Calhoun made the assertion on the floor of the United States Senate that he had been told that "the Iowa country has been seized upon by a lawless body of armed men." Senator Ewing, of Ohio, and Senator Clay, of Kentucky, had received similar information, the former asserting that he would in no way object to giving each rascal who crossed the Mississippi to the westward one thousand dollars if by that means he might get rid of him. And these distinguished statesmen were not alone in this view. To many in the east the first comers to the territory were "land robbers," "idle and profligate characters," "fugitives from justice," "lawless intruders," and worse. They were squatters "who feared neither the laws of God nor man."
Doubtless those who made these assertions were honest and sincere. They believed that only the most desperate characters, the outcasts of decent communities, had the hardihood to explore this terra incognita. They could not comprehend how persons living in settled communities, and surrounded with many of the comforts of life, could be so fool-hardy as to leave all these things for the sake of making a new home in a wilderness inhabited only by wild animals and wilder and more dangerous Indians.
But there is another side to the picture. Personal observation is always more to be depended upon than hearsay testimony. One of the most trust-worthy of the early writers on Iowa is Lieut. Albert Miller Lea. He had spent some years in the "Ioway District"; he had made a tour of observation across the state; he had most excellent opportunities for observing and studying the character of our first settlers. His testimony cannot be impeached, for he was a man far above the practice of deceit. In his Notes on the Wisconsin Territory, particularly with reference to the Iowa District or Black Hawk Purchase, published in 1836, he gives this vivid and truthful picture of our early inhabitants:
"The character of this population is such as is rarely to be found in our newly acquired territories. With very few exceptions, there is not a more orderly, industrious, active, pains-taking population west of the Alleghenies, than is this of the Iowa District. Those who have been accustomed to associate the name of Squatter with the idea of idleness and recklessness, would be quite surprised to see the systematic manner in which every thing is here conducted. For intelligence, I boldly assert that they are not surpassed, as a body, by an equal number of citizens of any country in the world.
"It is a matter of surprise that, about the Mining Region, there should be so little of the recklessness that is usual in that sort of life.... This regularity and propriety is to be attributed to the preponderance of well informed and well-intentioned gentlemen among them, as well as to the disposition of the mass of the people."[G]
Two years later another personal observer says: "He who supposes that settlers ... who are now building upon, fencing and cultivating the lands of the government are lawless depredators, devoid of the sense of moral honesty, or that they are not in every sense as estimable citizens, with as much intelligence, regard for law and social order, for public justice and private rights ... as the farmers and yeomen of New York and Pennsylvania ... has been led astray by vague and unfounded notions, or by positively false information."[H]
These people knew the pioneers, and their testimony is entitled to credence. As a class even the "Squatters" were not idle, or vicious, or ignorant. They were young men, strong and hardy, full of courage and adventure. "There was not a better population on the face of the earth," is the testimony of Senator Benton. "They made roads," says Prof. B. F. Shambaugh, superintendent of the Iowa State Historical Society, "built bridges and mills, cleared the forests, broke the prairies, erected houses and barns, and defended the settled country against hostile Indians. They were distinguished especially for their general intelligence, their hospitality, their independence and bold enterprise. They had schools and school houses, erected churches, and observed the Sabbath.... The pioneers were religious, but not ecclesiastical. They lived in the open and looked upon the relations of man to nature with an open mind. To be sure their thoughts were more on 'getting along' in this world than upon the 'immortal crown' of the Puritan. And yet in the silent forest, in the broad prairie, in the deep blue sky, in the sentinels of the night, in the sunshine and in the storm, in the rosy dawn, in the golden sunset, and in the daily trials and battles of frontier life, they too must have seen and felt the Infinite."[I]
No greater tribute has ever been paid to the pioneers of our state than that given by a distinguished native of the state, Hon. Robert G. Cousins, on Iowa Day at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha on Sept. 21, 1898. The following extracts from that masterly oration are worthy of preservation here:
"I have asked five of the ablest and most noted Americans what they regard as the chief thing or leading feature of the Trans-Mississippi region and they have invariably answered, 'Its men and women.' The other day I met one of the oldest settlers of eastern Iowa—one of those original, rugged characters whose wit and wisdom have lightened the settlers' hearts and homes for many a toilsome year—one of those interesting characters who never bores you and whom one always likes to meet—a man whose head is silvered and whose countenance is kind—and I asked him what he regarded as the principal feature of our Trans-Mississippi country, and he replied: 'Well, I'm no scholar, but I've been round here nigh onto sixty years and I reckon 'bout the most important thing is the folks and the farms.'
"Iowa became a separate territory, with the capital at Burlington, in 1838, and was admitted into the Union in 1846, and has been in it ever since. It makes little difference whether it was first settled by the whites at Dubuque for mining purposes in 1788, or, for trading purposes, at Montrose, in 1799, or opposite Prairie du Chien, in 1804 or 5, or in Lee county at Sandusky in 1820, or on the lower rapids at what is now known as Nashville, in 1829; or whether the first settlements for general purposes were made at Burlington and Davenport in 1832. The main fact is that it was well settled—not by dyspeptic tourists nor by invalids who had come west out of curiosity and New Jersey, nor by climate seeking dilettanti with two servants and one lung—but by the best bone and sinew of the middle states, New England and the old world. I do not know that there were any dukes or lords or marquises or duchesses, but there were Dutch and Irish and Scotch and Scotch-Irish and English and Americans, and they had home rule right from the start—at least they had it in the first school which I attended. The men and women who settled the Hawkeye state were not those who expected to go back 'in the fall,' or as soon as they could prove up on their claims. They were stayers. They were not men to be discouraged by winter or by work. They were men who knew that nobody ever amounted to much in this world unless he had to. Most of them began simply with the capital of honesty, good health and their inherent qualities of character. They built their cabins in the clearings and, watching the smoke curl up in the great, wide sky, felt just as patriotic for their humble rustic homes as e'er did princes for their castles or millionaires for mansions grand.