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In 1831, Mr. Johnson, agent of the American Fur Company, who had a station at the foot of the rapids, removed to another location, and Dr. Muir having returned from Galena, he and Isaac R. Campbell took the place and buildings vacated by the Company, and carried on trade with the Indians and half-breeds. Campbell, who had first visited and traveled through the southern part of Iowa, in 1821, was an enterprising settler, and besides trading with the natives, carried on a farm and kept a tavern.

Dr. Muir died of cholera in 1832.

In 1830, James L. and Lucius H. Langworthy, brothers and natives of Vermont, visited the Territory for the purpose of working the lead mines at Dubuque. They had been engaged in lead mining at Galena, Illinois, the former as early as 1824. The lead mines in the Dubuque region were an object of great interest to the miners about Galena, for they were known to be rich in lead ore. To explore these mines and to obtain permission to work them was therefore eminently desirable.

In 1829, James L. Langworthy resolved to visit the Dubuque mines. Crossing the Mississippi at a point now known as Dunleith in a canoe, and swimming his horse by his side, he landed on the spot now known as Jones Street Levee. Before him spread out a beautiful prairie, on which the city of Dubuque now stands. Two miles south, at the mouth of Catfish Creek, was a village of Sacs and Foxes. Thither Mr. Langworthy proceeded, and was well received by the natives. He endeavored to obtain permission from them to mine in their hills, but this they refused. He, however, succeeded in gaining the confidence of the chief to such an extent as to be allowed to travel in the interior for three weeks and explore the country. He employed two young Indians as guides, and traversed in different directions the whole region lying between the Maquoketa and Turkey Rivers. He returned to the village, secured the good will of the Indians, and returning to Galena, formed plans for future operations, to be executed as soon as circumstances would permit.

In 1830, with his brother, Lucius H., and others, having obtained the consent of the Indians, Mr. Langworthy crossed the Mississippi and commenced mining in the vicinity around Dubuque.

At this time, the lands were not in the actual possession of the United States. Although they had been purchased from France, the Indian title had not been extinguished, and these adventurous persons were beyond the limits of any State or Territorial government. The first settlers were therefore obliged to be their own law-makers, and to agree to such regulations as the exigencies of the case demanded. The first act resembling civil legislation within the limits of the present State of Iowa was done hy the miners at this point, in June, 1830. They met on the bank of the river, by the side of an old cottonwood drift log, at what is now

the Jones Street Levee, Dubuque, and elected a committee, consisting of J. L. Langworthy, H. F. Lander, James McPhetres, Samuel Scales, and E. M. Wren. This may be called the first Legislature in Iowa, the members of which gathered around that old cottonwood log, and agreed to and reported the following, written by Mr. Langworthy, on a half-sheet of coarse, unruled paper, the old log being the writing desk:

We, a Committee, having been chosen to draft certain rules and regulations (laws) by which we, as miners, will be governed, and having duly considered the subject, do unanimously agree that we will be governed by the regulations on the east side of the Mississippi River,* with the following exceptions, to wit:

ARTICLE I. That each and every man shall hold 200 yards square of ground by working said ground one day in six.

ARTICLE II. We further agree that there shall be chosen, by the majority of the miners present, a person who shall hold this article, and who shall grant letters of arbitration on application having been made, and that said letters of arbitration shall be obligatory on the parties so applying.

The report was accepted by the miners present, who elected Dr. Jarote, in accordance with Article 2. Here, then, we have in 1830, a primitive Legislature elected by the people, the law drafted by it being submitted to the people for approval, and under it Dr. Jarote was elected first Governor within the limits of the present State of Iowa. And it is to be said that the laws thus enacted were as promptly obeyed, and the acts of the executive officer thus elected as duly respected, as any have been since.

The miners who had thus erected an independent government of their own on the west side of the Mississippi River, continued to work successfully for a long time, and the new settlement attracted considerable attention. But the west side of the Mississippi belonged to the Sac and Fox Indians, and the Government in order to preserve peace on the frontier, as well as to protect the Indians in their rights under the treaty, ordered the settlers not only to stop mining, but to remove from the Indian territory. They were simply intruders. The execution of this order was entrusted to Col. Zachary Taylor, then in command of the military post at Prairie du Chien, who, early in July, sent an officer to the miners with orders to forbid settlement, and to command the miners to remove within ten days to the east side of the Mississippi, or they would be driven off by armed force. The miners, however; were reluctant about leaving the rich "leads" they had already discovered and opened, and were not disposed to obey the order to remove with any considerable degree of alacrity. In due time, Col. Taylor dispatched a detachment of troops to enforce his order. The miners, anticipating their arrival, had, excepting three, recrossed the river, and from the east bank saw the troops land on the western shore. The three who had lingered a little

*Established by the Superintendent of U. S. Lead Mines at Fever River.

too long were, however, permitted to make their escape unmolested. From this time a military force was stationed at Dubuque to prevent the settlers from returning, until June, 1832. The Indians returned, and were encouraged to operate the rich mines opened by the late white occupants.

In June 1832, the troops were ordered to the east side to assist in the annihilation of the very Indians whose rights they had been protecting on the west side. Immediately after the close of the Black Hawk war, and the negotiations of the treaty in September, 1832, by which the Sacs and Foxes ceded to the United States the tract known as the "Black Hawk Purchase," the settlers, supposing that now they had a right to re-enter the Territory, returned and took possession of their claims, built cabins, erected furnaces, and prepared large quantities of lead for market. Dubuque was becoming a noted place on the river, but the prospects of the hardy and enterprising settlers and miners were again ruthlessly interfered with by the government, on the ground that the treaty with the Indians would not go into force until June 1, 1833, although they had withdrawn from the vicinity of the settlement. Col. Taylor was again ordered by the War Department to remove the miners, and in January, 1833, troops were again sent from Prairie du Chien to Dubuque for that purpose. This was a serious and perhaps unnecessary hardship imposed upon the settlers. They were compelled to abandon their cabins and homes in midwinter. It must be now said, simply that "red tape" should be respected. The purchase had been made, the treaty ratified, or was sure to be; the Indians had retired, and, after the lapse of nearly fifty years, no very satisfactory reason for this rigorous action of the Government can be given.

But the orders had been given, and there was no alternative but to obey. Many of the settlers recrossed the river and did not return; a few, however, removed to an island near the east bank of the river, built rude cabins of poles, in which to store their lead until spring, when they could float the fruits of their labor to St. Louis for sale, and where they could remain until the treaty went into force, when they could return. Among these were James L. Langworthy, and his brother Lucius, who had on hand about three hundred thousand pounds of lead.

Lieut. Covington, who had been placed in command at Dubuque by Col. Taylor, ordered some of the cabins of the settlers to be torn down, and wagons and other property to be destroyed. This wanton and inexcusable action on the part of a subordinate clothed with a little brief authority was sternly rebuked by Col. Taylor, and Covington was superseded by Lieut. Geo. Wilson, who pursued a just and friendly course with the pioneers, who were only waiting for the time when they could repossess their claims.

June 1, 1833, the treaty formally went into effect, the troops. were withdrawn, and the Langworthy brothers and a few others at

once returned and resumed possession of their home claims and mineral prospects, and from this time the first permament settlement of this portion of Iowa must date. Mr. John P. Sheldon was appointed Superintendent of the mines by the Government, and a system of permits to miners and licenses to smelters was adopted, similar to that which had been in operation at Galena, since 1825, under Lieut. Martin Thomas and Capt. Thomas C. Legate. Substantially the primitive law enacted by the miners assembled around that old cottonwood drift log in 1830 was adopted and enforced by the United States Government, except that miners were required to sell their mineral to licensed smelters, and the smelter was required to give bonds for the payment of six per cent. of all lead manufactured to the Government. This was the same rule adopted in the United States mines on Fever River in Illinois, except that, until 1830, the Illinois miners were compelled to pay ten per cent tax. This tax upon the miners created much dissatisfaction among the miners on the west side as it had on the east side of the Mississippi. They thought they had suffered hardships and privations enough in opening the way for civilization without being subjected to the imposition of an odious government tax upon their means of subsistence, when the Federal Government could better afford to aid than to extort from them. The measure soon became unpopular. It was difficult to collect the taxes, and the whole system was abolished in about ten years.

During 1883, after the Indian title was fully extinguished, about five hundred people arrived at the mining district, about one hundred and fifty of them from Galena.

In the same year Mr. Langworthy assisted in building the first school house in Iowa, and thus was formed the nucleus of the now populous and thriving city of Dubuque. Mr. Langworthy lived to see the naked prairie on which he first landed become the site of a city of fifteen thousand inhabitants, the small school house which he aided in constructing replaced by three substantial edifices, wherein two thousand children were being trained, churches erected in every part of the city, and railroads connecting the wilderness which he first explored with all the eastern world. He died suddenly on the 13th of March, 1865, while on a trip over the Dubuque & Southwestern Railroad, at Monticello, and the evening train brought news of his death and his remains.

Lucius H. Langworthy, his brother, was one of the most worthy, gifted and influential of the old settlers of this section of Iowa. He died, greatly lamented by many friends, in June, 1865.

The name Dubuque was given to the settlement by miners at a meeting held in 1834.

In 1832, Captain James White made a claim on the present site of Montrose. In 1834 a military post was established at this point

and a garrison of cavalry was stationed here, under the command of Col. Stephen W. Kearney. The soldiers were removed from this post to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1837.

During the same year, 1832, soon after the close of the Black Hawk war, Zachariah Hawkins, Benjamin Jennings, Aaron White. Augustine Horton, Samuel Gooch, Daniel Thompson and Peter Williams made claims at Fort Madison. In 1833, these claims were purchased by John and Nathaniel Knapp, upon which, in 1835, they laid out the town. The next summer, lots were sold. The town was subsequently re-surveyed and platted by the United States Government.

At the close of the Black Hawk War, parties who had been impatiently looking across upon "Flint Hills," now Burlington, came over from Illinois and made claims. The first was Samuel S. White, in the fall of 1832, who erected a cabin on the site of the city of Burlington. About the same time, David Tothero made. a claim on the prairie about three miles back from from the river, at a place since known as the farm of Judge Morgan. In the winter of that year, they were driven off by the military from Rock Island, as intruders upon the rights of the Indians, and White's cabin was burnt by the soldiers. He retired to Illinois, where he spent the winter, and in the summer, as soon as the Indian title was extinguished, returned and rebuilt his cabin. White was joined by his brother-in-law, Doolitle, and they laid out the original town of Burlington, in 1834.

All along the river borders of the Black Hawk Purchase settlers were flocking into Iowa. Immediately after the treaty with the Sacs and Foxes, in September, 1832, Col. George Davenport made the first claim on the spot where the thriving city of Davenport now stands. As early as 1827, Col. Davenport had established a flatboat ferry, which ran between the island and the main shore of Iowa, by which he carried on a trade with the Indians west of the Mississippi. In 1833, Capt. Benjamin W. Clark moved across from Iilinois, and laid the foundation of the town of Buffalo, in Scott county, which was the first actual settlement within the limits of that county. Among other early settlers in this part of the Territory were Adrian H. Davenport, Col. John Sullivan, Mulligan and Franklin Easly, Capt. John Coleman, J. M. Camp, William White, H. W. Higgins, Cornelius Harrold, Richard Harrison, E. H. Shepherd and Dr. E. S. Barrows.

The first settlers of Davenport were Antoine LeClaire, Col. George Davenport, Major Thomas Smith, Major William Gordon, Philip Hambaugh, Alexander W. McGregor, Levi. S. Colton, Capt. James May and others. Of Antoine LeClaire, as the representative of the two races of men who, at this time occupied Iowa, Hon. C. C. Nourse, in his admirable Centennial address, says: "Antoine LeClaire was born in St. Joseph, Michigan, 1797. His father was French, his mother a granddaughter of a Pottawattamie chief.

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