| Description |
: |
Bishop penned the following sketch, apparently for some special occasion in this county, and it is reprinted here vertbatim.
Des Moines, Iowa
December 2, 1897
Dear Friends and Citizens of Union County: I cannot forego the pleasure it will give me to write of the good old days. I would like well to be with you, to say what I write, and again to look at your kindly faces and grasp your fraternal hands but this pleasure I cannot indulge now.
Let me sketch myself briefly. I was born in the state of New York, received a "common school" education in...
Read More
|
Bishop penned the following sketch, apparently for some special occasion in this county, and it is reprinted here vertbatim.
Des Moines, Iowa
December 2, 1897
Dear Friends and Citizens of Union County: I cannot forego the pleasure it will give me to write of the good old days. I would like well to be with you, to say what I write, and again to look at your kindly faces and grasp your fraternal hands but this pleasure I cannot indulge now.
Let me sketch myself briefly. I was born in the state of New York, received a "common school" education in Ohio and in November 1852, on foot and alone, I crossed the Great River at Davenport. That winter I taught school near Blue Grass, Scott County, Iowa. I had taught one term in Ohio, the winter before, which gave me some confidence that having succeeded fairly well among friends I might get through among strangers, for during that long winter I never saw a person I had known before. I had an opening that spring [of 1853] to go to California as an ox-team driver for a Mr. Campbell [whose son, once if not now, lived in Union County.] but his caravan left a week before my school closed and mud and rain prevented my following and overhauling him as I had hoped to do.
So, instead of seeking Golden sands, I chopped cord-wood, couple of months for Hon. Elijah Sells [afterward Secy. of State] at Fairport, Muscatine County. The summer of 1853 I worked on a brick yard near Oskaloosa and that fall, in company with my brother, Wm. J. Bishop, I entered land in Union County. It was 40 acres of timber in Sec. 14, Jones Township – and the purchase of this and the expenses of the
journey exhausted "my pile" – the price was a $50 California "slug" and $1.00 to cover expense of coining.
I returned to Ohio and brought here to Union County, my aged parents in the spring of 1855. Their presence probably kept me from going to Kansas to join the "Border War." That year I preempted the land where Thayer now is and an 80 acres lot north of it where we built a cabin on the edge of the grove of cherry trees. In the year 1856 I
was a member of the party of thirteen who ran the first regular survey and took the topography along the line of the "Burlington and Missouri River" railroad, now the C.B. & Q. I well remember the sensation of delightful loneliness, which struck me when on emerging from the long
"draws" west of Twelve Mile Creek we surveyed the splendid eminence where Creston now stands. I remember exactly where we struck the Section Corner near where your round house snow stands and that near the government ‘mound" there was a badger burrow of large proportions – the pioneers of Creston. From that summit only objects discernable on the vast prairie, were the Myers farm – near where Lon Ickis now lives, - "Lytles Grove" in Douglas Township [an early stage station], and the trees at Uncle Sammy Riggs place still further away to the
south west.
Returning that fall from the survey, which ended at Plattsmouth, I was married to Susan Lindsley in Clark County, not far from Murray. The winter following was the longest and coldest I have ever seen. Nearly all the deer, which before had been plentiful, perished that winter. I had two yoke of oxen, which I subsisted by hiring a stalk field of Mr. Stephen White at Pisgah.
It was, I think, in the spring of 1857 that I, and my oxen assisted [voluntarily as did all the others] in throwing the first bridge across Grand River. The abutments were immense log cribs filled with boulders, and the "Stringers" were hewn form cottonwood trees sixty or
seventy feet long. It was an immense job to get those logs places in "ship shape" but we did it. Uncle Joe Norris bossed the job and I can recall now but two men living in Unon County who were there –J.S. Lafever and Joseph Syp.
At that time Norris was the Hotel man of Afton; D.J. Gutheridge was the merchant; Thos. M. Robinson was County Treasurer; Dr, W.B. Davis, physician; James Blanchard, County Judge; and Reuben Riggs the lawyer – that was a couple of years before Ira Seeley became County Sheriff
and James G. Day and James W. McDill and N. W. Rowell and Wm Locke and L. Raguet became leading spirits in Afton autonomy, - that was when James A. Forgey was "first prosecuting attorney" of Union County and this deponent was "first Justice of the Peace" of Jones Township - a
term lasting two years of feverish anticipation without a single case.
I believe it was in the winter of 1857-58 that I removed to "Highland" and taught the "County Seminary" school there. In teaching, I had often eyed my classes of boys and wondered which one of them would "some bright day" be President. That winter in Highland was a delight. The Ickis, the Robbs, the Wrays, the Days, - who of them
all? One only, has come very near the goal. Hon. W.H. Robb; only that he early left the republican party and burnt all brides behind him. Several of my pupils, I am proud to say, have distinguished themselves, and I doubt if ever a school in the good county of Union have had brighter talent. In those days I recall another honor. I
was secretary of the first Agricultural Society of the county and we held two fairs in the courthouse. Afterward came the years of war.
I had rented my farm for 1861 because of an attack of acute rheumatism which kept me confined to the house from Feb. to June. I had moved my wife and children to Father's, not knowing what I might employ myself at when I recovered. But the battles were on, and before I could step on my "game leg" I had an old gun and a "tactics" and was practicing the Manual of Arms. On the fourth of July I rode in a wagon to Afton and "fell in" when Capt. L. Raguet mustered and drilled his company. I limped a good deal and nearly fell down in executing a "right wheel"
at the southeast corner of the square and was laughed at and jeered a little for "falling out" on a "double quick" toward McDills's.
On the 13th of July we started for Council Bluffs as enrolled soldiers for three years or during the war –which I hoped would give me a chance to do my own farming next summer. The privat's wages was then eleven dollars per month and perhaps tat was the reason why my good comrades, on the eve of arriving in Council Bluffs, elected me Orderly Sergt., the pay of which officer was twenty one dollars per month. As I recall it, I was the only married man from Union County who went clear through; though several others left Afton; some to Union from Quincy and some from Lewis – then the county seat of Adams and Cass
counties. Two weeks afterward I was back in company with James I. Morris] recruiting more men for Co. H. of the Fourth Iowa Infantry and in two weeks more we left for Council Bluffs with twenty-five more young men, whom at some future time, if requested, I will try to name.
Union County did her part nobely in filling the state's quota principally in the 4th of 1861 and in the 29th IA Infantry in 1862. In the latter regiment I lost my only brother who lies in the national Cemetery, Little Rock, Arkansas. I was a member of Co. H. four years and about fifteen days. But one casualty happened to me – at Atlanta, GA a minnie ball in the shoulder, which was amputated by C.T. Hyde about eighteen months after my discharge. I was then in "dry Goods", with him and one morning, having complained of its hurting under my
arm, he asked to feel of it; and whipping out his sharp knife he bade me shut my eyes and teeth and engage in absent-minded prayer, which I did only for a minute or two, when he handed me the open ended minnie of the size of the ball of a Johnnie's thumb.
I can only recall two of "my boys" still residing in Union County: Rev. Hiram Pierce and Amos W. Ames, Esq. They are the heroes of thirty-seven well fought battles and the latter was a prisoner of war.
On Saturday before I arrived home in August 1865, the republican convention at Afton, unasked, nominated me for County Judge and the first Co. Auditor, and continuance in the court house got me into a new business, real estate and tax paying – first, with Hon. Ira Seeley then Co. Treasurer, and later with Hon. S.W. McElderry of LaCrosse,
Wis.
And here where I ought, perhaps to have begun, I have written already so much that I ought to end.
Pardon me – the remembrances grow upon me and I love them.
"Oft in the stilly night
When slumber's chains surround me
Fond memories bring the light
Of other days around me.
Propositions were rife for a railroad in 1866. For $20,000 of stock subscriptions, paid in cash, and the right of way across the country, Afton could have it [provided Osceola would subscribe $30,000 and give
the right of way.] otherwise the road would run south of the county seat over a line that would be $100,000 cheaper of construction. Geo. W, Beymer and myself and three gentlemen fro Osceola went to Burlington, by appointment, to confer with Mr. Perkins and the R.R. authorities there, to get this reduced if possible. We were shown the profiles of both routes and were convinced of their great disparity; but it was kindly hinted to us that Union County must do the best she could and keep mum. So returning, after infinite labor, participated in by all of our good citizens, Union County subscribed $14,000 of stock and shouldered the expense of right of way which, for years, hung heavily on the shoulders of several of Afton's best citizens – Is it any wonder that Afton fought to keep the county seat?
This railroad company, though, often misjudged, was always kindly disposed toward Afton. This I know better than some others who had more public influence. In good faith it was sought to find grounds for a division station near Afton on Star Branch. This failing, the Longstreth and Emerson farms were bought, for fear of alarming our
good Afton citizens who conceived that the building up of a town only three miles west would ruin their property. The scheme of purchase leaked out. There was a furor in the county seat, and the contract with Mr. Longstreth [who had $1,000.00 in hand as a forfeit] was allowed to lapse – and still through our land agency, the fine tract
of land at Cromwell was purchased for a division station. It subsequent removal to Creston was the result of rivalry between two land syndicates in the Band M. Management, and so, as the old settlers all remember, the fates worked for the new "City on the Crest" and against the old time county seat, which really had, unwittingly, spurned her supreme opportunity in the Longstreth farm.
I am not now blaming, nor did I ever blame Creston, as a town for its aspirations to be the county town of Union County. It was in 1870 that I first assayed to be "newspaper man" and it thus grew out of this sectional contest. Afton demanded a new courthouse; Creston demurred. James King was then Editor of the Creston Gazette. He drove an incisive pencil, and loomed up like a Goliath. L. Raguet and myself were appointed to "beard the lion" and Raguet commenced characteristically well but did not hold out. We were then writing for Robert's Afton Tribune and I soon felt as though the burden was principally on me, and though I could only be slow I could stay - and did so. We beat "Jim King and his myrmadous" and Afton erected the courthouse I wonderful triumph. A few months afterwards I traded for a half interest in the "News" and John Baxter and myself were partners for some months, when he sold out to me and became my foreman, which arrangement lasted long, and I think, satisfactorily.
As a newspaper man I think I scored a success, for at one time, I owned the Murray news and at another time the Creston Gazette, in connection with the Tribune News at Afton.
In real estate and insurance business my success was gratifying. Something like approximately half of the farm lands of Union County have changed title through our agency, first or last, and though there may have been times when my good neighbors considered me involved, I
was at all times in safe business standing, whilst my residence remained among you. It was California, and not Iowa, that led me into property losses, which a calm philosophy has led me later, not in the least, to regret.
I have been a non-resident of Union County nine years. In that time death has ruthlessly wrought with many of the old settlers whose memories I do revere. Many others have removed, and many others, I trust, will enjoy this occasion at Creston, a town I always did admire and once expected to make my home.
As to all others, sorrows and joys have come to me. In losing one of the best war wives in 1876 I mourned. In marrying another noble woman I have constantly rejoiced for twenty years.
My parents, my first wife and two on my children sleep in the soil of your community, where I hope at last, to repose whenever the Master shall so decree. The noontide of my life was with you, and though I have not named you all, I really and truly and sincerely send to you all my highest esteem and good will.
J. F. Bishop |
