CLARKE COUNTY

From the files of Marie White, Clarke County's historian: Although she has separate reports of each township, there are certain facts which pertain to the entire county. The following is taken from writings of John McDonough and Joanne Barton, verified by Mr. Edgar Harlan, curator of the Hisorical Department of Iowa. Living in the days of push buttons and technology that constantly changes and progresses, it is nearly impossible to realize life as it was for settlers who came in the mid-1800s.

The pioneers who entered the southeast corner of the county found deep wilderness of timber and prairie, inhabited by Indians. In some parts of the county, there were no Indians but in 1857, a band of about 300 Pottawattamies camped for a time on Otter Creek. They were friendly, did not beg but had money to buy food from the farmers. Others of the early settlers encountered difficulties on account of lack of training for the new life they were undertaking. Many of them had lived in cities all their life and knew not the first principles of farming. Some did not know corn or potatoes when they saw them growing, some did not know a horse or how to plow corn. The people who had come from farms were more fortunate and their prosperity was more assured. They came to the aid of the needy ones. Those who knew the way of the farm taught others to plow, sow and reap, how to milk the cows, set the hens and feed the lambs.

The early settlers entered their lands from the National Government in the Land Office at Chariton. They paid $1.25 per acre. These settlers did not come in colonies or large groups, and their homes were widely scattered. Nor were they of any one nationality or creed. They came from the far east of the country, from the Ohio valley, the Carolinas and Missouri. Most of these early settlers were vigorous young people who had come to the new country to obtain cheap land that they might establish homes for their families. Some came that their children might escape the temptations of city life and others were lured by the beauty of the country.

In addition to cultivating their crops, farmers had many things to do. They hewed the logs for their houses, split rails with which to fence their farms, and made troughs for their animals to drink by hollowing out a log with a tool called a texile. They made brooms by splitting hickory wood into shreds and tying the shreds around a straight stick.

Their mode of threshing the grain was patterned after the manner of Biblical times. This work was postponed until the ground was frozen. A large ring was cleared on the ground and the dry straw was laid all around it. Then the yoke of oxen or the team of horses was driven around over the straw until the grain was loosened. The straw was picked up and turned over, and the process of trampling went on. When the grain was all tramped out, the straw was stacked for winter food for the stock, or put over sheds made of poles for protecting it through the winter. The grain was shoveled up and put through a fan to clean out the chaff and dirt. A little later a machine called a chaff piler, a specimen of which may be seen in the Historical Building, threshed the grain from the straw and piled grain, chaff, straw and all in one pile. This was run through the fan which cleaned the grain from the straw.

A mill for grinding corn was located on the creek south of Osceola. It was operated by a man named On. All the hulls of the  corn went in with the meal. The housemother put the rough meal into a shallow box, the bottom of which was made of screen wire, and she shook it back and forth till the fine meal fell into the pan beneath. This meal formed the principle food of very many of the early settlers. And who will deny its virtues as a food? Many a brawny aimed boy and rosy cheeked girl were raised on the excellent bread baked from it or the mush eaten with milk and molasses. The wheat had to be taken to Red Rock on the Des Moines River to be ground. And for a few years many people went to Washington County and bought flour because the wheat in Jackson Township was destroyed by "scab", a condition brought about by hot sun after rain or fog.

The sustaining power that kept these people happy and fairly well contented was the indomitable courage of the pioneer women. Many of them had left comfortable homes where they had been tenderly reared, to take the hardships of pioneer life. But they would not turn back. They had cast their lot in that new life and were willing to endure any hardship rather than suffer the ignominy of defeat. The women, as well as their husbands, had the vision of the development of this new country, when prosperity would surround them, when the vast prairies would be turned into flourishing farms, and they would see their own cattle on a thousand hills.

They had the joys of owning their own homes, of cultivating their own flowers, of gathering their vegetables from their own gardens. They had the joys that comes from the friendships formed when they stood side by side near the bed of a sick child, or where one woman who was a good seamstress, helped the less able ones to fashion clothes for the babies; and other intimate relations of the early life such as making soft soap, rendering lard in a large iron kettle, or stirring pumpkin butter with a paddle on a handle six feet long. These things would seem trivial to the present generation, but through such things the pioneer women learned to stand shoulder to shoulder with and know the intrinsic worth of their neighbors, to value them for their sterling qualities.

The women in the homes had many industries that are not considered part of household duties. They took care of the chickens and helped with the young pigs, many times bringing them into the house to warm them, and fed them milk with a spoon to save their lives. Sheep were soon brought into the settlement, for the people found that by raising sheep they could replenish their supply of clothing. The women spun flannel. The yarn was colored to suit the taste of the worker, or I might better say, it was dyed the color that could be made from the dyes that could be found at hand. Some sheep had dark grey or brownish wool which did not need to be colored. A good brown was colored with walnut hulls. Yellow was secured by the use of a plant which grew on the prairie, called ornetta, I think. The storekeepers, seeing the necessity, brought low-wood to color black, madder for red, and indigo for blue. The women became expert in the use of the dyes and on their looms, made really beautiful cloth. This cloth was used for almost the entire wardrobe of the women and children. There was very little fine lingerie in those days. Men's underclothes were made of the same cloth. Socks and stockings for the whole family were knit by hand from the yarn. Even little children learned to knit.

Many women wove, not only for their own families, but helped fill the family purse by weaving for others. Sewing was all done by hand and included not only the light work, but the men's heavy wear, suits and overcoats. Some even made very good looking hats by braiding oats straw and sewing it into shape.

The love of nice clothes was not forgotten when the people came west. Many ladies brought silk dresses and dress bonnets, and beautiful shawls, for shawls were almost the only wraps worn by women. Of course, they brought their hoop skirts, some of them so large they would not go through an ordinary door. They were necessary for fashionable attire. Some people put them on babies not old enough to walk. A girl who had no hoop skirt fastened a barrel hoop or a piece of grape vine in the bottom of her skirt, and the result was displayed with pride. The men wore boots that reached to their knees. Low shoes of any kind were not used except for dancing. There were no overshoes until a little later when some few were made of buffalo hide with the hair inside.

These people had their sorrows, too — sorrows which would have crushed less valiant spirits. They were separated from their friends, their homes were poor, their provisions were often poor, and sometimes scanty. And they had their losses. There were no schools for their children, no churches, no doctors, no beautiful cemeteries where they might lay their dead, no libraries, almost no contact with the world they had left behind. It took a letter about two months to travel from Iowa to Pennsylvania. There were no envelopes, only the outside fold of the paper on which the letter was written. The postage on a letter was about thirty-five cents, paid by the one who received the letter.

They also had their gains. Their experiences gave them a firm foundation for life. They respected work; they expected to rise by their own endeavors. They had the beauties of nature on every hand and their characters developed in accord with the wide prairies and the efforts necessary to subdue them and make them yield the necessities of life.

Most of the houses were built of logs cut from the timber that grew along the creeks. Some of them were made of rough logs and some were hewn with a broad ax. The roofs were generally made of clapboards, split from a log with a tool called a fro. Every house had a large fireplace which served to heat the house and cook the meals. Some homes were meagerly furnished though most families brought featherbeds and what pieces of furniture they could carry in their wagons with their families.

In 1854, a portable sawmill stopped on Otter Creek. Mr. McDonough had lumber sawed from walnut logs to build his 5-room house which was the first frame house in the township. That autumn the frame of the house was erected and the roof put in position. In the winter, a storm blew away the frame and roof. In the spring, when the family came to occupy their new home, they found the wreck a furlong's distance to the north, so they camped in their wagon on the prairie, as did many another family, till the roof could be raised when they moved into the shell of a house. This home soon became the stopping place of many immigrants.

Few people brought books with them on account of the difficulty in transportation. However, Mr. Shockling brought much fine music, which proved a great joy to the people. Mr. Shocking with his fine tenor voice and his violin, soon became widely known. Mr. McDonough had a good collection of books, which became almost a traveling library for the community.

In most cases, the method of lighting the homes was very crude. A dish of lard with a twisted piece of cloth dipped into it and lighted at the free end was used to make light for the work that had to be done away from the fireplace. Some people had candles made by pouring tallow into tin molds in which a wick had been suspended.

The food of the people was very plain. The meat supply for the first years consisted of pork and wild game — rabbits, squirrels and prairie chickens. At that time deer were not common; groups of 5 or 6 were frequently seen feeding in the open. Honey which the wild bees stored in the hollow trees was considered a delicacy. Strawberries and small red plums and small grapes were the only wild fruits. As soon as the ground could be prepared, which was frequently the second season, the settlers planted the common vegetables, the seed of which they brought with them. They planted wheat and corn to supply food for themselves and their animals. They obtained seed for these crops from settlers in counties east of Clarke.

The ground was plowed mostly by oxen teams, but the cultivating was done mostly by a single horse drawing a single shovel plow, and an "A" shaped harrow made of heavy timbers through which large iron teeth were driven. The wheat was harvested by hand with a tool called a cradle. It consisted of a long blade like a scythe with a light frame-work of wood built above it to hold the long straws until enough was cut to set the bundles in shocks to dry. A man who could cradle four acres in a day was a very good worker, and one who could cradle five acres was a champion.

The only public vehicle was a great lumbering coach hung on leather straps for springs which gave little comfort to the 8 or 10 passengers. The mail was carried on these stages. They were drawn by 4 horses. The driver sat on top of the coach, exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather. The private vehicles, almost without exception, were farm wagons without springs, and drawn by two-oxen for short-trips. For longer trips and heavier loads, from 6 to 8 oxen were used. Some few people had horses for riding; but in those days many people walked long distances if there was no heavy load to carry. We are told that Mr. John Lewis, the first settler in Jackson Township, walked to Saint Louis, Missouri on a business trip. Until the year 1867, all freight was transported by private parties' wagons.

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Last Revised February 3, 2015