Anamosa - A Reminiscence 1838 - 1988

timber just over the Buffalo Creek. He got this
government land from serving in the Civil War. He had
a wife and three daughters and flve sons. His son-in-law
was Calvin Reed (more ofhim in the mills section).
When Benonia Brown arrived. a log house was
speedily erected and occupied by him and a portion of
his family. It was 12 by 16 ft. and covered with a shedroof
of split shingles and contained a single room. For
light, a single sash contained six small panes of glass.
This was placed high up in the log wall, out of reach of
the Indians who, naturally, liked to peer inside when
the opportunity presented itself. This habit rightly
annoyed Mrs. Brown, hence the high window sash.
The first cabin put up by Benonia and two of his sons,
Eli and George. was replaced in five or six years by a
larger one, which was 20 by 22 feet.
The flrst year of the Brown's residence on his farm.
he and his neighbors had to go to Rock Island, Ill., for
flour and meal. In fact, this was their nearest point for
procuring flour for three years. The flrst load of pork
was sold in Dubuque for trade a $1.25 for 100 pounds
for extra hogs. The father and boys struck northward
over an almost trackless route, taking plenty of cold
food to eat both ways, for hotels had no existance and
farm houses were few and far between.
In 1883. over 100 years ago, the oldtimers gathered
together to talk about the ‘good old days’. At one of
these Old Settler‘s Reunions. J .M. Peet, speaking to the
group. said, “My younger brother, and mother, and
myself started from New York with two heavy loads.
reaching Chicago in tolerable comfort. But this side
there were few bridges and we frequently stuck in the
sloughs. On November. 2, 1840, we crossed the
Mississippi at Davenport, coming on to Red Oak Grove,
we got a fresh horse and bought seven bushels of musty
oats that the horse would not eat.
"We struck a bad slough. and we put four horses on
one wagon and drove it, but the head horses went down
and the others onto them. It took three hours for us to
get out with the help of a Scotchman's yoke of oxen.
The next day at dusk we reached the prairie below
Fairview and swamped down. where we remained all
night.
“As to politics we were Whigs and Democrats but all
like brothers, as we had to live. There were no
conventions in the days of territorial offices. If a man
wanted an office he went before the people. I have
listened to seven candidates the same day. for the same
office.
"We were neighbors for 40 miles around. When we
met it was not an edgewise shake, but a squeeze that
sent a thrill ofjoy through our hearts.
"ln those days eight yards of calico made a dress to
dance in, or go-to-meeting in , as long as it would wear.
A bonnet once in style was always in style . and when
they came home from a public gathering, they didn't
say, ‘Did you notice the bonnet of so and so — say, that
was a doosey, wasn't it?’ "
Mr. Peet continued. "The old wooden mold-board
plow was the toughest experience I had to contend
with. Silas Parsons fitted up those plows. When you
made the first round you could not see much difference.
The next time there was kind of a trail for the horse.
and flnally we managed to put in a crop.
“About the first thing we did was start a school. Mr.
Olmstead was a justice, and he also taught. He could
not do a reduction after an example in Dayball's
Arlthmatic.
“lt was in a log house. and we had some pretty brisk
times. when the poker figured in pretty heavy.
“Miles Russell (son of Clement) was a good chunk of a
boy then and he and Olmstead had a tussle one day that
made it very interesting.
“You could get a good whisky from 18 to 20 cents a
gallon, without much fire in it. It was a sure antidote for
snake bites. Old Mr. Mosier stepped on a rattler that bit
him. and then ran under the house. He got a pair of
tongs, pulled up a puncheon, and, in hauling the varmit
out. got another lick on the hand. Old Mr. Brundige
‘most always had a bottle in his pocket though it was
hardly ever full. Mosier called him in, took down the
liquor and made to Anamosa for more—it cured the
snake bite.“
The second family to arrive in the Fairview area was
John Gaines Joslin. He arrived one month after Russell
and until the following April, these two families were
the only white inhabitants in the township, south of the
Wapsi.
Mr. Joslin was foreman of the grand jury on the
organization of the county in 1840. the court being held
at Edinburg. He was justice of the peace, by
appointment, from the first territorial governor, Robert
Lucas. Joslin performed the first marriage ceremony in
Jones County, when Edmund Booth and Mary Ann
Walworth were married in July 1840.
Joslin came from Ohio, first settling in Michigan,
before coming to Jones county and what is now the
town of Olin. where he attempted to buy land from an
early settler. That failing, he located 1400 acres in the
southeast part of the present Fairview township. His
flrst cabin had no windows. On the present Dutch
Creek, (which he named, after Dutches County New
York), he saw a band of Mesquakie Indians in camp.
This section of the country had been deeded to the
government after the "Blawkhawk War" and the
Indians were friendly. Nonetheless, care was essential
in the concealment of his money that he had brought
with him from the sale of his Michigan property. He had
a bulky package containing $3.000 in silver. He placed
the silver money under an excavation under a large
stone in front of the fireplace.
There it stayed until the lands came into market in
Dubuque in 1840. The scattered pioneers protected
each other from highway men and horse-thieves while
taking their cash to buy the lands they had improved.
These frontiersmen sent representatives from each
settlement in the county to Dubuque to pay for their
claims at $1.25 per acre, and it was well understood
that it would not be considered ‘healthy’ for any
outsider to bid a higher price against a bona fide settler.
Joslin, as one representative went with the Peets.
Merritts, Chaplins, Saums, Seeleys, Cronkhites and
other claim buyers.
It is reported that in a family history written by the
heirs of John G. Joslin, that in February 1839 the
supply of flour was gone. Joslin placed a couple of bags
of wheat on a ox-drawn sled and started for Blue Grass
Point, flve miles below what is now Davenport. A man
by the name of Nye had put up a small grist mill there.
Joslin camped under the open skies. reached the mill,
and returned, being gone three weeks.
in the meantime, his son, John, and George H.
Brown, had been hunting up in "The Forks", as the
Walworth settlement up the Buffalo Creek was called.
The hunt was not successful. Discouraged and hungry,
they camped at night near the mouth of the Buffalo.
The next morning their luck changed and they found
two deer drinking from the Buffalo. They killed the deer