CHAPTER II.

My father and brothers, during the late fall of 1849, prospected northward. They opened a trail along the river and built a hunting-shack on the bottom-ground near Hog's Back. This log teepee was used for shelter only on prospecting and hunting trips. It was arranged by standing the logs on end in an A-shape, chinking the cracks and covering the apex and the door openings with raw deerskins.

The location was chosen because it had been the camping-place of Indians who had cleared the underbrush and left sufficient material for constructing shelter. For many years afterward this wooded bottom was a rendezvous for numbers of roving but friendly dusty-noses, who hunted, fished or trapped along the river or big slough.

The First Cabin.

The first log cabin for the family within the present corporate limits of Webster City, was built by Wilson Brewer on the bank of Brewer's creek. It was located almost directly south of our present residence on the Bonebright homestead, about twenty-five rods south of Ohio street, and nearly midway between Superior street and the Chicago and Northwestern railway. This cabin had a dirt floor-surface, and the roof was fashioned from strips of bark.

We celebrated the holidays by moving to this location. The families of Little Bill Brewer, Bob Palmer and Uncle Billy Stanley remained at Bone's mill site.

The creek at that time furnished a full and constant supply of water for stock and laundry purposes. It did not go dry as in recent years. The drinking and cooking water we "toted" from the spring near the Chase mill site.

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We remained at this place during the winter; and in the spring we erected another cabin on what now is known as the Eyer place-at the head of Millard's lane. This building spot was chosen on account of its splendid water supply. The hillside spring seems to have been inexhaustible, as it has poured forth its bounty of pure water for over seventy years.

When we were located at this place Bob Palmer joined us and occupied our vacated hut until his return to Des Moines in 1851. The structure afterward was used for a stable.

First Garden Raised.

The plowing for garden truck, buckwheat and Indian com was done by Jack Brewer; but because of the extreme toughness of the prairie-sod, patches of underbrush were cleared for the planting. Thorough grubbing and removal of brush roots usually prepared a very fair seed-bed and a very rich one, with less labor-at least for the oxen. It has been declared, perhaps facetiously, that a yoke of oxen could have been hitched to an end of a prairie-sod turned by the plow, and a strip twenty rods long snaked from the field without breaking it in two.

Our patch of garden truck was raised during the summer of 1850, on the east side of the river opposite the Chase mill site. Log canoes were used to facilitate the work of carrying produce.

Log Canoe.

The fashioning of log canoes required considerable time and some degree of skill. A perfectly straight, or a long-curved smooth section of log was chosen. The bark was peeled and the ends shaped to the curved point desired. The upper surface of the log was slabbed off and the cavity outlined by ad zing and chipping. The space thus formed was filled with live coals and the wood allowed to char.

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The burning process rendered the chopping and. adzing much easier although several burnings were necessary to complete the canoe. Care was required to prevent an overcharring which would have rendered the craft unseaworthy.

Log canoe transportation seemed to inspire no fear in the mind of the manipulator of pole or paddle, no matter what the condition of weather or quantity of water flowing.

Our location now seemed to be satisfactory and father "took up" the land which includes our present home, the Chase mill site, the Stearns farm, the Swanson stone quarry, and extended to the river on the northern boundary of our present city. From this parcel original Newcastle was platted.

The First Grist Mill.

Our first grist mill, as with most pioneers, was the coffee-grinder, supplemented by the "grater" for soft corn. Instead of athletics or fancy-work the young people occupied the time by grinding the corn for the next baking of dodger. When company was present, some member of the family continuously manipulated the coffee-mill; and frequently the frugal housewife who came to visit brought along an apron full of corn to grind for her own use. For many years corn-dodger was the staff of life. White wheat flour could be procured in but small quantities which was consumed only on state occasions. The coffee-mill was not a satisfactory machine for grinding the wheat berry, as the cogs required too frequent clearing.

Corn-Cracker Burrs and Mill.

A log corn-cracker mill was built on the Chase mill site during the summer of 1850. For this mill, the burrs of flint-stone were dressed and put in place by Jack Brewer. The water-wheel and gearing were homemade and cumbersome; and if the river were low, which rarely befell, the

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burrs were turned by hand. This primitive process was far from satisfactory, for much of the coarse mass which passed between the stones required regrinding in the coffee-mill before it could be made into mush or pone.

For several years this log mill was used as a general repair shop and blacksmithing center with Nate Stanley as assistant for anyone who needed work done. Ox-shoeing was necessary for activities on the ice, or for sleety weather. The steel shoes for oxen were made in two pieces instead of one, as for horses. There were, of course, two toe-calks for each shoe. It was somewhat difficult to fashion ox-shoes with the front calks at exactly an efficient angle.

Mill-Dam, Fish-Trap.

A dam of logs, brush and stones was extended across the river from the mill site, while the water was at its lowest in the summer. A runway was arranged in the dam and a fish-trap with a capacity of several barrels was placed at this lowered opening in the evening; in the morning it was full of fish. The trap was made from hickory-withes fastened with wooden pins and buckskin thongs. It resembled, somewhat, the large willow crates used for bulky merchandise. The openings were large enough to permit the escape of small fish.

We selected for food no kinds except pike and bass, and these in sizes which yielded the highest return when dressed. Other specimens were returned to their natural element. Fish were speared through openings in the ice during the winter. They were dressed at once and hung up to freeze. Some of them were of immense size; if strung on saplings resting on the men's shoulders, their tails swept the ground. When hung in the smoke-house they extended from the ridge-pole to the solid clay-packed floor. Side pieces of hog-meat or fish were called flitches, and when fish was needed for cooking sections of the body were chopped off and immersed in water to thaw. Late in

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the spring a supply of fish was salted and smoked to carry us through the dog-days.

I have read many fantastic fish stories. I have heard of the pioneer, the wheels of whose wagon were blocked in mid-river by fish and eels seeking to be captured; but he did not belong to our family. I am sure, however, that many of the fish which were rejected by us and returned to the river, would make our modern minnow-takers exclaim with envy that: "Izaak Walton's day is not our day."

Seeking Settlers.

Immediately after permanently establishing ourselves father notified his friends in the East, and at Davenport and Burlington, Iowa, and the other Mississippi river towns where he had enlisted workers to secure settlers for this part of the country. Several families that had followed us in 1849 and were headed for the Boone valley settlement, found us at our winter quarters at Bone's mill site, so they located at Homer. Among them were Jacob Mericle, his brother and sons, Dan Spaulding and son and several Swedish families.

The following year, 1850, a similar situation arose; although we then were permanently located at Newcastle, the families of Orrin Warner, William Russell, John Stall, Ross Dalbey, Tom Hogan, Alex Turner and son Rob, after an inspection tour, decided that in case of Indian trouble it would be easier to procure help by way of the Des Moines river from Fort Dodge than from across the country, so they cast their fortunes with Woolsey, the Bells and the small number of earlier settlers who formed the nucleus of Homer. Dalbey and Turner soon came to Newcastle, however.

Sam Schultz, early in 1850, followed our trail and became one of our helpers. His cabin was erected across the river from the Chase mill site. The family of six boys

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and five girls was a welcome acquisition. We needed help and neighbors, and the Schultzes proved their worth in many ways.

First Plowing for Crops.

Soon after his arrival Sam Schultz was hired by father to plow ground on what was later the Bill Funk farm. The work was done in patches where the least clearing was required. Quite extensive preparations were made for the crops we expected to raise in 1851; but the season was too wet for growing them.

My brothers Jack and Roll Brewer split rails to fence the home farm during the winter of 1850 and 1851. The first "worm" was placed by the men folk before the spring thawing; and my mother, with my assistance, completed its construction.

Why a fence was deemed necessary I do not know, for our pigs roamed through the woods at will and grew fat on the abundance of mast. Our locality did not become famous as developing the razor-back or prairie-rooter. The oxen were kept busy with the work of improvement, so the crop was not in danger of being destroyed by four-footed depredation.

Bird Pests.

Had it been possible to provide protection from above instead of around a field, the work might have-been effective. When general cropping began the blackbird and wild pigeon pest was a serious one. Before the sun suffused the eastern horizon birds young and old, a million strong, would settle like a cyclone cloud upon the fields. From the time the tender leaves came forth and from the stage of roasting ears or heading grain, to the final husking, cradling and flailing, it was necessary for someone to patrol the fields and disturb the depredators by shooting into their midst with a rifle. The shotgun was not then in use and

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gun-firing seemed a slow, wasteful and ineffectual attempt at conservation.

Wild geese, sand-hill cranes, wild turkeys and prairie chickens also were ambitious to assist the settlers in harvesting their remnants of crops; but they were more timorous than the smaller, more active birds. Scare-crows, such as are seen today, would have furnished only a convenient resting place for the over-filled pigeon or blackbird. Nothing less than the twentieth century gatling gun could have cleared fields of the many beautiful, but greedy, specimens of ornithology.

Deer Fields.

When prospectors came to look the country over, the possibilities of game sport were shown off very easily. Along the eastern border of Millard's lane, where the grass grew tall and heavy, and extending to the skirting of timber along the river, was a rendezvous and browsing place for deer.

Two or three of the boys would circle out, several rods apart and from the river make a rounding-up toward the west. A dozen, perhaps a greater number of deer would canter past our cabin within easy shooting range of father and the waiting prospector. To be able to shoot big game from one's dooryard was quite an inducement for an easterner to locate with us.

Rail fences offered but indifferent obstacles at these rounding-up exhibitions, except to small deer. The half-grown and full-grown animals cleared the fences without apparent effort.

First Cabin on the Town Site.

The first cabin, located near our present home, was not of course, on the town site as later platted. The first cabin on the original town plat of Newcastle was built in the fall of 1851, by Wilson Brewer, for his sister, Nancy Brewer-Stanley. When the town was laid out the cabin was found

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to be standing directly in First street just east of Superior street near the present city market. It later was torn down and re-erected as a stable.

First Day-School, First Sunday-School and Preaching Services.

The first day-school and Sunday-school sessions and the first regular preaching services were held in the cabin of Nancy Stanley. Rev. Thompson Bird, of Des Moines, favored us with several sermons after the Stanley-Drought wedding. On his occasional trips he stopped at our house and, in good weather, preached under the spreading branches of the trees in the dooryard. Mrs. Wheeler was our day-school teacher, although the work was unusual for a woman at that time. I was not a constant attendant, but I remember Mrs. Wheeler as a sweet-faced, pleasant-voiced woman.

The First Store-Keeper.

The William Dickinson family arrived in the spring of 1851 and located south of town on the Arth Millard place. They brought with them a supply of drygoods; my first calico dress, red with white dots, was purchased from them. This family conducted a regular supply-station for several years and made frequent trips to Des Moines and Dubuque in the interest of the busy settlers.
John Maine came with the Dickinson family. Maine located on the north hill on what now is known as the Grafunder farm. Pieces of prairie that were not too wet were prepared for planting, but the seed was not sown.

The arrivals during the year included the families of Jewett, Jacks, Bonnett, Wheeler, Rhodes, Liesman, Brock, Brainard, Snyder, Crooks, Mills, Lyon, Tollman, Pierce, Johnson, Elder and Reverend Jamie Woods. The new arrivals who did not locate at Newcastle, distributed themselves through the country to the west and southwest. My

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father and brothers assisted in preparing shelter for the early Newcastle arrivals, as well as in erecting the later trading-places and taverns.

Extensive Prairie Breaking.

Father, in the fall of 1851, hired Isaac Lyon, who arrived a year before his brother Peter, to break the prairie to the south and southwest of our cabin. The number one, prairie-upland hay was burned off and Uncle Ike, with five yoke of oxen and the assistance of his son Arth, turned over the largest acreage that then had been plowed in this section of the country.

Beginning at the north opening into Millard's lane and extending along its western boundary represents the location where the regular breaking-plow, with its wooden mold-board and primitive motive power, did the first work. The next season, however, father secured the services of Jotham Lyon as breaker, and the whole area of our present city was broken. Thereafter much of the produce for immediate needs was raised. The long trips to market were reduced in their frequency, such trips being necessary only to dispose of hides, furs and baskets, or to buy ammunition and incidental household luxuries.

Other Early Arrivals.

Soon after Sam Schultz arrived, John Butler came and chose his claim north of town. On this trip he stayed but a short time and returned to his former home to be married. Tom Mills squatted a few miles southwest of our settlement. Nathan Stanley and John Drought came up from Bone's mill site. Rube Bennett on his first trip, and Joe Peabody also joined us and later in the fall of 1850 Jim Jenkins' cabin was built east of the Dubuque street bridge at the crest of the hill.

The location, although chosen by him, was declared to be the coldest spot in christendom in winter but the fairest and finest in summer. After the death of Jenkins, Sr., by

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Early in 1852 Zeb Perkins, Amos Brewer, Peter Lyon, Jim Phipps, Sam Judy and others came to our town; and a little later in the season our numbers were increased by the arrival of the Turnham, Grosclose, Russell, Doty, Frakes, Bellville, Barkus, Fall, Downing and Prime families.

Further down the Boone and along the Des Moines river were the families of Ike Hook, Jesse Goodrich, Nels Omstead, Jim Brock, Tom Williams, John Whaley, Ben Bell, Wash Neese, George Andrews, Sam Eslick, Dave Carroll, William Berkley and others. Quite a number passed the Homer, Fort Dodge, Newcastle triangle and located in Wright county.

John Butler returned to us during the fall of 1852. With his five yokes of oxen he broke, for himself, parcels of land on the north of Newcastle. He also helped many of the settlers in clearing their wooded claims. In the logrolling or stump-pulling contests which created great interest, Butler and his oxen usually secured the honors.

The cabin of Butler was barely completed when a brush of wind lifted the roof and half buried it in the field. As he was north of the river, the horseshoe-bend protection did not serve him.

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Chapter 3