CHAPTER XIV.

In the early summer of 1845; when I had finished my second term of school in that much mentioned first schoolhouse and collected a few dollars, I made a visit to Oskaloosa; my main object being to invest these few dollars in dry goods for my own personal use and adornment. A good plain road had been cleared out by that time and the distance shortened, so that it was a small matter to walk to town, which I did with ease. I was then staying with my cousins, Dr. Hobbs and wife. Their home was on what is known as the '''Wing farm" now, and a part of the Carbonado coal lands. When I started on that trip to town it was a perfect summer morning. The birds were singing as I tripped through the woods and crossed that little babbling brook called Spring Creek. When I had climbed the hill, there I was, with Oskaloosa spread out in full view. Oskaloosa had spread out and looked like a pretty big town. The Smiths, the Carnerons, the Weatherfords, the Joneses, the Purvines, and others had treated me with great kindness and had invited me time and again to visit them. About the first person I met on reaching the square was Dr. Weatherford, who gave me such a cordial invitation that I went horne with him. Mrs. Weatherford was a lovely lady, full of genuine hospitality. They had just moved into their new frame house on the west side of the square. The house had three rooms and was on the ground where the Golden Eagle clothing store now is. After dinner I visited A. J. Davis' store, bought two calico dresses and a pair of picnic mits. Then I visited Mr. James Johnson's school, which was kept in an unfinished dwelling-house on the south side of the public square. Mr. Johnson's school was composed of about twenty scholars. At that school I met Rachel Phillips, a young girl about thirteen, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Phillips. I had become a little acquainted with Rachel and her older sister, Martha, on my previous visits to Oskaloosa. Rachel asked me how long I was going to be in town. I told her I was going home the next morning, and she exacted of me a promise to call at their house, as my road led by it. I had met so many pleasant people and had such a pleasant time, that when I started out the next morning I had forgotten my promise to Rachel until I was just by the house. When it came to my mind I turned about and started toward the house, where I met Mr. Phillips just coming out. He met me in the most friendly manner, shook hands, led me in ana introduced me to his wife, who was friendly like the rest. Martha and Rachel, their father and mother all joined in an urgent invitation. to stay and take dinner with them and not go-home until late in the afternoon. Martha and Rachel, before I had entirely decided to stay, commenced relieving me of my wraps and bundles, and as a further inducement told me that Mary Mosier was coming to spend the afternoon and help them quilt, and we would have a splendid time. The quilt was hanging in the frames, and I thought I was a good quilter, and liked to quilt, so I stayed. The Phillipses were originally from Kentucky, and had lived in a neighborhood of Kentuckians in Illinois. They were possessed of the typical Kentucky hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. Phillips were not old people, though they had grown-up children. They both were between forty and fifty.

Musical instruments such as are seen in almost every house now were unknown to the "New Purchase" folks then, but people could sing without instruments. Mr. Phillips was one of the old-time singing teachers. He was a good singer and all his family could sing. At the time I am speaking of he was leader of a society of young people who met every Friday evening at the court house to practice singing, and that was the young people's chief means of entertainment. I hadn't been there long that day when Mr. Phillips brought out a pile of music books and proposed that we have some singing. He told one of the girls to go and tell her brothers to come in. Those brothers were young men. The elder, Thomas Gorrell, was called "Gorrell," and the other, John Watson, was never called anything but "Wat" in the family. I had seen those young men at church but had not become acquainted with them more than just to speak. Gorrell was the young man whose voice had attracted my attention at the McMurray meeting the year before. Those young men were engaged in walling a well with rock a little way from the house. Rachel came back and reported that the boys demurred; said their clothes were all covered with mud, and they were not in a suitable plight to meet a strange young lady. Their father said, "Tell them to come along and never mind the mud." I thought it my time to say something, so I said: "Rachel, tell your brothers not to mind me; I don't expect men to be dressed in their Sunday Clothes when they are walling wells." They came in then and we all sang. The young men seemed a little ill at ease on account of their muddy clothes, and after we had sung a few pieces they hitched up a team and went to Skunk river for more rock.

After dinner Mary Mosier came and we four girls gathered around that quilt; we laughed and talked and quilted. Mary Mosier was rather a bright girl, and the
daughter of a widow who owned and lived on a claim just south of town. Their house was on the hill just southeast of "South Spring Mill." There was no mill there then, but the big spring was there. Mary Mosier married M. T. Peters, a young lawyer located in Oskaloosa. Mr. Peters was an industrious and smart young attorney, and was making a good start in his profession; but when gold was discovered in California he was siezed with the gold fever, packed up, and with his wife and baby crossed the plains to California.

The day which I have been telling about and its seeming trivial occurrences which I have related, lead to things of much more importance to me and many others than I ever dreamed of when I called at the Phillips home that summer morning. After we had talked a while, and sang a while, and the boys had gone to Skunk river for stone, Mr. Phillips asked me if I would like to teach a school in Oskaloosa. I replied, "If I could get a school and a place to teach, I would be glad to do so." He said, "There will be no trouble about that. I know of a house which is unoccupied, the Methodist parsonage. I will furnish five pupils, which will be a good beginning, and there are several families who will patronize your school. If you say you will teach, I will get the house and the scholars." I had never had things in that line made quite so easy. Before I left that afternoon things were arranged. I was to come to their house the next Friday, have my article ready, go to the singing at the court house with the family, stay all night, and Saturday all the arrangements for my school would be made. I told Mr. Phillips I felt under obligations to him and was thankful for his kindness, when he replied: "I don't want you to think I am doing this disinterestedly. I feel that you will be doing me as great a favor in teaching my children as I am doing you in assisting you to get the school." When I mentioned a boarding-place, they all said I should board there; that their family was pretty large, but one more wouldn't make much difference. When I started home late in the afternoon the girls went with me nearly a mile. We sat down on the grass and talked a while, and in that talk it was agreed that when I came up on Friday, Martha and I would spend the afternoon with Mary Mosier and go from there to the singing society in the court house.

I went on home with my mind full of the day's events. I was charmed with the Phillips family; their genuine whole-souled sociability and hospitality just suited me. I saw so little of the young men that day that I didn't think much about them. But the father, mother, and daughters! In fact, when I went that morning the young men in the family never entered my mind; I only thought of the girls. When I told the doctor and his wife of my adventure, they were pleased and congratulated me. The next day I went over to my uncle's and told them all about it and they were pleased, too.

I wrote my article of agreement, placing my price at two dollars per scholar, as Mr. Phillips had advised me to do, made one of my calico dresses, and when the next Friday morning came; donned that new-calico dress and hied me away to Oskaloosa where I found the Phillips family expecting me and ready to greet me with a cordial welcome. Mr. Phillips took my article, went out in town and in an hour or two came back with nine scholars subscribed besides his own: John White, Stephen Gessford, Henry Blackburn, D. S. Canfieid and Leper Smith had signed the article. Then I took it and went to Esquire Edmundson and Dr. Weatherford, who both became my patrons, and I had the promise in "black and white" of seventeen scholars. Some others declined to sign the article, but said they would send their children to school and I could keep an account of the time. I don't know how that Methodist parsonage came to be vacated, but it was and I taught that school in it free of rent. I suppose it was considered common property. It was a good deal better than the first school-house; it had one glass window, a very good door, and a fireplace lined with stone and a stone hearth. Mr. Phillips had some benches put in and a slanting shelf for a writing-desk placed along the side of the window ways. That little log house was about fifteen feet square, the logs were hewed and the puncheon floor was quite nicely fitted. down. The Methodist tolks had taken. pains to make their minister's home as nice as any cabin in the country. There was a well near the door, too, which everybody didn't have then. That building was located on the northeast corner of the intersection of A Avenue and Third Street. Dr. Beaudry's elegant home is located on the spot where that cabin stood.

The families who lived nearest the school were the Hetheringtons, who lived in a log house at the intersection of A Avenue and Third Street, and the Edmundson family who lived on the lot where the Catholic Church is located, Lots 7 and 8, Block 18, o. :p., Oskaloosa., The Edmundsons lived in a cabin with w~de fireplace, lined with stone. The chimney from the. fireplace up was made of mud and sticks. I was taken into the Phillips family to board, and everything being satisfactorily arranged I began my school on Monday, September 8th, 1845. There were five of the Phillips children in my school. There were Martha, Rachel, Sam, Joan and James, usually called "Jim." Everybody knows where the John White place is. Well, Edmond and Mary White were there promptly every morning, coming diagonally across hills and hollows about a mile. Edmond died at twenty-five, and Mary was thirteen when she died. Two of the Canfield children, Ellen and Oscar, Henry Blackburn's two little girls, Hettie and Cassie, Leper Smith's daughter Euphemia, three of the Gessford children, Dr. Weatherford's daughter Mary and son Willie, some of the Hetherington children and the Camerons dropped in occasionally, but the little Edmundson boys, Jimmie and Willie, were there every day. Their father, William Edmundson, Esquire Edmundson as he was called, was one of the best known and most respected of Mahaska's first settlers. He was appointed justice of the peace in the beginning of things here, and was elected Mahaska's first sheriff. I heard Mr. Edmundson spoken of often before I ever saw him, and everybody seemed to have a word of praise for him who mentioned his name.

While I was teaching that school I became quite well acquainted with the whole family. It consisted of Matthew and William Edmundson, who were both widowers; their mother, Mrs. Edmundson, who was a very aged lady, or at least we young folks thought her quite aged. We thought everybody old if they were past fifty. Most people called her "Grandmother Edmundson" when speaking of her, and when addressing her called her "grandmother." I don't think I assumed that liberty, but when I had occasion to address her I let "Mrs. Edmundson" suffice. Then there were Mrs. Edmundson's unmarried daughter, Margaret; Matthew's daughter, Mary, a girl some twelve or thirteen years old; and William's two little boys, Jimmie and Willie. The Edmundson home being on my road to school and also on my way to town, I often called in and had many a pleasant and profitable visit with Mrs. Edmundson and her daughter. Mrs. Edmundson was one of the brightest and most interesting old ladies I ever met. She had had a wonderful and varied experience which she would relate in an entertaining manner. She was born in Greenbriar County, Virginia, in 1768. She went to Kentucky when a girl and rode all the way on horseback. I have heard her tell of the hardships they endured in the first settling of Kentucky, where they were weeks without bread, and lived in a state of terror for fear of being devoured by wild beasts or massacred by the Indians. Mrs. Edmundson was well on toward eighty when I first became acquainted with her, but showed no sign of imbecility, she had fed her mind and taken an interest in young people and the things which were happening in the world, and by so doing had retained her mental faculties. I used to tell her that her grandsons were among the nicest behaved boys I ever saw, and that I never had occasion to reprove them in school. She would reply, "Well, they ought to be good boys, for they had as nice a mother as boys ever had, but they were so young when she died that they will not rember much about her."

The mother of these little boys was a Miss Depew, sister of Wesley Depew, who in the early days was a citizen of Oskaloosa. Another Depew, brother to Wesley and Mrs. Edmundson, married a sister of Micajah Williams. He made a claim immediately north of the original "town quarter." That Mr. Depew died in the early days and never improved any part of his land. It was owned by his heirs a great many years, and went by the name of the "Depew eighty." The children, Jimmie and Willie, must have been very young when their mother died, for she died before their father came to Mahaska County in 1843.

William Edmundson was rather tall, slender, and straight. His complexion was neither light nor dark; his manners were gentle, never loud nor boisterous, dignified yet easily approached; he was well informed, an intetesting talker but a good listener, and was witty without being sarcastic. When another was talking, he didn't interrupt him or her in the middle of a sentence, but politely waited until they were through. He was generous and obliging, and was the owner of the only buggy in Oskaloosa at the time of which I am writing. He would lend it to the young fellows to take their girls driving, and when Micajah T. Williams and Virginia Seevers were married they made their bridal trip to Mt. Pleasant in that buggy:

Mr. Edmundson was a Kentuckian, with the characteristics attributed to the gentlemen of the "Blue grass region." He was polite and courteous to ladies, but paid no special attention to any; yet he was ready to render any little kindness to his young men friends who did. I have heard it said that he was the possessor of the only respectable overcoat in the town in the winter of '44 add '45, and would lend it around among his less fortunate young friends. The young men of the town were in the habit of congregating in A. J. Davis' store on winter evenings, and when Mr. Edmundson would come in from his official trips around and through the country he was sure to find some young fellow there who wanted to go to see his girl, waiting for that overcoat. He became so accustomed to supplying that particular want that immediately upon entering that resort he, without any ceremony, would smilingly doff that useful article of wearing apparel and hand it over to the one whose turn it seemed to be to wear it. Frank Reeves, a handsome, bright and witty boy, some eighteen or nineteen years old, was a clerk in Mr. Davis' store. Frank was a general favorite and was permitted to say about what he pleased. When one of those young fellows on a winter evening would walk into the store and look about and seem to be restless, Frank was apt to remark: "Be patient, Mr. --, I think the Squire will be in soon. I am expecting him every minute."

The Edmundson family stands out conspicuously among my recollections of the days when Oskaloosa was an infant. Matthew was quiet in his ways, but was an
intelligent Christian gentleman. His daughter Mary married Mr. Frank Alumbaugh, who it was said could repeat volumes of poetry from memory, and was a poet himself. I once went to hear John G. Saxe read some of his own productions. Mr. Alumbaugh was in the audience, and after Mr. Saxe had finished his proposed readings Mr. Alumbaugh requested him to recite his "Proud Miss McBride." Mr. Saxe remarked: "To please the gentleman I will try it, though it has been so long since I thought of that particular effort I am not sure that I can repeat the lines correctly, but feeling confident that I understand the author's meaning, I will make the effort." He did make the effort, but after reciting a verse or two he halted; he had forgotten his lines. Mr. Alumbaugh came to the rescue and kindly prompted him. Then without another failure he finished "Proud Miss McBride. "

Mrs. Edmundson, mother of Matthew and William, died in her ninety-fifth year. She was not only an interesting talker, but was endowed with great good sense. She was a devout member of the Christian Church. I presume she had much to do with shaping the characters of her grandsons, James and William, who have done honor to their ancestors. James is and has for many years been one of Council Bluffs most prominent and successful citizens; he is a man of pleasing manners, fine taste and highly cultivated mind. He and his charming wife are enjoying the historic scenes and wonders on the other side of the Atlantic, and at the present writing (June 29, 1898), are somewhere in Europe, Asia or Africa. I received a paper from him the other day printed in Rome. William chose the science of medicine as a profession, and I understand that he is a successful practitioner in Denver, Colorado. I never think or hear of their success without a feeling of pride. I don't take to myself the credit of having done.much toward shaping the characters of these Edmundson brothers, but when anybody speaks of them in my presence I am pretty apt to mention their once having gone to school to me. James and William are all that are left of that interesting family. When I drive about the winding ways of Forest Cemetery, the spot so sacred and so dear to many of us, I see on its eastern slope, neath the shade of native oaks and elms, a massive gray stone, beautifully carved. On every side are beautifully-polished panels, whereon are . engraved letters and figures telling the passers-by the names, the dates of birth, and the dates of death of various members of the Edmundson family.