Early Settler Life Story
The following early settler was highlighted in the Linn County Centennial Edition of The Marion Sentinel
August 26, 1937
The Life Story of William Abbe
William
Abbe, whom one source credits as being the first actual settler in Linn
county, was one of the most interesting of Linn's first settlers. He
was born in 1800, came to Linn county in 1836, moved his family here in
1837, went to California in the gold rush of 1849 and died there in
1854.
He was born of English stock in Connecticut April 19,
1800. He moved with his family to New York state when a young boy. He
married Olive Greene in 1824 and to them four children were born, Lucy,
Lois, Andrew and Susan. Lois Abbe died as a child. Lucy died in
middle age; Andrew passed away in San Juan, California in 1902 and of
Susan Abbe-Shields nothing is known beyond her residence in Hollister,
California, twenty-five years ago.
William Abbe moved with his
family to Elyria, Lorain county, Ohio, soon after his marriage in 1836,
he set out alone from his home in Ohio to find a new home in the
newly-opened Wisconsin territory, of which Iowa was then a part. He
came by way of Rock Island, working his way up the Red Cedar river to a
spot near the present location of Mt. Vernon where he staked out a
claim on the banks of a little creek, known as Abbe's creek to this day.
He
returned to his home in Ohio that summer and in the early spring of the
following year set out with his family to their new home. Ferry rates
across the Mississippi were high then, ranging from twenty-five dollars
for a man and horse to six cents for each hundred weight of
merchandise. The early settlers had little ready cash, so many of them
adopted the expedient of crossing the ice on the Mississippi
early in the spring and settling out for their new homes as soon as
weather permitted. William Abbe was one of them. He and his family
crossed the ice in February 1837, according to his daughter, Susan Abbe
Shields, and in April reached their future home in Linn county.
They
erected a cabin of birch bark twelve by fourteen feet with a dirt
floor. In this shack they spent the summer of 1837, breaking land to
plant with corn and other grain when spring came the next year. In the
fall, Abbe and his family erected a double section log cabin two
stories high, the upper story being reached by a ladder. This was the
first building of a permanent nature in the county. In 1839 his first
wife died and was buried in a cemetery near present Mt. Vernon. He
married Mary Wolcott on September 13, 1840 and by her had two sons,
born at Marion, Augustus Wolcott Abbe and William Alden Abbe.
Soon
after the arrival of the Abbe family in the county, other immigrants
began to flock to the new land. Among these was Robert Ellis who walked
to Iowa from Michigan to make his home in the new country of which he
had heard so much. He and Abbe went into partnership in dealing with
the government. They got contracts from the government for supplies to
be used at the various military outposts west of the Mississippi. They
would buy cattle and grain from the settlers and deliver it to the
forts and camps. At one time, a deal with the government gave them a
thousand dollars in gold which had to be transported home from
Missouri. Ellis set out alone for home with the gold in his
saddle bags. He managed to evade thieves and Indians but when he
alighted from his horse to shoot a deer while only a few miles from
home the horse, frightened by the shot, ran away with the gold in
saddle bags. Ellis debated whether to shoot the horse and save
the gold or to take a chance on regaining both. By the time he had made
up his mind the horse was gone and he set out in pursuit. Several
miles further along the trail he found the horse where some kind
benefactor had tied it to a tree, the gold still in the saddle bags.
A
few years after his coming to Linn county, Abbe sold his original claim
and purchased a farm south of Marion. Later he moved to the county
seat, being for a time a deputy sheriff. In 1849 the gold fever invaded
his blood and he went to California. He never mined for gold, but
teamed and speculated in land. In 1851, he returned to Iowa but
remained for only a short time until he returned to California with his
son Andrew. He died there February 15, 1854.
His daughter, Susan
Abbe Shields, who furnished to biographers most of the information
about him, was seven years old when the family moved to Iowa. She, like
her father, could converse in the dialect of the Winnebago Indians, who
often visited Abbe at his home on the Red Cedar. She recalls the fact
in her writings that her father was over six feet tall and thin and
straight. He could and did walk fifty miles a day over the unbroken
meadows and forest that covered Iowa at that time. She was the first
school teacher in Cedar Rapids in about 1846.
Abbe was a
member of the state senate session for a time. He built the first
county jail in Linn county, a log structure built in 1840, for which he
received $635.
William Abbe exemplified the born pioneer. Since
childhood he sought for new frontiers, new homes and friends. Hardy,
independent, a leader and pioneer, the stock of which America is made.
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