spect for the hostess, who, knowing something of their voracious appetites, had made ample preparations for them. When the table was surrounded Kish-ke-kosh, who had learned some good manners, as well as acquired cleanly taste, essayed to perform the etiquette of the occasion before eating anything himself. With an amusingly awkward imitation of what he had seen done among the whites, Kish-ke-kosh passed the various dishes to the others, showing the ladies especial attention, and helped them to the best of everything on the table, with much apparent disinterestedness. But when he came to help himself his politeness assumed the Indian phase altogether. He ate like a person with a bottomless pit inside of him for a stomach, taking everything within his reach without regard to what should come next in the course, so only that he liked the taste of it. At last, after having drank some five or six cups of coffee and eaten a porportionate amount of solid food, his gastronomic energy began to abate. Seeing this his host approached him, and with apparent concern for want of his appe. tite, said: "Why, Kish, do you not eat your dinner? Have another cup of coffee and eat something."

In reply to their hospitible urgency, Kish-ke-kosh leaned back in his seat, lazily shook his head and drew his finger across his throat to indicate how full he was. Of course the others had eaten in like proportion making the most of an event which did not occur every day.

The Indians in this region had a novel way of dealing with drunken people. When one of them became unsafely drunk he was tied neck and heels, so that he could be rolled around like a hoop, which operation was kept up till the fumes of liquor had vanished, when he was released. The sufferer would beg for mercy but to no avail. After he was sobered off he showed no marks of resentment, but seemed to recognize the wisdom of the proceeding.

The Sacs and Foxes, like all other Indians, were very religious people, in their way, always maintaining the observance of a good many rites, ceremonies and feasts in their worship of the Gitche Manitou, or Great Spirit. Fasts did not seem to have been prescribed in any of their missals, however, because, perhaps, forced ones, under the scarcity of game or other eatables, were not of impossible occurrence among people whose creed plainly was to let to-morrow take care of itself. Some of the ceremonies bore such resemblance to some of those laid down in the books of Moses as to have justified the impression among Biblical students that the lost tribes of Israel might have found their way to this continent, and that the North American Indians are the remnants of them.

During sickness there was usually great attention given to the comfort of the patient and when it became apparent that recovery was impossible the sufferer, while still alive, was dressed in his best attire, painted according to the fancy of his relatives, ornamented with all his trinkets and then placed upon a platform to die.

Dead bodies were sometimes deposited in graves; others were placed in a sitting posture reclining against a tree.

The graves were arranged usually with reference to some river, lake, or mountain. Where it was convenient the grave, when enclosed, was covered with stones, and under other circumstances it was enclosed with wooden slabs, upon which were painted, with red paint, certain signs or symbols commemorative of the deceased's virtues. The death of a near relative was lamented with violent demonstrations of grief. Widows visited the

graves of their deceased husbands with hair disheveled, carrying a bundle composed of one or more of the deceased's garments, and to this representative of her departed husband she addressed her expressions of grief and assurances of undying affection, and extreme anxiety for the comfort and well-being of the departed.

One of the first settlers in Washington county relates the following incident:

"Five negroes, having become tired of the sacred institution of slavery as exemplified and enforced by the typical task-master of Missouri, ran off and sought protection among the Indians; the latter had never before seen any negroes, and not being able to understand their language did not know what to make of the strange looking animals. Consequently a council was held and the wisest of the chiefs having viewed them carefully and debated the matter at some length decided that they were a peculiar species of

bears.

"Having never before seen any representatives of this species they sup. posed that their pale-faced neighbors would esteem it quite a favor to see them, and probably they would be able to dispose of the strange looking animals to a certain trader and receive in return a goodly amount of 'fire-water.' Accordingly the negroes were taken, ropes tied around their necks, and they were led off to the nearest white settlement. After exhibiting the bears,' as they called them, they negotiated a trade with a capitalist, who gave the Indians a quantity of whisky for their newly discovered specimens of natural history. When the Indians were gone the negroes were liberated and soon became favorites among the white settlers. They worked for various persons in that settlement during a portion of the next summer, when their master in Missouri, hearing through an Indian trader that two negroes were in the vicinity, came up and took posession of the negroes and carried them back to Missouri.

The early traditions of Marion county abound with incidents relating to Indians, during the three years that the Red Rock line was the boundary between the two races. Among the many incidents we can here refer to but a few, and to these but briefly.

In the fall of 1844 a Winnebago Indian came down the river, and with his squaw, who was a Sac, was encamped near Red Rock. Two Indians, named respectively Wan-pep-cah-cah and Pac-a-tuke, discovered the squaw alone in the woods and attempted to outrage her. She, however, eluded them and escaped to the camping place, and on the return of her husband informed him of the affair. The Winnebago, upon hearing this, resolved on revenge, and rushed out, determined to kill the offenders, whom he soon found, and slew them both.

The chief of the tribe to which the two Indians belonged, Pashapaho by name, on hearing of the altercation, immediately sent one of his braves to kill the Winnebago. This agent of vengeance approached the place where the Winnebago was encamped, when the latter, seeing him, attempted to escape; he was overtaken, however, and by the assistance of another Indian, was bound, and having been conveyed to a suitable place was beheaded. This affray created intense excitement throughout the scattered settlements of the county.

Early in 1843 a party of five or six white persons were searching for a location in the northwestern part of the county. Toward night they became lost in the heavy timber along the Des Moines River while attempt

ing to retrace their steps to the camp. After proceeding some distance the party was confronted in a narrow path by some Indians. Suspecting that the Indians meant mischief, the white men quietly turned about and walked in the opposite direction. Presently there was the sound of a discharged rifle and the men heard the bullet whiz past their ears. The white men turned about to see from whence the shot came, and beheld an Indian running out in the grass and bushes as if looking for some game that he had shot. He had evidently fired either to scare or kill some of the white men, and his looking for the supposed game was simply a quickly improvised scheme to divert suspicion. The Indians who inhabited the western part of the county from 1842 till 1845, were, in the main, peaceable, but, nevertheless, were the occasion of many disturbances.

But the Indian was destined to create no further disturbances upon the soil which the white man had marked for his own. In accordance with the stipulations of sacred treaties and likewise agreeably to the demands of the times the alloted time had now come for the red man to move westward again on his roving mission and add one more proof that his race is fast passing away and must eventually disappear before the restless march of the Anglo-Saxon race, as did the traditionary Mound-builders give place to the predatory red man of later times.

"And did the dust

Of these fair solitudes once stir with life

And burn with passion? Let the mighty mounds

That overlook the rivers, or that rise

In the dim forests crowded with old oaks

Answer: A race that has long passed away

Built them. The red man came

The roaming hunter-tribes, warlike and fierce--
And the Mound-builders vanished from the earth.
The solitude of centuries untold

Has settled where they dwelt. The prairie wolf
Howls in their meadows and his fresh dug den
Yawns by my path. The gopher mines the ground
Where stood their swarming cities. All is gone-
All! save the piles of earth that hold their bones

The platforms where they worshiped unknown gods."

Thus as those traditionary Mound-builders were forced to give way to the plundering red men of later times, so must he give place to his palefaced successor, and his night of ignorance and superstition in which he so delights to revel, must give place to the approaching light of intelligence and civilization as truly as the darkest shades of midnight are dispelled by the approaching light of day. When the last barrier of restraint was thus removed, the tide of emigration, so long held in check, began to come in at a rapid rate over these prairies, and thus has it continued to roll, wave after wave, until it has reached the western shore, carrying with it the energy and talents and enterprise of nations; and washing to the surface the gold from the mountains and valleys of the Pacific slope, it has enveloped our land in the mighty main of enterprise and civilization.

CHAPTER IV.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS.

Importance of First Beginnings-Character of the First Settlers-The Red Rock Line-First Settlements East of the Red Rock Line-Extinction of the Indian Title-Rush of Claim Seekers-The United States Dragoons-The Memorable Night of October 11--First Settlements West of the Red Rock Line.

EVERY nation does not possess an authentic account of its origin, neither do all communities have the correct data whereby it is possible to accurately predicate the condition of first beginnings. Nevertheless, to be intensely interested in such things is characteristic of the race, and it is peculiarly the province of the historian to deal with first causes.

Should these facts, as is often the case, be lost in the mythical tradition of the past, the chronicler invades the realm of the ideal, and compels his imagination to paint the missing picture. The patriotic Roman was not content till he had found the "First Settlers," and then he was satisfied, although they were found in the very undesirable company of a she bear, and located on a drift, which the receding waters of the Tiber had permitted them to preempt.

One of the advantages of a residence in a new country, and the one probably least appreciated, is that we can go back to first beginnings. We are thus enabled to trace results to their causes and grasp the facts which have contributed to form and mould those causes. We observe that a State or county has attained a certain position, and we at once try to trace out the causes which have produced the conditions, in its early settlement and surroundings, in the class of men by whom it was peopled, and in the many chances and changes which have wrought out results in all the recorded deeds of mankind. In the history of Marion county, we may trace its early settlers to their homes in the Eastern States and in the countries of the Old World. We may follow the course of the hardy woodman of the "Buckeye" or the "Hoosier" State on his way West to "grow up with the country," trusting only to his strong arm and willing heart to work out his ambition of a home for himself and wife, and a competence for his children. Yet again we may see the path worn by the Missourian in his new experience in a land which to him was a land of progress, far in advance of that southern soil upon which he had made his temporary home in his effort to adapt himself to new conditions. We may see here the growth which came with knowledge, and the progress which grew upon him with progress around him, and how his better side developed. The pride of Kentucky blood, or the vain glorying of the F. F. V.'s, was here seen in an early day only to be modified in its advent from the crucible of democracy when servitude was eliminated from the solution. Yet others have been animated with the impulse to "move on," after making themselves a part of the community, and have sought the newer parts of the extreme West, where civilization had not penetrated, or returned to their native soil. We shall find much of that distinctive New England character which has contributed so many men and women to other portions of our State and the West; also we shall find many an industrious native of Germany or the British Isles, and a few of the industrious and economical French-all of whom have contributed to modify types of men already

existing here. Moreover we shall find that these results have to a large extent, been brought about by representatives of an European people, who by the exercise of the most indomitable courage and industry, succeeded in driving back old ocean from its ancient bounds and making out of the bed of the sea a fruitful and prosperous land. Much of the enterprise of Marion county was imported from beyond the dykes of Holland.

Those who have noted the career of the descendants of those brave, strong men in subduing the wilds, overcoming the obstacles, and withstanding the hardships of this country in early times, can but admit that they are worthy sons of illustrious sires.

With confidence that general results will prove that there is much of good in everything, and that a justice almost poetic has been meted out to the faults and follies, the integrity and virtue of the early settlers of the county, we may now enter upon an account of them.

As before stated, prior to May 1, 1842, the whites were not allowed to settle in any part of the territory now embraced by the boundary lines of Marion county. At that time the United States came into the possession of territory before owned and occupied by the Indians. This new territory included part of Marion county, embracing more than one-half of the county. The boundary line which separated the newly acquired territory from the Indian possessions is known in history as the Red Rock line. A short distance above the present site of the village of Red Rock, on the Des Moines River, are high bluffs, characterized by a peculiar formation of red sandstone; this location was well known to the Indians, and the government officials; and in the treaty whereby the Indians ceded to the government all their lands in Iowa it was stipulated that the Indians were to retire west beyond a line running north and south through Red Rock and transfer all their possessions east of the line to the United States, on the first day of May, 1843. All the country west of that line was to be in the sole possession of the Indians until October 11, 1845. It will thus be seen that there are two dates from which to reckon the first settlements of the county; the first, May 1, 1843, for that part of the county east of the Red Rock line, and the other October 11, 1845, west of that line. We shall first speak of the settlement

EAST OF THE RED ROCK LINE.

This line was surveyed by Geo. W. Harrison, a government surveyor, during the fall of 1843. An indefinite line had been theoretically estab lished prior to this time and white men had settled in the present bounds of Marion county along the eastern border of the Indian reservation as early as the spring of 1843. Owing to disputes with regard to the precise location of the line and numerous difficulties between the settlers and the Indians, the line was carefully surveyed and definitely located by the erection of mounds or stone monuments at given intervals. The monument erected where the line crossed the Des Moines River was, as before remarked, a short distance above the present village of Red Rock, and by actual measurement exactly sixty-nine miles north of the Missouri State line.

Various persons visited this part of the county prior to May 1, 1843; claims were selected and some improvements clandestinely made, but no settlements were properly made before that date. Between May 1, and