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en years after the events narrated; and further, we have reason to believe that the facts there stated were gleaned at the time from a sketch of the county history, prepared by Mr. Dean while County Judge in 1859, a copy of which was deposited in the corner stone of the Waukon Court House after being read to the people there assembled to witness that ceremony. The original has been missing for many a year, as Mr. Dean tells us. On the other hand, the account as it appears in his later narrative is based largely upon the recollections of individuals, after a lapse of over thirty years, and no matter how honest their intentions are, it is quite likely they have erred by means of the incidents of two or more elections becoming intermingled in their memory.

The sketch we last quoted then continues:

"On the first Monday of August, 1851, Elias Topliff was elected County Judge, succeeding the County Commissioners; he served as Judge until August 25, 1857, when George M. Dean was elected. In 1859, J. A. Townsend was elected, and is now acting Judge.

"James M. Sumner was elected Recorder and Treasurer in 1851. Since then the following gentlemen have served the county in that capacity: T. C. Linton, J. J. Shaw, L. O. Hatch and Elias Topliff, the present officer.

"In August, 1851, Leonard B. Hodges was elected Clerk of the. District Court. Lewis Hersey and C. J. White has since served. C. J. White is the present Clerk. At the same election Wm. C. Thompson was chosen Sheriff. John Laughlin succeeded him and John A. Townsend next served for two successive terms in that office. Wm. C. Thompson was again elected in 1859, and is now the acting Sheriff.

"In August, 1856, James Bryson was elected as a Representative to the Legislature.

"In 1857, G. W. Gray was chosen a member of the Legislature, J. B. Suttor, County Assessor; G. W. Gray, Drainage Commissioner; W. W. Hungerford, Surveyor; M. F. Luark, Coroner, and G. W. Camp, Prosecuting Attorney.

"In 1858, J. W. Merrill was chosen Drainage Commissioner; C. J. White, Clerk of the District Court; F. W. Nottingham, Coroner, and J. W. Flint, Superintendent of Common Schools.

"In 1859, Charles Paulk was chosen a member of the Legislature; G. L. Miller, Drainage Commissioner; John Ryan, Surveyor; J. W. Granger, Coroner, and R. C. Armstrong, Superintendent of Common Schools.

"The above list comprises the principal officers since the organization of the county. The records previous to 1856 are very incomplete, and we were unable to learn the dates of the elections of the various officers.

"The total amount of taxable property in the county was: In 1849, $1,729; in 1851, $8,299; in 1854, $700,794; in 1857, $1,827,766; in 1859, $1,967,899.

We have said that when the Indian Mission was established on Yellow River, it was placed in charge of Father Lowrey, a man exceedingly well adapted to the duties pertaining thereto. He was well known many years after in this part of the country and greatly admired.

David Lowrey, D. D., was born in Logan County, Kentucky, January 20, 1796. His parents were worthy members of the Presbyterian Church, but, like many other good people, were entrusted with little of this world's treasury. The widowed mother died when he was only a little over two years old, leaving him a penniless and friendless orphan. He was bound out to a family that, in course of time became very reckless and intemperate; but at a Cumberland Presbyterian camp meeting, held near his residence, he solemnly consecrated his heart and his life to God. This event happened when he was eighteen years of age. Shortly after his conversion he became a candidate for the ministry, under the care of Logan Presbytery, and his proficiency and usefulness were so great that he was soon licensed and ordained to the work of the ministry. On the 16th of December, 1830, he began the publication in Princeton, Kentucky, of the "Religious and Literary Intelligencer." It was a weekly journal, ably edited, and was the first paper published under the auspices of that church. To him, therefore, belongs the honor of being the father of Cumberland Presbyterian journalism. Some years afterward he was editor of the "Cumberland Presbyterian," then published in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition to his editorial duties he had the pastorate of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Nashville, which was then in its infancy; and for his year's labor he received, as compensation, the astonishing sum of one wagon load of corn in the shuck!

In the year, 1832, under the administration of his friend, President Jackson, he received the appointment of teacher to the Winnebago Indians. He arrived at Prairie du Chien with his family in the month of November, of the above year. Shortly after his arrival he organized a "Military Church," and here was spread the first communion table in the Northwest.

Early in the spring of 1833, a council of Winnebago chiefs was called for the purpose of deliberating in reference to Mr. Lowrey's work. He made a brief statement of his object and plans, and then called for expressions from the various chiefs who were present. After brief speeches from others, Waukon rose up, and thus delivered his sentiments: "The Winnebagoes are asleep, and it will be wrong to awake them; they are red men and all the white man's soap and water cannot make them white." The result of the council, however, was favorable, and Mr. Lowrey entered on his work.

In 1840 the Yellow River mission was abandoned and the property sold by the government to Thos. C. Linton. At this time the Fort Atkinson mission was established and the Indians who

had heretofore received their annuities at Yellow River were thenceforth paid off at this post until they were removed to Minnesota in 1848. Besides the attempt to teach the red men how to till the soil successfully, their children were taught to read and write (or some of them were who would learn), and the girls were also instructed in sewing, cutting garments, etc. Rev. Lowrey was transferred to this Fort Atkinson charge (as was also farmer Thomas), and remained with the Winnebagoes the greater part of the time, until about 1861 or 1862, when the tribe was moved west of the Missouri River. At the close of the late civil war he removed from St. Cloud, Minnesota, where he was then living, to Clayton County, Iowa, near the scene of his early labors with the Indians. Some years prior to his death he removed to Pierce City, Mo., where he died in January, 1877, leaving an aged wife. He had two sons, both of whom he outlived.

As before stated, the Old Mission became the property of T. C. Linton about 1840; but we find it was transferred to the school lands from the government, and then contracted from the school fund by Mr. Linton in 1854. He sold it to Ira Perry in 1855. John Linton, a native of Kentucky, came to the mission in 1837 and remained some time. He died at Garnavillo in 1878.

Before the territory of Iowa was organized, the Legislature of Wisconsin passed an act, in December, 1837, establishing Clayton County, which was then attached to Dubuque County for judicial purposes. In the following spring the Governor of Wisconsin territory appointed the first sheriff of Clayton County, and the first term of court was held, and the first election. For judicial and election purposes this region of country, as well as all of what is now the state of Minnesota, was at that time attached to Clayton. In 1838-June 3d-all of Iowa and most of Minnesota was formed into the Territory of Iowa. And on December 28, 1846, Iowa was admitted as the 29th State of the United States.

During the first session of the General Assembly of Iowa, in the winter of 1846-47, an act was passed defining the boundaries of several counties, among them Allamakee, which placed it within its present limits. Previous to this time the northern boundary of Clayton county was identical with the southern line of the neutral ground of 1830-a line that begun on the bank of the Mississippi twenty miles below the mouth of the Iowa, and extended in a west-southwest direction something over twenty miles; thence southerly about nine miles to the Turkey river; thence westerly again. On Newhall's map of Iowa, published in 1841, and apparently gotten up with the utmost care, this line is distinctly laid down as the northern boundary of Clayton and Fayette counties.

And this brings us to the question of the "Painted Rock," on Section 3, in Fairview township. On the face of a bold cliff, facing the river, and some half way up the bluff, was at some time

painted the figure of an animal and the word "Tiger," with some nanes and other symbols. Judge Murdock said the painting was there in 1843, and looked ancient at that time; and, as far as we have been able to ascertain, the question of when or why it was put there, or by whom, has ever been a matter of speculation without a satisfactory answer. From various facts it is very evident that this was the point at which the southern boundary line of the "neutral ground" of 1830 touched the river, one of the proofs of which is as follows: At the session of the County Commissioners of Clayton County, held April 4th, 1844, the boundaries of various election precincts were defined, and one precinct was established as follows: "Yellow River precinct (No. 4), commencing at the Painted Rock on the Mississippi River; thence down said river to the corner of township ninety-five, range three, west of the fifth principal meridian; thence down said river two miles, thence due west on section line west side of township ninety-five, range four, west; thence north to the neutral line; thence following said line to the place of commencing, at Painted Rock." This fact being established, what more reasonable to suppose than that the authorities at Prairie du Chien should cause this prominent cliff-this natural "bulletin-board" as it were to be so plainly marked as to designate the boundary line in a manner not to be mistaken by the natives; and what more natural than that the subordinates who performed the duty should decorate the rock with representations of wild animals and strange figures, the more readily to attract the attention of the Sioux hunting expeditions as they descended the river in their canoes and warn them that they had reached the limit of the hunting grounds permitted to them. Neither is it strange that they should take the opportunity of placing their own names where they might become famous, though they have long since become illegible. The only wonder is that some enterprising patent nostrum vendor was not on the spot to make his words immortal.

In the election precinct above described, "the house of Thomas C. Linton, on Yellow River", was designated as the place for holding the elections. So that undoubtedly the first election in the present boundaries of this county was held at that place long before the organizing election of 1849. From this it will be seen, too, that the Old Mission was not established within the boundary line of the Winnebago reservation, but a couple of miles to the south of that boundary, and in Dubuque County-after 1837 in Clayton County.

In the second General Assembly an act was passed organizing the county of Allamakee, and approved by Gov. Ansel Briggsthe first state governor Jan. 15, 1849. Under this act the first election was held-as heretofore stated. Commissioners were also appointed to locate the county seat of said county. And they

performed their duty by selecting a location in Jefferson township, about a mile and a half northwest of the present village of Rossville, on the road from there to Waukon, near the Pettit place. It has ever since been known as "The Old Stake."

In April, 1851, the people of Allamakee County voted upon the following three points for the county seat, viz: Vailsville, on Paint Rock Prairie (now Harper's Ferry), "Smith's Place, sec. 12," in Post township, and Columbus, at the mouth of Village Creek in Lansing township. As neither point received a majority another vote was taken on the first Monday in May following, between Columbus and Smith's Mill, resulting in a small majority -14 it is said-for Columbus. We have no means of ascertaining the number of votes cast; neither do we know how many polling places there were in the county at that time; but if we are not mistaken Reuben Smith's place (one of the contesting points) was one of these. He stated in the fall of 1877 that a county seat election in '51 was held in a log cabin of his, and that voters came there from a distance of many miles, of whom he remembered Shattuck and Bush from what is now Makee, among others.

Since that time no less than nine more county seat elections have been held, which will be spoken of more at length in their appropriate chapter.

To return to some of the earlier incidents of the county's settlement and history. About 1840 or '41 a trading post was established near what is now Monona, just off the reservation, by one Jones, who sought to replenish his treasury by supplying the Indians with "fire water." Another individual by name of Thorn instituted a like concern near by, and by a happy application of the eternal fitness of things these institutions were called "Sodom" and "Gomorrah" in the vernacular of those days. One of the results of their establishment was probably the first murder in our county, the particulars of which we find in the Decorah Republican, in 1875, substantially as follows: A party of Indians were living on a tributary of the Yellow River (thought to be Hickory Creek) four or five miles from Monona. An old Indian visited Jones' den at Sodom, and as many a pale face has done since then traded all his worldly effects for whisky, even to the blanket from his shoulders. On his way to his lodge he died from exposure and cold. The next morning his son found his body naked and frozen in the snow. Thirsting for vengeance, he visited the whisky den at Gomorrah and shot the first white man he saw, it happening to be an inoffensive man named Riley. The young Indian was captured by a detachment of troops under Judge D. S. Wilson of Dubuque, then a Lieutenant at Ft. Atkinson, but before the time for his trial he escaped and was never recaptured.

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