COURT HOUSE, MARION
WAPSIE RIVER AND MILL
Built in the '50s at Central City
Soon after the organization of the territory the Missouri war began. This related to the boundary line between the two states. It lasted some time, but like the Ohio and Michigan war, was bloodless, though a good deal of patriotism and red tape and military titles were shed. The trouble was finally settled by the surveyors and the courts.
In 1839 Linn county was organized. The first officers were John C. Berry, commissioner's clerk or auditor; Hosea W. Gray, sheriff; Dr. Tryon, clerk of the court; Luman W. Strong, Samuel C. Stewart, and Peter McRoberts, county commissioners. Squire Strong was a potential factor in all Linn county affairs. Mr. Stewart was distinguished for his piety. His wife was a sister of those sturdy pioneers, the Scott brothers. In 1840 the territory contained 43,000 inhabitants; Augustus C. Dodge was elected delegate to congress, and George Greene a member of the territorial council, or senate, to represent Cedar, Linn, and Jones counties. In 1841 the remainder of Linn county was surveyed by the United States deputies, with all of whom I was acquainted and in their camps—but chiefly with Mr. Welden.
After these surveys were made, claim-making and improving and trading became very lively, and the ratio of immigration increased all the time. There was more disturbance and trouble and fighting about claims than from all other causes put together. I will give only a few instances of the many with which I am acquainted. A man by the name of Wolcott, near Mount Vernon, had his claim entered. He reported it to the claim association. They sent a committee of three men to the intruder and demanded that he should release and cancel his purchase, which he refused to do. Whereupon they procured a conveyance and told him that he must go to Dubuque with them. Knowing the settler's law was against him, he made no further resistance, but went before the register and receiver, cancelled his entry, and his money was returned to him. The matter came up shortly after that before the grand jury at Marion on the charge of coercion and kidnapping. Samuel Hunter, Sr., of Hunter's Cross Roads, was one of the jury, Joseph Williams was judge, P. W. Earle, clerk, and Nathan Peddycord, of Yankee Grove, was another juryman, and I was foreman. William Abbe and Squire Waln of Mount Vernon were witnesses. Robert Smith was secretary of the claim association and Oliver Day or Allison Willits president. No bill was found and the matter stopped and never reached the supreme court.
Another claim case originated in the Dry Creek country, and came to a climax in a rather exciting way. There were a number of us attending an Indian banquet and pow-wow at a place called Wick-i-up Hollow, near the Cedar river, two or three miles south of the Oliphant and Ashlock neighborhood. The regular guests were seated in a semi-circle in the wick-i-up; we were only callers. The exercises consisted of short talks, chants and choruses, each keeping time with a deer's bladder dried and filled with air and some buckshot in it to make it rattle, all accompanied with the music of a sort of home made fife. The banquet or dinner to follow was being cooked by the women. It consisted, as far as I could see, of dried venison, stewed dog meat, beans, and pancakes. Before the dinner was ready some of our party went outside and renewed a quarrel that had been pending for some time about their claims. Pretty soon the lie was passed, and it was immediately followed by a blow, and directly five or six were in the fight all at once. The struggle and angry shouts of the combatants frightened some of the Indian women who were near and they ran screaming away. This broke up the exercise in the wick-i-up and the braves rushed out, thinking that their women were being misused, for a brave man will always resent an insult to his wife. The fight so disrupted everything that we left without waiting for dinner, especially as some had to withdraw for repairs. The Chambers were in it. William Garrison and some of the Nations were in it, but not Carrie with her little hatchet. John Hunter and, I think, Dyer Usher, were there, but not in the fight. The case came up before his honor, Aaron Usher, a justice of the peace, who fined some of the participants $1.00 each, which ended the litigation and the claim dispute.