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GEORGE M. HIPPEE
 OF the pioneers who came here in 1855, and who have been notably identified with the growth of the city, was George M. Hippee.
Soon after his arrival, he opened a drug store, in a log cabin on the west side of Second Street, down near 'Coon bridge, where he remained several years in a quiet, unpretenious way.
In 1856, when the State House location fight was on, he was a non-combatant and took no part, though his mental reservations were with the West Siders.
In 1859, business on Second Street began to get crowded, and he ventured up to Court Avenue, purchased the southeast corner lot for one thousand dollars——the owner at first demanding twelve hundred dollars——and erected the first brick building for exclusive store use from bottom to top on that street. The Sherman Block, at Third, and the building adjoining the Register and Leader office, built in 1858, were largely office buildings.
In 1864, Hippee organized the Second National Bank, with himself as President and George W. Jones, Cashier. It occupied a basement room on Court Avenue. In 1870, its charter was surrendered, and it, with the First National, was merged into the National State Bank.
Early in January, 1865-6, rumors were rife about town that petroleum could be found in Polk County. Soon after, A. C. Tichenor, a well-known, unscrupulous speculator, N. H. Hibbard, and L. H. Gano, of Chicago turned up here. They had rooms at the Savery House (now Kirkwood), where they expounded the gospel of petroleum. They had samples of the "ile," the real "Simon pure article," right out of the earth of Polk County. Their rooms were thronged with people seeking knowledge. The furore was equal to that in 1857, when Uncle "Davy" Norris discovered gold at the mouth of Bird's Run.
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One day, when a crowd was present, a man picked up a sample of the petroleum, gave it a nasal sniff, put it down, and simply said, "Humbug." Tichenor quickly drew from his pocket a roll of money, planked one thousand dollars on the table, and said to him:
"Just cover that; we will select a committee to investigate, and if you are not satisfied within twenty-four hours that petroleum does exist in Polk County, the money is yours."
That was a clincher. There could be no doubt of it by anybody. Tichener leased several thousand acres in the vicinity of Adelphi, and went to Chicago to purchase machinery to bore for oil. Meanwhile, the oil fever became epidemic. There was vigorous poking in pockets for money to invest. Imagination was acute. Visions as vivid as Hamlet pictured in the clouds to Polonius were plentiful. There were indication of oil in all directions. "When the wind was right," the odor of petroleum permeated all the farm-houses along Four Mile Creek——so it was declared.
Dixon, the wag of the Daily Register, boosted the business by announcing one day that he had bought a big chunk of the tail of RAttlesnake Bend, with seventeen rattles included; was boring with proper machinery; had struck "ile" in paying quantities, and was ready to sell one rattle only to each customer.
When Tichenor returned, he took Doctor C. H. Rawson, Mayor Cleaveland, Seward SMith, John Brown, and Frank Palmer, editor of the Register, out to Spring Creek. They first visited Depew's farm, a half mile from Adelphi, where was a well, dry a short time prior, in which was water covered with oil. They then went to the creek spring, clambered down the steep, ragged bluff through the thick, tangled brush, where the oleaginous fluid was seen floating away, its distinctive flourescence glinting in the sunlight. They scooped it up in their hands; sniffed it, and declared it was the genuine article. Thenceforth, the Register from day to day pictured visions of the millions which the narrow valley of Four Mile held in soak.
The next day, General J. M. Tuttle went out with a large party. They sopped up the oil with woolen cloth, pumped all the farmers thereabout, and came home so saturated with the stuff that Tuttle
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organized a Petroleum Company, with a capital of five hundred thousand dollars.
Hippee organized another company, with himself as President; Hoyt Sherman, Cashier; Frank Allen, Treasurer, and five hundred thousand dollars capital.
George Crawford organized another company with five hundred thousand dollars capital.
Tichenor had a big company in Chicago, and advertised, with big type, in the daily papers there. Options were taken on farms all over the country. There was a constant procession going to Spring Creek. Meanwhile, Tichenor's boring machine was making a hole in the ground, while he caught "suckers" in Chicago.
It was in August, I think, rumors came that the drill had struck an impenetrable rock, broken and plugged the hole.
Very late in the year, a fellow blew into town with a big bunch of Tichenor's Spring Creek petroleum stock for sale. Tuttle, Hippee, and Crawford had early retired from the field. All the fellow would say was: "The machinery broke, the well caved in, and the company busted."
No petroleum has been seen since on Spring Creek.
In 1873, Hippee, with J. J. Towne, purchased the northwest corner of Fourth Street and Court Avenue, where Captain West lived, erected a banking and office building, and established the Valley Bank, with which Hippee was connected until it was changed to the present Valley National Bank.
In 1879, he, with Ira Cook, and others, organized the Des Moines Syrup and Refining Company, with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, to make syrups and glucose from corn. A large building was erected on Vine Street, and the project started with promising prospects, but during the Summer of 1880, the circumambient atmosphere was so saturated with sulphurous acid gas and vigorous stenches shot out from its chimneys, the Board of Health sat down on it.
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In 1881, Hippee started the Des Moines Bank. About the same time, Judge Casady started a Savings Bank. Soon after, they were united and formed what has become the present Des Moines Savings Bank. Hippee is one of the directors, and a heavy stock-holder, but everybody, from habit calls it "Judge Casady's Bank." Starting off in a dingy, little, old shanty on Third Street, with deposits the Judge could carry in his pocket, it soon began to grow, and the Judge gave it the stone-front building now occupied by the Staats Anzeiger; next it went to an asbestine stone building at Third and Walnut Streets, and from thence to its present location, where it carries deposits amounting to over five million dollars regularly.
In 1889, when the Des Moines Street Railway Company was organized, and purchased all the rights, title and property of other street railways, and consolidated them into the present system, Hippee became a stockholder, is one of the Board of Directors, and Vice-President of the company.
He is a very quiet, taciturn person, a might good thinker, of strong, firm convictions, and when confronted with important business or public questions is "from Missouri"——he must be shown. With no speculative tendency, conservative, cautious, of strict integrity, firmly grounded in public confidence and trust, he has been an important factor in business and financial affairs of the city.
Politically, he was a Democrat to 1896, when he voted for McKinley for President, and has since affiliated with the Republican party. He is not a politician; he simply goes to the polls and casts his ballot——that's all. Though often solicited, he has refused public office, except to serve nine years, from 1872, on the non-partisan West Des Moines School Board.
October Twenty-third, 1904.
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CALVIN W. KEYES
 IN the early part of 1858, Calvin W. Keyes, who traces his family thread through eight generations to the first governor of Plymouth Colony, came into town, looked over the field, and, with the inalienable province of a Yankee, "guessed" he could "get a living here." He opened a general merchandise store down on Second Street, then the trade center. In September, he decided to make another venture. George Crawford joined wit him, and they moved into what was called the "West" Building, just completed, adjoining the present Register and Leader Block on the east, then the only brick block on Court Avenue, except the Sherman Block, at the corner of Third street. They were jibed and jeered by the Second Streeters for their temerity in going so far away from trade——"couldn't pay their rent;" "might as well go to Adel."
Having gone out into the country——as it were——they concluded to do business with the country. The sheep industry was in its infancy. It needed boosting. Keyes, coming from Vermont, the home of Merino sheep, naturally inclined to the wool trade, and later in the Fall the firm, for the first time in the county, bought all the wool offered——four hundred pounds——and shipped it to a New England factory. Seven years after, five hundred thousand pounds were shipped from Des Moines.
In 1858, Napier, the County Judge, was building a new Court House. The East Siders had opposed the project with various dilatory tactics, hoping, it was declared by the West Siders, to get the building on the East Side, but the Judge went on. The next year he got short of funds. Money was scarce. To issue bonds was the only source of relief, to which proposition the fight was resumed vigorously, but he won, and thirty bonds for one thousand dollars each were issued. They were not considered gilt-edged by investor——in fact, risky——but Keyes, being then a new-comer, and therefore not affected with the State House feud of 1856, he and Crawford,
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with a firm faith in the growth and prosperity of the town and county, took twenty-two of the bonds at ten per cent interest, which quite surprised the East Siders, and Second Streeters as well.
Soon after opening the store in the "West" Building, Keyes bought in Boston the first barrel of coal oil brought to the town. It was shipped over five different railroads to Iowa City, and hauled from there by teams. It was sold to consumers for two dollars per gallon. It was extracted from anthracite coal, and known as rock oil. A few years after, when oil was produced from wells, it was sold for fifty cents per gallon, but it was received with great caution because of its explosiveness. A fellow blew into town one day from Adel, however, who had discovered a process to render the stuff non-explosive, and he did a profitable business, selling it for seventy-five cents a gallon, until it was discovered his prevention was the addition of common salt. He has been periodically succeeded by similar fakirs. Science has not yet discovered any process of destroying the explosive properties of the naphtha contained in kerosine, but legislative restrictions have so regulated its manufacture and sale that it has become the universal illuminant without "salting."
In those early days, there were no railroads, no theaters, no itinerating concert troupes and barn-stormers. For amusements, home talent ws the only source, and there was plenty of it, for concerts, masquerades, dances, surprise parties, serenades, and the "mellar dramer." There was always something doing, memories of which abide yet with the old boys and girls. The three thousand people were contented and happy.
Mr. Keyes was a musical genius and always ready to "jine in" for amusement. In 1869, he organized the second brass band, Mosier's Band having blowed itself out. The aggregation consisted of Wilson T. Smith, Eb bugle; George Childs, cornet; Christopher Howell, ophicleide; N. W. Mills, piccolo; C. W. Keyes, bass trombone; Add. Hepburn, bass drum. The day after its birth, it was employed to furnish music for a public "doings" at the State House, and escorted a procession from the West Side thereto. Its repertoire comprised only one tune, "The Old Pine Tree," and it stretched that Pine tree from the Court House to the Capitol without a halt or break, winding up amid rapturous applause.
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In 1860, Keyes imported the first pipe organ brought to the city. It was placed in the Episcopal Church, a small frame building which stood on the west side of Seventh Street at the alley north of Younker's store.
That was the year of Lincoln's first campaign for President. Politics raged at fever heat. Among the Lincoln supporters was Alexander Bowers, familiarly known as "Alex," a German, weighing about three hundred pounds, brusque, active, somewhat pompous and authoriative. He had been for several years a freighter, hauling goods from Keokuk. He also carried money packages and other small parcels with notable trust and fidelity, to the great convenience of banks and business men. A package of twenty thousand dollars given to him to deliver at Keokuk caused no more solicitude than if it were a pound of nails. In some way, he had become a United States Marshal. He was a strong Lincoln supporter, a radical Abolitionist, and always active in politics. On the day of election, M. M. Crocker, Captain F. R. West, Wesley Redhead, C. W. Keyes and nine others had formed a line at the polls to vote for J. C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. "Alex" stood at the ballot box, watching, and as Crocker presented his ballot, "Alex" stopped him and declared that "no man shall vote for that Southerner, Breckinridge."
Crocker, of spare, frail physique, stepped quickly aside, pale with excitement, eyes flashing, threw off his coat, and said to "Alex":
"If you want ever to vote again, stand aside; get away from this."
Old-timers, familiar with Crocker, the snap of his eyes, his fearlessness, will readily realize what "Alex" quickly discovered, that trouble was brewing. He went away.
I believe that was the last time either of those thirteen men voted a Democratic ticket.
In 1861, Keyes decided to relieve the farmers of their surplus hogs. He bought two thousand at one and one-half cents per pound, killed them in a small packing-house up on the Saylor Bottoms, built a flat-boat, loaded it with forty tons of pork and lard, and with himself as sailing master, a crew of five roustabouts, started
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it down the river to Ottumwa, where transfer to the railroad was to be made. When within one mile of Red Rock, the boat was scuttled by a sharp rock, and sunk in ten feet of water. Keyes and crew got themselves safely on shore, where they remained two days, sleeping on the sand, and eating raw pork, with roil river water as a thirst slaker, until a flat-boat was sent up from Ottumwa with a push-pole crew. The pork and lard was hoisted on board of it, and safely delivered at Ottumwa.
In 1862, when the public heart was stirred with efforts to secure commissary aid for the soldiers, Keyes, who was a leader in musical affairs, and the singers of the churches, volunteered to give a grand concert to raise funds for such aid. The only hall large enough for such an event was the third floor of the Sherman Block, at Third Street and Court Avenue. Hoyt Sherman, owner of the hall, had joined the army, leaving the custody of the building with "Alex" Bowers, who refused to permit the use of the hall for the concert, even at a good rental, for which refusal he would give no reason. So opposite was it to the well-known patriotism and generosity of Sherman, the singers were indignant. It was generally believed that "Alex's" refusal was because he thought some of the singers were prominent Democrats, for he abhorred Democrats.
The County Commissioners, however, came to their relief and offered the free use of one of the large unfurnished rooms in the then new Court House. The settees——churches didn't have pews then——were all taken from the Methodist Church on Fifth Street, and two days of vigorous work given by the singers to fit up the courtroom. The concert was a great success. The poet laureate of that day, a well-known lawyer, whose familiar face is seen on our streets every day, and whom time later proved a better District Judge than poet, improvised a song for the occasion, which was sung by a quartette [quartet] of "picked men," to the tune of "Gideon's Band"——it was so printed on the program. Add. Hepburn——everybody knew the jolly Add.——was given the last verse, which ran:
"They say this new Court House of ours
Is about as big as Alex. Bowers."
Alex. nursed and kept his wrath against that "Gideon's Band" to the end of his days.
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During the same year, there was great excitement in the town and country over the call for enlistment in the army. Though the response was prompt and liberal, there was a strong undercurrent of opposition. There were quite positive indications of the presence of Knights of the Golden Circle. Union sentiment was rapidly crystallizing into measures for its suppression. One day, Frank Palmer, editor of the Register, had a private consultation with one of the most vociferous of the suspected clan, and in very positive, emphatic terms, told him that he could either join the army and stand up for his country, or go to jail, and within a very few hours, too. Coming from a person of such well-known, genial nature, left no other inference than that there was something behind it. The man joined the army, made a splendid record as a soldier, won high distinctive honors, came home, and became one of our most honored and influential citizens.
In 1869, Keyes built a two-story frame store on Court Avenue, next east of the present Purity Candy Factory, opened a crockery store, and imported from England the first one hundred crates of queensware that came to the city.
In 1870, he instituted a valuable public benefaction in the making of sugar-cured hams by a special process, which now seems to have become a lost art. For a dozen years or more, his Des Moines hams were in highest favor all over the West, even so far as San Francisco.
In 1879, he cut along Des Moines, Raccoon, North and Middle rivers, one hundred cars of Black Walnut logs, which were shipped to New York City, probably the last of that kind of shipment from the city.
Having raised others to assume the burden of business, he has for many years ceased from active life, and is enjoying a well-earned rest in a community which he has helped in many ways.
October Thirtieth, 1904.
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DOCTOR A. Y. HULL
 OF the men who figured quite prominently in political and civic affairs in the early days, was Doctor A. Y. Hull, father of our Congressman, J. A. T. Hull. He came here in 1849, intending to make this his abiding place. He reconnoitered the town——what there was of it——to find a suitable corner lot on which to build a home. Having selected a favorable location, he went down to the "corner lot market," on Second Street, where he was very blandly informed that corner lots had gone up——the price was twenty-five dollars. The corner where he the Kirkwood House now is was thirty dollars. He declared it was outrageous; he would not pay it; there was nothing in nor of the town to warrant such prices; he would go start a town of his own.
The town had, just prior, received a little boost. Speculation was rife. The year before, the United State Geological Survey had sent Doctor Owen here to make a survey of the Des Moines Valley. The surveying party consisted of seven persons, who, with teams and instruments, started up the river in June. When up in Minnesota, a band of Sisseton Sioux attacked them, destroyed their instruments, and probably would have scalped them had not a band of Fox Indians come to their rescue. The outfit returned here in somewhat dilapidated condition. Doctor Owen was given an ovation. He was invited to give a talk to the people, which he accepted, and during his remarks, he tickled the crowd present with many good sayings, which, viewed from the standpoint of to-day, were not a little promise. He said:
"Located as your town is, in the center of this great state——a state midway between the two great oceans of the world, and washed on two sides by the two might rivers of the continent——with a soil of unsurpassed fertility, and vast stores of mineral wealth, yours must assume a broad place among the states of the
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Union. When, in a few years, the Atlantic and Pacific are united by a railway, it will, in all probability pierce your state, and scale your town, giving you communication with every part of the world. This is Nature's choice for the great interior city of the state, and it needs not the spirit of prophecy to foresee that such must be its destiny."
The address tickled the real estate dealers down on Second Street, and they boosted the price on corner lots.
Doctor Hull went down the river, to a point where, in 1848, Charles Freel had started a little settlement in Camp Township, near the southeast corner of the county, and purchased a large tract of land. With his father's family, and his own, nineteen persons, they made their home in a log cabin fifteen fee square, with puncheon floor, and pole bedsteads. He laid out a town of large dimensions, and boomed it vigorously.
In the Star, in January, 1850, Doctor Hull advertised in big type a lot sale at low prices, one-third down, one-third in six months, and one-third in twelve months. The prices were made low, on condition that the purchaser was to build a house, or otherwise improve it. If he couldn't get a price, he would give a lot, provided a house was built on it.
He was a good mixer. He got on the warm side of the people, and his town, which he named Lafayette, grew. He had a big celebration one day, attended by one of the largest gatherings had in the county. Long tables, loaded with choicest viands, were spread under improvised leafy bowers. There were toasts and speeches, in which it was hinted that The Fort must look to her laurels, with her two hundred people, while Lafayette, with her one hundred and seventy-five——actual count— her busy stores and shops,was growing fast. He established two rope ferries over the river, to catch the largenumber of emigrants going west. He started a big shipping point, and in April, 1851, Lamp Sherman, in his Gazette, said of it:
"Steamboats, when they succeed in climbing over the dam at Bonaparte, make regular stops there, and the blowing of the steamer whistle is a signal for the whole town to turn out."
It was a lively, bustling place, and worried The Fort folks not a little.
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Early in April, 1851, the Doctor built two flat-boats, 16x63 feet, to carry corn and other produce to Keokuk, the first thus laden in the county, and of great benefit to farmers. There was haste and bustle to get them off, fearing they might be stranded at the Bonaparte dam on the return trip. There were no railroads. In the navigation of the river then rested the hope of the entire country. Schemes galore were projected at all towns along its banks for building craft suitable for river traffic, to be in readiness for the completion of the work of the River Improvement Company. The Fort, at the head of navigation, was to become the trade center for the whole of Central Iowa, and the State Capital——if the rival towns didn't prevent it.
In May, heavy rains came, the river got high——rose twenty-two feet above the low-water mark. The whole country along the river was deluged. Houses, horse, cattle, hogs, and sheep were carried away; ruin and devastation swept over the bottom lands. "Uncle" Jerry Church's town of Dudley, an embryo Capital of Iowa, floated away with the common wreckage, and as the last building started, he climbed on the roof and fiddled a requiem of "departed days." The water crept up about the house of Doctor Hull, at Lafayette, over the floor, up into the beds and bureau drawers. Three times the family moved to higher places, and later, steamboats, which found unobstructed passage in a waterway nearly three miles wide, sailed over the town. When the flood subsided, the town had gone, but the public well was left standing in the middle of the river channel.
That was the historic "year of the great flood." Streams everywhere were over-swollen, bridges carried away, mills forced to stop, causing great scarcity of meal and flour. In many families, parched corn stood for coffee, and corn pounded with a Hickory stick in a Poplar log hollowed out for a mortar, was used for bread. The losses and devastation were more notable because the settlements and towns were principally located along rivers and creeks.
In 1852, Judge Casady, having served as State Senator in the second and third sessions of the Legislature, and declined a renomination, the Doctor was nominated, and elected by a large majority, for he was immensely popular with the early settlers, and had much
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influence with them from his many acts of kindness and helpfulness as a physician. He was well educated, a fluent talker, and had a hankering for editorial work——in fact, he was, for a time, editor of the Star, giving zest and notable spirit to the early twinkler in the effort to elect Curtis Bates Governor against Grimes, Barlow Granger having become satisfied with newspaper glory and retired. The opposing candidate of the Doctor was John Lewis, a man of advanced age——too old to tramp the district, which embraced several counties——and Lewis Todhunter, a brother of the Doctor's wife, took the stump for Lewis. It was a peculiar and lively campaign, unlike any before or since. The Presidential contest was on; the Fugitive Slave Law excitement was stirring up the body politic; the Slack Water Navigation Company's dam and obstruction to river navigation had incensed the people to the vituperative stage, and they were clamoring for railroads, the Whigs laying all the river troubles on the Democrats, while the Democrats, in turn, charged it all to the vacillating act of Tom Ewing, in charge of the Land Department at Washington. There was also the "strip" question. Warren County was vociferously demanding the return of the six townships taken from her to help Des Moines get the County Seat. P. Gad Bryan was her mouthpiece, and was saying ugly things, denouncing it not only robbery, but disrupting the legislative districts. To all this was added the local pride and interest in the candidacy of Judge Bates.
The contest became so hot and grossly personal between the newspapers and the supporters of the two Senatorial candidates, respecting their positions on the various issues, that the Doctor and Lewis published a joint statement in the newspapers, and by handbills, that upon the "strip," river dam nuisance, and railroad questions, they were agreed, and requested that personal abuse be stopped, and both be treated like gentlemen.
Immediately the Doctor took his seat in the Senate, he prepared and introduced the first bill to remove the Seat of Government to Des Moines. Instantly, there was opposition from all sides. Iowa City was ferocious, the counties of Marshall, Jasper, Mahaska, and Story at once showed their teeth, the latter county having located
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at State Center the geographical center of the state. The Doctor was obstructed at every move, by dilatory and conflicting amendments, throughout the entire session. He failed to secure the change, but he defeated all schemes to fix the location elsewhere.
P. Gad. Bryan, the Representative from Warren County in the Lower House, had a bill before the body, restoring Warren County the "stolen strip."
While the Government survey was made, the south line of the county was run straight due east and west. At the then southwest corner of Camp Township, the river bends to the south, thus leaving a strip of several sections between the line of original survey and the river, which was part of the territory taken from Warren, and on which the Doctor had his town of Lafayette, and on which he then resided. Bryan's bill restored the entire territory taken. THe Doctor vigorously opposed it, as it practically legislated him out of office, located him in another county and senatorial district, but Bryan secured its passage. The effect of it was so glaringly unjust that the Doctor secured an amendment to the law by which the river was the boundary line, and all of the "strip" north of it was to remain a part of Polk County. The bill, however, cut Allen Township in twain and set "Uncle Jerry" Church and his town of Carlisle over into Warren County. Thus ended the first chapter in the many exciting incidents of the contest to permanently fix the Seat of Government at Des Moines, extending over eighteen years, to the Fourteenth General Assembly, in 1870, when the final quietus was put to it in the appropriation to build the New Capital, an even with a history full of exciting scenes, to be disclosed later.
At the close of his senatorial term, in 1854, the Doctor disposed of his land in the "strip," came to town, bought two lots on East Locust Street, where the Mirror Theater now is, built a fine cottage, opened a law office, and became an active participant in many legal skirmishes in the courts with "Dan" Finch, J. E. Jewett, M. M. Crocker, and other prominent lawyers, in Judge McFarland's court. The Judge, though a good jurist, was eccentric in many ways, and loved whiskey. The stories the lawyers used to tell of him would fill a book. The conventionalities of the court in those
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days were not quite up to the standard of to-day. On one occasion, it was said, a well-known lawyer came into court while a trial was on, and during a lull in the proceedings, arose near the bench, and very sedately asked the court if a motion could be received. "Yes, sir," replied the Judge. "Motions are always in order in this court."
"Well, then, take notice of the motion of my elbow," said the lawyer, as he held up a bottle of good "Old Rye."
"Yes, yes; but, d——n ye, don't drink it all up before I get there," said the Judge, as he left his seat, went down and helped the lawyer dispose of his "motion." He then resumed his seat, and court went on as though nothing had happened.
In the notable contest over the location of the State House, the Doctor was an East Sider, and took an active part in defeating the West Side, though he had nothing to do with the alleged peculiar land deals, in which a large number of city lots on the East Side got into possession of certain of the Legislative Commission sent to fix the site of the State House.
The Doctor continued his law practice here until 1860, when he removed to Sedalia, Missouri, where he edited a newspaper several years. He died at Kiowa, Kansas, in December, 1900. His remains were brought here and deposited in Woodland.
November Twelfth, 1904.
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