The following letter, written May 28, 1848, by W. H. Merritt to S. W. Durham, an old friend and fellow democrat, shows plainly the attitude of one of the leading men of the party, then living at Dubuque, but who had formerly resided at Ivanhoe and hence was one of the early men in Linn county. He mentions Preston (Colonel Isaac Preston), and gives his reasons for not wanting him. The Leffingwell mentioned was the well-known W. E. Leffingwell, who formerly resided at Muscatine, then Bloomington, and later removed to Clinton county. He was an eloquent lawyer and a popular man. He was later defeated by William Smyth for congress in this district. Bates and Folsom were both prominent Iowa City men, and well known in political circles for many years. Judge Grant was the noted jurist of Davenport, and was a well-known railroad promoter who had much influence in early years in Iowa.
In this letter Mr. Merritt suggests George Greene as a candidate from Linn county. There is no doubt that if at this time Mr. Greene had been selected, he would have carried the district and made an enviable record as a statesman, and no doubt on account of his judgment and his keenness in business, he would have obtained from congress such favors as would have amounted to much good for Iowa in the first stages of her statehood. The letter does not show whether or not Mr. Greene had consented or would consent to such a course, although it has been stated that he most likely would have consented to have made the canvass. For congress the whigs nominated this year, 1848, D. F. Miller for the first district and Tim Davis for the second district. The democrats nominated for the first district William Thompson, and for the second district Shepherd Leffler. The whigs were strong, the total vote for president at the November elections being, Cass, democrat, 12,093; Taylor, whig, 11,144; Van Buren, free soiler, 1,126.
Leffler was elected, and Miller on a close vote contested the election of Thompson before congress. The committee on elections declared the seat vacant. Leffler, who was elected after an exciting canvass, was a native of Pennsylvania, who came to Iowa Territory in 1835. He sat in the first constitutional convention in 1844, and two years later was elected to congress by the state at large, and hence in 1848 he had the inside track. In 1856 he was again a candidate but was defeated by Tim Davis, his old whig opponent of 1848. In 1875 he was a candidate for governor against S. J. Kirkwood, and was defeated. He died at Burlington in 1879. He had been one of the trusted leaders of his party for many years.
The letters from W. H. Merritt and George Greene show what interest these men had in the railroad enterprise.
LETTER FROM MERRITT
Dubuque, May 28, 1848.
"Strictly confidential.
"Friend Durham:
"Having retired from the editorial tripod I find more time to devote to my friends in the reflective and agreeable exercise of correspondence than formerly. Since my second return to Iowa it would have been highly gratifying to my feelings had I been so situated in business as to have employed a portion of my time in personal communication with my friends, in viewing scenes connected with the early settlement of Iowa, and in witnessing the numerous monuments reared to attest the prevailing, the restless and resistless enterprise of the Anglo-American. In 1838, when I first pitched my tent at Ivanhoe, Linn county had but few white inhabitants, possessed but few attractions for one accustomed to the society of one of the old Federal colonies, and was entirely destitute of political or judicial organization. Everything that the eye could behold appeared in a rude state of nature. Vast prairies which extended for miles presented no evidences of civilization, no familiar sound like that of the woodman's axe appeared to interrupt the solemn stillness of an uninhabited wilderness. The marks of wild beasts and wild men were now and then visible and the similitude was striking between the two, as though both were born to the same sphere of action and subject to the same laws of being. A sort of wildness and sacred stillness seemed to pervade the whole atmosphere. Reclining upon a buffalo robe in my tent, reflecting upon the varied scenery without and quietly listening to the solemn murmurs of the Cedar, I thought I could perceive visions of earthly happiness for the man of true genius nowhere else to be found. The longer I remained upon the spot, the more it endeared itself to my affections, and the less I thought of cultivated society and the dazzling beauties of wealth, and its primeval companion, aristocracy. Nature seemed to be decked in her nuptial dress and wild beasts danced to and fro with a festive heart to the harmonious notes of a troop of forest birds.
"Circumstances forced me to leave that consecrated spot after a year's residence, and once more become a victim to the cold restraints and relentless laws of civilization. For five years was I bound by stern necessity to a habitation worse than a prison, and associated with men as little to be admired for their social qualities of character as the cannibals of old. To be engaged in merchandising among a people whose only article of faith was 'cheat and grow rich,' and whose friendship could be secured only by corrupting the morals and lacerating the heart of the innocent, was a pursuit little to be desired by one whose heart had been consecrated to a different field of enterprise and nourished by the sacred impulses of the West. Be assured I escaped from this thralldom as soon as I could, and never to this hour has my mind enjoyed that repose that it did when seated upon the banks of the Cedar and surrounded by the beautiful scenery of Ivanhoe. I experienced a kind of maternal affection for the spot, a mystic tie instinctively chains my mind to its early history, and a magic like that which bound Blennerhasset to his favorite island in the Ohio seems to pervade every recollection connected with its name and its founder.
"But I must abandon this subject, or I shall trespass upon the time and space designed for another, and convert what was intended for a political letter into a literary bore. As you manifested a friendly solicitude when here that I should take up my residence in Linn county when my studies were finished, I thought it not out of place to remind you where my inclination would lead me.