The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-08-03
Lee County In Territorial Times as
Pictured by J. x. cooney, Writ
Ing From His Home in
Montrose.
WHEN STATE OPENED UP
go to Iowa, One Of the Best coun-
tries in the World Was the
Cry School Facilities
Were Poor.


the impulse Of the approaching Lee
County Old Settlers meeting, jots
down few incidents of the early
settlers of Iowa, especially this coun-
ty. which are unusually interesting.
He writes:
When Iowa was created a territory
and thrown open to settlers, there
was quite a nest here from Illinois,
Indiana and other states and it was
the cry in eastern states, go to
Iowa, one of the best countries in
the world-it flows with milk and
honey and fritters grow on the trees.
The first thing a settler had to do
was to stake off his claim, then
build him log cabin, next grub and
clean up three or four acres of land
and plant it in corn and some garden
truck.
Ny father took team crossed the
Mississippi river and went to the mill
on Spoon river in Illinois to buy meal
and little flour to live on till our
corn matured. AS soon as it got, in
few years, so we could live in lux
ury on honey and wild game, good
portion OF Lee county was covered
with heavy timber and there was an
abundance Of wild bees l have
found and cut many tree, and !
know got my share of wild game
A little later my father went to
Illinois and bought two COWS, then
we had plenty OF milk. AS soon as
the corn got hard enough to crate,
we made tin graters and grated our
meal and our good mother baked us
corn cakes and fritters, so we finally
got the flow of milk, honey and frit-
tiers, but they didn't grow on trees.
Still later Theophilus Bullard built
a horse mill, about three miles west
of Fort Madison. to grind corn and
| 1t would take about half day to
| grind a two bushel sack of it. A
little later James Stout built sim
liar mill about two miles east of
Franklin, SO we had pretty good mill
| ing facilities. Still later there was
a water mill built at Pennington by
a man by the name of Death-and he
was death on toll. When we would
go there to mill we would probably
| find twenty or thirty ahead of us
and would have to take our turn and
would probably have to stay there
two or three days, before we could
get our grist ground, which would be
nearly all corn meal Still a little
later there was water mill built at
Lowell, followed by stone steam
mill built in West Point by SoIlamer
and others followed.
In those early days we had very
poor school facilities-would build a
/ little log school house in the timber
and have school three months, only
in the winter would probably many
Of us have to go two miles to school.
! In those days the winters were long
/ and very severe, with an abundance
of snow, which would often deprive
us of regular attendance. The
seats were made by cutting down
little trees, splitting them and hew-
! ing the two sides. boring holes and
! putting in legs in the bottom of them,
called benches. A slab of like work
manship was fastened to the wall
for writing desk, with a big fire.
place in the end of the building.
When we had mastered Webster's
spelling book, the First reader and
could say the first part Of the arith-
| metic, we considered ourselves grad
yates and thought we could travel
and work as such.