"In 1851 occurred the great flood. Most of the lower parts of the town were under water. The grand lodge met that year at Ft. Madison, and at the time the river was at its highest point. We were cut off from all the neighboring country by the swollen streams, but the lodge thought it must be represented and I was chosen as the delegate. N. B. Brown suggested that I should go down the river in a skiff to a point opposite Muscatine, then by land to that place, which is only ten or twelve miles distant, then by steamer to Ft. Madison. The lodge furnished the skiff. I found a companion. We embarked in the morning and so swift was the current that we reached our destination by nightfall, and I was on time for the meeting. At the meeting I renewed my acquaintance with the grand master and the grand secretary, and met many brethren who became lifelong friends.
"In the spring of 1852 a steamboat came to Cedar Rapids. It was a great event, and brought in people from near and far. She brought a full cargo of freight, among which was the household effects of Mr. Bever and my father, both of whom from that time forward became citizens of the town. This year also came Mr. Daniel O. Finch with a printing press and forthwith started the Progressive Era, the first paper in the Cedar valley. Ezra Van Metre, a talented young lawyer from Cincinnati, Ohio, also came that year. Every one was rejoiced that we had an organ and the editor was overwhelmed with original matter. There were at least a dozen young fellows in the town, myself among the rest, who thought they 'knew it all,' and anxiously rushed into print. The paper changed hands in a year or two, and became the Cedar Valley Times and continued until a few years ago.
FEDERAL BUILDING, CEDAR RAPIDS
AUDITORIUM, CEDAR RAPIDS
"In the winter of 1852 I had a serious time in a professional way. A young man living at Quasqueton, Buchanan county, was riding across the prairie near that place and met a bear. The bear fled and he pursued. In crossing a strip of ice the horse fell. He was thrown and his foot stuck in the stirrup and he was dragged four miles over the snow, which was about six inches deep. In the mad flight the horse kicked and broke his right leg below the knee in two places. Finally the saddle turned, his foot was released and he was dropped on the lone prairie. The horse found his way home with saddle under his belly. This was on the evening of the 17th of December. A search was organized, but he was not found till the 21st, four days after the accident. Fortunately the weather was not as cold as it sometimes gets, but his hands and feet were badly frozen. Cedar Rapids, about thirty-five miles distant, was the nearest point where doctors could be found. I was sent for and went by the way of Marion, and took with me Dr. Thomas Bardwell, who was then a student in Dr. Ristine's office. There was a road to Center Point. There we struck across the prairie to Quasqueton, eighteen miles distant, without a house. We reached there the evening of the 23d, nearly frozen ourselves, for the weather was bitterly cold. They had got the young man thawed out, but in a most miserable condition. Mortification had set in, and there was no chance for the broken leg. Immediate amputation was the only hope, but I had no instrument but a small pocket case, and delay would be fatal. Necessity is the mother of invention. A butcher had just come to the place and had his tools. He sharpened his knives and filed his saw. A strong handkerchief was twisted, a knot made in the middle, which was placed over the main artery. It was tied tightly and a strong stick thrust under it and twisted till the circulation was shut off. Then with the butcher's tool I amputated the thigh four inches above the knee. Dr. Bardwell administered chloroform, which fortunately we had taken with us, and he encouraged me by word and deed. The young fellow, who was about 21, had never been sick a day in his life, rallied well and improved for about a week, but the other leg, which we hoped to save, began to mortify and there was nothing left but to amputate it. In the meantime we heard of a doctor about thirty miles away, in the direction of Dubuque, who had a case of instruments. I sent to borrow them. He refused to lend them but came back with the messenger and insisted, as he owned the instruments, he should perform the operation. That was not professional, but as I thought the patient had not more than one chance in ten to recover, I was not unwilling to divide the responsibility; so he amputated the other leg below the knee. During that winter I made eight trips between Cedar Rapids and Quasqueton on horseback, and the fellow recovered. He was the son of a well-to-do farmer in Harrison county, Ohio. His father came out in the spring, stole his son away without paying the doctors or the man in whose house he had been during recovery, and to carry ingratitude still further he procured a Methodist preacher to write his life, in which I was depicted as an ignorant butcher. This book he peddled about Ohio in person. I confess that when I heard he had been sent to the penitentiary for committing an aggravated rape I was not very sorry. This experience rather disgusted me with the practice of medicine in a new country. I was, however, in a way compensated, for I sent a history of the case to the New York Tribune, and its publication gave me quite a reputation as a fearless surgeon and thereafter I was called when surgery was required. As I have said before, I was in the habit of showing strangers about the country who wanted to buy land. In that way I became familiar with choice lots of vacant land. Greene and Weare dealt in land warrants, which they sold on a credit at three per cent per month interest. I knew of a section of land in the Iowa river bottom that I thought I should be able to sell. I borrowed the land warrants, entered the section and in less than two months had sold it for $3 per acre cash. That settled the matter. By one transaction I had made more than I had done in any year's practice. I sold out my medicines to Dr. Koontz and thenceforth till the war had nothing to do with medicine.