History of Linn County Iowa Part 50

[Ill.u.s.tration: WEST ROWLEY STREET, WALKER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAIN STREET, PRAIRIEBURG]

CHAPTER XXIX

_Wages and Prices in the County from 1846 to 1856_

During the decade from 1846 to 1856 land was very cheap in Linn county, and everything else was in proportion. Wages were low, and what the farmer raised on his premises he could find no market for, and, consequently, outside of wheat it was pretty much worthless. The panic of 1857 was a severe one in the county, and many of the bankers and business people met with severe reverses from which some never recovered. No one had any foreboding of the financial storm and all were caught short to such an extent that they lost nearly everything, even their homes which had been mortgaged. Many a business man with good credit, possessed of considerable means, became swamped in the crash. It mattered not what a man had in property, if it was not in gold it had no price, and there was no market for anything except on a cash basis.

From N. B. Brown's account book we glean the following as to prices for eatables in Cedar Rapids in 1846: Beef, 2-1/2c per pound, flour, 2c per pound (1-1/2c in 1847), beans, 75c per bushel, veal, 3c per pound, coffee, 14c per pound, sugar, 16-1/2c per pound, tea, $1.25 per pound, wheat 37-1/2c per bushel, corn meal, 25c per bushel, buckwheat flour, 1-1/4c per pound. This interesting book is in the possession of Emery Brown, one of the sons.

During the decade mentioned a horse sold at from fifty to sixty dollars, and a yoke of oxen could be had for the price of one good horse. As many of the pioneer farmers had not the means to purchase a team of horses, they did the next best thing and invested in a yoke of oxen and thus managed to get along and weather the storm. A good wagon with spring seat cost from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five dollars, and a log chain from two dollars and a half to five dollars.

Ordinary stirring plows sold at from ten to fifteen dollars. Mowers and reapers were not common in those days, the scythe and the cradle being the tools with which the young boy earned some of his first spending money. It was surprising how much hay and grain a good farm hand could cut in a season in this way.

The people dealt in log houses in those days like we do in second hand furniture today. These houses were bought and sold at from fifty to seventy-five dollars each and moved at leisure in the winter time from one part of the towns.h.i.+p to another; at times a log house was moved from ten to fifteen miles and everyone chipped in and helped to move. A jug of whiskey, some hot coffee, and a good dinner were all they expected in the way of remuneration for their labor. The young folks at times insisted on a free for all dance and a free fiddler for the a.s.sistance they had rendered in moving and fixing up the house. If the young married couple who were to occupy the house did not dance or believe in dancing, a party or two were given, ending up with a midnight supper.

While the prices of government land was one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre, the speculator land generally sold at from five to ten dollars and as high as twelve dollars and fifty cents an acre. Wages were very low, from fifty to seventy-five cents a day being the average price paid a good farm hand. In town a person generally received from seventy-five cents to a dollar a day and then boarded himself.

Oats sold at fifteen cents a bushel, corn at ten cents, wheat at from forty-five to sixty cents. Hogs sold at one dollar and fifty cents a hundred. Potatoes were considered high at ten cents a bushel, while quail sold at thirty cents a dozen. b.u.t.ter brought from five to six cents a pound, and eggs six to eight cents a dozen.

While prices for farm products were quite low the prices paid for the necessaries of life were high on account of lack of transportation facilities. Coffee sold at ten cents a pound, sugar at from eleven to twelve cents, tea retailed at eighty-five cents. Calico sold at forty cents a yard--and a poor quality at that. Salt in the early days sold at ten dollars a barrel, the price coming down in Cedar Rapids to five dollars when W. B. Mack brought his first cargo of salt by steamer from Ohio to Cedar Rapids.

Nearly all worked on shares, land was rented on shares, grist mills operated on shares, as well as saw mills. Masons and carpenters had to take their wages out frequently in form of property, and, while they were hard up and needed the money, this property in time made many of them wealthy men by their retaining what had been turned over to them in the form of wages. Old Thomas McGregor relates how he worked for a contractor by the name of Robinson and was offered lots where the mills of the Quaker Oats Company now stand at ten dollars a lot to apply on his wages, and when the writer inquired why he did not take these lots he replied: "My wages were seventy-five cents a day, on which I had to keep a wife and children, and they were more to me than corner lots."

Old James Cleghorn worked for the Greene Bros. in the saw mill and was offered corner lots, and finally obtained in trade a forty acre tract of land in Scotch Grove for his summer's work. Old Elias Skinner, the well known Methodist preacher, in the early fifties traded a team, harness and wagon for a forty acre tract on what is now the location of the town of Norway, and at the time thought that the man who got the team had the best of the bargain, as there was no market for land and no income from it, while with a team of horses a man could make something and always could trade it for something else if he wanted to.

Money was a scarce article in those days, while labor was cheap and the days were long. It was generally work from sun up to sun down and sometimes until way after dark, and no one was heard to complain, because if a person did complain there were always plenty of others willing to take the place of the man who wanted to quit.

There were not many varieties of food in the good old days, but the people were healthy, they worked hard and everything tasted good. The ordinary dishes were Indian corn, corn bread, hominy, corn dodgers, bacon, venison, and prairie chickens. The cooking was done by an open fireplace, stoves in those days being few. Rye coffee was used frequently instead of the ordinary coffee and tasted good after a long day's hard labor in the timber. Many a thrifty housewife worked for weeks to dry corn in the fall of the year, as well as to dry apples; hominy was also made at home. All these delicacies--so-called--tasted good during the winter months and no one was known to be afflicted with ptomaine poisoning.

Before the days of grist mills coffee mills were used for the grinding of corn and wheat. In some instances a few of the early settlers used the Indian stones, turned by hand; later horse mills were erected, which the early settlers thought were great inventions. These mills consisted merely of an enclosure of logs with a large wheel in the middle around which a leather belt was placed, which was also attached to a smaller wheel which turned the mill stones and ground the corn.

The pioneers would come several miles to such a mill and sometimes had to wait a day or more in order to get their grist ground. They would help run the mill, would sleep in the wagon at night and live on parched corn on the trip; if a cup of coffee could be obtained at the stopping place the settler would be more than gratified.

While the settlers raised almost all their provisions, they also made most of what they had to wear. In a very cheap sort of a way they tanned their own leather and made their own shoes; in short, relied on their own ingenuity for nearly all the comforts of life.

The women folks were as handy as the men, if not more so, for they were all spinsters, dressmakers and tailors; they made the blue hunting s.h.i.+rts with fringes, adorned the buckskin belt which was worn around the waist, and also cut out the tight fitting cotton blouses worn by the boys, and even made moccasins and a coa.r.s.e kind of brogan shoes.

They were furriers as well, for they made some excellent fitting wolf skin caps for the men and some neat looking gingham bonnets, well starched, for themselves. While the shoes were at times heavy and ill fitting, they were only worn on Sundays and during the winter, for as soon as spring came nearly everyone went barefoot, about the house at least, for the sake of economy as well as for comfort.

During these pioneer years in the forties and fifties our ancestors did not have an easy time of it by any means. They endured the hards.h.i.+ps of pioneer life and were subject to fevers, as well as homesickness, and frequently during the winter months they were exposed to the severity of the early Iowa winters when the log houses were both small and uncomfortable, but they were men and women of iron nerve, full of push and energy and perseverance. They had taken up a tedious battle for existence out on the barren prairies of Iowa, far away from home and kindred, and, at times, surrounded by wild frontiersmen, freebooters and ruffians who were making a last stand in these parts of Iowa until the opening up of the vast barren tracts west of the Missouri river. It was not until after the Civil war that the people of Linn county became, so to speak, comfortably well fixed and had some of the comforts which they had so long looked for during the early years.

CHAPTER x.x.x

_Some of the First Things in Cedar Rapids and Linn County_

The first log cabin was erected on the site of what became Cedar Rapids, by Osgood Shepherd or Wilbert Stone in 1838. The first frame house was erected by John Vardy in 1842, and the first brick building was erected by Porter W. Earle at the corner of First avenue and Second street in 1844.

P. J. Upton, of the Star Wagon Company, received a carload of freight on the first freight train that ever came to Cedar Rapids; this was in 1859. W. B. Mack received the first cargo of salt on the steamboat "Cedar Rapids" in 1855, bringing down the price of salt from $10.00 to $5.00 a barrel.

The first steamboat company, incorporated for $20,000.00, was organized in 1855, some of the incorporators being Alex. Ely, Dr. S. D.

Carpenter, the Greenes, and other business men of Cedar Rapids.

The first grist mill was built by N. B. Brown in 1843. Isaac Cook was the first lawyer locating in Cedar Rapids; John Shearer was the first justice of the peace, and James Lewis was the first constable. The first general store was opened by George and Joseph Greene in 1842.

Judge George Greene taught one of the first schools near Ivanhoe in 1839 and 1840. Alexander Ely, George Greene, and N. B. Brown, with others, erected the first school house in 1847 in Cedar Rapids, later selling it to the school district.

Joseph Greene was the first postmaster in Cedar Rapids and carried the mail in his plug hat and distributed the same as he happened to meet the people to whom the letters were addressed.

Dr. S. H. Tryon was the first physician in Linn county. Dr. E. L.

Mansfield was one of the first physicians locating in Cedar Rapids, in 1847. H. W. Gray was the first sheriff of Linn county, being appointed by Governor Lucas in 1838. The first county fair was held in October, 1855. The first hotel was built in 1847, called the Union House, James Dyer being landlord; this building was destroyed by fire in 1865.

In 1855 W. D. Watrous, W. W. Smith, and J. J. Snouffer built the steamer "Blackhawk" for the purpose of navigating the Cedar river. It ran between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo for two years. It was later purchased by the government and used for a supply boat on the lower Mississippi. In the '40s and '50s Mississippi steamboats made regular trips to Cedar Rapids. The first railroad reached Cedar Rapids in 1859; it is now known as the Chicago & Northwestern.

The first fire company was organized in Cedar Rapids in 1869. In 1871 the Cedar Rapids Gas Light Company was organized. The first mayor of Cedar Rapids was Martin L. Barber.

The first steam mill in the county was built by J. P. Gla.s.s in 1845.

The first hand-raking reaper brought into Linn county was by William Ure, of Fairfax towns.h.i.+p, who hauled it from Chicago by oxen in the summer of 1847.

The first newspaper in Cedar Rapids was the _Progressive Era_, published in 1851 by D. O. Finch; the first newspaper in Marion was the _Prairie Star_, published by A. Hoyt in 1852; the first daily newspaper published in Linn county was called the _Morning Observer_, the first number being issued on September 1, 1870, and edited by Thomas G.

Newman and Z. Enos.

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[Ill.u.s.tration: QUAKER MEETING HOUSE, WHITTIER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHITTIER]

N. B. Brown erected the first flour mill in 1844; the first woolen mill was erected in 1848. The first judge of probate in the county was Israel Mitch.e.l.l, appointed in 1838. He was also one of the justices.

The first bridge erected across the Cedar river in Cedar Rapids was in 1856 at what is now Seventh avenue. The oldest settler now living in the county is Robert Ellis, who arrived in 1838.

The first marriage in Linn county was that of Preston Scott and Miss Betsey Martin, which occurred in July, 1839.

The first white male born in Linn county was George Cone, who first saw light at Marion, April 12, 1839.

The first death in the county was that of Mr. Williams, who died January 15, 1839. He was buried in the Campbell cemetery near Bertram.

The inscription on his tombstone is yet visible.

The first mill was erected by John S. Oxley in 1842-43 on Big creek. It was later purchased by Jacob Mann.

The first citizen to become naturalized was Peter Garren who, during the October term of court, 1840, as a native of Scotland, renounced all allegiance to the queen of Great Britain.

James E. Bromwell, who came to Linn county in 1839, will always be remembered by the residents of Marion. He helped lay out the county seat. He made the first coffin for the first interment in its cemetery, a.s.sisted in the erection of the first residence in the town, as well as in the erection of the first store buildings, besides taking time enough to procure the second marriage license issued in the county for his marriage to Catherine Gray, on August 26, 1841.