Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1876-09-13

decency ought to have had an Iowa
county named after him. He went to
the Indian Territory with the Sacs
and Foxes, where a portion of this
once famous confederation still SUBJ
sist on the Government bounty.
We hope to live long enough to see
board of supervisors in Office who
will have sufficient liberality and re-
spect for the memory of Gen. Street
and Wapello to put their graves in
decent order and erect suitable
memorial over their honored re-
mains.
The first white child born in Wa
pello county was William Street
Beach, son of Major John Peach, sue
cessor and son-in-law of Indian agent
Gen. Street, who was born at the
Agency Aug, 1S4l, and died Sept.
1859.
General Streets death, as hetofore
mentioned, was the first event of that
kind that occurred among the whites
at the Indian Agency, and consequent
ly his death may be put down as the
first one which occurred within the
present limits of Wapello county
In July 184l, Phelps trading house at
the Agency, took fire inthe night and a
large quantityof powder was explod-
ed killing one white man, whose name
has not been preserved this is perhaps,
the second white person to die in this
county, and an Indian. The first
white woman who died in Wap-
clio county. was q relative, perhaps a
sister, of Col. Cogswell at the Agency
Name and date not preserved.
The first marriage was between
Harvey Sturdevant, gunsmith of the
post and a widow, a relative Of g. IL.
Wilmington, blacksmith of the post,
but tradition has failed to transmit
her name. This matrimonial event
occurred in 1S41, and the happy
couple were united by the Chaplain
Of the post.
The first grist mill built in Wapel-
10 county was erected on Sugar creek,
Just below where the Agency road
now crosses it and about where
Ounce Woods residence now stands.
It was built in 1889, by one Jeremiah
Smith, millwright, under direction of
agent Street, during wet time, when
Sugar creek was good big mill
stream as 1t is at this writing, and on
the assurance of the Indians that the
stream was fully fifty miles long !!
About the time they got the mill
ready to run, the water gave out,
whel eupon Gen. Street and Jerry
Smith, with an exploring expedition,
traced their mill stream into the
ground about four miles Distant
That was perhaps the first practical
joke ever played in Wapello county,
on white men, and it was good one
for Lo.
The first whisky crusade which oc-
Cured in Wapello county, happened
thus wise: Robert Lucas, of Ohio,
was the Territorial Governor, under
Van Buren,, having been Governor of
Ohio before. He united in his char
acter two very prominent traits, which
were rarely then, and now are scarce
ly ever, found in democrat, towit;
he was a strong Methodist and q
great stickler for temperance. BY
virtue of his Office he was ex-officio
superintendent of Indian affairs
whose duty and pleasure it was to
prohibit the sale of whisky to the In
dams. In 1889 Bill Phelps, the Indian
trader at the Agency, as a joke, had
the Governor at Burlington indirect
lly informed that the Indians were
surreptitiously procuring whisky at
the Agency, whcreupOn the Cover
nor at once dispatched his private
secretary, Jesse Williams, since quite
well known as q member of the firm
of HEM, Williams y Co., and now
living at Sioux City, to Agency City
with orders to seize and destroy the
contraband spirits. Phelps was in
the meantime, preparing to carry out
the sell, and had buried two barrels
of lard lust in the rear of his trading
post. Jesse Williams arrived in due
time full of zeal to carry out the
Governors order. He however ex-
amined the store and premises in
vain to find the whisky. Finally he
applied to Lieutenant w. N. Grier,
commanding the military post then,
and subsequently famous as Iowa's
mastering officer at Davenport during
the war, for squad to help him find
the whisky. 1t seems that the Lieu
tenant and his men were in with
Phelps, for in short time the soldiers
found the new dirt over the lard bar
rels, and directly they had them dug
| up, whereupon Jesse Williams, pur-
suing his instructions, seized an axe
and knocked q barrel head in intend
ing to empty the whisky. His con-
sternation at discovering the gag was
not lessened by noticing Phelps.
Grier, and all the attaches Of the post,
both civil and military, in the
distance shaking their sides with
vehement laughter. He took the
next escort for Burlington and
hasn't been on a temperance crusade
since.
The first regular merchant, discon-
nected with the government, who
done business in Wapello county, was
Shaphat Dwire, who established HIM
self at the village of Agency City,
about the time it was laid out, to-wit:
in 1843. He came from Canton, Illi-
nois, and in that year built good, one
story frame store, and for several
years thereafter he was the leading
merchant in the county. His store
building was still standing the last
time the writer visited Agency.
Dwire sold out to w. B. and Alexan-
der Street, about l849, and went back
to Illinois. This writer has sold him
oats and corn at ten cents per bushel
in exchange for calico at twenty-five
cents per yard, but then that was in
good old democratic times, when
money was plenty, and the farmers
always received high prices for
their produce! The first post Office
was kept in his store and he was the
first bloated official who ever fattened
off of the people Of the county. at the
rate of $l2.OO per annum. In those
sylvan days Of democratic honesty
and ocOnOmV Won had to nav a