums and milk. We had bread and meat so we did well. When night came on, he gave his bed to Patterson and Johnson (he had no family of his own), and gave me a buffalo robe to lay on, but before he gave it to me he took it out and beat out the fleas, saying that the dogs generally slept on it. But I made a good night’s sleep on the dogs’ bed. The next morning we started at sun-up and were not able to get anything to eat on the road until night, they were sick at every home and could give us nothing. We had a little bread and meat, and we passed that day, [p. 17] thousands of bushels of ripe plums, the most delicious that I had ever tasted. The country was settled on an average of about every six miles, but the houses were single log huts. We got to the Illinois River about one hour by sun, and a little before sundown. We put up for the night at a man by the name of Philips at the foot of the Illinois Bluff, and we had the best supper that I ever ate in my life, as I then thought, and still think. The supper in part consisted of the best coffee, cold rich milk and fresh butter, the best of biscuits, fried chicken, broiled ham, with several kinds of jams. We ate as hungry men can eat. Johnson suffered all night. I slept. We got an equally good breakfast and paid 50¢ a person for what we and our horses ate. The next day we went to Jacksonville, the town of a few hundred people and that night stopped with some relatives on the Jersey[?] Prairie and the next day reached the Irish Grove. I still fully intended to go back to the mines to look after my claims, one of which bid fair to be a valuable lead, but there was no mining, at that day, done in the winter. I thought I would spend the winter in the Irish Grove and go to the mines in the spring.

[Giving Up on the Mine and Buying a Farm in Illinois]

I stopped and went to work for Wm. Stotts, an old acquaintance. I was in bad health, but I did not stop work. While I was there, my father and brother were most anxious to have me go home again. I had roved around, homesick and made nothing. I had a cousin, J. Q. Walker, my own age, and we had been like brothers when boys. He was a doctor and had spent that year at Macomb, McDonough County, practicing medicine but had determined to go back home to settle.²³ He came by the Grove to get me to go with him and stayed several days with me. He offered that if I would go back with him and study medicine, that he would winter with him, he would give me a full partnership. I would not do it, I finally told him that he need not stay any longer for me, that I never would go home again until I had more than I brought away with me. I was as homesick as anybody ever was, but I had made nothing and I did not mean to go back until I did make something. He left me in the winter. In company with Johnson and Patterson, we built a church for the Presbyterians. We did it cheap and made little. That winter, I determined to go to farming and settle down and give up on the mines. I learned afterwards that one of my claims turned out well and a long lawsuit that resulted from the contest of my partner and other parties who “jumped” the claim. By the regulations of the mines, so much work had to be done on each mine every three months. While we were about there, parties jumped the claims, but my partner beat them, but I never got anything. I did not write and have never seen him since, although he has made a fortune and lives nearby this mine. I went to Springfield and borrowed fifty dollars of Dr. Taylor[?] on my own individual note without security, although a perfect stranger, agreeing to pay him 37½ interest [p. 18] for the money and entered 40 acres of timber land in the bottom of Salt Creek. Salt Creek was a sluggish creek, when full covered the bottom for miles downstream. The land was very rich, but the country was as sickly as it was possible to be. The farmers, as everybody, provided for sickness as they did for winter. They would hurry up getting out their wheat and get enough ground to last them through the sickly season, lay in wood and get ready for the chills and fever.

[Claiming and Making Fence Rails on Government Land]

After entering the timber, I located on a quarter section of prairie. There was no land entered within two miles of where I made my claim. There was no preemption law at that time, but the settlers protected each other so that no man dare enter the claim of a squatter. There were at that time men living in the Grove, who had lived on their lands for ten and fifteen years, without entering it. One man had a good home and barn and kept tavern on government land. I boarded at John Patterson’s, two miles from my claims and during the winter I made enough rails on Congress land in the Grove to fence two sides of a forty-acre field. It was about a mile from where I boarded, to the timber where I made the rails. I would get my breakfast at daylight and go to the timber, taking with me a piece of cornbread and some meat and would work until it got dark, so dark that I could not see. I made about 125 rails a day and made them out of timber that had been culled over until it was not supposed that any more rails could be made out of it. It was hard work, but I was in earnest and the timber I had entered was a mile from my claim and three from where I boarded, being too far to go, besides I did not want to use my own timber as long as I could get government. I made and got my rails hauled out on the claim during the winter before the thaw, and as soon as the spring opened I ditched the other two sides of my field and made a sod fence three feet high, three feet wide at the bottom and two feet at the top, making two rows of sod and filling it with the dirt dug from the ditch. While building the sod fence, I worked from daylight until dark and sometimes until 9 o’clock at night, when there was moonlight and then walked the two miles. One night I started to go to David Walker’s, only about two miles of open prairie. After walking long enough to get there, I began to look about, but saw no farm, although I was sure that I was all right. After going on so for some hours, I became satisfied that I was lost, but I was not so bewildered that I did not have my mind properly, and the first path I came to I determined to follow it. I was very sure I was going towards the Grove, but after travelling about an hour, the moon made its appearance, but it was all wrong. After a good long reflection, I concluded that I was wrong and not the moon and turned around and walked back. I had probably traveled about ten miles on my ramble.

I had a man break 30 acres of my field for which I gave him $2 an acre and planted it in sod corn in part and sowed the Bal. in wheat in the fall. [p. 19] I made a kiln of brick. It did not turn out well, but I made something out of it.

[Retrieving the Livestock with James Stotts]

During the summer, my brother John came out to see me, and I went home with him. We hired a two-horse light wagon and four of us made the trip, camping out at night, making a nice trip. The trip, about 500 miles, took us about two weeks. I remained at home about 3 weeks and returned. My father gave me a wagon, and I bought a yoke of cattle and a young man, James Stotts, a true, noble young man joined me. His father giving him a yoke of cattle and some loose young cattle and one large cow that gave milk. My father gave me a few head of cattle, making in all some 15 or 20 head of loose cattle, a wagon and two yoked of cattle. Young Stotts had a good horse, and I had a large spaniel dog that had more sense than most people. He had been trained by my father to go to the field to hunt for hogs or other trespassers and very soon he knew all [the] cattle. If one of them left the road, the first thing they knew he would have them by the tail, when they would bawl and make for the road. My mother had baked a large lot of pone light bread, baked in oven with coals of fire above and below, and she furnished a large mug of excellent butter and we took from the smokehouse several clear sides of bacon, with plenty of homemade blankets and started for Illinois. We were just one month on the road. I did not shave on the trip. We milked the cow night and morning, had plenty of milk, plenty of bread and butter, and we broiled one bacon on a stick over the coals, saving the grease on our bread. We made coffee if we wanted it, but that was not often. It was the happiest month of my life, and I never lived so well. We always got our cattle in a pasture at night, and we fed our oxen and horse. I drove the cattle, and Jimmie drove the wagon, and he drove them with a line after the Southern fashion of that day. The lead ones had crumply horns, and as a rule, he would turn his roundabout coat wrong side out and ride his lead oxen through the towns, looking as serene as an owl and having all the boys and idlers following him and asking him all sorts of questions, and he would answer them according to their questions. He was a great wag and liked such sport. During the month, and for years before and after, we were close friends. Not one hard feeling of the slightest kind ever existed between us. He was the brother of my brother James’s first wife, noble brother and noble sister.

[The Finishing Touches: A House and a Wife]

That fall and winter, I built a loghouse, one story 18 ft. square, puncheon floor, and clapboard roof, with a brick chimney, doing all the work myself. I also added to the farm some 20 acres and built a stable. One of my oxen died, and I had to buy another. In the spring of 1834, I married Melinda Walker, my cousin. She was very handsome and truly good in every sense of the term, now happy in Heaven. We moved into our cabin of one room, with very little to start on. We had one little pony and two yoke of oxen and a few other cattle, a cow or two, some hogs, and my good dog and some bees. [p. 20] I still owed for the 40 acres of land that I had entered, and the farm was not paid for. I planted my corn and----------Prairie as much as I could to get some money to live on. I worked very hard from daylight until dark. This was in the year 1834.

[Early Political Involvement]

I will now go back and take up my political history. While in Hannibal, in 1831, one wet day I went from the brickyard, dirty and rough, into the town and was sitting in the barroom of the principal hotel reading an old paper, as I always did as I found one, but they were scarce then. I had little money to buy with, but politics had been my love from a boy, and I was strangely well posted for my opportunity. While I was sitting there reading, Judge Draper[?], the leading man of the town and a great Democrat (Jackson Man) was holding forth to half a dozen greedy citizens praising Jackson and abusing Henry Clay. I stopped and listened awhile and finally put in and got much the better of the argument from the fact that the Judge had exposed himself, supposing there were none to contradict him. Ever after that, Draper never met me without being very polite and soon after, left the Democracy and supported the Whigs. In 1832 I voted, although under age, for John Smith, J., the most noted murderer that ever lived in Missouri, for governor. Smith was a miner below St. Louis, of immense wealth and a man of talent and great liberality, but a furious, willful man, and in some sort of row, in duels and otherwise, killed twelve or fourteen men, but was seldom tried for the offence and never convicted. He lived in savage times, and a savage people surrounded him. At that time, Mo. was overwhelmingly for Jackson, and at the August elections before the presidential elections, there were several candidates for governor, each one trying to convince the people that they were the simon-pure Jackson candidate,²⁴ and to that end, circular after circular was issued by the candidates. About a week before the election, Smith issued a circular announcing himself as a candidate for governor, in which he denounced Jackson as a murderer and all that was bad. He received some 600 votes in the state, and I was one of them.

[Meeting Abraham Lincoln]

In the fall at the November [1832] election, I rode to Springfield, 20 miles to get to vote for Henry Clay. I still lacked a few days of being old enough, but no one questioned my right. In 1833, I took an active part in the campaign, and thought I changed the vote in the Irish Grove to be a Whig majority. The state election was then held the first Monday of August in Illinois. Sangamon County then embraced the present counties of McNeil, Cass, Christian, Logan, Mason and DeWitt, and was entitled to four members in the house and two senators. The county was largely Jackson, but every candidate for county offices ran on his own merit. There were 15 or 20 candidates for the legislature, amongst them was Abraham Lincoln, then a clerk in a store in Salem, in the Sangamon area, 10 or 12 miles below Springfield. I had got acquainted with Lincoln,²⁵ and on the [p. 21] day of election, I got breakfast by daylight and started to the Lake Fork, 19 miles distant. I rode a little pony, and the road was but a path and the grass as high as my head on the pony much of the way, and the dew was so great that I got thoroughly wet before I got to the precinct, which was about 9 a.m. Peter G. Cowndon, and active sprightly man and I were the only Whigs there. The settlers in that region were mostly from North Carolina and Tennessee and as ignorant as Needlie. They had been supplied with tickets, but before the polls were opened, Cowndon and I got the tickets out of the way, and I filled up blank tickets. I wrote 108 tickets out of the 111 votes, and got Lincoln’s name in every one. I filled in the governor, lt. governor, congressmen, state officers, and senator just as they named them and their numbers as they named them, but they never had more than three and seldom that many, who they wanted put in. Then I would ask to put in Lincoln, and they always agreed, sometimes asking if he was a Jackson man. I would tell them I reckoned so. I really did not know his politics but I thought he ought to be a Whig. The result was, Lincoln led the ticket in the county, almost 700 votes. Few of the voters had ever seen him at that time, but he had a lot of active young friends all over the county who attended different precincts and made a special fight for him. That was his commencement as a politician. I forgot to say that I was elected constable at the April election in 1833, for the district which was a good sized county in boundaries.

[A Serious Illness]

The Saturday following the election, being the 9th of August, I was taken with the fever. There as a sacramental meeting in the Grove. Several ministers from abroad and strangers from the adjoining neighborhood. The meeting commenced on Friday. I had made up my mind to join the Church on Saturday, but when Saturday came, I could not go. My wife and her mother, who was living with us, went. I had a high fever during the day but was better in the evening. The next day, I was worse, but the women went to church. I had a bad day, and Monday was very bad. I sent for a doctor, Dr. Winn, who lived about ten miles off. Within the last week, there were few families, in which there was no sickness, mostly chills and fever, but a good deal of fever. Dr. Winn lived on a farm and had half a dozen riding horses. His practice extended over a circuit of thirty miles. The settlements were scattered over the Prairie, in little settlements, all log cabins and no conveniences. The doctor rode night and day, going home each day or night, for a fresh horse. He came to see me once a day. As soon as he came, my wife made him a strong cup of tea and something that he liked to eat. He would give me the needed medicine, then he would lie down and take an hour and a half sleep, then he would give the proper instruction until he came again, mount his horse and gallop off to the next patient. I had the closest and best nursing, but my case baffled medicines, and at that day, the cruel system prevailed of not allowing the poor patient to have any water to drink. [p. 22] There was a cold clear spring not far from the house that it seemed to me. I would give the world if I could only have one good drink out of that spring, but I lay and burned up with the fever. Medicine seemed to have no power with me. By Saturday, I was given up by most of my friends and by the doctor, but I did not think that I would die. Sunday morning the fever seemed to settle in my throat and stop my breath. When the doctor came, I could scarcely whisper. I told him that I could not last long unless he gave me relief. He gave me something hot that seemed to cut a road down my throat and gave me immediate relief. The fever then settled in both jaws, below my ears, and my face swelled up to double its natural shape and size, and the misery was most excruciating. I had suffered most intense misery from the time I was taken sick and had scarcely slept. My fever began to leave me, but my jaw continued to get worse. Toward the last of the week, the doctor lanced them and then ran a probe in and reached the matter. The probing was excruciating, but it brought relief. The doctor then thought I would get well, but lose my hearing. The first week of my sickness I had been blistered on my breast, stomach, wrists, ankles, the back of my neck, and down between my shoulders. For three weeks, I had to lay on my back on that sore, but I did not lose my hearing. I was two months in bed, and while I was sick the hogs ate up all my corn. I had just commenced to stake and rider my fence before my sickness, but had not finished and the stock destroyed the corn. My doctor’s bill was about sixty dollars. As soon as I could get out, I had to go to work and get wood and other necessaries and that would bring on the chills, and at night I would have ague sweats.

[Prairie Fires]

At that day, prairie fires were the dread of the settlers. Nothing was more common than to have farms burned up in these fires. I had not pointed the cracks of my house. I was chinked in November. I was awakened one night about two o’clock, by hearing a great roaring and the light in the house was so bright that I could see to pick up a pin. I at once got up, but I was in such a sweat there was not a dry thread on me. I looked out and saw the prairie on fire down Salt Creek about 15 miles off, but I could hear the roar of the fire and there was a strong wind driving the fire directly to my place. There is no sight that I ever saw, so terrifying as a prairie fire. The Salt Creek bottom was from 3 to 5 miles wide and the grass 3 to 7 feet high, dead and dry. The fire seemed to be about 30 feet high, rolling over and over like a great wheel of fire and no race horse could have outrun it. My only chance of safety was to fire against the fire. There was a road from my house to the Grove and by firing on the side of the road next to the fire approaching, and against the wind, it would make so wide a tract that the coming fire would not jump it. I put on my clothes and commenced firing and fired along the road for a little over a mile, when I met John Rutherford and [p. 23] Abraham Lucas, neighbors at the Grove, who hearing the fire and seeing my danger and seeing that I was firing against it, commenced firing at the Grove and met me. We met before the fire reached the road. At that day, it was not safe to be out on the prairie in the fall without being prepared to fire against fire. It was not uncommon for trains and wagons to be burned up by these fires.

[The Death of James Taylor, a Brother]

I was not able to do much until after Christmas. I had made arrangements in the spring to join my brother James and go to Iowa and look at the country. He had agreed to go there with me, but he was killed in the summer, defeating that arrangement. We had been true brothers. We had always been together and slept together. I idolized him. His death almost distracted me. I felt that I really did not want to live myself. Fortunately, I had recovered myself before I was taken with the fever. I repaired my fences during the winter. In the spring of 1834, a man by the name of Wright came out from New Jersey and entered 30,000 acres of land adjoining my place and along Salt Creek. He gave me $400 for my 40 acres of timber and my improvements. With that $400, I entered 200 acres of prairie that adjoined the Grove and 40 acres of timber in the Grove. In company with Alexander Gilmore, a brother-in-law bought a farm adjoining the Grove for $1,000. We divided the farm and borrowed the money to pay for the land. I built a frame house 16 × 30 ft., shingle roof. It was now the spring of 1835. I fenced and broke 60 acres of prairie in March of that year.

[Early Days in Iowa]

Our first child was born, a tiny little girl. We called her Catharine Esther, after my mother and my brother’s wife. Had chills off and on all this time now. There was nobody that was really well, all were full of malarial fever. In the spring of 1836,²⁶ with Wm. Patterson, Green Casey and Alexander Walker, started to look at the Territory of Iowa, to see if we could not find a more healthy place than in Illinois. Walker was my wife’s brother. He and Green Casey married sisters of Patterson, and Patterson was a distant relative of mine. Patterson and Walker were elders in the Presbyterian church and Casey’s wife and mine were members. We went as agents of the settlement of Illinois, all formerly from Kentucky, then in Irish Grove. We crossed the Mississippi on the 9th of May, 1836, at the town of Fort Madison.²⁷ The country from the Irish Grove to Iowa at that time was scarcely settled, houses in many parts on the road being 5 or 10 miles apart. There were then about 100 people living in the town of Fort Madison, and but 2 or 3 thousand in what is now the state of Iowa. It was then a part of the Territory of Michigan. We spent most of the day in Fort Madison. We were traveling horseback, with saddle bags, regular southern style. We carried our own provisions and generally found some settler with whom we could stop overnight, but the fare was hard as a rule, corn bread and rancid bacon if any meat and milk.

[“Settlers Were a Law unto Themselves”]

It was Saturday when we got to Fort Madison, and the first sight we saw was a mob of settlers throw a shanty over the bank into the river. [p. 24] The man who built it claimed the settlement, but the town company claimed it and raised a posse and tore it down. At that time there had not been a single range nor township run west of the river, and each settler surveyed out the piece of land that he wanted. Settlers would meet together and made regulations to govern themselves. By these regulations each settler was allowed 160 acres of prairie and the same of timber for his claim, on that must break 5 acres and build a cabin within such a time or forfeit his claim, and it was worth as much as a man’s life to jump a claim and no man was allowed to live on a claim that he had jumped. The settlers were a law unto themselves.

While living in Illinois, a speculator entered a man’s farm near me, and we would not give it up to him. The man who entered the land lived in New Jersey. The neighbors went and destroyed everything, house, outbuildings, fences, a young orchard, filled up the well, and made the place a waste, and then would not allow anyone to buy the land until the owner sold it at government price.²⁸

[Finding, Buying, and Selling Land]

We went from Fort Madison out to Dr. Gilmer’s,²⁹ an old Kentucky friend of ours who lived two miles from town. He had been there over a year, being one of the earliest settlers. The first settlers were allowed to settle in May 1834. The doctor had a log cabin. We all comfortably lodged in that room. We stayed with the doctor over Sunday, when Mr. Walker and Casey concluded to locate a claim on the prairie of this settlement, which seemed a long way out.³⁰ Col. Patterson and I went on to West Point, ten miles from the river.³¹ The town had just been laid out and had only one house in it, and that was about 15 feet square made of split hickory logs, the split sides in and clapboards nailed over the cracks and clapboard roof. It was occupied as a store. There were three pieces of calico, a few pieces of domestic goods, a few trinkets, a barrel of whiskey, some sugar and coffee, constituted the store. The town was laid out on the prairie at a point of timber, a beautiful site for a town, high with a grand view, west and north. The streams were much lower than the prairie so that the views extended miles and miles to the timber of the Skunk and Des Moines Rivers. We bought out the townsite³² from Abraham Hunsaker[?] for $1,500, and all located and bought claims for farming adjoining. We at once advertised a sale of lots to take place on Sept. 11, and returned back to Illinois. I sold out my land in Illinois at a handsome profit on cost, making me worth then about $1,500. I at once returned to West Point and John Allen, Casey, and two of Mr. Walker’s sons went with me. We took a team and went to work to build a house, each for our families. The houses were frame 18 × 32 feet, one story high.³³ We had no lumber of any kind and could get none. We split out the studding, made puncheon floors and clapboard doors. We got the frames up, covered and weatherboarded by the time of the sale. The other owners, and others came to the sale. We were all temperance men and allowed no whiskey³⁴ at the [p. 25] sale of lots, and that was anything but popular, in fact, it was hardly allowable for a man to be allowed to live in the country who did not use whiskey. To meet this, we made a barbecue and had old uncle Luke Alphian, a noted Kentucky fighter and the leading settler of that part, to top the roasting of the ox. We had plenty of bread, and the ox was well roasted, and the sale went off most happily. We sold over $2,000 worth of lots and sold but a very small part of the town.³⁵ I went back soon after the sale and brought out my family. By that time, there were about a dozen families in the town.

[Starting a Store]

I joined Cyrus Poagen[?], a Virginian in starting a store. He went to St. Louis and bought a small stock of goods, but they froze up in the Mississippi before we got them up, and we had to send a team down to Clarksburg to get them, costing us more than the goods were worth. In the spring, I bought out Poagen and went back to Illinois to collect the balance of the money due me. I had to cross the Mississippi on the ice, and on my way home going down the Illinois River, our boat collided with another steam boat, when the boat I was on sunk and several persons were drowned. I only lost some of my clothes. At St. Louis, I stopped at the National Hotel, corner 3rd and Market Streets.

[Saint Patrick’s Day with the Catholic “Wild Irish Men”]

It was the 17th of March, St. Patrick’s Day. I had never seen but a few Catholic Irishmen, in fact, up to that time, I had never known a Catholic in my life. My room was over the dining room, and St. Patrick’s Dinner was in the dining room. I had gone to bed early, and after being asleep awhile, I was awakened by the noise. It seemed to me that the house was being torn down. I jumped up and put on my clothes and rushed down to see the dining room chuck full of wild Irishmen as it seemed to me. If I could have got away, I should have done so, but I looked on until I concluded that they were not aiming to do more than break all the glasses. I went back to bed and went to sleep again. When I awakened in the morning and looked, there was a mummy-stuffed “St. Patrick” hanging suspended from a line stretched from the hotel across the street. Paddy was soon cut down and a reward offered for the “man who did it,” but so far as I know, he was not found. To my astonishment, I saw by the paper the next Monday that my wild Irish men were the wealthy men of St. Louis, the very leaders of the city. I did not understand how men of character could make such brutes of themselves. The next day was Sunday, and I went to the cathedral with a friend, and it was the first that I had ever seen of the Catholics. I had been educated to believe them more dangerous than the heathen. So it seemed to me that their dipping and crossing themselves with holy water, and their candles and other mockery was committing the unpardonable sin, and I trembled while in the building, which was not long, for fear the roof would fall in and crush the wicked idolaters and have never been in a Catholic church since, with one single exception. I bought a small stock of goods, but I was never cut out for a merchant. I was too liberal and too slow [p. 26] to collect.

[Justice of the Peace]

It was now 1837, I had been appointed a justice of the peace by Governor Dodge.³⁶ Michigan had been admitted as a state in 1837, and the territory of Wisconsin had been formed.³⁷ There were then but two counties west of the Mississippi; Des Moines and Dubuque, dividing at Pine[?] River. My office as justice was not very [re]munerative. I tried a few cases and married a few couples.

[Performing Marriages]

Among the numbers was Fugit Clark to Nancy Penrod. Penrod was from Illinois. He had been a little free with his neighbor’s hogs and the Grand[?] May of his county objecting he retired to the territory not caring to have any controversy with his neighbors. He lived a mile from town in a little cabin with dirt floor, two straw beds, one bedstead made by driving some forks in the ground and laying poles across for the straw to rest upon. Clark was a fit son-in-law. Clark’s grandfather was groomsman. The bride was dressed in a Tennessee yellow homespun dress without any furbelows. The old granddad was pretty tight, and as soon as the ceremony was over, he drew from his pocket a flask of pure corn juice of the fiery white kind and had the bride take a good swig, then the groom, then it was offered to me, but as I did not drink, the old man gave as a toast: “Here’s wishing that the first may be a gal and a boy, Hello Molly,” drank himself. My fee is still uncollected. The week following the old man Clark came to me to go down in the timber to the Duke Settlement to marry another of his nephews, to a Miss Duke. For that I was paid a dollar and a treats. About three months thereafter, the old man came into the store early one morning and at the top of his voice cried out: “Hello Molly, Frances’s wife has a little one, but Hello Molly, she is good enough for Frances if she had two.” It was quick work, especially as Frances had only been acquainted with her for two months before he married her, but the old man was right. She was good enough for him and made him a good wife.

[Horse Thieves: Bill Ponts arrests Bill Eldridge and the Ralton Crowd³⁸]

At that time the only settlements in the county were in the timber or on the edge of the prairie. Few of the settlers had the means to break the prairies. In the timber they could clear little patches and fish, hunt, and live. There was a settlement on Skunk, four miles north of West Point, of desperadoes, headed by Hamp Ralton, that was a terror to the whole county. They were from southern Illinois. They belonged to a gang of horse thieves, besides being desperadoes. South on Devil Creek there was a settlement of Kentuckians of the poor kind. They were honest, but a rough set. Their leader was Bill Ponts[?]; the most perfect specimen of a man physically that I ever saw, and his only ambition was to be the best fighter in the county. The tribe was not quarrelsome. West of the town was another wild set, fond of horse racing. At the head of that crowd was Bill Eldridge. Every Saturday, Eldridge and the Ralton crowd would meet in the town and run quarter races ending in a grand [p. 27] frolic to the annoyance of the place. The citizens in the village and for several miles adjoining were religious and orderly people, and these Saturday races and carousals were terribly annoying. Finally one Saturday, the Ralton crowd concluded to whip the town, and did injure several. When I issued a writ for the leaders and sent a little fellow by the name of Barrett, the town constable to arrest them. When they threatened to shoot him and galloped over the public square bidding defiance to everybody, I got up a posse to take them. Then they galloped off home. I sent word to Bill Ponts to come in on Monday morning. Bill could not write, but he had been elected constable. I gave him a writ for Hamp Ralton and some others of the princip[al] ones of his following, and told him to arrest them and bring them to West Point, and if they resisted, to take his band and arrest or exterminate them. He went by himself and returned with all of his prisoners. I put Ralton under boss for court and told him I should arrest him every time that he comes to town and misbehaves. He asked leave to go home and get bail. I let him go, but he never came back. He and his crowd all went to Missouri. So we got rid of that set.

[The Match between Driscoll and Dodd³⁹]

On one occasion, an old man by the name of Driscoll, from Richmond, Ky., who lived about five miles from town, got all liquored up and swore that he was the best man of his age that was ever in West Point. An old fellow by the name of Dodd heard him, and without saying a single word, went across the square to where his son had a little store and said: “Orrin, Old Driscoll says that he is the best man of his age that was ever in West Point. Will I whip him[?]” “If it will pay to do so,” said his son, not thinking the old man thought of fighting, but he turned without saying a word and walked back to Driscoll and said, “You say you are sixty-five. I am seventy-two,” and at once commenced the fight like a wild cat, knocked down Driscoll and jumped on him. When Driscoll began to holler murder, the bystanders took Dodd off. Then he deliberately walked back to his son’s store and said to his son, “I have whipped him.” Dodd only weighed 125, a regular wild cat male. Driscoll weighed 200 lbs. and was a good fighter, but Dodd whipped him before he thought of it.

[A Fight for Manhood between Ponts and Allen⁴⁰]

Almost all of the settlers at that time in what now is southern Iowa, were from the South and kept up [the] southern fashion of riding into town every Saturday and hitching their ponies to racks prepared for that purpose in front of all the stores and public places, and have a good time, get mellow on the purest rot gut whiskey ever made, and occasionally have a friendly fight to test the manhood of different neighborhood bullies. In the prairie there lived a man by the name of Allen, a shoemaker or cobbler, from Maine. He had evidently left his country for his country’s good. He had been a tramp after the fashion of shoemakers, hatters, tailors, and most of the trade. Allen claimed to be a scientific fighter. Said he had fought all over Maine and had never been whipped. He was a regular Yankee, and hearing that John Ponts was a good [p. 28] fighter, he sent word to Ponts that on a certain Saturday he would be in West Point, and if Ponts thought Kentucky was a better state than Maine, that they would settle the question by a friendly fight. Neither had ever seen the other, and Ponts had never heard of Allen, but they met as proposed. Ponts had his crowd there, Allen was alone. They made a ring and went at it, not according to the rules of the prize ring, but rough and tumble. This was in the spring of 1838. I had resigned as justice of the peace and an old man by the name of Brand, a Virginian, had been appointed. Brand had no force, was poor and weakly. He attempted to stop the fight, but no one paid any attention to him and the fight went on and it was a desperate fight. Both men were terribly punished, but finally Allen gave in and they were separated, and after being washed and put in shape as much as possible, Brand had them arrested. When Allen, who was a good talker insisted that they ought not to be fined; that it was a mere friendly fight to test the manhood of Kentucky and Maine, he said, Kentucky had won and that was all there was to it. All the town turned out to the trial. Allen’s speech made much sport, but Brand fined them five dollars each, but neither ever paid the fine. The parties separated the best of friends. While these things were being enacted, I still never locked my door, neither did anyone else and there was nothing stolen.⁴¹

[Christianity on the Frontier]

The Friends built a brick Presbyterian Church and had a very good congregation. The Methodists had regular preaching. One good man by the name of Cartright⁴² rode the circuit and every week he crossed the bleak prairie from West Point to Bakers Point on the Des Moines, timber 20 miles, or over one hundred miles in distance, rain or shine, facing the storms twice a week. There were no bridges then, and he had to swim streams often and the roads were often almost impassable. I cannot but think that here was more of what really Christ with these rough people in these rough times, than is to be found in refined society, as it is called. Every man then helped his neighbors and divided what he had with his neighbors. If one man’s crop failed, his neighbors divided with him until he could raise another. If one man lost his horse or his oxen his neighbors went and plowed his ground for him. They were not watching to see what profit they could make out of his misfortunes, nor were they watching to cheat him out of his home.

[Establishing the Territory of Iowa]

During the fall of 1837, there was a county convention⁴³ in Lee County (the county of Des Moines had been divided the winter before into the counties of Van Buren, Lee, Henry, Washington, Louisa and Muscatine, making in all seven counties. West Point being in Lee County and Fort Madison the county seat. West Point was more central and we wanted to make it the county seat⁴⁴) held at West Point to appoint delegates to attend at Burlington to meet the Legislature of the Territory, (we were then a part of Wisconsin Territory) met that winter at Burlington and petition congress for a division of the territory, giving us a [p. 29] territory west of the Mississippi and for an act of congress giving the settlers of the public lands a preemption for two years on their homes without payment, and for the settlement of the boundary lines between the territory of Iowa and Missouri. Judge Ross Philip Viele⁴⁵ and myself were appointed the delegates.

[The Corrupt Legislature at Burlington]

We went to Burlington, meeting delegates from all the counties in the territory west of the Mississippi. The legislature united with the convention and Congress granted all our requests. The Territory of Iowa was established, to take effect on the 4th of July, 1838. I spent a good part of the winter in Burlington in trying to get West Point made the county seat. The legislature was a corrupt one, not a single member but that was in the market, that had been elected from Des Moines County the year before. I was offered the county seat for a block of 16 lots. The same men the winter before voted for Madison for the seat of government for Wisconsin. Doty, who was afterwards governor of the territory and member of Congress and died as Governor of Utah,⁴⁶ owned the townsite or what part has been made a city since gave Maj. Taas[?] 24 lots; Maj. Henry Smith 40 lots; Col. Zuyraham[?] 13 lots (they were members of the council) and John Boyce; Dr. Teas; Reuben Chance, a Campbellite teacher; Dr. Jenkins; Dr. Reynolds; Isaac Lofflie[?] and Rolston all members of the house 13 lots each for their votes, at least they voted for Madison for the permanent seat of government, and Burlington for the temporary seat, and got their lots.

I did not get West Point made the county seat. I lost money selling goods and sold out in the spring of 1838. In the fall of 1836, I was elected county clerk of the court at an election, but the court decided the election void, and I did not get the office. In August 1838, I was elected to the territorial legislature. The county was allowed one councilman and four members to the house. The whole council was composed of 13 members and the house of 26. From Lee County there was Gen. J. B. Brown,⁴⁷ elected to the council and Col. Patterson; C. T. Price; James Brierly and myself to the house. The legislature met the first Monday in December at Burlington. I was full of life and active in making W. H. Wollam of Mt. Pleasant speaker and J. T. Fales, chief clerk and serious in doing so. At the session the previous winter at Burlington, the old members of the legislature in both houses, elected all the officers allowed the old county of Des Moines, from Burlington and the county, allowing none from any of the counties taken from the old county. This vexed the new counties and in the legislature we determined to pay the old counties back. So we formed the new county, organized and divided the offices that our part of the territory was entitled to, giving Des Moines County nothing but firemen and they would not accept that, so they got nothing. The delegation from Des Moines was a strong one: James W. Grimes,⁴⁸ afterwards governor and senator; Van Delachmut[?]; George Temple and George [p. 30] Beeler, Beeler elected to fill a vacancy made by David Room,⁴⁹ a lawyer killing Jacobs, the editor of the Gazette, in a street fight. Room had been a candidate for delegate to congress and was bitterly opposed by Jacobs in his paper and Room had bitterly denounced Jacobs on the stump and a few days after the election, Jacobs attacked Room in the street, when Room shot and killed him. That legislature was a miserable one. We had to adopt an entire new code of laws. The Governor was st Lucas, of Ohio.

[Governor Robert Lucas⁵⁰]

Lucas had been governor of Ohio and presided over the Democratic convention that nominated Jackson in 1832. He was the most perverse man that I ever knew. He was a bigoted Methodist without charity. He attempted to form the Ohio laws and policy on the legislature. He brought with him a few parasites to whom he listened and to no one else. His dress was homemade, coarse gray janis[?] His shoes were brogans without strings and never blackened, so that the ears flopped over and the shoes turned red. His coat was long and made after the Methodist fashion, and his hat was made of coon fur, natural colors and broad-brim. His wife was fat and forty, an Episcopalian, dressed in the height of fashion and was in the lead in all fashionable amusements, including dancing parties. They were an odd pair. Lucas assured at the outset, that he would veto any law that he would not as a member of the legislature have voted for. The result was that he vetoed bills right and left, and his veto under the territorial law was final. The result was that very soon, great indignation was manufactured in the legislature against him, and while the legislature was composed of young men there was much talent and plenty and plenty of pluck. The result was a most bitter fight between the governor and the legislature. The legislature by a large majority passed a memorial to congress asking for his removal. That was not done, but congress so amended the charter that a two-thirds majority of the legislature could pass a bill over the veto of the governor.

[Robert G. Roberts]

A large majority of the legislature had never seen a legislature in session before being themselves elected to the legislature, while others had served in other legislatures before coming to Iowa. The new members were the sport of the experienced ones. There were twelve double desks and one single one. Amongst the members elected was Robert G. Roberts. He was elected from Cedar County, then with less than 100 inhabitants. Roberts was without education. He had a good deal of wit, but entirely destitute of culture. He did not get to Burlington for several days after the meeting of the legislature and had to take the single desk. I had a desk with Van DeLuhunt[?], who had been in the Virginia legislature, a man of ability and of an inexhaustible fund of humor. Roberts was dressed in a suit of the coarsest and roughest sort of raiment, his pants six inches too short and his coat scarcely covering his seat, brogan shoes, coarse [p. 31] socks and an immense head of hair, long and looked like it never had been combed. When he came in and went up to be sworn in by the speaker, he was the wildest looking man I ever saw. It was a trying position to a man who had never seen a legislature and Roberts saw that all were watching and criticizing him. Delumunt[?] would hunch me and swear that Roberts would run and whisper it loud enough to be heard by the members near. But Roberts did not run, and while he was the butt of the legislature, still by his mother wit he stood his own pretty well.

[The Iowa Legislature in Session]

There were many exciting questions during the session, notably the location of the capital of the territory. The contest was between Mount Pleasant and Iowa City in Johnson County that was then unsettled, but a central location then. The contest was bitter and the vote stood for a whole day, 13 for Mount Pleasant to 12 against. The friends of Johnson County proposing to substitute some other point for Mt. Pleasant and calling the yeas and nays on the vote. Sam Parker was in the chair in committee of the whole [illegible text] other names seemed—he proposed to substitute Mississippi. No use. Parker could scarcely spell, but was a fellow of great natural resource. He could not pronounce the name. Hastings⁵¹ was a miserable writer and a bright and popular lawyer. Parker tried to pronounce the name and failed. Hastings rose and pronounced the name. Parker tried and failed again. Hastings again arose and in a dignified manner slowly and distinctly pronounced the name, again failed, and Hastings repeating. This play went on until the whole house was in a titter at Parker’s expense. When, after Hastings more deliberately than usual pronounced the name again, Parker said in a most energetic style: “Mr. Hastings that may be the name, but it is D-d badly spelled.” That brought down the house at the expense of Hastings. Although living in the southern part of the territory, I supported the central location and we carried the location, but it did not prove to be central long and even now, Des Moines is not far enough north and west to be central. During the session, I succeeded after much work in getting the [illegible text] party issue were elected on their own strength or the strength of the interest they represented. In our county the all-prevailing interest was the county seat question.

[Financial Crash of 1837]

In 1837 was the great financial crash, especially in the south where there was general bankruptcy. At that time there was not a railroad in Iowa, Illinois, or Missouri, and but few in Ohio. All that we had to eat for the years 1836–7 had to come from Illinois and nearly all for the year 1838. A few settlers raised enough for their own use, but the mass of them and all newcomers had to haul or drag that was hauled in wagons from sixty to one hundred miles in Illinois. It was hard times and thousands lived on short corn messes.⁵² Prices were not high for these days [1876], but money was very scarce and the people had nothing to sell to get it. Almost all the merchants throughout the whole county failed and prices of everything [p. 32] down to half of what they had been and to make things worse, all the land was brought into the market. The Van Buren Administration private bank system collapsed and the country was completely bankrupt and all the public lands were forced into market. It seemed impossible to get money for there was then neither homestead nor preemption laws for the benefit of the settlers. That was under Democratic rule. It cost about $28,000 to buy the land for each township of six miles square. Money sharks organized to loan to the settler. They dare not loan on the land, but they allowed the settler to enter their land in the name of the speculator and take a bond for a deed for the land at the end of two years by paying double the price. Where the settler had 320 acres, it would cost him $800 in two years. It was cruel, but the settler had no remedy unless he could raise the money from friends and that was hard to do.

[Alex Crookshank]

I had a friend, a Norwegian by the name of Alex Crookshank, who lived near West Point and had a good place, well improved for that time. When he saw the order of the sale of his land, he went to New York to a brother to borrow $400 to enter his land with. He had to go down the Mississippi River to Cairo, then up the Ohio to Pittsburgh and then on foot to his brother in N.Y. some two or three hundred miles. At that time the government deposited its money in certain pet banks and the bills of these banks were recognized by the government in payment for land. Crookshank got his $400 and thought his money should be surely good when he got to the land office. His brother got the bills of a N.Y. city bank that was a deposit bank. He started home but by the time he reached Pittsburgh the Ohio River was very low and when he got to Louisville, it was so low that he dare not risk going by water as the land sale was only ten days off. So he walked home across Indiana and Illinois. He had no money to pay stop fare, getting home two days before the sale. When he got to Burlington, the land office would not take his money. They deposited in the bank of Missouri at St. Louis and only took such paper as the Missouri bank would take from them. So Crookshank had to shave his N.Y. money for Illinois paper at 12½ percent discount.⁵³ His neighbors, whose land would not be sold for a few days, loaned him the money and Crookshank sold cattle to raise the money; cows at $10 a piece; stock that he absolutely needed. These were times that tried men’s souls, but the early settlers were a noble band of true men. They were rough but they stood by the honest settler and they drove the dishonest from among their midst.⁵⁴

[The Settlers’ Fight for Their Homes and Each Other]

The manner in which they united to secure their homes was for each township to meet and select some one of their members to bid off their land for them at the government sale. I was the bidder for West Point Township. I made a large map, marking off sections, quarter sections, and half quarter sections and then divided that. Each settler gave me the numbers of his claim, and I entered it on the map, and as [p. 33] the settlements had been made before the land was surveyed, there was much difficulty amongst settlers in describing their land. Sometimes one man’s home and another man’s farm would be on the same quarter section. In that case the dispute was settled by the town committee of three, selected by the settlers. When the bidder was appointed, I was one of this committee, and when there was a dispute, we heard testimony and decided and registered the land according to the decision of the committee, and that was the end of it. There was no appeal, and in our township there was not a single case where the parties were dissatisfied with our decision. At the sale there was not less than five thousand people. Every settler attended and the sales included half the lands in seven counties, lasting two weeks. Each township messed together and mostly camped out, had their own teams and did their own cooking. During the sale, Burlington was alive with people. All the hotels were running over. There were many speculators, some coming to loan their money to the settlers and others hoping to be able to buy the settlers’ homes. Amongst that class was a Virginian from near the city of Washington. He had been advised that he had better not bid, especially by Col. Patterson, who had formed his acquaintance at the hotel. The day that West Point Township was sold was a day of rain, and I was often inside the office and bid off the land. Everything went smooth until I got down to Sec. 33, when this man bid on two quarter sections, and as I had not bid on them, the parties outside supposed that it was vacant land, but it was the claim of John Judy, one of the oldest settlers and who had about the best improvements in the township and an honest good man. Judy had failed to get the money to enter his land and had come to me after the bidding had commenced, and told me not to bid it off, he knew that he could get the money before it would be offered at private entry. As soon as the other three sections were knocked off, I went out and told the crowd that Judy’s land had been bid off by an outsider. The moment it was announced that his land had been bid off by a speculator, such an excitement I never saw within five minutes. There was not less than 3,000 terrible men on the way to the hotel to find the bidder. I told Col. Patterson that it was his Virginian friend, and the Col. at once started to the hotel for him and got there before the crowd did. He found the man in his room, very defiant. The Col. told him that unless he at once gave up the land, that he would be torn to pieces and that if the landlord attempted to protect him, that his house would be demolished. About this time the crowd got to the hotel. The man looked out and saw them coming and it did not take a second look for him to see there was no fooling meant by the settlers. He said, “I will give up my land,” Col. Patterson told him to state in writing. He did it, quicker probably than he ever wrote any document in his life. Col. Patterson at once went down and showed the relinquishment, [p. 34] but it was with the utmost effort that crowd could be kept from taking him out and lynching him. Appreciating his position, he escaped by the back way and crossed the river into Illinois and let some friends take to him his baggage. This was the only case where anyone attempted to bid on a settler. All the settlers went to the sale the first day and all stayed to the end to protect each other. Everybody bought what land they pleased that was not claimed by settlers. No settler could claim more than 320 acres. Frequently, two or three parties had a part of a quarter section. Each man put in his share of the purchase money, and the land was bid off in the name of one of the claimants and he deeded to the others. We had no laws, but we were a law unto ourselves and there was no appeal from the decisions of our tribunals, and no delay in the execution, and they were always just, neither controlled by money nor caste as is too common when civilization rules—what is called civilization but what is too often but a sham, a fraud and gilded sepulcher of injustice.

[The Birth of More Children and the Building of a New Home]

In January, 1837, our second child was born. We called her Mary Jane. In the fall of 1838, our third child was born. We called him James after my brother James, then dead. This child died in March, 1839, while I was in the legislature, with water on the brain. Our next child was born in January, 1840. We called her Anne Elizabeth, after two of her aunts. Our next child was born in 1842, while I was sheriff and living at Fort Madison. We called him Samuel David after our fathers.

In 1839, I commenced in August to make a farm adjoining West Point. I had one hired man and we built a farm house 18 × 32, one story, with a back building, the whole length, with a cellar under one room, shingle roof, only hiring the plastering after I lathed it. The weatherboarding was shaved boards. I also hired the making of the doors. I built a double brick chimney, dug and walled up a well 36 feet deep, built a smoke house 12 feet square, built a barn and corn crib and stable 30 feet square. I farmed 170 acres of ground by the 1st of April. I was full of vigor and my man was rugged and stout. We worked from daylight until dark all fall and into the winter. We were always up and had our breakfast before daylight and started to the timber. We had to haul our timber and rails 3 miles. We would cut each log rail length and haul them on a sled to the road until sundown and then haul a load of rail cuts home. It happened that we had continuous snow about a foot deep in the timber all of December, January and part of February. After the snow went off, we had all our logs in the road and one would split rails, and the other haul them out onto the farm so that by the first of April, we had 170 acres of prairie fenced with good fence and staked and ridered. Probably no two men ever did more work within the same time. I hired the breaking of the prairie, paying $2 per acre to have it [p. 35] broke.

[The Missouri-Iowa Border Conflict⁵⁵]

In Jan., 1840, one night after I had gone to bed, Col. Patterson, who was then in the 1egislature, sent for me to go up to town about a mile and a quarter, that he wanted to see me. I got up and went to his home and found him much excited. He was colonel of the militia of the county and the governor (Lucas) had ordered out the entire force of the territory to march to the boundary line between Iowa and Missouri to defend the territory from the Missouri forces, then marching on Iowa. There had been a dispute between the state and territory about the boundary. Missouri claimed a strip 12 miles wide, the entire length of the state from the Des Moines River to the Missouri River, which embraced almost half of Van Buren, Davis, and Wapello Counties. The sheriff of Clark County, Mo., came into Van Buren County to collect taxes and the sheriff of Van Buren arrested him and took him to Muscatine, Iowa, to jail. About the same time Sheriff Riggs of Davis County was arrested by his brother, the sheriff of Scotland County, Mo., and put in jail in Mo. The governor of Missouri, Old Bo[gg]s, about as cussed a demagogue as old Lucas, called out the militia of north Missouri to recapture Sheriff Gregory, of Clark County and collect the taxes on the disputed tract. Almost 1,000 of the militia had marched to Waterloo, Clark County. The snow was one foot deep, and the weather extremely cold. The soldiers had no tents and no arms except their own rifle, and the county was poor and lean of everything. To meet the army, Governor Lucas called out every able-bodied man in the territory and ordered them to the frontier to carry out the order of the governor, or destruction at that inclement season of the year including almost everybody in Iowa. Very few had any winter supplies of any kind and few had more than enough in their homes to protect their families from the cold. The territory had neither arms nor tents. No munitions of war and no money to buy any, but Old Lucas was determined to fight, would have to in reason. Col. Patterson was not a fighting colonel. He was only a dress parade officer. He was for peace and sent for me to try to devise some plan of peace.

[A Political Solution]

I at once suggested that the legislature should adopt a resolution asking Missouri to suspend hostilities until Congress and the Supreme Court should settle the disputed question. The colonel said the governor would not agree to that there could not be such resolution got through the legislature. I insisted that it at least ought to be tried. The colonel had been ordered home to call out the militia and before leaving Burlington had issued such call, made out at the governor’s headquarters and was liable to court martial if he went back to Burlington, but still he said if I would go with him, he would go back in the morning and see what could be done. We started the next morning at 4 o’clock and got to Burlington, twenty miles at 8 o’clock, got our breakfast. The legislature met at 9. We went in and the colonel’s entrance [p. 36] created intense excitement, as it was known that he had been ordered to the front. I had in the meantime prepared a resolution and gave it to Shep Leffen[?], a young lawyer of much ability. Leffen made a few alterations and offered it. The resolution was passed almost unanimously, and we had it enrolled and presented to the senate and passed by them and signed by the presiding officers of both houses by 4 o’clock p.m., and we were on our way home accompanied by Hughes and Payne, members of the council from Henry County.

We got home that night and then started the next morning to Missouri, stayed that night at Dr. Wayland’s. The doctor had gone on his own account to Burlington to try to make peace, but the governor had only insulted him and his associates in Missouri, and he had just got home, completely discouraged. He was rejoiced to see us and the next morning he went with us to Waterloo.

The army was in great distress. There had been five men killed by accident and the weather was piercing cold, and they had no tents. We met at Waterloo a delegation from Palmyra, Mo., which had been appointed at a public meeting of the citizens to negotiate a peace. The county court of Clark County, composed of three men, had levied the tax on the disputed tract, and they had ordered the sheriff to collect the taxes. The sheriff had been arrested and the court called on the governor for assistance in collecting the tax, the court really levied the war. The court called an extra session and held it in a room at the hotel informally. The question was discussed all day, and finally they resolved to rescind the order for the collection of the tax in the territorial district and then just at sundown met formally in the courthouse and made the order and the army was disbanded on both sides and all went home.

The joint resolution that we took to Missouri was not presented to the governor until we had made peace under its influence. It was accepted by Missouri as a peace offering on our part, but it was vetoed by the governor. His veto made him infamous, but it did no harm. We knew that he would veto it and hence it was not sent to him until a veto could do no harm. I have always thought the part I played in this matter was the most useful of any act of my life. It saved war and untold misery. As it was, there was great loss of life from accidents and from disease contracted in camp and one family at least froze to death while the husband was away.

[Encounters with Criminals While County Sheriff]

In August, I was elected sheriff of the county, by a handsome majority, after a hot contest.⁵⁶ At that time there was nearly 150 Mormon votes in the county.⁵⁷ I got a majority of that vote. By law, I had to live at the county seat. So I moved to Fort Madison. It was a hard office. The county was large, extending along the Mississippi about 40 miles and up the Des Moines River about 30 miles. With Nauvoo the Mormon town across the river (Mississippi) in Illinois, opposite Montrose in Iowa, with Keokuk at the foot of the rapid, then a men wreckers town. There were but a [p. 37] few hundred people in the place, and all engaged in the lighting of freight over the rapids.⁵⁸ Amongst the numbers was the worst class of men that could be found, murderers and gamblers and thieves of every class. Some of them had belonged to Murrel’s Clan of desperadoes.⁵⁹ Gillcock, the old sheriff, had been a good fellow with them and allowed them to do as they pleased.⁶⁰ They had defied the officers on many occasions. I got but three votes at the precinct, while Gillcock got 80, more than 50 of them illegal. They kept out of my way as much as they could. I went slow for a time and found out who in Keokuk I could rely upon, made friends, and when I got things ready, I commenced on them, and by the spring court, I had seven of the worst desperadoes in jail. They had burned down the old jail just before I was elected, and I had got the use of the cellar in the penitentiary, where I put a log chain to their leg and spiked them down and kept them. Five of the seven were sent to the penitentiary and the other two were broken down so that they were docile afterward. Nauvoo was infected at that time with a great number of thieves, who would cross over to Iowa and commit depredations and embark to Nauvoo. I would go over and arrest them and bring them back, the Mormons allowing me to do it. Bill Smith,⁶¹ the brother of Joe the Prophet, acting with me.⁶²

[The Pursuit of Plumb, a Horse Thief⁶³]

In July, 1841, a Mormon by the name of Plumb who lived in Lee County, stole a horse in Van Buren County, run him into Illinois and sold him there.⁶⁴ The owner came to me with a writ. I started for the Mormon and took with me a man by the name of Swazy, a live Yankee. When we got to Plumb’s house, he was gone. This was late in the night. We struck his trail at St. Francisco on the Des Moines River and pressed on after him, hearing of him all along the road. We had ridden all night, with good horses and did not stop except to get breakfast and dinner.

When we had made about 40 miles in Missouri and were within 15 miles of Palmyra, we heard that a company of Mormons had come with a skiff endeavoring to steal Negroes in the Missouri bottom, and three of them had been arrested and taken to jail at Palmyra and that hundreds of people were then scouring the bottom hunting for others of the gang.⁶⁵ We at once concluded that Plumb, who was a leading Mormon, had started to join this party for we did not think that he had any suspicion that we were after him for the horse stealing, as it had been done several months before. When we got within 2 miles of Palmyra, it was getting dark. We met a man coming, meeting us, that suited in size, dress and horse, the description of Plumb. We at once made up our minds that it was Plumb returning home as their expedition had failed. When the man got near us, he turned out of the main road to pass us. When we met, I spoke to him, stopping my horse and asking him how far he had come up the road. He answered, “Some ways,” but kept on. I then ordered him to halt, but he laid whip to his horse. I at once started after him. He had, by the time I got my horse turned in full run, about 25 yards’ start on me. My [p. 38] horse was very fast, but I had ridden him 100 miles within twenty-four hours, and he was used up badly, still for half a mile through a lane we made good time and an even race, the man hollering “Murder” at the top of his voice at every jump, and Swazy bringing up the rear hollering “stop thief.” The moon was just full, and it was a beautiful clear evening. At the end of the lane there was a lane turning into a house setting back a quarter of a mile from the road. The man turned in toward the house, and I began to suspect that he was only a coward, scared. But it was no time then to stop, and I pressed on. The house was on quite a hill. At the foot, we came to a large gate that was open. Near the house was a small gate. The man jumped off his horse at that gate and rushed into the house the back way. In the run, he had lost his hat and saddlebags.

As I neared the house, I saw a man out with a gun and several Negro men with hand spikes. I saw that there was a mistake and danger of great trouble. I was fully armed and very desperate. I had a pistol that I could kill a man at 100 yards, and had it cocked all through the race but did not want to shoot if I could help it, but I galloped through the little gate and determined if the man with the gun attempted to shoot, I would have the first shot. He had his gun pointed toward me, but not with aim. I rode within five feet of him and stopped my horse.

There was a large family of children of all sizes on the porch. The old lady was the first to speak. “My Lord, what does all this mean?” I said, “We are after a horse thief.” [She said,] “My son is no horse thief, but an honest young man.” [I said,] “Then we do not want to harm or disturb him.” The man with the gun said something and by that time, Swazy got up and he put in. Then the young man came out and began to tell his story. When I stopped him and earnestly told the whole story. The young man admitted that he was badly alarmed when he met us. That he had been in the woods all day hunting Mormons and feared us when we met and ran. The explanation was pretty satisfactory, and they insisted on our staying all night, but we wanted to get to town, fully expecting to find our man lurking around the operators in jail. We started out, but found that our horses were used up, and we stayed all night at the next house and got to town the next morning a little after daylight.

[Mormons, Abolitionists, and the Searching for Plumb in the County Jail]

We put up at the leading hotel, and I at once went to the home of Montgomery, the sheriff of the county, an old acquaintance and distant relative. I found Montgomery eating his breakfast, and his horse at the door going to the upper part of the county. He went with us to the jail. On the way, I told him of the adventure with the young man, Frame[?],⁶⁶ the name of the young man run the night before. Montgomery fully believed his prisoners to be Mormons, and I expected to know them as I was well acquainted with all the leading Mormons. On our way to the jail, we were followed by quite a crowd of rabble, but I thought nothing [p. 39] of it and paid no attention. When we went into the jail, I at once recognized a young man by the name of Thompson, a young preacher who had spent the winter before at Fort Madison, a very superior young man. He belonged to an abolition college near Quincy, Illinois. At that time, an abolitionist was considered much worse than a horse thief by all Missourians and most other people. The Mormons, while in Missouri, were accused of all crimes and were brutally driven from the state, and no matter what crime was committed in Missouri, anywhere near Nauvoo, it was charged to the Mormons and without stopping to enquire.⁶⁷ They charged their abolitionists with being Mormons, and the most remarkable stories went out through the county that there were hundreds of Mormons there in the county running off Negroes and robbing the people and . . . [?]

The result was that the whole people from the country came to town to get the news. When I met Thompson in the jail, I shook hands with him and enquired if the other two men belonged to the same institution [in Quincy]. He said they did. He enquired after the brothers in Fort Madison and sent his regards to them, but we named no place by name, and I went out and told Montgomery that they were not Mormons, but abolitionists from the Quincy College. Montgomery mounted his horse and went off and I went to the hotel. We got our breakfast, knowing then that Plumb was not connected with this crowd and satisfied that he had gone into Illinois.

[Frances Presses Charges for Highway Robbery and the Court Case]

I took my horse to a blacksmith shop to have a shoe set, and by the time I got back, the town was alive with country people, and I saw young Frances in town and saw that we were being watched. Swazy had a vagabond brother who had joined the Mormons and a sister had married a highly respected man who had formerly lived in Palmyra, [Missouri,] and it was known that she had a brother who was a Mormon, and when I went into the jail, I had known and was kind to the Mormons, and they had sent all sorts of word back by me. I saw we were in deep trouble. Montgomery was gone, the only man there who could put us right. I found Swazy. He was surrounded by a crowd that was pressing him. I took him off and told him that we would soon be arrested. I never saw a man so scared in my life. He had never been in a slave state before in his life, and he had heard awful stories of the character of Mormons. I said to him, “Keep your mouth shut, and let me do all the talking.” This he readily agreed to and was docile as a lamb.

Very soon after, a young man who I had some talk with at breakfast came to me and told me that we would be arrested. I told him I knew that and but for that fact, we would have been gone long since. Very soon, the constable arrested us for an attempt to commit highway robbery. We were taken to the courthouse, a large fine building and it was packed with the most desperate looking men that I ever saw. They all believed that we were of that party who was then in jail. I fully realized our position and knew that any mistake would ruin us. I kept Swazy still and only answered questions. There were two justices that presided. Tuttle, the chief man, [p. 40] was a good lawyer and a good man. He took to me at once and meant to give me a show. He asked me if I wanted a lawyer. I told him that I did not. He took our names. I found that a little lawyer by the name of Archer, lately from Richmond, Virginia, was managing the prosecution and Frances had filed the charges. The cool manner in which I took the prosecution surprised [them] and things moved slowly. Finally, they got all ready and asked me if I had any witnesses. I told them that I had attempted to arrest Frances the evening before and that he had fled and I pursued him, that I was sheriff of Lee County, Iowa, and was in pursuit of a Mormon who had stolen a horse and that in the darkness of the evening, I took Frances to be the man. I then laid on the desk a bundle of writs, including the one against Plumb. The writs showed that I was the sheriff. This stumped them, and the lawyers in the room, and there more than a dozen of them, looked at the writs and some of them saw Glom[?] of St. Louis was present, who had practiced in Clark County, Missouri, enquired about men and things that they knew about in Iowa and found that I knew all about the parties that they knew. I did not say a single word but answer questions. I kept Swazy still. I saw the faces of the crowd begin to change, they began to doubt.

It was near twelve o’clock before the real trial started. The justice wanted me to have witnesses if I had any. I finally gave him the name of Tom Anderson, a leading lawyer, but he had gone to Washington. I then gave him the name of Billy McDonald, the president of the bank, but he had gone to the country. Then I gave the name of Thompson, a leading citizen, but he was out of town. I told the squire that the sheriff was an old acquaintance, but that I had seen him that morning and knew he had gone to the upper part of the county. I told him that I had been raised with Buck Montgomery, who lived six miles in the country, and that I was well acquainted with Judge Draper, and other citizens of Hannibal. The squire offered to send for them or anyone else that I wanted, but I told him to go on with the trial, that I could give any bail that he would require, and that I expected to attend their next court anyway. I was satisfied that I then had the crown so that there was no danger of mob violence, no matter what Frances swore.

Frances was sworn and told the truth right along. He swore that he was scared when he met us and did not recollect his answer to me. He swore that his brother snapped his gun at me. This was not true, unless it was before I saw him. I never saw such disgust on the faces of a set of men as there then was on the faces of the crowd after Frances’s testimony. We were at once dismissed. The lawyer Archer was the first to leave. He stopped at the same hotel that I did.

As soon as we were discharged, the whole crowd surrounded us at once, and we were invited to drink. I was too mad and desperate to talk, and as I never drank, I refused and in not too pleasant a mood. Swazy was the happiest man alive. He had escaped being hung by a mob of which he had not hoped for two or three [p. 41] hours before. He drank with them and made them a speech. I went to the hotel and said not a word to anyone that I could help. I told them the men in jail were not Mormons but abolitionists. This they did not believe. We remained at the hotel until ten o’clock the next day, but Archer did not leave his room. It was strange and providential for I intended to shoot him if I got to see him, but I had not whispered one single word about or against him, but he no doubt saw it in my looks in the courtroom and my release kept him in his room. It is a terrible thing for a man to be falsely accused of a high crime, especially when the whole community is so inflamed as to be ready to commit any violence, but to deliberately take a fellow being’s life is much worse. Of nothing have I had greater reason to be thankful than that I did not meet the man Archer. He was a fire[-]eater, a newcomer and poor mind without practice, and he thought that if he could only have the reputation of having prosecuted two men for highway robbery it would make his fortune, and he induced Frances, who was a simple-minded young man, to make the affidavit that he did. Poor fellow, he eked out a poor living at the law up to 1850, when he started across the plains for California and was lost and starved on the plains. I never think of him, that I do not thank God that I did him no harm, and that he had done me none, although I made a narrow escape.

[The Desperado Martin⁶⁸]

By 10 a.m. the next day, I had cooled off so that we started back home. When I crossed the Des Moines River, I learned that a man by the name of Mellamthen[?] C. Martin, who had broke jail two months before, had come home. Martin was a desperado of the worst character. He had escaped from the South and settled in the bottom below Keokuk on the Des Moines River and was the leader of a desperate band, a part of them in Iowa, and a part in Missouri. Martin had a partner in business by the name of Gray, and they kept a den in Keokuk. They wanted to get a lot occupied by Mrs. Gaines, and as they could not buy it, they determined to burn her out.⁶⁹ So Martin set fire to the house, but fortunately the fire was put out before doing much damage. Some eight months later, Martin coming home late at night unexpected, he found Gray and his wife in the same bed. To that kind of sportsmanship, he took exceptions and Gray left without being careful of the mode of going. The next day, Gray swore out a writ against Martin for firing Mrs. Gaines’s house. He was arrested and sent to jail. There were but two men in Keokuk that the justice would take for bail. I had got the justice appointed to help me break up the den [of] thieves, then infesting that part of the county, and we acted together and mothers of these two men would bail Martin. He was in jail a month or so and played sick and cheated the jailer and made his escape. We all hoped that he would go off, and we would be rid of him, for we had a sympathy for him under the circumstances, but when he came back I knew it meant mischief, for he had threatened to burn out the squire and Hillis and [p. 42] VanOrsdell.⁷⁰

[The Arrest of Martin]

I went to Keokuk and got VanOrsdell and a man by the name of Wilson to go with me out to Martin’s about four miles to arrest him. I tried to get a man by the name of Loney, who lived in one end of the house with Martin. There was but two rooms, a mere log cabin, but there was an open space between the two rooms, under roof. Loney lived in one end and Martin in the other. Loney, who was a warm friend of mine, told me that Martin was fully armed and swore that he would kill me if I attempted to arrest him. I asked Loney if he really believed that Martin would shoot me. He said that Martin appeared to be in earnest, but that few men would shoot an officer, but he said that he and Martin both had several dogs that lay in the passage that would tear me to pieces if I attempted to go into the house.

It was as dark a night as you ever saw, and our road was through heavy timber. Martin had only about an acre cleared around his house. On the road, VanOrsdell cut a hickory club with my bowie knife. We got to Martin’s about midnight, hitched our horses to the fence and rushed to the house. The door was a clapboard door, but it was locked. I always lit a candle before entering a room to make an arrest. I lit one at the door. Before we started for the house, I told Wilson to watch the window. There was but a single window and one door to the cabin and there was no sash in the window. It was an opening and outside shutter. VanOrsdell was to go into the house with me. When I lit my candle, I threw my weight against the door and burst it in and rushed in. It was a hot night in July. I sat the candle down. Martin and his wife were in one bed, and 3 or 4 children were in another, almost filling the room. Martin took the thing coolly, but his wife, who had few clothes on, was savage especially to one VanOrsdell for coming to arrest a neighbor. I reasoned with her, but she had a woman’s tongue and used it freely. I told Martin that he must get up and dress and go with us. That made the wife more furious and VanOrsdell said, “I will call in Wilson.” He had but stepped out the door when Martin snatched from under his pillow a big horse pistol and sprang to his feet in the bed. I was at the foot of the bed. We were not five feet apart and the moment he drew his pistol, I drew mine and fired before he did. He was the height of a high bedstead above me. At the fire he dropped, but was soon sitting up in bed. I took his pistol in his left hand. There was nothing but white sheets on the bed and the blood was flowing so that the bed was red with blood.

I drew my bowie knife and was in the act of sticking him with it, when VanOrsdell rushed into the room, when I took his club and hit Martin a powerful blow above the ear. Fortunately, it was on the hard part of the skull and only knocked him down, and he made no effort to get up. I supposed that he was shot through, and we expected him to cease to breathe any minute. His breathing was loud and slow. After waiting a few minutes and he still breathed, I told Wilson, who was a good horse doctor, to look and see where Martin was hit. Wilson made the examination and found that the [p. 43] bullet merely cut the skin across his breast and passed through the muscle of his right arm, making a terrible gash, and his head was cut to the bone by the club. I never had such relief in my life as I felt when I found that I had not killed him. In doing so, I would have done right under the circumstances, but I wanted no man’s life on my hands. I had the doctor dress his wounds, and when we got the blood stopped, had him put on clean clothes.

Martin, all the time claiming he could not live and would not stand up, insisting that he could not go with us. In the meantime, his daughter had been sent off for help no doubt. We remained with him an hour or more after dressing his wounds, when I told him that we must go and told Wilson to take hold of him and bring him along. Martin at once threw himself head foremost out of the little window back of his bed. I rushed out of the door, but it was dark as pitch. I heard Martin and followed to the fence, but the moment he crossed the fence, he was in the thick underbrush of timber. We made a torch and looked through the timber for an hour but could not find him, and we went back to Keokuk getting there about daylight, glad that Martin had escaped, for I was sure that he would never come back again.

[What Became of Martin]

I learned afterwards from one of his set, that after crossing the fence and getting into the timber, that he stumbled and fell and struck the side of his face against the sharp end of a log that had been cut off and split his face wide open. He laid still, not daring to move, as we were very near him. After we left, he swam across the Des Moines River, got a horse and left. He told the man that he got the horse from that his only regret was that he had not killed VanOrsdell or someone to have had something to run off for. Martin had been one of Murrell’s Southern desperadoes, and when Murrell was convicted and sent to the penitentiary, Martin fled up the Mississippi. He settled in Calhoun County, Illinois, in the Mississippi bottom, sent for his family and soon after died a natural death.

[John J. Jones and the Rancid Meat}

I should have, in its regular order, spoken of my operations with John J. Jones.⁷¹ This man Jones took up a claim on Sugar Creek about two miles from West Point. He was very poor, and I learned afterwards was a fugitive from justice. I was then selling goods in West Point. Jones came to me and told me of his poverty and how anxious he was to do something. He had a wife, one daughter and two sons, small boys at that time. I sold him a horse on credit and let him have what the family needed. During the summer, fall, and winter, he paid me in some sort of truck. He seemed to be industrious, but he had fallen out with all his neighbors and had the reputation with them of being a bad man. I was about his only friend.

In the early spring of 1840, Jones came to town with fresh pork and brought me a nice ham, telling me that he had brought it to me especially for friendship’s sake and would only ask me two cents a pound for it. Pork was then selling at 3 cents per pound. He had sold a quarter at the tavern for 3 he said, as I found to be true afterwards. [p. 44] I took the pork and part of it was roasted for dinner, and we ate it that evening.

One of Jones’s neighbors came to town and told the landlord at the hotel that the pork Jones had sold him was diseased, that the hog was down, dragging its hind parts with the kidney worms. We at once threw away the part not cooked, and threw out of our stomachs what we had eaten or as much as we could, and I now feel like throwing up my breakfast in even writing about it, 36½ years afterwards, except the miserable feeling of having eaten such meat, we found no inconvenience from it.

We had Jones arrested and bound over to court for selling diseased meat, that so outraged the community that they resolved that he should not live in the community and sold his claim to Horatio McCardle, a citizen of West Point.⁷² It was a good claim. McCardle cultivated the land, but Jones remained in possession of the house until fall. Jones was indicted, but on trial was acquitted, on the rulings of the court on the law. As soon as he was acquitted, he determined not to give up his claim. He quarreled with McCardle and threatened his life and mine.

In November, after I had been elected sheriff, I was arranging to move to Fort Madison. Jones came up from Fort Madison, a part of the way in the same company I was with. He always carried his rifle, and I watched him closely, not intending that he should shoot me first. He got home a little before sundown and found McCardle in the field gathering up his cows. Jones walked up behind him and deliberately shot him dead. McCardle’s son was by his side. He at once took one of the horses and galloped home and gave the alarm. Jones fled.

I spent a great deal of time and money trying to find him. We watched the mails and finally captured a letter, telling his wife and daughter to meet him at Cairo.⁷³ I at once started for Cairo, but the day before I got there, Jones had been arrested and gave his excuse and was released and had left.⁷⁴ He was not heard of for more than ten years, when he was found keeping a miserable low den, twelve miles back of Cincinnati and was arrested and brought back and was tried, but the court decided that in the change from a territorial form of government to that of state, there had been no clause, continuing in force territorial indictments. So Jones was again clear. What has become of him since, I have never heard. He was then old and broken down.

[George Miller, George Hinkle, and Danites⁷⁵]

One day, late in the fall of 1840, George Miller,⁷⁶ an old friend of mine who had lived at McConnell, Illinois, and was then an elder in the Presbyterian Church there, but who joined the Mormons and was made a bishop, the next in authority to the Prophet Joe Smith, came in great haste to Fort Madison for an attachment for a flatboat load of onions and potatoes, then lying at the head of the rapids, supposed to belong to a man by the name of Hinkle.⁷⁷ Hinkle had been one of the Mormon twelve in Missouri, was a learned man and was Joe Smith’s scribe. When Smith saw that the Mormons would be obliged to leave Missouri, he sent Hinkle with his carriage and a [p. 45] load of his choice books up to Iowa for safety. The horse carriage and books at that day of low prices were worth twelve or fifteen hundred dollars. Hinkle settled near Muscatine in Iowa and appropriated to his own use the books and carriage and repudiated Joe and his doctrine at the same time and established a church of his own, similar in doctrine to the Mormon. But he, like Filden and other reformers of the present day, was virtuous. Every dollar that he had was stolen, but that only showed the more importance that he should be a reformer. That fall, in company with DeRockafeller, he built a flat boat and loaded it with potatoes and onions to run to St. Louis or New Orleans. He feared the “Danites” of the Mormons, knowing that they would kill if they could catch him. So he figured a plan: In the middle of the boat to hide. The Mississippi was very low. The boat was as deep as could cross the rapids, following the channel. The day they got to the head of the rapids, it was too windy to cross, and while the boat was lying at the bank and no men in sight, Hinkle popped his head out of his hiding place to look around, when he was recognized by a little Mormon girl.

Miller at once went for a writ and the sheriff to attach the property for the debt due the Prophet. I at once went with Miller and attached the boat and served the writ on Hinkle. I have never seen a man more scared than Hinkle was when I arrested him. The boat had been watched by a lot of Danites all the time Miller had been gone and he expected to be murdered by them. Rockafeller claimed the boat and load as his own. This put me in a bad situation. It was just at the edge of winter. A freeze would ruin the load. I finally arranged that Rockafeller give a bond to pay the debt if the boat and contents were established to be Hinkle’s. When this was done, I released the boat. It was then about 8 o’clock p.m. and full moon and as clear and still as it could be. Hinkle begged me to stay in the boat all night. Said the Mormons would kill him if I did not. He then begged me to remain in town all night. I told him that I had to go to Keokuk that night and laughed at him for his fears. I told him that if any man molested him that I would see that he was properly punished, but that did not quiet him. I got my supper and went on to Keokuk and just as I got there, Hinkle’s boat landed. When he found that I would not remain in the town, he pulled out and crossed the rapids. He said he knew he would be killed if he stayed, and preferred to be drowned rather than murdered by the Danites. Hinkle and Joe Smith both took the bankruptcy act that ended this suit. I never got my fees. It was a mystery how his boat ever crossed the rapids without sinking, but Hinkle knew the character of the Danites.⁷⁸

[The People of the Frontier]

During the fall and winter, I had my office with Squire John A. Drake, a true, good, honest man.⁷⁹ No man who never lived in a new country at its first settlement can form any conception of the character of the early settlers, and I have never seen [p. 46] a man that did, that does not say that the years he so spent were the most pleasant of his life. In many respects, the people were rough in manner and active but honest in purpose, with few exceptions. There is none of the hollow heartedness of civilization, with the early settler. The difference, the early settler judges and treats his neighbors as his character deserves, while civilization treats men as appearances indicate. If a man pays his debts, civilization has no time to inquire how he got or is getting that money. The early settler cracked a grule[?] (whip) around the belly of the man who by fraud robbed his neighbor even if the money was obtained by a fraud that the laws passed by civilization tolerated.

[Doctor Branch, Brother-in-Law of Hugh T. Reed]

Many individual, ridiculous incidents occurred that winter that were amusing. In the town of Fort Madison, there was a Dr. Branch, a brother-in-law of Gen. Hugh T. Reed,⁸⁰ one of the leading lawyers of the place, and a man of character and wealth. The doctor was high strung, a northern man and claimed to be a fighting man. He had an office in the front of a store that was vacant, took his toddy freely and was generally a nuisance.

One evening he was in a saloon taking his toddy, when a man by the name of Bryant, a clever, innocent fellow who had seen better days, but had run down by drink and “Went West.” Bryant asked the doctor to drink with him. This the doctor resented by knocking Bryant down and abusing him.

The next morning, Squire Drake issued a writ for the doctor for assault and battery and put in the hands of a constable by the name of Rose to execute. Rose was a quiet, slow motioned man of no harm, but of not much power. When Rose told the doctor what he wanted, the doctor at once locked the door and got a pistol and bowie knife and threatened to kill him then and there, heaping on the poor scared man the vilest epithets for daring to come into a gentleman’s office to arrest him. Rose begged for his life and finally the doctor agreed to forgive him if he would agree not to repeat the attempt to arrest him. Rose made any promise required and was permitted to go.

He came up to the office and reported his experience. Drake was the most quiet, resolute man to be found. When Rose got through, Drake asked him if he was going to give it up. Rose said that he was, that he felt thankful that the doctor did not kill him and that nothing on earth could induce him to go back. The squire turned to me and said in his quiet way, “Hawkins, I reckon you will have to go.”

It was just what I wanted. I was raised in the Green River hills, when it was no discredit to not be able to write your name, but an everlasting disgrace not to love to fight. I had from there migrated to the Mississippi valley and graduated in the lead mines. I did not drink nor swear, attended church and was bold in denouncing wickedness, but I had a good college education to lick any one that needed it, especially when I could do it according to law, and the doctor was just the sort of fellow that I loved to bring around.

I took the writ and prepared for emergencies, got a few reliable fellows [p. 47] to watch out and put in an appearance if there was trouble. When I told the doctor what I wanted with marked politeness, he said, “I will go with the high sheriff with the greatest pleasure. I will feel it an honor to do so, but to think of being seen in the street with that d-d old Rose was more than I could bear. It was an insult, Sir!” He showed me his armory as he called it, consisting of some twenty guns and pistols of all kinds. I took and delivered him over to the justice. During the trial, he became boisterous several times and would threaten Rose, but the moment I would speak to him he would at once beg pardon and assure the “High Sheriff” that he would not offend again. The justice fined him $50, and was about to send him to jail when Reed agreed to send him off if the fine was remitted. This was a good riddance and the doctor and his armory left for parts unknown.

[Nauvoo⁸¹]

During the time I was sheriff, the Mormons built up Nauvoo. The town was situated at the head of the Mississippi rapids, in a great bend of the river. It was an old town called “Commerce,” but had but a few hundred people when the Mormons first settled there in 1839. The Mormons bought out the principal settlers and changed the name of the town to Nauvoo and laid out the new town to embrace a territory of some three miles in extent on the river and back from the river from the extreme level of the flat, being in the shape of a halfmoon. The main street was 200 feet wide and over two miles long, running from a point on the river to the river at a point four miles above, following the river. The ground rose gradually from the river to a point probably 100 feet above the land on the river and then ran back level to the prairie.

[The Temple]

It was the most beautiful townsite that I ever saw. The temple was built on the high ground about the middle of the town plat and was a perfect building, built of cut stone 85 by 135 feet and 99 feet high, with a tower, 30 feet by the width of the building, 40 feet high, with a spire running up to 185 feet all told, with stairs to the top of the spire.⁸² The basement was 20 feet high, about half underground with one story about 10 and the other 30 feet. In the basement was a baptismal fount of dressed gray limestone, resting on twelve oxen, but out of stone except the points of the horns, which were natural horns and the likeness was so perfect in size and shape, legs, ears, eyes, and horns, that at first sight you take them to be alive. The next story was the great audience hall, with a pulpit at both ends and changeable seats. The other rooms were never fully finished. On the top of the wall under the cornice were thirty-two faces, cut out of stone. They were about 3 feet broad and 5 feet high and at a height of 90 feet, they looked perfect likenesses.

The architect of the temple was not a Mormon. Joe called him the Pagan Prophet.⁸³ He was proud of his building and loved his toddy and loved to go over to Montrose and [p. 48] have a night of it. On several occasions, persons from abroad have been over with me to Nauvoo to see the plans of Joe Smith, or have the architect go over to Montrose with us and when he was mellow, try to get him to tell of his skill as a builder, but on no occasion would he ever take any of the credit to himself, except having the work well done. He always said that Joe Smith gave him every plan and did them from time to time as the work progressed. Joe says that he got the plan from the Lord, but that he [the architect] believed that it came from the Devil.

[Town Layout and Makeup]

The Mormons bought very little of the ground on which they laid out their town. It was what was known as military land and held by Mormons and the title to a very large tract had been long in litigation. The town was laid off in 4 acre blocks minus streets and alleys and the blocks were divided into four lots. The streets were wide and ran at right angles. The alleys were 20 feet wide, so that each lot contained nearly an acre.

Joe selected each lot for the occupant, the best ones on Main Street he sold at $300 and the poorest he gave away, but each person felt proud that brother Joseph had selected his home for him.

At that time nearly all of the Mormons were from New England and most of them mechanics of the first quality, so that they had an abundant supply of all kinds of workmen and Joe did not allow them to use either spirits of any kind, tea or coffee, nor tobacco, and all were required to work. Each family was required to farm and cultivate their lots, to keep a cow and with milk, the poorer class could make a living on their acre of ground.

Joe Smith and other leaders were followed with indictments from Missouri, charged with all classes of crimes.⁸⁴ The result was, they had to be hiding from the officers. The whole country was shocked at the cruel manner in which the Mormons had been driven from Missouri. They were all Democrats. The legislature of Illinois was overwhelmingly Democratic and they, with the full help of the Whigs, gave Nauvoo a city charter with legislative forms, such as no other city ever had.⁸⁵ They also chartered the Nauvoo Legion, a military organization that was afterwards very troublesome and did much harm.

Joe Smith was elected mayor and the twelve apostles constituted the council. They at once organized a government of their own and set the Missouri writs at defiance. If an arrest was made, he was released by Joe under a writ of Habeas Corpus. The result was that Nauvoo became a refuge for thieves of all kinds.⁸⁶

Nauvoo within a few years grew to be a city of 20,000, and in everything but their religion and moral practices was a model city. The homes were all painted, there was no idling, no profanity or drunkenness, but they held that they were the [p. 49] chosen people of the Lord, that all things belonged to the Lord. Under the old Josiah dispensation, each person was required to give one-tenth of his substance to the Lord. Each man was required to work every tenth day on the temple or pay for the hire of a substitute. Beside this, several hundred men were hired to work on the temple. These men had to be fed. To do this, they lived on the Smith cattle, sheep, and grain of all kinds, all taken to the temple, consecrated and then given to the Lord’s workmen on the Lord’s temple, as they claimed.

[The Whittling Society]

The people had no remedy. The Mormons were the majority in the county and had all the officers of importance. If a writ was taken out, the officer was whittled out of the city. The process of whittling out an officer was as follows: A great tall man by the name of Stout⁸⁷ was the captain of the Whittling Society, and he had about a dozen assistants.⁸⁸ They all had great bowie knives and would get a long piece of pine board and get up close to the officer and pretend to be cutting the pine board, but would cut over it and cut near the officer. In the meantime, small boys would get tin pans, old bells and all sorts of things to make a noise with and surround the officer. No one would touch or say a word to him, but the noise drowned all that he would say. The result would be that he would get out of the city as soon as possible and never come back again. The Mormons would send teams out, loaded with what they found and take it before the eyes of the owner. Farmers were forced to sell out their farms for whatever they could get and went away.

[Visits to Nauvoo]

I believe that I was the only officer that ever took a prisoner from Nauvoo without being whittled out, but the Mormons were anxious to keep on good terms with the people of Iowa, while they were at war with Missouri and Illinois.⁸⁹ Bill Smith,⁹⁰ Joe’s brother, always helped me to take off prisoners. I was at Nauvoo a great deal. Few people came to Fort Madison from the east that did not want to go to Nauvoo to see Joe Smith and the temple. I had more business in that section than in any other part of the county, so that I was there every few days during the summer at least, and often went there on Sunday evening to see them baptize. They hold the doctrine of baptizing for the dead. They held, that all who died since about 300 years after Christ, had remained in a bad condition, but could at once be taken to heaven by some in the true faith, being baptized for them.

[Mormon Baptisms for the Dead and the Three Degrees of Glory]

Of Sunday afternoons, immense congregations would congregate on the bank of the river near the home of Joe Smith and baptize for the dead. A scribe with a large book would take his seat at the edge of the water and four stout brethren would do the dipping. They would usually put the party being baptized under four times, when he would give the scribe the name of the parties baptized for, then go through the performance as before and so on as long as desired by the party being [p. 50] baptized, generally about four times.⁹¹ Some . . . [missing text]

. . . Hundreds were [baptized] for [George] Washington, [Andrew?] Jackson and others of the old set of supposedly Mormons.⁹²

I was on good terms with Joe (Smith) and all the leaders of the church. Joe was polite and pleasant, but never argued any question. He would talk with you but never argue.

Among other things of interest and profit to the family was the prophet. They had several Christian Mormons⁹³ and characters about 8″ square, carved with hyeroglyphics [sic] of a character, that I believe have never yet been deciphered. That too is claimed, fully explained in celestial, cirestial [terrestrial] and telestial kingdoms. These plates were under the control of Joe Smith’s mother, an aged motherly looking woman with a noble face.⁹⁴ Every visitor who saw her show was expected to pay 25¢ and as much more as they chose to give.⁹⁵ I once went there with Generals Reed and Bowman and Gov. Wallace. [missing material—paper deteriorated] -tial kingdom &—a grade lower. When [missing material] asked her about the Terestial or lower one, saying that—felt an interest to know—head that was. The old lady replied that Joseph has not had enough time to examine into that, having no personal interest in knowing, but that he had sufficiently investigated the matter to know that it was “a better world than this.” Reed said that was to him fully satisfactory.⁹⁶

[The Smith Family]

The Smith family was a very numerous one. Joe’s father⁹⁷ and Elias⁹⁸ and John⁹⁹ that were uncles. Then he had 3 brothers—older, that Joe always called the elder brothers and put before him to the people, Bill, Carlos and William.¹⁰⁰ Carlos was very talented, a college graduate and Joe’s pride. He died soon after their settlement at Nauvoo.¹⁰¹ Bill was always a sort of outlaw, smart but reckless.¹⁰² He said of himself that he was born weary and had always been unlucky. [missing material—paper powdered off at edges] but that was soon [missing material] with land washed from the hill and blown on by the wind.

Bill was naturally a black sheep and did not go to Salt Lake but went with Strong¹⁰³ to Michigan and is probably now (1876) dead. All of Joe’s uncles have large families. John lived in Iowa, across the river from Nauvoo. He was the head of the Church in Iowa, and I never knew a man in my life that seemed to me more honest or a truer Christian in what constitutes Christianity.¹⁰⁴ All the older brothers are now dead. At that the leaders of the church openly and bitterly repudiated polygamy, and I have never seen a man that seemed to be more attached to his wife than was Joe Smith. She was a very handsome woman of about 150 pounds weight, finely proportion[ed] and as fair and friendly as she could be.¹⁰⁵ She had [missing]

[missing] the people of Iowa [missing] portions from Nauvoo [missing] when could follow [missing] return to Nauvoo and bring them back. But they would generally be able to clear themselves by false witnesses or [p. 51] by giving bail and not appearing at court.

[The Arrest of Caldwell]

Among other robbers, a man by the name of Caldwell who had inherited $300 from his father, and who had joined the Mormons, giving his money to Joe Smith to keep.¹⁰⁶ Caldwell had married a kin of Joe’s, but when he wanted his money back, found that none could be had. He stole a fine horse in the upper part of the county and ran off to Illinois. He was arrested and put in jail—[paper crumbled off]—I went to Quincy after him. It was seventy miles to Fort Madison, and at least 55 to Nauvoo. I had a fine horse. I handcuffed the prisoner and drove about 25 miles and got our dinner. I had to either go to Carthage, the county seat of Hancock County, Illinois, and put my prisoner overnight in the jail there or go on home with him. To get home, I had to go through Nauvoo.

The jail at Carthage was kept by a Mormon, and I was sure that the prisoner would make his escape if left overnight with him. To go by Nauvoo was to take the prisoner home. I determined to go through Nauvoo and go on home. I could go through Nauvoo in the daytime and fight my way. I kept the prisoner, who solemnly promised if I would only allow him to go home to see his wife and child that he would go on with me without trouble. I told him I would take his word and go by home with him, but that in no event would I allow him to— . . . [paper crumbled off]—where so many prisoners had been rescued from officers, that I was fully assured would on no event give him up alive.

We got to Nauvoo about an hour before sundown and drove to his mother’s. He was handcuffed when his wife and mother saw him. They embraced and thanked God that he was once more at home, from where he should never be taken alive. He had a brother older than himself, and there were half a dozen young men about the house. I was in an open buggy. I told the brother to feed my horse in the barn without taking off the harness. He did so. I then told the mother and wife to get the prisoner some supper, that I was in a hurry to go on. They said he was not going. The wife said, if she had the power she “would fill Hell by the acre with ‘Gentiles.’” I never saw two women more furious. I would have given all that I was worth, if I only—[paper crumbled off]—had him—over in Fort (Madison) for the court writ the following Monday. This was Friday.

I could not ever face the court and people if I let my prisoner escape in Nauvoo, where I had deliberately taken him. I told Caldwell that he fully understood the terms under which I brought him by his home, and that I meant to fully carry it out, that I was going on that night and if he was alive, I meant to take him.

He then told his mother to get supper. They lived about two miles from the Prophet Mayor.

Very soon after this, I saw several of the young men leave. Supper was [p. 52] delayed until I threatened to leave. The brother tried to engage me in a Mormon discussion, but I was too mad to talk and showed it. Supper was finally served, when I unscrewed one end of—[section gone]—Handcuff hands—over the prisoner—put on a clean shirt—had to take the handcuffs off.

The sister then said her brother could not go on that night; that I could stay with them. I at once put on the handcuffs and took the prisoner out and put him in the buggy and ordered the brother to hitch in the horse. This he did, slowly and sullenly, the women abusing me and quite a surly crowd looking on, but all parties were continually looking toward the mayor’s.

I had been satisfied all the time that the young men who left soon after I came had gone for a writ to arrest me and take the prisoner from me. When the horse was made fast to the buggy, I ordered the gate be open ed, when I drove out into the street.

It was an old place at the very outskirts of Nauvoo—[paper gone] Fort Madison road—By this time getting dark that you could see a man but a few paces.

The prisoner said he did not think that we would get out of the city as the patrol would capture us.

I then recollected that they had a large patrol around the city watching all the roads to guard against any officers coming into the city at night. For that, the supper had been delayed, as I then supposed.

I took out two pistols and laid them and a bowie knife by my side on the buggy seat, and told Caldwell that I did not mean to be taken, not that he should escape alive.

My horse would never hit anything with the buggy. I was as safe with him in the dark as daylight—[paper gone]—Road forked. There was a road through a field that had part been thrown open. He took that road. In 1½ hours, I was at Pontoosuc, opposite Fort Madison.¹⁰⁷

I saw no patrol man nor officer. I learned afterwards that we escaped the patrol by going through the field and that within a few minutes after we left, an officer with a writ of Habeas Corpus came to the house and followed to the outside of the city.

Pontoosuc was a bitter anti-Mormon town, and the landlord was a friend of mine. So I stopped for the night, sleeping with the prisoner. I gave all the weapons to landlord—[destroyed]—cuffs onto my left arm, releasing his left arm and slept soundly all night. Nothing could have made me happier than my safe escape from Nauvoo with the prisoner.

In the morning, I crossed over the river and put my man in jail. He was tried the next week and proved by several leading Mormons, that he was in Nauvoo [p. 53] the night the horse was stolen; that he bought the horse from an unknown man.

The court and jury knew that the witnesses had perjured themselves, but the owner had his horse and they acquitted the thief, as no one had seen him steal the horse.

Caldwell was a bright, educated young man and told me all about his troubles and the wickedness of the Danites. He being a member, I said, “Why if you” wanted—[missing]—place that I—a Mormon was never—[?]—of I would do so and go to their place, but at any other place, no matter how well I might behave myself, to tell that I ever belonged to the Mormons would ruin me.”

And that was the fact. All of the Mormons were Free Masons.¹⁰⁸ They had a charter of Illinois, but they added a new order or degree, that of “Illinois” by which, if a stranger came into the city, the sign was given and as quick as thought, it was known all over the city so that anyone who feared arrest could hide.

For this, the Mormons were cut off [as Masons], but they cared nothing for that. They initiated almost the entire church into the order.

[The Trial of the Murderer of Minister Miller]

In 1845, James Lester was elected sheriff and had me to run the courts for him during the sessions. I had then moved to Keokuk.

On Saturday of the first week of court, I went home and returned on Monday morning. When I got to Montrose, I met Estes and several others who informed me—[missing]—attempted—. Pennsylvania . . . only a coup[l]e of . . . south of West Point. The county seat at that time, and open court was being held, by the name of Miller. Miller had just moved there from Pennsylvania. He was a preacher and had three or four thousand dollars in money in his house, a single log cabin. The family had been attacked about midnight and their money demanded.

There were four of the robbers, all blacked. There was Miller and his son and son-in-law, a stout large Dutchman by the name of Leisa.¹⁰⁹ The Germans did not give up their money and resisted, when the robbers shot Miller, clubbed Leisa over the head so that he died two weeks later.

Young Miller made his escape in his shirt with a slight wound. Leisa made so resolute a resistance that the robbers left without any plunder, leaving a club and one of three hats.

Within the last three months, there had been a great many robberies in the county by masked men. The family would be awakened at night to find—[missing]—room with . . . and a surr . . . the money in the . . . died and when the money . . . given up the robbers. I leave, hurting no one.

This had become so common that there was a panic of terror all over the county, and when three murders were committed, the whole people turned to catch the murderers. [p. 54]

Estes and the party went over into Nauvoo, and I went on to West Point to open court, but there was so much excitement when I got to West Point that the court adjourned for three days, and I at once went to Nauvoo.

There were at least 200 men from Lee County there, all intensely excited. Estes had enlisted a man by the name of Barney, a man that I had no confidence in and also a lawyer by the name of Babbitt,¹¹⁰ a Mormon then, but who quit them at Salt Lake and was killed with several others by the Danites after leaving Salt Lake for the states.

They had arrested two brothers by the name of Hodges as the murderers of Miller—[missing]— professed to be anxious . . . murderers of Miller tried . . . advised the obtaining of an indictment . . . , at once started to West Point . . . the indictment and everyone left for their homes, except Col. Patterson, John Burns, Wm . . . and I.

We stayed overnight to watch things. Few persons were willing at that time to risk themselves in Nauvoo overnight.

The prisoners then in the hands of the officers were not under the least restraint . . . have run off if they had so desired.

After supper, just before sundown, one party went to the rear of the temple for a stroll, and the grand panorama to be seen from that point. The Mississippi for more than a dozen miles both up and down, and the prairie across the river in Iowa as far as the eye could reach. It was a beautiful view and the sight grand beyond description.

All at once, we heard a carriage being driven up furiously toward us. When we looked around, we had barely time to escape being run over. The carriage . . . driven out of the road . . . [missing] . . . We separated . . . when the carriage stopped . . . where we had stood . . . We saw that it was Joe’s carriage. He had just been called there. Four men got out, two on each side. Two of them were cousins of Joe and the others leading church officials.

When they got out, each one drew out a bowie knife of dangerous size and whirled it over their head and then put it back in the scabbard on their bosom, without saying a single word.

We quietly retired to our hotel, an anti-Mormon hotel. We did not call for separate rooms, but preferred to sleep in the same room.

The next day brought at least two hundred people to Nauvoo again, all full of excitement. About noon, Estes got back with the indictment against the Hodges, and they were arraigned before two justices and pleaded not guilty.

Estes had Babbitt and the Hodges had a man to defend them, a Jack Mormon,¹¹¹ by the name of Stiles, of a good deal of ability and bad whiskey. He was afterwards judge of Utah and is now a clerk in the interior . . . [missing].¹¹² I had in my pocket writs [p. 55] for more than half of them.

Both lawyers were friends of the prisoners.

The trial was being held in an upper room of the Masonic Temple and there were six or eight hundred people present, one-third from Iowa.

The court ordered that the witnesses should be called and put under rule not to be present when one was being examined.

They were called but did not answer. The lawyers wrangled some time about what should be done with the witnesses. The court had already ruled that the indictments were not sufficient to hold the prisoners.

Our people became satisfied that the whole trial was a farce, when I got up and told the justices that our people had been robbed and robbed by people from Nauvoo, that of late the robbers had been of the worst characters . . . [missing] . . . and of thieves and murderers . . . proposed to prove an alibi and that at the instance of the court and leading officials of the church, we had obtained an indictment against them, but now they held the indictment to be of no effect; that up to this time, Iowa had taken no part with Illinois against their people and city, but now we intended that the murderers of Miller should be punished; that they might rest assured that we would not allow Nauvoo to be an asylum for thieves to rob and murder our people; that sooner than this would be, we would join the people of Illinois in the destruction of their beautiful city; we did not want this; we wanted to be their friends as we had been heretofore, but if they wanted our friendship, they must give up these thieves and murderers to be punished.

From the time I began to speak until the end, I was applauded by the Iowa people with a will. The “Gentiles” had taken Carthage, Joe Smith and Hyrum had been killed and they were . . . [missing] . . . as soon ask . . . Bill Smith. Leaders of the churches . . . Adjourned until 2 o’clock for dinner. The recess was taken. Our people were wild and determined . . . two o’clock the justices met and decided the indictments sufficient to hold the prisoners . . . jail until . . . on the promise . . . to Carthage they . . they believing . . would be . . . jail . . . that they preferred to go to jail . . guard until they. About a week later, the doctor was attending Leisa[?] . . he was sinking rapidly and could not live much longer. Judge Charles M.. holding court. I asked him to let me take the prisoners down to see if Leisa would identify them. I was sure that they would be hung under the strong feeling then against them, and I did not want it done unless guilty.

The judge gave his consent. So I took the prisoners and guard down to the place of the murder.

Colonel Patterson¹¹³ went with me in advance. We placed several seats near the bed and then blindfolded Leisa, turned his face the other way and placed the [p. 56] prisoners in the seats placed near the bed, with four other prisoners, one on each side of the prisoners, and two between them. Joe Stotts was one of the party. We then took off the bandage from Leisa’s eyes and turned his face toward the prisoners.

Leisa looked slowly up and down the row of prisoners. The innocent men were much more excited than the guilty ones apparently. Only then did I realize the terrible trial they were undergoing. Leisa scrutinized Clark Johnson of Keokuk closely and Johnson turned pale and showed great excitement. But the scrutiny was only for a moment, when he settled on the Hodges, saying that the large one was the man that clubbed him over the head and that the smaller man was the one who shot Miller.

By that time the cabin was full of people and the identification was so complete that no one doubted the guilt of the prisoners.

We then brought in the old lady Miller. She had been kept out of sight of the prisoners and where she could not see them. The moment she saw the smaller Hodge, she sank down, crying, “My God that man killed my good husband.”

The Hodges took a change of venue to Burlington, and when the trial came on, they had able council [counsel] and made oath that they could not safely proceed to trial for want of certain witnesses who dare not come to Burlington for fear of being arrested under old criminal charges.

The court appointed me to go to Nauvoo to take the testimony of their witnesses to be used in court, subject to the same rules of evidence that would govern if given in court. I spent three days in Nauvoo taking testimony. L.E. Johnson,¹¹⁴ one of the Hodges’ lawyers, was with me. There probably never was a worse lot of thieves testifying in any one court than in this during this time. The very witnesses who testified for the Hodges concocted and made all the arrangements for the robbery, resulting in the murder of Col. Davenport on Rock Island.

The Hodges demanded of the Mormon Church their acquittal. Johnson, their attorney, saw that the kind of testimony they were taking would do them no good, that nothing could save them but the testimony establishing an alibi, given by the high officials of the Church. To this end an older brother of the Hodges went to Brigham Young, and (that was the first that I had known of Young) threatened to make a full exposé of the Church unless his brothers were protected. At least he threatened to do so. He did go to Young as was well known.¹¹⁵

There had been a heavy rain in the evening, and two men had stood at the corner of the Brigham lot and talked until they had beat down the ground, several feet around and then ran across a field for about 100 feet, where Hodges was found dead in the morning, stabbed in the back to the heart. [p. 57]

No one knew who killed him, and no one was ever arrested for the murder, but everybody was satisfied that it was one of the Mormon “Avenging Angels,” that by order of Brigham, had done the deed.

No further effort was made by the Hodges to make the church defend the brothers. They were convicted and hung without a confession—pluck to the end.¹¹⁶

[The Battle of Nauvoo]

That fall, the citizens of Hancock, Adams, Brown, and Schuyler Counties, determined to drive the Mormons from the county.¹¹⁷ They said one or the other must leave the county; that their property was being stolen and their lands made valueless, without any remedy. The people claimed that they were the old settlers and the Mormons interlopers. They met in convention and organized [and] commenced listing of the homes of the Mormons outside of Nauvoo. They would¹¹⁸ make the family take everything out of the house and then make them set fire to it, then watch the house until it was burned down; then on to the next house and so on, until there were some fifteen hundred houses burned and the entire Mormon population driven into Nauvoo. The “Gentiles” then organized an army of several thousand and marched on Nauvoo. About 1,500 had some sort of arms, including six small cannons. They were commanded by General Brockman, a Campbellite preacher. They marched to near Nauvoo and encamped and threw up breast works. The next day, they marched on the city. I most foolishly and wickedly, with a few others, had gone over from Keokuk and had joined the anti-Mormon army and was given a U.S. musket that had been captured with some hundred others from the Mormons at Keokuk. A few days before, the Mormons had bought them at St. Louis and shipped them to Nauvoo, but they had been confiscated at Keokuk and delivered up to the anti-Mormon army.

The Mormons met us on the outskirts of the city, and there was quite a battle, lasting several hours. As long as the ammunition lasted for the cannons, our side drove back the Mormons, but when we had no cannons, the Mormons had the better of us, and we went back to the camp and the main portion of the army left. There were about a half dozen killed and double as many wounded, about equally divided between the two sides. I had a hole through the leg of my pants. The Mormon leader by the name of Anderson was killed. He was a noble brave fellow. I knew him well. He was a bridge builder and general architect and builder. He had built a bridge for me across David Creek, and I had tried to have him go to Keokuk and join me in building and general contracting. He was from Illinois. His death demoralized the Mormons and within a few days, finding that they had no means of feeding a population of 30,000 people, they entered into a compact with the “Gentiles” to leave Nauvoo by the next May. This was satisfactory and the anti-Mormon army disbanded.

[The Mormons Leave Nauvoo]

The homeless Mormons mainly crossed over the river into Iowa and lived for months in tents. Then it was, they determined to go west onto the plains. They sent [p. 58] out parties to spy out the land. They got work when they could, many of them going into Van Buren and Davis Counties that winter. John Wood, the mayor of Quincy, Illinois, a man of wealth and nobleness of soul, went to work and got up subscriptions for the Mormons to the extent of thousands of dollars and provisions and came up and distributed the flour, beans, and meat himself.¹¹⁹ Probably a thousand went to Keokuk, mostly English, and settled in Leighton’s Addition. Leighton sold them lots for $100 a piece on time. They built themselves some sort of house to live in. They proved industrious citizens but all went to Salt Lake in time, some of them selling their places for two or three thousand dollars before they left.¹²⁰

The church spent over $100,000 dollars in finishing the temple after they had agreed to leave Nauvoo, as poor as they were. Probably not more than $20,000 was in money, the balance labor. This was done to have the endowment in the temple before they went to the wilderness.

It is said that the spiritual wife dogma was then proclaimed as of God for the first time.¹²¹

As soon as the Mormons determined to leave, they sent advertisements all over the country for the sale of their property, telling them a sad story of outrage and wrongs. They sold much of their property that fall, but in the spring of 1847, Nauvoo was a sort of general camp. During April and May, they had advertised that they would trade homes and furniture for stock of all kinds, and people came for hundreds of miles around to trade, driving oxen, cattle and horses and wagons, trading them for furniture and homes.

Nauvoo had 20,000 people at that time, many fine homes, all in perfect order, painted and fenced in, with shrubbery and flowers in the lot. The result was, they sold out at about one-third of the supposed cost.

Within two years, there was less than 1,500 people in the place, and I am satisfied that the purchasers from the Mormons never got five percent of the money paid for the property. Few ever got anything. The temple was burned and the church sold the temple ruins and other church property to the French Communists [?], Monsieur Cabot at their head. Monsieur Cabot was once of the French ministry at one time, and a man of great learning.¹²²

Several thousand French settled in Nauvoo, living in common, but they soon dissolved and left Cabot dying.

Nauvoo is now a miserable place with but a few hundred people living in it. Most of the houses were taken off, some to Keokuk, but mostly to the prairie by farmers.

When I was there 15 years ago [probably around 1860], I visited the spot where the hotel stood that I always stopped at in Nauvoo, a large brick house,¹²³ but I found the [p. 59] building gone and no sign of there ever having been a home there. The spot was covered with blue grass. I stopped at the old Joe Smith Tavern, and Joe’s wife prepared my dinner for me and waited on the table during the meal. It was after the regular dinner hour. She was then the wife of General Bideman [Bidamon]. She did not go to Salt Lake with the Mormons but remained at Nauvoo and married Bideman, a gentile. Bideman was a sort of animal in habits but with much assumption. I never saw such a change in a woman as in the Emma Smith of old times. She was poor, looked old, sad and brokenhearted. They were poor and had but little trade at their tavern. She had a family.¹²⁴

[The Arrest of Robinson]

Soon after the Hodges were hung, I was appointed by the governor of Iowa to go to Springfield, Illinois, to demand of the governor of Illinois, some dozen or more Mormons who had committed depredations on the people of Lee County, of various kinds. Especially wanted was a man by the name of Robinson who had robbed a store. Robinson was a desperate man in will and strength. I had gone to Nauvoo to take him, but Bishop Miller, an old friend of mine, refused to give him up unless I had a requisition from the governor of Illinois, but solemnly pledged himself that I should have him if I would get such a requisition.

When I got to Nauvoo from Springfield, it was in the night, and I stopped in the outskirts of the city, where I was not known. Before daylight, I went into the city and as soon as it was light, I went to Bishop Miller’s and showed him the requisition for Robinson. Miller told me that I had better get a constable but could not tell me where I could find one. I reminded him of his promise, but I saw that he did not mean to give up Robinson.

[Last Thoughts on the Mormons]

[p. 60] . . . They claimed to make the Old Testament their guide, and held Joseph Smith to be the successor of Jesus Christ with all the powers that Christ had. In the name of the Lord, they committed all manner of crimes. I then considered the whole church as knaves, thieves, thieves and murderers.

I have more charity for them now since I see so many good people, educated and honest, who believe in spiritualism. I am ready to allow honesty of belief to the Mormons, for in nothing is there more danger than in religious fanaticism, while there is nothing so great blessing to mankind as true Christian religion. Bigotry and intolerance is bad and nothing but bad.

Joe Smith taught his followers that the world was coming to an end by 1780 [sic; 1880?] at the outside, when the whole Gentile world would be destroyed and also that the world and all that was in it belonged to . . . . [end of p. 60]