Part Two: David W. Kilbourne Documents

David W. Kilbourne was born in Marlborough, Connecticut, on April 12, 1803.¹ Kilbourne finished his education at Amherst, Massachusetts, and became a teacher there for a short time. Unsatisfied with teaching, he became a commission merchant in New York, first in Albany, where he married Harriett Rice in 1827, and then in New York City. However, after losing nearly everything in the fire of 1835, Kilbourne decided to become a land agent for the New York Land Company and move out to the area that would soon become Iowa Territory.²

The New York Land Company sent several agents out to the area particularly because of the opportunities in the Half-Breed Tract. The Half-Breed Tract was a section of about 119,000 acres between the Des Moines and Mississippi rivers which had been set aside by the government for mixed Native American descendants in a treaty with the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes in 1824. The treaty gave “half-breeds” the right to occupy the land but did not allow them to sell their land. An act of Congress in 1834 repealed that provision, although the act failed to identify who legally owned the land. This change brought in land speculators, such as the agents with the New York Land Company, who quickly tried to buy up as much land as possible. However, legality of land titles and claims remained questionable for several more decades.³

Kilbourne and his family took three weeks to travel from New York to their new home, arriving early in 1837. They came to the abandoned Fort Des Moines, and Kilbourne helped to lay out the city of Montrose. That year, he also helped to lay out the city of Keokuk.⁴ His younger brother, Edward, moved to Montrose in 1839, and the two of them opened a store there.⁵ In 1839, David Kilbourne also became justice of the peace for Lee County and postmaster for Montrose.⁶

River towns in this area of the Mississippi during this time could be quite chaotic. In the following biography, written by Kilbourne’s son, he explained that the town was often occupied by “river rats and steamboat roustabouts, the gamblers, assassins, and outlaws of the Upper Mississippi” who “made day and night hideous and black with their drunken debauches.”⁷ This particular area on the Mississippi was interesting because, as historian Timothy R. Mahoney explains, it was “near the vortex of a series of economic, social, and cultural convergences” between North and South, East and West, between educated “gentlemen” such as Kilbourne and “ruffians” who had been occupying the land for some time.⁸ Kilbourne often found himself at odds with these citizens and eventually mastered the social and legal climate to his own benefit and the benefit of his connections.

When the Latter-day Saints first moved into the area, Kilbourne was, as were many who would later become anti-Mormons, mostly indifferent to their activities and possibly sympathetic to their plight. However, he became antagonistic towards the Saints for a variety of reasons, including being a victim of crimes he attributed to them, as well as the challenge they posed to land claims on the Half-Breed Tract. Kilbourne eventually became an outspoken anti-Mormon, publishing articles about his qualms with the Saints and encouraging the extradition of Joseph Smith to Missouri. His relationship with many Saints, including Smith on one occasion, became hostile and bordered on violent. The Kilbourne family even decided to move ten miles up the river to Fort Madison in 1843 in part because of their unpleasant relations with the Saints.⁹

However, Kilbourne was able to achieve some kind of peace with the Saints, enough that while Joseph Smith and others were imprisoned in Carthage Jail in June of 1844, Kilbourne felt comfortable to roam around the city of Nauvoo and even stay the night at the Mansion House with the Smith family on the evening of the martyrdom. Despite his outward amicable relations, Kilbourne remained privately opposed to the Saints living in Nauvoo and the surrounding areas, writing in a letter in December of 1845 of the Saints’ predicted departure: “It will be a glorious deliverance for all this section of country when they turn their backs upon it.”¹⁰

In 1852, Kilbourne moved to Keokuk and contributed to building up business enterprises as well as becoming involved in supporting the Whig party in Iowa.¹¹ In 1864, Kilbourne became mayor of Keokuk and in 1868 he became president of the Des Moines Valley Railroad. He died on 24 April 1876 and was buried in Keokuk.¹² Kilbourne is recognized in histories of Lee County, Iowa, as a significant and prominent figure who “was one of the real pioneers, those who blazed the way for others to come after.”¹³ While he may have significantly contributed to building up the early settlements of Lee County, Kilbourne’s antagonistic relationship with the Latter-day Saints during the Nauvoo years makes him, as historian Brady Winslow explains, “an example of . . . the role Iowans played in the mounting drama between Mormons and non-Mormons in the upper Mississippi River valley in the 1840s.”¹⁴