Read Ebook: History of Linn County Iowa From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time [1911] by Brewer Luther Albertus Wick Barthinius L Barthinius Larson

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The above tells the story of how much trouble the various communities in Iowa had with bogus Bill Johnson and the various interpretations of the life and character of the outlaw and his alleged daughter. Mr. Ellis still insists that his interpretation of the life and character of this outlaw is as he tells it and no one perhaps knew the principal characters better than he did. Mr. Ellis was the first one who met Johnson in Wisconsin as he was about to emigrate into Iowa. He was one of the actors in the occurrence at the Phillips House in Marion, he was the old friend and companion of William Abbe and knew most of the men in the Bennett party, such as Evans, Parrish, Rowley, and others, and he met in California many years afterwards the heroine who had become the wife of Peck and there had a conversation with both of them. Mr. Ellis is of the opinion that when Johnson suddenly left Marion he went, to Missouri and later drifted back into Mahaska county, Iowa, where he was murdered. It was thought that Kate knew more about the murder than she let on, but living a life as she had lived it would not be best for her to tell all she knew of the various transactions with her so-called father. So far as Mr. Ellis ascertained Kate had reformed and carried herself in goodly repute among the miners of the far west where she was then known, it is said, at times as the Queen of the Thousand Isles. Her husband, it is stated, was a reputable person and had always stood well in the community up to the time of the Johnson murder, and what part, if any, he took in that no one ever knew.

Bogus Bill Johnson is said to be buried in an unknown grave in Mahaska county and no stone has ever been found that marked his last resting place.

Kate, Queen of the Thousand Isles, sleeps in one of the mountain valleys of the Sierras on the Pacific slope and no one knows just when she died or where she was buried. The dual lives of the characters in this drama ended as all such lives do end, in infamy and disgrace.

BY FREDERICK J. LAZELL

From the days of the early settlers until now the newspapers of Linn county have been among the most potent factors in the upbuilding of the community. They have been, as a rule, constructive newspapers. Their mission has been to build up, to help their communities grow in wealth and influence. The newspapers of the county have been noted for their sagacity and their breadth of vision, their conservatism and their tolerance. They have exerted a strong and a wholesome influence upon this and adjoining counties. In the state at large their influence for good has not been small.

The old adage that the good die young has not been true of Linn county's newspapers. The best papers today are those which were started in the earliest days of the various towns in this county. They have prospered as their respective communities have prospered. Their publishers and editors have been, for the most part, men with personal and property interests in their respective communities. That is why they have been builders and boosters. Linn county's proud position among the counties of the state, commercially, intellectually, and politically, is largely due to the fact that men of ability and integrity have worked and written and fought for the things they knew would be helpful to their constituents. And this is as true of the weekly newspapers as it is of the daily press. Very few counties in the state have had such an able corps of newspaper writers.

There were some weaklings, papers which were born and soon died. There have been a few freak newspapers. But not many. There have also been many able, brilliant young newspaper men who did good work in the Linn county editorial and newspaper offices for awhile and then left for larger fields of labor. Some of the county's ablest politicians and some of its most prominent business men have occasionally dabbled in newspapering, for the sake of some party or some pet project they were anxious to push through. That was in the earlier days. There has been very little of it in the county of late years.

In the main the newspaper men of the county have been men to the manner born, with a knowledge of the business from the ground up, men to whom the smell of printer's ink is as essential to their enjoyment of life as the scent of the sea to a sailor. If, as Elbert Hubbard tells us, art is the expression of man's joy in his work, then nine-tenths of the newspaper men of Linn county have been real artists, for they have stuck to their papers when they might have made heaps more money in some other line of business. But this love of the work so characteristic among the brethren of the Linn county press doubtless has something to do with the fact that their readable papers are read and quoted by the readers of other papers, from one end of the state to the other.

No chronological list of the newspapers of Linn county has been published, but it is interesting and instructive, and worthy of preservation in permanent form:

It was but a short time until Mr. Finch had all the newspaper experience he wanted. Joseph Greene then purchased the paper and ran it until 1854. During this time Ezra Van Metre, James J. Child, Esq., and James L. Enos were successively its editors.

"O, dinna ye hear the slogan, boys? 'Tis Douglas and his men."

"ELECTION OVER

ABRAHAM LINCOLN IS PRESIDENT-ELECT

Shout the Glad Tidings, Exultingly Sing; Old Abe is Elected and Cotton Ain't King--Secession Rebuked--Popular Sovereignty Now Here--Fusion Worse Confounded--The Bell Tolling for the Dead--Union Preserved--Dinna Ye Hear the Slogan."

"My office in Cedar Rapids was naturally the meeting place of politicians. There the men who controlled or sought to control got together and talked plainly. And the plain talk of politicians is very different from the phrasings which they use in public speeches. It was thus that our Linn county leaders reasoned. 'This war is becoming something in which the whole people have intense interest. They will judge of men from the fact of participation or opposition. When the struggle is over the men who control in politics will be those who have been soldiers.' And so these men went after commissions. They were wise and far-seeing and reaped reward of their prudence as well as of their valor. I saw the commission of one Linn county man made out for the majoralty in an Iowa regiment, not only before the regiment had been organized, but even before a single company had been raised. I saw another for a colonelcy, fixed out ahead in the same way, by reason of political grace and pull. Not but what these men, and others, made good officers. I am only explaining the reasoning which prompted some of them to enter service, and the means which were most efficacious in securing prominent places.

"And after a time it was considered that to get a high commission was tantamount to drawing a big political prize. Men were thus rewarded for their assistance given to successful candidates, and opponents found their way to army prominence beset with many obstacles. You know that a movement was started in Linn county to defeat Kirkwood for governor for the second term. This developed considerable strength, and a ticket was nominated with William H. Merritt of Cedar Rapids at its head. Merritt had been lieutenant-colonel of the First Iowa, and his was known as the 'fusion' ticket. It was an attempt to combine 'war democrats' and some elements of the republican party. Kirkwood was successful, and those men who had sought his defeat were, naturally, persona non grata with the state government. When commissions were going they were not remembered. Seymour D. Carpenter was one of these. But he did finally become surgeon of a regiment, because there was crying need for surgeons. Then when he was away from gubernatorial influence promotion was rapid, and the doctor was given a position as medical director of a department. Ellsworth N. Bates was another who suffered because of participation in the anti-Kirkwood movement. Mr. Bates persisted, however, and his merits and standing could not be ignored. He was elected captain of a company. With his regiment he served with more than usual credit, until he sickened and came home to die. There were others in Cedar Rapids and in Linn county who had similar experiences. Some of those who are still living, if they would but give full statements, would verify my remark that the proportion of politics mixed with the patriotism of those times was greater than is generally known.

"Speaking of Ellsworth N. Bates recalls to mind one whose name deserves to be remembered in Cedar Rapids and in Linn county. He came to the town fresh from college. He was a real scholar and a man of rare natural abilities. He had the art of making friends--of gaining and retaining esteem of all who knew him. He was one of the very best public speakers I have ever heard--quick to respond to varying occasion, with ready thought and a phenomenal command of language. His choice of words and use of appropriate imagery made his addresses models of their kind. As a lawyer he met with instant success. He represented Linn county in the legislature, and was acknowledged as a strong man among the law-makers. He made a splendid fight for the state senatorship candidacy, against H. G. Angle. He was assistant secretary of the second constitutional convention of Iowa. When the war broke out he was one of those who did much to rouse sentiment for support of the government. Then he raised Company A of the Twentieth, and proved himself a real soldier in camp and field. When he came home, near to death, he had lost none of his old enthusiasm. He and I were intimate friends, and to me he told his plans for the future. Had E. N. Bates lived, I know that he would have ranked among the real statesmen of Iowa. As it was he accomplished more and had greater influence upon contemporaneous affairs than many whose deeds are very carefully preserved."

Mr. Hollis also tells us how newspapers were made in that awful period of the nation's history:

At the close of the war the newspapers of the county began to turn their attention to other evils. A wave of temperance sentiment swept the county, and some of the editors were foremost among the fighters. The county was aroused by the great amount of crime. Much of it emanated from Cedar Rapids. "Can we expect," asked one writer in Cedar Rapids, "peace and quiet in a place of 3,000 inhabitants which supports not fewer than nineteen liquor establishments and several houses of ill fame and does not support a single reading room nor a public library?"

Then, as now, the newspapers were the best "boosters" of their respective communities. They were the first to point out the advantages in each community and to suggest ways in which natural advantages might lead to commercial growth and civic prosperity. Thus a writer in a Cedar Rapids paper, after enumerating and commending the progress made by the town since its organization, dwelt upon the value of the water power, pointed out how the woolen mills then in operation might be made more effective. There was an abundance of timber around Cedar Rapids at that time and he advocated the establishment of saw mills in the city. He saw no reason why staves should be brought all the way from Michigan to Cedar Rapids, when they might as well be manufactured here at home. He advocated that a packing house be established in this city, instead of shipping the hogs from Cedar Rapids to Chicago and then shipping the meat back. "This is only one item that would keep thousands of dollars in our town that now go out," he argued. He wanted a hub and a spoke factory, a fanning mill factory, and as for a "paper mill there is no better point in the state."

History moves in ever repeating cycles and some of the things for which this old editor fought are still needed today in Cedar Rapids and in other towns of Linn county. But each cycle is better than the last. Proof of this is seen in the dispute which was waged over freight rates less than a decade after the Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska Railway had been built into this city. The grain rates from Cedar Rapids to Chicago were thirty cents a hundred pounds and the noise of protest which was made then was quite similar to the noise which is sometimes

THE NEWSPAPER GRAVEYARD

STANDARD HAD A LONG LIFE

THE DAILY REPUBLICAN AND THE EVENING TIMES

A daily and weekly issue was published and the paper grew rapidly. For a time it was edited by William B. Leach. In 1877 it passed into the hands of the Republican Printing Company, who put in a great amount of capital and enlarged the office. There were many editors during this period. In March, 1881, the office was leased to J. R. Sage and D. G. Goodrich, with an option of sale within a year. During this period the paper was changed from an evening to a morning issue and an Associated Press franchise was secured, giving the paper full news service.

Mr. Brigham's interest was purchased by Luther A. Brewer, who had been assistant business manager, W. R. Boyd, who had done some editorial work for the paper while living at home in Cedar county, and by L. S. Merchant. The paper was at the beginning of what seemed to be an uninterrupted period of ownership and prosperity when death suddenly claimed Mr. Merchant in 1894. Mrs. Merchant retained her husband's interest and the paper went on as before and waged a fight against free silver in the campaign of 1896 which made it nationally prominent. Mr. Brewer in the meantime had built up a very large job printing and book binding department.

THE EVENING GAZETTE

THE SATURDAY RECORD

THE IOWA POST

THE WEST SIDE ENTERPRISE

IOWA STAATS-ZEITUNG

OTHER CEDAR RAPIDS PAPERS

THE MARION REGISTER

"I made the paper grow," he said. "Everybody wanted to get it to see whose hide was put on the fence that week."

THE MARION SENTINEL

THE MT. VERNON HAWKEYE

The paper has always been republican in politics and has never been shaken by the winds of temporary popular prejudice or passion. It has had an abiding conviction of political honesty and integrity and it has been conducted on a high plane. It has rendered good service in the building up of Mt. Vernon and the county generally.

THE WALKER NEWS

THE CENTER POINT JOURNAL

THE SPRINGVILLE NEW ERA

THE LISBON HERALD

CENTRAL CITY NEWS-LETTER

THE COGGON MONITOR

THE MT. VERNON RECORD

It is not the purpose of this history to note in especial manner all the different nationalities that have entered into the making of our cosmopolitan population. America is peopled by sturdy men and women who have come to this land of opportunity and freedom from all the civilized nations of the world. It is the amalgamation of these different races and peoples that has done much to give us our sturdy citizenship. Driven from their old homes by persecutions or the desire to better their condition, they have come to America and have helped populate our prairies and develope our cities. They have needed the opportunities here given them, and we have needed them in our work of erecting on this continent a nation that shall be an example to all the nations.

Our Bohemian citizens bear their part in the administration of public affairs. And they always make good in the positions in which they are placed. They have helped make our city councils; they have been men of ability and of influence on our school boards. They are numbered among our successful merchants and bankers. Indeed, there is scarce a line of human endeavor in which they have not been represented by men of capacity and of worth.

At the request of the editors of this history Joseph Mekota, himself a splendid representative of a splendid people, contributes the following sketch of the Bohemian people to this volume:

The history of the Bohemian people in Linn county does not differ greatly from the general history of this people in our country. Driven from their native land, on account of political persecution and official oppression, they sought America as the haven of liberty and opportunity. They brought with them an abundance of patience, industry, perseverance, and hope. Their beginning was full of hardships, privations, and obstacles. Their chief capital was their health and willingness to toil, and their ability to stand hardship. These were their native heritage. Coming to this country poor, unacquainted with its customs, its language, and its laws, their beginning had but few silver linings.

Despite these inauspicious surroundings these early pioneers were contented and happy. Physical and material hardships and trials were cheerfully borne for the joys and sweetness of political and religious liberty. Under the broad and clear skies of the religious, political, and intellectual tolerance of America they felt the realization of the unfulfilled dreams of the glorious but unsuccessful struggles of their ancestors a century ago. Such a fine spirit towards the highest ideals in life and civilization, combined with inexhaustible energy and patience in industrial pursuits, has made this people loyal to our institutions and useful to the development and progress of our country.

The early settlers came to this county with teams and wagons. At that time there were no railroads west of the Mississippi river. Many of them came from Caledonia, Wisconsin, with ox teams. Others came by railroad as far as the Mississippi river. One member of a family who came here in 1855 said: "They dumped us out at Muscatine and from there we hired teams and conveyances to take us to Cedar Rapids. We moved south of the city and lived under a tree that summer. When we wanted to buy anything we took a sample of the article in one hand and the amount of money we wished to expend in the other and would show that to our neighbors and make them understand what we wanted."

These early settlers devoted themselves to agricultural pursuits. Most of them located on or near timber lands so that they would have plenty of fuel. Fuel was very scarce in their native land, and it was easier to build their sheds if they were in the timber. The prairies at that time were not desirable for location. A large portion of College township, which is now the best farming country in the state of Iowa, at that time was full of marshes, and high grass, and strong winds prevailed so that the early settlers avoided the prairies and located in timber districts.

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