courts in the land before they would obey it. The law made it the duty of the county board of supervisors to see that its requirements were obeyed, but was miserably lame and deficient in providing ways and means whereby they could enforce the authority given them. They were like three brigadier generals ordered to capture a belligerent fort, without arms, ammunition, subsistence or soldiers to back them. What! couldn't three brigadiers capture one fort? Well, hardly. And no more could three county supervisors, armed only with words, coerce a weathly, power. ful and defiant milldam company. Good lawyers differed as to the probable result of a legal contest over the matter; and the supervisors did not 'feel justified in taking steps which would involve the county as a party litigant in so doubtful a case-but preferred waiting till the law should be either repealed, or amended so as to provide adequate means and methods for its enforcement. And so it stands to this day.

ance.

The Game and Fish Association employed a man for some time as a special policeman to watch the river and prevent people from fishing with drag nets, or with hooks or dip-nets close to the dam, contrary to the law Thereupon the spirits of our icthyophagous ancestors suddenly took possession of the people all along the river; men dragged the river by. night, hauling fish away by cart loads; and they dipped and angled on the breast of the dam above, or at its edge below, as if possessed with some kind of reckless infatuation to set the law and its supporters at defiThe writer hereof has seen drag nets swept along the shallows, raking out hundreds of minnows at a haul, when perhaps a dozen would be picked up for bait, and the rest left to perish on the dry sand bars, instead of serving as food for the larger kinds. And thus the lawless ignoramuses go on "killing the goose that laid the golden egg" by needlessly exterminating those kinds of fish which are valuable for food. The Game and Fish Association still holds a nominal existence, but the law is so lame in executive detail that they can do nothing, and so the matter stands, the law is practically a dead letter, and the river almost a dead fisher.

But there is another cause at work toward destroying the fish supply. Old settlers say the Iowa river used to be a clear stream, except during high water, but now it is always muddy or slimy, and stones or boulders lying in the water that used to be clean are now found to be invested with a coating of nasty, slimy sediment from the unclean water. In explanation of this change it is said the plowing and cultivation of the land causes more loose soil and vegetable debris to be washed into the river than could be washed in from the native prairie sod; also, nearly every small stream flowing into the river is now utilized as a hog-wallow, or else a hot-day resort for cattle, and the continual filth from these sources passes into the river and contaminates its waters so that those kinds of fish which require

clean water are dying out from this cause. still stand it and grow fat on the filth.

FOOD FOR FISHES.

But the nastier breeds can

On Wednesday night, January 20, 1875, Dr. Shaw, the State Fish Commissioner of Iowa, arrived at Iowa City with 18,000 California salmon two inches long, from the state fish hatchery at Anamosa, and put them into the river above the old Terrell mill dam. They doubtless made very choice and dainty feed for the cat fish, dog fish, gar pike, etc.; and thus the state money instead of providing "fishes for food," as Dr. Shaw so eloquently pleads, only provided the merest trifle of "food for fishes."

The largest fish reported caught in Johnson county was a channel catfish, which weighed sixty-eight pounds. It was caught with a hook by Wm. Ayers, at Terrell's mill dam in 1862. M. W. Davis took off the skin and stuffed it, and kept it in his drug store window for a number of years as a natural curiosity. A good many of the same kind have been caught weighing from 50 to 55 pounds.

The largest black bass ever caught here was hooked by Samuel J. Hess, at Rock Point, a little way above Coralville, and weighed five and a quarter pounds.

In 1862 or '63, a gar pike over four feet long was caught in a seine, and is still preserved at the boat house as the largest icthyosaurian specimen ever seen in Johnson county waters. This fish is really a fresh water

shark.

CHAPTER X.-PART 1.

PIONEER POINTS, BY HON. HENRY FELKNER.

Hon. Henry Felkner furnished to this historian the original manuscript of his reminiscences and recollections of the pioneer days in Johnson county, with free permission to make any use of it which would aid in producing a full, fair and complete history of the county. After three months' of work in collecting our history material, we find Mr. Felkner's sketch to be generally very reliable, and we therefore give it entire. It will thus be saved from the mutilation of using it in fragmentary citations, and will be the more prized by his pioneer associates. The same MSS. was edited and printed in the State Press in 1881, and we are much indebted to Hon. John P. Irish for the free use of the files of his paper in regard to this and many other historical matters.

THE FIRST TWO.

Eli Myers and Philip Clark started from Elkhart county, Indiana, in the fall of 1836 to visit what was then known as the "Black Hawk Pur

Gilbert

chase." Their objective point was Rock Island, better known then at a distance than any other point on the Mississippi above St. Louis. They arrived there at the termination of a treaty with the Sac and Fox Indians, at which they sold what was called the Keokuk Reserve, a body of land lying on both sides of the Iowa river from its mouth up to where the line of the Black Hawk purchase crossed it. Messrs. Myers and Clark there made the acquaintance of John Gilbert, who was keeping a trading house on the Iowa river for S. Phelps & Co., of Oquawka, Ill. learned that they were looking for a location on which to settle, and told them he knew the very place, and invited them to go with him to his trading house. They gladly accepted, and on arriving he treated them with great kindness, and went on foot to show them the place where they made their claims and finally settled. Those claims embrace all the land south of the residence of the late Judge McCollister down to Sandtown. After making their claims they returned to Indiana, and during the winter got their teams and outfit; and early in the spring of 1837 set out for their western homes, which they reached in time to break and plant, each 40 acres. Soon after them in 1837, came Judge Harris, from St. Joseph county, Indiana, who by nearly the same route reached Gilbert's trading house, accompanied by his nephew James Massey, and wife and child. Gilbert went with him to where he finally located his claim, embracing the Thomas Hill and a half dozen other farms. After the Judge had built a cabin for Massey on the southwest bank of the Iowa river, opposite the Myers farm, he returned to Indiana to prepare to move his family out to his new home, which was accomplished late in July or early in August, bringing with him his son-in-law, Dr. Isaac N. Lesh, Jacob Earhart and family, and John and Henry Earhart.

Between Judge Harris' arrival in the spring and his permanent settlement here in mid-summer, Wm. Devaul and Tom Bradley came in, the former to remain some years--the latter went in the fall of 1837 to a trading house on the Des Moines river and never returned. Samuel and James Walker came also early in the spring, and Joseph Walker and another brother late in the same year. The Walker brothers made claims where Joseph now lives and to the south and west, including many farms now owned by other parties. I should have said that Myers and Clark each brought with them a young man, Eli Summery and William Wilson. The former returned to Indiana in the fall of 1837, and Wilson remained. The foregoing is the precise order in which white men came to Johnson county. The writer came next, very soon after the two Walker brothers, and made a claim south of Sandtown, adjoining Phillip Clark's on the south. I hired Eli Myers to break five acres of land and while I was helping him to make rails to fence his corn, [had been there about a week,] S. C. Trowbridge came in. He had known Myers and Clark in Indiana, and wished to get a claim near them. He offered me $15.00 for mine.

Not long after William Sturgis and G. W. Hawkins came, the latter a married man. They both settled in the south part of the county. Late in the season John Trout, E. Hilton, A. D. Stephen, Mulholland and John Hight came; also a man name Schrick, who was but little known. He stayed with the Walker boys and was the first white man who died in Johnson county. J. A. Cain, a married man, settled on the farm now owned by Henry Walker. He did not live long and the family left.

THE FIRST TOWN.

One of the events of that summer was the laying off of a town, above the mouth of English river by John Gilbert. He called it Sephe-nahmo, but it was only a town on paper, although scientifically staked off.

THE FIRST "RAISING."

In the spring of that year John Gilbert gave notice to S. Phelps & Co., that as soon as he could make arrangements, he would leave their employ and set up on his own account. Accordingly, about the first of July he gathered up all the young men in the settlement who were unemployed, to help him build a house. They were glad to get work and to get a place to board. They were all from timbered States and knew the use of the ax. While some were chopping logs, others were getting out timber for clapboards to roof it, and puncheons for floors; others dug a hole for the cellar, while others were hauling up the material. It was not long till everything was on the ground, and as there was force enough to raise the building we did not call in the neighbors. We all knew something about cabin building, and had no trouble in getting it up and covered. One room was finished as a store room, the cracks were chincked and daubed, a strong puncheon floor laid, a stout counter and door put in. The house stood over the line on Indian ground, and as a consideration, Gilbert agreed to treat the Indians, and this he fulfilled religiously, as far as two barrels of whisky would do it. As the season's building was over, and the treat safely administered, Gilbert had no use for his force and discharged them all but the writer, who remained in his employ till March 7, 1838. None of the young men who had come in the spring and summer of 1837, except Philip Clark, Eli Myers and the Walker brothers, were in a position to set up house-keeping, and so were without homes, only as they could get employment of others. After leaving Gilbert's some found work with Wheton Chase, a brother-in-law of S. Phelps, who took charge of the trading house which Gilbert had just left. Chase had for several years kept a trading horse on the Cedar river, in what is now Cedar county, just above Rochester, for Phelps & Co. Others of the young men hired with Myers and Clark, making hay, and later husking As winter came on, however, it became more than ever necessary for them to have permanent quarters. A few went to Bloomington [now

corn.

Muscatine], but the greater number went to New Boston, on the Mississippi, and took contracts to chop steamboat wood. Coal was not then in use, and boats ran exclusively on wood. These choppers built cabins in the low and thickly timbered bottoms, boarded themselves and made good wages. After they were gone our little colony was small, for about the same time the Indians, except some old people, went on their winter hunt, to be gone till spring. The number of settlers left on the north bank of the river did not exceed twenty, including Mesdames Chase, Lesh, Cain and several children, and these twenty people were scattered from Gilbert's trading house to the south line of the county.

AN INDIAN BATTLE.

Just after Gilbert had given the treat to the Indians, already referred to, the Indians got up a party ostensibly to go on a hunt, but really to get into a fight with the Sioux. None but able-bodied young men went. They had drawn on their friends, the Sacs, on the Des Moines river, for some horses. When everything was ready they slipped away without making any sensation, so far as a white man could see. This was some time in August. On such an expedition travel was necessarily slow, for they had to provide rations as they went. Some weeks went by and no tidings came back. The Indians in camp seemed to anticipate no harm to their friends. One very pleasant evening in September, about 5 o'clock, when everything was quiet, the old Indians lying around smoking, the young ones enjoying themselves, a peculiar Indian shout was heard on the bluff north-east of the upper town. The first shout was followed by a half dozen others, in not very quick succession. These cries were so loud and distinct that although the Indian was two miles away from the lower town, they were heard distinctly. The effect of these shouts was most striking. Every Indian knew at the first what it meant. It was a mes

senger sent from the battle with the Sioux to bear heavy tidings to their friends. He had sped day and night with his message, and when the shouts had secured the attention of the camp, he told the story in short sentences, named the red warriors that were killed, gave a list of the wounded and the incidents and outcome of the fight. He spoke so loud and distinctly that all heard, and when he finished such a wail went up from those bereaved of fathers, husbands and sons as I never heard before or since; the camp was literally a house of mourning.

Indian women do not weep like white women, they wail, and for weeks they could be heard daily in secluded places wailing as if their hearts were broken. The war party had been badly whipped by the Sioux, and barely got away with the wounded, leaving their dead to be scalped. It was some weeks before the main party got in. They brought the wounded down the Iowa river in canoes, established a hospital near the trading house, and put them in charge of the Medicine Man. No one else dare go in. Three times a day he made it hideous around there with his pow