Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1922-06-16

says OF tremendous trek:
Here we went, oxen, cows mules horses coaches
carriages blue jeans, corduroys rags, tatters silks
satins. caps, tail hats poverty, riches criminals
Gaping from justice; couples fleeing from the law
goldseekers bearing southwest to the Overland Trail
politicians looking for places in which to win fame
and fortune adventures their way to everywhere
Abolitionsts going to the Border War;
ing outfits carrying fugitive slaves; and most numer
of all, homeseekers hunting country"-a nation
on wheels, an empire in the commotion and pangs of
birth
There were many, very many, interesting In
cidents that went to make up the history of
these pioneer days in Iowa that are covered by
Mr.. Quick in "Vandemark's Folly" but one of the
most interesting is that dealing with the treat
ment Of claim jumpers" The local newspaper
in effort to secure an advantage for its polit-
tcai clique had in those early days referred to
Cow Vandemark as a with a criminal
record" and in later days in refUting the state
ment he tells the story of the "claim Jumpers as
follows, in part:
The story grew out of my joining the Settlers
club in 1856. The rage for land speculation was
sweeping over Iowa like prairie fire. getting
things ready for the great panic of 1857 that
/ have read Of since, but, of which / never heard
until long after it was over. All | knew was
that there was great fever for buying and sell.
Ing land and laying out and booming town-sites
the sites, not the towns-and that afterward
times were very hard. The spectators had
bought up good part of Monterey county by the
three dollars and half an acre
This made it hard for men who came in ex-
pectng to get it for dollar and quarter and
a number of settlers in the township as they did
all over the state, went on their land relying on
the right to buy it when they could get the money
what was called the presumption right. could
see the houses of William Trickey, Ebenezer Jim
k1ns and Absalom Frost from my house: and |
knew that Peter and Amos Bemisdarfer and
FIavius Bohn Dunkards from Pennsylvania had
0fnd f0pfIoO
located south of He'll Slew, which was coming
to be known now, and was afterward put down
on the map, as "Vandemarks Folly Marsh"
And now there came into the county and state
a class of men called "caim-jumpers" who pushed
in the claims of the first comers and stood
ready to buy their new homes right out from
under Them 1t pretty hard on us who had
pushed on ahead of the railways, and soaked in the
rain and frozen in the billiards. and lived on
mody bacon and hulled corn, to lose our chance
to get title to the lands we had broken up and
built on.
My land was paid for. such as it was; but when
the people who, like me, had trailed out across
the prairies with the last years rush, came and
asked me to join the Settlers club to run these
intruders off, it appeared to me that it was only
a mans part in me to stand to it and take hold
and do.
1 did not look forward to all the doings of the
Settlers club, but joined it, and 1 have never
been ashamed Of it, even when Dick McGiIl was
slangwhanging me about what we did. I never
knew and 1 don't know now, just what the law
was, but l thought then, and think now, that the
Settlers club had the right of it. thought so the
night went over to run the caim-jumper off
Absalom Frost's land, within week Of my join
ing.
1t was over on Section Twenty-seyen, that the
aim-jumper had built hut about where the
schoolhouse now is, with stable in end of
it, and den in which to live in the other. He
was a young man. with no dependents, and we
felt no computations IF conscience that dark
night when two wagon-loads of us, of which
came from the direction of Monterey Center,
drove quietly up and knocked at the door.
who's there?" he said, with culver in his
voice.