Marion County >> 1872 Index

Pioneers of Marion County
by Wm. M. Donnel.  Des Moines: Republican Steam Printing House, 1872.

B

As the career of Mr. Babbitt, connected with the early history of Marion county, may appear somewhat conspicuous, and as his name may not be mentioned in any future part of this work, we here take occasion to give what little we know relative to his history.*

He was born in the State of New York about 1810, came to Iowa at an early day, and was a citizen of Burlington in 1840, where he worked at the business of gunsmith, and also held some office. In 1842, he, with two others, went to the head waters of the Des Moines river on a trapping expedition, where they remained during the winter. On their return in the spring, as they were descending the river in a canoe, they were robbed of most of their furs by the Indians. On the first of May, 1843, they landed at what is now Coalport, where Babbitt remained long enough to take a claim, embracing the present site of the village and bluffs below it, containing inexhaustible beds of coal.

Having secured his claim, Mr. B. repaired to Burlington for his wife, and was surprised to find her in mourning for him, and preparing to sell his property, with the view of returning to her former home. The report had reached her some time previously that he had been murdered by the Indians, and his failing to return within a reasonable time seemed to confirm this report beyond a doubt. He concluded, however, not to stop the sale of the property, but took the matter into his own hands, and soon after moved to his claim. Here he fitted up a temporary shop, where he employed himself in repairing guns, sharpening plow-shears, and doing other jobs in the smith trade, till he was called to the clerkships already mentioned.

He is described as a person of small stature, active movements, prepossessing manners, quick apprehension, and retentive memory. He was, evidently, ambitious of political promotion, for which his energy and talents fitted him, and carried him, to some extent. During his official term at Knoxville he began the study of law, and so far mastered the rudiments of that profession, that he was admitted to the bar in 1847. During his residence here he twice represented Marion, and several other counties, in the State legislature. In 1846 he was appointed the first postmaster at Knoxville, and his commission authorized him to give out a contract for carrying the mail to Oskaloosa and back one a week, but it was not till some time in June of that year that the first mail arrived, and the office was opened at Babbitt's house. He held the office till 1849, when he was succeeded by James M. Walters. In 1853, he left the county having received the appointment of register of land office at Council Bluffs, under President Pierce, and is at present editor of the Council Bluffs Bugle. Since his residence there he has several times represented Pottawattamie county in the state legislature.

*We wrote to Mr. B. for information on this point, but failing to obtain an answer, we are dependent on other sources for these meagre and perhaps inaccurate accounts.

John Babcock

John Babcock was also a native of Ohio. When he settled here his family consisted of a wife and seven children, mostly girls. He was a Mormon in faith, and his wife was a member of that church. At one time during a period of about six weeks, his family was reduced to the verge of starvation, subsisting almost entirely on nettles boiled for greens. On rare occasions they obtained a piece of corn bread from Mike Morris. This kind of diet produced a change in their complexions from a natural to a dark, greenish hue, suggestive of poor health.

Francis A. Barker

The next person whose experience as a pioneer, deserves particular notice, was Francis A. Barker. He was born near Poughkeepsie, Dutchess county, Virginia, April 2d, 1798. In his nineteenth year he went to West Virginia, where he engaged in teaching for about two years. In 1820 he went to Morgan county, Ohio, where he married in 1827, and here, after being variously engaged in business, he failed, and surrendered all his possessions for the benefit of his creditors, and, with a large family, came to Iowa, without a dollar with which to begin the world anew.

Thus poorly armed against the privations inseparable from frontier life, he was even less prepared for the afflictions that fell upon him through sickness and death.

It was late in October, 1844, when he reached the locality that he immediately chose for a home. This was section 14, Clay township, on the south side of the Des Moines river. Having obtained a house in the neighborhood in which to shelter his family for a short time, he set about improving his claim, but, in consequence of sickness among his children, it was not till two years later that he got a house of his own ready for occupation.

During this period the sickness in his family resulted in the death of two of his children, a son and a daughter. It was at such a time as this that the troubles incident to comparative isolation from society and the conveniences of a more populous settlement were most severely felt. The only neighbors within convenient call was the family of Matthew Ruple, half a mile distant; the nearest post office and store were at Oskaloosa, fifteen miles distant. Even lumber was so scarce that it was found difficult to procure enough fit to make a coffin, and, for want of help, the burying clothes for the dead children were made up by the bereaved mother and sisters.

It was in November, 1844, that Mr. Barker went on his first milling trip to Brighton, Van Buren county. Leaving a limited supply of provisions at home, it was necessary to make the trip as speedily as possible. The Des Moines was then fordable at Tally's where he crossed it; but a cold rain came down in such quantities as to flood the creeks and sloughs to a dangerous depth. In undertaking to ford a large slough below Wah's point, the cattle were unable to ascend the abrupt bank with the wagon, and in their struggles to do so, one of them was thrown down so as to be in imminent danger of drowning. To extricate the animal as speedily as need be, Mr. B. was compelled to get into the water waist deep. After much effort he succeeded in disengaging them from the wagon, when they immediately landed. But as the wind was blowing a freezing gale and not a sign of shelter short of five miles distant, our hero felt that something must be done to save himself, and the only thing that could be done to that end was to keep moving. So he put the oxen before him, and, with whip in hand, forced them in a rapid trot, he following them closely, which abated not till a house was reached. This run of five miles kept him from freezing, for the weather was so cold that his wet clothing stiffened about his limbs.

It was now late in the day, and nothing could be done toward moving the wagon till morning. So Mr. Barker remained over night, and next morning his host accompanied him out to the scene of his adventure, and assisted him to haul the wagon out of the slough, from which the water had fallen so much as to render the undertaking less difficult than it would otherwise have been.

After much delay in obtaining his needed supply of wheat and corn, which he had to buy, and in getting it ground, Mr. Barker set out for home, which he reached after about a month's absence.

Mr. Barker relates that on making another milling pilgrimage in the autumn of '45, he attempted the passage of the large prairie below Oskaloosa, during the night, but got bewildered, and next morning found himself several miles out of the way.

In '46 Mr. Barker was elected probate judge of Marion county, and re-elected to the same office in '47. In '63, owing to age and failing health, he disposed of the estate that he had accumulated by years of toil and many hardships, and passed the remainder of his days in quiet retirement in the city of Knoxville.*

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* He died at his residence there, Jan. 17, 1871, aged 73 years.

Joseph and Alloys Bauer

Joseph and Alloys Bauer, who reside in the western part of the township, were natives of Hanover, Germany, from whence they came in '33 to Indiana, and from there to their present residence (section 19) in '48 and '49. Joseph made his claim and Alloys purchased his of Leander Bennett, a temporary settler, who had came from Illinois in '46.

Just previous to the commencement of the severe winter of '48 and '49, Joseph had procured the grinding of four bushels of meal at Burch's, on White Breast, and on this, with pounded hominy and what little grinding they could occasionally get done on Helm's hand mill, they subsisted all winter. Leander Bennett had also taken a sack of corn to Burch's; but being unable to get it ground soon, he returned without it, thinking he might be able to go or send for it another time. But the snow soon put an end to all hopes of the kind till spring. And then, after so long waiting, he found that the mice had made nests of the sack and taken their winter's subsistance out of its contents. A fortunate circumstance for the mice.

During the first two or three years residence here the Bauers, being destitute of any kind of earthern vessels, barrels or even boxes, or lumber to make them of, used wooden troughs to store their provisions in.

James H. Brans

The Brans family were natives of Pennsylvania, from whence they moved to Ohio in '25, and from thence to Mahaska county, Iowa, in '45. In the spring of the year following, James came and took up his residence on the place now occupied by Mrs. Mullins, in the north-west corner of Red Rock township, where he remained till he had put up a cabin on his own claim, where he still lives. His father, Peter Brans, died November 4th, 1860.

Perry township being a rough, timbered region, wild game was quite plentiful at an early date, and even within the past few years wild cats and lynxes have existed there. We may relate a little wild cat adventure, of which J. M. Brans was the hero. It occurred in the spring of '46, when Mr. B. was employed in making rails some distance from his house. Observing a large elm stump, about twenty feet high, with a hole in it near the ground, he incautiously put his head in it to see what discoveries he could make. And the discovery he did make caused him to withdraw his countenance as speedily as possible; for, within a very short distance of it was a great mother wild cat and her three kittens. Mr. B. had no gun, so he closed the hole securely, went for help, and soon the old cat was ousted from her den, killed by dogs, and the kittens captured. After being retained a short time they were not deemed a safe breed to adopt as a part of the domestic circle, and were dispatched.

Jacob C. Brown

The next family that settled in the neighborhood of Pella was that of Jacob C. Brown. He was a native of North Carolina, and became a pioneer at an early period in life. First moved to Tennessee, and from thence to Illinois, in 1830, where, with his family, and but a half dollar in money, he began the battle of life in the wilderness, and became inured to the privations of frontier life before he came to Iowa. In May, 1844, he settled near where Pella now is, where he remained till '47, when he sold his claim to the Hollanders, and moved to Summit. He now lives in Monroe, Jasper Co.

Buffington

In August following, four families named Buffington settled three miles north of Tuttle's, forming what was soon after styled "The Buffington Settlement," and for a year these families were their nearest neighbors. The names of those who headed these families were William, James, Samuel and Abram.

A painful accident occurred in the family of James Buffington just previous to reaching their new home. Their youngest were a pair of twin boys, about six months old. On the way it was discovered that one of them was missing from the wagon. Search being made, it could nowhere be found, and the anxious parent prosecuted the search along the trail they had come for two or three miles, and at last found the infant barely alive with one of its thighs crushed and flattened by the passage of a wagon wheel. It had, probably, been so stunned by falling from the wagon that it was unable to utter any cry. So far as they were aware, there was no surgeon within a hundred miles; so they bound up the limb and dressed it to the best of their ability. It was, however, too badly mangled to be saved, and eventually came off at the hip joint; but, strangely enough, the child recovered.

Landan J. Burch

Landan J. Burch, a prominent old settler in the northern part of this township, and still a well-known resident there, was born in Virginia in 1801. He became an orphan early in life, and was subjected to many hardships and adventures during a long career of changes of place and occupation, till he finally located here in 1844. In relation to his adventurous experience as a pioneer, we will let him speak for himself, quoting from an elaborate paper submitted by him to the "Old Settler's Association" of this county:

"I and my brother William shouldered a parcel of provisions, a coffee pot, an axe and a gun, and left Winchester some time in January. We traveled up the Des Moines valley to White Breast creek, and there took the claim where I now live for myself, and my brother took that whereon John Fry now lives. We stayed here eight or ten days, made some little improvement, lived in camp and suffered a great deal from cold. During one day of the time it snowed, after which the weather became warm enough for the bees to come out, but still cool enough for some of them to become so chilled that they could not fly far. Then we went bee-hunting. Instead of looking up into the trees we traced up the hives by the fallen bees; and by this means we found several swarms, some of them quite rich.

"Then we had plenty of honey, but our bread and coffee soon gave out, and we went to an Indian trader at Red Rock, (or where the town now stands,) and got a supply of coffee, meal, and a little whisky. But the snow was so deep, and the weather otherwise so bad, that we could not go on with our improvements; so we concluded to go home and move our families up at the earliest practicable time.

"A thaw commenced about the time we started which was about the last of January and continued till the ice broke on the river, and we began to prepare for moving. We had now been several years in Iowa, encountering all the difficulties attending upon a newly settled country, and I had spent what money I had brought from Kentucky. Besides improving several lots in Winchester, I had built a small boat on the Des Moines river, with which I had carried lumber from Passmore's mill, on Lick creek, to Ottumwa, to build the first frame house there, and took my pay in trade.

"On the first of March we loaded our plunder on the boat, at the mouth of Lick Creek, and started up the river. A man named Miles Wilkenson took passage with us, intending to take a look at the country, and join with me in building a mill, provided he liked the situation.

Soon after we got on the way the weather became cold and stormy, and as our boat was an open one, and our children small, we had to camp on shore every night for the sake of fire. Besides, Wilkinson had the ague, and was not able to work the boat more than half the time. In this way we got along very slowly, and were twenty-one days getting to our claims. But here we were at least, with our wives and little ones, five children each. Not a neighbor's dog could we hear bark, nor a chicken crow. Wilkinson spent two days in prospecting between where Knoxville now stands and the Des Moines river, and came to the conclusion that the country would never be settled enough to justify the building of a mill, that the toll from all the custom we would get would hardly feed a few pigs. So he went back and built a mill somewhere in the southern part of Wapello county.

"As for Bill and me, we were located, and if we had no kind neighbors to hold friendly conversation with, we had frequent opportunities to listen to the howling of wolves. Yet we were not quite destitute of neighbors. The Joneses had settled in the timber west of Knoxville; Elias Fuller had made a settlement on White Breast, and Wm. McCord had located between there and Red Rock, and he was my nearest neighbor. Two bachelors living on the river, named Johnson, I also became acquainted with.

"As soon as we got into a shelter brother Bill took my boat and went to work on the river, carrying flour from Meek's Mill, (Bonaparte) to the garrison on 'Coon river, where Des Moines City now is. The river was high, and my brother worked hard to make even small wages. At the same time I worked about home, planted three or four acres of corn, fixed up my smith tools, did some little jobs in that line for my distant neighbors, and also for the Indians, repairing their guns, etc., for which they paid me punctually, with one exception. The children also traded with the Indians in little trinkets, and thereby obtained quite a friendly understanding with them. Both the children and I acquired a knowledge of their language very rapidly; but they left too soon to enable us to become perfect in it, or to make it useful to us.

"The creek was full nearly all summer, and as I had a patch of corn on each side of it, I had to cross pretty often in a little, unwieldly canoe. On one of these trips I came very near losing two of my children.

"This was the summer of '44, during the latter part of which my brother Bill moved to his own claim, and we lived about three-fourths of a mile apart. In August our families all got sick, I being the only well one. We had got our stock up from Van Buren county, during the summer, and when sickness came the care and labor that fell upon my unaided shoulders were enough to have employed three men. Our eldest daughter died after a lingering illness of about three months. She died from the want of medical aid and attention, when there was not a soul present except I and my sick family. My wife was unable to turn herself in bed; and as for me, trouble and the loss of sleep had so nearly worn me out that I scarcely knew anything. But for the fact that I was in good health, we must have all perished.

"When I saw that my daughter was dying I went out every few minutes and blew a little tin trumpet as loudly as I could, hoping to attract the attention of some one who might be within hearing. As it happened, a young man named Moyer, was crossing the prairie at day dawn, and hearing the blast, surmised it to be a note of alarm or distress, and came to the house. He and my brother laid out the corpse, and then went abroad among our scattered neighbors, who came in and assisted us to bury our child in a tolerably decent manner.

"Having failed, on account of sickness, to make a trip the fall, our provisions gave out. We had plenty of milk, but no bread. During sickness and after, I had to beat corn in a mortar and sift it for bread; and now this process had to be kept up until the ice broke out of the river in the spring following. Then I made a voyage to the old neighborhood for a cargo of bread stuff. I shall never forget the rejoicing of the children on our return. Little ones that could scarcely utter their words plainly, would cry out, "we'll have plenty o' bread now, mother."

"On reaching Eddyville, during one of these trips, we fell in with one of the agents of the contractor, named Scott, who was there after corn for the garrison at Ft. Des Moines, and who prevailed on us to ship a load to that place, offering a high price. There was no available means of transporting it by land just then, for the roads were so bad that a team could not draw much more than would feed it for the trip.

"So we agreed to turn back. The weather was good to start with, and if it so continued we calculated to make the trip in eight or nine days. It was important to get provisions enough to last us for that length of time. But, after insisting very hard, all the meat we could get were a couple of small thin sides of bacon. We had plenty of tea, and could have supplied ourselves with plenty of molasses, but could procure only one small jug to hold it. Meal we had none to start with, but supposed that when we should reach the horse mill, (or rather ox mill,) just above where Coalport now is, we could get a supply. But here we could get only about three quarts. We could have got some of our cargo ground, but didn't, thinking we could surely get a supply at Red Rock. But we were again disappointed, for the only eatable thing we could get there was a peck of very small potatoes, and what whisky we wanted.

"Here the weather turned cold, and the wind blew so strong against us that we had to lay by. It grew so cold that the water froze on our poles, making them so slippery and heavy that we could not use them. And to add to our troubles, our small potatoes, the only substitute we had for bread, froze and became utterly worthless. We, however, made the best we could of them by trading them to the Indians for maple sugar. And they, in turn, made the best of them by thawing them and drinking the juice with much relish.

"Having at last reached the Fort and delivered our load, we started on our return voyage with nothing to eat, hoping to reach Red Rock before we should suffer much. At that time there was but one settlement between the Fort and Red Rock, on what is now called Butcher's Prairie. By the time we reached this point the wind blew so hard up stream that we could make little or no progress, though one hand went on shore with a rope to pull while the others paddled on board.

"The situation was by no means promising, and we were compelled to land and wait for fair weather. So I went to the house to see if I could get something to eat. It was occupied by a man and his wife, whose name I have forgotten. The man was a surly fellow. No dry joke that I could pass in stating my case, could make him smile, and he look suspiciously at me and talked as though he thought the whole world was composed of robbers, and that I had come to impose upon him. In reply to my request for something to eat, he gruffly said he had nothing for himself. But the woman wore a different countenance, and from her pleased expression I was able to glean a hope. And not only her words but her works soon confirmed it. She said we were suffering and must be fed. So she went out and killed the only chicken she had, and with that and some flour, butter and milk, she provided us a full meal, cooked. I carried it to the boat, and, after our feast, when I returned the vessels, she would receive only the moderate sum of fifty cents. She was truly a sister of charity. Blessed be her memory.

"Next morning the weather was quite calm, and we finished our voyage without any further difficulty.

"Some time in the spring or summer of 1845, I commenced building a mill, and in about twenty months began to grind. It was a poor thing. I could not make more than sixteen or eighteen bushels of meal per day, but every bushel of toll was worth 50 cents, and, as many settlers had came into the neighborhood, I got all the grinding I could do. My custom extended twelve or fifteen miles around; and after this there was no scarcity of bread."